Microsoft Sunday said it has signed a binding agreement to keep the Call of Duty franchise on Sony Playstation platform following its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
“We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and @PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard,” Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer twitted today.
The Washington-based software giant’s announcement seeks to address regulators’ concerns that the merger would make more Activision games — such as the massively popular shooting-game franchise — exclusive to Xbox.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said “From Day One of this acquisition, we’ve been committed to addressing the concerns of regulators, platform and game developers, and consumers. Even after we cross the finish line for this deal’s approval, we will remain focused on ensuring that Call of Duty remains available on more platforms and for more consumers than ever before.”
Raising apprehensions the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had said that it would hurt consumers whether they played video games on consoles or had subscriptions because Microsoft would have an incentive to shut out rivals like Sony Group.
To address concerns of the regulator, Microsoft had earlier agreed to license “Call of Duty” to rivals, including a 10-year contract with Nintendo, contingent on the merger closing.
Microsoft is also facing hurdles from UK Competition and Markets Authority, which has agreed to give an unprecedented second chance to the software giant to come up with a remedy after vetoing the merger in April.
Microsoft has offered to sell the cloud-based market rights for games in the UK, Bloomberg reported last week.