The Concessions Start Rolling - Microsoft Agrees To Bring Call Of Duty To Nintendo Platforms For 10 Years

As you can see in the above Tweet by Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft, it has been announced that Microsoft has signed an agreement with Nintendo to guarantee that Call of Duty and "Xbox games and Activision titles" will continue to be available on Nintendo platforms for ten years. This deal is similar to one Microsoft offered to Sony in November of 2022, the difference being that Sony never formally accepted this deal.

This announcement does not change the fact that UK regulators have already advised Microsoft to sell off Call of Duty if it wishes to move forward with its purchase of Activision or that the FTC continues to spearhead a full anti-trust lawsuit to at least partially block the deal. EU regulators have not yet rendered a verdict on where they stand, but one is expected in spring of this year.

I have mixed feelings about all of this. Activision needs new leadership, Microsoft taking over can only make things better, or less bad at least. Would be cool to have a CoD on Switch or Switch 2, even if nerfed. The quick pace and frequent checkpoints would work well on a handheld.

But jesus, this is too much consolidation. It's one thing to buy smaller studios and publishers, giving them access to budgets they could only dream of before, but to swallow up one of the oldest and biggest players out there takes it too far. My gut tells me Sony is gearing up to buy Square if this goes through, and who knows where it stops.

Its a really interesting statement, what type of experience would COD on Switch be? For one the install size is bloody massive not withstanding the technical hurdles, unless they mean a cloud version. Xbox games implies more first party titles. I don't really see how any of this would make a difference to the CMA.

There are already a few games on Switch that you can buy but are entirely run off of "the cloud" somewhere. Control is one of them. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is another.

@justin258: Yeah that's what I was thinking, the full feature and content parity has me thinking could it be something more.

I'm of the mind that Microsoft probably shouldn't own every major video game in the U.S. No one should. I don't care where they put their games.

Perhaps Activision could consider replacing it's current toxic leadership with someone that actually has any sort of vision for the company.

Consolidation never seems to improve competition and bring benefits to the end-consumer.

Sadly, these companies have already decided that they will merge, so it seems inevitable that we'll end up with that situation eventually.

Does... the entire industry revolve around Call of Duty?

The only way Kotick gets ousted is if the stock tanks or charges are filed.

No consequences? No actions.

@undeadpool: You'd think leading the company into such a state where the only way out is to sell the company off would be consequences enough.

There are so many ways to get around a statement like that in the fine print of the contract. It comes across as an act of desperation more than anything else at this point. Sheesh.

yeah- honestly for all the grandstanding around CoD- i think it's a distraction (benefiting both Microsoft and Sony, depending on your angle).

if i was a regulator i'd be trying to figure out if the world goes 100% cloud gaming, is there a chance anyone can compete with the scale of gamepass when it's propped up by a trillion dollar company that owns the pipes with azure and potentially all of ABK.

This is going to be good to see the Call of Duty series coming back to the Nintendo consoles.

@brian_: Activision had one of its best years financially last year, and paid a pitiful $35m fine for their actions.

MS has been completely hands off with all its acquisitions so far to a fault, they didn't even step in with 343i. None of the people at Bethesda are even Microsoft employees their a subsidiary which will be the same for Activision they'll essentially run them selves.

Kotick was re-elected by 88% of the board last year while the drama was still on going, at the same time 95% rejected adding an employee representative.

Even if Kotick leaves I don't believe the next guy will be any better they only care about money, which is why MS is trying to buy them.