As Microsoft attempts to ensure its acquisition of Activision Blizzard is approved, the company is looking to make its products available on other platforms. This includes its closest competitors, Nintendo hardware and the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service.
Microsoft announced two 10-year agreements today to ensure Xbox and Activision games are available on competing platforms.
Call of Duty Confirmed To Be Available on Nintendo Systems for the Next 10 Years
The first is a binding contract confirming Microsoft’s previous intention to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo consoles. The Call of Duty franchise has not appeared on a Nintendo console in a decade.
“Microsoft and Nintendo have now negotiated and signed a binding 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity, so they can experience Call of Duty just as Xbox and PlayStation gamers enjoy Call of Duty,” said Microsoft Brad Smith in a statement. “We are committed to providing long term equal access to Call of Duty to other gaming platforms, bringing more choice to more players and more competition to the gaming market.”
In the original announcement, Phil Spencer confirmed that Call of Duty will still be available on Steam.
While Microsoft has now signed a contract ensuring Call of Duty is available on Nintendo systems after the Activision Blizzard acquisition, the same isn’t true for Sony. Brad Smith mentioned on stage during a Microsoft press conference in Brussels that he had a 10-year agreement with Sony. He is ready and eager to negotiate with Sony, but there is no agreement at this time.
Sony has expressed concern that if Microsoft were to own the Call of Duty franchise, it could result in the games not releasing on their platforms. However, Microsoft has stated that isn’t their intention.
“It’s not about at some point I pull the rug underneath PlayStation 7’s legs, and it’s ‘ahaha you just didn’t write the contract long enough,'” said Spencer recently. “There’s no contract that could be written that says forever.”
“As long as there’s a PlayStation, we’ll ship Call of Duty there.”
Xbox PC Titles Will Be Streamed to NVIDIA’s Cloud Service
In bigger news, Brad Smith also announced the debut of Xbox PC games appearing directly on a competing service. A 10-year agreement is announced between Xbox and NVIDIA. It will bring Xbox PC games to NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW cloud gaming service. This features over 25 million members in over 100 countries.
With this agreement, Xbox PC titles can stream from GeForce NOW to PCs, macOS, Chromebooks, smartphones, and other devices. In addition, when Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is approved, it will also include Activision Blizzard PC titles.
“Xbox remains committed to giving people more choice and finding ways to expand how people play,” said Phil Spencer. “This partnership will help grow NVIDIA’s catalog of titles to include games like Call of Duty, while giving developers more ways to offer streaming games. We are excited to offer gamers more ways to play the games they love.”
“Combining the incredibly rich catalog of Xbox first party games with GeForce NOW’s high-performance streaming capabilities will propel cloud gaming into a mainstream offering that appeals to gamers at all levels of interest and experience,” said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president for GeForce at NVIDIA. “Through this partnership, more of the world’s most popular titles will now be available from the cloud with just a click, playable by millions more gamers.”
Work by Microsoft and NVIDIA is already underway to integrate Xbox PC titles into GeForce NOW. This will enable GeForce NOW members to stream PC games purchased in the Windows Store. Additionally, Xbox PC games bought in the Epic Games Store or Steam will be available to be streamed through GeForce NOW.
