Sony has seemingly recognized the inevitability of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard going through, and has signed an agreement with Microsoft to keep Call of Duty available on PlayStation for the next 10 years.
The news was announced on Sunday by Microsoft’s gaming head Phil Spencer. “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,” Spencer tweeted. “We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games.”
A Microsoft spokesperson subsequently confirmed to The Verge that the deal would last for a term of 10 years, and covers Call of Duty only — not any other Activision Blizzard games. That puts it on a par with agreements Microsoft had previously signed with Nintendo, Nvidia, and others.
Microsoft president Brad Smith also commented, saying, “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.”
The signing of the deal marks the end of a long stalemate, during which Microsoft made repeated public offers to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, while Sony dismissed these and instead attempted to use its leverage with regulators to sink Microsoft’sR$68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard completely. “I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger,” PlayStation boss Jim Ryan reportedly told Activision executives on the day of a meeting with European Union regulators in February.
PlayStation’s strategy was to use Call of Duty to convince regulators the merger would kill competition in the console market, because Microsoft would withhold the games from PlayStation or release inferior versions there. But this strategy was none too successful. EU regulators were satisfied with the assurances offered by Microsoft, while the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority eventually conceded it was in Microsoft’s interest to keep Call of Duty available to PlayStation’s huge audience, and switched tack in its opposition of the deal to concerns around cloud gaming.
Only the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ultimately ran with Sony’s argument, but when its case was tested in court, it lost. Evidence presented in the case included an emailed admission from Ryan that he had no concerns about PlayStation losing access to Call of Duty “for many years to come.”
The signing of the agreement with Microsoft means Sony has effectively ended its opposition to the acquisition, and now expects it to be completed — perhaps as soon as Tuesday, July 18, the deadline by which the deal is supposed to be closed. In theory, two regulators remain opposed to the acquisition. But the FTC has failed to persuade an appeals court to extend an emergency block on the deal, while the CMA has entered into negotiations with Microsoft to find a path forward in the U.K., with an extended deadline of Aug. 29. It’s possible Microsoft and Activision will now extend their own deal deadline to give this process time to complete.
