With everything that went on amid Xbox's long-winded acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it's easy to forget that Ubisoft is a part of this whole process, too. The massive company known for its series like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry among others can already put those games on its Ubisoft+ subscription service, and now that the deal has gone through for Xbox to own Activision, Ubisoft+ will be able to put Call of Duty and other games on its platform, too. The publisher reminded people of this following the closure of the Activision Blizzard deal and outlined what we can expect from this arrangement in the future.
Xbox and Activision previously announced the deal with Ubisoft back in August when the acquisition was being investigated and challenged by various regulatory bodies. For context and for those out of the loop, the deal with Ubisoft was made to appease concerns regarding how dominant Xbox's Cloud Gaming initiative would be if Call of Duty and everything else Activision owns could be played that way.
Activision Games on Ubisoft+
Reiterating the broad details of the arrangement, Ubisoft said in its announcement shared on Friday that the company has "the perpetual cloud streaming rights for Call of Duty and all other current Activision Blizzard games and those released over the next 15 years." What this means for Ubisoft+ subscribers is that you'll be able to play Call of Duty games and more through the service for over a decade, though it hasn't been said yet if there'll be any exceptions to what's part of the Ubisoft+ catalog. Since it was unclear when the Xbox-Activision deal would be finalized, it wasn't specified if Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 which comes out in November would be playable via Ubisoft+ at some point in the future.
While we're still waiting on specifics regarding certain games or the inevitable disclaimers that'll arise, a bit of good news shared on Friday confirmed that the Activision games offered through Ubisoft+ would include DLC.
"The deal includes all the Activision Blizzard games that are being distributed today and includes all the games that Activision Blizzard will release over the next 15 years," said Ubisoft's SVP Chris Early. "That includes the Call of Duty franchise and a whole lot more. Yes, it does include all the DLC, including in-game content and downloadable DLC packs, expansions, and add-ons."
And since Ubisoft has the streaming rights to these games, it can effectively pass those rights along to others, too. Early said it hasn't been decided yet if that'll happen, but the current expectation is that the games will at least be available on Ubisoft+.
"Our expectation is that they will be on Ubisoft+, and then we have the rights to be able to license them individually to companies as well," he said. "Perhaps there's a company somewhere in the world that wants to license those rights and add to the streaming service they have or start up a new streaming service, and I think that's going be part of the fun of the next 15 years or more of how streaming evolves."
