Microsoft has formally confirmed its offer of a 10-year contract to keep releasing Call of Duty on PlayStation platforms after its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
In an opinion article on the deal published in the Wall St Journal, Microsoft president Brad Smith committed to making its 10-year COD contract “legally enforceable by regulators in the US, UK and European Union” – territories in which the company was previously felt to be struggling to get its acquisition agreed without making some sort of concessions.
The majority of the opinion piece repeats the same arguments for the deal we’ve heard from Microsoft many times before – that it would be good for both consumers and game developers, and that Microsoft is still struggling in a sector where it is “stuck behind Sony’s dominant PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch”.
On Sony, Smith said the PlayStation maker has “emerged as the loudest objector” – something which seems fair to claim.
“It’s as excited about this deal as Blockbuster was about the rise of Netflix,” Smith wrote, dismissing Sony’s fears Microsoft would suddenly pull Call of Duty support from the platform as “economically irrational” and “disastrous to the Call of Duty franchise and Xbox itself, alienating millions of gamers”.