There is now a new development in the ongoing saga of Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and in this case it is very much in Microsoft’s favor. A couple of days ago, Microsoft pledged to bring the Call of Duty series to Nintendo for the next ten years provided their merger goes through, and promised the same on the Steam storefront as well.
“Nintendo confirms the accuracy of the Microsoft statement. We have nothing further to announce on this topic,” was Nintendo’s lukewarm response to Kotaku when they reached out for confirmation. Valve, the parent company of Steam, however seemed a lot more relaxed about this prospect, going so far as to say that a formal agreement wasn’t necessary at all.
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Valve Says That They Trust Microsoft’s Intentions
“We’re happy that Microsoft wants to continue using Steam to reach customers with Call of Duty when their Activision acquisition closes,” said Gabe Newell, Valve’s President.
“Microsoft has been on Steam for a long time and we take it as a signal that they are happy with gamers’ reception to that and the work we are doing. Our job is to keep building valuable features for not only Microsoft but all Steam customers and partners.”
Newell confirmed that Microsoft had offered them a long-term contract for Call of Duty, and even sent them a draft agreement. He said that wasn’t “necessary for us” because they aren’t “believers in requiring any partner to have an agreement that locks them to shipping games on Steam into the distant future”. He places a lot of faith in Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, and his team at Microsoft because they have “always followed through on what they told us they would do so we trust their intentions.” Finally, he added that Microsoft “has all the motivation they need to be on the platforms and devices where Call of Duty customers want to be.”
Nintendo, Steam Accepting Offers Puts Pressure On Sony
It’s worth noting that the Call of Duty franchise has only just returned to the Steam platform for the first time since 2014. Valve charges a platform fee for third-party games, and Activision had stopped releasing the game on Steam as a result. Activision pulled out of their Steam releases in favor of their own Battle.net.
Steam may have the best Call of Duty player numbers, but the deal struck with Nintendo comes across as a little odd. It’s not really the sort of game one would associate with Nintendo consoles, and it seems like the intent behind this move is to push Sony into a corner. The tech giants are Microsoft’s biggest competitors on the console market, and the frontrunners of the resistance against the Activision merger.
Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft said on Twitter that their acquisition aims to “bring Call of Duty to more gamers and more platforms than ever before”, and insists that’s “good for competition and good for consumers”. He ended his Tweet by adding, “Any day Sony wants to sit down and talk, we’ll be happy to hammer out a 10-year deal for PlayStation as well.”
Sony’s Stance Unchanged, But Buyout Still Likely To Go Through
Earlier in September, Microsoft offered Sony a three-year deal following the expiration of the current contract to release the CoD games on their consoles. Sony’s Gaming Chief Jim Ryan shot them down at once, calling their proposal “inadequate on many levels,” and saying that it “failed to take account of the impact on our gamers.”
The recent statements from Nintendo and Steam have put Sony under increasing pressure – but it’s hard to say whether they’ll back down. The Microsoft-Activision merger has come under much scrutiny by the UK regulatory board, the European Union, and the US government. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced their investigation back in July, voicing concerns over a “substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles, multi-game consoles and cloud gaming services,” to which Microsoft hit back by accusing them of relying “on self-serving statements by Sony which significantly exaggerate the importance of Call of Duty to it”. Last month, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was in favor of filing an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, but more recent reports suggest that they’re now leaning towards an approval of the deal.
