“We have signed a binding 10-year agreement to bring Xbox games to Nintendo gamers,” says Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, on his Twitter account. “This is just one part of our commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles, including Call of Duty, to more players on more platforms.” The message is accompanied by an image whose text speaks only of Call of Duty, the franchise that has monopolized the conversation regarding the purchase of Activision Blizzard.
“Microsoft and Nintendo have negotiated and signed a legally binding 10-year agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo gamers, the same day as on Xbox, with full feature and content parity, so they can enjoy Call of Duty from the same way that Xbox and PlayStation players do, ”says the message. “We are committed to providing equal access to Call of Duty on other platforms for the long term, bringing more choice to more players and more competition to the market.”
The agreement between Microsoft and Nintendo that has been made public today transfers into a legal contract the will that the American technology company had already expressed in the past, which is none other than to “help bring more games to more people, no matter how choose to play.” All of Microsoft’s efforts have the sole objective of completing the purchase of Activision Blizzard, an operation that regulators do not look favorably on today. The UK says it could harm gamers, the US is trying to block it and the European Commission, which is meeting with Microsoft today, is still investigating it.
Sony, a company that is completely opposed to the purchase of Activision Blizzard, has been invited to sign the same agreement that Nintendo has signed with Microsoft. This proposal has been on the table for months but Sony has not responded. What the Japanese company has done has been to tell regulators around the world how damaging it would be for the video game industry if Call of Duty ended up in the hands of Microsoft. However, it seems that the last chapter of this long soap opera is still far from broadcast.
On the other hand, it remains to be seen how Xbox games will reach Nintendo players. The last Call of Duty available on a Nintendo console is Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013) for Wii U. Today it seems difficult for a installment of this franchise to move freely on a Nintendo Switch, so one option is use the game in the cloud. Another is to wait for new hardware.
