Hoping to improve the chances of getting regulatory approval on its acquisition of Activision, Microsoft has signed deals with Nintendo and NVIDIA that ensure Call of Duty will be coming to all platforms for the next 10 years.
These same deals have been rejected by Sony, which appears expressly to block the Microsoft-Activision deal in its entirety. Within a document sent to the British CMA, the house of PlayStation explained the reasons why it is not willing to give in to the “flattery” of the Redmond giant.
As explained by Sony, Microsoft has twice violated agreements in the past with other companies and regulatory bodies, and history could therefore repeat itself with regard to the Activision franchises and, in particular, the Call of Duty series. The first example refers to a 2004 case, for which Microsoft received a $1.3 billion fine: “First, the European Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft abused its dominant Windows operating system by depriving rivals of much-needed interoperability information. The European Commission ordered Microsoft to provide input to rivals at reasonable fees. , an order that Microsoft has agreed to follow.This would basically be the same kind of promise that Microsoft would make for license Activision products to rivals. Microsoft later violated the EC order by demanding unreasonable royalties and patent payments for interoperability information, forcing the EC to fine the software company $1.3 billion.”.
The second case is decidedly more recent and is linked to theacquisition of ZeniMax and Bethesda IPs: “Microsoft’s conduct in connection with the ZeniMax acquisition provides further evidence why a behavioral engagement should be viewed with caution. When Microsoft proposed to acquire ZeniMax, it told the EC that it “would have no incentive to cease or limit the availability of ZeniMax games on rival consoles. Microsoft also publicly told investors that “we encourage cross-platform [perché] if it’s good for the gaming ecosystem, it’s good for us… [Non] We plan to retire all Bethesda content from [piattaforme della concorrenza].
But soon after the acquisition closed, Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed that, from the beginning, the deal was about “distribution of great exclusive gamesMr. Spencer later confirmed that upcoming releases of two of Bethesda’s most popular titles, Starfield e The Elder Scrolls [VI]would have been Xbox exclusives”. Sony then closed the speech by quoting the words of Pete Hines, who said he was sorry that PlayStation players won’t be able to play Starfield and that there was very little Bethesda could do about it.