Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/BRUSSELS: Microsoft Corp struck a 10-year deal to bring “Call of Duty” and other Activision games to Nvidia Corp’s gaming platform if the Xbox maker can complete its much-contested 69 billion dollars acquisition of Activision.
According to Reuters, regulators and competitors like Sony have come out hard against the proposed Microsoft-Activision tie-up. The move may allay concerns by ensuring ways for consumers to get games controlled by Microsoft, but regulators worldwide have been skeptical about the acquisition.
Britain said earlier this month that the deal could harm gamers by weakening the rivalry between Xbox and PlayStation, resulting in higher prices, fewer choices, less innovation for millions of players, and stifling competition in cloud gaming.
Microsoft president stance
Brad Smith, Microsoft President, said he was now more optimistic about getting the Activision acquisition done after the Nvidia deal and a similar arrangement with Nintendo Co Ltd. Vice president Phil Eisler and general manager of Nvidia’s GeForce Now segment said that titles such that “Call of Duty” would not be available on Nvidia’s service unless Microsoft acquires Activision, but other Microsoft-owned titles such as “Minecraft” are covered immediately under the ten-year license agreement.
“We were the little concerned about it at the beginning,” Eisler said of the Microsoft-Activision deal. “But then we have reached out to Microsoft, and they were open about wanting to enable cloud gaming and work with us on a ten-year license agreement. So over time, they made us more comfortable with it.”
