Microsoft’s Call of Duty bid to Sony comes after weeks of regulatory pressure over its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The company announced that it has offered Sony a 10-year contract to present future Call of Duty games on PlayStation if its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard materializes. Thus, the Call of Duty riddle of PlayStation players is solved.
Microsoft President Brad Smith confirmed the deal in a column in The Wall Street Journal and said he was pleased with the deal, even though Sony emerged as the most vocal opposition to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion buyout offer.
“We’ve offered Sony a 10-year contract so that every new version of ‘Call of Duty’ will be available on PlayStation the same day it hits Xbox,” says Smith. We are open to making it legally enforceable by regulators in the European Union.”
This issue has been hinted at in recent weeks, with The New York Times reporting that Microsoft made the offer to Sony on November 11. The Microsoft Gaming CEO also hinted in a recent interview with The Verge that he would be happy to “make a longer-term commitment that Sony is comfortable with.”
The Verge revealed in September that Phil Spencer had made a written commitment to PlayStation president Jim Ryan earlier this year that Call of Duty would stay on PlayStation for “a few more years” beyond Sony’s current marketing deal with Activision. This letter was sent at the same time that Spencer publicly announced his intention to abide by all existing agreements after Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation.
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