The dispute over the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is still on the agenda, this time the Redmond company announced a licensing agreement for Call of Duty valid for 10 years with the aim of bringing the title to more devices. This time, the person involved is a company linked to cloud games.
The deal was signed with Ukraine’s Boosteroid, the world’s largest independent cloud gaming provider. More than just a gesture demonstrating that Call of Duty will not become an exclusive, Microsoft claims that this is also a way to support the Ukrainian government during the Russian invasion, which has lasted for more than a year.
This partnership builds on the $430 million in technology and financial assistance we have provided Ukraine since the illegal invasion of Russia, and exemplifies the steps we will continue to take to support Ukraine’s 160,000 software developers.
Players deserve more choice than they have now when it comes to their favorite games. Today we’ve signed a 10-year deal with @Boosteroid_main enabling players to stream Xbox PC games, including Activision Blizzard PC titles like CoD following after close https://t.co/Xso6ykadw1
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) March 14, 2023
Additionally, Microsoft’s official blog post says its plans include making Call of Duty available for more devices and platforms:
This also adds to our recent deals with Nintendo and NVIDIA, making it even clearer to regulators that our acquisition of Activision Blizzard will make ‘Call of Duty’ available on many more devices than ever before.
So far, the only regulatory bodies in favor of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard are in Europe, Saudi Arabia and Chile, while the US FTC is completely against it. It now remains to await the position of the CMA of the United Kingdom and the European Union on the purchase, which involves US$ 69 billion.
