Microsoft´s plans to acquire the Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard and make the game available to play on Nintendo consoles, amidst a lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission for breach of competition law
Microsoft has recently announced that the company plans to make the gaming franchise Call of Duty, available on Nintendo for 10 years. According to a report in the Associated Press on Thursday, December 8, the deal will only be possible, if Microsoft managed to take over Activision Blizzard, the makers of the first-person shooting game.
But the recent move to acquire the company for an estimated $69 billion has come under major scrutiny from regulators across the world. The report said, “Microsoft, maker of the Xbox game console, faces resistance from Sony, which makes the competing PlayStation console and has raised concerns with antitrust watchdogs about losing access to what it calls a must-have game title”.
The report said the announcement regarding a 10-year commitment for Call of Duty with Nintendo came after Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, tweeted about it. Microsoft President Brad Smith while talking about Sony in a tweet said, “Any day Sony wants to sit down and talk, we’ll be happy to hammer out a 10-year deal for PlayStation as well”.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has decided to block Microsoft´s planned takeover of Activision Blizzard and sued the company on Thursday. A quote by Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition said, “Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals”. She further added, “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”
Activision, according to the report, made an announcement last month that said, the most recent installment of the game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, had earned over $1 billion since its launch on October 28.
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