Call of Duty on Nintendo consoles for 10 years thanks to an agreement with Microsoft

Back to talking about Xboxes And call of Duty, a franchise that could soon end up under the direct management of Microsoft thanks to the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. An agreement on which the British antitrust has recently expressed significant doubts, to the point of defining the operation ‘harmful’ for UK players. Today, however, there is encouraging news from the Redmond house: the company has signed an ambitious partnership with Nintendo.

The collaboration concerns precisely COD and its future on the platforms of the Kyoto giant: for the next 10 yearsthe popular shooter is coming on Switch and other Nintendo platforms at the exact moment it will be available on Xbox and PlayStation.

COD: the agreement to bring the franchise to Nintendo is official

The announcement released today by Microsoft is nothing more than the confirmation of what was promised by Phil Spencer last December. At the time, the head of the Xbox division had guaranteed that, if his company would make sure that Call of Duty remains a cross-platform series, at least for the next 10 years. This, of course, if the acquisition of Activision Blizzard is finally approved by the antitrust institutions.

Spencer’s statement specifically pertained to the communities of Nintendo And SteamSince sony he had rejected the offer. This morning, via a statement from the vice chair and president of Microsoft Brad Smiththe agreement involving the American and Japanese companies has been made official: “Microsoft and Nintendo have negotiated and signed a 10-year binding agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo gamers – on the same day as Xbox, with the same features and with the same content – so that they can experience COD just like Xbox and PlayStation users do”reads the letter shared on Twitter.

The agreement provides for the simultaneous publication of the Call of Duty series games on the platforms of Microsoft and Nintendo – on ‘day one’, In short. Wanting to alleviate fears about the possible anti-competitive nature of this strategy, the press release reiterates that Microsoft undertakes to “supply long-term fair access to Call of Duty on other gaming platforms, offering more choice to more players and more competition in the gaming market”. In fact, Microsoft again extended the offer to Sonyalbeit indirectly.

This latest declaration comes with not inconsiderable timing since, just this week, Microsoft will appear before the court of the European Commission to defend himself against the accusations of the regulars and calm any concerns.