Microsoft Signs 10-Year Call of Duty PS4 Agreement With Sony

Microsoft stock

Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) most recent proposal to Sony comes at a time when the company iSOs facing greater regulatory scrutiny over its proposed purchase deal of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) for a total of $69 billion.

The corporation has extended an offer to Sony for a contract that would last for ten years and stipulate that each new Call of Duty game would be made accessible on PlayStation on the same day it was made available on Xbox. This agreement will also include streaming and subscription parity, which will enable future Call of Duty games to be made available on the PlayStation Plus subscription service on the same day they are released on PlayStation Game Pass.

In its response to the Competition and Markets Authority’s provisional conclusions on the merger, which were made public a month ago, Microsoft detailed the offer it is making.

This comes as a direct result of Sony’s previous rejection of Microsoft’s proposal to continue publishing the popular game series created by Activision Blizzard on PlayStation for an additional three years after the current partnership comes to an end.

On the other hand, Sony Interactive Entertainment (also known as “SIE”) has expressed some concerns on the possibility of unsustainable licensing fees, which would require the company to increase their prices. As a result of the agreement with Activision, Microsoft will have the ability to determine the scale of the licensing payments that Sony must pay in order to include Call of Duty on PlayStation Plus. Sony contends that the manufacturer of Xbox could make this fee too expensive.

According to SIE, this might result in Call of Duty becoming an exclusive feature of the Game Pass by default in the future, which would allow it to dominate multi-game subscription services.

Microsoft’s Collaboration With Other Major Tech Companies in an Attempt to Win Over Sony

In an effort to allay the concerns of regulatory authorities regarding its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has been making concessions in the form of multi-year accords involving the Call of Duty franchise.

It was reported earlier that the European Union will not be blocking this deal after the Xbox maker signed 10-year deals with Nintendo and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) to bring Xbox and Activision games (including Call of Duty) on their respective services. These deals were made after the Xbox maker signed 10-year deals with Nintendo and Nvidia to bring Xbox and Activision games (including Call of Duty).

NVIDIA GeForce NOW is a cloud gaming service that has more than 25 million customers from over 100 different countries. Last month, Microsoft and NVDA revealed that the two firms had agreed to a 10-year cooperation to offer Xbox PC games to the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service.

As a result of the collaboration, gamers will be able to stream Xbox PC titles from GeForce NOW to a variety of platforms, including PCs, macOS, Chromebooks, and smartphones. Following the completion of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, this will also make it possible for Activision Blizzard PC games like Call of Duty to be streamed using GeForce NOW.

In addition, Microsoft recently reached an agreement with Nintendo for a period of ten years under which Call of Duty will be made available to players of Nintendo consoles on the same day as players of Xbox consoles, with complete feature and content parity. 

Deals of this nature have been a part of Microsoft’s effort to persuade Sony into accepting an offer comparable to its own and to alleviate regulatory worries regarding the competition.

Microsoft stock has gained nearly 8% year-to-date.

Featured Image: Pixabay @ efes

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About the author: Stephanie Bédard-Châteauneuf has over seven years of experience writing financial content for various websites. Over the years, Stephanie has covered various industries, with a primary focus on tech stocks, consumer stocks, market news, and personal finance. She has an MBA in finance.