To appease the British competition authority, Microsoft was able to submit commitments regarding the Call of Duty license. It concerns in particular the availability of the game on Nintendo Switch.
Since the announcement of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision, the future of Call of Duty has been at the center of concerns for authorities, particularly in the UK. To satisfy the authorities, Microsoft has signed a contract with Nintendo and Nvidia to ensure the availability of Call of Duty outside of the Xbox ecosystem. In the documents unveiled by the UK authority, we now know more about the firm’s promises.
A native port on Nintendo Switch
In Microsoft’s response, there is a promise of ” Develop and publish future native console versions of Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms for at least 10 years. “. Therefore, it would not be a question of offering a version of the game in the cloud as some publishers of AAA titles do on the Nintendo console.
According to Microsoft, Activision’s development teams will be able to deliver a version of Call of Duty for Nintendo Switch in a matter of months.
To do this, it relies on the work already done in the ports of Doom Eternal, Fortnite and other Apex Legends. pic.twitter.com/1HVVmi9mgM— Cassim Ketfi (@NotCassim) March 8, 2023
Later in the text from Microsoft, we even get the clarification that we are talking about ports for the current Nintendo Switch while waiting for a possible new generation of Nintendo consoles. The document states that Activision and Microsoft are confident that Call of Duty Warzone and episodes of Obligations buy-to-play (canonical episodes like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2)” can be optimized to run on Nintendo Switch using standard techniques already used in games like Apex Legends, Doom Eternal, Fortnite, and Crysis 3 “. The development of such a port would only be a matter of months.
Microsoft has also committed to having future installments of the franchise launch on Nintendo consoles on the same day as Xbox consoles.
A mobile store to compete with Apple and Google
In the Microsoft document we find all the giant’s arguments to defend its takeover bid. there is the arrival of Obligations on new platforms and on Game Pass, of course, but there’s also the question of competition on smartphones.
In fact, Microsoft defends the idea that this acquisition project, which would allow it to take over mobile call of duty, immortal devilthe future mobile war zone et Candy Crushit’s needed to create what the company calls the Xbox Mobile Platform.
It would be a new mobile game distribution platform in competition with Google Play Store and Apple App Store. This would require an extension of the Xbox Store to mobile ecosystems to allow developers to offer their games on Microsoft’s terms and not Apple’s or Google’s.
And an ad in the press.
To publicly support its case, Microsoft ran a full-page ad in two UK newspapers.
With this publicity, Microsoft both authorities and decision makers since the firm chose the Financial Times and both the general public through the daily mail.
The CMA in the UK must issue its decision by April 26, 2023.
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