Today Microsoft announced a deal with Nvidia to bring its own and Activision Blizzard's PC games to the Geforce Now gaming service, including the Call of Duty franchise.
The deal, revealed during a conference in Brussels and echoed by Phil Spencer himself, will last 10 years following the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. According to Spencer, Microsoft is "committed to bringing more games to more people – however they choose to play."
According to a report by Eurogamer, vice chair and president Brad Smith mentioned that Microsoft isn't spending $69 billion to keep Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox, but to make it more accessible, including the mobile space.
Smith also directly challenged Sony to sign an agreement to keep the franchise on PlayStation Platforms, going as far as showing the contract he wishes the house of PlayStation to sign.
According to Smith, Sony can spend all its energy trying to try to block the deal and hinder competition, or it can sit down with Microsoft to hammer out an agreement that addresses its concerns.
This follows a deal announced this morning that pledges the arrival of the Call of Duty franchise on Nintendo's platforms in a one-two punch likely designed to weaken Sony's arguments against the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, on top of objections from antitrust regulators.
Most of such objections hinge on the allegation that the deal would remove CoD from competing platforms or provide Microsoft's own cloud service with an unfair advantage over the competition. Microsoft argues that today's deals bring the franchise to 150 million devices that previously did not have access to it.
Smith also added that PlayStation holds 80% of the European market share against Xbox's 20%, and while it would be tempting to hold onto that 80%, that's not where the cross-platform future of the gaming industry is headed.
