For a company that can supposedly survive without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft sure is pulling out all the stops to ensure the $70 billion acquisition pushes through.
As part of Microsoft's latest attempt to make regulators say "yes", the tech giant is making another concession. As per Equity Report, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission are likely to approve the tranction because Microsoft is planning to propose a new deal that will guarantee future Activision Blizzard titles on both the PlayStation and Nintendo platforms for ten years.
This new deal would mitigate concerns regulators might have regarding the Activision Blizzard merger.
Aside from Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard owns several best-selling video game franchises. Warcraft and Starcraft as well as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and Tony Hawk's, have each sold at least 20 million copies. More importantly, the vast majority of Activision Blizzard releases have been available on multiple platforms for years.
By guaranteeing that this will continue for at least ten more years, Microsoft is giving the CMA and EU, the regulators who are in opposition to the deal, a reason to give it the green light.
PlayStation previously said that the previous three-year deal offered by Microsoft to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation was "inadequate". Microsoft has since confirmed that it's upped the offer to add ten more years to the expiring deal.
Sony still hasn't responded to the revamped offer, but Microsoft and Nintendo have already shaken hands on a similar structure.
Activision Blizzard is currently preparing to release a new Call of Duty game later this year. Sledgehammer Games will take over developer duties with supervision from Infinity Ward. This year's Call of Duty will reportedly continue the story of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
