Obligations will be available to Nintendo gamers the same day as Xbox with “full feature and content parity” under a 10-year agreement between the two platforms, Microsoft’s Brad Smith announced. The deal was announced in early December, but Smith offers more details today ahead of a hearing in which Microsoft will argue its case before EU regulators to allow the $69 billion acquisition of Obligations publisher Activision Blizzard to proceed, Reuters reports.
As my colleague Tom Warren wrote in December, the Nintendo deal is almost certainly part of Microsoft’s attempt to pressure Sony into accepting a similar offer and allay antitrust regulatory concerns. The PlayStation maker has become a leading opponent of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition, saying it risks reducing competition by blocking key franchises like Obligations to Xbox consoles and Microsoft services like Game Pass.
As well as ObligationsSmith’s tweet alludes to “Xbox games” more generally, though he doesn’t offer details about the franchises they may come from.
News of the settlement comes as Microsoft prepares to plead its case before EU regulators today. The closed-door hearing is expected to be attended by representatives from Microsoft, including Brad Smith and Xbox boss Phil Spencer, as well as Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and Sony’s Jim Ryan. Representatives from Google, Nvidia, Valve, Electronic Arts, the European Federation of Game Developers and more than half a dozen different national competition watchdogs are also expected to participate. by Reuters.
The EU reportedly issued a formal antitrust warning to Microsoft over the deal earlier this month, in which it is believed to have raised concerns about the deal’s impact on fair competition in the video game market. In response, Microsoft spokesman David Cuddy said the company is “committed to solutions and finding a way forward for this deal” and is “listening carefully to [European Commission’s] concerns and we are confident that we can address them.”
Outside the European Union, Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has also faced opposition from UK and US regulators. The US Federal Trade Commission filed a legal challenge to block the acquisition in early December 2022, arguing that it “would allow Microsoft to suppress competitors from its Xbox game consoles and cloud gaming business and rapidly growing subscription content. Meanwhile, the UK Competition and Markets Authority said the deal “could result in higher prices, less choice or less innovation for UK players”, in tentative filings announced earlier this month.
Today’s statement from Microsoft says the deal is to bring Obligations games to “Nintendo gamers”, not to mention specific hardware like Nintendo Switch. As its sixth year on the market approaches, the portable Switch console is increasingly showing its age and relatively low processing power compared to the latest consoles from Sony and Microsoft, as well as modern gaming PCs, where players usually play last. Obligations releases The latest Obligations game to launch on a Nintendo console was from 2013 Call of Duty: Ghosts on the wii u
