Sony And Microsoft Have Signed A 10-Year Contract To Keep Call Of Duty On Consoles

Sony has signed a 10-year deal with Microsoft to keep the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation consoles. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said it was “binding”.

“We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.  We look forward to a future where players around the world have more options to choose their favorite games,” Spencer tweeted on July 16.

This agreement ends a bitter struggle between the companies that began after Microsoft announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in January 2022. Sony’s deal is similar to the 10-year deal between Microsoft and Nintendo, as well as other deals Microsoft has made with rival cloud gaming services. While Microsoft does not comment on the terms of the deal with Sony.

Sony has resisted signing the Call of Duty deal after Microsoft first offered it a 10-year contract in December 2022. Instead, Sony has repeatedly said in its regulatory filings that it fears Microsoft could make Call of Duty an Xbox exclusive or even derail the PlayStation versions of the game.

Speaking at an FTC hearing, Spencer vowed that the Call of Duty franchise would remain on Sony’s consoles, while Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said he would back out of the deal if the court ruled in favor of the FTC.

Meanwhile, the UK regulator blocked Microsoft’s deal to buy Activision Blizzard, although it was approved by the EU regulator. In May, Microsoft filed an appeal against this decision. One of these days, the company will take part in the consideration of the case in the UK Competition Court of Appeal (CAT) together with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). CMA and Microsoft agreed earlier this week to suspend legal battles to agree on how to resolve cloud gaming issues. Despite this, the CMA issued a notice extending the overall investigation into the deal, moving the final decision date from July 18 to August 29. Microsoft hoped to close the deal with Activision by July 18th.