Microsoft Partners With Nvidia & Nintendo To Defend Against Sony Over Its Quest To Aquire Activision

For its part Microsoft has made bold pronouncements saying that it will not bar access to the Activision Blizzard catalogue of games that includes the most famous first-person-shooter (FPS) — Call of Duty.

Microsoft announced its biggest acquisition last year a deal worth a massive $68.7 billion to acquire gaming giant Activision Blizzard which is behind the legendary Call of Duty franchise. This deal has attracted a lot of anti-trust regulatory scrutiny. For its part Microsoft has made bold pronouncements saying that it will not bar access to the Activision Blizzard catalogue of games that includes the most famous first-person-shooter (FPS) — Call of Duty. Microsoft’s great rival in the console gaming space Sony has been an ardent critic of this deal and says that this acquisition will stifle competition in the market. 

Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny in both the US and UK and likely also in the EU over this deal larger because Sony is not flagging it off. Microsoft has also offered a 10-year commitment to launching Activision Blizzard games on PlayStation but it seems like Sony is not playing ball. Now, the Redmond-based giant has closed a deal with the other two gaming behemoths — Nvidia and Nintendo. 

With Nvidia, Microsoft has closed a deal for GeForce Now, its cloud streaming service which competes with the Xbox Cloud. It also closed a deal with Nintendo promising it access to the Call of duty franchise on the same day as it comes to Xbox. 

Microsoft executives have characterised Sony as the 800-pound gorilla in the gaming market whose PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles have largely left the Xbox behind in the last decade. But Sony lags Microsoft on cloud gaming and game subscriptions and its PlayStation Now service is a shadow of the value Microsoft’s GamePass offers. With cloud streaming, Sony botched its Gaikai acquisition and hasn’t been able to launch anything that’s competitive to what Microsoft has. In fact, Microsoft’s other rivals like Google Stadia have also shut shop which means in the future if Sony is not able to compete in cloud game streaming, in a console-less world, Microsoft has the potential to dominate — especially after acquiring big-ticket game studios like Bethesda and now Activision. 

This is clearly a battle for the future of gaming. Sony knows it is the leader right now — but as the decade passes on, the chips are stacked against it. Even its game streaming service right now uses the Microsoft Azure cloud which makes it uneasy about Microsoft owning Activision Blizzard.