A footnote in Microsoft'southward submission
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to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has let sideslip the reason behind Call of Duty'due south absence from the Xbox Game Pass library: Sony and Activision Blizzard have a deal that restricts the games' presence on the service.
The footnote appears in a department detailing the potential benefits to consumers (from Microsoft'south point of view) of the Activision Blizzard catalogue coming to Game Laissez passer. In it, Microsoft says that it plans to honour "existing contractual obligations that Activision Blizzard may have with other platforms" in the event of its $68 billion acquisition
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going forward.
What existing contractual obligations are those? Why, ones like the "agreement between Activision Blizzard and Sony," that places "restrictions on the ability of Activision Blizzard to place COD titles on Game Pass for a number of years". It was apparently these kinds of agreements that Xbox'due south Phil Spencer had in mind
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when he spoke to Sony bosses in January and confirmed Microsoft'south "intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard".
Unfortunately, the footnote ends there, so there's not much in the mode of detail near what these restrictions are or how long they'd remain in effect in a potential post-acquisition world. Given COD'due south continued non-appearance on Game Pass, you've got to imagine the restrictions are fairly significant if they're non an outright block on COD coming to the service. Either fashion, the simple fact that Microsoft is patently willing to maintain any restrictions on its own ability to put first-political party games on Game Pass is rather remarkable, given that making Game Pass more appealing is 1 of the reasons for its acquisition spree.
The irony of Sony making deals like this one while fretting most COD's hereafter on PlayStation probably isn't lost on Microsoft'due south lawyers, which is no doubt part of why they brought it up to the CMA. While it's admittedly reasonable to worry about a world in which more than and more backdrop are full-bodied in the hands of singular, giant megacorps, it does await a bit odd if you lot're complaining about losing access to games while stopping them from joining competing services.
We'll find out if the CMA agrees when it completes its in-depth, "Phase 2" investigation
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into the Activision Blizzard conquering, which is some way off yet. For now, we'll have to content ourselves with poring over these kinds of corporate submissions for more interesting tidbits like this one. And so far, we've already learned that Microsoft privately has a gloomy forecast for the future of cloud gaming
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