Microsoft enters 10-year deal with Nvidia and Nintendo to fight to save Activision deal | CNN Business

CNN
—

Microsoft announced it has agreed to partnerships with Nvidia and Nintendo as it tries to convince European Union officials to approve its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, the company behind the popular Call of Duty game franchise.

Microsoft Chairman Brad Smith held a closed-door meeting with EU regulators and competitors in Brussels on Tuesday to address concerns that its acquisition of Activision Blizzard could hurt competition in the video game industry. The deal has also come under scrutiny from regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) said it has signed a 10-year partnership with Nvidia to bring Xbox games for PC to Nvidia’s cloud gaming service. In a statement, the software giant said the partnership “resolves Nvidia’s concerns with Activision Blizzard. Nvidia therefore offers its full support for regulatory approval of the acquisition.

Microsoft also revealed that it has ended a 10-year deal to bring the latest version of “Call of Duty” to the Nintendo platform once the merger with Activision is complete.

Smith told CNN’s Richard Quest on Tuesday that “a lot has changed today because Microsoft has announced two deals that together will bring Call of Duty, the game everyone has been talking about, to 150 million more people on Nintendo devices and services of Nvidia cloud streaming.” He went on to say that these two deals address the concern that Call of Duty will be less available than it is today and will become more available because of these two binding agreements.

“We feel very much reduced to one main company that is opposed to this deal, and that is Sony, and we have made it clear that we are happy to sign a 10-year deal with Sony and we are prepared to take on regulatory obligations. Also, either London, Brussels or Washington,” Smith said. “So in addition to a contract, we would have a duty under the law.”