Microsoft and Sony agree to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation

Following a bitter, months-long feud over the company's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft and Sony have signed a deal to keep the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation consoles. "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," Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer tweeted Sunday morning. "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 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 globally have more choice to play their favorite games.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 16, 2023

The announcement comes after Microsoft on Friday defeated a last-ditch effort by the US Federal Trade Commission to scuttle the company's $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to grant the regulator an emergency stay of a ruling that allows the deal to proceed in the US. The United Kingdom's Markets and Competition Authority (CMA) is the last remaining regulator of note opposed to the purchase, but the watchdog and Microsoft recently agreed to put their legal battle over the deal on hold.      

Spencer did not disclose the terms of Microsoft's deal with Sony, including, most notably, the length of the agreement. At the end of last year, Microsoft offered Sony a 10-year deal to keep Call of Duty on current and future PlayStation consoles, an olive branch the Japanese electronics giant shot down. In an effort to secure approval from regulators, including the FTC and CMA, Microsoft went on to sign an agreement with Nintendo to bring the series to the company's future consoles. It also came to terms with cloud gaming providers like NVIDIA.     

Before today, Jim Ryan, the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, made clear he was strongly opposed to Microsoft's Activision bid. “I don’t want a new Call of Duty deal. I just want to block your merger,” Ryan told Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. “I told him [Bobby Kotick] that I thought the transaction was anti-competitive, I hoped that the regulators would do their job and block it,” Ryan later said during his testimony at the FTC v. Microsoft hearing. But with the purchase all but set to move forward, Sony likely had no choice but to come to terms with its rival.   

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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