Microsoft's 10-year Deal With Nware Ignites Competition Concerns

On Friday, a 10-year deal was sealed between Microsoft Corp and Nware in regard to Xbox and Activision Blizzard games.

Deets of The Deal

This deal comes soon after the $69 billion buyout of the "Call of Duty" maker was stopped by Britain. It has brought Xbox and Activision Blizzard to the Spanish cloud-gaming platform. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president has said, "While it's still early for the emerging cloud segment in gaming, this new partnership combined with our other recent commitments will make more popular games available on more cloud game streaming services than they are today". Previously, Microsoft had proposed an offer for a "Call of Duty" license that would extend upto 10 years to Sony. That offer was made in parallel to the agreement which aimed to bring the multi-billion dollar franchise to Nintendo's Switch in what is called the biggest deal in gaming.

The Activision deal seems like an effort to lessen doubts regarding Microsoft’s purchase of Activision which could lead to hampering the competition in cloud gaming. This was also one of the reasons why the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) disapproved of the biggest deal in gaming. The CMA supported its decision by contending that Microsoft, who already owns cloud provider Azure, Xbox and the PC operating system Windows, had around 60%-70% of global cloud gaming services as well as competitive advantages.

As of now, Microsoft plans to appeal against the CMA’s decision. Not just the CMA but also the U.S. Federal Trade Commission aims is on a lookout to block this deal involving technology companies. Europe seeks to decide on the issue surrounding the deal by May 22.

This is not the first gaming deal that Microsoft has cracked. Boosteroid, Valve Corp and Nvidia are the few names that have already signed deals with the Xbox console maker.

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