Microsoft will publish its games on Nvidia's GeForce Now platform for ten years. This agreement between the technology giant and the manufacturer of graphics cards was announced yesterday in Brussels, coinciding with a private hearing in which Microsoft tried to convince antitrust officials of the European Union about its intention to buy the publisher Activision Blizzard for 68.7 billion dollars.
The contract between the two companies was presented by the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, at the end of the aforementioned non-public hearing. This announcement came a few hours after another important agreement was announced, the one that will bring Xbox games to Nintendo consoles for ten years. With both alliances, the Redmond company intends to convince the European Commission and the regulatory bodies of the United Kingdom and the United States about the feasibility of the purchase.
"The agreement will allow players to stream Xbox games for PC from GeForce Now to PC, MacOS, Chromebooks, mobile devices and other devices," Smith stressed during a press conference held in Brussels, and which this newspaper was able to attend. “It will also allow Activision Blizzard titles, such as Call of Duty, to be streamed to GeForce Now after Microsoft closes on the Activision acquisition.
“We started the morning by announcing an agreement with Nintendo that obliges Microsoft to publish Call of Duty on Nintendo systems for ten years,” Smith said. "And now we're introducing this partnership with Nvidia to show that the deal has never been about spending $69 billion to make Call of Duty available on fewer platforms, but about getting games to more people," he added.
GeForce Now is a cloud gaming platform that, among other features, allows its users to play a wide selection of titles from different publishers in exchange for a monthly subscription. With the agreement, Xbox games will be added to its catalogue, including the popular Minecraft, and depending on whether Microsoft manages to get hold of Activision Blizzard, also those of this American publisher.
With the aim of convincing the European regulators about the viability of the purchase of Activision Blizzard, the largest in the history of entertainment, the president of Microsoft did not blush when it came to sharing some information. For example, the distribution of the console market in the old continent, where the PlayStation accounts for 80% of the market and Xbox only 20%.
He also highlighted other data, such as the fact that Sony PlayStation has 5 times more exclusive titles than Xbox (286 for PlayStation compared to 58 for Xbox); or that Xbox has 58 titles available on Sony consoles, while PlayStation Studios has only published 2 games for Xbox.
“This dominance that PlayStation has in the European market has been going on for the last two decades,” Smith said. “It never would have occurred to me that a company with that much share would have to be protected,” he added.
According to the president of Microsoft, the agreements reached with Nintendo and Nvidia will allow Xbox games (and eventually Activision Blizzard) to reach an additional 150 million gamers. This figure takes into account the 122 million that Nintendo has sold of its Nintendo Switch console so far and the around 25 million users of Nvidia's GeForce Now service.
