Microsoft has offered Sony a new deal that would keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years.
That's according to a new report from the New York Times, which cites a direct statement from Microsoft. Microsoft apparently offered the deal to Sony on November 11, and it's still just an offer at this stage.
The NYT reports that Sony declined to comment on the deal, which is no surprise given that when Microsoft discussed a previous, three-year offer publicly, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan skewered it as "inadequate on many levels" and said he "hadn't intended to comment on what I understood to be a private business discussion."
Multiple Microsoft executives, including Xbox boss Phil Spencer, have repeatedly claimed that Call of Duty won't be held hostage even if the company does acquire Activision Blizzard. Last month, Spencer said he wants to "treat Call of Duty like Minecraft" and bring the franchise to as many platforms as possible, including the Nintendo Switch if a deal could be arranged.
Reports on this 10-year deal come just days after Spencer said he remains open to a "longer-term commitment that Sony would be comfortable with [and] regulators would be comfortable with."
Sony has vehemently argued that Microsoft owning Activision would limit options for gamers and give Xbox an unfair advantage in the industry. Microsoft was quick to argue that "it makes zero business sense" to deprive PlayStation of Call of Duty, but of course, that gets into the hypothetical of Call of Duty being available through Game Pass on Xbox but still being a full-price game on PlayStation.
Modern Warfare 2 was the biggest Call of Duty launch ever for PlayStation, which has surely contributed more ammunition to debates over the value and impact of the franchise.
Microsoft has made it clear that it wants to bring games like Call of Duty, Overwatch 2, and Diablo to Game Pass eventually. However, Call of Duty in particular wouldn't come to the subscription service for "a number of years" due to a pre-existing deal between Sony and Activision Blizzard. It's unclear how Game Pass factors into Microsoft's new, 10-year offer to Sony.
Microsoft has also claimed that this acquisition is "really about mobile," leaning into the value of Activision's King, which owns mobile megahits like Candy Crush and has a huge presence on the platform – a platform Xbox is investing more into, with the company now working on its own app store.
Microsoft's record-setting $69 billion acquisition has been approved by Brazil and Saudi Arabia but faces mounting scrutiny in other key countries, with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority opening a full-blown investigation into the deal.
