The Redmond tycoon has categorically excluded the possibility that Call of Duty's trademark might be excluded from the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard-King at the today's meeting between Microsoftand its videogame market competitors.
Brad Smith of Microsoft stated in his first interview that "the future of game development is cross-platform." According to Smith, Microsoft also signed a contract with Nvidia to bring Call of Duty to GeForce Now; however, the company is still opposed to the move.
According to Tom Warren of The Verge, Redmond's new agreements with Nvidia and Nintendo will be sufficient to persuade regulators to approve the acquisition. "You want to make a chord disappear, strengthen Sony's position?" Smith asked European regulators. "Or do you want to extend [Call of Duty] up to 150 million more people?"
Smith finally answered a question about the sale of the Call of Duty brand and its subsequent separation from Activision-Blizzard as a condition for the agreement. A suggestion from the English CMA, which earlier this month suggested that Microsoft may grant Call of Duty in favor of keeping other brands as profitable as King's Candy Crush.
Brad Smith said in the same conversation that PlayStation has 70% of the console market versus 30% for Xbox.
