Microsoft and Nintendo sign "binding 10-year agreement" for Call of Duty

eurogamer.net:

Microsoft has announced it has finalised a 10-year agreement to launch Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms on «the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity».

The move is, of course, reliant on Microsoft's precarious-looking $68.7bn deal to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard going through.

It's not the first time we've heard of such an agreement. Indeed, Xbox boss Phil Spencer first mentioned a 10-year «commitment» with Nintendo for Call of Duty back in December. Microsoft has also tried to offer the same decade-long deal to PlayStation in a bid to calm its concerns over Xbox owning Activision Blizzard — but with little success.

Today's announcement is well-timed, however, ahead of Microsoft's day in court trying to argue its case for the deal with the EU's European Commission, one of three major regulators currently standing in the way of it passing.

This morning, Microsoft president Brad Smith announced the agreement with Nintendo in a tweet which suggested a much wider agreement — «to bring Xbox games to Nintendo's gamers» as part of the company's «commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms».

However, an accompanying statement included with the announcement mentioned Call of Duty only by name.

We’ve now signed a binding 10-year contract to bring Xbox games to Nintendo’s gamers. This is just part of our commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms. pic.twitter.com/JmO0hzw1BO

There's no word on when exactly this deal might begin, or what Nintendo hardware Microsoft is referring to. Should the Activision Blizzard deal be agreed later this year, the earliest we'd likely see the