Microsoft's fight with Sony now has it signing Call of Duty deals with platforms we've never heard of

pcgamer.com:

As part of Microsoft's ongoing efforts to convince regulatory agencies that its planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard is a good idea, it has now announced 10-year partnerships with a couple of streaming platforms you might not have encountered before: Boosteroid and Ubitus.

A quick recap: Sony is not thrilled with the idea of Microsoft owning Activision Blizzard, largely because of worries that it will make the Call of Duty series exclusive to Xbox consoles. To counter those concerns, Microsoft offered Sony a 10-year deal(opens in new tab) to keep the series on PlayStation, a proposal that Sony rejected. To demonstrate its seriousness, Microsoft then went about setting up 10-year Call of Duty agreements with various other big-time players in the business, including Steam(opens in new tab), Nintendo, and Nvidia(opens in new tab).

That is reportedly having a positive effect(opens in new tab) with EU regulators, but Microsoft isn't easing off the gas just yet. But with the major platforms (minus Sony) now accounted for, it's now taking aim at smaller-scale operators, like streaming platform Boosteroid(opens in new tab), which on March 14 announced an agreement to bring Xbox PC games to its platform—including Activision-Blizzard games once the acquisition is complete—and Ubitus(opens in new tab), which unveiled a similar deal today.

Both companies are well established: Ubitus, which is based in Japan, was founded in 2013, while the Ukrainian Boosteroid has been around since 2016. But it's fair to say that, in terms of reach and awareness, they're not in the same league as GeForce Now or Xbox Live. Even so, they're getting the big time treatment from Microsoft executives including Xbox boss Phil Spencer and Microsoft