Microsoft Corp has entered into a 10-year agreement with Nware, a Spanish cloud gaming platform, to enable it to stream titles from Activision Blizzard. This comes after the United Kingdom's antitrust regulator blocked Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft can also stream personal computer games that have been built by Xbox on Nware's platform. Microsoft's president, Brad Smith, has said that this partnership will provide gamers with more access to popular games on cloud streaming services.
The Competition and Markets Authority in the UK has expressed concerns that the Activision acquisition could harm competition in cloud gaming. The authority has said that Microsoft's pledge to provide access to the Call of Duty franchise on top cloud gaming platforms will not solve its concerns. The Activision deal is the largest that the Competition and Markets Authority has blocked, while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also seeking to prevent the acquisition. The agreement with Nware is Microsoft's latest attempt to bring Call of Duty and other Activision titles to other platforms.
