Xbox head Phil Spencer has announced that Microsoft has entered a 10-year long deal with Nintendo to keep Call of Duty on its platforms. This agreement comes shortly after the company recently confirmed it offered the same deal to Sony, likely in an attempt to push through its acquisition of Call of Duty publisher Activison Blizzard.
Spencer announced the agreement between Xbox and Nintendo via his personal Twitter account, in which he also states Call of Duty will continue to launch on Steam after the acquisition goes through. With this announcement, this leaves PlayStation and Sony as the only big platform to not have officially accepted the deal, despite assurances from Microsoft that it doesn't plan on taking the series as an exclusive.
While the deal with Steam makes a lot of sense, announcing an agreement with Nintendo is fairly bizarre. At the moment, there are no Call of Duty games on the Switch, with the last game to release on a Nintendo platform being Call of Duty Ghosts on the Wii U. It's doubtful that Nintendo will actually release Call of Duty games on Nintendo Switch too, meaning it's more of a deal to signal Microsoft's good intentions to investigating governing bodies rather than to maintain good relations with rival platforms.
While it's still expected for Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard to go through, several roadblocks have emerged that have threatened to significantly push the deal back. For example, it's expected that the FTC is going to block the deal which would force Microsoft to fight for its acquisition in court. In fact, legal issues could push the deal beyond June 2023, which would drag out an acqusition that has already been extremely messy and long-winded. This deal with Nintendo is likely an attempt to avoid courts.