Microsoft hopes its deals with Nintendo and Nvidia will be enough to complete the Activision Blizzard acquisition

Just yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that it had entered into a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to the Japanese company's platforms for the next ten years. On top of this, Microsoft entered into a deal with Nvidia to bring Xbox PC games to the service. Why has Microsoft decided to make these moves? All in an effort to convince market regulators that the almost $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be completed.

Speaking at a recent briefing in Brussels (thanks, Tom Warren), Microsoft president Brad Smith addressed why these agreements have been made and even touched upon why Sony isn't at threat from the deal.

Smith noted that it hopes these deals will be enough to convince regulators, especially since it was also stated in the briefing that Sony PlayStation occupied 80% of the European Economic Area market share in 2022, when compared with Xbox.

Talking about the gripes the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has with the acquisition, Smith stated: "Do you want to kill a deal and cement Sony's position? Or do you want to open this [Call of Duty] up to 150 million more people?"

Smith also addressed Sony's attempts to block the deal and added: "[Sony] can spend all of its energy trying to block this deal... or it can sit down with us and hammer out an agreement that addresses what it says it's concerned about, mainly the access to Call of Duty in the future."

As for whether a deal will be met, Smith also said: "I hope we will. I walk around with an envelope that contains the definitive agreement that we sent Sony two days before Christmas."

Do you think these deals and the press briefing will be enough to convince regulators?