Microsoft has announced yet another ten-year partnership to provide their Xbox PC games, and potential Activision Blizzard games, to a rival service. This time it’s with Ubitus, a cloud gaming platform based in Japan. This news comes after yesterday’s announcement of a ten-year deal with Ukrainian service Boosteroid, and the two prior contract announcements with both Nvidia and Nintendo.
The latest partnership was once again announced by Xbox Head Phil Spencer over on Twitter. The tweet reiterates the message of giving players “more choice”, a phrase also used in yesterday’s announcement tweet by Spencer. Microsoft is currently having its potential merger with Activision Blizzard scrutinized by several key competition authorities, with these partnership announcements seemingly released to ease the fears of legislators.
Microsoft and Ubitus @ubituskk, a leading cloud gaming provider, have signed a 10-year partnership to stream Xbox PC Games as well as Activision Blizzard titles after the acquisition closes. Our commitment is to give more players, more choice.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) March 15, 2023
A key element of protest towards Microsoft’s merger with Activision Blizzard has been over the power it could give them in the cloud gaming market, particularly with the Call of Duty franchise. Since these investigations began, Microsoft has announced three partnerships with different cloud gaming providers, being Nvidia, Boosteroid and now Ubituskk. Whether this will affect any decisions remains to be seen, as the UK, US and EU continue to probe the deal.
It’s worth noting that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have already addressed the existence of some of these cloud gaming providers. On page 195 of the CMA’s provisional findings report, the authority addresses some “lesser-known providers”, going on to name Boosteroid and others. The CMA notes that “these providers are likely to be much smaller and are therefore not considered in detail.” Whether or not Microsoft’s partnerships with these smaller services results in any change at the CMA is unknown at this time.
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