Microsoft has secured a 10-year partnership with Spanish cloud gaming company Nware, allowing them to stream in-house PC games on the Nware platform, similar to their previous partnerships with companies like NVIDIA. This comes as Microsoft faces obstacles in their attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but they remain optimistic about the possibility of including Activision Blizzard titles on the Nware platform if the deal is eventually approved.
Brad Smith, the President and Vice-Chair of Microsoft, stated on Twitter that this recent partnership with Nware, along with their other recent commitments, will contribute to making popular games more widely available on various cloud game streaming platforms. Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, also expressed his enthusiasm for providing players with more options to play their favorite games and emphasized the company’s dedication to this mission. It should be noted that the cloud gaming segment in gaming is still in its early stages.
Like NVIDIA’s GeForce Now, Nware provides users with access to various game libraries through cloud gaming, including those from Steam, Epic Games, and Ubisoft. Users can utilize the service to stream their games on a range of devices, such as Windows PCs, Android smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs.
Microsoft has signed agreements similar to the one with Nware with several other companies, including Nintendo, Steam, NVIDIA, Boosteroid, Ubitus, and EE, in order to make its games available on their platforms. The company has also offered Sony a 10-year agreement to keep titles such as Call of Duty on PlayStation, but Sony has not yet accepted the offer. Microsoft and Activision have been pursuing these partnerships as part of their efforts to win over antitrust regulators in the wake of the proposed Activision merger. The European Union officials are expected to make a decision on the merger by May 22nd, and it is reported that the European Commission will likely approve the acquisition.
Microsoft and Activision’s proposed merger hit a major hurdle as the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the deal, citing concerns over Microsoft’s dominant position in the cloud gaming market. The CMA was shown documents indicating that Microsoft already had a market share of 60-70% in the cloud gaming market in 2022. However, Microsoft’s Brad Smith argued that its infrastructure only allowed cloud gaming access to a maximum of 5,000 concurrent users in the UK. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard plan to appeal the CMA’s decision, which could take months, and the deal is also being challenged by the US Federal Trade Commission.
