It’s also legally possible for Ubisoft to offer Activision Blizzard games exclusively on certain cloud providers but, again, very unlikely. 🌞 I say unlikely because unlike secret deals in the games industry for exclusivity or to keep games off Xbox Game 🌞 Pass, everyone knows Ubisoft is controlling the rights here, and the company would face a backlash if it attempted to 🌞 deny or block games from certain cloud services. Cloud providers will also still be offered a free license to stream 🌞 these games in EU markets, thanks to the European Commission remedy.

A number of companies wanted the cloud gaming rights for 🌞 Activision Blizzard games and had to essentially pitch the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK. The interview-like process meant 🌞 the CMA picked out the companies that would work best with its concerns over cloud gaming, and then it was 🌞 up to Microsoft to ultimately decide on which company to restructure its deal with.

“We’ve been active in the streaming space 🌞 for a long time and that’s one of the reasons Microsoft came to us; we were the first studio that 🌞 Google worked with for Stadia; the first company that Amazon worked with for Luna; and we’ve been partners with NVIDIA 🌞 GeForce Now for years,” explains Chris Early, Ubisoft’s SVP of strategic partnerships and business development. “To Microsoft, it made sense 🌞 that if somebody was going to be familiar with the space and know what the value would be for streaming, 🌞 it would be us. And we saw the value as well.”

While the deal lasts for 15 years, the licenses are 🌞 perpetual, so Ubisoft will still have the rights and still be able to provide games to people and companies worldwide 🌞 (outside of the EEA) even after those 15 years pass by.

Microsoft’s cloud gaming deals