Summary
Ubisoftshared new details about its agreement with Microsoft granting it cloud streaming rights for Activision Blizzard games. The deal itself was first announced over the summer, but only came into effect withMicrosoft completing the Activision Blizzard buyouton October 13.
Even before landing that landmark content agreement,Ubisoft insisted that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was good newsfor the industry at large. It was certainly beneficial to Ubisoft, who won extensive cloud streaming rights for theCall of Dutymaker’s vast catalog as part of Microsoft’s efforts to win regulatory approval for the $68.7 billion transaction.
Chris Early, Ubisoft’s SVP of strategic partnerships and business development, has now confirmed that the deal will usher in the arrival of Activision Blizzard games on the Ubisoft+ subscription service, on top of bolstering the company’s future streaming offerings. And though the deal only covers the developer-publisher’s existing games and any that will release in the next 15 years, Early clarified that the streaming rights themselves are perpetual in nature. In other words,Ubisoftwill always have the streaming rights for any part of the Activision Blizzard portfolio released up to late 2038.
Microsoft outright divested itself of its newest purchase’s cloud streaming rights, which was the cornerstone of itsstrategy to win the CMA’s approval of the Activision Blizzard acquisition. In some markets, Ubisoft bought those rights exclusively, while it merely acquired a non-exclusive distributor license in others. The latter ended up being the case in the European Union, as the concessions Microsoft gave to Brussels included a pledge that anyone who buys an Activision Blizzard game in the future will be able to stream it via their platform of choice and not just Xbox Cloud Gaming.
TheUbisoft+ catalog is already available for streaming via Amazon’s Luna service, although Ubisoft doesn’t offer a cloud gaming solution of its own. And though this deal does improve its chances of developing a successful game streaming platform, Early said the company is still waiting to see how the market will evolve before deciding on such commitments. In the meantime, Ubisoft will be looking to license Activision Blizzard’s games to other cloud streaming providers, on top of offering them to Ubisoft+ members. There’s still not a concrete timeline for when the titles themselves will be added to the subscription service, as the company waited for the acquisition to be official before starting to work on bringing them to Ubisoft+.
Moving forward, Early expects subscription services to continue growing in popularity, albeit not always at the expense of other distribution methods. Elaborating on that point, the executive opined that things like physical game releases are never going to “completely go away.” Ubisoft’s Activision Blizzard game streaming deal is hence merely a continuation of the company’s efforts to grow its business by making gaming even more accessible, Early concluded.
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