A Call of Duty character hangs on the wall in a stairwell on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022, at Activision Blizzard, Infinity Ward Division, in Woodland Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Allison Dinner)
Microsoft has struck a deal with Nintendo to make Call of Duty available across its platforms.
"We’ve now signed a binding 10-year contract to bring Xbox games to Nintendo’s gamers," Microsoft president Brad Smith tweeted Tuesday.
The deal ensures that Nintendo gamers will have access to the latest Call of Duty titles on "the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity." The company came to a similar agreement with Sony to ensure access to the popular franchise for PlayStation gamers as well.
Following Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which is the video game publisher behind Call of Duty, competitors such as Sony have expressed concern that the merger would curb competition in the console market.
In what appears to be an effort to assuage these concerns and get regulatory approval for the purchase, Microsoft is entering agreements to make Call of Duty available across different consoles for at least the next decade.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
