His grace, the head of Valve and commander of Steam has chimed in on the whole Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard deal and Sony's stern disapproval of Call of Duty becoming an Xbox franchise. It's a back-and-forth that has been going on for months, with regulatory boards and international checks and balance checkers investigating the groundbreaking $70 billion deal.

Plus, Xbox head Phil Spencer and PlayStation boss Jim Ryan have gone out of their way to throw some next-gen ray-traced shade all over the place.

At the heart of it all is Call of Duty, and its potential to become an Xbox franchise. Sony sees this as a threat to PlayStation, and the entire planet Earth, and is seemingly doing its best to throw a DualSense adaptive trigger-powered spanner into the works. The latest release in the franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, made a bazillion dollars without breaking a sweat - so perhaps, not unwarranted. CoD is still king when it comes to taking the dosh that's burning a hole in players' pockets, and PlayStation is still numero one when it comes to platforms Call of Duty players do their duty.

And so, in a change of pace, Xbox head Phil Spencer announced that Microsoft has made deals with both Nintendo and Valve to ensure that Call of Duty will be dutifully calling both Nintendo consoles and Steam home for the next 10 years. For reference, Call of Duty hasn't appeared on a Nintendo console since something called the "Wii U" was a thing. Apparently, a similar deal was offered to Sony, though there hasn't been an official response from them. They're most likely waiting on regulatory injunctions and legal red stamps before agreeing and then saying something like "oh well, maybe if the deal went through".

It's a bit of a mess, but Valve's Game Newell supplied a statement to Kotaku that basically says he trusts Microsoft and the idea that Call of Duty not appearing on other platforms is silly.

"Microsoft offered and even sent us a draft agreement for a long-term Call of Duty commitment but it wasn’t necessary for us," Gabe Newell wrote before pausing to make a point with his fingers. "A) we’re not believers in requiring any partner to have an agreement that locks them to shipping games on Steam into the distant future, B) Phil and the games team at Microsoft have always followed through on what they told us they would do so we trust their intentions, and C) we think Microsoft has all the motivation they need to be on the platforms and devices where Call of Duty customers want to be."

And so the dance continues. Assuming it actually goes through, the Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard deal will close sometime mid-2023.