The merger agreement, signed in January 2022, provided for closing in July 2023. As the FTC and the antitrust world examined the deal, a consensus of sort seemed to emerge that the "overlaps" in game titles alone would not be enough to threaten the acquisition. But Sony complained publicly that the deal would allow Microsoft to make Call of Duty, the most played game on PlayStation, exclusive to Xbox, and that the three years of access offered by Microsoft was wholly inadequate. Other commentators pointed to the Commission's newly found interest in labor markets raised concerns that a Microsoft-Activision will be overly powerful as an employer of creatives and coders that make video games. Mr. Smith then went to work to fix it first, before the FTC's decision about whether to challenge the deal. He made a deal with Nintendo to make Call of Duty available to the Switch console if the deal goes through and offered the same deal to Sony. He got sign-off on the deal from the Communications Workers of America.