UK: Call of Duty won’t work on Switch

The UK’s competition regulator has said that Microsoft’s pledge to put Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms is an empty promise.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has expressed concern about Microsoft’s promise to put Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms, saying it doesn’t believe it’s feasible.

Microsoft previously pledged to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms earlier in the year, in an attempt to sweeten its $100 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard with regulators. The move was widely seen to be Microsoft proving to regulators that it won’t make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox if the deal is successful.

The company announced it had entered into a binding agreement with Nintendo last month, legally requiring Microsoft to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms if the deal passes regulatory scrutiny. It said that Call of Duty would be the same on Nintendo as it is on Xbox or any other platform it comes to, but the CMA isn’t convinced.

GamesRadar recently went through public documents from the CMA, particularly the preliminary report handed down in February, and found that the regulator expressed doubt that a deal between Microsoft and Nintendo for Call of Duty would matter.

If successful, Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard would be the biggest acquisition in games history. Photo: Ina FASSBENDER / AFP

Later in the report, the regulator expressed doubt that the Nintendo Switch could adequately run Call of Duty, and that even if it could, additional money and resources would be required to make it happen.

“We have … seen evidence that large shooter games do not run as well on Nintendo’s consoles due to its technical differentiation,” the CMA said in its report, “One third party [publisher] submitted that graphically intensive shooters may often be targeted originally at PlayStation and Xbox due to the specific characteristics of their console performance and that porting to the Nintendo Switch may require financial investment and compromises on graphical quality”.

There are a few caveats to this concern, however. Nintendo may be planning on releasing a more powerful console in the future, and any such deal between the two companies would likely take that into consideration. The company could also release cloud streaming versions of Call of Duty games, as has happened with other games in the past like Resident Evil and Hitman.

It’s unlikely that the Nintendo Switch will see a release of Call of Duty. Picture: Nintendo

In announcing the deal, Microsoft shied away from mentioning the Nintendo Switch itself, simply saying that it would “bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms”, suggesting that the Switch might not be the target for the company’s lofty goals.

The CMA is due to make its verdict and issue its full report on the attempted deal on April 26, 2023.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.