Two weeks ago,Xbox officially signed a ten-year deal with Nintendopledging to bringCall of Dutygames to its consoles on the same day as other platforms. Providing itsActivision Blizzardmerger goes through, of course. However, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) remains unconvinced the first-person shooter series will be able to run smoothly onNintendohardware.
Xboxpenning a Call of Duty deal with Nintendo is the latest step by the former to convince regulators that its Activision acquisition would be a good thing for the industry. However, as highlighted byGamesRadar, the CMA’s findings suggest promising Nintendo will get Call of Duty may have had the opposite effect. “We have also seen evidence that large shooter games do not run as well on Nintendo’s consoles due to its technical differentiation,” the report reads.
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“Porting to theNintendo Switchmay require financial investment and compromises on graphical quality or the use of cloud-gaming solutions.” Cloud gaming has been another concern to receive a lot of attention from the CMA. The UK watchdog previously claimed allowing the Activision merger to go ahead could result inXbox stifling competition in the cloud gaming arena.
The CMA’s report goes on to state the differences between cloud and console gaming, adding, “the ability of the Switch to connect to a third-party cloud gaming service provider would not make it a closer competitor to Xbox andPlayStation.” Xbox has claimed Nintendo will get the same version of Call of Duty on other platforms, but in doing so appears to have weakened its merger case with the CMA.
The agreed-upon Nintendo Call of Duty deal will only happen if the acquisition goes ahead. What doesn’t appear to have been considered much at all is by the time the deal does go through, Nintendo may well have launched a new console. Rumors continue to swirl suggestingthe Switch’s successor will be revealed before the end of 2023. Perhaps that’s why Xbox is confident an unaltered version of Call of Duty will run on Nintendo hardware.
