The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concerns with Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Microsft is trying to address the CMA’s issues by vowing to bring the mega-popular video game franchise Call of Duty to Nintendo consoles. The CMA, however, argues that the Nintendo Switch won’t be able to run Call of Duty.
Developers may get Call of Duty to run on Nintendo Switch in some capacity. However, the CMA doesn’t feel like it’ll be a very different experience compared to the games on Xbox and PlayStation.
“Microsoft and Nintendo have now negotiated and signed a binding 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft President, recently. However, while Smith’s statement mentions features and content, it leaves out visual parity.
The biggest concern with Call of Duty on Nintendo Switch is the graphical capabilities of the Switch hardware. Call of Duty is a franchise known for running at a stable 60 frames per second. The Switch has proven capable of running high-powered games such as DOOM Eternal and Control. However, it can’t always do it independently. Instead, the Switch harnesses the power of the cloud to run games it can’t run natively.
Reason for Concern
A CMA report states that their concerns are not unfounded. “Publishers’ views similarly indicated that developing a game for Switch is a significantly different task relative to doing it for Xbox and PS,” the CMA’s findings say, “due to its technical differences. For example, one publisher stated that it encountered technical difficulties when bringing a game to Nintendo Switch but no difficulty in bring[ing] the same game to Xbox or PlayStation.”
“The publisher noted that the Switch’s limited graphics and storage are technical limitations that affect the performance of competitive games more than that of game(s) brought to Xbox or PlayStation. Another publisher stated that several of its games are not available on Nintendo as Nintendo has different capabilities from PlayStation and Xbox.”
These findings back a concern people have regarding Microsoft’s agreement with Nintendo. It’s just lip service to get their acquisition of Activision Blizzard approved, critics say. In addition, publishers echo the concerns regarding Call of Duty running on Switch. For some, this proves that Nintendo fans will get a different Call of Duty experience.
What Are the Next Steps
Outside of the UK, additional countries are weighing in on the Microsoft merger. Unlike the UK, they all give a thumbs up and approve the pending deal. The UK, however, seems to lean on the opposite side of the fence. Their findings mention that they feel it beneficial to make Call of Duty exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem.
This goes in line with what’s coming from upcoming Bethesda games. Starfield and Redfall, developed under the Bethesda umbrella, are Xbox-exclusive titles. As an argument against this belief, Xbox Head Phil Spencer has repeatedly stated that Xbox-exclusive games are on a case-by-case basis. Besides the agreement with Nintendo, Microsoft has vowed to ensure their games are released on the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service.
You can argue that it’s beneficial for Microsoft to ensure Call of Duty remains multiplatform. The CMA findings also mention that the shooter landscape is most popular on a PlayStation console. Removing Call of Duty from such a friendly environment could harm the game’s revenue.
Additionally, it’s possible to theorize that having Call of Duty available in the Xbox Game Pass library makes the deal worth it. However, some critics believe that Microsoft will have to make concessions. For example, Microsoft would not acquire certain games, such as Call of Duty.
Whether or not these concessions happen remains to be seen. However, Microsoft seems determined to acquire all intellectual properties under the Activision umbrella.
