It is becoming more and more hotter underfoot from Microsoft, because the acquisition of Activision is no longer so obvious. Because that doesn’t make Microsoft too big a player (yes) and Call of Duty will remain available forever for PlayStation gamers, for example (no). In particular, the European Union and the British authorities have a lot of questions, and next Thursday Microsoft will visit the EU to answer many of those questions (via FCC).
Well, Microsoft can now give a positive answer to one of those questions, because Nintendo is guaranteed to get Call of Duty games for the next ten years. But wait, are Nintendo users actually waiting for that (no)?
If we look at the history of the franchise on the lovable Nintendo platform, Call of Duty has always been considered too heavy for the specifications of Nintendo systems. A few amateur versions on the Wii with forced Wii Motion functionalities (Reflex!) and Black Ops 2 and Ghosts that appeared on Wii U in a slimmed-down form.
How they are going to conjure up the current Call of Duty games on a Switch remains to be seen, it could of course be done via streaming. It must be said that ten years is really a very long time, because will Call of Duty still be relevant enough in a decade to be labeled as a system-seller.
For Nintendo it’s great, they didn’t have CoD on their systems anymore, they’ll get that in the next few years. Sony won’t sign the cross on a new five- or even ten-year deal. Imagine Call of Duty staying this big, then after that deal expires, there won’t be any more Call of Duty on PlayStation, at least not without an Xbox Game Pass app on the system. To be continued!
