As the battle over Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard heats up, it’s clear Microsoft is doubling-down on their commitment to bring AB games to more players as a way to seal the deal. This morning Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President at Microsoft, announced that they have signed a ten-year, legally binding deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players.
According to the press release (below), the deal guarantees that Nintendo players will receive Call of Duty on the same day, and with feature parity, as Xbox players.
We’ve now signed a binding 10-year contract to bring Xbox games to Nintendo’s gamers. This is just part of our commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms. pic.twitter.com/JmO0hzw1BO
— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) February 21, 2023
As previously reported, Microsoft offered PlayStation the same deal but it was declined. For Nintendo, this is a very large development as Call of Duty hasn’t landed on a Nintendo console since Ghosts and Black Ops 2 on the Wii U.
How these will be delivered to Nintendo Players is another matter entirely. Given the nature of the COD games and their size/complexity, we have to imagine they will utilize the Switch’s Cloud functionality in the short-term (with longer term integrations TBD). No matter what though, it’s great to potentially see Call of Duty reaching Nintendo-only players again.
[…] to this the news of Xbox’s partnership with Nintendo, and Phil’s intention to be able to play Xbox anywhere continues to drive the company. With […]