UK regulators deal major hit to Microsoft’s promise to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo consoles

On Feb. 21, Microsoft announced its 10-year partnership with Nintendo, aimed at bringing Call of Duty and other Xbox games to Nintendo players. But this seems highly unlikely considering the capabilities of the current generation of Nintendo Switch consoles. The U.K. regulatory body, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) pointed this out in its latest report.

The CMA is investigating Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition and has released a report. According to the CMA documents, the regulator has concluded the current generation of Nintendo Switch consoles will not be able to run Call of Duty.

Even if the technical gap between the current Switch and PlayStation/Xbox consoles is somehow minimized, the gameplay experience will be horrendous due to bad optimization. 

The U.K. regulators also reported Activision’s past attempts at developing Call of Duty for Nintendo Switch. But the venture failed due to Switch’s limited capabilities which were creating various storage and other technical issues. It also found redacted statements on Activision’s documents citing too much extra work needed on the game’s portability.

The CMA believes Nintendo Switch may not be able to run a fast-paced, action-shooter-intensive game like Call of Duty. There will be issues regarding storage, graphics, and framerate due to Switch’s technical limitations. This makes the regulators doubt Microsoft’s promise on bringing the FPS title to Switch.

Although there are a few high-end games like Fortnite, Doom Eternal, and Apex Legends available on Nintendo Switch, there’s a chance we might not be able to play the latest Call of Duty on the device just yet.