Microsoft Legally Commits to 10 Years of Call of Duty Games on Nintendo Consoles
Microsoft president Brad Smith today announced the company has signed a binding 10-year legal agreement with Nintendo for Call of Duty games.
The formal agreement follows a promise made by Microsoft back in December to bring the gaming franchise to Nintendo hardware once the Activision Blizzard acquisition is finalized.
In a tweet(Opens in a new window), Smith said this was "just part of our commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms." A statement attached to the tweet as an image reads:
"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 - so they can experience Call of Duty just as Xbox and PlayStation gamers enjoy Call of Duty. We are committed to providing long term equal access to Call of Duty to other gaming platforms, bringing more choice to more players and more competition to the gaming market."
The "full feature and content" parity part of the statement will raise a few eyebrows simply because Nintendo's Switch hardware is so under-powered compared to the Xbox Series X and PS5. It could be that the agreement will only apply to Nintendo's Switch successor, but even then it's unlikely to be a hybrid console that can match Xbox and PlayStation on performance and features.
Nintendo already allows a "cloud version" of some games that don't (and couldn't) run natively on the Switch. They stream content to each device instead. Could it be that Microsoft's agreement will mean Call of Duty is a cloud version of each game on Switch? That would certainly allow for feature and content parity.
It's unusual for a console maker
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