Call of Duty will start coming to Nintendo platforms [Update: ABK Acquisition Approved]
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I don't think the goal of this timing is to be of any value, but more for being a shrewd move for them to use in ABK discourse. It's pretty transparent but they must believe it gives them a leg up.
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I think Phil already said its not cloud. They wouldn't even need to wait if that was the case, they could have since been releasing it
The other post already mentioned messaging is certainly not an essential feature and voice chat is done the exact same way on all other platforms. Game chat is offered in tons of games and has nothing to do with Micro or Sony. Micro and Sony offer system wide voice chat which is the party chat feature. In game chat is provided by the game itself, that's why all these games that offer crossplay are able to still allow you to chat with any teammate no matter the platform. Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, Realm Royale, Fortnite, Paladins, and Rogue Company all offer in game voice chat on Switch, no app required just plug in a headset. The app is pretty much Nintendo's system wide chat of course without being system wide lol. 3rd parties are allowed to choose the app but aren't required. Mortal Kombat and another 3rd party game went with the app alongside Nintendo themselves ofcourse. Fortnite's custom chat allows you to voice chat with others in completely different marches, which is awesome.
The deal hasn't gone through. They can't release anything and correct me if I'm wrong are there any streaming services that has COD? Activision probably takes a similar view of them as subscription services.
Yes, ABK expressly doesn't support cloud to this point and have indicated they don't plan to in the foreseeable future. Which also makes regulators pivoting and focusing so hard on cloud perplexing when there's no downstream input to be withheld in that market.
Out of the three only the CMA seems to have outlined their reasoning. The EU initially seem fine with it. Meanwhile the FTC is bullheadedly charging forth with their ideologically driven nonsense.
According to the CMA the deal is a non-starter for them because:
- MS would have to develop a game for weaker hardware
- Plans change
- The experience would be different
Likewise, regardless of whether [] with Nintendo may be legally binding, notwithstanding that this theory of harm is primarily focussed on SIE for reasons already explained, there is also no certainty that this will lead to CoD becoming available on Nintendo. As stated above, the Nintendo Switch has certain technical limitations compared to the latest PlayStation and Xbox consoles (including, for instance, storage capacity). These limitations would need to be overcome for Call of Duty to become available for Nintendo Switch. This is notwithstanding any further disagreements or issues that may become apparent as both parties further develop []. Further, it is not clear at this stage the degree to which the CoD experience would differ on Nintendo Switch. This is acknowledged [].518 We are therefore unable to place material weight on this in terms of the Merged Entity’s ability and/or incentive to foreclose given the early stage of the process and unforeseeable impacts on the market, and the more general limitations around contractual protection as noted above.
So expect a lot of things to change overnight once payroll checks come from Microsoft since the 2 things Activision are opposed to are the 2 things they are spearheading.
Oh definitely. The problem is regulators defining something as an essential input in markets it's not actually engaged in. Except not always (see: Switch).
It’s so essential of an input in markets that in the mobile market they define it as a “casual” game. In fact their whole take on the mobile market is hilariously dated.
Agreed. This is exactly what will happen if the ABK deal goes through.
for ~1 year of CoD on cloud, I'm not sure if it's worth it
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Didn't CMA rejected 10 year plan before??
this seems more for EU
No, they said they didn’t consider it in their preliminary material. They said they aren’t sure of behavioral remedies, but on paper it’s not officially looked at.
In practice…yeah it’s probably not budging much.
That's exactly why they're probably going to take this approach.
No point in spinning up a Switch fork of their game engine for a single COD release, might as well just stream the PC/Xbox version on the current Switch model to start with; while they start preparing COD 2025 for Switch 2.
Well we just got this from the Microsoft press briefing via eurogamer.net
I only expected Activision games but even getting Xbox titles and also when the deal fails is amazing for Nintendo only gamers!
If CoD is ported to Switch it certainly would not be for one game just because it's successor is around the corner. CoD is similar to Fifa, games don't stop coming just because of a successor. If anything they would want to ride out it's last couple of years for as long as possible and the Switchs userbase is huge.
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That is indeed great news. It kind of merits its own thread, as this seems way beyond COD, and seemingly does not even depend on the deal going through.
If this quote isnt some huge game of telephone, then this is huge.
Edit: This was indeed a huge game of telephone
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Current and future Xbox games are already on switch (Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie, Skyrim, Wolfenstein, Doom, Ori 1 + 2) and/or announced as launching in switch (Minecraft Legends).
I would again caution people taking maximalist reads on this until proven otherwise. This does not mean Gears 6 and Starfield are coming to Switch 2. It probably does mean codifying games like Minecraft, who were always intended as multiplat form, formally in part of the same binding agreement as CoD, which is the primary focus of everything here. It may or may not include future titles like Crash Bandicoot from abk, but again, until proven otherwise it's best to take a minimal read to avoid disappointing or sensationalising.
I would again caution people taking maximalist reads on this until proven otherwise. This does not mean Gears 6 and Starfield are coming to Switch 2. It probably does mean codifying games like Minecraft, who were always intended as multiplat form, formally in part of the same binding agreement as CoD, which is the primary focus of everything here. It may or may not include future titles like Crash Bandicoot from abk, but again, until proven otherwise it's best to take a minimal read to avoid disappointing or sensationalising.
Watch Microsoft's "ten-year commitment" be streaming COD on Switch exclusively, so they don't have to spend any money on optimizing builds. That would be the ultimate monkey's paw.
Why are we assuming MS would need to go the streaming route? ABK already has a first person shooter on Switch with content parity and no, content parity does not mean 60 fps at 1080p lol. It means the content in the game is the same, the Switch versions will certainly be paired back visually and how it runs. Both Micro and Activision have released games on Switch without streaming. So why this weird fear of CoD streaming for Switch?
because it's cheap jokes
switch will be succeeded long before these 10 years are even up anyway
Native CoD Mobile / Warzone Mobile (if that's a going concern in the future).
CoD via streaming is the easiest path to fulfill commitments at the lowest development effort. I wouldn't assume there definitely won't be native versions going forward, but if there are that will definitely be extra work and maybe a job for a dedicated porting house if they don't have extra bandwidth to do it themselves. At least initially. It'll be targeting Switch 2 in any case because Microsoft won't be plausibly shipping a full mainline CoD they have enough control over to influence launch-platform choice until Q4 2024 or later. I guess maybe if this closes in June they could cobble together a streaming CoD on Switch 1 before November, but maybe not even then.
I don't think Nintendo cares, because in any universe this is more games than they were getting before, streaming or not.
Some of my favorite moments of this past generation was the Nintendo and Bethesda bromance early in Switch's life.
So when Microsoft bought them I was certainly disappointed, but I'm all for their love to once again bloom on the battlefield.
So when Microsoft bought them I was certainly disappointed, but I'm all for their love to once again bloom on the battlefield.
Except for Playstation hard fans, every gamer in the world has reasons to celebrate today news.
Call of Duty returning to Nintendo is huge.
It also generates far less money because who knows how successful streaming has been but it doesnt look very successful on Switch and there is no reason to believe Microsoft wouldn't provide the resources for a native port with far more potential. This idea that Microsoft isnt willing to put in the extra work is ridiculous, Switch has too large of a userbase to put in half effort. Microsoft will certainly support Switch 2 but supporting Switch 2 only wouldn't allow an enormous userbase from day one. Let's be honest, this isn't Microsoft trying to be Nintendo's friend. Microsoft wants to loosen the clutches of Sony on the ip, so bringing it too as many platforms as possible including Switch is ideal. Relying on Switch 2 isn't ideal because it's userbase is the smallest of the 3. Supporting Switch 1 asap is ideal because it has a larger userbase than PS5 and Xbox series combined.
PS: What Mobile game has come to Switch yet? Developers don't treat Switch like a mobile phone, they treat it like a gaming console ie ports from gaming consoles.
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There are absolutely mobile games on Switch, but you're right that for big publishers who have divisions producing the same IP in both mobile and console space, they tend to give Switch the console products or nothing at all.
CoD Mobile is just an easy idea for how to support the platform with a game well suited to it's hardware profile. You could do it on (relatively) short notice comparative to how long it would take to get a functional, good version of Modern Warfare 2 (2022). Keep in mind that MW2 is a game that the Xbox One drops down to 30fps territory at times; it is also rendering at 800x900 resolution during GPU stress points (not a typo, it's 1600x900 with a half scale applied to the horizontal axis). So as far as port difficulty goes, this is a game that will need heavily stripped back custom work done to it. And if they haven't started work on CoD 2024 for Switch (or the 2023 former expansion to MW2 that is now reported to be a stand alone boxed product), then that's not something I think they can do "quickly". If they contract a port house on day one, the second the ink is dry on the acquisition (maybe May/Juneish), I'm not confident they could do anything this year in terms of native ports of the full games.
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Really pathetic when PlayStation fans are showing hostility toward this deal when it's good for gamers.
Are people who own Playstation consoles supposed to be happy about never getting a Crash, Spyro, or Tony Hawk game again? Nintendo gamers will also miss out in this regard. Future Blizzard games will likely be exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC. There's a good chance that Activision would have brought Call of Duty to Nintendo once the Switch successor is released. They've already supported the Switch with some of their other franchises. No one cares when people champion this acquisition because of Game Pass or some other tangential benefit. Who cares if some people are against it.
Sure, anyone can like or dislike for whatever reason.
If you're a die hard Spyro guy I'd probably be sad either way though because there's none of those in development for any platform, at least internally. Tony Hawk's Existential Nightmare may or may not ever see another release. Crash is getting a weird multiplayer game at least. Acti doesn't even seem to publish external partner games anymore. When was the last one, Sekiro in 2019? For 2021 and 2022 they released literally only CoD with ~4-5,000 employees. A very sad state of affairs.
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Why in the world would you even entertain the idea of something from CoD this year on Switch? The acquisition isn't close to complete and end of February is already here. The next CoD in 2024 was always the earliest and it perfectly lines up with a Switch successor but CoD Mobile doesn't work best for Switch because it's not a tablet or smart phone. Microsoft wants CoDs bread and butter on Switch, the full retail releases is what they want. Stop judging off of power and start thinking with your pockets. Microsoft thinks with their pockets and could give a rats butt of how it runs, did you not see how Fortnite and Apex launched on Switch? Better yet, how about Pokemon? These developers will update with time but they want the money first to justify the commitment. It will cost $60 or $70 and Switch's massive userbase will buy it. Microsoft ain't relying on battlepasses from CoD Mobile. Really if you think about it, does it not make sense? Switch is already the 3rd highest selling platform in history, it doesn't need CoD, but introducing a new platform with a launch line up including something from Nintendo and CoD will certainly make a splash.
I could ask similar questions about why they'd bother supporting Switch 1 with native versions ever, honestly. Yeah it's a big install base by raw numbers but there's not much in the way of evidence of there being a big demographic there who are both very interested in CoD and who don't already own a Playstation, Xbox or PC. The fact that ABK has ignored the platform entirely thus far is probably a good indicator of the expected RoI versus effort despite it being their flagship franchise and other titles like Crash Bandicoot and Diablo making it over.
There's an incentive to put something on there asap, simply because this announcement has strategic implications for their acquisition strategy. But I suspect the fiscal motivators to give long tail support to the Switch 1 userbase is very marginal.
For me there’s frankly been no excuse as to why CoD has skipped the Switch. They have numerous options available to them if they are that concerned about roi, technical limitations, or storage. If FIFA can sell a half assed legacy edition every year to the tune of ~1mil copies then COD can find a way to be on the Switch. It shouldn’t have taken an acquisition for that to happen.
No you couldn't because Switch 1 has the userbase of 120+ million not Switch 2. Microsoft has an alternative motive in giving more options to loosen Playstations grip on CoD. Switch 2 will not help much towards that because it's userbase will be tiny compared to PS5. Activision never wanted to provide or invest in a team to make a Switch port happen. They don't have an alternative motive to go along with the resources required. Microsoft has the resources and the alternative motive to push this investment. This lack of evidence of CoD doing well on Switch is internet forum talk, how can I prove there is an audience without the game ever releasing on Switch? All Microsoft can do is release the game and let the audience for CoD take it from there. CoD is not the type of game to immediately ditch the previous generation. A Switch CoD would have more than one release because CoD always has stayed longer after a successor releases. You are seriously underestimating how bad Microsoft wants to undo the ties of CoD to PS. They gave Nintendo a 10 year commitment immediately along with Nvidea because they only care about harming PS. Investing in CoD on other platforms including Nintendo is the only way without making CoD exclusive. Switchs biggest advantage is its userbase, Switch 2 can't provide that yet. PS hates this deal because they gain more competitors (CoD going to more platforms including Switch) and PS loses the marketing deal. PS knows this deal is all about harming them, that's why it's so hard focused on CoD.
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If there was a game where people would abandon the previous gen version, I'd be CoD. It would grow user base on Drake faster than it would on Switch thanks to the technical gulf. Drake would offer that 60fps gameplay experience that Switch can't, which translates to better online experience
Well we could try finding analogous types of games. There is no "CoD" exactly but there are a lot of publishers who experimented with various releases, or who were conspicuously absent by not releasing certain games.
Bethesda was an early supporter of the Switch with FPS games. I even purchased Wolfenstein and Doom for the novelty as much as anything, I loved those games on PC. They did eventually put Doom Eternal on Switch but it came very late and evidently wasn't a priority. No real evidence of strong sales on any of their releases - at least nothing they bragged about or which set the charts on fire. We did get Skyrim Switch but no Fallouts or other ES games - well except Fallout Shelter (to answer the earlier question someone was asking about "who puts mobile games on Switch?").
Electronic Arts supports sports games on Switch but doesn't bother with Battlefield. Battlefield V came out in 2018, Battlefield 2042 came out in 2021. Battlefront 2 was 2017. None of these recieved ports, not even late ones. They're big competitive multiplayer shooter franchises, and the kinds of games that sell many millions even when they're a bit of a flop. This is the closest analogue to CoD as a franchise.
Grand Theft Auto V is one of the biggest games ever, sells gazillions of copies and gets re-released on new systems all the time. No word on a Switch conversion, although technically speaking the game did release on 360 and PS3 so there isn't an absolute technical barrier here.
PubG is widely mulitplatform, enjoying conversions to platforms such as mobile phones (albeit with alternate versions), but they never bothered on Switch.
Epic Games releases Fortnight on Switch, and that's one of the biggest games in the world. Luckily, we do have at least some data:
Not perfectly analogous of course, but nothing is, right? Still, Switch revenues were some unknown fraction of 18.7%. If we assumed it was an even split for argument's sake, 6.2% of revenue. Despite the enormous install base and popularity.
I think it's important to emphasize that total unit sales or revenue percentages aren't the full story, because the question you're asking is not "how many copies will I sell on Nintendo Switch?" the question you're really asking is "how many copies will I sell on Nintendo Switch who would not have otherwise bought the game?". That's not really knowable to us, but that's the kind of thing they're estimating when they do their calculations on whether to support or not support a platform. If they sell one copy on Nintendo Switch instead of PS4, they've lost money because we now know Playstation offers them a discounted revenue cut. But mostly, it's just robbing peter to pay paul unless it's a new customer. Nintendo Switch owners have been been shown as being the most likely to own another console of some form (see also the CMA's conclusions about "multi homing").
They have to weigh all this up against the cost of release. I don't think they simply irrationally hate money. It's probably got a lot of unknowns involved to be clear, and I don't think it's certain it would fail or be worthless, but it's at least facially plausible that their previous position could have been the economically correct one.
If only companies made economically sound decisions & were not irrational it would make the discussion that much easier. As we have seen for years now that is never really the case & sometimes with Nintendo really becomes apparent in certain instances.
I'm not sure where to even begin with this post. It's straight downplay and convenient ignoring of things that did come. The focus on what didnt come is weird might i also add, because Microsift does intend on bringing CoD to Nintendo platforms. Doom and Doom Eternal went to Switch along with multiple Wolfenstein games. No reason at all to assume no priority lol, Panic button worked the port. Bethesda was of course then purchased by MS. You name EA and the Battlefield franchise which I don't recall going to Wii or WiiU despite those platforms getting CoD but oddly you ignore the fps from EA that did come in Apex Legends(EAs main focus). ABK for example did bring Overwatch 2 but you'll rather name drop Pubg and GTA lol. Fortnite i remember something different for those figures, i think you downplayed Switchs contribution. Maybe stop focusing on the 3rd parties that don't support Switch and focus on the ones that do. I know there's a market for first person shooters on Switch due to Fortnite, Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, Rogue Company, Realm Royale, and Warface all getting continued support on Switch. No that's not my question at all because it assumes everyone interested in CoD will just buy a PS or Xbox and I'm sure Microsoft does want less CoD sales on PS lmao. Are you forgetting what Microsoft goal is to begin with? Or are you still pushing Sony's agenda of Switch has no audience of shooters and my proof is things I pulled out of thin air like Doom Eternal had no priority and cheery picking Pubg not being on Switch means no audience?
Drake would build a base faster I agree but Microsoft likely wiil not rely on Drake and its smaller userbase day one. Remember Fifa despite being a legacy edition has sold more with each release because the userbase is simply enormous. A smaller userbase can't compete no matter how much better the game runs.
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Excellent post. Companies have finite resources, they'll prioritise the best money making opportunities. If your game drives revenue through online play/add-on content, then the smart business decision is to focus your resources on the platforms where players are spending on MTX and where online gaming is thriving. It's 2023 and doing voice chat on Switch is still a chore. I'm sure someone is going to quote me and talk about Mario Kart online numbers but I think we all know that's not a relevant example. If Nintendo wants more GAAS games on the platform, they need to overhaul the online system for the next Switch. But if we're honest, Nintendo is making record revenues, and their model works great, so there's no reason to make drastic shifts in their strategy.
Xbox accounting for 27.5% of Fortnite revenue is crazy! Almost 4x what Fortnite makes on iOS but only a fraction of the audience.
Call of Duty on Nintendo absolutely has strong commercial potential if Microsoft/Activision maintains their commitment of content/feature parity and don't half-ass things like with the COD entries on Wii/NDS.
Remember that Warzone is F2P, so a lot of people will impulse download a Nintendo version since it's free. Call of Duty also supports full cross-play/progression, so those playing the Nintendo version of Warzone who already play the game on PS/XB/PC can seamlessly transfer their progress back-and-forth across platforms. Even in the absolute worst case scenario where porting COD to Nintendo hardware somehow doesn't produce any new COD players, it would still result in stronger engagement for existing players since they now have an additional platform to play the same game (on the go too).
This ease of onboarsing simply didn't exist for older Call of Duty titles, which is why comparisons to Wii/NDS COD titles are disingenuous.
Remember that Warzone is F2P, so a lot of people will impulse download a Nintendo version since it's free. Call of Duty also supports full cross-play/progression, so those playing the Nintendo version of Warzone who already play the game on PS/XB/PC can seamlessly transfer their progress back-and-forth across platforms. Even in the absolute worst case scenario where porting COD to Nintendo hardware somehow doesn't produce any new COD players, it would still result in stronger engagement for existing players since they now have an additional platform to play the same game (on the go too).
This ease of onboarsing simply didn't exist for older Call of Duty titles, which is why comparisons to Wii/NDS COD titles are disingenuous.