In the wake of Microsoft’s press conference yesterday after crucial talks about the Activision Blizzard merger, the platform holder announced new deals that it says will bring Xbox games to more players than ever before. Ten-year deals were confirmed with two key players in the industry: Nintendo and Nvidia. This is tremendously exciting news for users of GeForce Now – point blank the best cloud streaming service available – and for Nintendo players too, who can expect fully featured versions of Call of Duty should the acquisition close. So, how significant is the Nvidia collaboration and to what extent can COD successfully transition to the Nintendo platform?
Let’s tackle the Nintendo question first, where there are multiple routes forward for Microsoft in ensuring a feature-complete rendition of Call of Duty can make its way to a mobile console platform. Legitimate questions have been asked about how the Switch can operate an engine as advanced as the IW9 technology found in Modern Warfare 2 in a world where so many games struggle once ported to Nintendo’s hybrid machine. The task would not be easy and if Infinity Ward were to scale its engine down to Switch in the way that Epic has with Fortnite, there are fundamental concerns that the inevitable drop to 30fps would be a step too far in compromising the core experience.
There are two potential answers to this question and the timing of Nintendo ports is crucial. Even if the deal were approved today, the fact is that the time required to refactor Activision’s existing technology would effectively rule out this year’s Call of Duty offering, whatever form it takes. 2024? That’s more of a possibility and at that point, there’s a very strong possibility that Nintendo’s primary platform will have ‘switched’ to a next generation offering which capabilities far beyond the existing machine.
