Call of Duty will be heading to Nintendo platforms, following Microsoft’s yet to be approved acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming and Head of Xbox, announced on Twitter that “Microsoft has entered into a 10-year commitment to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo following the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King.”
In a follow-up tweet seen further below, Spencer confirmed that future games released on Steam would launch “simultaneously to Xbox” after the merger with Activision Blizzard King gets regulatory approval. In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Dec. 6, Spencer was unable to confirm a timeline for when a Call of Duty title would launch on the Nintendo Switch or future Nintendo platform.
I'm also pleased to confirm that Microsoft has committed to continue to offer Call of Duty on @Steam simultaneously to Xbox after we have closed the merger with Activision Blizzard King. @ATVI_AB @ValveSoftware
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) December 7, 2022
The future of the shooter franchise with Nintendo is conditional on the closing date for the deal, estimated to land around June 2023, followed by what Spencer describes as “development work” that “would likely take a little bit of time.” He further says the entire back catalog of Call of Duty would need to be explored to determine which titles from the franchise would make the switch to Nintendo (no pun intended). However, it remains more likely a future Call of Duty title would “likely be the first to arrive on the Switch,” the Washington Report reads.
As we know, Activision will not release a Call of Duty title in 2023, so the earliest we can expect a Nintendo crossover would be 2024. Spencer says once a Call of Duty title lands on other consoles, including Playstation, Xbox, and PC, the game “would also be available on Nintendo at the same time.” It’s worth considering that by the time the next Call of Duty game launches, we may be gaming on a new Nintendo console. This news comes less than a month after a proposed anti-trust lawsuit from the FTC to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, so this could be a very smart move by Microsoft to look cooperative with its fellow gaming platforms.
Would you play Call of Duty on a Nintendo console? Let us know your thoughts on this ongoing saga below, and for further updates – stay tuned with GameLuster.
