Call of Duty will come to Nintendo for 10 years if Microsoft purchase goes through

HEAD of Xbox Gaming, Phil Spencer, has announced that Microsoft has signed a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo consoles.

This deal will only come into effect if Microsoft’s proposed $70billion (£58billion) acquisition of publisher Activision Blizzard goes through.

The deal is currently being examined by antitrust regulators all around the world, as there are fears over Microsoft creating a monopoly over the gaming industry.

Competitor Sony is fighting the acquisitions, claiming that Microsoft owning Call of Duty would cost PlayStation dear.

However, Xbox claims that it offered PlayStation a 10-year deal for Call of Duty as soon as the deal was accepted by Activision Blizzard, which PlayStation refused.

Now that a similar deal between Nintendo and Xbox has been reached, it shows that Xbox is open to Call of Duty appearing on other platforms.

The first Call of Duty game to come to Nintendo was Call of Duty 3, which launched on the Wii  in 2006.

Since then, a number of Nintendo consoles featured Call of Duty games, with five coming out on Wii, five for the DS, and two on Wii U.

However, a game from the series hasn’t appeared on a Nintendo console since 2013, when Call of Duty: Ghosts released on the Wii U.

There are fears that the modern mainline Call of Duty games, like the recently released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, would not be able to run on the Switch’s comparatively weaker hardware.

However, it will likely be a while before the acquisition is finalised, and Nintendo may release a newer console by then. 

The other option is that Nintendo will receive less intensive Call of Duty titles, such as Call of Duty Mobile.

Despite concerns, it is a major win for Nintendo, which hasn’t had one of the games on its console for almost a decade.

Call of Duty is one of the world’s most popular games, and even poorly reviewed games in the series end up selling well.

Whether or not the acquisition goes through is yet to be seen.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.