Microsoft has announced it has signed a 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty back to Nintendo for users on current platforms like Nintendo Switch which is set “the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity,” according to Microsoft president and vice chair, Brad Smith in a tweet.
“Microsoft and Nintendo have now negotiated and signed a binding 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players — the same days as Xbox, with full feature and content parity. We are committed to providing long-term equal access to Call of Duty to other gaming platforms,” Microsoft and Nintendo said in a joint statement on Twitter.
We’ve now signed a binding 10-year contract to bring Xbox games to Nintendo’s gamers. This is just part of our commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms. pic.twitter.com/JmO0hzw1BO
— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) February 21, 2023
Smith does add to the statement by saying that the binding deal is “part of [Microsoft’s] commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms.” This wording at least hints that Xbox may be publishing more than just Call of Duty games on Nintendo Switch devices in the future which the FPS franchise hasn’t seen the light of day in a major way on Nintendo since 2013 with Call of Duty: Ghosts on the Wii U.
Interestingly, the news of the deal comes off the heels of Microsoft jumping through hoops to get its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard from January of last year approved by regulators in the US” FTC, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, and the European Commission being less than favourable to the purchase. The criticism of the acquisition is that if it were to go through that it would do more harm to competition and consumers, so the news of Microsoft’s deal with Nintendo may be the company’s way of battling those comments and is legally trying to work with its competitor to add value to Nintendo’s catalogue and consumers with games like Call of Duty.
