As the UK Competition and Markets Authority blocked Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s merger yesterday, it also asserted that Nintendo’s consoles aren’t technically capable of running Call of Duty.
“Nintendo does not currently offer CoD, and we have seen no evidence to suggest that its consoles would be technically capable of running a version of CoD that is similar to those in Xbox and PlayStation in terms of quality of gameplay and content,” the CMA explains in a final report.
The entity believes that Xbox and PlayStation consoles compete more closely with each other in terms of content, target audience, and technology. On the other hand, Nintendo competes less closely with both Xbox and PlayStation because its consoles have different technical specifications and more child-friendly titles.
This comes after Microsoft already committed to a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms, but it seems like that wasn’t enough to convince the CMA to approve the merger, even though Microsoft previously said it was "confident" it could get it running on the Switch. The UK regulator cited Microsoft’s potential dominance in future cloud gaming as its main concern for blocking the merger.
Cloud gaming is still a small part of the overall industry, but even Nintendo has gotten into it by releasing cloud versions of popular AAA titles like Control and Resident Evil Village. Perhaps that could be a solution to putting Call of Duty on Nintendo platforms in the future.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He's been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
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