Microsoft’s desire to acquire Activision-Blizzard has been rather messy. They are currently in talks with the UK government in an attempt to convince them that this acquisition should be approved. What makes the whole thing more strange, however, is that Nintendo has been indirectly caught up in this. For example, Microsoft is also having to reassure the UK government that they can fulfill its agreement to bring Call of Duty games to Nintendo hardware for the next decade.
That said, it isn’t surprising that the Nintendo Switch’s power has been a source of concern. Not only has Microsoft heard this, but they have expressed confidence that they can optimize Call of Duty games for Nintendo’s console. They told the UK government that Activision has “a long history of optimizing game performance for available hardware capabilities”.
They continued, saying that Microsoft and Activision “are confident that in addition to Warzone, Call of Duty buy-to-play titles (e.g., Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) can be optimized to run on the Nintendo Switch in a timely manner using standard techniques which have been used to bring games such as Apex Legends, DOOM Eternal, Fortnite and Crysis 3 to the Switch”.
Warzone, or to be more specific, the engine that the game runs on, is also used in their argument. They feel that the engine that Warzone runs on can be adjusted to fit the Nintendo Switch’s power. In fact, they state that the engine is “optimized to run on a wide range of hardware devices (ranging from the Xbox One console released in 2015 up to the Xbox Series X)”. Warzone itself can support graphics cards that date as far back as 2015, a couple of years before the Switch even released.
That said, there are still a lot of questions up in the air at the moment. It is unknown how the UK government will respond to this argument, and even if they’ll allow the acquisition to go through. If the deal is finalized, then the air of uncertainty will shift to which Call of Duty games were to be released on the Switch. Whatever happens, we’ll let you know.
“In fact, they state that the engine is “optimized to run on a wide range of hardware devices (ranging from the Xbox One console released in 2015 up to the Xbox Series X)””
I’m not sure that’s a genius argument when the Xbox One itself is significantly more powerful than Switch. That said, I do think CoD can come over to Switch. The general rule is that games that run at 60 FPS on PS4/Xbox One are capable of being ported to Switch at 30 FPS with graphical sacrifices (such as Doom and Doom Eternal). It won’t be a phenomenal experience, but it’ll be playable.
It’s pretty funny how much of Microsoft’s bit to buy Activision-Blizzard seems to rest on whether they can bring Call of Duty over to Switch though, considering that game already isn’t on Switch so it’s not like restricting it from Nintendo consoles would make it any more of a monopoly than it already is. Surely the more important guarantee is that it (and some other key titles) would remain on Playstation as they already are.
On PC it runs in a lot of potatos, the game is very scalable with a lot of graphics settings, custom resolutions and dynamic sliders.
I personally think it’s possible, even on the Switch. It won’t be 1080p/60fps of course but it can run with some compromises.
CoD isn’t a demanding game, Doom, Crysis and The Witcher 3 are so of course the Switch can run it. The real question is are they going to fully optimize or just do a lazy port considering i don’t trust Activision to do anything right.
I’m more curious how Hogwarts is gonna work in the Switch. I’m not really a fan of Call of Duty. It just seems that you play one War game you played them all.
I am not normally a fan of Call of Duty, However i did see that the Activision Twitter account posted a video of “Everyones favorite TMNT nemesis” Yup, Shredder is coming to Call of Duty as an operator. Although they haven’t said what Call of Duty he’ll be in, not yet anyhow.