The UK's Competition and Markets Authority threw an unexpected twist into the Microsoft Activision Blizzard acquisition tale this week, confirming it has blocked the deal from going ahead. That doesn't mean the deal is dead as Microsoft and Activision have made it very clear they will be appealing the decision. The CMA's leading reason for blocking the merger is Xbox's potential hold over cloud gaming should the merger happen, but a closer look at the report has also revealed a pledge to Nintendo also played into the decision.
Spotted by Wccftech (thanks, Nintendo Life) in the CMA's hefty 418-page report was a reference to Xbox's ten-year deal with Nintendo pledging to bring Call of Duty games to the Switch, and whatever replaces it, for the coming decade. Despite that deal - which naturally hinged on the merger being approved - being struck, the CMA has made it clear in its report that it remains unconvinced Call of Duty will be able to properly run on Nintendo hardware.
“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 report reads. Despite the repeated promises from Xbox that Nintendo will get the same Call of Duty as other platforms, there has been no concrete evidence offered up to explain how exactly that will happen.
The assumption is that Call of Duty will run on Switch via the cloud much like other third-party games already do on the platform. If accurate, that wouldn't be ideal, but it appears to be the only way the series would possibly be able to run on a Nintendo console. Xbox boss Phil Spencer is the one who previously promised Nintendo will get the same Call of Duty as everyone else, while Microsoft's Brad Smith claimed it will run “as you'd expect” on Switch. Words that feel as if they were selected very carefully.
Whether Call of Duty can run on Switch or not is now low on Microsoft's list of priorities when it comes to all things merger. Getting the CMA's approval by way of appeal is now priority number one, and it still has approval from the European Commission and issues with the FTC in the US to worry about. If the merger ever does go ahead, it seems likely the Switch will have been replaced by its rumored successor by that time.