WIth how big of an IP Call of Duty is, it is no wonder that the platform availability of any of the franchise's releases is a huge point of contention and interest. In recent years, the series has settled down into offering availability on the latest Xbox, Playstation, and PC hardware, with the likes of Nintendo falling to the wayside in terms of collaboration with the mega first-person shooter IP.
However, that could potentially change with the news that Microsoft has pledged to bring the Call of Duty franchise to Nintendo consoles for up to a decade, should its acquisition of CoD publisher Activision Blizzard be legally made official. While this may outwardly seem like a massive announcement for the IP, it is important to note at this stage of the deal that this news may only be serving as a mere caveat to some of the legalities surrounding the acquisition.
Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Acquisition
Microsoft shocked the gaming industry back in January when it began the process of acquiring the hugely influential Activision Blizzard for a record-breaking $68.7 billion. In what appears to be an extremely bold expansion of Microsoft and Xbox's reach, the Activision Blizzard deal would see Microsoft hold ownership of some seriously impressive IPs. The likes of Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo all fall under the Activision Blizzard name, with Call of Duty undoubtedly being the crown jewel.
Given the huge implications of Microsoft owning such a powerful publisher, the acquisition faced heavy amounts of scrutiny and criticism from within the industry that has persisted to this day. Predictably, a lot of this criticism has come from Microsoft's direct competitors within the console space, with PlayStation in particular being extremely vocal in its disapproval of the potential deal.
Discourse surrounding the possibility of the deal falling through recently reached a fever pitch with the news that the Federal Trade Commission is set to take legal action against Microsoft in order to prevent its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, citing how the deal could be harmful to industry competition. In the days prior to these developments, Microsoft surprisingly announced its intentions to bring Call of Duty back to Nintendo hardware for the next ten years, the timing of which has led many to believe this announcement was tied to the legal scrutiny of the deal.
The Legal Aspects of Call of Duty and Nintendo
The primary concerns surrounding Microsoft's Activision deal is that Microsoft could begin throttling the platform availability of the franchise outside of Xbox, effectively monopolizing one of the most lucrative IPs in the entire gaming industry. Microsoft has continually denied these allegations, and even offered Sony a ten-year Call of Duty availability deal for PlayStation, although the offer was reportedly denied.
To better leverage itself in the eyes of scrutinizing organizations such as the FTC, it appears that Microsoft subsequently extended this offer to other leading platforms within the industry, offering ten-year deals for CoD to both Steam and Nintendo. While these deals were likely offered in good faith, many have pointed out how Call of Duty has always been available on PC, and how Nintendo is not realistically competing for console market share in the same way as Xbox and PlayStation.
While Call of Duty and Nintendo do have a shared history, the increased scale of recent franchise installments perhaps makes them impractical to run on current Nintendo hardware, at least prior to the launch of the rumored Switch 2. In this way, it remains that PlayStation is the biggest hurdle for Microsoft's Activision deal, due to PS's closely comparable market share to Xbox. While Call of Duty on Nintendo is a fun prospect, the offer has likely been made primarily to legally posture around scrutiny from organizations like the FTC, as opposed to purely coming from a place of industrial inclusivity.
