Microsoft has committed to bringing Call of Duty to Nintendo for at least a decade once the acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been approved. Xbox head Phil Spencer announced the intention on behalf of Microsoft, which comes shortly after the aforementioned merger has slowed.
Communication between Sony and Microsoft seems to have broken down in recent months, with public statements becoming increasingly more common. Intensifying scrutiny surrounding Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been ostensibly ascribed to Sony, a primary competitor to the tech giant that argues consumers would be harmed if the deal were to go through. Although Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Serbia have already approved the acquisition, the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union remain skeptical, with the Federal Trade Commission allegedly likely to file a lawsuit of some kind. Microsoft has since claimed that it is willing to negotiate concessions for the deal to go through, a probable conclusion given political circumstances at the FTC.
From claiming Call of Duty will remain on PlayStation as long as the console exists, to openly welcoming deliberation, Microsoft does not seem to be slowing down attempts to dispel concerns regarding market consolidation. Phil Spencer took to Twitter to state that "Microsoft has entered into a 10-year commitment to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo," affirming that this would take effect "following the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King." Spencer concluded the first tweet with a declaration that mirrored his recent rhetoric, reading "Microsoft is committed to helping bring more games to more people," suggesting that exclusivity for Xbox titles will likely be more limited than what is seen with PlayStation.
A follow-up tweet confirmed that the Call of Duty franchise would be available through Xbox and Steam simultaneously, officializing something that was expected. Call of Duty titles have been infrequently available on Nintendo consoles, such as Black Ops for the Wii, but often forced to sacrifice graphical fidelity and technical performance for the hardware to even run them. However, times have changed, and the Nintendo Switch has received many ports that were once deemed impossible to achieve, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as the most notable example.
That said, the Nintendo Switch has been making greater use of cloud technology to be able to stream games that would otherwise be too difficult to program a dedicated port for. Switch owners can access Hitman 3, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy through this system, and should expect Call of Duty to be playable in the same way. The famous first-person shooter franchise is infamous for file sizes several times larger than the Switch's default internal storage, so the cloud seems like a reasonable compromise.