Microsoft Announces 10-Year Commitment for Call of Duty on Switch (and Steam)

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer shared a major announcement on Twitter earlier this morning. He revealed that the company has struck a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch.

Microsoft has entered into a 10-year commitment to bring Call of Duty to @Nintendo following the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King.  Microsoft is committed to helping bring more games to more people – however they choose to play.

The last franchise installment to hit a Nintendo platform was Call of Duty: Ghosts in 2013, which launched on the WiiU. No Call of Duty game has been released for the Nintendo Switch in the seven years of its life.

Clearly, this is a move made by Microsoft in an attempt to assuage regulator fears and back Sony, the most hostile company when it comes to the $69 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, into a corner. Microsoft already announced to have offered the same 10-year deal to Sony but apparently didn’t hear back yet.

Yesterday, Vice-Chair and President Brad Smith also published a brief article in The Wall Street Journal, claiming that Microsoft is attempting to innovate in the gaming space much as Netflix did against the likes of Blockbuster. The reference is clearly to Game Pass, which includes both the cloud streaming and the subscription business model. Indeed, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explicitly said he wanted Game Pass to become the Netflix of gaming.

It will be interesting to see whether the Nintendo Switch version of Call of Duty will be native to the platform or cloud-based to try and detach it from its hardware constraints. It’s also possible that the oft-rumored Nintendo Switch Pro launches next year, in which case the Call of Duty port could take advantage of the new hardware. Lastly, we wouldn’t discount the possibility of porting the mobile version of Call of Duty instead of the console/PC one.

Speaking of PC, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer also committed to keeping Call of Duty on Steam for another ten years at a minimum.

I’m also pleased to confirm that Microsoft has committed to continue to offer Call of Duty on
@Steam simultaneously to Xbox after we have closed the merger with Activision Blizzard King.

Not that there were many doubts since Microsoft decided to return to Steam a while ago with all of its games. In recent Call of Duty news, Season 2 for Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 has had its contents leaked.