CMA Raises Concerns over Nintendo Switch’s Capability to Run Call of Duty

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has put a stop to the highly-anticipated $68.7 Billion Microsoft-Activision merger. The final decision, published on Wednesday, April 26th, 2023, has sent shockwaves throughout the gaming industry, as many believed the deal was set to go ahead.

Just a month earlier, the CMA released provisional findings suggesting that the merger wouldn’t negatively impact the console market. Instead, they were focusing their attention on the impact it would have on the cloud gaming sector. Given this context, the decision to block the merger has come as a surprise to many.

Microsoft had made efforts to expand their cloud gaming offerings, recently signing ten-year deals with cloud gaming companies like Nvidia, Ubitus, and Boosteriod to bring Call of Duty to their platforms. And that’s not all – they even struck a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty games to the Switch console. However, the CMA’s final report raised concerns about the game’s performance on the Switch, citing the console’s hardware limitations.

CoD is currently available on two gaming consoles – Xbox and PlayStation. We found that these consoles compete closely with each other in terms of content, target audience, and console technology. We found that Nintendo’s consoles compete less closely with either of Xbox or PlayStation, generally offering consoles with different technical specifications, and with its most popular titles tending to be more family- and child-friendly.

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.

It’s hard to argue with the CMA’s reasoning considering the facts and hardware capabilities of Nintendo Switch. The latest Call of Duty game requires current-gen hardware to deliver a seamless gaming experience, something that the 2017’s Switch simply isn’t capable of. While cloud technology could be a solution, it still wouldn’t be on par with the performance of the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.

What are your thoughts about this argument raised by CMA regarding Call of Duty’s performance on Nintendo Switch? Do you think this is a valid concern? Let’s discuss this in the comment section below.