What does the Nintendo ‘Call of Duty’ deal mean for Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition?

Phil Spencer recently announced a commitment to bring the most popular first-person shooter franchise, Call of Duty, to Nintendo consoles. This deal will be dependent on whether or not the upcoming acquisition of Activision Blizzard is approved by the Federal Trade Commission. There has been a tremendous amount of back and forth between Microsoft and the main detractor of the acquisition, Sony. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the potential ramifications of Microsoft and Nintendo’s deal. 

What does Call of Duty coming to Nintendo mean for the Activision Blizzard acquisition?

To begin with, this agreement slightly hurts Sony’s argument that having its competition acquire the rights to Call of Duty would give Microsoft more of the market share as gamers would choose Xbox over any of their competitors. Offering Call of Duty on Nintendo would stifle their argument, as well as the fact that they supposedly offered the 10-year deal to Sony. 

Spencer did talk to The Washington Post and said that while these are officially 10-year deals, they are likely placeholders, and Microsoft will be willing to extend them in the future. In addition to the Nintendo deal, Microsoft also announced that it would be keeping Call of Duty on Steam for 10 years as well.

Of course, the real competition killer would be Microsoft offering Call of Duty on their Game Pass service, which would be enticing for gamers. They might choose to jump ship from Sony to Microsoft consoles and get their yearly Call of Duty title at the price of a Game Pass subscription. 

Microsoft offering these deals is likely reactionary, as the FTC has reportedly threatened Microsoft with a lawsuit over the acquisition. The corporate giant most likely saw the 10-year deals as a way to appease the FTC, although it is unknown whether or not this will work. There is also the chance that Microsoft could pull the deals after 10 years and make Call of Duty exclusive, which is probably what Sony is afraid of. 

There is also the question of if Call of Duty getting ported to the Nintendo Switch is a good idea. If you cast your mind back to the days when the game was ported to the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii, it never performed as well on those consoles as it did elsewhere. Keeping in mind the bugs that have plagued Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet, you would hate to think about how Call of Duty would run on the Switch. 

We will eventually see what impact the Nintendo deal really has. The acquisition is supposed to go through in June 2023, so we might have to wait until then if the FTC does not interfere.