Microsoft Claims It Can Get Call of Duty to Run Natively on Switch - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 08 March 2023 / 5,025 Views
Microsoft last month announced it had signed a "binding 10-year legal agreement" to bring Call of Duty games to Nintendo platforms if Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition is approved. The new legally binding agreement will guarantee Call of Duty games will release on Nintendo platforms the same day as Xbox with "full feature and content parity."
In a newly published report by the UK regulators, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Microsoft claims it will be able to get Call of Duty running on the Nintendo Switch natively.
Microsoft states that Call of Duty Warzone supports "PC hardware with GPU cards that were released as far back as 2015 and there is no reason it couldn't be optimized for the Nintendo Switch.
"The Activision development team has a long history of optimizing game performance for available hardware capabilities," said Microsoft (via a transcription by VideoGamesChronicle).
Microsoft says "the game engine that powers Warzone is mature and has been optimized to run on a wide range of hardware devices (ranging from the Xbox One console released in 2015 up to the Xbox Series X)" and it can be altered to run on the Nintendo Switch. A strange error is that the Xbox One released in 2013 and not 2015.
Microsoft did list a number of games that have successfully been ported to the Nintendo Switch, including Apex Legends, Doom Eternal, Fortnite, and Crysis 3. The developers used "standard techniques" to port the games to Switch, according to Microsoft.
"The Parties are confident that in addition to Warzone, CoD buy-to-play titles (e.g., CoD: Modern Warfare 2) can be optimised to run on the Nintendo Switch in a timely manner using standard techniques which have been used to bring games such as Apex Legends, Doom Eternal, Fortnite and Crysis 3 to the Switch," says Microsoft.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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So could Activision now.
They clearly have memory issues, CoD was on the Wii, DS and Wii U
Many reasons.
1) They probably don't view the switch as a 100m+ potential userbase. They probably judge Switch have less potential then other platforms even with a wider userbase. They probably think that many switch users already have PC, PS 4-5 or Xbox One-series and those who don't are a higher probability of not being in the CoD target demographic.
2) They operate with 3 dev team in cycle which are only now working on the same engine (meaning up to now they would have require 3 new dev team all porting from x86 to arm)
3) They already require many of their studios to be CoD support and adding a new platforms would also require another support studio.
All in all they have reason not to release on Switch, but memory issue is just a scapegoat not to address the others.
The Wii and DS releases used additional developers.
I.E. n-space.
Many releases were technically a different release compared to their mainline releases...
For example Call of Duty World at War on the PS2 was made by Rebellion Developments and used the Asura game engine rather than idTech+Treyarch.
The game engines in the mainline games themselves though, because they are based on a derivative of idTech can scale upwards and downwards as far as you wish to go, it is a very memory efficient game engine.
It becomes a case of reworking all your assets (Meshes, Textures, lighting etc') in order to shoe-horn the game into a smaller box... Which is exactly what they did with Modern Warfare on the Wii.
Which meant even compared to standard games on Wii, it looked really bad... Artists aren't really involved in this process, which could have baked in some lighting and shading to the assets to give better visuals... That takes time and money unfortunately.
With the WII, Back then ABK were supporting X86(PC), PowerPc (Xbox 360, Wii and wiiU) and Cell (ps3) so they already had teams invested to those ports.
With the WiiU their only attempt were prior to Xbox One and Ps4 release and prior to the apparent failure of the Wii U. Also Xbox One/PS4 being X86 I guess most port teams were merged with the dev teams and stopped caring for other architecture.
With the switch they found themselves in the situation I exposed in earlier post.
Just a small correction, they did bring Ghosts to Wii U, which came to PS3, 360, Wii U, PS4 and XB1. In 2014 with the release of Advanced Warfare I think they dropped the Wii U support altogether.
Activision can do it, they just lazy.
Doom and Doom Eternal ran very well on Switch. No reason CoD couldn't do the same with the right optimization. Plus, there will almost certainly be new Switch hardware by 2025.
Shhhh, don't ruin it. Let's all pretend that anything that take some certain complexity in development can't be achieved in a fine state on Switch
Would love to see he saying why ABK doesn't do it and need MS good heart to do it =p
Because yes Switch can run CoD, how good and what version is another matter.
Anything goes in 120p.
They just don't want to spill the beans. Nintendo will have a new system by the time they start delivering games on Nintendo.
I imagine with the right programming, it should be possible...
I mean, the Nintendo DS and Wii had CoD back in the day lol. I have no doubt it'll work, but there will be a bold asterisk on that lol
I'm in
Well Xenosaga technically was ported to DS, Street Fighter Alpha 3 to the GBA, Dead Rising to Wii, and Doom to a pregnancy test. Pretty much any port is possible. Activision just didn't think the investment would be worth it. Microsoft may feel differently about it, or they may know something we don't.
"PC hardware with GPU cards that were released as far back as 2015" The difference is GTX 960, 970 etc. were much more powerful than Nintendo Switch ever was. In fact they are much more powerful than base PS4 and Xbox One, while GTX 970 is more powerful than PS4 Pro.
I don't think people want COD game locked to 30 fps on the Switch.
His point is that a GPU being released in 2015 as justification for a game being possible on Switch doesn't nearly tell the whole history.
My point was that he kind of evaded my first question about Low-medium end Graphics from 2015, I understand there's no justification for Activision Decisions.
You know there's a reason there's no Elden Ring on Switch, same goes for new Resident Evil games which are cloud only, RDR2, new AC games, Fary Cry games and so much more.
COD games are designed with the lowest performing console in mind, which has been Xbox One for the past 8 years.
Perhaps because it may be considered wrong to recognize the shortcomings of Switch (which I also have although hardly play).
For me it's just tech talk, there's no malice involved. We knew it was a tablet, and it had tablet specs which are never as powerful as home consoles.
Warzone should run well on Switch, But yeah 175 GB... It's a lot, Other Call of Duty Could get probably a port with good optimization, but if Activision didn't even bring Warzone to Switch, then they are only going to design the games with Xbox One in mind like you said. I can see they wating for Switch 2 too.
Yah I smiled while reading that :) I think people still underestimate how those video cards were (and are still powerful) compared the tech used in phone/Switch (or any APU like the Xbox One/PS4 you mentioned).
I actually believe they can make it run; but def. with some sacrifices (resolution, framerate etc..). Which is good at the end; but people need to realize that.
Is there anyone here who doesn't acknowledge that will have sacrifices to make a AAA game to run on a switch?
I think what some people here need to realize is that it doesn't necessarily mean that the result will be hideous just because it doesn't have the same visual effects as the brick consoles. It's looks like some stupid competition that if one is the better looking they want to put the other as a turd
Okay? Where did you see all of this...
Calm down and get off your high horse. I actually said EXACTLY that. That it is a good thing that they port it on the Switch and it they will make the sacrifices required to achieve it and I did say anything related to the result being hideous.... (not sure why you seem to be so upset at me for mentioning that and making up anything else. Or maybe you do not like the word sacrifices and in your mind this means that the results will be hideous, well that's on you.)
Like it is bad and nobody should mention it cause "everybody knows it already"... Good for you if you do.
You are the one calling this a competition or anything. Consoles are all different and pointing out that in a conversation is fine. Get over it.
Well, I don't have any problem with pointing out this, it was just your last phrase "but, people need to realize that" that was really unheard-of.
About the rest of my comment, I am sorry that you think that it was directing to you. It wasn't... that's why I said "people here" to refer to people on the site that have this behavior that I mentioned
Well maybe it is my English, but "people" means multiple person I think. Not all people but can refer to a group a people too. So by this I meant to address those who believes the Switch (or any mobile APU for that matter) is more powerful than an 970 video card which is ludicrous I best :) But at the end, it is not a problem per say or something that needs to downplayed. The Switch is an amazing system and offers something unique and GPU power is not important at all in that context.
It feels like the phrase is referred to people need to realize there's sacrifices than anything, but ok. That's what I misunderstood.
I am pretty aware that people don't necessarily mean all the people, like I said before and you thought that I was referring to you
Totally agree, and the end result will only be know at the time, but yep there is a way to make the sacrifices while keeping it a decent enough product. And considering the examples gave like Doom and Witcher the switch fanbase is ok with that.
360 And PS3 gen had them running on the WII an that was underpowered.. the switch has already pulled off some impossible ports but would have to do some compression to get that 200GB into say 32GB
Well we know Warzone can run on it. Not sure about MW2 but who knows
