Call of Duty games are coming to Nintendo Switch, and we’re not talking old games remastered from previous consoles, but brand new high-end Call of Duty titles launching simultaneously on Switch. and much more powerful home consoles. Is anyone else worried?

The news came on February 21 from Microsoft President Brad Smith, who tweeted that Nintendo had agreed to a “binding 10-year contract to bring Xbox games to Nintendo gamers,” including Activision’s Call of Duty franchise, with “full functionality and content parity”. . on all Nintendo consoles. This means there are no shortcuts, no excuses and nowhere to hide if the result isn’t good enough.

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While the announcement is sparse on specifics, it sounds like a pretty strong warning to PlayStation, which could suffer seriously if Microsoft pulls Call of Duty from its direct rivals’ consoles or plays the franchise on Xbox and Switch too much of a time. good deal. pass up (cough, Game Pass, cough). Call of Duty is, understandably, a big moneymaker for Activision, and following Microsoft’s acquisition of the publisher, which is still pending regulatory approval, it’s no surprise the company is looking ways to take advantage of his new position in the industry.

But it’s still somewhat surprising that next-gen Call of Duty games are launching on Day 1 on the underpowered but versatile Nintendo Switch, given the vast disparity in computing power between the Switch and its Xbox Series X rivals. PS5. . Running a AAA shooter on the Switch is a remarkable achievement, something Bethesda, for example, has done very successfully with Doom Eternal or the Wolfenstein games. But there’s no denying the pros and cons of these ports, with lower resolutions, worse frame rates and a general lack of detail, excitement and vibrancy compared to how these games play on upgraded home consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

We can only imagine the Switch will rely on cloud technologies to offload that processing work, for example, something it doesn’t exactly have a great reputation for. Cloud performance is also heavily dependent on internet transmission speeds, which limits console portability and is further hampered by the graphics capability of the Switch’s compact 720p display. We’ve seen a few third-party streaming card solutions, but running a capable gaming PC in the background to stream to a nearby Switch doesn’t seem like a viable or desirable solution for most.

Call of Duty’s announcement on Switch consoles will be exciting to some, but it’s unlikely to deliver the experience gamers have come to expect from these massive annual AAA games.

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(Image credit: Activision)

“The elephant in the room is, of course, the Switch 2…”

The elephant in the room is, of course, the Switch 2, apparently hinted at by a CMA report written earlier this week. We know a successor to the Nintendo Switch will arrive at some point, and it’s likely to see an increase in power and capabilities, possibly 4K support, although the end result still lags behind. compared to the latest Xbox and PlayStation models.

An upgraded Switch model arriving in 2024 or beyond might be better placed to deliver on the promises Microsoft and Nintendo are currently making, though the kind of quick-fire reflexes and awesome frame rates that really make a Call of Duty probably won’t. be recreated with great success on the Nintendo handheld. We probably won’t see a new Call of Duty in action for a while; While last year’s Modern Warfare 2 is getting an expansion later this year, we won’t be getting Treyarch’s next full title until 2024, so there’s time and space for new walkthroughs or solutions emergent bypass.

As always, it will come down to gamers’ whims and willingness to pay for a scaled-down version of their favorite FPS franchise on a compact portable display, likely at full price. But no one should expect an equivalent experience, or a real reason to upgrade from the PS5 to any Nintendo model. Not for a Call of Duty game, not any time soon.

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