Microsoft says Call of Duty will run like you "would expect" on Switch, which isn't encouraging

Microsoft has entered into a 10-year agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms - assuming the Xbox Activision deal closes, of course - and says that those games will run the way you would expect.

Asked about how games like Call of Duty would run on Switch or Nvidia's GeForce Now streaming service, Microsoft president Brad Smith noted that he's "not the right person to dive into the architecture of each platform." But Smith says "we will ensure our games work exactly the way people would expect," to a high technical standard.

I'm not sure Microsoft should be using words like "expect" here, because I don't think anybody expects a particularly good Call of Duty experience on a platform like the current Switch. Microsoft said earlier today that CoD would be hitting Nintendo platforms the same day as Xbox "with full feature and content parity." Given how many games less technically demanding than CoD have hit Switch in horribly compromised states, it's tough to imagine having a good experience with, say, Warzone 2 on the hybrid handheld.

Microsoft's public reveal of the agreement specifically says Call of Duty is coming to "Nintendo players" without mentioning any specific consoles. It's entirely possible that by the time the Activision Blizzard deal might close, the Nintendo Switch Pro - or whatever Nintendo's next console is - could be close to release, and that may give everyone an easy sidestep to the issue of hardware power. Otherwise, you might want to brace yourself for another Switch cloud release.

We argued earlier today that Call of Duty on Nintendo Switch only sets up players for disappointment, and while Microsoft wants to suggest we'll be getting parity across platforms, it's tough to imagine how that's going to be possible.

Microsoft says it "doesn't see a viable path to sell Call of Duty" to anybody else.