Microsoft believes Warzone and Modern Warfare 2 can work on Switch

Microsoft believes Call of Duty: Warzone and other games in the series can be optimized to run smoothly on Nintendo Switch.

Microsoft and Nintendo agreed last month to a “10-year legally binding agreement”; the deal would include full feature and content parity with Xbox, plus it would bring Call of Duty to Nintendo devices.

Given that no Call of Duty game has been released for Switch hardware, many wondered how the firm would implement the titles on it. So, it has been hypothesized that cloud streaming may be a solution unless the deal was for the Switch’s successor.

Microsoft, however, asserts that it is confident in its ability to make games like Modern Warfare 2 run natively on the platform in response to the UK regulator’s notification.

Call of Duty on Switch natively

Microsoft says that since Warzone is compatible with PC hardware with GPU cards that launched in 2015, there’s no reason it can’t optimize battle royale work to the Nintendo Switch.

Microsoft wrote:

“The Activision team has a long history of adjusting game performance to fit the capabilities of the hardware at hand.”

According to Microsoft, the game engine that powers Warzone is mature and designed to run on various hardware platforms.

These platforms range from the Xbox One console introduced in 2015 to the Xbox Series X, so it could be modified to play on Nintendo Switch, which arrived in 2017.

The first Xbox One was released in 2013, not 2015, which is slightly inaccurate. However, it may support Microsoft’s position.

On the other hand, Microsoft goes on to list similar games that have been successfully ported to Switch using standard techniques

Microsoft adds:

“The Parties are convinced that, in addition to Warzone, CoD buy-to-play games (like CoD: Modern Warfare 2) can be quickly adapted to run on the Nintendo Switch using methods that have been utilized to port games like Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Crysis 3 to the Switch.”

Lower quality of game adaptations for Nintendo Switch

Compared to its PC and other console versions, the Switch version of Apex Legends suffered greatly from frame rate difficulties, poor image quality, and a constrained draw distance.

Panic Button’s Doom Eternal runs at 30 fps during gameplay and 20 fps during cutscenes. It is also a single-person game compared to the sprawling Warzone, where up to 150 players are thrown into a vast battlefield.

On Switch, Fortnite is another battle royale game comparable to Warzone but with a much smaller map that runs at 30FPS.

According to tests conducted by Digital Foundry, Warzone 2, released for PlayStation and Xbox, struggles to maintain 60FPS on those devices, so the likelihood of it being achieved on Switch is very low.

Header: Microsoft | Nintendo