The continuing arguments over whether should be on Switch have been overshadowed by a revelation about its successor.
After a day off on Wednesday, the Microsoft vs. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has continued in City, with Activision boss Bobby Kotick taking the stand.
He spent most of his time talking about the , which Microsoft insists is a direct competitor to the Xbox (making Xbox look like a third place underdog, just as Microsoft wants) but which the FTC insists doesn’t count.
However, despite saying he now regrets not bringing Call Of Duty to the Switch, Kotick’s biggest revelation was that he knows all about the console’s successor and claims that it has ‘closer alignment [with] Gen 8 platforms’. In other words, it’s almost as powerful as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
It turns out Kotick has been having email discussions with Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa (who’s going to hate all this being dragged out in public) about the new console, nicknamed by fans as the Switch 2.
That implies other big publishers, such as EA and Square Enix, have probably been having similar discussions as well.
Although this would still make the Switch 2 less powerful than the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 4 it’s a significant step up from the original Switch and makes last gen ports much easier, including cross-gen titles… like Call Of Duty.
According to Kotick, ‘it’s reasonable to assume we can make something compelling for NG [next generation] Switch as well.’
Kotick described not bringing Call Of Duty to the current Switch as ‘a bad judgement call’ because he didn’t think the console would be a hit.
Whether he actually thinks that or not is open to debate though, as he’ll be well aware that Call Of Duty has never sold well on Nintendo hardware and that the modern 60fps games would be almost impossible to replicate on the current Switch – something Microsoft themselves recently acknowledged.
However pointless it is though, Microsoft has made bringing Call Of Duty to Switch a major part of its argument for buying Activision, because then it gets to say that it will be opening the series up to an additional 120+ million gamers (that’s where it gets the from, by adding that to the number of GeForce Now subscribers).
It’s in Kotick’s interest to play along with this, since he wants the acquisition to go ahead just as much as Microsoft, not least because he’ll personally benefit from the resulting financial bonuses – whether Microsoft get rid of him afterwards or not.
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