CMA blocks Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, says Nintendo consoles can’t run Call of Duty

If you missed the news, the Competition and Markets Authoring in the UK has blocked the move by Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard. Their final report was handed out last night. The whole deal hinged on them approving, but Microsoft has plans to appeal – so you’ll be hearing about it for a while longer.

Among the litany of reasons for blocking the move was a section about Microsoft’s deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to unnamed Nintendo systems. The CMA believes that “its consoles”, while not specifically mentioning the Switch would be “technically capable of running a version of CoD that is similar to those in Xbox and PlayStation in terms of quality of gameplay and content”.

Their full statement is below.

“CoD is currently available on two gaming consoles – Xbox and PlayStation. We found that these consoles compete closely with each other in terms of content, target audience, and console technology. We found that Nintendo’s consoles compete less closely with either of Xbox or PlayStation, generally offering consoles with different technical specifications, and with its most popular titles tending to be more family- and child-friendly. Nintendo does not currently offer CoD, and we have seen no evidence to suggest that its consoles would be technically capable of running a version of CoD that is similar to those in Xbox and PlayStation in terms of quality of gameplay and content.”

CMA statement

Ouch.