The Wall Street Journal Tech Live event was a lively event for Xbox president, Phil Spencer, who made it clear that Microsoft has lofty ambitions to break into the mobile and on-the-go markets.
In an interview at the conference, the Microsoft Gaming CEO spoke about the company’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, noting that he “would like to see” Call of Duty on Transformation (Across Tom Warren in The Verge).
Spencer stated that one of the main reasons Microsoft wanted to acquire Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard was to take advantage of the mobile gaming scene. Call of Duty: Mobile is still working fine from a tax point of view So, it makes sense that Spencer was inspired to take this step forward by moving CoD games to the Switch and expanding operations in the mobile gaming segment.
But is it possible that one of the biggest FPS franchises will work properly on the Switch, given the significantly weaker engine?
Really modern war
Call of Duty has always dominated the FPS scene. With a whopping 17 titles under its belt, the first-person shooter series has been praised for its sharp graphics, intricate fireworks, sprawling maps, and excellent co-op capabilities.
While these factors cemented Call of Duty’s place as one of the most popular gaming franchises of all time, they may cause trouble for the Nintendo Switch. Since it is unlikely that a switch port will be able to maintain high standards at this level.
This is not a problem exclusive to Call of Duty. Time and time again, we’ve seen ports of popular consoles and PC titles crash and burn on the Nintendo Switch. super ugly Ark: Survival Evolved Port For example, it was so bad that it needed an overhaul, and the WWE 2K18 wrestling simulator never wore out after its Switch version had game-breaking bugs.
Byte size cheats
The other primary risk of porting a game to the Switch is that the Nintendo console isn’t designed to handle games of these sizes. Call of duty modern warfare 2 the latest entry in the Call of Duty series, weighs over 100 GB PS5 which is a file leaked A leap compared to the average size of 8-10 GB that a Switch game uses.
Even games built for the platform tend to suffer; Bayonetta 3 It weighs 15GB and starts to make noise thanks to the device’s sluggish loading speed, largely due in this case to the fast and frantic movement on the screen.
If the humble Switch can’t handle its own games, how is it supposed to adapt to the requirements set by CoD’s heavy-duty engine IW?
Hope on the horizon
However, it has been done before. One of the most successful PlayStation to Switch ports, Alien: Isolation, went from taking up 8.2GB of space on the PlayStation 3 to more than twice as large as the Switch port, and it worked like a charm.
Perhaps there is hope for a strong CoD offering for the adapter, if it looks a lot like what it was done for Call of Duty: Mobile a new game created with the Switch itself in mind.
No doubt this will take time and money to develop, but if Spencer and Microsoft are serious about bringing a heavyweight FPS to mobile devices, they may want to play with the strengths of Nintendo’s console rather than expecting to keep up with the next generation of consoles and save Microsoft from potential embarrassment.