In the midst of Microsoft’s legal dispute with the Federal Trade Commission, Bobby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard, took the stand this morning to offer his testimony. During the trial, Kotick made a significant revelation, expressing his regret for not bringing the popular game franchise, Call of Duty, to the Nintendo Switch.
When questioned about Activision’s consideration of releasing Call of Duty on the Switch prior to its market debut, Kotick confirmed that they had indeed explored the possibility. However, he revealed that the plans fell through due to what he now considers a “bad judgment” on his part after evaluating the Switch prototype. Kotick explained that he held concerns about Nintendo’s ambitious goals for the Switch and doubted its potential for success. “It’s probably the second biggest video game system of all time,” Kotick regretfully acknowledged.
The FTC argued that if Activision wasn’t able to make Call of Duty on mobile, pertaining to the Tencent Games developed CODM, then it would be questionable for Microsoft to create a Switch version of Call of Duty. Kotick responded by saying, “Literally from a high level they could evaluate what would be required or they could envision a game that they might make on Switch.” Kotick also stated that Activision will likely make a Call of Duty game for a next-generation Nintendo console. “We would consider it once we had the specs, but we don’t have them at present. We missed out on the opportunity for this past generation of Switch, but we’d have to wait until the specifications. We don’t have any present plans to do so,” Kotick said.
Last year, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer made headlines when he announced that Microsoft has entered into a 10-year commitment to bring Call of Duty to Switch following the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard King. Surprisingly, Kotick revealed during today’s hearing that he had not been notified of this deal between Microsoft and Nintendo and further disclosed that Activision’s management teams nor the development team had not been involved in any discussions with Nintendo on this matter.
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