Microsoft has explained in a filing to the UK’s antitrust regulator how it might be technically possible to make Call of Duty games work on the Nintendo Switch.

The application was made in connection with Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which was announced last year. As part of a ten-year agreement with Nintendo, Microsoft wants to make Call of Duty games available to Nintendo players if the acquisition is successful. In principle, a good and exciting thing, were it not for the reduced graphics and processor power of Nintendo’s hugely popular console.

The company pointed out that the engine behind Call of Duty: Warzone has been optimised to run on a wide range of hardware devices, including the 2015 Xbox One and PC GPUs that launched back in 2015, ahead of the 2017 launch of the Nintendo Switch. Microsoft pointed out that Activision also offers a mobile version of Warzone that runs on mobile phones with much lower performance requirements.

Secondly, Microsoft argued that Activision has a long history of matching gaming performance to available hardware capacity. The company is confident that techniques that have enabled graphically demanding games like Apex Legends, Doom Eternal and Fortnite to run on the Switch can also be used for Call of Duty.

The Call of Duty games, by their very nature, won’t look as good on the Nintendo Switch as they do on newer consoles or PC hardware. But they will be playable, which is a significant development for Nintendo fans.

Sony has expressed understandable concerns about this, that Microsoft could sabotage Call of Duty games on the PlayStation. After all, the Japanese were active supporters of the whole thing during the last Call of Duty release – with their own Playstation 5 bundle etc.

Microsoft has also offered Sony a similar 10-year contract, but it has not yet been signed.