It was recently reported that Microsoft have propositioned a ten-year deal to Nintendo to bring Call of Duty back to Nintendo consoles, typifying the potential wide-spanning series changes that may occur in the near future. With this in mind, it is important to remember the long and sometimes bizarre history between the shooter franchise and Nintendo consoles.
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Call of Duty On the Nintendo Wii and Wii U
The Call of Duty franchise began its partnership with Nintendo with Call of Duty 3, which launched with availability on the Nintendo Wii in 2008. This would mark the beginning of a short-lived trend for the series moving forward, with the original Modern Warfare, World at War, Black Ops, and Modern Warfare 3 also possessing availability on the Wii platform in the subsequent years.
Following this, both Black Ops 2 and Call of Duty: Ghosts were made available on the Wii U console, after which the mainline series of games stopped sporting accessibility on Nintendo platforms. These Wii and Wii U Call of Duty’s were met with a relatively mixed reception, with the use of the Wii remote and nunchuk in the CoD context providing a fun, albeit gimmicky, gameplay experience. Considering that many of these titles also supported Call of Duty’s iconic multiplayer, there was some form of longevity present within these Wii titles, but nothing comparable with the other console ports of the franchise’s installments.
Call of Duty On Nintendo’s Handheld Consoles
While some of the most high-profile collaborations between Call of Duty and Nintendo have come with the aforementioned ports of mainline games, there have been some CoD titles produced specifically for handheld devices, and even a couple designed solely for the Nintendo DS. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized launched for the DS in 2009 alongside the fan-favorite Modern Warfare 2, possessing the same setting as the mainline title but with an entirely new cast of characters. A similar release for the DS also came in 2010 with Call of Duty: Black Ops DS, which again launched alongside its respective mainline installment, following a similar setting with unique characters.
The last collaboration between CoD and Nintendo came with the aforementioned Wii U port of Call of Duty: Ghosts in 2013, with fans of the shooter franchise on Nintendo hardware being left in the dark ever since. However, as a result of the waves being made by Microsoft and its attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard, this may change very soon.
In an attempt to convey a commitment to keeping the franchise accessible to all platforms post-acquisition, Microsoft recently pledged to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo consoles for the next ten years. This possibility is made all the more exciting by the likely launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 during this time-frame, which could see expansive mainline CoD releases running at high fidelity on Nintendo hardware for the first time in a long while. Of course, this commitment is still entirley dependent on Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision being officially formalized, yet the prospect is already exciting fans. Given the longstanding history dating back to 2006 between Call of Duty and Nintendo, many are already welcoming a potential reunion of collaboration between the two with open arms.
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