Former Nintendo President 'Surprised' That Xbox Hasn't 'Fully Embraced' Switch 2

I suppose that Switch 2 hardware has tight specifications that require very specific ports, and that may require more work, which, depending on the case, they may not be willing to take on.

The sooner they release games, the better. MS is leaving money on the table by not porting to S2. Especially given that Nintendo sold over 10 million S2s since launch.

To put that into perspective, MS has sold 28.3 million Series X/S consoles combined in five years.

Yeah. MS needs to speed up the porting. Imagine Forza Horizon 5 or Gears of War on Switch 2.

@Gabrie Ubisoft ported Star Wars Outlaws to S2 and the port is darn near rock solid. CD Projekt Red got Cyberpunk 2077 to run on it near-flawlessly. Given that games like Forza Horizon 5 run on the XBox One, I’m sure a port can be arranged. Plus Indiana Jones was already announced for Switch 2. It helps that the S2 is not far away from the Series S in specs.

Considering the series s exists and it's similar to the switch 2 in power it's very surprising more games haven't at least been announced for the switch 2!
Surely there are a few games in the works for the console??

a lot of people are surprised at microsoft’s strategy . Not in a good way either.

@dskatter Considering how poorly it sold on PS5, I don't think Gears of War would do that well on Switch 2.

First-person shooters and third-person shooters in general do not sell that well on Nintendo consoles. If you look at the lists of best-selling games on Nintendo consoles, you'll notice that very few of them are FPS titles, aside from exclusives like Goldeneye.

The Nintendo audience has specific interests, and most of Microsoft's games don't fit those interests. So I don't think their games will sell as well on Switch 2 as most people think they will. They'll still be profitable, of course, they just won't do insane numbers.

@Questionable_Duck I think the main reason gears of war sold so badly on playstation because it was terribly overpriced!
It's a retouch of a remake that barely plays anything like the current games!
It should of been 30 euro at the very most!
I love the game but it's very dated in controls and a lot of other aspects it was arrogance for Microsoft to charge so much!

@Questionable_Duck They’d still make money.

I mean, Doom and Doom Eternal came to the original Switch, along with all the Borderlands games and others.

They’d almost certainly make a profit on a Switch 2 port of GoW. Especially if they followed it up with comparable follow up Gears releases.

Leaving that aside though, you can’t tell me that Forza 5 wouldn’t print money on Switch 2!

Btw I am one of the folks who bought GoW on PS5 when I found out the disc actually had the game on it! I already have the XBone release on disc but as the first GoW game on PS…

@You-come-to-me Definitely, the game should have cost like $25 at best

@dskatter Forza Horizon 5 would definitely sell well on Switch 2, simply because of how mainstream it is. But as for the other games, like Halo: CE Remake and Gears Reloaded, maybe not.

Like you said, Microsoft would still make money, so they'll still do it, but they aren't going to sell insanely well imo. Could be wrong of course.

@themightyant this is the most likely answer. MS are not know for leaving money on the table recently, so Reggie perhaps forgot to take the dev kit situation into account

I can say the same about most publishers honestly. It feels many publishers are holding back currently, for one reason or another. I was expecting a great deluge of third party games but instead it’s just a mere trickle. Hope that changes in 2026.

I agree with Reggie, Xbox is now multi-platform, so they should port more games to Switch 2, especially if they want to increase profitability across all studios. Optimizing games for the Xbox ROG Ally could also help for Switch 2 versions.

Forza Horizon 5, South of Midnight, Sea of Thieves, Grounded 2 would do well on Switch 2. I can imagine though that some games might not be viable from a technical standpoint. Unreal Engine 5 games like the recently announced Halo Remake, Oblivion Remastered and Hellblade 2 could prove to be too difficult to port. Or games which rely on a steady internet connection like MS Flight Simulator.

At least Microsoft should fulfill the promise of bringing Call of Duty to Switch 2.

@dskatter
Totally agree and I think Xbox are slacking on switch 2 ports, they could have had maybe 2 AAA good ones out by now.
Maybe they are waiting for say 20 million switch 2 to be sold first for a bigger user base.
Also Ubisoft port of SWOL has even surprised me how good it is. Will be interesting to how AC shadows turns out in December. But for me Ubisoft are the king of switch 2 ports for now.

I'm sure some games will come eventually, but we don't know the reasons why its been 'slow' so far. It could be any number of reasons, from lack of Dev Kits, their own Handheld plans to the costs involved and 'projected' revenue. MS don't forget won't get the 'full' price as Nintendo will take a cut as its their Platform/store etc.

If they think it won't sell to more than 5-10% of the Audience, bear in mind that few games do exceed that, it may not be worth the costs of porting, optimising, advertising, distributing and releasing on Switch at the moment. In a year, they could double their user base and maybe re-evaluate.

They could bring FH5 to Switch 2 as Xbox/PC get FH6 for example and with PS5 being far more similar to Series, porting and optimising is not labourious and with more users, its arguably going to be their 'first' option. Most Ports to Switch often come months, if not years after they've been released on much more power driven hardware. It takes a lot more 'work' to get games running on power starved devices with much lower cycles and tick rates. Sometimes requiring modifications to the game/environment and/or have to create new settings/techniques to give a 'similar' enough look.

I wouldn't say Switch 2 has been that well supported by the Modern AAA Publishers/Developers 'yet', but that doesn't mean they don't have plans. Sales too will dictate whether or not they truly embrace Switch 2 - they won't bother if they don't make 'enough' money or think they won't...

@TrollOfWar Only time will tell with Unreal 5 on S2. Currently there’s 3 games I know of running Unreal 5 on Switch 2 - Fortnite, Chronos: New Dawn, and Split Fiction. I can’t say, for sure, but I believe they all run decently.

Borderlands 4 is another title coming that uses it. It does seem Lumen and Nanite need to be turned off / toned down for games to run smoothly, but otherwise all good.

@Dm9982 Maybe Epic can create a more lightweight version of Lumen for gaming handheld devices such as Switch 2. I don't think older games would get ported to a new UE5 version, but at least future releases could benefit from it.

@Questionable_Duck I think MS would print money with a Halo MCC release, that’s a fact. The remake they’re doing instead? I…could go either way, but I suspect it would still do very well.

@dskatter The MCC would sell well, but from a business perspective it'd be hard to price it accordingly. You can't charge $50+ for a decade game with no changes, but you also can't price it too low because it just has that much content. I can see the logic of remaking each game in order of release at a lower price to get them out there that way, but the lack of multiplayer will also make those hard sells, and not really show off what Halo is/was properly.

Switch 2 is underpowered compared to the Series X and PS5. Does he not factor that in?

@TrevorP86 glances at the Series S

The Switch 2 is slightly less powerful than the S. I think MS can make things work.

I can't really think of an Xbox release other than Starfield (and that turned out to be a dud for me personally) that I had interest in since the early XBO years, that wasn't a port or remake of a 360 or OG Xbox game. Even for games where I'd be willing to buy on all Platforms, Xbox would probably be the last one, and only after a big sale.

@TrevorP86 Did you not factor in the Series S, or the fact that a lot of Series X/S games even have Xbox One versions?

when nintendo stops having one foot in the stone age , maybe m$ would consider 😂

It's time for The Master Chief Collection to hit Switch and they can add the Chief to next Smash... (in my dreams)

Microsoft is all over the place. Difficult for them to embrace anything.

@You-come-to-me While I can see reason in that. The amount of people that have the Gameloft shooters or others on Switch isn't surprising. I question how much Indies get support on Switch compared to PS/Xbox. How much is it low end hardware or Nintendo support itself? Not just Indie interested audiences.

Moved further up point:
Besides the yes dev kit hand outs or the sales of other games due to the early audience also being a factor for many publishers as well, not just the game key card but early audience numbers and hardcore Nintendo fans than other audiences making their way over.
Point ended.

Even seeing Borderlands 4 months later, like Vita version of 2 or I guess any other games that make later releases changes. Or devs can't be bothered. Heck I prefer some Wii versions then bloom/other graphical techniques/look or certain modes/features in the Wii versions. Pubs don't care, never re-release them, but I don't care I prefer them over HD versions content sometimes.

Those going for live services is a different matter of course.

That aside yeah won't deny that.

Not idea how well games like Call of Juarez 4 (PS3/360 digital then ported) on Switch 1 did, most PS3/360 shooters aren't on Switch. Grid Autosport similar situation.

No Far Cry 2 or 3? PS4/Xbox One got 3 Classic or whatever it was called.

Sure the few Wii shooters like The Conduit/Red Steel for sure didn't do well. I'd love Red Steel 2 to be in VR or Switch, I know it won't happen though.

But COD probably did alright on Wii. Will it nowadays, no clue.

So of the few Switch ports, who knows.

They have COD MW 1 and 2 remastered and did nothing with them on Switch at all. Or Warzone either.

I get having other teams there to make ports happen, or teams splitting to make Switch ports, but even still. Expectations these days just differ I guess.

With Wii you got PSP, PS2 or DS to fall back on for any ports or Wii unique versions if they wanted. But expectations are very different these days so they don't want to scale to it at all but will VR or mobile yet those get unique versions for those platforms.

Is it up to audiences wanting a console port and not unique versions anymore?

I assume yes and more scaling it devs have to work out and they can't be bothered to do so anymore.

Or if they do care PC handheld settings maybe.

Yes Series S is around it of specs and for how long before they give up and say ok no more Switch 2/Series S support. Or differently to how it was with PS3 and 360.

Even racing games, the few 3rd parties fit well for GameCube, Wii, Switch but the core audiences don't care that much as Mario Kart fits instead. So for those that wanted a GT/Forza or other arcade ones, they got their GT Cube/Pro Series (same game GameCube/Wii) or GT Advance (GBA) or Need For Speed or a bunch of anti grav types on Wii instead of F Zero and such. But yes different audiences no doubt about that.

Part 2:
RPGs or others as well. Many Nintendo fans and how they respond to Xenoblade/Fire Emblem let alone other RPGs on 3DS or others late in a console's life they ignore.

The Nintendo audience is particular no doubt but there are many of us buying shooters/racing and more on there. How big no clue. Probably not that big.

Us Vita niche audience or handheld owners, use all consoles or any others out there of games/feature/console interest.

But like it's been clear always there is the devs and there is the audience. If they don't want to, audiences won't go, alternatives may exist but that one IP that appeals to the audience has to be there for some people to bother at all.

I think that there is little real incentive to create a Switch 2 version when a Switch 1 version already exists. If it will cost more to port it to the Switch 2 then the potential sales then it's likely not worth it. It likely only makes sense to create a Switch 2 version if there is no Switch 1 version. I think right now the priority is to bring COD to the Switch and other games are a low priority.

@TrollOfWar Grounded 2 is probably already planned for Switch since the first one released on the platform… We just have to wait till after early access release

Honestly I'm still baffled how a ton of their backlog hasn't been ported to android / ios for easy cash.