In case you’ve ever wondered whether Nintendo will ever dramatically expand the number of games playable on the Switch by adding support for a game streaming service like Google Stadia or even Xbox Cloud, the answer is sadly no. After an industry analyst laid out some reasons it would make sense for all parties involved, another insider said that Nintendo wasn’t at all open to the idea.
The conversation started on Twitter after users watching Microsoft’s Game Stack event noticed a Nintendo Switch on the shelf behind the presenter. Industry advisor Mat Piscatella suggested that a “Xbox Cloud app on Switch seems a slam dunk where everyone wins,” and continued to lay out the reasons such a decision would make sense.
Some of these replies… phew.
What do some of you think the point of cloud gaming is if not to make every screen a potential place to game?
When Game Pass is made available on additional devices Xbox console owners & players gain more places to play and lose… nothing at all— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) April 21, 2021
None of this means that Xbox Cloud will actually ever make it to Switch… there is a list of reasons why it wouldn’t.
But Nintendo would get a massive content gain and sell millions of incremental Switch, Xbox Cloud would be in front of millions of new potential subscribers.— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) April 21, 2021
Analyst David Gibson of Astris Advisory Japan weighed in on the conversation, saying that Nintendo had told him directly that it would not be including any other streaming services on the Switch.
Daniel Ahmad, another industry analyst, suggested that Switch users could likely hope to see an expansion of the Switch’s existing Cloud Streaming service, which Nintendo has developed in collaboration with Ubitus. That service has made games like Resident Evil, Assassins Creed, Hitman 3, and Control playable on Switch and Switch Lite in an enhanced “Cloud Version,” though the service is only available in some countries.
Of course without an official announcement from Nintendo anything is possible at this stage, but it’s more likely the gaming giant will continue to work on its own in-house cloud streaming efforts.
