It sounds like Microsoft is getting ready to announce a huge partnership with Nintendo, the likes of which I think it’s fair to say the industry has never seen before.
After it was announced that Microsoft would be bringing certain Xbox Live features to Switch and mobile devices – including achievements and friend lists – I speculated that it would be cool to see certain Game Pass titles made available on Nintendo’s portable machine.
According to a new report from Direct Feed Games, it sounds like Microsoft is intending to do exactly that. If this means Halo 3 and Fable on Switch, I will likely lose my tiny mind.
As per the report (which was later corroborated by Game Informer and VG247), it seems this bold new move will utilise Microsoft’s xCloud game streaming tech to bring Xbox One titles to Switch via a dedicated app.
The report doesn’t specify if we’ll see all Game Pass titles come to Switch, but claims we’re likely to see titles such as Ori and the Blind Forest and Super Lucky’s Tale released natively, while more powerful titles will be available to stream.
While we haven’t seen anything like this happen on Switch in the West, a number of AAA titles have been released for the console via streaming services in Japan, including Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Resident Evil 7.
Obviously being able to play through pretty much every Xbox exclusive past and present on a portable Nintendo machine would be one of the biggest things to happen in gaming since SEGA started making Sonic games for Nintendo.
Microsoft has been pretty vocal about its desire to see a streaming based future going forward, and the company’s relationship with Nintendo has come on leaps and bounds in the last year alone, with cross play between games like Minecraft and Fortnite being implemented between the rival platforms.
There were also recently reports that Nintendo plans to revive cancelled Xbox One exclusive Scalebound, which implies the two companies have really started to team up. I can’t wait to see what they do next, to be honest.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.