There’s always been talk about bringing Game Pass to other platforms, but according to Phil Spencer,Nintendo and PlayStation haven’t been interested… yet.
Despite Nintendo’s previous disinterest, the power behind theSwitch 2means that now is the perfect time forGame Passto finally come to the platform. I’m not holding my breath, but Iamholding onto hope.
Nintendo Finally Has The Hardware
As good as the pitch is, though, there’s always been a caveat to the dream, considering how underpowered the original Switch is. It’s hard to imagine a lot ofthe current Game Pass rosterrunning on the console without having to find some sort of workaround like launching Game Pass exclusively as a Cloud Streaming service by making use of the preexisting xCloud services.
That’s all changed now that the Switch 2 has been revealed and we’ve heard developers say how impressed they are with what it can handle.The Switch 2’s specshave been compared to the Xbox Series S, which is a huge step up from where the original Switch was. I mean,the console can run Cyberpunk 2077, something that the Xbox One and PS4 struggled to do at launch. Based purely on the hardware, it seems like Game Pass on the Switch is finally possible, but that doesn’t exactly mean it’slikely.
What Game Pass On The Switch 2 Could Look Like
Even though Nintendo now has the hardware to make Game Pass work on its platform, that’s only half the battle. Many titles that are a part of Game Pass’s library don’t have native Switch ports, which means that if Game Pass launched on the Switch 2, they wouldn’t just magically be available to be played without some serious additional development time unless they were added as cloud games.
That said, when bringing a subscription service to a completely new platform like the Switch, it would most likely try to make use of the vast existingSwitch-exclusive library. Given Nintendo’s comments about how it doesn’t like giving away their hard work for anything less than full price, it seems unlikely that Mario and Zelda would appear on Game Pass’s potential Switch 2 edition, but it’s easy to imagine other console exclusives to launch on the service likeHades 2,The Duskbloods, and Survival Kids.
Additionally, just because the first-party Xbox lineup and other triple-A titles might not be able to make the jump to the Switch 2, a good portion of Game Pass’s indie offerings are already on the Switch, so Game Pass would potentially have a solid library of indies ready to go.
Even though I want to be hopeful, I’m not entirely sure Game Pass will ever come to the Switch, because it doesn’t really seem like Nintendo’s thing. Either way, I think we can all agree that what we really want is Game Pass to come to Light Bright. I’d love to see the Starfield port for that.
