Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

[Hitcher]

Game Pass for Switch?

[PaB]

9 minutes ago, K said:

That is a big commitment - one that’s going to tie up a lot of development resource for the next decade. They must be absolutely desperate for this to go through. I can understand that on a certain level - I would do anything to get Bobby Kotick away from Activision too - but this does seem like a very expensive way of putting Call of Duty onto a platform that traditionally hasn’t had much use for it. 

I dont know if it means committing to a fully featured version running locally on hardware. You could offer a fully featured version through streaming. 

[Cyhwuhx]

10 minutes ago, K said:

That is a big commitment - one that’s going to tie up a lot of development resource for the next decade. They must be absolutely desperate for this to go through. I can understand that on a certain level - I would do anything to get Bobby Kotick away from Activision too - but this does seem like a very expensive way of putting Call of Duty onto a platform that traditionally hasn’t had much use for it. 

 

 

Yeah, this clearly only serves one purpose. Still, if it pushes Microsoft to becoming platform agnostic and potentially showing the entire industry the way forward (pipe dream, I know), I'm all for it.

 

[rgraves]

When we say " platform that hasn't had much use for it" - even back on the Wii CoD used to sell over a millon units, it's not like they are going to be selling 10 of them, I'd be amazed if the sales don't easily cover the port costs. It's not hitting the headline numbers, but that doesn't mean it's not easily covering itself making the 'good pr' cost nothing (and if it does do well, there is certainly a large enough Switch audience to mean it could prove very profitable).

 

To be honest, it's a bit weird that, given the size of the Switch audience, it's not already there - even just hitting a small % of that userbase would be worthwhile.

 

And, this is not a change of tack at all from MS - they've been saying for ages this is what they wanted to do - you don't negotiate this kind of deal in a weekend with a company like Nintendo.

[LaveDisco]

I'ld bet that that's shipping a cloud version app for ten years. 

[thesnwmn]

I just hope they simply deploy an XCloud app so I can have that on Switch.

 

Then include an option to buy games like CoD individually so avoid it being Game Pass only.

[Kevvy Metal]

New Nintendo hardware can't be far off, and it's possible that there it might find parity with the Xbox version. 

Nintendo are weird, and everyone assumes it'll be a Switch 2. What if it's actually not? 😬

[thesnwmn]

The S in the Series S stands for Switch.

The Switch 2 is just an S with a screen attached.

 

[Cyhwuhx]

15 minutes ago, rgraves said:

And, this is not a change of tack at all from MS - they've been saying for ages this is what they wanted to do - you don't negotiate this kind of deal in a weekend with a company like Nintendo.

 

TBH considering the absolute tat available on the Nintendo eShop, this kind of deal could've been brokered during a quick lunch at Nando's.

[MidWalian]

Spencer, Ryan, Kotick, and a ton of lawyers meeting up with EU regulators today.  Other too including Nvidia, EA etc.

[Uzi]

Ah so they're going to release cod mobile on the series and ps5

[K]

25 minutes ago, PaB said:

I dont know if it means committing to a fully featured version running locally on hardware. You could offer a fully featured version through streaming. 

 

i'd forgotten cloud games were a thing on the Switch. OK, that probably reduces the technical overhead a bit.

[Popo]

Are we expecting to see native ports of CoD on Switch at all?

 

I assume this announcement will be limited to cloud versions only. 

 

Edit - to be fair, I'm not thinking long-term enough, am I? 10 years will encompass at least the Switch successor and potentially whatever follows after that. 

[Unofficial Who]

Given the absolutely abysmal support dealings I've had with Sony the past week I've lost any sympathy I had for them.

 

They need some competition, they're treating their customers with complete disdain.

[monkeydog]

3 minutes ago, Popo said:

Are we expecting to see native ports of CoD on Switch at all?

 

I assume this announcement will be limited to cloud versions only. 

 

Edit - to be fair, I'm not thinking long-term enough, am I? 10 years will encompass at least the Switch successor and potentially whatever follows after that. 

 

It's technically possible for the Switch 2 to be as powerful as the Series S.  In reality, it's Nintendo hardware.  Cheapskates!

[Alex W.]

10 minutes ago, monkeydog said:

 

It's technically possible for the Switch 2 to be as powerful as the Series S.  In reality, it's Nintendo hardware.  Cheapskates!

The latest iPad Pro is almost as powerful as a Series S. Although it has three times the battery capacity, it still only gets comparable battery life to the Switch when gaming. It also costs one thousand dollars.

[Alex W.]

I wonder if the redacted part of that CMA report said that NSO will be coming to Xbox Game Pass.

[monkeydog]

5 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

The latest iPad Pro is almost as powerful as a Series S. Although it has three times the battery capacity, it still only gets comparable battery life to the Switch when gaming. It also costs one thousand dollars.

 

Indeed. And the only tax bigger than Apple tax is Nintendo tax.  $2000 Switch 2 is a go!

 

In principle, Nvidia could repurposed one of their newer embedded chips.  With a few tensor cores to do DLSS3 and it  dould turn out pretty good power/performance/price at Series S levels, while being no where near the raw performance of that or Apple's M2 chip.

[Giddas]

1 hour ago, thesnwmn said:

I just hope they simply deploy an XCloud app so I can have that on Switch.

 

Then include an option to buy games like CoD individually so avoid it being Game Pass only.

 

What's in it for nintendo to do that, unless they give them a ridiculous amount of wedge?

[Alex W.]

Just now, monkeydog said:

 

Indeed. And the only tax bigger than Apple tax is Nintendo tax.  $2000 Switch 2 is a go!

 

In principle, Nvidia could repurposed one of their newer embedded chips.  A few tensor cores to do DLSS3 and have it turn out pretty good power/performance/price at Series S levels, while being no where near the raw performance of that or Apple's M2 chip.

Yeah, DLSS would be the way to go. The big question is whether nVidia has any intention of making products like the Switch’s Tegra more. They don’t ship anything like that today - I think their entire SoC business is aimed at power-guzzling brains for self driving cars now.

[Alex W.]

4 minutes ago, Giddas said:

 

What's in it for nintendo to do that, unless they give them a ridiculous amount of wedge?

30% off the top of every Game Pass sub done through the eShop?

 

This year is going to be insane.

[MidWalian]

8 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

I wonder if the redacted part of that CMA report said that NSO will be coming to Xbox Game Pass.

 

That would be interesting but I assumed the redacted part would be the Switch successor.

[Giddas]

4 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

30% off the top of every Game Pass sub done through the eShop?

 

This year is going to be insane.

 

They'd have to sell some "switch access to gamepass" add-on, or they will lose out on the vast majority of (non eShop) access.

[Alex W.]

7 minutes ago, Giddas said:

 

They'd have to sell some "switch access to gamepass" add-on, or they will lose out on the vast majority of non eShop orders.

The whole point would be to go out and get these products in front of people who wouldn’t otherwise subscribe to a service with XCloud. However big that market may be.

 

Maybe it would be an entire separate streaming-only Game Pass product exclusively for Switch at a cheaper price than Game Pass Premium, which I think would be rather narrow.

[Flanders]

I’ve thought for a while that a Game Pass for Nintendo or PlayStation could only really work as a stripped down cheaper package that only carries Microsoft Studios games.

 

Nintendo would be mad to let them put the full fat version on Switch when it carries so many indies that could be sold through their store. They aren’t going to let Hollow Knight 2 be available on their machine through a subscription service, for example. 

[monkeydog]

8 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Yeah, DLSS would be the way to go. The big question is whether nVidia has any intention of making products like the Switch’s Tegra more. They don’t ship anything like that today - I think their entire SoC business is aimed at power-guzzling brains for self driving cars now.

 

Nvidia's Jetson Orin modules are aimed at AI in mobile robotics.  They've various offerings that fit in a Switch power budget.  The Switch was also a little unusual for Nintendo hardware. They've not been shy about custom chips in the past.  An Orin with the video processing modules cut back would be a nice bit of kit.

[Super Craig]

Nintendo won’t even let the Minecraft Mario world be on other platforms. Can’t see them doing NSO on Xbox.

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Giddas said:

 

What's in it for nintendo to do that, unless they give them a ridiculous amount of wedge?

A catalogue of games previously unavailable on their console. I see it as a win win, Microsoft gets their deal and increases their subscription base, Nintendo sells more Switch’s off the back of it. 

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Flanders said:

I’ve thought for a while that a Game Pass for Nintendo or PlayStation could only really work as a stripped down cheaper package that only carries Microsoft Studios games.

 

Nintendo would be mad to let them put the full fat version on Switch when it carries so many indies that could be sold through their store. They aren’t going to let Hollow Knight 2 be available on their machine through a subscription service, for example. 

It’s cloud versions versus local though. I have Xcloud on Steam Deck yet I’ve still purchased some of those games so I have them to play locally without relying on streaming. 

[rafaqat]

1 hour ago, Alex W. said:

 

 

This year is going to be insane.

 

I am loving it.  Big boys scrapping.  May it continue.