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Nintendo has announced a long list of third-parties that will support the Nintendo Switch. Will it be different this time?

With every new console Nintendo goes to great pains to assure its consumers that third-party support is strong. Let’s not forget those heady days of 2011 when Ken Levine was among the great and the good to enthuse about the potential of the Wii U. A year later, in their E3 2012 press conference, Nintendo revealed a solid line-up of third-party support. In the Wii U’s launch window several big titles were released by EA, Activision and Ubisoft, to name a few. Fast forward twelve months and third-party support had dropped off a cliff. To a lesser extent the same issue also plagued the Nintendo 3DS, especially in the second and third years of its life.

The eccentricities of Nintendo’s hardware design often plays a part. Simple ports are never that simple, be it due to the complexities of having to develop for two screens, motion controls, or a general lack of horsepower in the box. In Capcom’s recent earnings Q&A the question over whether it is possible to develop multi-platform titles on the Nintendo Switch was met with a non-committal ‘maybe’.

Q. Is it possible to develop multi platform titles on the Nintendo Switch?
A. We are currently carrying out research with regards to multi platform implementation of software for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on to the Nintendo Switch and thus are unable to comment at this moment. However, we do feel that there are differences in the desired direction and the play-style of the Nintendo Switch and those of the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. At Capcom, we determine which platform to release a title for after considering the features of both our software and the hardware in question, believing we must bring the enjoyment of our games to their maximum potential.

It’s far too early to say if the Nintendo Switch will fare better than its predecessors but the sense is that developers feel more confident about the system than they ever did about the Wii U. We’re certainly not hearing stories like last time, where Electronic Arts and several other developers returned their unopened Wii U dev kits before the console even made it to market.

If third-party backing does eventually decline the Switch’s support for Unity should at least endear it to the indie community, for whom being on as many devices as is possible is important. Although let’s hope the Switch’s epitaph is better than just being the new PS Vita.

Confirmed Nintendo Switch third-party partners

  • 505 Games
  • LEVEL-5
  • Activision
  • Arc System Works
  • Atlus
  • Audiokinetic
  • Autodesk
  • Bandai Namco
  • Bethesda
  • Capcom
  • Codemasters
  • CRI Middleware
  • DeNA
  • Electronic Arts
  • Epic Games
  • Firelight Technologies
  • FromSoftware
  • Frozenbyte
  • GameTrust
  • Grasshopper Manufacture
  • Gungho Online Entertainment
  • Hamster Corporation
  • Havok
  • Inti Creates
  • Koei Tecmo
  • Konami Digital Entertainment
  • Marvelous
  • Maximum Games
  • Nippon Ichi Software
  • Parity Bit
  • PlatinumGames
  • RAD Game Tools
  • RecoChoku
  • Sega
  • Silicon Studio Corporation
  • Spike Chunsoft
  • Square Enix
  • Starbreeze Studios
  • Take-Two Interactive Software
  • Telltale Games
  • THQ Nordic
  • Tokyo RPG Factory
  • TT Games
  • Ubisoft
  • Ubitus
  • Unity Technologies
  • Warner Bros.
  • Web Technology Corp

Get the Nintendo Switch from Amazon, eventually.

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