Could we see Xbox Games Pass on the Nintendo Switch? Recent rumors from the YouTube channel Direct-Feed Games suggests so.
We've seen Microsoft and Nintendo increasingly cozy up over the past year or so, as the Switch console continues selling millions per year and both parties see the business sense of cross-party collaboration and play.
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We previously reported on Microsoft's plans to bring its Xbox Live service to mobile devices and Nintendo's console – with a mind "to incorporate Xbox Live’s suite of game achievements, matchmaking, social systems and more in their games and devices."
The latest rumors suggest we could see an official Xbox app that also packs in access to Xbox Games Pass, Microsoft's Netflix-style streaming service for games – and support for Microsoft's Project xCloud technology, that will allow those games to be streamed to any number of Windows PCs and portable devices.
In the video below, Direct-Feed claims: "Microsoft will further their ambitions of expanding their reach to consumers beyond the Xbox ecosystem, by introducing an Xbox app for the Nintendo Switch, that will allow use of Games Pass and support Project xCloud."
Going soft
The Switch console doesn't exactly have a lot of third-party apps to its name: right now it only support YouTube, Inkypen, and Hulu, and is largely considered to be focusing on its primary function as a gaming machine.
But considering the two gaming companies' warming relationship – such as their commitment to more cross-play across their respective consoles – it's not an entirely outlandish idea.
Some titles on Xbox Games Pass could struggle to run well on the Switch's inferior processor, and wouldn't be able to match the 4K capabilities of the Xbox One X. However, a new upgraded Switch model could amend that.
Nintendo and Microsoft have also both been experimenting with cloud gaming, which outsources the hard work of processing to an external server, while using a respective screen or console just to display the output. So support for Project xCloud, Microsoft's grand vision for a streaming platform, may be the most likely part of the whole thing.
We have reached out to Nintendo for comment.
