The Epic Games v Apple lawsuit may have given the strongest hint yet at the possibility of Xbox Game Pass or xCloud coming to Nintendo Switch. Axios’ Stephen Totilo shared documents from the lawsuit that have been heavily redacted by Nintendo as they “reflect…competitively sensitive information about negotiations between Nintendo and Microsoft.” The executive’s deposition discussed Microsoft’s plans to bring xCloud to iOS, as well as the overall console business as a whole. There’s no way of knowing exactly what was said, but it would be interesting to know what negotiations the two companies were involved in!
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Totilo shared images of the redacted documents on Twitter. Images can be found in the Tweet embedded below.
Nintendo says these portions of an Xbox biz dev exec’s deposition in EpicvApple “reflect…competitively sensitive information about negotiations between Nintendo and Microsoft.” She was primarily deposed about trying to bring xCloud to iOS and more broadly discussed console biz pic.twitter.com/UeTBRaVxmi
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) May 18, 2021
It’s worth noting that, even if the redacted parts do mention discussions about xCloud or Game Pass on Switch, there’s simply no way of knowing the status of those discussions. It’s possible that the comments were redacted because discussions are ongoing, or because an announcement hasn’t been made. However, it’s also possible that plans fell through, and Nintendo could have had the comments redacted to prevent the general public from seeing that there were discussions in the first place. There’s simply no way or knowing!
It would be very interesting to see if Xbox Game Pass could be pulled off on Nintendo Switch. Outside of the company hurdles, there are a number of technical issues that would make it difficult. The platform would need a specifically tailored set of games, as many would be incompatible with Switch. As such, xCloud would seem much more likely, but it’s all just speculation until Nintendo and Microsoft make some kind of announcement.
Regardless of what gets revealed, it’s clear that the strong relationship between Nintendo and Microsoft continues to grow. Where it might go from here remains to be seen!
Would you like to see Xbox Game Pass on Switch? What do you think was redacted from the deposition? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!
