EA Is Not Rushing to Make More Nintendo Switch Games

FIFA 18 Nintendo Switch

FIFA 18 came to the Nintendo Switch earlier this year marking the first time a FIFA title has appeared on a Nintendo console since FIFA 13 for the Wii U. For fans of the Switch, the release of this title could have been seen as a sign of support for the new console. When it comes to Nintendo, we haven’t seen EA mentioned in the same breath all the often in recent memory.

We don’t have an exact sale number on FIFA 18 for the Nintendo Switch but Electronic Arts is using that number as a sign of whether they should move forward with support or not. We’ve seen this before with the Switch so this shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise. The success of Ultra Street Fighter II led Capcom to begin preparing more Switch games and it could be a reason the Switch is receiving two Resident Evil titles later this year.

Capcom even went as far as calling Street Fighter a “smash hit” in their company earnings report, although no actual sales figures were given in the report.

EA is hoping similar success for FIFA will help make things easier on the company in terms of bringing more games to the Switch. Blake Jorgensen, EA’s finance chief spoke to the Wall Street Journal about making more games for Nintendo’s new console.

Jorgensen says it’s too soon to judge the success or failure of FIFA 18 for the Switch and he wants to wait until he understands what the demand is before the company commits more resources towards creating more games.

Some recent and upcoming EA titles to miss the Nintendo Switch entirely are The Sims 4, Star Wars Battlefront 2, NBA Live 18 and Need for Speed Payback. Some of these games would fit nicely on the Switch, such as The Sims 4, but EA decided to hold off on these titles, at least for now.

As it stands right now, we likely won’t be seeing any additional EA titles making their way to Switch in the near future.

From a Nintendo standpoint, the Switch’s success has been staggering. Nintendo has actually decided to up their forecast of 10 million units sold through March 2018 to 14 million units according to CNN Money. The strong first-party lineup of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, ARMS, Splatoon 2 and Super Mario Odyssey has certainly helped things in the Switch’s first year. However, Nintendo will need some help from third-party developers to help fill in the gaps if this success is going to keep up.

One publisher that appears to have went all-in on the Switch’s success is Bethesda. The publishing giant is bringing over several of its heavy hitters soon including DOOM, Skyrim and Wolfenstein 2. There’s no telling if there will be a market for these games on the Switch but that didn’t stop Bethesda from at least trying.

skyrim

Skyrim even features exclusive features for the Nintendo Switch version such as the ability to bring in Breath of the Wild Link outfits via amiibo support. DOOM releases November 10, Skyrim on November 17 and Wolfenstein 2 is looking at a release some time in 2018.

Going back to FIFA 18 on the Switch, we’ve really enjoyed the work EA put in the port. Since the Nintendo Switch hardware isn’t as powerful as the PS4 or Xbox One, EA had to create a new engine specifically for the Switch, causing there to be some cut features. If you weren’t a fan of those features to begin with, such as The Journey story mode, you’re not really missing out on much. You can read what we thought of the title here.

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