The Switch has enjoyed far better third party support than any other Nintendo platform has in a long time, but even so, a few notable companies have chosen not to do much with the platform. Activision has been chief among them- though some titles like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro have launched for the platform, the majority of the company’s flagship releases have chosen to skip Nintendo’s hybrid console.
Speaking about the same during a recent testimoty at the ongoing Microsoft vs FTC trial, Activision Blizzard CEO admitted that not supporting the Switch was “a bad decision” on his part, and that, upon first learning what the console would be, he was unsure how successful it would turn out to be.
Since its launch a little over six years ago, the Nintendo Switch has sold over 125 million units, second only to the PS2 in total lifetime sales for a console.
“I made a bad judgement,” Kotick said (via VGC). “When I had seen the prototype of the Switch, it was different then when I saw the prototype of the Wii [and] I thought it was the most extraordinary video game system ever created.
“When I saw the prototypes for Switch, I was concerned because they were trying to accomplish a lot with a console that also had a portable capability. I didn’t think it was going to be wildly successful.”
“It’s probably the second most successful video game system of all time, so it was a bad decision on my part,” he added.
When asked if Activision will have a different outlook for the Switch’s successor and offer better software support for the platform, Kotick said, “I think we would consider it once we had the specs but we don’t have any at present.”
He went on to add that better support for the next Nintendo console is something Activision will consider even if it doesn’t get acquired by Microsoft. “Like I said, I think once we get the detailed specifications—we missed out on the opportunity on this past generation with Switch—so I would like to think we’d be able to do that, but we’ll have to wait until then,” he said.
Of course, if Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion of Activision Blizzard does go through, there will be a much higher expectation of support for the next Nintendo platform, especially where Call of Duty titles are concerned. That’ll be largely down to Microsoft having a signed a legally binding agreement with Nintendo that will see the former releasing Call of Duty games for the latter’s platforms with “full feature and content parity” for at least the next 10 years.
Speaking of the Switch’s successor, during his testimony, Kotick also said that the next Nintendo console is likely to be as powerful as the PS4 and Xbox One. Read more on that through here.
