Phil Spencer: Relationship Great With Nintendo, But Hopes People Stop Thinking About It

There was an interesting time period over the last year or two where it seemed like Microsoft and Nintendo were in some kind of a quasi-partnership. Microsoft was letting a few of their published titles show up on the Switch, as well as letting Banjo-Kazooie show up in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But it seems that partnership, if you want to call it that, isn’t going anywhere else, based on what the head of Xbox says about the relationship.

On the IGN Unlocked podcast, Spencer talked mostly about the upcoming Xbox Series X, but when asked about any further happenings between Microsoft and Nintendo, he seemed to want to squash the idea pretty definitively. While he says that the relationship is still “great” with Nintendo, even doing some name dropping of bigwigs at the Japanese company, he states there are no more plans for anything, and he seems to want people to stop asking about it altogether, saying that he doesn’t like how “rumors” about possible Switch ports seem to pop up with any new Microsoft backed title.

“I think more and more about what does a full Xbox experience mean on different platforms,” said Spencer. “Right now, it seems like when any game comes out, there’s that, ‘is this one going here is this one going there.’ I’d rather be able to set more of an Xbox-level expectation for our fans on where things are going to go. I thought we did that with our first party when we talked about games shipping on Xbox and PC, and I got some blow-back from certain people in certain groups on that, but at least we set an expectation on that. I’d rather see us get to that point on the different pieces of hardware we’re on, so I guess I’ll kind of leave it there.

“I definitely have a ton of respect for the role that Nintendo plays, and I love having great games on their platform. I don’t really love this idea that for every one of our games, there becomes this little rumor on it ‘is it going to end up on the Switch or not.’ I feel we should set a better expectation with our fans than that.”

Well, it was a nice idea, anyway, but I guess don’t go expecting Halo on Switch, or Mario to show up on an Xbox anytime soon.