There have been a lot of joint operations between Microsoft and Nintendo in the last few years with collaborations offering a Super Mario-edition of Minecraft, Banjo Kazooie visiting Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Ori and the Blind Forest plus Cuphead being released for Switch. So how is the relationship between the two companies today?
If the Xbox boss Phil Spencer is to be believed, it's "great" and he also knows both the people running Nintendo. Here's what he had to say on the topic in a recent interview:
"The relationship with Nintendo is great. Doug Bowser and I, we talk often. Furakawa-san, the CEO of Nintendo, and I know each other well and we have conversations."
It does, however, seem like there won't be a whole lot of more Microsoft games coming for Switch and Spencer says that while he has "a ton of respect" for Nintendo, he is not fond of the speculations of which Xbox games that will end up for Switch:
"I will say that I think the individual IP by IP to different platforms, I can see [it] can kind of get confusing to customers over time. We've been learning, some of our development partners have really wanted to go do this, and we want to support the desires of our creative talent. Some of these have been partner lead.
I think more and more about what does a full Xbox experience mean on different platforms. 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 rumour 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."
Thanks GoNintendo