Overwatch director on challenges bringing the game to Switch
Posted on April 8, 2017 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch
Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan noted last month that Blizzard is open to bringing the shooter to Switch, though doing so would be “very challenging”. Express followed up with Kaplan and pushed further about the possibility of it happening.
Kaplan pointed to a couple of challenges in porting Overwatch to Switch. First, the team “would have to revisit performance”. A Switch version would also require Blizzard to support another platform with patches alongside the other systems. Kaplan did reiterate that Blizzard is “very open-minded about what platforms we could be on.”
He said:
“I think the problem is, we’ve really targeted our min spec in a way that we would have to revisit performance and how to get on that platform. And also, it’s already challenging right now maintaining three platforms and patching simultaneously, which is something that we’ve finally been able to achieve.”
“Our first couple of patches would come out on PC first and then later on the consoles. And a lot of that is because you’re working with Microsoft and Sony, and you want to be compliant to their ecosystems. Adding a third ecosystem to that just adds a lot of complexity for us, as well.”
“But I always like to tell people we’re very open-minded about what platforms we could be on. Just because we’re not on a platform right now, it doesn’t mean we won’t reconsider it in the future, so we stay aware of all these things.”
