Microsoft’s Phil Spencer says no plans for Xbox Game Pass on Nintendo

Just a few days after Xbox’s CFO suggested that Microsoft would be up for putting Game Pass on devices like Switch, head of gaming Phil Spencer has said that there are “no plans” to make that happen.

In an interview with Windows Central, Spencer highlighted the importance of innovating for owners of Xbox hardware and making them “feel great about their investment in what we’ve built.” While Microsoft continues to grow Game Pass, having it on competing platforms won’t be happening.

Spencer said the following about Xbox Game Pass and specifically shutting down plans for Nintendo (and PlayStation):

“I’ll start by saying we have no plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo. It’s not in our plans. But I think you hit on the right point of ‘what it means to own an Xbox.’ The thing I want to be focused on is how do we continue to innovate for people who’ve made the commitment to our hardware platform? And how do we continue to make sure that they feel great about their investment in what we’ve built.

I’m obviously going to have my own point of view on our hardware. But I think our hardware teams did a great job with the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S this generation, giving value and performance in the hardware line. When I think about investments in things like Game Pass, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, cross play, and cross save, and ID@Xbox, all of these things – I want us to continue to innovate, so people on our console feel like we’re making investments in console that matches their commitment they’re making to us.

Game Pass was one of the things you know that over the last five years we built, and we continue to grow, it’s on PC, it’s on cloud. It’s an important part of the Xbox console identity. And I think it will continue to be that. And we will continue to look at future ways for us to innovate across our game portfolio and our platform.”

It’s been a bit of a back and forth situation when it comes to Xbox Game Pass on Switch. Spencer left the door open to the idea in 2019, but shut things down a couple of years later.