Outright Games talks future Switch support

Even though Nintendo fans are itching to get their hands on the company’s next piece of hardware, many publishers and developers will continue supporting Switch – including Outright Games.

Chris Rose, who served as the production director on SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game, spoke with VideoGamer about plans for Switch going forward. While many will move on and welcome the additional power that Nintendo’s new console brings, Rose feels that abandoning the current system would be a mistake. The big reason is the install base – nearly 150 million Switch systems have been sold around the world.

Rose said the following in the interview:

“My free advice to anyone who wants to make a kid’s game is young kids, especially if they have older siblings, will get hand-me-downs off the last generation of console. There are going to be 143 million hand-me-downs out there in about a year, two years’ time… That is 143 million potential customers for you. Yeah, don’t be so quick to abandon Switch or Xbox One.”

“… So make sure you support the ones that are out there and still actively engaged with, because not everyone wants to go out and buy the brand new [console] for a younger child. But we know that there are loads of kids gonna be playing their switches for at least another four or five years, if not longer. So that’s why you have to support these consoles.”

Rose went on to say that Outright could end up releasing games for Switch in 2028 or even in the year 2030, again pointing out how many systems are out there. He compared the situation to the PS2, which sold similarly and saw additional support well beyond the traditional console lifecycle.

Rose shared the following:

“I would be amazed if we’re still not supporting Switch come like 2028, for example, maybe even longer than that. If someone said to me in 2030, we need this to come out and switch, it wouldn’t shock me. Again, there’s 140 plus million of them out there.”

“It’s a bit like PS2, right? The PS2 support went on for a very long time. they would just keep porting football games onto PS2 ’cause there were just so many of them there, and they would keep selling them. So it’s one of those things where if someone said to me in 2030, ‘by the way, this needs to support Switch’, I wouldn’t be surprised… it’s such a juggernaut of a machine and I wouldn’t even be surprised if it ends up breaking 200 million units by then.”

Outright Games just released SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game on Switch last week. You can find coverage on the game here. Thanks to VideoGamer for the interview quotes.