EA has revealed a curious feature they’re adding to Split Fiction that will definitely have some Nintendo fans thinking long and hard.
As reported by Nintendo Life, Split Fiction will use GameShare, the Switch 2 feature that allows you to share a copy of a game to another Switch 2 user. This feature is primarily for multiplayer games, and multiplayer is a core game design element for Split Fiction as it has been for Hazelight Studios’ and even studio head Josef Fares’ body of work.
Split Fiction was released just last month, and EA went out of their way to introduce a new system for it called Friend’s Pass. Using Friend’s Pass, one owner of the game can share it to someone else so they can play together.
What’s unusual about Friend’s Pass, especially for EA, is that the feature is cross platform and cross play. So, regardless if you owned Split Fiction on Steam, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X AND S, you can share it to anyone who has a Steam, PlayStation, or Xbox account.
When Split Fiction debuts for the Nintendo Switch 2, it will also have Friend’s Pass, so it will join those three platforms for cross play cross platform fun. But GameShare also offers something that’s only possible on Nintendo’s platforms.
To quote EA:
“Split Fiction will take advantage of the new Nintendo Switch 2 system features GameShare and GameChat. GameShare will enable Nintendo Switch 2 owners to invite another player to play together over a local wireless connection using just one copy of the game. This “other player” can be not only a Nintendo Switch 2 owner but a Nintendo Switch owner as well.”
Nintendo Life also pointed out that Nintendo explained that unlike their old Download Play feature on the DS and 3DS, you didn’t have to download a local copy of the game, and could start playing immediately. If you’re a true blue Nintendo fan, you would have realized by now that EA basically revealed that GameShare is local game streaming between two consoles. This was the technology used on the Wii U to connect the console to its dedicated controller, the GamePad.
As much as a sore spot as the Wii U can be for Nintendo developers and employees, there really are loyal fans who still love the Wii U. But if anything, they would love it more for its unique features than its technical performance. Wii U GamePad’s built in local streaming function predated Steam’s In-Home Streaming, and in spite of its market failure, was more widely adopted than the earliest streaming services like Gaikai and OnLive.
It’s quite clear that Nintendo took what they knew developing the Wii U and brought it over to the Switch 2 for GameShare. But of course, this also means that Nintendo could re-enable Nintendo’s split-screen gameplay on the Switch 2 if they wanted. That wouldn’t just open the door to rerelease Wii U games and Wii U versions of games. They could also use this setup to rerelease DS and 3DS games.
Of course, we understand that just because Nintendo can do it, doesn’t mean that they would actually do it. So this doesn’t confirm any of those things are happening. But we can certainly marvel that Nintendo continues to iterate on their innovations on the down low, and those fans who do miss dual screen and split screen gameplay can hope that it could make a return someday.
