CD Projekt RED’s VP of business development Jan Rosner shared interesting insights on what the studio learned making their games for the Switch and the Switch 2.
In an interview with The Game Business, Rosner spoke about the company’s doubts about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt being successful when they made the port to the Switch, a definite number of years after it came out on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and even PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. As it turned out, many gamers double-dipped and even triple-dipped on a version of the game they knew would be scaled down in graphics and performance, because of the appear of playing on the go.
That made it easier for CD Projekt RED to decide to bring Cyberpunk 2077 to the Switch 2, but Rosner believes that there’s more to it than that.
In Rosner’s words:
We are going to see more and more third-party titles on the platform, which we may not necessarily expect on Switch 1. The previous generation has proven to be so successful, and there is so many more players to be reached with that, and I think that the [console’s capabilities] will surely allow it.
Rosner also threw cold water on the idea that the Switch 2 would face stiff competition from the Steam Deck. As he put it:
I’m not sure if I would consider Steam Deck a separate platform like Switch 2 Switch 2 is entirely a platform of its own, which is not an extension to anything else.
Steam Deck, as much as I love the device, feels like an extension to the existing PC audience and for the PC enthusiast. Switch 2 has its own audience. It’s very big, Switch 1 has sold many, many, many millions of units worldwide, and this allows developers like us to to tap into that audience, and to pretty much reach an entirely new player base.
Indeed, as much as the discourse is going about the price of the Switch 2 compared to the Steam Deck, it’s clear that Nintendo not only has the capacity, but an overwhelmingly larger volume of demand for the Switch 2 than the Steam Deck had when Valve launched it. Consoles are still a bigger market than PC gaming handhelds, and Valve’s choices on things like anti-cheat means that the Switch 2 will already be the best option for portable Call of Duty, at least when Activision and Microsoft finally make good on their contract.
But even before we got the official announcement for the first Call of Duty Switch 2 game, we already got confirmation for Madden NFL, NBA 2K, Street Fighter 6, and so many other games that would have previously been unheard of. So we’ve already seen to some extent that that what Rosner says is true, but it may be even broader than this in the coming months and years.
