Overwatch on the Nintendo Switch sounds more and more unlikely—but it’s not ruled out

Overwatch on the Nintendo Switch console is something just about everyone wants, but it’s sounding more and more unlikely—at least in the near future.

Jeff Kaplan, Overwatch‘s game director, spoke about an Overwatch port for the Switch in March, noting that it’d be quite the challenge. Maybe too much of a challenge, Kaplan expanded in an interview with Express Online. “I think the problem is, we’ve really targeted our [minimum] spec in a way that we would have to revisit performance and how to get on [the Switch],” Kaplan said.

Given that Overwatch is already on three platforms—PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One—the extra maintenance splits resources even more. “It’s also already challenging right now maintaining three platforms and patching simultaneously, which is something that we’ve finally been able to achieve.”

Early in Overwatch’s life, Blizzard would put out patches on the PC first, later bringing them to Xbox One and PlayStation 4. And fans don’t really like that. They expect patches to be simultaneous across all three platforms. Blizzard is able to achieve this now, and adding a fourth system to that process would create new issues.

But as Kaplan said in March, the developer is keeping an open mind. Overwatch on the Switch is not ruled out entirely. “But I always like to tell people we’re very open-minded about what platforms we could be on,” Kaplan said. “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.”

Diablo 3 is a perfect example of this. Blizzard’s action roleplaying game released first on PC, later coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.