EA Potentially Looking To Support Switch With Frostbite Engine
This article was originally written for TheNintendoVillage.com, a website I founded and ran from 2018 to 2021.
One of the few publishers we’ve not seen a lot of on Switch is EA. Bar some questionable ports of FIFA and a couple of indies (in Fe and Unravel Two), the company has neglected to release anything on Nintendo’s wildly popular hybrid console. That said, if recent comments are to be believed, it appears EA could well be changing their tune in the not-too-distant future.
At a recent conference call discussing their latest quarterly report, COO Blake Jorgensen indicated that EA’s interest in the system is growing:
"We are always looking and discussing with Nintendo what else we can put on the platform, and as the platform grows, our interest in adding content grows for that platform, but we're also conscious of the fact that the top selling titles, by a long shot, are all Nintendo software. Which is fabulous software, but it helps us balance the realities of how big our markets could be there. But trust that we're looking at that, you will hear more things in the future about what we're putting on the platform."
This ties into a similar story from last year, in which Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele said that they were absolutely looking at bringing more titles to the platform with ‘more to come’ on that point.
One of the reasons EA has given in the past for Switch receiving much watered-down versions of FIFA is the lack of support for the company’s Frostbite engine. However, YouTuber Doctre81 has uncovered a LinkedIn job listing for EA's Motive Studios, seeking a Rendering Engineer to work on a "beloved and revered" series. One requirement is for the successful candidate to have experience working on multiple platforms, including the Switch, with a key expectation for the role being to:
Develop in the Frostbite Engine creating leading technologies for games around the globe.
It could just be that the new Rendering Engineer will be working on Frostbite and Nintendo Switch software, rather than the two in tandem, but it’s still encouraging to see EA are actively looking for staff members to work on Nintendo’s hardware. The company does own the rights to the Star Wars franchise after all, and it’s been a long time since we enjoyed some lightsaber action on a Nintendo console, as we discussed on a recent podcast episode.
Are you hoping EA might potentially bring a proper version of FIFA to the console? Let us know down in the comments.