As you all know, Nintendo Switch is one of the most successful consoles in recent years in the video game industry. Its success is based on different factors, some of the main ones being its portability and the fact that it has a very extensive catalogue, with titles for all tastes.
As is logical, when a platform is successful, most companies try to take advantage of the occasion to launch their titles on it and thus obtain more profits. A clear example of this is the porting of titles. As you all know, porting a game consists of taking a game already available on other platforms and bringing it to another one, adapting it to its architecture, so that it looks as good as possible both graphically and in terms of performance, in order to reach more players. Over the last few years we’ve seen a number of titles come out on other platforms first, but over the months or years they end up coming to Nintendo Switch.
When you think of companies that have successfully ported major titles to the hybrid console, Panic Button, an Austin, Texas-based US game developer founded in 2007 that has become very popular with the Nintendo audience thanks to its ports of triple-A games from other platforms to Nintendo Switch, some of the most popular being DOOM, DOOM Eternal and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
However, we have some interesting news from another company that is also known for its ports. It’s Saber Interactive, which creates its own games as well as working on notable releases such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition and Crysis Remastered. As it turns out, it has confirmed that it has acquired three companies.
Here are all the details he’s shared about them:
- Demiurge Studios, which has mainly done contract work on triple-A titles. The other two acquisitions, however, suggest that Saber Interactive is looking to strengthen its position in the Switch porting space.
- Estonia-based Fractured Byte, which has worked on Switch ports of Borderlands Legendary Collection and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2.
- SmartPhone Labs, based in Veliky Novgorod, Russia, which has worked on mobile adaptations, but has been named as responsible for the upcoming Switch version of World War Z. In this case, Saber Interactive was already the ‘name’ attached to the zombie action title, so this acquisition seems to formalise an existing relationship.
It’s certainly interesting to see the continued growth of the Switch porting business, which will no doubt continue with Nintendo’s future hardware if it proves to be a sales success. Saber Interactive is currently still busy on Crysis Remastered Trilogy and Kingdom Come: Deliverance for Switch among those titles in the pipeline.