Miyamoto: PC games will take less than a year to port to Switch

Shigeru Miyamoto, longtime Nintendo employee and creator of Super Mario, has said that it would take less than a year for third-party PC developers to port their games to Nintendo’s forthcoming Switch console.

This emerged during a recent investor Q&A, where the veteran designer explained that due to Switch supporting third-party engines like Unity or Unreal, it’ll take far less work for developers to bring their games to the machine.

"Third-party developers who are making software for PC can now easily adapt that software to work on our platform," he said "In the current development environment, I?d say that it would take less than a year for them to port a PC game to Nintendo Switch."

Miyamoto also said that not only have Nintendo’s home console and handheld software teams come together as one so they are created titles in the unified environment posted by the Switch, but that they’ve now mastered state-of-the-art technologies like the Unreal Engine and their skills "can no be compared with those of Western developers"

It’s an effective rallying call for the Switch, which has so far faced some criticism for what was perceived as a thin launch lineup. Support for third party engines could mean better third party support for the Switch than the WiiU, too, which struggled with getting third party titles on the platform within a few months of launch. 

The Switch launches on March 3rd.