Activision says Nintendo Switch 2 is less powerful than PS4

Activision says Nintendo Switch 2 is less powerful than PS4

Nintendo spoke to Activision Blizzard last December, about making games for the Switch 2, but the console may have had a power upgrade since.

Rumours about the Nintendo Switch 2 are going to kick into overdrive as soon as the new year begins, as there’s a decent chance Nintendo could announce it relatively early in 2024 – even if it’s not launched until the autumn.

There’s a lot of rumours circulating at the moment, which are given more credence by the fact that recent leaks about the Nintendo Direct proved to be accurate, but for their part Nintendo has barely even acknowledged it’s working on new hardware.

The closest thing to any kind of official comment has come from Activision, of all people, who back in June were one of the first to suggest that the Switch 2 was roughly as powerful as the PlayStation 4. And now more has been revealed about their talks with Nintendo.

It’s highly unlikely that Activision Blizzard are the only third party publisher Nintendo has been talking to and new documents from the recent court case between Microsoft and the FTC shows that discussions first began last year, with a formal meeting in December.

These documents are amongst a number recently made public by The Verge and include one confirming that The Elder Scrolls 6 will not be coming to the PlayStation 5.

The Switch 2 information comes in a heavily redacted email chain – in this case between Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick and fellow exec Chris Schnakenberg.

‘Given the closer alignment to Gen8 platforms [i.e. The PS4 era] in terms of performance and our previous offerings on PlayStation 4/Xbox One, it is reasonable to assume we could make something compelling for the NG Switch as well. It would be helpful to secure early access to development hardware prototypes and prove that out nice and early,’ reads a comment from Schnakenberg.

Anything more juicy has been redacted and in the end we don’t really learn anything more than we knew in June, other than Activision Blizzard is as keen to get its games on the Switch 2 as Nintendo is.

That almost certainly means Call Of Duty, especially given Microsoft’s insistence it wants the franchise on as many formats as possible, and probably also Overwatch 2 and other Activision Blizzard properties.