 EA wants to bring their subscription service EA Play to Nintendo Switch. It is something they are actively exploring and could happen at some point, probably not this year. For those who don't, EA Play is the rebranded EA Access. They rebranded it last month, so there's a whole article about it on gameindustry.biz, why they rebranded all that jazz, how it fits more in line with their stuff. We know that EA Play has become now part of Xbox Game Pass, and so yeah, they redid an app on PC as well, but now EA wants to bring it to Switch. Let's just say we have to talk about this, because I don't know how you could bring something to Switch when you don't have any games. Alright, before we get into that, we have two giveaways going on right now. The first one is for three copies of Super Mario 3D All Stars to Enter. All you have to do is go down in the description and hit that gleam.io link. Also, if you join our Patreon at patreon.com slash Nintendo Prime for as little as $1 a month, you get 15 additional entries into every giveaway we do. We also have a second giveaway going on for a Nintendo Switch Lite, and then two second place winners will win a Switch Game of Choice. There is a laundry list of ways to enter for that down in the description as well. The chief among them being subscribed to the channel, hit the bell icon, comment, follow on Twitter, all that jazz going on in the description to do all of that. Alright, so in an interview with GameIndustry.biz, EASVP Mike Blank talked about a lot of things, and he was asked specifically about EA Play coming to Switch. Here's what he had to say. There are amazing games on that platform, and we foresee bringing more games to Switch over time. And I think there are opportunities for us to bring our subscription there, and bring an even larger portfolio to the Switch. We will do so. We're always exploring this with our platform partners, whether that be Switch or Steam or Epic or Xbox or Sony. We want to be where the players are. So while I have nothing to announce here, I would anticipate that we'll continue to bring more games and more great experiences to Switch. Now, that wasn't so long ago as earlier this year, EA promised us that they were going to bring more games to Switch over the next year. So far, they haven't really delivered on that promise. We got FIFA. Okay. And they're charging us $60 again for it. When they self-admitted, it is not a new version of FIFA. It is the old FIFA with updated rosters, updated clothing, and stadiums. But otherwise, it's the same FIFA we've gotten since basically 2017. There has been no changes. And the 2017 version already wasn't the current version. It was already an older version from the Xbox 360. So reality is we have FIFA, but we don't. We don't have Madden. Even though this is the worst Madden in years, we don't have it at all. The thing is, EA has a large portfolio of games. Let's not pretend. I know there's a lot of this FEA attitude out there because of some of their business practices, especially with micro transactions. But they have good games out there. Seriously. They really do. They have all their sports titles with NHL 21, FIFA 21, Madden 21, UFC 4. Do they still have the NBA one going? Or do they finally stop that one? I know 2K kind of dominates there. And we already have a superior NBA game on Switch. Obviously, the Star Wars IP. So there's things to be excited for in the future, like Star Wars squadrons. Jedi Fallen Order last year was really, really good. There's a remastered version of Command and Conquer out there. Plants and Zombies. Blah, blah, blah. Anthem. Apex Legends. They have some good games. I don't really understand how they could talk about EA Play coming to Switch. When the point of EA Play is to play the back catalog of EA games and then also get access to the current catalog for a nominal fee, right? So you get a certain subscription fee and you literally can play like right now. I have EA Play on my PC and I can play Madden 21. So the point of it, I pay like 15 bucks a month or whatever it is. The point of it is to get access to the new games but also the old games. EA Play coming to Switch would be so pointless. It'd be completely pointless. What are you going to get? Just the same FIFA version with different rosters? What could they realistically do? These games aren't on Switch. EA has not shown any forethought, any proof is in the pudding that they are willing to put a smidge of effort into a Switch game. I'm serious. You look at their major games, their big games, the ones that people care about, whether it's their sports titles and the one that we do get, whether it's Apex Legends is a bigger deal for them. The Sims. That's another one. That would make perfect sense on here. But this EA we're talking about, they don't do this crap on Switch. EA has not shown one ounce of interest in a Nintendo platform since the first year of Wii U. Remember, if you guys remember back then, or if you don't, maybe it was too long ago for you guys, before Wii U came out. Nintendo and EA were on stage at E3 2012, I believe it was, maybe it was 2011, one of those years, and said we have an unprecedented partnership. Unlike any partnership that's ever happened between EA and Nintendo, and you guys are going to get a crap load of games. It never happened. We did get some, admittedly. We got Madden at launch. Granted, it was just like the FIFA situation, not a current version of Madden, not with the new engine. It was old Madden with updated rosters. We ended up getting the Mass Effect trilogy. We did get one decent port, I think it was a need for speed. I ended up being a really, really well done port. But dude, like what's going on? I know there's a rumor out there the Mass Effect trilogy is coming to Switch, and maybe that's announced tomorrow in the Nintendo Partner Direct. So maybe we are going to get that. Maybe we're going to get the Mass Effect trilogy on Switch, and that's great. But that's nothing. You can't release EA Play on Switch, search asking for 5, 10, 15, 20 bucks a month from people when you don't have your games there. EA Play should not be anywhere where you can't play EA's games. So I never even thought about EA Play or EA Access, whatever it used to be called, being on Switch, because it doesn't make sense. Because you need the games. The whole point of paying for that service isn't so you can use it across all these different devices. It's so you can play it on the platforms you have. So if you add EA Play to Switch, nobody should use it unless it's free. You're not going to give your games for free, EA. Even the shitty ports you do on Switch, you're not going to do it. The only Iota thinking I can have here are the only thing that's maybe churning through my head. And this is a maybe situation and why they might be talking about EA Play on Switch, besides being directly asked about it. Shintura Furukawa, during the little investors briefing last night, mentioned next gen, like the next generation of Switch. He said we're about halfway through the Switch's current life cycle, the current Switch's life cycle. But he talked about how they are looking at the cutting edge technologies that will enable them to basically continue what the Switch is already doing. And then they're just looking at that combined with certain battery life targets. They have about five to six hours. So they're looking at this cutting edge tech, which, you know, with the partnership with Nvidia, that would be Volta, that would be the top end ARM processors. So looking at cutting edge technology suggests 4k, suggests DLSS 2.0. It suggests a rather beefy bump in the next Switch. And the only thing I can think of is that EA is aware of this already. They may even have a very early dev unit. And if that's the case, they're looking at that as a target platform for their games, where they could bring Star Wars caverns, where they could bring like actual real versions of their sports games. So the only thing I could think of is that EA maybe has this hardware on hand, and they are planning to support that hardware, just not the current Switch hardware. That's the only thing I could think of. Because EA has not shown one iota of even trying to get this stuff running. I mean, they've had guys working on the Frostbite engine on Switch, and we still don't really see anything out of it. Yes, they have some smaller indie games, of course. But I'm just saying that it's, don't even talk about it. Get the Switch out of your mouth. Stop pretending. Proof is in the pudding, EA. You haven't given us your best. The games we do get are old, old, old ports that you're still charging 60 bucks for. I don't even know how people are still buying it. You guys should not buy FIFA 21 this year. You don't buy it. You should not buy it on Switch. You shouldn't. You're buying a three-year-old game with a roster update. Just go buy FIFA back in 2017. It's the same game today, and just download the fan roster updates. Get the fan rosters. There's no point up. It's the same game. The gameplay is the same. Everything's the same. It's kind of what they did with Madden 21 in real life, even on the big platforms. It's pretty much the same game. Copy-pasted assets. So, yeah. I'm sorry. I know we haven't talked about EA in a while, and I'm legitimately looking forward to things like the new Dragon Age game, but it's just don't tease us about something that you're not even proving that you're even remotely capable of doing. The only thing I could think of is, again, if they have access to that new hardware, maybe that's what this is all in reference to, and they just can't say anything about it. Of course, NDAs. All right. That's all I got. Enough about this EA nonsense. It's kind of a day of third-party stuff, huh? We got that Nintendo Direct mini showcase tomorrow, which is going to be all third-party games. Although we get to talk, get to talk about next-gen Switch hardware today. That was kind of cool. All right. All right. Sorry. I'm just rambling now. You guys have a good day.