What does Nintendo's acquisition of Shiver Entertainment mean for Nintendo Switch 2?

Continuing their trend of exciting Nintendo Switch announcements out of the blue, Nintendo recently revealed that they have acquired Shiver Entertainment. The American porting house was originally under Embracer Group, the Swedish company known for its acquisition spree in the gaming industry over the past couple of years.

With them owning Shiver as a subsidiary, what does this mean for Nintendo Switch 2? All fans await the next-generation console from the Super Mario developer with bated breath, especially with the inclusion of high-end features like ray-tracing and Nvidia DLSS rumored to be included.

Here's how the future may look for Nintendo's upcoming hardware with Shiver Entertainment in the picture.

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Shiver Entertainment's acquisition ensures more AAA third-party ports will be in the pipeline for Nintendo Switch 2

Before we delve into the details, who exactly is Shiver Entertainment? Based in Florida, USA, the studio has come into the limelight after being involved with a couple of super-ambitious ports for the current Switch handheld. In particular, they have been responsible for bringing over two notable WB-published titles to the hybrid console, namely Mortal Kombat 1 and Hogwarts Legacy.

Given that these two are some of the most visually striking and technically demanding current-gen titles, building a respectable rendition for a mobile chipset is certainly impressive. As such, this is an interesting move from Nintendo. At this point, they have never had a third-party porting house under their belt.

While Grezzo is a second-party studio that has ported first-party games to other Nintendo systems, this is a completely different thing; they are essentially PlayStation's Nixxes, just functionally the polar opposite.

While the Sony-owned subsidiary is responsible for bringing first-party PlayStation games to PC, Shiver will handle third-party porting contracts to Switch while overseen by Nintendo - and they have the experience to back up any future challenges.

The contract mentions, and to quote:

"Going forward, even after it becomes part of the Nintendo group, Shiver's focus will remain the same; continuing commisions that port and develop software for multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch"

With this acquisition, third-party publishers can simply approach Shiver to have them port their game to Nintendo in case they are unable to find a suitable porting house. As for the "multiple platforms", it likely refers to the yet-to-be-named next-gen successor alongside the rest of the Nintendo Switch family.

Traditionally, Nintendo's subsidiaries (in other words, first-party studios such as Retro Studios) are not known for continuing to develop games for third-party platforms, so this trend will likely continue. However, this is speculation for now and more insight is needed to know how things will turn out.

What we do know, is that the acquisition of Shiver Entertainment means things look very bright for Nintendo Switch 2. Much of the success seen by the existing Switch has been due to third-party offerings. Being able to play games like The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption, and more on the go is a dream come true for many gamers.

The Nintendo Switch 2 will evolve this concept further, with the promise of portable versions of next-gen titles, and Shiver Entertainment's acquisition is here to realize that to its fullest. In other words, Nintendo is getting serious, so titles like GTA 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, and more coming to Nintendo Switch are now far likelier than ever before.