World of Tanks is still one of the biggest free to play titles available years after its launch and has managed to successfully spread from PC to Xbox and PlayStation, and now it seems like there is a slim chance for Wolrd of Tanks to roll onto the Nintendo Switch.
Today players get to play World of Tanks on PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, but Nintendo consoles have been left out in the cold. According to Wargaming’s Senior Game Designer, Darold Higa, there is a chance for a Switch version as well, if the console meets certain conditions. He explained Wargaming's stance to the Switch in an interview published by GameTM (#191) and said:
"Everybody is asking me this question and it’s not like we don’t have a lot of Switches in the office. Because World of Tanks is free-to-play and because we don’t have an ‘in’ on that ecosystem we have to see what the install base is. It has to reach a certain install base before we can include it [in our plans]. The way it works is that, because we aren’t selling a retail product, we do need a large number of players to support the cost of implementing the platform."
"It’s more just a question of, we have to have an economically viable product. That’s why we have to watch the numbers real closely, and the executive team is always keeping track."
According to Higa, it is not so much of a question about how powerful the Switch is, more a question of install base. If the Xbox 360 could handle World of Tanks then the Switch will probably also be able to. Since they won't sell copies of a game, but rely on people buying in-game currency and premium time, they need a solid install base to stand on. He continued to say:
"Our engineers would spend the time to make it work. But that’s the thing, we have to make sure that we have enough budget to make sure that they can spend the time to make it work."
So, Nintendo Switch owners, Wolrd of Tanks might be coming your way if enough people get the console. If it comes then the single/co-op narrative expansion might come along too.
