Will Fortnite Come Out for the Nintendo Switch?

This is a huge week for Epic’s hit third person shooter, Fortnite. First, rap mega star Drake played Fortnite with Twitch streamer Ninja while more than 630,000 people watched, and then, Fortnite came out for the iPhone, although in order for you to play it, you’ll need to upgrade your device to iOS11 and an invite.

Fortnite is available on almost every platform with the exception of the Nintendo Switch, a system that would greatly benefit from a competitive, free-to-play shooter. We know Chance the Rapper wants it to happen, but he doesn’t pull the strings in Japan, last we checked. That said, when will Fortnite come out on the Switch? For that matter, will it ever release for Nintendo’s hybrid console?

Can we get a fortnite on switch @NintendoAmerica

— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) February 7, 2018

Unfortunately, Epic won’t say, but if we had to guess, yes, Fortnite will come out for the Switch in the near future. Epic might even have the game running on the hardware, or at the very least, is in talks with Nintendo of America to bring Fortnite to the Switch, with the ability to play cross-platform with people on Xbox, PS4, PC, or some combination.

Doing this makes perfect sense. For Epic, putting Fortnite on Switch gives its game even more exposure on a system that is red hot. Meanwhile for Nintendo, having Fortnite on the Switch puts the device on par with the competition and we guarantee that the company will sell at least 500,000 additional Switch systems, and that’s a safe guess; it’ll probably sell another million units, if not more. Plus, its cartoon-style graphics make it look Nintendo like, more so than rival PUBG.

Additionally, while the iPhone version of Fortnite runs quite impressively, hardcore players don’t want to fumble around with touchscreen controls. That’ll eventually get old. People will want to take Fortnite on the go, and they’ll want tangible buttons. The Switch is the only platform that will provide that; yes, we realize Switch’s whole online chat system is a mess.

Of course, we have to wonder if Fortnite can even run on the Switch, and again, we think the answer is yes. Epic does a great job optimizing the game to run on different platforms, and we don’t see any reason why it can’t get Fortnite up and running on the Switch, even if it means at a lower resolution, similar to what we saw with Rocket League.

To reiterate, there’s no official confirmation that Fortnite is coming out for the Switch, but it’d be foolish on Epic’s part to avoid it, and shortsighted on Nintendo’s part to say no to bringing the world’s most popular video game to its system. Yes, the game is free to download and play, but this is all about moving hardware, and at $299 a Switch, Nintendo would make a ton of cash. 

But Epic… please don’t do this several months from now. Fortnite should release for the Switch by June, or with the launch of Nintendo’s online service later this year. We can’t wait until 2019.

What do you think? Will Fortnite ever come out for the Switch? If it does and you don’t own a Switch, would this get you to buy one? Let us know!  In the meantime, find out which celebrities cannot stop playing Fortnite.