Cocos game engine finally supports Nintendo Switch

Cocos Technology announced that its Cocos game engine can now be used to make games that run on the Nintendo Switch.

The Chinese company can finally make the leap into console games for the first time in its 11-year history. Cocos has more than 1.3 million active game developers

Beijing-based Cocos makes an open-source game engine, Cocos Creator, that can be used to various platforms.

“People have known us for having the best open-source engine for game development for mobile
devices and the web,” said Cocos Technology CEO Zhe Wang, in a statement. “But as our development ecosystem has been evolving, so have our company’s goals, and the Nintendo Switch is part of our future. Not only for its ability to have gaming on the go but its appeal to gamers here in China and globally.”

“This is just the beginning of the many things happening with Cocos Creator,” said Cocos technical
director Huabin Ling, in a statement. “We have already expanded with support for HarmonyOS, TikTok, and WeChat mini games. Nintendo adds even more places developers can create and share their products across the world. We’re excited to share where Cocos Creator games go next.”

Cocos Creator For Nintendo Switch Is available for free in early July to all Nintendo Switch developers
in the middleware section of the Nintendo Developers Portal. Developers who are already approved to
develop for the Nintendo Switch can access the software from Cocos. Switching to the Switch (pun intended) make it easier for make games for Nintendo fans and new audiences.

Some Cocos-based titles are on the Switch, but in those cases the developers did the customization work themselves. Cocos has about 300 people now.

“We’ve been working very hard on it all of this year and have been working with Nintendo for quite a while to prepare this. We are very happy about their help and glad to have more places for people to build games,” Cocos said.

Last week, Cocos held an investment event in Shenzhen, asking developers to come try it out. Zeng Xiaofeng, vice president of China at Niko Partners, said in an email to GamesBeat that, in 2015, Cocos had some support from Microsoft China to have the Cocos engine work with Xbox game development.

However, that seldom happened for Xbox or PlayStation games. Now Cocos is working with Nintendo, and it has also launched into many new areas in recent months, such as automotive, meta, and AR/VR, Zeng said.

Since few Chinese game developers have been making console games, it will be interesting to see what impact this has on Cocos, which is strong in China with popular titles like Happy Element, AFK Arena, Clash of Kings, and “Carrot Fantasy, Zeng said. Such games have 1.6 billion players.