The success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons since launch has been evident from both a commercial and critical perspective, which might lead some to believe that the game could be headed towards a Sony or Microsoft console, or even the Nintendo 3DS. Unfortunately, the likelihood of such a move by Nintendo is virtually non-existent.
The idea of Nintendo sharing one of their most prized franchises with either Sony or Microsoft is an idea that should be extinguished from memory and forgotten. We have seen both companies share some of their exclusives, but never any of their flagship titles. Recently Sony has announced that Horizon Zero Dawn will be making its way to PC, and Microsoft has allowed Cuphead and Ori and the Blind Forest to be ported to the Switch.
However, these are not games that have been recently released. Instead, these games have existed for years on their main consoles with exclusivity agreements, and now represent another way to squeeze some additional profits from an otherwise exhausted title. For Nintendo to want to give up the leverage that comes with having Animal Crossing: New Horizons solely on the Wwitch, there would need to be something massive given in return.
What is less clear for some players is why the game is not seeing a release on the Nintendo 3DS. After all, both New Horizons and New Leaf share the same simple, colorful style of design in their characters and environments, as seen below, and neither is exactly a resource hog like other games might demand of their hardware.
The answer is likely a combination of factors. First, although the games work with a similar aesthetic, the Nintendo Switch is far more powerful than a 3DS, which is an odd thing to point out, since the Switch is usually the underdog when compared to a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. However, the numbers don’t lie. A Nintendo 3DS clocks in at 4.8 GFlops and was released in 2011, a PS Vita has 51.2 GFlops and released in the same year, while a Switch has a whopping 512 GFlops.
Put simply, this difference leaves the 3DS in the dust, and while one could argue that New Horizons could simply make do with a graphical downgrade, Nintendo has long been pushing towards making the Nintendo Switch the spiritual successor to the 3DS. The Switch Lite made that even more clear, and there is no reason to even consider a 3DS version of the game.
On the other hand, it’s only a matter of time before some creative types release a fully-playable homebrew Animal Crossing: New Horizons in Dreams, but that’s about as far as one could expect to see the series outside of Nintendo.
READ NEXT: Niantic: The History Of Pokémon GO’s Developer
