How to get your indie game on Switch after Steam

If your indie game is already out on Steam, a Switch version is still possible, and it usually comes through someone new. Of the self-published Steam games in our study that reached Switch after launch, 63% did it with a publisher their Steam page doesn’t name.

This post is for developers weighing that step: how often it happens, how late it can happen, and the three ways to do it.

We make games too, and “should we port this?” is a question we have asked about our own. So we measured what happened to 5,860 released indie games.

About one in four indie games we tracked reached Switch

We took every paid indie game that launched on Steam from 2020 to 2022 and drew at least 10 Steam-purchase reviews in its first year: 5,860 games. On September 29, 2026, we searched Nintendo’s US eShop for each one and matched titles and credits.

1,322 of them (23%) are on Switch. The bigger the Steam audience, the likelier the port. Among games with 10 to 99 reviews in year one, 17% made it. Among games with 1,000 or more, 52%.

1. 10 to 99 reviews (4,209 games)17.0%
2. 100 to 299 (776)28.1%
3. 300 to 999 (474)37.8%
4. 1,000 or more (401)52.4%

Paid indie games launched on Steam 2020 to 2022 with 10+ Steam-purchase reviews in year one. Share with a matching Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 listing on the US eShop, read September 29, 2026.

Source: Strike Two analysis of Steam and Nintendo eShop data

Reception matters too. Among games with 100 or more first-year reviews, 41% of those at 80% positive or better are on Switch, against 28% of the rest.

Games that had a publisher on Steam were ported twice as often as self-published ones, 36% against 17%. That fits what we found when we looked at what a game publisher actually does: the clearest difference was reach, in languages and in sales.

Most Switch versions came after Steam, a third over a year later

Only 36% of the ported games were on Switch in the same month as their Steam launch or earlier. The other 64% followed, a median 13 months after Steam.

432 ports, a third of the total, arrived more than a year after the Steam launch. 199 came more than two years after, and 38 more than four.

1. Same month or earlier (479)36.2%
2. 1 to 6 months later (198)15.0%
3. 7 to 12 months later (213)16.1%
4. 13 to 24 months later (233)17.6%
5. 25 months or more (199)15.1%

Share of the 1,322 ported games. Measured from the Steam launch month (the Early Access start for games that sold in Early Access first) to the earliest Switch release on the US eShop. Read September 29, 2026.

Source: Strike Two analysis of Steam and Nintendo eShop data

So a Switch version is not a launch-week decision. For a third of the games that got one, it was a decision made well into the game’s second year or later.

Late ports usually came through a new partner

This is the finding that matters most for a developer with a finished game. When a game launched on Switch alongside Steam, the Switch publisher was a company missing from the Steam credits only 13% of the time. When the Switch version came 7 to 12 months later, 54%. Past a year, 55%.

1. Same month or earlier (479)12.9%
2. 1 to 6 months later (198)38.4%
3. 7 to 12 months later (213)54.0%
4. 13 to 24 months later (233)57.5%
5. 25 months or more (199)52.8%

A new partner: the publisher on the US eShop listing matches none of the game's Steam developer or publisher credits. Paid indie games launched on Steam 2020 to 2022, 10+ year-one reviews. Read September 29, 2026.

Source: Strike Two analysis of Steam and Nintendo eShop data

For games that were self-published on Steam, the pattern is stronger. Of 490 that reached Switch after their Steam launch, 310 (63%) did it with a publisher they hadn’t worked with on Steam.

Those partners are spread out. The 430 after-launch ports with a new partner went through 148 different Switch publishers. The busiest were eastasiasoft (33), Ratalaika Games (33), QUByte Interactive (32), REDDEER.GAMES (22), Ultimate Games (21) and Silesia Games (19). Most of the rest handled one or two games from our list.

Three ways onto Switch

Do it yourself. Nintendo’s developer portal says individuals can register, not only companies. Registering is the first step.

To get Switch development and publishing access, you then fill in an access request describing your development history and the planned project. Your engine matters. Godot’s documentation says no engine can legally hand out console export templates without proof that you are a licensed console developer, and it lists third-party companies that do Switch ports of Godot games.

Hire a porting studio. You keep the publishing and pay for the work. We found no development costs on Nintendo’s public pages, and the price ranges porting studios publish are wide and rarely sourced, so get quotes for your actual game.

Partner with a console publisher. They handle the port, the submission and the store, and take a share.

Voyer Law’s 2026 report on more than 130 publishing agreements found console-only deals were 11% of the sample and “typically entered into after release on PC”. Developers kept 66% of revenue on average in those deals. That sample is small, so treat the average as a rough guide.

We worked through what shares like that mean in what indie game publishers take.

When a Switch port is the wrong move

The window narrows fast. Of the games that still weren’t on Switch a year after their Steam launch, 8.7% got there later. After two years, 4.2%. After three, 1.8%. A late port is common among ports, but rare for any single game.

We can’t see Switch sales. Nintendo doesn’t publish them per game, so nothing here says a port paid off. A port that comes out on time and sells poorly is still a port that cost you months.

If your controls depend on a mouse, or your text is small, the port is really a redesign. The same fixes help on Steam Deck first. The issues that most often kept games from Steam Deck Verified were controller button prompts and small text, and both matter on Switch too. That work is cheaper to test on a Deck.

And if your Steam audience is still growing, a Steam update visibility round may do more for less. A port splits your attention across a second store, with its own submissions, patches and sales.

What to do next

1. Check where you stand. First-year reviews and review score predicted a port better than anything else we measured.
2. Make the game controller-first and readable on a small screen. You need that for Switch whichever route you take, and it pays off on Steam Deck now.
3. Decide who carries the work. If you want to keep publishing yourself, register on Nintendo’s portal and talk to porting studios for your engine. If you would rather someone else run it, a console publisher is the common route after launch.
4. If you talk to a publisher, ask what they have ported and when. The eShop credits are public, so you can check their record yourself.

If your game is out and you are weighing what comes next for it, including Switch, we’d like to hear about it. Our approach is in our post on finding a publisher for a released game.

How we measured it

• Games. Every paid indie game (Steam’s Indie tag) that launched on Steam from January 2020 to December 2022 with at least 10 Steam-purchase reviews in its first 12 months: 5,860 games. This is the same population as our Steam Deck and publisher studies. A game that sold in Early Access first is dated from its first review month.
• Steam records. Names and developer and publisher credits from Steam’s store API, read September 29, 2026.
• Switch records. Each Steam name searched on Nintendo’s US eShop game search, the same index nintendo.com’s store uses, on September 29, 2026. We kept the top eight results and ignored DLC.
• Matching. A Switch or Switch 2 listing counts when its title matches the Steam title, ignoring punctuation and edition words, and a developer or publisher credit matches on both stores. An exact title of six or more characters also counts without a shared credit, unless it came out on Switch six months or more before the Steam game. Numbered sequels don’t count.
• Timing. Months from the Steam launch month to the earliest matched Switch release. Only listings released by the read date count.
• New partner. The publisher on the earliest Switch listing matches none of the Steam developer or publisher credits. Self-published on Steam means every Steam publisher credit names the developer.
• Checks. We read 70 random matches by hand. All 30 with a shared credit were right. Of 40 without one, 2 looked like different games with the same title and 2 were uncertain, so we estimate 1% to 2% of all matches are wrong. If a tenth of the matches without a shared credit were wrong, the after-launch new-partner share would be 50% instead of 51%. Renamed ports and bundles are missed, so the share on Switch is a floor.
• Limits. US eShop only, so games released on Switch only in Asia or Europe are missed, as are games since removed from the eShop. A different publisher credit on Switch can occasionally be the developer’s own label under another name. We can’t see Switch sales. Games from 2022 have had less time to be ported than games from 2020, which is why the later-port odds are counted from fixed points after launch.

The scripts, raw data and results are kept with the method so every number here can be traced. Figures read September 29, 2026.