The first two Xbox games on Nintendo Switch have just been confirmed

Eventually, Xbox boss Phil Spencer popped up on The Official Xbox Podcast to confirm that such a project is indeed in the works, with Xbox looking to test the waters with bringing its games to third-party hardware.

Spencer has made it clear that, for the time being, only four Xbox games are being prepped for this transition onto systems that Microsoft does not own.

And he specified that Starfield and Indiana Jones will not be among these four test cases.

And now, thanks to today's Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, we know two of the Xbox games coming to Nintendo Switch.

First up, Pentiment will arrive on Nintendo Switch tomorrow (Thursday 22nd February). It was developed by Xbox's Obsidian studio, makers of The Outer Worlds and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2.

A role-playing game with a painterly art style, Pentiment earned a fair amount of praise on its original release. Seeing as it doesn't aim for that photorealistic AAA look, it seems like a natural fit for the Switch.

Later, on 16th April, Grounded will also come to Nintendo Switch. That's the other Xbox game confirmed recently for a Switch launch.

Also developed by Obsidian, Grounded is a survival game with a cute aesthetic, where players are shrunk down to a minuscule size and tasked with surviving in a garden. Again, it seems like a good fit for the Switch.

There was no mention in the presentation of Hi-Fi Rush, the music-based action game from Xbox-owned Tango Gameworks, which has been heavily rumoured for a Switch release. More on that, and any other developments in this space, as we hear them!

Certainly, Hi-Fi Rush would seem to fit the framework here that's been laid out by Pentiment and Grounded.

It looks like Xbox, which owns rather a lot of game studios after its acquisitions of Bethesda and Activision, is specifically looking at more indie-feeling games when it comes to planning Switch ports.

Of course, all these games can't be really be classed as true 'indies', when you consider that Xbox/Microsoft ultimately owns them.

But even a more casual player can tell the difference between a smaller game like Pentiment and a big AAA franchise like Halo or Starfield.

For now, it looks like those bigger franchise games will be staying in the Xbox ecosystem, while allowances are being made for smaller, quirkier titles which could stand to benefit greatly from the large pool of players on Switch.

Read more on Xbox:

• The very best Xbox Series X games
• How to charge Xbox Series X controllers
• What is Xbox Game Pass? Price and perks explained
• How to connect any Xbox controller to Xbox Series X/S

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