First-submission certification. Five platforms at once. Here's what that actually takes.
Most porting disasters don't start at certification. They start at the vendor selection call, when a studio picks a partner based on a low quote and a vague portfolio — and doesn't find out what that means until three months before launch.
Game porting in 2026 is a different discipline than it was five years ago. Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and the continued fragmentation of PC storefronts mean that a port isn't just a technical adaptation — it's a full production workstream with platform-specific requirements, certification processes, performance budgets, and UI overhauls that can take as much time as the original game took to build.
Choosing the right porting company changes that outcome. This guide covers what to actually evaluate — not what sounds good on a capabilities page.
What "Porting Experience" Actually Means — and How to Test It
Every studio claims porting experience. The question is what kind, on what platforms, and at what scale.
There are three tiers of porting complexity that separate studios who can handle the work from studios who've only handled part of it.
Tier 1 — Single-platform ports. A studio ports one version of a game to one new platform. This is the most common engagement, and the most common place where experience claims get inflated. Porting an indie Unity title to Nintendo Switch is real work — but it doesn't prepare a team for simultaneous multi-platform certification on a 60-hour Unreal Engine RPG.
Tier 2 — Multi-platform simultaneous porting. This requires parallel team management, platform-specific build pipelines, and the ability to handle divergent certification feedback from multiple first parties at the same time. Studios that have done this repeatedly operate differently — their pipelines are built for it.
Tier 3 — Porting with co-development scope. Some ports require more than adaptation. When a game ships on a new platform with new DLC, expanded content, or UI rebuilt from scratch, the porting studio needs co-development capability alongside pure porting expertise. Very few studios operate at this level cleanly.
When evaluating a porting partner, ask them directly: which tier describes the majority of their work? What was the largest simultaneous platform scope they've managed? What was their first-submission certification rate?
Devoted Studios ported Risk of Rain 2 (Gearbox Software) to 5 platforms simultaneously — Xbox, Switch, and PlayStation — achieving first-submission certification across all platforms while handling network integration, rendering optimization, and DLC support in parallel. That's Tier 2 operating at full scale.
The Certification Question Nobody Asks Early Enough
Platform certification — TRC for Nintendo, TCR for Microsoft, TRC for Sony — is where ports live or die. A failed certification submission adds weeks to a launch window, compresses marketing timelines, and creates downstream problems for digital storefronts already scheduled around your release date.
First-submission certification pass rates are one of the most meaningful metrics a porting studio can give you. It reflects how well they understand platform requirements before they submit, how thoroughly their QA process catches platform-specific issues, and how experienced their team is with the specific hardware they're targeting.
Studios that routinely require two or three submission rounds aren't necessarily bad — but they're building that rework time into your schedule whether you know it or not.
What to ask:
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What is your first-submission pass rate by platform over the last 12 months? -
How do you handle certification feedback when submissions fail?
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Do you have relationships with first-party developer relations teams?
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Can you share examples of certification documentation from previous projects?
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A studio that can't answer these questions specifically hasn't done enough certification work to give you confidence. A studio that answers them with named titles and documented outcomes has.
Engine Expertise Is Not the Same as Porting Expertise
A studio that builds games in Unreal Engine is not automatically qualified to port an Unreal Engine game to Nintendo Switch. The skills overlap — but porting requires a specific layer of platform-side knowledge that pure development work doesn't always build.
For Unreal Engine ports specifically: memory management on Switch requires aggressive optimization work that differs substantially from PC or console development. Draw call budgets, texture streaming, shader compilation — each platform has its own ceiling, and hitting those ceilings late in production creates crunch.
For Unity ports: the engine's cross-platform tooling helps, but platform-specific rendering paths, input system overhauls, and store integration requirements (Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Network, Xbox Game Pass) all require hands-on experience with each certification environment.
What to check:
Ask the studio which version of Unreal or Unity the game you're working on uses, then ask them how many titles they've shipped on that version for your target platforms. Not "we know Unreal Engine" — how many shipped titles, which platforms, which versions.
Devoted Studios has shipped porting engagements across both Unreal Engine and Unity at production scale — including Risk of Rain 2 (Unity, 5 platforms), FNAF: Secret of the Mimic (Unreal Engine, PS/Xbox/Switch/PC), FNAF: Security Breach (Unreal Engine, Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox), and Open Roads (Unity, Switch with 30fps optimization and scene dressing). Each engagement required platform-specific expertise, not just engine familiarity.
Parallel Porting vs. Sequential — Why the Difference Costs You Money
Most studios default to sequential porting: finish the PC version, then port to PS5, then Xbox, then Switch. This approach feels safer but creates a compounding timeline problem.
Each sequential port starts a new certification clock. Marketing plans built around a single launch window get stretched. The team managing platform feedback has to context-switch between build states. If Switch certification fails, it pushes back a release that PS5 and Xbox are already ready for.
Parallel porting — working on all target platforms simultaneously — requires more coordination upfront but produces a single certification window, a single launch date, and a single marketing moment. It's faster, cheaper over the full production cycle, and lower risk for the launch itself.
The requirement is a porting studio with the team depth and pipeline infrastructure to run parallel builds without quality degradation. That's not every studio.
Devoted Studios managed simultaneous 5-platform porting for Risk of Rain 2 — all platforms in parallel, all certifications submitted within the same window, first-submission pass across the board.
"Devoted has been an absolute force multiplier for our development needs. On top of being generally great people to work with, they're communicative, transparent, and always deliver on their commitments. Devoted cares about the quality of what's being shipped just as much as we do which has led to a deep trust on our side."
— Ray McCaffrey, Chief Development Officer, Steel Wool Studios
The Studios Worth Knowing in 2026
The porting market has specialists worth considering across different project types and scopes. Here's an honest breakdown of where different studios play best.
Devoted Studios (US) handles game porting across Unreal Engine and Unity with first-submission certification track record and simultaneous multi-platform delivery. Credits include Risk of Rain 2 (5 platforms, first-submission cert), FNAF: Secret of the Mimic, FNAF: Security Breach, FNAF: Help Wanted 2 (VR porting — Meta Quest to Pico Neo 3 and Pico 4), Sunderfolk, and Open Roads. Best for: multi-platform simultaneous ports, Unreal and Unity titles, projects that also need co-development or DLC support alongside porting.
Iron Galaxy Studios (US) is known for console porting and live operations, with credits including Killer Instinct and Doom Eternal. Best for: complex AAA console ports where performance and gameplay preservation under hardware constraints is the primary concern.
Abstraction Games (Netherlands) has a long track record on multiplatform ports including Hotline Miami and ports for major publishers. Best for: studios looking for European timezone alignment with established porting pipeline experience.
Tantalus Media (Australia) specializes in Nintendo ports and remasters, including work on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. Best for: Nintendo-first porting projects or remasters targeting the Switch ecosystem.
Snapbreak / independent boutique porting studios — Smaller studios with niche platform specialization. Best for: indie titles with simpler scopes where a focused single-platform team is more cost-effective than a full multi-platform operation.
Six Questions to Ask Before You Sign
The conversation before a contract tells you more about a porting studio than their portfolio page. Here are the questions that reveal the most.
1. Can you name your last three porting projects, the platforms, and your certification outcome? Any studio with real porting experience can answer this in 30 seconds. Vague answers here are a signal.
2. What's your process when a certification submission fails? Failure happens. What matters is whether the studio has a documented escalation process, dedicated platform relations contacts, and a resubmission workflow that doesn't require starting from scratch.
3. How do you handle scope changes mid-porting? Porting scopes shift — new DLC gets added, platform requirements update, the source build changes. How a studio handles that reveals whether they operate as a true production partner or a task-fulfillment shop.
4. What does your QA process look like specifically for platform certification prep? Pre-cert QA for console platforms is a distinct discipline. Ask specifically, not generally.
5. Can you support post-launch DLC porting and live updates? Many porting engagements don't end at launch. Studios that can stay embedded through the live service period are significantly more valuable than studios that hand off at gold.
6. What's your communication cadence during active porting work? Weekly build reports, milestone reviews, daily standups during cert — ask what's standard, what's available, and what they'd recommend for your project scope.
Why Porting Timing Matters More Than Porting Budget
The single most expensive porting decision isn't the studio you choose — it's when you bring them in.
Studios that engage a porting partner after content lock are starting a process that could have been running in parallel for months. The porting team has to audit a finished build, identify platform-specific problems that were baked in during development, and rework systems that were never designed with console constraints in mind.
The cleaner approach: bring your porting partner in during late production, before content lock. They can flag platform-specific issues in real time, advise on memory budgets and draw call limits while there's still room to fix them, and begin platform-specific build work before the source version is final.
This is especially true for Switch 2 and PS5 ports, where the gap between PC development defaults and console performance requirements can be significant — and where catching problems at the source saves weeks at certification.
Devoted Studios' porting team can engage at any production stage — but the most efficient engagements are the ones that start before the source game is locked. Talk to the porting team early.
"We definitely had an enjoyable time working with Devoted. Their team is very professional, quick, and detailed with their work on the project. We appreciated it during our porting process from Quest to Neo 3, Pico 4, and our upcoming headset."
— Justin Molyneaux, Director of Pico XR Dev Relations and Partnerships, ByteDance
The Right Partner Ships Once
Porting is one of the highest-leverage decisions in a game's commercial life. A title that ships on three platforms instead of one reaches a fundamentally different audience. A port that achieves first-submission certification ships on the planned date. A port handled by a team with real platform experience doesn't create the six-week delay that kills a launch window.
The studios worth working with in 2026 have named titles, documented certification outcomes, and teams built for the specific complexity of your project. The ones that don't are cheaper upfront and more expensive before it's over.
If you're evaluating porting partners for an upcoming Unreal Engine or Unity title — across Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, or PC — Devoted Studios' porting team works across simultaneous multi-platform delivery, first-submission certification, and post-launch DLC support.
