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Square Enix trying to port full version of FF15 to Switch, maybe via UE4

deleted

Member
Woah, this will be quite the downport! Hope they'll make it though.

It will be interesting to see if they'll port the game to Unreal or if they'll have people from Epic to help them optimize Luminous engine for the downport.
 
I am shocked that they are even considering this. It sounds like a gargantuan task to port it to UE4, though once there it doesn't sound like that much work to port to Switch. Hard to believe that they will actually be able to pull it off.

If they do I'll be torn: already own the game on PS4 and I don't think it truly deserves a double-dip, but was already considering double-dipping on PC for graphical fidelity and mod support. Triple-dipping on switch seems really infeasible but I do want to encourage third parties in general and Square in particular, so...hmmm.
 

FyreWulff

Member
The port to UE4 sounds like they're likely evaluating the cost of making Luminous work on ARM vs the cost of porting it to an engine that already supports ARM.

Same situation with Frostbite - Frostbite doesn't have a shippable ARM version of itself.
 
FFXV barely scraped past a million in Japan, it's the worst selling mainline game for like 25 years. Switch is going to be massive in Japan. There's a good opportunity there.

Also I already know you're not a fan of publishers supporting Nintendo

Theres a good opportunity everywhere, thats not the point im making. Im saying xv didnt bomb on the userbase it had, so lowering base specs is not something id willingly go for just to appeal to more people. Im fully aware how much everyone wants everything to come to switch and every console to turn into the switch but i like to think their markets can still coexist while catering to slightly different needs without compromising on the other.


And screw it, im done trying to have a normal conversation with nintendo fans. Every time i try, im met with the same toxic hostility because im not drooling over everything nintendo does.
And yeah, obviously i dont want games to come to a console i bought in its second month and still do have it. Im just retarded like that. You totally have it figured out.
 

Cerium

Member
Im saying xv didnt bomb on the userbase it had, so lowering base specs is not something id willingly go for. Im fully aware how much everyone wants everything to come to switch and every console to turn into the switch but i like to think their markets can still coexist while catering to slightly different needs without compromising on the other.

I mean.

Is DOOM on PS4 diminished now because it's getting a Switch version?
 

FyreWulff

Member
Also, as a sidenote, it was sort of weird that they never ported any of the PS2 FFs to Wii at the height of it's popularity. FF12 would have done well on the Wii.

Theres a good opportunity everywhere, thats not the point im making. Im saying xv didnt bomb on the userbase it had, so lowering base specs is not something id willingly go for just to appeal to more people. Im fully aware how much everyone wants everything to come to switch and every console to turn into the switch but i like to think their markets can still coexist while catering to slightly different needs without compromising on the other.

Someone forgets the PS2 generation, where the PS2 got ports of games from GameCube and Xbox
 

heringer

Member
I mean.

Is DOOM on PS4 diminished now because it's getting a Switch version?

To be fair, I think he's more concerned with games that will begin development with Switch in mind, as that could possibly limit how much the developer could push PS4.

I want everything on Switch, but I think his concern is valid.
 
Theres a good opportunity everywhere, thats not the point im making. Im saying xv didnt bomb on the userbase it had, so lowering base specs is not something id willingly go for just to appeal to more people. Im fully aware how much everyone wants everything to come to switch and every console to turn into the switch but i like to think their markets can still coexist while catering to slightly different needs without compromising on the other.


And screw it, im done trying to have a normal conversation with nintendo fans. Every time i try, im met with the same toxic hostility because im not drooling over everything nintendo does.
And yeah, obviously i dont want games to come to a console i bought in its second month and still do have it. Im just retarded like that. You totally have it figured out.

Ah a 3rd party on a Nintendo system thread with MetalliCabomination being petty, snarky, hyperbolic and generalising people they're obsessed about.

All is well on Earth, heaven, hell and everywhere else in between then.

AND there's that word again! I nearly missed it! You know it's their favourite word by now, such a great word to just use often and in the wrong places!
 

Piscus

Member
Theres a good opportunity everywhere, thats not the point im making. Im saying xv didnt bomb on the userbase it had, so lowering base specs is not something id willingly go for just to appeal to more people. Im fully aware how much everyone wants everything to come to switch and every console to turn into the switch but i like to think their markets can still coexist while catering to slightly different needs without compromising on the other.


And screw it, im done trying to have a normal conversation with nintendo fans. Every time i try, im met with the same toxic hostility because im not drooling over everything nintendo does.
And yeah, obviously i dont want games to come to a console i bought in its second month and still do have it. Im just retarded like that. You totally have it figured out.


Dang, dude. You okay?
 
I mean.

Is DOOM on PS4 diminished now because it's getting a Switch version?

Sigh.... Read my previous post.
I already addressed it. Western devs will always target a scalable pc environment. Japanese devs tend not to do so.
A aaa game targeting ps4/xb1 will end up with fewer technical and visual compromises than the one targeting ps4/xb1 and switch. Same applies when you bring phones into the picture, then the switch versions suffers.

Ffxv is done obviously it isnt affected.ff7 is not, i dont want ff7 to tone down its ambitions to smartphones because thats a huge potential userbase thats bigger than all consoles combined.
 

Cerium

Member
To be fair, I think he's more concerned with games that will begin development with Switch in mind, as that could possibly limit how much the developer could push PS4.

I want everything on Switch, but I think his concern is valid.
I don't agree. Games that were already considered cutting edge on PS4 and Xbone are getting ports to Switch.
 
Theres a good opportunity everywhere, thats not the point im making. Im saying xv didnt bomb on the userbase it had, so lowering base specs is not something id willingly go for just to appeal to more people. Im fully aware how much everyone wants everything to come to switch and every console to turn into the switch but i like to think their markets can still coexist while catering to slightly different needs without compromising on the other.

I don't think you quite understand how making a Switch version doesn't actually compromise the versions of the games that are already released. Even if this COULD lead to the Switch getting games along with the other platforms from the start, the practice they get with this sort of engine work lets them know their boundaries and waste less time throwing things at a wall to make it work on the Switch.

That said.


And screw it, im done trying to have a normal conversation with nintendo fans. Every time i try, im met with the same toxic hostility because im not drooling over everything nintendo does.
And yeah, obviously i dont want games to come to a console i bought in its second month and still do have it. Im just retarded like that. You totally have it figured out.

image.php
 
To be fair, I think he's more concerned with games that will begin development with Switch in mind, as that could possibly limit how much the developer could push PS4.

I want everything on Switch, but I think his concern is valid.

I don't think so. Multiplats on PC often have settings for lower power systems than the Switch and that doesn't affect their max settings.

And like FyreWulff said above, this is basically what happened with the Gamecube, Xbox and PS2. PS2 was noticeably weaker yet had plenty of games ported to it, that didn't affect the quality of those games on GC and Xbox.
 

notaskwid

Member
I mean, if your goung all the way to port this game that'll probably mean a whole lot if work for not such a big reward, why not start by porting almost every other damn final fantasy to it?
I wonder if Sony still has some kind of stake on FF7 to 12 (except 11) that prevents them from publishing them on other consoles (I'm aware that all of them except for 12 are on Steam).
 

heringer

Member
I don't agree. Games that were already considered cutting edge on PS4 and Xbone are getting ports to Switch.

You might be right, but I think there's a discussion to be had there. I don't think his line of thinking is far fetched, that's all I'm saying.
 

Toth

Member
It's an interesting business decision for sure but I wager it's all about the challenge for the team to put something as massive as FFXV onto the Switch. The payoff could be invaluable for future games. Good luck Tabata!
 
To be fair, I think he's more concerned with games that will begin development with Switch in mind, as that could possibly limit how much the developer could push PS4.

I want everything on Switch, but I think his concern is valid.

I honestly don't think this should be a concern. I expect the Switch to get more 3rd party support than the Wii and Wii U (I'm talking AAA here), but it will still miss out on the lionshare of those games due to it's specs. The most you're going to see is 3rd parties like Square Enix perhaps make sure that their engines are more scalable, but you'll seldom see anyone save for smaller Japanese developers target Switch as their main platform. Actually, I think that may be better when you consider how rough some of the Vita up-ports for PS4 looked at times. Having Switch as the base can only be a good thing in cases like that.

Exactly. If they can hypothetically port FFXV despite the hurdles why would they pare anything back in the future?

True. This will only become a "problem" when XB2 and PS5 come onto the scene, but we don't know what that cross over period will look like. By the time FFXVI is ready to come out (lol!) we may already have a more powerful Switch SKU that is more feasible to port to from Generation 9 systems.
 

heringer

Member
I don't think so. Multiplats on PC often have settings for lower power systems than the Switch and that doesn't affect their max settings.

And like FyreWulff said above, this is basically what happened with the Gamecube, Xbox and PS2. PS2 was noticeably weaker yet had plenty of games ported to it, that didn't affect the quality of those games on GC and Xbox.

But... it did? At least in terms of visuals. Most XBox games that were also coming to PS2 didn't look anywhere near as good as what XBox could push. Some of them, like Splinter Cell, took advantage of the XBox power and shader features, but most of them looked just like the PS2 version, with very minor improvements. The power gap also wasn't anywhere as big as it is with Switch and PS4.
 
Sigh.... Read my previous post.
I already addressed it. Western devs will always target a scalable pc environment. Japanese devs tend not to do so.
A aaa game targeting ps4/xb1 will end up with fewer technical and visual compromises than the one targeting ps4/xb1 and switch. Same applies when you bring phones into the picture, then the switch versions suffers.

Ffxv is done obviously it isnt affected.ff7 is not, i dont want ff7 to tone down its ambitions to smartphones because thats a huge potential userbase thats bigger than all consoles combined.

This may have been true in the past but Japanese developers have been branching out into PC ports a lot more often these days.

But the bigger reason why this concern is really unwarranted is because the majority of big Japanese games are now using UE4, which is one of the more scaleable engines there is. Why would FF7 and KH3 have to be toned down to allow for a Switch port when we already know how scaleable UE4 is and how easy it is for the Switch to run UE4 games?

But... it did? At least in terms of visuals. Most XBox games that were also coming to PS2 didn't look anywhere near as good as what XBox could push. Some of them, like Splinter Cell, took advantage of the XBox power and shader features, but most of them looked just like the PS2 version, with very minor improvements. The power gap also wasn't anywhere as big as it is with Switch and PS4.

Did it? I'd be interested in seeing some examples, but even so you're talking exclusives versus multiplats, where exclusives targeted for a single platform will always be more optimized for that platforms, especially back in the day when all three consoles were so different. Nowadays this matters a lot less because the GPU features are basically the same on every console.

Also while the raw power gap is definitely bigger for Switch and PS4, I don't know if it's that much bigger relatively speaking. But that's a subjective issue I guess.
 

Mr Swine

Banned
I would be fine if they managed to make the game look like last gen games. It’s not like FF on PS3 is ugly but they would need to sacrifice major graphical stuff to make it run on Switch.

If Beth is indeed porting Fallout 4 I would be happy with Fallout 3 visuals
 
I don't think so. Multiplats on PC often have settings for lower power systems than the Switch and that doesn't affect their max settings.

And like FyreWulff said above, this is basically what happened with the Gamecube, Xbox and PS2. PS2 was noticeably weaker yet had plenty of games ported to it, that didn't affect the quality of those games on GC and Xbox.

Ps2 was almost always the base platform once it was obvious its the market leader. Xbox could always produce much better visuals than the ps2. Ofc theres no way to quantity how much the other platforms suffered for it but you can be sure the scenario held back what xbox could ultimately do were it leading the market.

Im saying the is perfectly powerful enough for what it is, but the gap isnt a ps2 to gc situation where they got mostly the same games when they were multiplat.
The fact that theyre considering porting the entire game to a different engine is evident of that.again, im not at all bashing the switch or saying i dont want games to come to it. Im saying few companies will bother to go to such lengths and the higher end versions will suffer for it.
It would be just as bad if switch games started targeting mid range androids for every game. Nobody is gonna try to make something like zelda or xenoblade for mid range phones.
 
You might be right, but I think there's a discussion to be had there. I don't think his line of thinking is far fetched, that's all I'm saying.

I think the problem with his thinking is that he's assuming companies will go into this compromising the more powerful versions of their games in order to accommodate the switch, when the actual reality of how companies have been doing it so far is that they can develop with PS4/XBO in mind while either scale the engine down enough (NBA2K18, Skyrim) or change or custom-make the engines (FIFA 18, DOOM) for the Switch versions just like they had in the Wii era.

Of course this time it's with much more dev friendly tech.
 

Air

Banned
Hopefully they'd port it. I knew this was going to happen though. The switch is Nintendo doing something right. The console is cool, the library is there and the developer environment is friendly. It only makes sense that these studios are going to start porting more games to the thing because there's no barrier anymore. While it'd be nice to get gamthis final fantasy, I'm betting the switch will now almost definitely be getting kingdom hearts and final fantasy 7 remake.
 

Mr_Moogle

Member
Why don't they just port all the older games to the Switch? Give us all the FF games right through to FFXII and forget the rest.

Would love to get a copy of FFT on Switch. I never owned a PSP so I haven't played that version yet.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
To be fair, I think he's more concerned with games that will begin development with Switch in mind, as that could possibly limit how much the developer could push PS4.

I want everything on Switch, but I think his concern is valid.

Yeah it's valid, but there's also the argument hardware restrictions don't necessarily hinder game quality.

In fact it could boost it. Sometimes because of the restrictions developers are pushed to make better games in areas that are more important, like controls, art direction and story. Look at Chrono Trigger for ex., can you imagine it being created on something other than the SNES? Imagine how charming it would still be if they had the ability to add voice acting, 3D cutscenes and HQ music. I'm certain it wouldn't have been as good, and I doubt they would have been as creative either.

But even if you don't agree with that premise, the sacrifices to make a Switch version of anything isn't so drastic anyway. We've reached a point now where all the basics of games can be maintained on a practical level, even if there is a performance gap.
 
This may have been true in the past but Japanese developers have been branching out into PC ports a lot more often these days.

But the bigger reason why this concern is really unwarranted is because the majority of big Japanese games are now using UE4, which is one of the more scaleable engines there is. Why would FF7 and KH3 have to be toned down to allow for a Switch port when we already know how scaleable UE4 is and how easy it is for the Switch to run UE4 games?




Did it? I'd be interested in seeing some examples, but even so you're talking exclusives versus multiplats, where exclusives targeted for a single platform will always be more optimized for that platforms, especially back in the day when all three consoles were so different. Nowadays this matters a lot less because the GPU features are basically the same on every console.

Also while the raw power gap is definitely bigger for Switch and PS4, I don't know if it's that much bigger relatively speaking. But that's a subjective issue I guess.

Good ue4 optimization isn't enough and the target specs will always matter, case in point overwatch on switch

I think the problem with his thinking is that he's assuming companies will go into this compromising the more powerful versions of their games in order to accommodate the switch, when the actual reality of how companies have been doing it so far is that they can develop with PS4/XBO in mind while either scale the engine down enough (NBA2K18, Skyrim) or change or custom-make the engines (FIFA 18, DOOM) for the Switch versions just like they had in the Wii era.

Of course this time it's with much more dev friendly tech.

No my concern is that currently theyre only doing it because they caught on to the switch's success late and most devs won't go to the lengths of making downscaled or custom switch version in the future when itd be easier to just work from the lowest target and add res/aa etc to the other versions going forward. Its gonna happen to ps4 pro and xb1x it happens with pc versions all the time.
Nobody is making games targeting 1080 ti and then customizing and downscaling for ps4. Its only justified because it doesnt sound profitable at all to primarily target people with 1000 dollar cards.
 

heringer

Member
Yeah it's valid, but there's also the argument hardware restrictions don't necessarily hinder game quality.

In fact it could boost it. Sometimes because of the restrictions developers are pushed to make better games in areas that are more important, like controls, art direction and story. Look at Chrono Trigger for ex., can you imagine it being created on something other than the SNES? Imagine how charming it would still be if they had the ability to add voice acting, 3D cutscenes and HQ music. I'm certain it wouldn't have been as good, and I doubt they would have been as creative either.

But even if you don't agree with that premise, the sacrifices to make a Switch version of anything isn't so drastic anyway. We've reached a point now where all the basics of games can be maintained on a practical level, even if there is a performance gap.

Not sure if this would push devs to focus on other areas when they already added one more platform to their workload. That being said, even if the graphics are paired back to accommodate a Switch version, at the very least they could focus on pushing 60 fps on the more powerful platforms, which is actually a plus in my book!
 

FyreWulff

Member
To be fair, I think he's more concerned with games that will begin development with Switch in mind, as that could possibly limit how much the developer could push PS4.

I want everything on Switch, but I think his concern is valid.

Switch has comparable RAM to the other two next gen consoles, so it's not like porting a PS4 game down to PS3. CPU is weaker, but there's ways to get around it, especially in a JRPG style game.
 
Yeah it's valid, but there's also the argument hardware restrictions don't necessarily hinder game quality.

In fact it could boost it. Sometimes because of the restrictions developers are pushed to make better games in areas that are more important, like controls, art direction and story. Look at Chrono Trigger for ex., can you imagine it being created on something other than the SNES? Imagine how charming it would still be if they had the ability to add voice acting, 3D cutscenes and HQ music. I'm certain it wouldn't have been as good, and I doubt they would have been as creative either.

But even if you don't agree with that premise, the sacrifices to make a Switch version of anything isn't so drastic anyway. We've reached a point now where all the basics of games can be maintained on a practical level, even if there is a performance gap.

The other possible benefit from targeting a Switch build in addition is that you're now increasing your potential ROI which could increase your budget for high end textures, models, effects, etc...

Good ue4 optimization isn't enough and the target specs will always matter, case in point overwatch on switch

???

Overwatch does not use UE4...

And anyway they said they'd have to "revisit performance" which is more or less what the Rocket League devs said too, and we see how that turned out. I wouldn't be surprised to see Overwatch come sooner rather than later actually, though I think the biggest hurdle is the constant updates/patches eating into the Switch's storage space. But Overwatch runs quite well on very low end PCs so I don't think that's really a valid specs concern.
 
The other possible benefit from targeting a Switch build in addition is that you're now increasing your potential ROI which could increase your budget for high end textures, models, effects, etc...



???

Overwatch does not use UE4...

My bad then,id like to see just how scalable it is considering even smartphones do support it.
Can something like kh3 in theory run on a mid range android just because it supports ue? (just general spitballing, not about the switch)

That and how does it work going forward when 2 or so years down the line where we have consoles targeting 4k or some shit as the base requirement. Keeping in mind that these systems probably get a very significant boost in cpu's more than anything else.
 

royox

Member
You are porting the wrong FF, Square. Give me portable XIV and I'll buy 2, you hear me?

Pc players had to deal with "ps3 limitations" and now "ps4 limitations". The least we need now is "Switch limitations", keep FFXIV as far as possible from low spec machines please.
 

Jawmuncher

Member
Good Luck.
I don't see it working out with satisfactory results though. Especially if they have to do such a large scale port to another engine first. I'd love to be wrong though.
 

oti

Banned
Imagine this:

- SE fails at porting FFXV to Switch
- SE ports FFXIII Trilogy to Switch instead
- FFXIII Switch is a huge success
- Lightning is super popular again
- FFXVI with Lightning
 
My bad then,id like to see just how scalable it is considering even smartphones do support it.
Can something like kh3 in theory run on a mid range android just because it supports ue? (just general spitballing, not about the switch)

Engine support is more about a systems feature set than it is about a systems power. The odds you are running KH3 on a mid range android phone are extremely minimal simply because mid level android phones don't have GPUs good enough in all likelihood (the CPUs are probably getting to the point that they outperform what is in the PS4/Xbox1, the Switch's CPU is clock for clock better than Jaguars for example). But we will eventually get to the point Xbox1 performance in a portable will be doable. Few years down the line.

That and how does it work going forward when 2 or so years down the line where we have consoles targeting 4k or some shit as the base requirement. Keeping in mind that these systems probably get a very significant boost in cpu's more than anything else.

2 years down the line if new systems come out they will still be in their infancy and Switch will still be getting X1 and PS4 games anyway.
 
My bad then,id like to see just how scalable it is considering even smartphones do support it.
Can something like kh3 in theory run on a mid range android just because it supports ue? (just general spitballing, not about the switch)

That and how does it work going forward when 2 or so years down the line where we have consoles targeting 4k or some shit as the base requirement. Keeping in mind that these systems probably get a very significant boost in cpu's more than anything else.

Android uses a different version of UE4. The engine is built so that you can create one version of your game and port it as both a mobile version and a console/PC version but there are a lot of changes made between the two versions, including the type of rendering I believe. I'm not really an expert in UE4 but I have used it quite a bit so I'm somewhat familiar with the features.

Regarding new consoles, the truth is I don't know why everyone is so convinced there will actually be a PS5 and XB2 in 2 years. I can easily see this generation lasting as long as the previous one, especially now that the PS4 is a roaring success. But in the event that there are new consoles in 2 years, if they are targeting 4k standard, that really doesn't present much of a problem in scaling down because the Switch will still have a 720p resolution, so the first (and easiest) thing to cut will be resolution, and that will cut out a huge amount of the GPU load. From there it will be the standard scaling process, cut down texture res, LoD, view distance, effects, shadows, etc...

As for CPU issues, I really don't know if the PS5/XB2 (I really hope they don't call it the Xbox 2 by the way haha) will go for much better CPUs, but if they do that will begin to present a problem for Switch ports, yes.
 
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