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[KageMaru]

Naw. I mean I will be the first to say Nintendo sucks ass with their hardware for over a decade but the concept of the Switch is that its a handheld and a console and its portable form factor is stronger than any last generation system. If 3rd parties weren't going to port anything recent (which they most likey could if they wanted to) there is still a lot of games they could have used to atlwast build a presence.

That's the thing, I don't think devs can just port anything if they wanted to.

I also don't think porting a bunch of last gen titles would be very appealing either.

The entirety of my point is you gotta take a risk and an investment to see benefits. Maybe it doesn't pan out but the cost of porting some sort of title to a console launch generally has a low bar for break even. The fact literally no one tried is what I find shocking. Not that I think EA is going to post up or anything but Activision or Ubi not trying at all with no signs of investment is strange to me. As far as how the games would run, the graphical hit isn't going to be as huge a deal because the masses are not expecting a PS4 or Xbox 1 on a system a little bigger than a GPS.

You have a good chance of exposure during a launch period but I wouldn't say you have a low bar to break even. You're still limited by a smaller install base.

The lack of Ubisoft support at launch is a bit surprising considering how well they've supported Nintendo systems in the past. I think the sting from the Wii-U fiasco is still too fresh for many publishers.

I dunno, games are a lot more scalable these days. There will be some pretty obvious downgrades but having a recent game available is better than having nothing.

Games are a lot more scalable but they still have a minimum set of requirements. I do agree that having something may be better than nothing though.

The Overwatch comments had more to do with continual updates for an online game from what I recall, which is what I addressed as being a bigger issue. Even in portable mode the Switch is a decent bit stronger than some low end PCs which play Overwatch perfectly fine, with zero optimizations.

I'd bet that Blizzard hasn't even touched a Switch devkit so they wouldn't know how hypothetical Switch port would perform, and with good reason due to the storage and online limitations as I mentioned above.

Not sure how this quote doesn't have anything to do with performance:

In an exclusive follow-up interview with Express Online, Kaplan said that Blizzard would have to "revisit performance" to make Overwatch run on Nintendo Switch.

"I think the problem is, we've really targeted our min spec in a way that we would have to revisit performance and how to get on that platform," he said.

Yeah he mentioned the difficulty with patching to 3 platforms already but not until he brought up the performance concerns first.

Also the Tegra chip is a well known piece of hardware. Developers don't need an actual hands on with a dev kit to assess how well the platform would handle their game. It's not like Nintendo added some secret sauce to the architecture.

 

[notaskwid]

Has there been a single western AAA announcement with a mention of a Switch version?

As far as I no, none, but I'm not super interested in (most) games for major Western publishers, so I could be wrong.

 

[sugarhigh4242]

The problem is that western devs like hardware power.

Kojima, FROM, Ueda, Capcom, Platinum officially western.

:|

I thought we'd be past this with Switch. No more motion controls, pretty Zelda graphics... I thought we were all pretty much on board that these are good things.

 

[Korigama]

Indies, potentially. AAA Western third-parties, no.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

Indies and shovelware yes. Doubt well see many AAA

 

[Gotdatmoney]

That's the thing, I don't think devs can just port anything if they wanted to.

I also don't think porting a bunch of last gen titles would be very appealing either.

That really has nothing to do with my point though. My point is no one tried to produce "anything" at all. How can you have success when you don't put any effort in at all? The fact no major publisher had anything for launch at all is baffling. Anything is better than nothing in this case.

I also disagree about porting. You aren't getting Battlefield but the bulk of games this generation aren't pushing the limit of consoles. Most of this stuff can be ported.

You have a good chance of exposure during a launch period but I wouldn't say you have a low bar to break even. You're still limited by a smaller install base.

Launch titles especially good ones have sustained legs. This is well known.

The lack of Ubisoft support at launch is a bit surprising considering how well they've supported Nintendo systems in the past. I think the sting from the Wii-U fiasco is still too fresh for many publishers.

WiiU was a shit system and some publishers got burned (ai use burn loosely, these were not expensive ports) but I also dont feel you can seriously decide it makes sense to have zero games in the pipe line for a new system launch because ports didnt light the charts up 5 years ago. Again no one had anything. Isn't that baffling? Even extending to Japanese publishers nothing from Capcom or Bandai Namco.

I find it hard to believe no one finds this odd.

Games are a lot more scalable but they still have a minimum set of requirements. I do agree that having something may be better than nothing though.

Lots of these games run on PCs weaker than the Switch. They got TifanFall and Rise of the Tomb Raider running on the Xbox 360. Battfield 4 had last gen versions. Call of Duty had Wii versions. You can get these games running if you want to. Is it worth the effort? I dunno, at launch I personally think it makes sense to get a solid effort out whether its a more recent gane or a port of a popular last gen gane. Do I understand why publishers are cautious? Of course. Do I understand how literally no one tried? Nope.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Indies and shovel ware, possibly. AAA, doubt it, especially games like GTA6, Witcher 4 and Battlefield. Western developers love powerful hardware. Nintendo doesn't. Like oil and water if you ask me and I am not sure what Western developers will strip their game down just to get it to run on Switch properly with a demographic that probably won't even appreciate their games in the first place. Not to mention the Switch's online infrastructure and Western developers having to fit their games on those little diminutive cards. This is honestly one of the primary factors that could old the Switch back in regions outside of Japan because like it or not, Western AAA games are normally what drives console sales in the US and UK and both of those regions are pretty important for console sales.

 

[Iksenpets]

I think indies will do fine, and depending on how Skyrim does, I could see a decent number of portable editions of various popular 360-era games getting brought over. I seriously doubt you'll ever see any original AAA western work on there though.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Not sure how this quote doesn't have anything to do with performance:



Yeah he mentioned the difficulty with patching to 3 platforms already but not until he brought up the performance concerns first.

Also the Tegra chip is a well known piece of hardware. Developers don't need an actual hands on with a dev kit to assess how well the platform would handle their game. It's not like Nintendo added some secret sauce to the architecture.

Like I said I believe it has more to do with patching an additional platform, especially a Nintendo one with minimal storage than it does performance, but that's just my read of the situation. Overwatch isn't terribly demanding, so I have absolutely no doubt it could be ported to work at 60FPS in handheld mode.

As to your point about the Tegra chip, there are two things to consider about how familiar developers may be with it. First, the only gaming device to feature it (before the Switch of course) is the Nvidia Shield TV, which Blizzard has never done anything with. So no, I very much doubt they would be familiar with it. Second, the APIs built for the Switch are indeed brand new and directly affect the developers' ability to use the chip, so someone familiar with developing on the Shield TV would definitely need to see a Switch devkit in order to judge what type of power they have available.

The major point here is that developers made Wii versions of 360/PS3 games when the power gap between those systems was at least an order of magnitude higher than the power gap between these systems. Something like 10-20x weaker, versus the Switch which is at most 3-5x weaker than the PS4.

 

[sugarhigh4242]

These are way bigger problems than the power differential in my mind.

They're downstream from the power differential. Why didn't DOOM, or Titanfall 2 or FF15 come out on Xbox 360 and PS3? Both have plenty of HDD storage space, and decent online functionality. Both have > 50M consoles in homes around the world. Why leave money on the table?

 

[Dre3001]

I think indies will do fine, and depending on how Skyrim does, I could see a decent number of portable editions of various popular 360-era games getting brought over. I seriously doubt you'll ever see any original AAA western work on there though.

I definitely agree with this statement. Skyrim success will be pretty telling if other third party companies follow suit and jump in or just decide to not put in any effort with the Switch.

I think Nintendo is in an interesting spot. For the first time in a while there main system does not have anything to prevent it from getting decent third party support.

The Wii sold a lot but with the motion sensing and lack of power the third party games mostly had weird gimmicks or had a complete lack of effort ( Madden,2K, Call of Duty, etc).

With the WiiU, it was pushed as the WiiHD and was meant to bring back third parties. But with weak system sales and another poor gimmick, the third party games sold very badly.

With the Switch, Nintendo has a system that is selling well and is not hampered by being significantly weaker than X1/PS4 or has a gimmick that needs developers to go out of there way to accommodate the system.

I think if Skyrim goes well, some less intensive multiplatform games easily deserve to be ported over to switch as well.

 

[dragonyeuw]

If the install continues to grow as it is, I can see third parties doing the same thing for Switch that it did for the Wii, which is create versions of certain titles that cater to the Switch's technical and controller features. I'm thinking along the lines of stuff like Dead Space Extraction, which was it own entity apart from Dead Space that showed up on Ps360 and PC. Also bear in mind that the Wii got its own versions of big name titles like Call of Duty and Fifa, so it's not like there's no precedence for games like that on a recent Nintendo system provided that there's an install base to sell it on. Hell, even Wii U got Call of Duty Black Ops 2 and Ghosts and Assassins Creed 4. off the top of my head.

 

[Greddleok]

Indies on handheld is the best.

If the Switch becomes a reliable indie machine, I'll happily dive in for those and the occasional Zelda/Mario game.

 

[Skittzo0413]

I definitely agree with this statement. Skyrim success will be pretty telling if other third party companies follow suit and jump in or just decide to not put in any effort with the Switch.

I think Nintendo is in an interesting spot. For the first time in a while there main system does not have anything to prevent it from getting decent third party support.

The Wii sold a lot but with the motion sensing and lack of power the third party games mostly had weird gimmicks or had a complete lack of effort ( Madden,2K, Call of Duty, etc).

With the WiiU, it was pushed as the WiiHD and was meant to bring back third parties. But with weak system sales and another poor gimmick, the third party games sold very badly.

With the Switch, Nintendo has a system that is selling well and is not hampered by being significantly weaker than X1/PS4 or has a gimmick that needs developers to go out of there way to accommodate the system.

I think if Skyrim goes well, some less intensive multiplatform games easily deserve to be ported over to switch as well.

The other issue with the Wii is that it did not have enough inputs/buttons by default. The Wii U and Switch have solved that, but that was a HUGE problem for third party games.

Also with the Switch, the gimmick this time is actually not only a huge selling point (portability) but also requires absolutely no extra work from developers like motion controls or the second screen did. This is definitely the best chance they've had to regain western AAA support since the N64.

Who knows if it'll work though.

 

[boiled goose]

Things like Fifa have potential. 4 to 8 player local lan.

I also think games like skyrim and gta have potential. Switch is now the premium portable.

Anecdotal, but I know people who bought a Switch that never considered getting a wiiu or wii or ds or 3ds.

The system itself is much more appealing to 20 to 30 yo males.

Nintendo should try to absorb the psp audience

 

[Fiendcode]

All eyes on Skyrim. And to a lesser extent FIFA and NBA 2K.

 

[Father_Brain]

Things like Fifa have potential. 4 to 8 player local lan.

I also think games like skyrim and gta have potential. Switch is now the premium portable.

Anecdotal, but I know people who bought a Switch that never considered getting a wiiu or wii or ds or 3ds.

The system itself is much more appealing to 20 to 30 yo males.

Nintendo should try to absorb the psp audience

You mean, the PSP audience that abandoned the platform by 2010 or so and didn't show up for Vita?

 

[KageMaru]

Like I said I believe it has more to do with patching an additional platform, especially a Nintendo one with minimal storage than it does performance, but that's just my read of the situation. Overwatch isn't terribly demanding, so I have absolutely no doubt it could be ported to work at 60FPS in handheld mode.

As to your point about the Tegra chip, there are two things to consider about how familiar developers may be with it. First, the only gaming device to feature it (before the Switch of course) is the Nvidia Shield TV, which Blizzard has never done anything with. So no, I very much doubt they would be familiar with it. Second, the APIs built for the Switch are indeed brand new and directly affect the developers' ability to use the chip, so someone familiar with developing on the Shield TV would definitely need to see a Switch devkit in order to judge what type of power they have available.

The major point here is that developers made Wii versions of 360/PS3 games when the power gap between those systems was at least an order of magnitude higher than the power gap between these systems. Something like 10-20x weaker, versus the Switch which is at most 3-5x weaker than the PS4.

So you trust what you believe more than what we're directly told?

Also no, you don't need to have hands on time with a dev kit to get an idea over how the hardware performs. Studios are filled with people who come and go between companies, projects, and targeted platforms. I wouldn't be surprised if someone at Blizzard had some experience with the Tegra chip. It's not like a light bulb will go off with these technicians the moment they use Nintendo's dev kits. This is especially true when developers know the "potential" performance of these chips, which would never be reached with any API, including Nintendo's. Also you can look at each individual spec and assume it's enough for a game like overwatch but bottlenecks can pop up in countless ways. How do you know the system has enough memory bandwidth for example to sustain 60fps for a game like that?

How many games did we see ported to the Wii? The CoD series, Dead Rising, and...I can't think of much else. With each port it's not hard to see why those games were possible on the Wii. Like I said in a previous post, games with predictable rendering requirements may be easier to port down. However if what you say is true, why not also port the games to the PS360? There isn't a 10-20x gap in performance there either.

 

[boiled goose]

All eyes on Skyrim. And to a lesser extent FIFA and NBA 2K.

Fifa should be watched.

Placing the burden on a super old port is silly though...

 

[Skittzo0413]

So you trust what you believe more than what we're directly told?

Also no, you don't need to have hands on time with a dev kit to get an idea over how the hardware performs. Studios are filled with people who come and go between companies, projects, and targeted platforms. I wouldn't be surprised if someone at Blizzard had some experience with the Tegra chip. It's not like a light bulb will go off with these technicians the moment they use Nintendo's dev kits. This is especially true when developers know the "potential" performance of these chips, which would never be reached with any API, including Nintendo's. Also you can look at each individual spec and assume it's enough for a game like overwatch but bottlenecks can pop up in countless ways. How do you know the system has enough memory bandwidth for example to sustain 60fps for a game like that?

How many games did we see ported to the Wii? The CoD series, Dead Rising, and...I can't think of much else. With each port it's not hard to see why those games were possible on the Wii. Like I said in a previous post, games with predictable rendering requirements may be easier to port down. However if what you say is true, why not also port the games to the PS360? There isn't a 10-20x gap in performance there either.

The developer said "we may have to revisit performance". That doesn't sound like he knows for a fact that it couldn't run, or that it would need to be extensively reworked. It sounds like they haven't even thought about trying to see what would be necessary. And again, that's understandable due to the other thing he says, which is adding another platform for patches and updates. And like I said, this is my read of the situation, I'm not pretending to know for a fact what's going on at Blizzard.

About Tegra, I'm curious how many games you think have been developed by publishers outside of Nvidia for the Shield TV. I certainly don't, but you can bet it's not a large number. It was a very niche device with a very meager library, especially in terms of AAA's. I really doubt the majority of developers out there would be familiar with a TX1 before the Switch came along.

As to why they don't port more current gen games to 360/PS3? Isn't it obvious? Sony and Microsoft want people to buy their new consoles, and you can't do that if every multiplat is a cross-gen release. There's really little more to it than that.

 

[Fiendcode]

Fifa should be watched.

Placing the burden on a super old port is silly though...

Silly or not, Skyrim is an important game and if it does well I think other publishers will take notice.

I expect it'll be a better conversion technically than FIFA too.

 

[captmcblack]

Skyrim, Fifa and related "test games" are, at best, only going to justify third parties' interest in making more test games - that's how it worked even in the best-case scenarios on the OG Wii.

If third parties play fair with the Switch and it actually proves to be a big hit, it will receive support similar to PSP/DS/3DS in their primes - old gen/past gen ports and remakes, continuations of portable series IP, spinoffs/side stories, and if we're lucky, random competent downports of current gen fighters/puzzlers/2d games. It will get many of the cool indie titles that release for PC/PS4/XB1 as well.

If that's what happens, Switch will be *amazing*...and, ironically, you might have some of those side series and portable IP get brought to the big leagues if they sell really well due to the Switch's userbase/portability.

 

[Father_Brain]

Nintendo was disastrously off-base with their first full-FY forecast for Wii U, and less disastrously but still significantly off base with most of their 3DS forecasts (I don't have the time to check them all, but I think the past FY might be the first time since launch that they actually hit their targets for the platform). Conservatism here is entirely sensible.

 

[KageMaru]

The developer said "we may have to revisit performance". That doesn't sound like he knows for a fact that it couldn't run, or that it would need to be extensively reworked. It sounds like they haven't even thought about trying to see what would be necessary. And again, that's understandable due to the other thing he says, which is adding another platform for patches and updates. And like I said, this is my read of the situation, I'm not pretending to know for a fact what's going on at Blizzard.

About Tegra, I'm curious how many games you think have been developed by publishers outside of Nvidia for the Shield TV. I certainly don't, but you can bet it's not a large number. It was a very niche device with a very meager library, especially in terms of AAA's. I really doubt the majority of developers out there would be familiar with a TX1 before the Switch came along.

As to why they don't port more current gen games to 360/PS3? Isn't it obvious? Sony and Microsoft want people to buy their new consoles, and you can't do that if every multiplat is a cross-gen release. There's really little more to it than that.

You're leaving out the part of the quote to why they would have to revisit performance.

You're right, there aren't many triple AAA games on the Shield, but what is there is last gen and inconsistent to how well they perform. Thinking that this same hardware would magically be able to handle current gen games any better is wishful thinking.

MS and Sony don't control publishers support in the way you're suggesting. True they want to sell their newer consoles but do you really think MS would stop Activision from putting CoDWWII on the 360 if they wanted to?

 

[Iksenpets]

Fifa should be watched.

Placing the burden on a super old port is silly though...

I don't think putting the burden on Skyrim is unreasonable, because if it's going to get Western AAA games, it's going to be in the form of a bunch of super old ports. No one is going to make the effort to make a version of a PS4 game trimmed down enough to run on Switch.

The way I see it, the Switch has six rough categories of games it can reasonably expect to get, if the sales are there (in rough order of likelihood of working out long term)

1. Nintendo first party
2. Japanese games that had traditionally been for DS or Vita
3. Indies
4. The handful of JRPGs and other Japanese games that are still releasing with PS3 versions
5. Ports of popular 360 games
6. Sports games

 

[Council Pop]

I can see Hitman being ported to the Switch for Season 2.

I think everyone would agree that Hitman would be perfectly suited to the Switch, but would it really be technically possible? Those Hitman levels are so incredibly complex.

 

[ReaperXL7]

Maybe, but Nintendo has to convince and probably be willing to fund the development of switch versions when it comes to most modern AAA releases. I can't imagine it would be an easy task getting many of these games on switch.

Success for Nintendo doesn't automatically equate to third party support. The Wii is a prime example, and I think that largely comes down to western third party apathy and Nintendos unwillingness to make the effort to change that.

Sony and MS help put a lot of marketing power behind third party games, Nintendo typically only does that for Nintendo games.

 

[jdmonmou]

I hope Nintendo is able to drop some big E3 announcements about upcoming AAA 3rd party support games. I don't think that the power difference with the competition is the main reason we don't see a lot of western 3rd party support. There's a lot of money to be made on the Switch since people are buying them in droves now so developers/publishers would be leaving money on the table by ignoring the Switch.

I think the main reason is Nintendo's antiquated way of doing business with publishers and developers. I don't think they bend over backwards to build the relationship and help 3rd parties make games for their console same way Microsoft and Sony does. So to answer the question, yes they can buck the trend but it'll probably take a paradigm shift in thinking and in leadership before it happens.

 

[Castro27]

I think everyone would agree that Hitman would be perfectly suited to the Switch, but would it really be technically possible? Those Hitman levels are so incredibly complex.

I think it's possible if they dial down the population density and something like draw distance but that's a big if.

 

[Effect]

With indies I think the Switch will be good for them. That's already been said.

With bigger western third parties? That completely depends on them. Nintendo can create the install base, they've done that before. They can provide a system that allows for the games to be ported over with visual differences and I believe they've done that with the Switch. Third parties have to be willing to grow interest in their particular IPs. Zelda is a huge open world game. Capitalize off of that with similar games. It's clear Nintendo fans like fighting games like Smash. Sell them on another fighting game. Actually pitch the game to the customer base. They/we love Mario Kart. So at a minimum we enjoy racing games. Make the pitch for why we might like Need for Speed or maybe a more realistic racer. Splatoon shows we enjoy shooting game gameplay. Present the appeal of something like CoD or better yet Destiny as another experience or something that can fill a void.

Nintendo has a responsibility of setting the field. That still means third parties have to do their fair share of actually trying to make their games appealing to the customers and actually go through the act of selling the game to said customers like they would for any other platform. Don't treat the Switch as an afterthought because that is easy to see. For the longest time I've felt that they do not want to do that. That's how the Switch ends up being successful environment for third parties. You have to build that interest because they've been gone from Nintendo hardware for so long or were never on it. You don't just show up and expect the same sales as on the PS4 or XBO and when you don't get that you call it a day. Especially if your game is late or somehow missing content (graphical differences are expected). Gotta make your brand recognizable to the customer base. Missing content has been something Nintendo hardware owners have hated about third parties for years and that's not going to change. So if they try to push that again they might not as well bother because no one will buy a Switch version.

 

[Sponge]

If the Switch continues to sell well I can see it getting some support. Right now it's not been looking too good with some third parties.

 

[family_guy]

For me, I have a PS4 and PC for current gen third party games and don't see myself ever downgrading to a Switch version just to have the portability factor. However there's a bunch of last gen and older games that could probably be ported to the Switch easily and at low cost to third party publishers. Some may balk at the Switch being labeled an old gen port machine, but I don't really see an issue with that as long as you have Nintendo and indie support for everything else. If you could play the big hits from the PS3/360 era on your Switch, I think that would be fine. Then in 2-3 years if they are commercial successes, then publishers may be more comfortable with some newer games if the effort to port it isn't too much.

 

[Rolf NB]

The big thing Switch has got going for it, more than probably any Nintendo console in history, is someone could look at a game (assuming feature-parity) and choose the Switch version because the ability to take it on the go is something that the PS4 and Xbox One can't match (no, internet connection + extra device dependent remote play doesn't count, even if in your specific use case it works). In a world where everything else under the sun is mobile, I think this is a huge selling point. Obviously not everyone will care, especially those who place a bigger emphasis on visual fidelity.

That's the one thing that might give it a chance. But it's still going to be an uphill struggle.

Here's the assumed scenario:
You like the Ass Creeds and CoDs, but in over three years you still didn't buy a PS4 that plays them better, and is lower priced.

That was the Wii U's situation, vs PS3 / Xbox 360 at first, and I think we remember how that ended.

This basically comes down to speculating how much draw the portability option is going to have.

 

[Council Pop]

I think it's possible if they dial down the population density and something like draw distance but that's a big if.

Yeah as you say, big if. That population density is one of the most impressive and immersive aspects of Hitman.

 

[gabe90]

IMO Nintendo should be actively pitching AAA studios to bring HD ports of top games from recent years (Souls, CoD, Assassins Creed, etc).

There is real demand for portable versions of these games. And the hardware and storage issues shouldn't be as much of a problem.

Then these studios will have Nintendo Switch expertise and teams set up in the studios, and can more easily decide to make future games.

 

[Greddleok]

That's the one thing that might give it a chance. But it's still going to be an uphill struggle.

Here's the assumed scenario:
You like the Ass Creeds and CoDs, but in over three years you still didn't buy a PS4 that plays them better, and is lower priced.

That was the Wii U's situation, vs PS3 / Xbox 360 at first, and I think we remember how that ended.

This basically comes down to speculating how much draw the portability option is going to have.

Yup, it comes with the assumptions that:
1) The Switch version will release at the same time
2) The Switch version will be priced the same
3) The Switch version looks/runs similarly (and the person making the decision cares)
4) The online capability is not completely lost on the go
5) Person doesn't care about trophies/achievements

All those are big aspects to what causes people to buy games, and so far portability hasn't been proven to be a huge draw. Maybe it will...but something tells me the Switch success will be dependent on how many good 1st party Nintendo games come out, not on 3rd parties in the portable format.

 

[Xando]

I still think the storage issue will be a deal breaker for most third parties

I could see downgraded ports but probably no feature parity to save storage

 

[2+2=5]

People are silly thinking that a successful Skyrim will lead to multiplatform AAA games, the max you can get is more ps360 AAA ports.

To put things into the right perspective, these are the minimum requirements for ME:andromeda(that's not that great) for example:

Intel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-6350
8 GB RAM
NVIDIA GTX 660 2 GB, AMD Radeon 7850 2 GB
55 GB
DirectX 11

Do you really think that all the optimizations and downgrades of this world would be able to make it run on Switch? And even if it's possible with some really hard work do you really think that developers would get such a burden?

 

[Into the Light]

Its difficult when they are optimizing there games to be 4k, HDR, etc......and Nintendo is running on what a phone PC?

 

[Effect]

I still think the storage issue will be a deal breaker for most third parties

I could see downgraded ports but probably no feature parity to save storage

There is no storage issue. With compression, there is no game out there that shouldn't be able to fit on the 32gb cart. Even if that's the case I would imagine making one higher shouldn't be difficult if Nintendo wanted to make sure the game was on the system and that was the only issue. Make it quite clear to people that if they want the dlc they need to buy a micro sd card and call it a day. Leave that on the customer to expand the storage as they see fit.

Unless you mean save files are going to end up being several gigs big.

 

[family_guy]

There is no storage issue. With compression, there is no game out there that shouldn't be able to fit on the 32gb cart. Even if that's the case I would imagine making one higher shouldn't be difficult if Nintendo wanted to make sure the game was on the system and that was the only issue. Make it quite clear to people that if they want the dlc they need to buy a micro sd card and call it a day. Leave that on the customer to expand the storage as they see fit.

Unless you mean save files are going to end up being several gigs big.

Are you saying that they don't use compression on current gen consoles?

 

[Effect]

Are you saying that they don't use compression on current gen consoles?

Could be wrong (if so sorry) and maybe it changed but from my understanding once blu-ray was introduced audio was uncompressed and game data duplicated because of the to slow read speeds on blu-ray drives. That balloons the size of the game data. It's why I believe game installs started to try and speed things up as well because the games got even bigger. You shouldn't have to do that because of the cards Switch games come on and the SD cards that are used to expand the system storage. So I would imagine if CoD released on the Switch it's overall file size should not be the same as the PS4 or XBO versions.

For example Lego City Undercover is 7GB on the Switch. It's 17GB on the Xbox One and I imagine the PS4 size is similar.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

People are silly thinking that a successful Skyrim will lead to multiplatform AAA games, the max you can get is more ps360 AAA ports.

To put things into the right perspective, these are the minimum requirements for ME:andromeda(that's not that great) for example:

Intel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-6350
8 GB RAM
NVIDIA GTX 660 2 GB, AMD Radeon 7850 2 GB
55 GB
DirectX 11

Do you really think that all the optimizations and downgrades of this world would be able to make it run on Switch? And even if it's possible with some really hard work do you really think that developers would get such a burden?

The Jaguars are stronger than an i5 now?

 

[gtj1092]

With indies I think the Switch will be good for them. That's already been said.

With bigger western third parties? That completely depends on them. Nintendo can create the install base, they've done that before. They can provide a system that allows for the games to be ported over with visual differences and I believe they've done that with the Switch. Third parties have to be willing to grow interest in their particular IPs. Zelda is a huge open world game. Capitalize off of that with similar games. It's clear Nintendo fans like fighting games like Smash. Sell them on another fighting game. Actually pitch the game to the customer base. They/we love Mario Kart. So at a minimum we enjoy racing games. Make the pitch for why we might like Need for Speed or maybe a more realistic racer. Splatoon shows we enjoy shooting game gameplay. Present the appeal of something like CoD or better yet Destiny as another experience or something that can fill a void.

Nintendo has a responsibility of setting the field. That still means third parties have to do their fair share of actually trying to make their games appealing to the customers and actually go through the act of selling the game to said customers like they would for any other platform. Don't treat the Switch as an afterthought because that is easy to see. For the longest time I've felt that they do not want to do that. That's how the Switch ends up being successful environment for third parties. You have to build that interest because they've been gone from Nintendo hardware for so long or were never on it. You don't just show up and expect the same sales as on the PS4 or XBO and when you don't get that you call it a day. Especially if your game is late or somehow missing content (graphical differences are expected). Gotta make your brand recognizable to the customer base. Missing content has been something Nintendo hardware owners have hated about third parties for years and that's not going to change. So if they try to push that again they might not as well bother because no one will buy a Switch version.

Um I think you're reaching a bit. The sales of those Nintendo games have little bearing on interest in non Nintendo games. You can see this when 3rd party games are rumored on switch and half the post are about what Nintendo characters can be in the game. Or looking at the sales of 3rd party games featuring Nintendo characters I and those
with out. Unless you mean you want 3rd parties to clone Nintendo games? I just don't see the connection between liking smash/Mario kart and enjoying sf5 or project cars.

 

[Deleted member 752119]

I can't see it outside of indies, good pick up and play titles etc.

In terms of the mainstream AAA western games:

1. Too many of us Switch owners own other platforms and would rather play the better looking and performing versions of them there, as well as play the online ones there with our friends who aren't Switch owners.

2. Too many Nintendo gamers actively dislike mainstream AAA games and deride them as dudebro games, shootybangs etc. Also parents who are buying Nintendo for their young kids to keep them away from CoD, GTA et al a while longer.

So you're left with the niche of Nintendo only and/or portable only gamers who'd like some of the big western AAA games on Switch really, and based on how those types of ports mostly failed to sell on Wii and Wii U that's probably not a big enough market to make it worth their effort to downport current AAA PS4/X1/PC games over.

So it will mostly just get things like sports games that are still getting PS3/360 versions that are easier to port over to Switch.

 

[TwilightPrincess]

You're leaving out the part of the quote to why they would have to revisit performance.

You're right, there aren't many triple AAA games on the Shield, but what is there is last gen and inconsistent to how well they perform. Thinking that this same hardware would magically be able to handle current gen games any better is wishful thinking.

MS and Sony don't control publishers support in the way you're suggesting. True they want to sell their newer consoles but do you really think MS would stop Activision from putting CoDWWII on the 360 if they wanted to?

Almost all Shield Ports were really quick/cheap ports. I don't know if some of them should be even called ports, they used some kind of software to emulate X86 games on ARM/ Android lol.

Eltechs is proud that Eltechs Engine was used to make Resident Evil 5 available on NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Console. And this is not the first game that ported to SHIELD with the help of Eltechs Engine. In the beginning of 2016 Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was launched on NVIDIA SHIELD and it is also powered by Eltechs Engine. Eltechs Engine enables running x86 binary codes directly on ARM using virtualization and binary translation technologies to provide a very high performance of ported games. This is the simplest and the fastest way to bring PC games on Android.

Also Switch is a console with a better environment and it doesn't throttle.

 

[RedAssedApe]

For nindies.

 

[Phatosaurus]

Providing 3rd parties put effort into their ports, release them at the same time as the other versions and don't charge extra? Sure.
I can see a lot of people that own the Switch alongside another console opting for a worse looking/performing Switch version solely for portability. Especially for RPGs.

Skyrim won't be a good test for third parties though, but it'll likely sell well enough for a 6(?) year old game releasing over half a year after the current gen rerelease on PS4/XB1.


Western indies devs will definitely do well on Switch, comparable to how they've thrived on the Vita. I see the Switch "inheriting" the Vita's indie game support in time as the Vita sadly fades fully into irrelevance.

 

[EDarkness]

My personal feeling is that players who own Nintendo consoles have wanted to purchase third party software for a long time, but there was almost always some deterrent that they'd have to contend with. Be it missing features, missing modes, no online play, dumbed down controls, higher price, later than other versions, etc. It gets old after a while. When games come out with parity, I would argue that the Nintendo versions sell fairly well. I don't think anyone thought that Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube would have done well. I don't think anyone figured that Resident Evil 4 on the Wii would have done well either...or even something like House of the Dead Overkill. If I remember correctly, Rayman Legends did well even on the Wii U.

At this point, it's too early to tell how well those games will do because we don't have any games that are shooters or the like that have come out on the NS. I like buying 3rd party games on Nintendo consoles, but I just want the same game as the other systems at the same time. I don't think that's too much to ask for.

I do think that there's something about the NS that makes people want to play games on it. For this reason, I honestly believe that an NS version of CoD or Destiny would do quite well. Sure, there will be those who want the best graphics and that's cool. They can buy the other versions, but as long as CoD on the NS was a great game, players will jump in.

I have a PS4 and if I had a choice, I'd buy most of my third party games on the NS.

 

[HK-47]

What has changed this time that wasn't the case in previous gens?