Eolz
Member
Would certainly have made the thread longer too.
edit: Pachter is pretty bad at predictions, but he has good connections/sources.
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Michael Pachter says Switch is easiest to develop compared to big three
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Would certainly have made the thread longer too.
edit: Pachter is pretty bad at predictions, but he has good connections/sources.
KratosEnergyDrink
Member
Good to hear. It's almost irrelevant for the question if Switch gets some third party support. But when it gets a game and has good development tools the developers have probably enough time for optimizing.
Many PS4/XOne/WiiU third party games feel unoptimised for the hardware and not polished.
Many PS4/XOne/WiiU third party games feel unoptimised for the hardware and not polished.
If it is easy to develop for, then why we had another delay for Zelda?
Maybe Pachter means that because the Switch uses slower hardware and a lower render relosution, it is faster and easier to design 3d models (less polygons), or we will get simpler game assets/worlds, or simpler effects etc and with less development cost than the competition (pc/one/ps4/tablets).
Maybe Pachter means that because the Switch uses slower hardware and a lower render relosution, it is faster and easier to design 3d models (less polygons), or we will get simpler game assets/worlds, or simpler effects etc and with less development cost than the competition (pc/one/ps4/tablets).
Herb Alpert
Banned
exactly. And you see the same posters in every bad news threads. Of course they are nowhere to be seen in a potentially good news thread.
Kikorin
Member
Business decision? Seems Pretty obviously Zelda BotW is already done since a lot of time by now, they have only to choose when release it. Release for a dead console like Wii U in the last months was a bad decision, release it in march, with the rumored new Mario at launch with potentialy Splatoon too is another bad decision. If they have a lot of games ready for Switch, they'll never release all' together and than nothing for months, would be nosense.
They said 2017 and it still is 2017. And Zelda is still also WiiU title, in case you managed to forget.
WaterAstro
Member
Easy is relative. It will be the hardest platform to develop for in terms of AAA multiplatform games because of its specs.
It could be easy to develop for if it's a new, exclusive game, or a game that doesn't require high specs.
It could be easy to develop for if it's a new, exclusive game, or a game that doesn't require high specs.
Andyliini
Member
Added one in case there are some news that cannot be spun to negative. There certainly aren't many of those, but still.
You mean AA as opposed to AAA? Aren't most 3DS games that compared to AAA console games already? Not that they are worse games but rather their scope being smaller than AAA games.
I think it's a sure bet we'll see those games on Switch.
Skittzo0413
Member
I really don't get why this is controversial or hard to believe. Nvidia is known for their excellent dev tools and APIs, and we clearly have proof that Nintendo has been trying to improve this situation with their Vulkan compliance (before PS4 or XB1 even got it).
Note he's not claiming that ports are easier, just overall development.
Note he's not claiming that ports are easier, just overall development.
Trickster
Member
B tier? Or do you mean AA instead of AAA?
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
I find it very hard to believe this is easier to develop for than a PC-adjacent platform with Microsoft development tools. Nintendo has always been pretty smooth to develop for from what I've heard, but that sounds like a leap to me. The hardest thing I would imagine on X1 is squeezing good performance out of PS4 ports designed for higher specs. Straight up development should be easier overall unless NVidia is bringing some pretty amazing tools to the table.
Would be a godsend for the console industry if it happened. B and A tier gaming are extremely important. Same with movies, unless you're Disney you can't survive off AAA tent pole shit forever.
Shogmaster
Sloppy seconds
This seems like a no duh assessment. It's got 4 ARM CPU cores, straight forward unified RAM, and a well established GPU type. No need to juggle ESRAM like on XBO, fewer CPUs to juggle than both, easy to tap GPU power. Should be the easiest to make games for.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Nvidia most likely made the tools and provided the documentation.
Orniletter
Banned
From an architecture pespective, all 3 6th gen consoles were vastly different. You had Sony's Emotion Engine + whatever the CPU was called, vs Flipper and Broadway and MS' proto-PC.
All 3 had vastly different strengths and weaknesses multiplatform titles had to be built around. It was far harder to account for all these different variables back then.
We live in a post middleware world today, all major middleware engines are supported by all 3 modern systems, they use more or less the same architecture (DX 11-esque modern programmable GPU + bog standard CPUs).
Yes, Sony was able to force their poorly designed hardware on developers and consumers, because they held a defacto monopoly, but your conclusion ("easy to develop for = one of the least important aspects for support) is off.
Xdrive05
Member
Do we know that it doesn't have ESRAM, for example? Isn't the "customized" angle still up in the air as to whether they reconfigured it in that way?
But, for sure, you're right if it is just as off the shelf X1 as we're thinking right now.
It's pretty much a given, especially after the success of Splatoon.
Shogmaster
Sloppy seconds
The leak states unified RAM. We really only have the leaks to go by.
I guess it sounded funnier in your head
I don't think ease of development matters, especially without context. I'm sure it's a lot easier to make games for the 3DS than it is for PS4/XB1 too. Also, devs said it's easier to make games for PS4 and yet it's taking just as long, if not longer, for games to be made as on PS3. Dev cycles were supposed to be a lot shorter with Sony's move to a more PC-like architecture and hardware. Hasn't happened so far.
fabricated backlash
Member
I just got dumber reading this post.
Franz Brötchen
Banned
Behold the insights of glorious Tech-GAF. The shining city upon a hill, indeed.
JimJamJones
Member
You are confusing how easy it is to get optimal performance out of the hardware with how easy it is to make the actual game. The former is easier on PS4 because of a more straightforward architecture. The latter is harder because everything needs to be higher quality.
It is very probable pachter was talking about the former.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
LMAO
That's why I'm so happy Splatoon turned out the way it did. No doubt did that game give Nintendo some confidence in trying new concepts.
wonderful103
Member
This is actually why the wii u has received universal praise for its development environment the world over
Ease of development and power are two totally separate things. Power tells you what you can build, ease of development tells you how quick you can build it.
Skittzo0413
Member
Pachter doesn't seem to be talking about ports though, just development in general.
Yeah people seem to forget that. PS4 development is also supposedly much easier than PS3 or PS2 development too. There goes that theory...
This is my thinking too.
A platform for people to take risks on. Which really is for the benefit of all gamers, is my meaning.
The point i was making was from a dev perspective, somebody had to make the preset Ultra/High/medium/low. and in each of those settings will have fine grained back end properties, eg medium shadows uses a 2048 size etc. On console all of these parameters are tweaked to create the perfect - as we would say on PC: ".ini parameter file". They would need to do this twice with the docked and undocked scenario. So im sure that will take some extra time to get right at least. A res jump maybe sufficient to deliver the required fps but who knows and will of course be game dependent. Either way its more work.
Porting is not the same as developing
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Half the RAM? I didn't know we knew how much RAM this system had.
Ruud_Luiten
Member
is Patchter reliable again now he said something possitive about Nintendo?
Skittzo0413
Member
I thought he was typically reliable when reporting what others said. When making his own predictions is when the typical "Pachter says X? Then it must be Y!!" happens.
"God of War will bomb." vs "I heard God of War is in development."
Vastly different kind of statements. Everyone so far got the difference. Except you maybe.