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[encephalon]

The Japanese does say it takes about a year to port such games.

 

[what-ok]

Do you think some games will only take 11 months to port from PC? Or are we talking a full 12?

 

[Servbot24]

Revealed to devs just last summer, so that could be why we didn't really see any big 3rd party games at the event.

Also could be because no one wants to spend an entire year on a Switch port.

 

[Hermii]

Are we to expect major multiplatform games on Switch in the Fall and from then on out?

Personally I dont expect major multiplatform games on Switch at all. At least not the most demanding games.

 

[John Kowalski]

What i'm taking form it is that the tools are easy to built from scratch.

 

[Regiruler]

Does he mean if one person is working on porting it?

 

[disap.ed]

Maybe one manyear, but even that probably is stretching it.

 

[LordRaptor]

This would only really make sense if he was talking about getting an engine branch, toolchain and production pipeline up and running in terms of a one off upfront investment, but its still a bit odd as not all engines are created equal and not all developers have the same resources spent on engine development (or have internal engines at all for studios using UE4 for example)

 

[Valonquar]

lmfao

 

[kennyamr]

A year is way too long considering the studio can use that time to start developing a full new game for PC instead of focusing on ports.

Weird statement.

 

[Air]

Sounds like he's thinking of Skyrim as a base, since that's out in the fall.

 

[dh4niel]

Can be, but won't be.

 

[Ridley327]

Has Nintendo ever curated their system, sort of like how Sony disallowed some 2D games in the early days of the PS1?

IIRC, there was a big push early on with the N64 to put polygonal games at the forefront, but nothing even remotely as exclusionary as what Sony tried to pull. The closest thing that Nintendo ever did in that regard was enforcing their content guidelines in the west, leading to censored versions of third-party games that was eventually abolished by the end of the SNES era.

 

[AHindD]

Do you think some games will only take 11 months to port from PC? Or are we talking a full 12?

There will be 0 games that will take 11 months + to port, because which sane developer will spend 11+ months to develop a vastly inferior version of a modern game for a console that will either be dead on arrival, or be abandoned in a few years.

 

[Deep40000]

This is definitely a misquote. I believe he's saying that in a year, Nintendo will release some tools to make it easy to port games to the Switch from PC.

 

[bomblord1]

Waiting for official clarification.

 

[Falchion]

"Please just go ahead and buy it while we keep promising the 3rd party support that hasn't materialized yet."

Really hope it does come though.

 

[what-ok]

There will be 0 games that will take 11 months + to port, because which sane developer will spend 11+ months to develop a vastly inferior version of a modern game for a console that will either be dead on arrival, or be abandoned in a few years.

So you are saying there's a chance?

Spoiler

(=

 

[Lord_Balkan]

I have three comments.

1: I think everyone is taking what he is saying too literally. He is probably giving a time frame in which ports will be done from when devs get devkits to the games being on store shelves. That seems in the realm of reasonable possibility to me. Despite that, it's literally not enough information to even criticize or get upset over.

2: Getting a game working on a platform is no where in the same universe as getting it to a state where it would be acceptable to release.

3: Many people are grossly underestimating how long things can take.

 

[TLZ]

A year? That sounds like quite a long wait. By then the games would be cheaper elsewhere..

 

[Oregano]

Are we to expect major multiplatform games on Switch in the Fall and from then on out?

A few of them yeah, unless Switch sells like the Wii U.

 

[tkscz]

Not enough information in that quote. Does he mean for devs who just got the devkit? They mentioned Fall. Does this not count for UE4 games? Those seem to be port in much less than a year. He also used the word about, so not exactly a year.

 

[Hermii]

Guys, the official translation will be out in a few days. I wouldn't be surprised if it will clear things up. This happens almost every investor meeting.

 

[ViolentP]

Damn shame they couldn't just port Binding of Isaac over for an MSRP of $20 instead of the current $50. Seriously, that is like my favorite game of the last few years but that price is absurd.

 

[komplanen]

Are we to expect major multiplatform games on Switch in the Fall and from then on out?

If you want to be disappointed, then yes. Personally I'm not holding any hopes for any major multiplat games.

 

[Kureransu]

Damn shame they couldn't just port Binding of Isaac over for an MSRP of $20 instead of the current $50. Seriously, that is like my favorite game of the last few years but that price is absurd.

Pretty sure it's $39.99 with both expansions. Buying them a la carte digitally will net you $36 I don't really think $4 for physical is absurd.

 

[Hubble]

So a company is going to spend one year to port their game to the Switch, where Nintendo notoriously struggles to sell third party games? ...... Companies will spend that one year on something else like making DLC, etc.

 

[YuriLowell]

Seems like a lot of time to port a single game.

 

[ViolentP]

Pretty sure it's $39.99 with both expansions. Buying them a la carte digitally will net you $36 I don't really think $4 for physical is absurd.

Yeah. When I purchased them, it was always a deal of like $6.66 for the new expansion coupled with the long stretches of time between releases, it seemed like much less than the $40. Still seems high, though justified.

 

[Mega]

This is either a misquote, or Miyamoto is clearly the wrong person to ask about this, it's definitely not in his knowledge base.
They should ask an Nvidia engineer who worked on the chipset and Dev tools...

Yeah. I think he's wrong here and was haphazardly throwing out a number he thought sounded good. If it's so easy to work with Switch and so easy to port games... 1 year? Nah.

 

[Ooccoo]

Why?

I hope this means we see a lot of timely indie support come to Switch.

Indies do not move hardware

 

[Jonneh3003]

Snake Pass took a week apparently. Took Shin'en 1 month (4-6 man studio) to port their FAST Racing Neo engine over for FAST RMX.

Obviously those aren't released products but there's no way a simple port can take a year.

 

[ebullientprism]

Can be = Sure
Will be = Nope

 

[Jorok Goldblade]

Has Nintendo ever curated their system, sort of like how Sony disallowed some 2D games in the early days of the PS1?

The NES had a restriction of five titles per publisher per year as an attempt to block shovelware.

 

[m.i.s.]

That's a weird thing to say...

It's Miyamoto - he's a weird guy! p

 

[vasametropolis]

A year seems like the minimum they could have hit here. The architecture is modern, but tons of considerations are there, like the asset and resolution changes, not to mention the lower end hardware. If I had to guess, I'd say this isn't your standard indie game estimate and more like high end games.

That said, a year is still brutal if accurate.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

A bad game is bad forever, a delayed game takes a year to port.

 

[Ridley327]

Yeah. When I purchased them, it was always a deal of like $6.66 for the new expansion coupled with the long stretches of time between releases, it seemed like much less than the $40. Still seems high, though justified.

The way I look at it is if you consider that most physical releases for indie games tend to tack on a $10 charge on top of the normal price, spending $3-$4 more for the full Binding of Isaac experience in the same format is a damn good bargain.

Given that it is Nicalis, though, I'm fully anticipating some kind of monkey's paw shenanigans to go into effect, but on paper, this particular release is doing a lot right for collectors and physical-only gamers alike.

 

[RuGalz]

I'm going to assume when he said PC based game he meant games that didn't plan ahead for multi-platform from the beginning. A year is really not that long in such situation.

Especially if "a year" is including certification time and manufacturing time you are down 1-2 months.

 

[Pif]

So he's saying it could take a year to port Star Citizen. Well.

 

[El Topo]

So he's saying it could take a year to port Star Citizen. Well.

2033 it is then.

 

[ViolentP]

The way I look at it is if you consider that most physical releases for indie games tend to tack on a $10 charge on top of the normal price, spending $3-$4 more for the full Binding of Isaac experience in the same format is a damn good bargain.

Given that it is Nicalis, though, I'm fully anticipating some kind of monkey's paw shenanigans to go into effect, but on paper, this particular release is doing a lot right for collectors and physical-only gamers alike.

Yeah, piecing it together it seems like the cost makes sense, really. I think the real surprise here is me realizing I didn't pay as much less as perhaps I thought for the PC versions.

 

[Durante]

That's an extremely high estimate, I would hope that the average case is far shorter.

I mean, I can construct a scenario where it makes sense (AAA product, custom engine, small porting team), but for the average (off-the-shelf engine, mid-range or even indie product, decent porting effort) it really should be lower.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

Me reading that quote

lol

 

[mckmas8808]

Revealed to devs just last summer, so that could be why we didn't really see any big 3rd party games at the event.

It all makes sense now.

 

[CronoShot]

He probably means worst case scenario. Giving a time frame that applies to every game, regardless of complexity, obviously makes no sense.

 

[Astral Dog]

God that sound even worse than Wii U.
(
When compared to PS3)

 

[Ninjimbo]

What exactly is he trying to say???

To not expect PC ports on the Switch pretty much.

 

[Speely]

I have three comments.

1: I think everyone is taking what he is saying too literally. He is probably giving a time frame in which ports will be done from when devs get devkits to the games being on store shelves. That seems in the realm of reasonable possibility to me. Despite that, it's literally not enough information to even criticize or get upset over.

2: Getting a game working on a platform is no where in the same universe as getting it to a state where it would be acceptable to release.

3: Many people are grossly underestimating how long things can take.

Good post. Thanks

 

[Polk]

3: Many people are grossly underestimating how long things can take.

Unless you are programing everything in assembler or Nintendo developed such fucked up APIs, there's no sane reason for such massive workload to be had.