Hey everyone,
I just finished reading through the last 13 pages or so of responses to this, so forgive the late response here.
First, it has been a long road getting to this point where we can announce a release date. We started the development of the Switch version as early as we could and it is a very resource intensive endeavor to make that port. We want to ensure that the experience on the Switch is the best it can be, which is the reason for the split release dates. It is not a decision we came to lightly, but it is a decision that had to be made.
On May 26th of this year, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC players will be able to get their hands on RiME and begin their adventure. Physical copies for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will be available for $29.99 in North America and at various price points around the globe.
The Nintendo Switch version will come out at a later date which we will announce when we finalize development. We began working on the Switch later into development than the other platforms. Items such as engine optimization, the complex lighting system, and ultimately the general port process all take time, and we did not want to release the Switch version before it was ready. We are doing everything we can to minimize the delay.
The price point for the Switch version is something everyone is obviously interested in as we've announced that it will be higher than other console versions. When we released our suggested retail price, we took into account many things, including development, production, and manufacturing costs. When the decision was made to do a physical release for the Switch version at $39.99 it was done so based on those factors. That is the bottom line; we are not attempting to take advantage of a freshly released console, a specific group of fan's affinity for games, a lack of games on a specific console, or any of those factors, it all comes down to the cost to get it out the door.
I completely understand why some people are upset by this, and I want you to know this was not a decision we made lightly. It was a very hot topic here, and ultimately a decision had to be made. I am reading every single post and understand where the varying thoughts and feelings come from. I am sharing the sentiment from the community with our team, so please keep sharing your feedback.
Thanks,
Tim