Hearthstone On Switch Is "A Good Discussion Worth Having", According To The Game's Designer

I dunno... This would only really work if it's undocked and set up like the mobile version, with the JoyCons taken off. The R JoyCon could be used for pointer controls, but there's a Poker-like aspect at higher skill levels that requires the player to only select certain cards at certain times, and the pointer function wouldn't provide enough precision for that. A mouse works best for this, so the PC version is always going to be the best one. But yeah, if they want to create an NS version, it would only really work if modeled after the mobile version.

Would love to see it on the Switch , but my guess is that it won't ever be ported over. Hate comments like this where they basically fill us with hope and nothing in return.

I really hope E3 is something special for the switch this year!

I would love this and other card based apps/games.

The real question is "Why only Hearthstone?"

I honestly don't think it will work well being on the Switch. However I am always happy to hear developers thinking or wanting to bring games to the Switch.

Talking is good, talking is good for the soul.

Talk is cheap. I'm more interested in actions. Also, doesn't this game heavily rely on being connected online? Not very suitable if you're out and about.

Maybe if they nailed down a solid online infrastructure. As it stands, I won't play the Android or Apple versions because they disconnect in the middle of games way too often. Like, 1 in 4 games.

No thanks, don't really like blizzard games. I have overwatch but even that gets boring real quick.

Would certainly go down well at my local card shop/club.

I haven't gotten into it but I'm all for game diversity

I'm already a regular Hearthstone player, so this would have very little impact for me. That being said, I would love to see this happen.

It would take Switch port to get me back in the game but I would so love it!!

A proper Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon card game would be great too

@jack49455 So you'd want to deny other people some of the biggest games in the world on a new system that needs all the help and 3rd party support it can get.

k

@Damo You guys going to address "Agents of Mayhem" not being considered for Switch, currently making it around on the twitter, or are we trying to start off the week on a positive note?

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/saints-row-devs-agents-of-mayhem-not-in-developmen/1100-6449139/

@rjejr It'd be a long list if you were to name all the games not coming to Switch.

@Damo The game would be cumbersome to set up while in docked mode, unless it had USB mouse and keyboard support. (Which would be unergonomic if it's not setup like a desktop, but that defeats the purpose of choosing a console.) It would work fine without the JoyCons while undocked, but you'd still lose out on one of the Poker style elements of the game- hovering over certain cards in your hand to fake out your opponent's expectations. Obviously, that can't work in a touch screen control setup, only pointer or mouse. And a pointer (e.g. Wiimote or R JoyCon) isn't precise enough to utilize that Poker aspect effectively.

I would be down with this. Plus, they could add in pointer-style controls like the Tomorrow Corporation games to allow play on the TV. I'd be all for it. I was skeptical they could work, but even Human Resource Machine, which is about grabbing small command tiles, works like a dream in tabletop and TV modes.

Also worth noting: the game is made in Unity, so I imagine porting wouldn't pose a massive challenge given it's not the most intense game out there. Online connectivity might be the biggest hurdle.

@Damo And that if they were making an Xbox/Playstation version, they'd already have a controller based TV mode UI/control scheme to work with. Or if they made that scheme on Switch it could transfer to Xbox/Playstation so still valid R&D.

@PlywoodStick I've already seen Hearthstone being played using an Xbox controller. I don't really get what you're talking about. Can't you also just slide your finger on touch screen to replicate moving a mouse? You can certainly fake stuff without a mouse.

Hearthstone is the only game I have on my iPhone. I'd love to see it on my switch as well. But my battery life on switch prob wouldn't be thanking me at all.

Yes please! I am 100% on board for Hearthstone on Switch! Make this happen Blizzard!

@PlywoodStick I don't know why you think pointer controls wouldn't be precise enough to play on the tv when they're literally exactly the same as playing with a mouse. It would be completely fine. If you still disagree with me, show me evidence!

@rjejr @sligeach_eire This seems to be what most developers are saying. I guess what makes the Agents of Mayhem comment troubling is that they don't even make it sound like Switch is worth talking about by following it up with, "we will look in to it if there is enough demand" like other developers have been giving us Hope with. Even the comments regarding Hearthstone are nebulous. Nintendo might need to do something crazy like put some money down for timed third party exclusives before we see another Wii U with slightly better sales. I write this with tears in my eyes because I truly do want Nintendo to succeed with Switch. (I believe they already have succeeded, but I realize they need profits too).

They could make it handheld mode only.

Despite 'thinking' that CCG games weren't my bag, I tried Hearthstone on mobile last year and absolutely LOVED it! So yeah, if Blizzard were to do us Switch owners a solid, I'd be all for it.

The only slight issue for me was playing on a small iPhone screen, so – whether playing docked or handheld – Switch would be a huge improvement.

Yeah, I expect this is more likely the kind of third party stuff the Switch will bet. It will miss out on most of the big AAA third party games, but it will possibly game the smaller games that many of these companies put out every now and then too.

@rjejr Don't encourage them. You know they're into that sort of thing. I'm surprised we don't have articles on "Naughty Dog Says Switch port of Uncharted 4 'not under consideration'"

Nintendo "news" sites love declaring AAA multi-plats taht never had any chance of coming to Nintendo made official statements on Twitter that they're not making the game for Nintendo, as though those studios had any prior business relationship with Nintendo a little too much since the WiiU.

That should have been the April Fools post. "2K games 'considering options' of GTAVI on New 3DS."

@JohnBlackstar It's not always about hardware performance with these companies though, it's also market segment. Even before getting to the idea of "is it possible to put Saint's Row's engine on the Switch?" is the question of "is the Switch demographic aligned with the Saint's Row demographic?"

Nobody being honest would provide any answer but a resounding no to the latter question, making the former question mute. It should be possible to port any modern scalable game to Switch without much effort, but there's no point doing so if you're not reaching any part of your own target market you're missing by not doing so. In the case of Saint's Row (and many, many, many other AAA multiplats 'not coming' to Switch) it's a business decision where nearly all of the market interested in their game is already vested in another platform. Even if Nintendo's machine were more powerful than a PS4 Pro, it's unlikely that and many other games would still be coming to it. Generally you buy a Nintendo because you like a DIFFERENT suite of games than the other platforms provide, and either don't like the kinds of games on the other platforms, or like both kinds of games and play on more than one platform.

Skyrim is an example (though Nintendo reached out to them) that despite being an older game, the sense of exploration and high-fantasy worlds aligns with Nintendo customer buying habits, and Skyrim's own install base might have an interest in portable Skyrim being a long duration dedicated audience.

Some games like Mass Effect "considering it if demand is there" makes sense since ME has a prior involvement with Nintendo (WiiU), and the space-opera theme has enough broad appeal to be aligned with potential Nintendo audiences. Saints' Row is a stylized world of crime, drugs, gangs, and prostitutes. If my pay depended on making that sell to Nintendo's audience, I'd quit before I started

To be honest I'd much prefer seeing Gwent on Switch. But hey, if they did do it then all the power to 'em as it's a ridiculously successful game.

@NEStalgia I agree with your points. If you look at ZombiU though it sold around 1 million units worldwide which was probably the most sales for a third party game on the Wii U. There is some demand there, but even Ubisoft said that sales were disappointing and not profitable. I could see Nintendo bringing a big franchise exclusive (at least timed) and it helping sales. I think without some sort of achievement system, lacking extensive online capabilities, and no apps they are going to struggle to get people excited to bring games to the system though. Developers are skeptical that users will buy in to the Switch beyond the regular Nintendo crowd that do not want to purchas their style games. Nintendo can't support another console solely on their own shoulders though unless they adjust their expectations.

@NEStalgia Exactly. That's why I bought a power PC to go along with my Wii U. A powerful PC just makes more sense in the long run. "Can you afford to wait a year or more for a popular AAA game and get it 75% off on Steam?" if so then congratulations, that $800+ PC you made or bought will pay itself off pretty quickly! Meanwhile I made the budget considerations for buying an NS with all the peripherals I want and Zelda BotW and it came to be $510-540. It should be at most $400 or around that. That's for one game. I'm only interested in quality Nintendo games and if my PC can play the best versions of these games (and portable with a Laptop)....why buy the NS version? What is the point? And one year later the port of a AAA game on NS will still be full price and half off on Steam!

Not to mention Nintendo really kicked me hard when they gave me a birthday "present" of 25% off games I mostly had, $5-7 eShop games, or $30+ games I am skeptical of buying. "Hmm $25 Super PMD or wait for Dark Souls III to be $30 or less." It's obvious to me what I want to wait for.

I'm going to boycott the NS until I have word that Online game saves or some hacker finds a way to save the data to the Micro SD card. I don't want to loose all my data due to dropping the NS. Crappy ports and low selections of appealing games will only get you so far.

I don't play Hearthstone, but more decent games on the Switch is always a good thing. I wouldn't be opposed to the game making the leap.

Though hearing LEEROY-LEEROY-LEEROY JEEEENNNNNKIIIIIIIINNNNNNSSSS! might get a bit old after awhile.

I would love shadowverse to be on switch. Probably one best card game I've played in long time. Way more balanced then MTG. I would probably pay 19.99 to 29.99 if included free way unlock cards. All bonus in the game gives you lot of free packs. Think I have like 23 unopened atm.

Is this game good?

@Jessica286 I heard the new update wasn't going over well but last time I downloaded it (4-5 months) was still really fun, but still rather play shadowverse as my go to TCG.

Hearthstone is good game in its own though.

@Thaswizz well if it is good then bring it. I want quality games for Switch, I really don't want a Wii era of shovelware.

@Damo Well, no, it wouldn't be 100%, because with a touch screen, you can't readily simulate the hover over select, which is part of the Poker-style part of Hearthstone. Selecting it by sliding your finger from outside a card (imprecise, could signal wrong card) or picking it up briefly is the closest one can get, and you don't want to do that, because it gives away that you're a mobile user. (Or NS user, in this presumed case.) One of the important parts of Hearthstone, like Poker, is to not give away information to your opponent, while attempting to trip up your opponent's expectations. Only the mouse smoothly allows for that.

@Late Touch screen isn't as precise as a mouse, so you're liable to touch something you may not want to show off. Also, if you use a controller to simulate mouse pointer movement, your movements will be even more imprecise and slow. You're handicapping yourself if you don't use a mouse.

@Jessica286 Only if you follow the current meta. Otherwise you're going to get rekt.

@PlywoodStick I still don't quite get it. I'd understand it if it were a game that really benefited from mouse instead of a gamepad like FPS games but this is a card game we're talking about. They have it on mobile devices and many other card games are on mobile devices and consoles too.

I can see why people prefer to play Smash using a GameCube controller but it's not the thing that makes them win matches. If they want to play using the GC controller, they can do that. If people want to play Hearthstone using a mouse, they can do that on PC. The amount of people who take Hearthstone as seriously as Poker are few and far between and I doubt they'd be playing Hearthstone on Switch anyways.

Also, as for the controller thing, I didn't mean it would be used to move around a cursor. It works just as well if you press left/right to switch between cards. As I already said, I don't think a mouse is necessary for bluffing. There are other things you can do. Poker players don't have mouses on their table while they look at their cards either.

@JohnBlackstar Yeah, ZombiU selling "that" well was surprise. But at that point in the WiiU's life, Nintendo was pitching the WiiU as a "third party system" primarily with big AAA multiplats at launch and intentional lack of Nintendo games to give the multiplats breathing room, not understanding that the third parties were biding time for the other two to just become x86 PCs. So selling ZombiU at 1m was part of Nintendo trying to align (badly) WiiU as "it really IS one of the other consoles...." WiiU actually was pitched as the "XBox that also plays Mario" more or less and it didn't go so well.

Ubi is also at fault there. 1M on a launch game was an amazing seller. They went into it expecting WiiU would be another Wii and have 20mil out of the gate and have an 8 mil sell through on their game. Companies had weird expectations about WiiU, though perhaps Nintendo was trying to convince them it would be exactly that.

Developers are probably right to be skeptical. After all, PS4 and X1 have been on the market for their games for 3 years now, over 3 years. If somebody didn't buy one of those to play their games, why would somebody buying a switch who either has one of those, or is openly rejecting those be more likely to buy their game? So every studio has to seriously think "Why would this game sell well to Nintendo's audience? Why would it not? And would my existing user base be more likely to play if it were handheld?" If you close your eyes and imagine the bulk of the Saint's Row player base, we can guess But a big RPG, there's a lot that might like to play but not have the time at home and pass. This is the West's one real chance to think about what they might like to cash in on on the handheld market they were previously unable to enter. And Nintendo being proactive with Bethesda is an intriguing start to that.

OTOH, I think Nintendo's mindset with Switch is "the western publishers are fickle and backstabbing, forget them." It seems tailored to their existing partners that have been with them forever on the handhelds. Capcom, Level5, Konami (oddly?), Sega, Squeenix, Atlus/Sega....they seem all in. I think it's going to be designed around the handheld/Japanese studio space they do well (keeping in mind most Japanese devs would develop only for handheld, cutting off their access to only niche audience in the West, now that it's one unit, they can up their production values and appeal to the west now.) To a degree, Switch is Japans Trojan Horse into the western market again beyond just Nintendo.

It's not setting up an atypical Nintendo as Nintendo handheld customers have known them, but it's a concentration of the "2 platform Nintendo system" into a single platform (if you combine WiiU + 3DS as a single platform, it's library was nothing short of amazing. IF you look at either single platform it has holes.) But also has that little carrot on a stick to bring some Western devs handheld (and teases them with an introduction to the Japan market which was a very tiny niche even on Playstation.) That's the one fun thing Switch does for the western third parties. Instead of asking "how would you like to appeal to Nintendo customers" it also asks "how would you like a chance to be relevant in Japan?" Some studios don't care, they're selling western pop culture distilled into interactive entertainment. They know it won't matter. But a few might bite.

This is interesting. I wonder how they'll utilize the docked mode, though.

@Late I could just be biased from seeing how high level play works, and being shown some tricks of the trade by someone who got to single digit ranks and multiple legendaries without paying any money for packs, only paying money for the Adventure winnings. (Basically shown how people progress and not languish.) If you don't use every trick in the book (which is done most easily by a mouse) then you're going to reach a point where you can't progress. There's a reason pretty much no one streams Hearthstone from their phone. (Also what RedMage in comment #8 said.)

@Damo Blizzard games are universally best suited to PC's with mouse and keyboard. Just like Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games are best suited to Nintendo consoles and controls. Just because Hearthstone can be played on a phone (or possibly the NS), doesn't mean it plays well. You can play Super Mario 64, Sunshine, or Galaxy with an XB1 or PS4 controller and near perfect emulation, but it wouldn't feel right, would it?

I could see it easily happen if Nintendo develops a "touch-con".
When you need touch controls in TV-mode.

If we get this before we get or even get Dragon Quest X. I think my head will just explode. This would be cool for Switch owners
It is a fun game. They would really have to workout a good control scheme for it to work.