Rainway Beta Is Live, But There's Nothing But Disappointment For Switch Owners

People on Twitter were saying it wasn't working on their iPhones either. Mind you, if you have to use an exploit to just access the internet browser on the Switch to run a web app it would be pretty amazing if it was functional enough to do so.

So they used the Switch name to garner some interest and then not support it... I'm SHOCKED... SHOCKED!

not shocked.

It was obvious some time ago that it wouldn't be on Switch despite their recent ad featuring it prominently. I think they'd removed any written mention of the Switch from their site, it must be Nintendo that's not giving them the go ahead.

I may be being stupid, but if you have a gaming laptop, can't you just bung a HDMI cable to your television? Or if it's close enough from a PC to the TV?

To me the value of this seems to only be to play around the house on a small screen like the Switch or an iPad.

Wow a video about... showing something not working :-/ Amazing.

@MrGawain You can stream your PC games anywhere as long as you have a good internet connection. So, in theory, you could take your Switch outside, run a hotspot from your phone (or find a good wifi) and play games from your steam library on the go.

If it worked on Switch it would be fantastic, but knowing Nintendo they won't allow it...

Ah well. I personally wasn't really looking forward to this, as Nintendo is the only thing I game on, and I don't have anything to stream to the Switch (Is that how it works? Correct me if I'm wrong.), so I had no use for it anyway.

The beta is focused on pc browsers though and still has a lot of issues, sobthat might be the reason it isn't working atm.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE They never had any mention of the Switch on their site though. They only talked about the Switch through Twitter, which hasn't been deleted. Also, because it works through the browser, I don't think Nintendo can stop them, unless they delete the browser entirely.

This app is going to rain on Switch's parade.

I'm not surprised the web app doesn't load since it may be looking for some type of resource the Switch doesn't feature. Honestly, while I think Nintendo may not be willing to post the app, I think other developers may have voiced their concerns.

Think about it, Nintendo wouldn't be the only ones to lose out: indie developers and major companies, all could have potential loses. Not being able to support their Windows/Mac/Linux product being streamed to a Switch would create a problem of quality control. I'm sure Nintendo has some reasons, but the developers I think echoed it.

As an owner of a Steam Link with a wired connection, the idea of wireless streaming is a non-starter for me. Might be okay for turn-based games, but try playing something like Thumper.

This is a bit unfair. They never said that the Switch was ready to go during the beta, it was just for pc.

That said, even THAT didn't really work.

Shock Horror.

The lag and latency in a game like Cuphead would render it unplayable. Laptop + HDMI cable is good enough for me.

As long as it eventually works, I don't care.

@Damo But it's Nintendo's platform. I don't know technical details but surely Nintendo can put some kind of roadblock in there to prevent it from working?

@Damo @SLIGEACH_EIRE Wouldn't it work similar to how Homebrews get blocked out? A simple firmware update?

Question: Do we know what the browser is on Switch? I assume it isn't a propriety made one?

I think these guys are full of rubbish

It was obvious it wouldn't work, as many before me have said, they were just using the switch as promotional, as it is in the public eye so much.
And Nintendo letting you play PC games on their system? I think not

Not a good article. Quality of articles on Nintendo Life website lately is going uuuuup and dowwwwwn.

There has been a flow of issues and fixes from Rainway since the Sunday release. Most of the time on Sunday nothing loaded at all for me, much like what was happening in the video in the OP -
because they hadn't enough servers up to handle load. I got it to work from my gaming PC Monday evening to my laptop pretty well but for some reason it didn't like my mouse so I couldn't play much. I'll try it again over the weekend.

They did say that this release is only for PC and browsers, not the Switch. They never said they have dropped the Switch. I'm kinda still hoping that once they sort most of the issues out on the PC that the Switch app will come about. The one thing I love about the switch is that I can curl up on the sofa and play games just as easily as watching on the TV.

If I could play my PC games in the same easy way, it would be amazing to play Borderlands, Fallout 4, etc. sitting on my sofa.

Why are they going through so much trouble, when it already more-or-less exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN2WcgI8u5k
That and Moonlight-stream.
Suspicious.

Um, is anyone surprised? Knowing Nintendo this is just what we should expect. It might come to the Switch eventually, but give it at least 6 months, probably it will take more than that.

this thing is the definition of vaporware lol.

Switch content aside, I've been playing with the beta for a while now and what's sad is that for a "gaming-centric" application, it does horrible job of what its supposed to do. For example, Chrome Remote Desktop does a better job of handling the bitrate and quality than Rainway does. I can actually somewhat play Diablo through CRD, wheras it is completely unplayable through rainway. Tried 3 different browsers. I'll see how it does once my internet connection is upgraded, but for now my 7Mb upload doesn't seem to be enough to handle Rainway's protocol.

They could still deploy an app for switch with a bundled browser control thats not using the built in browser... It's not like "it's not working via the browser hack so it will never ever work"...

@MrGawain Sure you can do that. I have a big PC which is also connected via HDMI to my TV.

But what if the PC is in another room? What of there is no good way for a cable between the two and you would always have to plug and unplug and don' want that kind of hassle? Not everyone wants to buy a laptop instead of a PC.
Then there are the mentioned mobile devices like Switch...

It should also work from anywhere over the Internet, though I personally doubt it could be remotely lag free.

So there are quite a few situations in which Rainway can be useful.

“Knowing Nintendo...”
There’s a lot of comments that use that in an insulting way towards Nintendo. Like if Nintendo weren’t in their right to try to prevent stuff that most probably will hurt their business.
Why would Nintendo allow the streaming of PC games on the Switch? That only means less software sales which is against their business.
I’m perfectly fine with Nintendo trying their best to prevent apps like this from working on the Switch.

Yawn...

@maruse how would this hurt Nintendo's business exactly?

If anything, it would garner more Switch hardware sales.

EVERYONE - JUST PLAY GAMES MADE FOR SWITCH, NOT PC !!!

@Damo Sorry mate, but this is a poorly researched article. It was actually stated numerous times (e.g. in the Rainway discord channel) that the Beta won't work with the Switch.

And the reason is not even Rainway's fault, but Nintendo's:

In the 3.0 system update they removed a html5 feature that is necessary for using Rainway.
Maybe Nintendo even did this on purpose to prevent it, who knows.

Anyway, the Beta was never advertised to be working with the Switch.

And btw: I'm a Switch owner but I'm bot disappointed. I just tried it with my phone instead.

EDIT: Ah now the article was edited, nice.

@Damo But if Nintendo doesn't support it, how will this ever work on a browser even? I mean yeah, you could get a stream of a game going in a browser, but you would have no way of controlling it. A webpage can't remap Nintendos controller buttons. Nintendo would have to support letting a web applet take over your joycons or pro controller.. it would need a download and installation to do this. Outside of that, you will basically be looking at a video stream of your game, without being able to interact with it.

@MrGawain You can play games anywhere, not only in your home.

Yeah - I would not get worked up about this.

After doing 3 installs and a forced upgrade to Windows 10 "whatever edition" (I lost track at this point). I still could not make it work on my iPhone or iPad. This needs work.

If only GPD WIN2 was not $650 bucks.

@gatorboi352 That's the problem though. Console MFRs sell hardware like Gillette sells razor handles. Selling the handles isn't a business. But it's a tool to sell you disposable blades forever and ever. They only sell you hardware near-cost so you buy lots of games from them and pay for it 3-fold. If people just buy hardware to watch video or stream PC games, the mfr makes little to no money, and has to spend more producing more units as commodities for consumers who will yield no profit. Same for PS4 (which is why they removed the rich media features and didn't add a UHD media player), while XBox went the other way, but their original mission was to get Windows into the living area via X-Box, and that mindset carried into the X1 launch. Since then they're just stuck adding value to keep brand presence for now, but Windows adoption was a back-end on selling hardware for "general entertainment". PS1, 2, 3 were a little different because Sony was using game sales from gamers to subsidize broad sales of the CD, DVD, BD formats respectively to force market standardization of their heavily vested optical formats so there was a back-end on selling consoles to non-gamers. Nintendo consoles never had such market incentives, they have no other industry to push via gaming, and Sony has backed down from that model with PS4 as for the first time in PS history they have no other format to push (despite actually being the largest media company themselves via Sony BMG, and Sony Pictures/Columbia-Tri-Star.)

Without a business backend on the side, the point of selling consoles is selling games. Selling consoles to people not buying many games presents the same problem nVidia is finally cracking down on with cryptominers buying tons of video cards, reducing supply, increasing costs, and yielding no real profits since they can't produce more cards without more mfr capacity which costs time and money for a transient market that will move on and not sustain the new production capacity.

@Damo The browser can't actually be run on Switch though. I mean yeah, you can exploit it, but a normal customer can't actually run it, and if Rainway were to use the exploit after Nintendo denies them an eShop app, I'd consider the odds of being able to exploit executing the bows...err...browser after the following "stability" update to be next to nil.

@Damo Firmware update will just block this, sure the company can update their app to get past the firmware update, once or twice but it won't be sustainable to continue to do so if Nintendo keep blocking it.

Rainway, for the first time you can now play and stream your PC games on your PC? WTF I can already do that. I thought this was suppose to allow you to stream PC games for play on other devices. Why doesn't it support the other devices?

They never should have said or teased it working on Switch. Nintendo is to blame for this for not having a browser too.

@mikegamer how is nintendo to blame?? it's their device they can load whatever they want or not on it for their own IP protection. I knew this was a pipe dream from day one and the video they showed is bogus or they somehow have it working in a state that I bet 99% of any other user could not achieve. It's time to move on.. this is pure garbage!!

@Tim_Vreeland HTML5 has its own Gamepad API so - at least in theory - you don't need to download/install anything, it's supported out of the box.

If this actually came to Switch, there are a number of indie games that I own on Steam that I could play without having to buy the Switch versions.

And that's exactly why this will never come to Switch.

So in other words, we have to wait for either a proper release, or Nintendo to release a proper browser. Well, my stance hasn't changed-- It'd be a nice perk if/when it comes, but if not, I will not lose sleep.

@Cosats Not constructive. I don't mind complaints, but at the very least give the author an explanation so they have something to consider changing.

I've tried it and it still has a way to go, but that's to be expected of a beta I guess. As far as the Switch version goes, I would love to have this so I can play my PC games handheld style, but I'm skeptical it will come to the Switch for reasons I've mentioned before.

It grabs whatever you have in your steam library, as well as other libraries (Blizzard's Battle.Net app, and I'm sure others as well), but the problem with steam is that you can import emulators into it. I tested the app and it actually picked it up, and with the right setup it's possible to play emulated games. Unless they can prevent that, I think Nintendo will slam the gate shut on them getting their app on the Switch.

If it doesn't come to the Switch I won't be to worried, since I like the idea of being able to play games through a browser. Of course, the lag I'm currently experiencing will need to be improved, but as I said, it's a beta, so I'm not expecting optimal performance.

I would like to point out the fact that the reason it doesn't work in the web browser is due to the fact that Rainway currently only supports Chrome.

@gatorboi352 for starters if the same game is available both on Steam and the Switch, who’s going to buy it twice when usually the Steam version is cheaper?
Next, hardware sales are important but not the biggest part of revenue, that’s software’s job. So if like you said, some people buy the Switch but use it to stream games instead of actually buying Switch’s games, in the end that hurt sales even if the can get a handful more Switches sold.
In the long run it’s not logical from a business point of view to allow apps like this.

@XenoShaun It's not a proprietary browser. Although I don't exactly remember I do recall a NintendoLife article on who the browser's Creator is, it's someone who makes default browsers for other companies as well (you know, the small browser that opens up when you need to sign in to a public WiFi?)

@Yasaal Thanks for the info. Always been rather curious (if am a little dumb on this subject) on what they use. Am aware Safari do some like that but thats all.

@XenoShaun Anytime bro

Well I'm hoping we get an actual Internet Browser although I'd take YT and CR in a heartbeat if I had to choose between the two.

Sensationalist headlines again. No mention of Switch support in the beta, so no disappointment from this owner. Glad they updated the story but feel as though they should update the title as well.

I understand why people want this. But I still think it would be bad for the Switch and Nintendo to have it. It would hurt game sales for the Switch. That lack of sales for actual games made for the Switch and Switch versions of multiplatform games would result in less of both actually being made and cause a snowball effect leading to the only company making games actually FOR the Switch being Nintendo... Wii U all over again.

This has always been a scam.

@NEStalgia well yeah, I get that. But it's not like it's hurting Nintendo selling those Switches for that purpose. It's just not helping as much as it would in the case of someone buying one to also buy a bunch of software.

@gatorboi352 But it can hurt as well. If supply is still constrained, it takes units away from customers that would pay more to put hardware in the hands of those paying less. If supply isn't quite constrained they still don't want to have to invest in more manufacturing (think contract extensions, real estate, acquisition of parts that are already limited in the industry, staffing, freight & logistics, etc.) to supply more units to a customer base that isn't actually going to net a profit (and thus pay for that extra production.)

And if all it takes to sidestep that is just keep the video apps and cross platform streaming apps off the system, or, in Sony's case, strip out the DLNA client and don't add a UHD BD player.....why spend time and money adding/supporting a feature that is either neutral or hurts the bottom line?

MS has nothing to lose because "home entertainment system" was the whole positioning, so the video/streaming customers are part of their intended market (and at least original, targets to monetize with it even if that kind of fell apart.)

A situation where the app gets working on the Switch makes me think of the situation Sony had with the PSP in the west. They sold a good number, but the majority of people I knew actually modded their's and played pirated copies. Hence software sales did not match up with hardware sales.

Such an app could also dissade indie developers from bothering to develop for Switch if it'd be easier to put on Steam and then let people stream. Which is bad for those of us with no interest in streamin games.

@shani It's the same issue. The HTML 5 gamepad API is webside. The actual controllers and operating system have to connect to that API. I have a laptop running ChromeOS that won't even play HTML 5 games with a controller, because the OS isn't willing to do the handshake. And this is using controllers that were made to be connected to computers. Joycons connected to the Switch probably aren't even configured in a way that a third party, like HTML 5 would recognize them as standard gamepads... Let alone the hurtle that Nintendo's Switch OS is not going to be configured to make the handshake with HTML 5.

This is something that will 100% require Nintendo's approval and activation, or require a hack with the proper software bridge to make it all work.

I don't get the purpose of the app at all, if you're a serious PC gamer why on earth forgo your setup so you can play on a little mobile screen? Few Wifi hotspots are going to give you a good enough connection to even play them and most will be unplayable due to lag. Sony have already spent quite a bit of time and money proving this doesn't work very well first with the Vita and to some degree Playstation Now.

I'm more than happy to just play Switch games on my Switch, NES games on my NES and Cuphead on my laptop

@Tim_Vreeland Interesting, I didn't know that!

Though, regarding the Joycons:
As far as I know, every Nintendo controller since the Wiimote can be used via DirectInput. So at least the controllers themselves shouldn't be a problem.
But if the OS can still (essentially) block the usage of the controllers, it makes no difference, of course.

@carlos82 Are you really that unimaginative? The thought of playing my whole PC library on my Laptop (e.g. when I'm at a friend's place in a different city or country or at a hotel with good wifi, maybe even hooked up to a TV) is awesome!
So would be playing my FM18 saves on my smartphone (or better: the Switch, due to the bigger screen).

With Rainway you could also have LAN-Partys without having to actually bring your computer.

@shani I wouldn't say I'm unimaginative but I can do all those things with my laptop anyway without the need for Wifi, well except the top end games but I can live without them when I'm away from home.

Maybe it's just that I do almost all of my gaming at home even with the Switch that this offers nothing for me.

@carlos82 Actually I also (usually) only play at home, that's why I find the whole concept of the Switch pretty pointless (gaming on the go is just not that enjoyable due to the small screen, interruptions, noise, tight spaces, people).

But that doesn't prevent me from finding Rainway awesome.

Wait, so what's the point of the beta being PC only? All that does is save a little time and some hard drive space by not needing to simply download the game in question to the second PC. Even save data isn't an issue as long as you remember to upload your save data file to a cloud service like Google Drive before you leave the host PC.