Diablo III Producer Explains Why Blizzard Wanted The Game On Switch

Definitely getting this.

I just hope my PC saved games will automatically be transferred to the Switch version.

@Zuljaras Suspiciously absent...

Nothing to do with it being the most popular console at the moment

@Zuljaras
Yes that is worrying.

There are some games that fit perfectly on the platform and I thought Diablo III being one of them the moment I got my Switch at launch. Can't wait!

@steve_1978 Going by the PS4 / XBOX ONE version of the game... They won't.

This will be the third time i buy D3

Cannot wait for this to be released. Never played a Diablo game but have heard great things about this one.

Game + all content from every expansion and update 'MUST' be included on the physical cart. NO DOWNLOADS. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, Blizzard, but you need to confirm this.

@Zuljaras Absolutely! It is getting really worrying now, still no confirmation. Game + all content from every expansion and update 'MUST' be included on the physical cart. NO DOWNLOADS. I don't think they get what a deal breaker this is.

It's kind of cool how almost all developers are loving playing the switch. Even if a number of games won't or can't make it to the platform, it feels good knowing there's still love for the Nintendo Switch regardless.

I'm really looking forward to this on the Switch.

@Zuljaras Just read this article and you have your answer:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/diablo-3-ultimate-evil-edition-download-size-clari/1100-6421626/

Great, let's get Hearthstone in the eshop and a physical release of Overwatch too.

I would imagine that carts for a high profile game like Diablo 3 are a given?

Confirmation would be welcome though.

Ive never played Diablo 3. Is it worth it?

@JnFnRu - yep, it is bloody marvellous. Switch will be my third time round, and proper looking forward to it. Just don't be a barbarian as it is unspeakably dull.

@Zuljaras The list Xbox360 filesize of 7,5 GB is most certainly heavily compressed due to the 7,6 GB limit of the dual layer DVD disc.
It also isn't the Ultimate Edition we have now that includes the Necromancer DLC.

The Xbox One version at launch which was then limited to 1080p at that time was already 22 GB.
I have it now on my Xbox One X where it supports 4K, so will have to check how large my install size is.

In theory, Blizzard should be able to squeeze it on a 16GB cartridge at least.

@Zuljaras Shouldn't be any issue for the US version at least.

The large filesizes, like was the issue on the Playerstation 4, was due to language packs. So it mostly is an EU issue.

So Blizzard could put the standard English version on the cartridge and make the other language packs optional download.

Problem solved.

@Zuljaras The PC client (when I last downloaded it) is just a little over 13gb, so it should fit on a 16gb cartridge pretty comfortably.

"Diablo III Producer Explains Why Blizzard Wanted The Game On Switch" - I hear Mister Crabs his voice in my head: "money". That aside, I'm looking forward to playing it co-op with my partner, so they'll have our money.

@Zuljaras It doesn't necessarily prove anything, but the box art I've seen includes all the rating boards classifications, Blizzard logos and a "Ganandorf DLC" badge etc in my region but not the standard white Switch banner that they use if the game has mandatory downloads.

Not to say they can't just swap the art down the line, but hopefully thats not the case.

@Zuljaras I don't have an official source but I'm sure I heard a rumour that the game card will be the same dimensions as other Switch games. I hope that answers your questions about the "cartridge size"! 😜

Another thing to consider, I see language packs being brought up for growing size. I have to wonder, if it stops at 960p max for TV mode, do the PS4/Pro sizes go bigger because of even higher resolution textures they have to store on the disc?

If they use just 720p ones scaled up to 960p or just that, that would still be limiting out sizes that can't be used or are unnecessary and that would eat up some good space.

I imagine this game wouldn't take anything more than 16GB to get the job done, but if the game itself on another system as already said fits into just under 8GB compressed, maybe it does on Switch cards too.

@NimrodsSon
„Just don't be a barbarian as it is unspeakably dull.“

What else do you expect from a barbarian?

Reason confirmed:

@JnFnRu @NintendoFan4Lyf Oh god yes! It's brilliant!

It's easily in my top 10 favourite games of all time.

@VoodooTrumpet yep thats it. but they cant say that so they give the public what they want to hear

"The Switch was a thing we were all playing"

'were all playing'?

Switch Pro INCOMING!!!! 😄

For the devs on the fence it really is going to take them being customers of the system itself to make them go to bat. I'm glad it worked out for everyone involved, looking forward to this.

EDIT: When I say go to bat I mean pitching the possibility of a game to the higherups, not if the end result of putting it on the system comes to pass. Otherwise I would have mentioned publishers and not devs.

Well at least I get a chance to see why people online go crazy for Diablo III. Maybe they will consider Overwatch too since it will also grow money, unless they figure that Paladins got a hold on that tree.

@ultraraichu Diablo is a simple but addictive structure. It may not appeal to everyone but it should appeal to pretty much anyone. Mashy action fighting with continuous power up upgrades, new skills to lear/power up, and new loot to sort through to upgrade. Fight tough monsters to get powerful to fight tougher monsters to get powerful to fight tougher monsters, finish game, then start again at higher difficulty with all your levels/skills carrying over. That said, it's coop is its greatest strength, and has been since the mid-90's. It's just a great game to have a full campaign to play with someone and find the entrance/exit/treasure/etc with someone (or a few people.) The game scales difficulty for the number of players, and maps are dynamically generated so every playthrough is different, with the same milestones. Old timers prefer Diablo II as the height of the series, but III is still a solid game and is astonishingly well playing for a series built on mouse play.

@Ryu_Niiyama For the devs on the fence the numbers either work or don't. I mean we have Bethesda opening their E3 presentation with everyone in the office playing Switch (and later unveiling one of the "PS4, PC, and XBox One" announcements to also be Switch.) We have Blizzard-Activision saying they were playing around the office and, lets face it, saw the business sense of the game on Switch. We have Microsoft, a competing console, actively promoting Switch at their own E3 shows.... Imagine Nintendo promoting Game Pass? If you're a publisher thinking about platforms, and looking what the big guys are doing, you're not forgetting Switch. You may decide the numbers don't work, but it's not forgotten, unlike past Nintendo systems. Names like Doom, Elder Scrolls, and Diablo resonate through the PC-focused industry pretty well. They're pretty much the bulwarks of PC heritage.

@NEStalgia Of course the numbers is what gets a game greenlighted; gotta appease the suits after all. That wasn't what I was talking about. I'm talking about making the pitch in the first place. Many "AAA" devs overlook Nintendo without testing a dev kit or even having their team members personally use their systems. A good dev tries multiple platforms to leverage their end prod, even if nothing comes of it, but at the very least to know what tools are available.

I'll edit my post since it seems to be unclear.

@Zuljaras They are putting it on a 1Mb card we will have to download pretty much everything but the title screen. I'm being facetious but I feel like on switch a lot of companies do that, even though their products are already more expensive on the switch. I think as a rule if your game is already 10 bucks or more expensive than the other consoles we shouldn't have to download a chunk of your game. They just keep passing expenses on to us and still charge more? Hopefully that won't be the case here.

@Ryu_Niiyama True enough. Though I think "because it can't run on Switch" is just a cop-out more times than not (except for big open games that clearly take a ton of RAM or CPU utilization.) Most of the time I think Nintendo is overlooked just because (real or imagined) there's no faith in the numbers for their product and thus not worth even considering. N64...I will always hate that thing because it's what broke Nintendo as a brand to most of the industry Switch is slowly but surely fixing that.

Grrrreat!

@NEStalgia N64 was fantastic for what it was (I spent an absurd amount of time on it as a kid and it is my biggest system-owned-before-legally-entering-the-workforce collection) , but it taught me the politics behind gaming. That realization made gaming a little less magical after that.

My issue is simple... there are a lot of back catalogue games that get ported to the twins... many if not all that the switch can handle...I realize it isnt a simple port job but it seems odd to potentially snub 20 million people. I've begun delaying purchases of non exclusives on the twins in hops of switch ports for some of the more basic multiplats. Since I've already been stuck double dipping a few times since the switch came out. When devs give a honest "we tried and we cant make it run" answer, I gladly go buy it on my secondary platforms, but when I get a "we didn't even think about it".... My backlog is massive as is...I don't HAVE to add their games to the pile.

Well, I will be getting this when it launches. I have the game on PC and like it quite a bit. I hope the game gets great sales numbers and provides reason for more games from the dev.

@Ryu_Niiyama LOL, yeah, if anything represents the politics of gaming, it's the 64! (Well, technically the NES, but we were all too innocent to understand back then )

I hear you on the backlog though. Just in the past week 3 things I bought on X1 sales ended up getting announced for Switch.

@NEStalgia I still think that Sony and Nintendo would have broken up anyway though. Even if the Nintendo Playstation had taken off. They might have made it to NPS2 but once Sony started making a money pit (as in the PS3...sold well ...but was expensive so the profit margin was smaller...and all those dang skus...this is not a 3ds sony...stop it!) I think Nintendo/Iwata-denka would have been like: "Please understand, you are costing us too much in upfront investment....we are not going to go bankrupt for you. We will play elsewhere." The only real benefit to a partnership would have been nintendo jumping onto disc media sooner (although n64 games look better to me than ps1 and gcn was more powerful than ps2 so I don't know...)

Yeah my last okami purchase taught me, wait....you won't be ready to play it out of box anyway.

@Ryu_Niiyama IIRC Sony was mostly just using Nintendo's knowledge, brand awareness, and licenses to jump-start their own entrance from the beginning. They definitely would have split up anyway, that was Sony's intention all along. They just got cocky, as Sony oft does, and overplayed their hand trying to reap the rewards before they even fully embedded themselves. Heck if they hadn't been greedy their little scheme would have worked and Mario and Zelda would be PS4 exclusives....and thus $25 by now...

@NEStalgia true enough. They had the chance to neatly and quietly swipe the hardware business from Nintendo and then tie them in enough legal red tape as partners to shutter Nintendo’s hardware production and make them an exclusive dev. They do fine on their own but I wonder if some suit is still bitter about what could have been. Sony with Nintendo as a second party or exclusive 3rd party dev would have destroyed MS in gaining a foot hold. Even with halo I feel. However I think had that happened a lot of the magic of Nintendo games would have been lost following the latest market trend. Nintendo being Nintendo for well over a century works even if armchair CEOs like to complain.

HELL YEAH!

@Ryu_Niiyama You mean you wouldn't have preferred to see Mario in the ruins of New Donk, down on his luck, out for revenge against Bowser and his mechanized infantry for the death of Peach, as he learns to suck Toad souls to fuel his Rage Points used to flame thrower attacks and hurling rusting New Donk taxis against the robot turtle hoards, as he takes to sullen drinking alone during cutscenes?

Seriously, though, I think MS would still have found their footing, because bringing a PC ecosystem to consoles, centered on shooters, was still fresh and viable in the console space at the time.

The advances in tech can certainly help in bringing game sizes down for the Switch. For instance, video on XB1 and PS4 tend to be encoded in h264/AVC since that is what they can natively handle in hardware. PC use that as well because it has been around long enough that even older PCs can handle it. With Switch on the other hand, it supports h265/HEVC, which can provide roughly the same quality of video of h264 at half the bitrate. The Switch may not have the raw power of the other platforms, but that doesn't mean devs shouldn't take advantage of its strengths.

@Zuljaras I just saw this: “Switch owners will also be happy to hear all the content fits on a cartridge so you can buy a physical copy without requiring any downloads.”

https://uk.pcmag.com/diablo-3-reaper-of-souls/116984/news/watch-diablo-iii-played-on-switchs-62-inch-display

Excited about this, but would love the Torchlight series.

@Syrek24 If there was no internet in the future, I would be past moving to other hobbies and more focused on survival, because no internet would probably mean things have gone horribly, horibly wrong. 🧟‍♂️