SNK Rules Out New KoF Games For Switch Due To System's "Technical Limitations"

I think it's fair that Nintendo produces less-powerful hardware and benefits from different aspects of that strategy but also won't get ports of every multi-platform game. It's not a big deal. Some pros, some cons.

And I say this as a huge KoF fan who primarily games on Switch. But I'm OK having to get KoF on another system someday if I wanna play it.

Yeah I got KOF on my Steam Deck, couldn't imagine it on the Switch.

Nintendo really need to get some newer hardware out.

From an outsider’s view the game looks very barebones regarding its single player offerings, so no huge loss in my book. Hopefully the next console is around the corner… right?

Fellow Switch gamers, the Steam Deck has changed my life. I don’t ever have to worry about these type of situations ever again. I’ll still support my first party titles though!

It's never too late for Nintendo Switch KOFXIV and KOFXV.

Dbfz is on the switch but I’m sure that took a lot of work, wile yes this game isn’t graphic heavy or impressive, it sure would be an investment.

But yeah, the switch is not that powerful.

Plus, the Switch is for good boys and girls, remember?

There are pros and cons to everything. I have a Steam Deck, and yes, it can do what Nintendon't, but it also has that abysmal battery life if you play any game moderately high end. Plus while it can be played on TV with a third party docking solution, certain games have bad input lag because of it (tried playing DJ Max Respect on my TV via SD...it was unplayable). So yeah... pros and cons. If Switch isn't powerful enough to run certain games, just go where they can be run if it's that important.

I played KOFXV...not missing much if you played other games in the series, TBH. Prettier, but that's really all.

Well they aren't wrong about the technical limitations so I can't completely blame them.
And the switch is definitely the worst console for fighting games so I wouldn't see the point in trying to make a port that'll probably just end up being half baked.

Well, even Monolith ruled out a Xenoblade Chronicles X port because it would be too expensive, I can't hold this against SNK, particularly when they did released possible ports like SS.

KOF has been garbage since they went 3D anyways so it's not surprising. Soul Calibur 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has better 3D visuals and performance and those were last gens and several gens before this. Still kinda surprise that this is coming from a company that recently went bankrupt and was going to bleed money again if not for the support of the Saudi prince. If your company is bleeding money you would think you should do everything in your power to make sure your games new or old are available on every systems known to man especially one with a large install base in the industry.

@MetalHawk I rather had ports of KOF XI, XII, and XIII tbh. Those two latest KOF games play like garbage, weird hit detections and input lags hamper both games not to mention the ugly visuals and character design.

But what will people do without their mediocre fighting game?

The only real limitation is their inability to make their game stand out after all these years.

@HOUSE You will be once the Steam Deck 2 came out. Certain newer games won't run smoothly on the Steam Deck 1 outdated hardware and you will be force to upgrade to the SD2.

I stopped playing KOF a long time ago, long enough to not care if newer KOFs come to Switch or not.
As long as I have the older games on ACA NEOGEO (especially KOF2000 and KOF2002), I'm fine.

Having said that, the Switch successor with more powerful (and hopefully more stable) hardware can't come soon enough.

@Serpenterror we’ll see though generally due to the nature of PC hardware, as I recently learned (35+ year console gamer, 0 PC experience before the Steam Deck), it may be a while. It truly is running current-gen games decently. I’m personally interested in handheld PC devices that hook up to en eGPU, kind of like how the Switch works when docked, but much better of course due to the video card. I hope Nintendo one day can do something similar.

Not really missing out imo. KOF games after they went 3d arent for me and its not even entirely because of the graphics (which is average) im talking gameplay as well. They also went extremely safe while Capcom and Arc Sys try more with their IP. Which wasnt always the case back in the day.

Outside of that, I hope the Switch version of Samurai Shodown gets the rollback patch.

I just don’t buy the excuse anymore that the switch is too weak to run games properly. We’ve seen it run games far more demanding so many times over that anyone arguing otherwise is just nonsense. We got Samurai Shodown from them and it ran well enough so I don’t see why KOF wouldn’t run just as well.

A ton of KOF hate in this comment section. Don't release a game on Switch, and Nintendo fans turn on you like rabid dogs, hahaha.

@iLikeUrAttitude Switch is the worst console for fightings?! How you dare to say that! Switch is like 2nd SNES now, in terms of fighting games available on platform - there is a lot of them. After SNES, there was big problems with fightings on Nintendo platforms. It was easy to remember every fighting game on Nintendo consoles after SNES. But, here we go with Switch, and... Finally! There is quite a lot of fighting games on Nintendo platform again! So, you don't dare to say that the Switch is the worst console for fightings.

@MsJubilee There is hate towards 3D KOF games, not the 2D games. XI and XIII are the best last games in KOF series. I want XI, XIII, KOF 2002 UM, and KOF 98 UMFE(?) ports for Nintendo Switch...

Well... I don't really care about new games... Just give me ports of XI, XIII, 2002 UM, 98 UMFE! And Neo Geo Battle Coliseum port as well... And Samurai Shodown 6 too, please. And Samurai Shodown 64 and Buriki ONE... And... There is a lot of them, hm?... Sigh

Lol so even KoF XIV [which looked low budget as hell] was too much for Switch?

Yet I can play DBFZ 60 FPS just fine when that is a more dynamic 3 vs 3 fighter with assists and multiple people on the screen all the time? Even BBTAG was more “busy” on the screen then any KoF game and still ran fine on Switch.

Yeah I don’t buy that excuse lol. People like to cop out way too quick on “weak hardware” while forgetting what games already exist on Switch.

Also where is XIII? Old phones can run the game.

@iLikeUrAttitude DBFZ on Switch says hello and sold 2 million copies+ on the platform so maybe there is a “point” if developers are good enough with their ports.

That’s too bad but I have the game on PS4. Yeah, lacks offline content but the matches I played online were pretty solid. I thought the net code was pretty good. I played the game a lot in the beginning of the year but somewhat slacked off on it once the Capcom Fighting game Collection was released. I should go back to it.

Ya know what? I’d actually be fine for SNK Heroines 2 for the Switch.

@JayJ The Steam deck also requires 8x the cooling of the Switch. Which makes it sound like an airplane taking of in even simple games.

To be fair, I love my Steam Deck. But it's not a Switch replacement. And I absolutely hope Nintendo isn't going the direction of the Steam deck with their next handheld. I tried playing Octopath Traveler and Monster Hunter Stories 2 on Steam deck. And yes, they run better than on Switch. But also with more fan noise and heat.

Nintendo designed the Switch to be power efficient when playing handheld, also this limited the power when playing docked. But recent efficient CPUs have been getting a lot better. So I do hope the next Nintendo console will be a lot more powerful than the Switch. But also more powerful with a similar energy consumption.

Hope we can at least get KOF 11 through 13 at least.

Though it's kinda weird to hear this since the new Samurai Shodown is on Switch and runs relatively fine.

@sanderev since Nintendo is using an Arm SOC from NVIDIA, it isn’t likely they’ll switch to X64 architecture from AMD. If anything Apple has shown with Arm SOC chip design, when scaled up, the architecture is leaps and bounds ahead.

I’m hoping, whichever Arm SOC Nintendo is planning on using for the future (whether NVIDIA or Samsung), they pick something on the level of Apple’s A14 or A15. Hell, I would imagine NVIDIA might have something to the design of the M1 (which is the A14 on steroids).

@progx Honestly I think that is exactly what is going to happen.

However, in comparison the Steam Deck has a custom AMD Zen CPU, which is x86-64. You can even run Windows on it

If Nintendo would release a Switch 2 with the power of an iPhone 14, it would be similar to the current gen XBOX Series S in handheld and Series X when docked. (The current Switch has power similar to the iPhone 8, but with better graphics)

Who cares about KoF XIV & XV, give us KoF XIII.

The problems with playing fighting games on switch is there are no dpad at all on switch oled! Yes you can play with switch pro controller on tv, but if you're gonna playing on tv, well, just play it on other consoles instead with 4K resolution and dolby atmos support.

I don't understand why nintendo didn't release joycon with dpad for switch, I'll buy it on its first day of release lol.

Ok so finish dumping your retro catalog and we will call it even. At least Battle Colosseum please (and svc chaos). (The two new KOF games are ok but I am not crying that we don’t have them).

That's a real shame, especially since Terry made it into Smash. The Switch has seen some retro SNK love but not many modern games.

On the flip side, Nintendo really needs to update their hardware next year. 101 arguments have already been made.

technical limitations? DEVELOPER LIMITATIONS.

@MsJubilee Haha, my thoughts exactly.

@JayJ The Switch is the number one selling console pretty much every single month. That's not a motivator for releasing a new console.

As much as I want to defend the Switch, it's just not the console for fighting games. You absolutely need performance with that and it would require a lot of sacrifices to make a game run properly on the Switch. Mortal Kombat is the prime example of a game stretched so thin that it still barely even works.

Not sure I get where the 'fantastic system for fighting game enthusiasts' statement comes from? I mean of course there's Smash but there's no Street Fighter IV or V, no Tekken, no Soul Calibur, no Dead or Alive. That's a lot to be missing.

The great ports have already proven that you can get high-end stuff running on the Switch. There's another reason behind their decision, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'm just hoping the latest 2D KOFs get ported at least someday.

@sanderev I would hope so. NVIDIA had to restart these SOC and chipsets after the success of the Switch, otherwise they weren’t pushing the Tegra X1 too much. Nor working on its successor for that category, they were heading into AI and automobile chipsets.

Apple’s chip designs are their own and based on the CortexV8 design. I hope NVIDIA has a similar SOC ready to go for Nintendo. Right now, Qualcomm and other SOC makers in this field are playing catch up to Apple… their A13 chip. Samsung and Qualcomm just seem to throw more memory at their problems rather than design for efficiency.

Who knows… maybe Nintendo can get into chip design for themselves. Haha. Just kidding. Anyhow, here’s to hoping they’ll get something similar to Apple’s A14.

Ok, I can kinda understand that they wouldn't want to put the newest KOF on Switch rn, but it wouldn't be impossible considering MK11 is way more visually impressive on home consoles, and it got brought to Switch pretty successfully, along with Samurai Showdown 2018 making the jump, so I think it's a problem with SNK simply not wanting to put the time into bringing their stuff to Switch, which is hella apparent with their retro releases of old KOF games, which would run great on Switch, but haven't come over. I just hope that we at least get one fully featured KOF on Switch eventually (arcade re-releases aside) because it feels weird not to have a proper game on Switch with Terry in Smash, and I refuse to let SNK Heroines to be the sole modern KOF game on Switch lol

@wiiware Honestly I think the Switch dpad is ome of the best ways to control fighters imo. I just got a dpad overlay for my Switch and it feels amazing. Makes me want to get almost all of my fighters on Switch because of that alone (along with me playing on Switch more and cheaper online)

@wiiware How you can play fighting games with D-Pad? That's uncomfortable...

@Vyacheslav333 Wait, what do you play fighters with then?

@Arawn93 Hell yeah. The Switch has so many amazing looking and playing games that people forget how capable the Switch is. The problem is that so many devs build their games from the highest end platforms and then have to massively down-scale for Switch, when the Switch should be built just as well as the other versions. Also agreed, KOF 13 should be on here, and if it was, I'd be good on a modern KOF for a while lol

@ModdedInkling HEY! Stop complaining about that bs! First, look at BLAZBLUE CENTRALFICTION Special Edition and UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH Exe:Late[cl-r]! Second, look at their system requirements. Third, look at Nintendo Switch's hardware. Forth, look at how these games works on Switch. They works VERY GOOD! Or, even more, ALMOST FLAWLESSLY! Nintendo Switch is the second best Nintendo console for fightings after SNES! How you dare to say that the Switch is not for fightings! I can't take it! Nintendo Switch IS FOR FIGHTING GAMES!! AAAAAAAAH!

@Fighting_Game_Loser With joystick/left stick, obviously.

@Muriustar CAPCOM, Bandai Namco, and Sega just have stupid policy towards Nintendo Switch users. And they lazy. That's how I can explain absence of Mainline Dead or Alive game, SoulCalibur, and Super Street Fighter IV Absolute Remaster+DLC featuring Gōken, Gōki's brother game.

@MsJubilee They saw double dp motions during Sakurai's presentation and instantly started hating it lmao

@Vyacheslav333 God speed you beautiful person. I could never play a traditional fighter on analog stick. Makes inputs too imprecise for stuff like double quarter circles and dp's only thing iI use them for from time to time is 360 or 720 motions

Anyone else baffled by the change of ideals for game development since the Xbox 360?

Almost every game was developed for the PS2 first and foremost and then dragged evenly to other consoles with minor improvements. Now it's whatever is the most powerful, but not too powerful to port it to very similar hardware, isolating what is the LARGEST possible market because simply the tech isn't powerful enough.

Hell, people would go through the extra work to get a more powerful game on the PS2. Because that market was JUICY.

@Fighting_Game_Loser Well, I've tried to play games (not only fightings) on D-Pad and for me, that was uncomfortable as well. I can play games comfortably only with joystick/left stick... And on side note... «Professional loser at fighting games but still plays them»... Oh, man... I have almost the same situation! 🙂 I like to play fightings, I love them, but, my skill is... Well... Average, or, below average... Thankfully, one of the main reasons why I'm playing fightings is plot. BLAZBLUE CENTRALFICTION Special Edition's plot is awesome! I've cried at the ending and credits. It is one of the best games I've had ever played in my life. And, how I can see... You have Taokaka on avatar. Looks nice and cute.

Isn't SNK owned by the Saudi guy who had that journalist murdered a while back? I'd rather there be no SNK than one with those ties.

@Ardisan samurai Showdown on switch isn't getting rollback netcode. It said so in a recent article on this site. Other version are getting it.

Was just talking in a stream chat about what if Takara was still doing SNK ports.
Or how much they'd have to have cut to make a SNES KoF.

@MetalHawk i love 14 and 15 would love see this coming

@Vyacheslav333 Lmao, if you're in the same situation, then I would love to play with you! I'm always looking for more people to play traditional fighters with on Switch that are around my level. Do you have Discord? Maybe we could talk and get games set up on there!

KOF is a series I care very little for, I'm just here because of Shiranui-san's chichis.

@Amsterdamsters Well considering how this is an article about how the Switch can't get new games because it's not powerful enough, it seems like there's a serious flaw in the "they don't ever need to replace the Switch" mentality. I mean if this is a problem today, what makes you think it's going to get any better? If they're complacent with aging hardware that new games can no longer be ported to, it's only a matter of time until it's popularity and relevance declines, and game sales suffer.

@Paraka Well the thing about that old PS2/Gamecube/Xbox generation is how all the consoles were relatively close in terms of performance. I mean yeah the Xbox was more powerful, and the Gamecube had those mini discs, but overall if you could get a game to run on one of those platforms, it probably wouldn't have been too difficult to get it run on the others.

Right now, the Switch is simply at least a generation behind the current gen consoles, and considering the massive difference in performance when you compare a PS5 and Series X to a Switch, it's no wonder why lots of developers aren't even bothering with a Switch port.

That and I've noticed a continual decline in the way some AAA ports run and look on the Switch, as new games are increasingly designed around PS5/Series X, they have to make increasingly drastic measures to get the games to run on a Switch, which results in graphics that only seem to be getting worse.

These comments are so funny.

A lot of freaking out but then in the same sentence: "yeah i don't care about the new KOF"

So why would they port a game you won't buy? Lol. What's the point? Sounds like sour grapes to me.

Good idea. Who likes money anyway?

@JayJ - Gunna press X on the parity thing. The PS2 wasn't that close to the other two releases and everyone always focused on the PS2 for development first, and the graphics of their latter ports were pretty reflective of that.

However, that really doesn't justify hopping over the Switch (namely its market) for the sake of tech benchmarks to showcase. As is the way of the current generation of consoles. On a business standpoint, overlooking a Switch port is just silly.

Unless you need that power to hide your lack of optimization efforts, which is also very likely.

Which gets even more hilarious when you consider how far behind the PS5 is compared to the PC, as that gap is increasing as well, but the developers still essentially choose the "weaker" hardware amongst the upper echelon. Simply because it can get ported across more powerful systems easily... But that doesn't count for Switch, cause reasons.

@Vyacheslav333 How can you put out shouryouken punch with analog stick? Maybe hadoken but others, more complicated moves on 2D fighting games are really hard to do on analog stick, I prefer using normal dpad for fighting games.

@Fighting_Game_Loser The switch dpad buttons are separated so it's hard to slide it for more complicated moves. What's this dplay overlay, do I need to take apart my joycon to install it?

@wiiware Nope, you don't need to remove anything from your Joy Con. I got it off of Amazon for only about $10 - $15 by Skull & Co. Legit one of the best $10 purchases for my Switch in my life

@Fighting_Game_Loser I would love to play with you too, but... For now, it's impossible, sadly. I don't have NSO now. And there is no way for me to buy it now. Russian Nintendo eShop is still closed. I have only one(and main) account for games. I'm thinking about creating an NA eShop account, but I doubt that it will work... About Discord... I don't have it. And I never used it before.

@Paraka Sorry but there was no shortage of 3'rd party games back then that played and performed notably better on PS2 compared to Gamecube.

@Vyacheslav333 Ah man, that's unfortunate. I hope you're able to get NSO soon. But Discord is really easy to set up. Just make an account and you just add people by their tags. Mine is Jace#1039 if you make an account and want to add me to talk 😊

@Fighting_Game_Loser Thanks for the info, I'll try the dpad, can't wait to use it for my metroidvania games 😃

@Fighting_Game_Loser O, okay. I understood. Thanks. 😊

@Vyacheslav333 No problem! Just put in my tag whenever you get it set up!

@JayJ - That was because they focused on PS2 development first cause the market of buyers there over the GCN.

Hell, bet those same games didn't play better on the Xbox at the time either. That's the point.

They could put more focus developing and optimizing the game on the lower hardware, and port it to the more powerful hardware instead of making the excuses again that Tech benchmarks are more important. It's financially silly.

@Fighting_Game_Loser Okay, just bought the skull & co gamepad overlay and put it on switch, this dpad is really good, one of the best and cheapest upgrade for my switch 😃

@wiiware I'm glad it worked out for you! Once I got into traditional fighters in 2021 with Guilty Gear, I got to a point where I wish the dpad felt a bit better because I love clicky dpads a lot for fighters, so I found that and it was a god send. Makes me want to get almost all of my fighters on Switch now

@Fighting_Game_Loser Just playing odallus the dark call on this gamepad, man this gamepad is seriously good, I think I'll play all of my 2D action games on switch now lol.

Also odallus is on sale right now, it's only $2, I wholly recommend this game especially at this discounted price, it's a pretty good games 😃