@Deadlyblack not even really good preorders, I've never heard of this game till now. For all we know their numbers are so low that 10 to 1 is trivial to how poorly the game is actually doing. Best PR is one that swings this game into a positive like to generate discussion to further drive sales numbers. This isn't even worth looking at demographics or library size of either for analysis.
This stinks of a publicity stunt. No name game from some random no name studio bragging about it's silly ratio. With out actual preorder numbers we could be looking at 10 preorders on switch and 1 on PS4. Let's make this sound impressive so switch owners will buy it and ps4 owners with their over saturated number of options will bump our preorders. Consumers beware on both sides, this game could be hot garbage and they just want your console war dollars in their pocket without actually earning them.
@mahmoodinho98 your position on powerful consoles is a little misguided. Yes that is a outcome depending on the developer, but shoehorning a game and optimizing it onto something that can't handle a design is equally stressing on development. Mhw hits a low mark in visual fidelity, they really didn't push any boundaries. The extra performance let them lazily apply their vision and gave them enough overhead to do what was needed to make the game they wanted. Which honestly is not a bad thing. You should be against weaker platforms for that reason alone as we get closer to higher visual quality the more room less demanding titles have to work. Which is honestly why all these indies love the switch, way easier to port those games to a switch than a vita.
@Krull in light of latest mhw sales numbers it's gold on home consoles now as well. This game was built with online infrastructure baked right in. You don't dare unplug from the internet while playing it. You'll want something tailored to the switch anyway given the technical challenges involved in bringing such a clunky title to switch. So you're hoping for the right thing.
Do we honestly need a reminder of how bad the vita port of borderlands 2 was? How about the colossal nightmare that was Batman Arkham Knight to PC? Skyrim is one thing monster Hunter world, which is still using dithering techniques for transparency and runs like it was built on a psp engine then overloaded with assets that would cripple the switch. Pass. Last I heard these guys weren't exactly on good standings with Capcom either.
@YummyHappyPills "Well any tech is outdated almost immediately" not really relevant then if it applies to everything don't you think. That is like saying old is old so its old.
Anyway. The Tegra X1 is based on an older architecture used by nVidia. You can think of it as more of an M series GPU before we started just slapping 1070's and 1080's in everything. 2015 is still pretty antiquated. Don't get me wrong, it's still a nice chip and I work with ti, but by time it ended up in the switch the architecture itself was over 5 years old and iterated on. That was the whole point of the Tegra line. Nothing uses Maxwell anymore.
The X2 is shelved, as far as using it in NVidia products. Form factor reduction has been cut and its mostly just SoC for small systems these days. So by that definition I meant shelved. It won't be in a Shield 2.
Long term deals or not. NVidia is in the buisness of making money. All that means is that they have a long term deal with Nintendo to produce chips and not produce any other competing devices on their own. Just as IBM had a long term deal with Sony for the PS3, they were just as able to have that same deal with Microsoft when the PPU technology and its multi Core Tech was thrown into the Tricore CPU of the Xbox 360. Nothing Stopping Sony or Microsoft from making a deal with nVidia for a custom chip that shares some of the wisdom behind the tegra's design using Pascal (like what is used in the X2).
As far as the PS3 goes. Yes. I do. The whole point of the Tegra X and K line was to take what they learned from the PS3 and the original Xbox and apply it to their portable line. They basically stated a "who has the last laugh" situation where they expect the big console makers to come back to them. NVIDIA has never had an easy time in the console space, they've never really understood it. I think they at least understand that much and will keep trying till they either eat AMD's lunch or become a major player themselves. The dealings with sony where no where as bad as Sony's dealings with Nintendo. The bridges themselves never so badly burned between Sony and NVIDIA or Microsoft and NVIDIA as they were there with Nintendo and Sony.
Anyway you're missing the point. Which is the power curve itself is problematic and there are options for Sony to outclass the Switch with a superior product that could catch the consumers attention. Something beefy enough to play something like Horizon Zero Dawn or any other PS4 title down the line in base settings. I would not be surprised if the PS4's next iteration isn't something smaller and more portable in 2 years time or sooner. I doubt sony would go that route, but I wouldn't be surprised if happened. Even if Sony didn't go that route, it could still manage something better than the switch and more costly. Combining that with the PS5 could cut the Switch is life short. which is really what I'm addressing here. The means exist, Nintendo has always gone for withering technology. Everything about the Switch is exactly that.
@ECMIM yes I remember this. Current projections for PS4 and Switch seem to indicate this will happen. I'm on the fence honestly. Microsoft xb1x really screws things up as they are starting to gain a very tiny amount of momentum. If Sony sees a dip in 3rd party sales and ps4 momentum not maintaining, they will push the ps5 out the door with Microsoft not far behind. This will impact the switch as games will no longer be just beyond their reach, but in a far off land in terms of performance. Equally Sony isn't blind to the switch situation. The tegra x1 is an old chip and it isn't outside the capabilities of amd to scale down the ps4 chipset enough to fit in a tablet that can outperform the tegra x1. Not that they would. Nvidia sure is the top dog in portable gpus, if only they were the only act in town it would be an issue. Also nothing stopping the use of the shelved tegra x2 by Sony. So we could see portables from other sources.
I also feel like the audience for Nintendo games is still small and the only reason it has gotten this far is due to zelda and possibly Mario. It has the right cool factor. But this seems like a fast burn more than hype for a long lasting product.
Wish I could say I was impressed with this. PS2 had production issues so bad that you had pre orders going on well into the second year of its life. On top of that, we are talking about Japan here. While I'm sure it is doing very well in the us and Europe, you're counting your chickens early with Japan being your indicator to do so. It's a portable game machine of course it is doing well in Japan. Way too much is being read into this. That trend is going to start to stumble as the life of this system goes on. When Sony and Ms are out of the gate, it's a slow burn, and as much as I hate using this metaphor, it's a marathon not a Sprint. Nintendo shoots for low cost every time and part of that is for accessibility by a larger audience. The PS4 and xb1 are coming down in price with the pro having a good shot at being the same price as the switch going forward. The switch library is going to hit a drought at some point with nothing but remasters acting as a floatation device. The system will slow as we near 2019 and Sony starts showing us what to expect from ps5. By then we will have reached maybe 25 million. Nintendo best becareful if they want to hit 100 million, for all of Sony's posturing , they won't hesitate to release a beefier, more feature rich device to protect PS2 numbers.
Not a fan of shrines. Too much emphasis in exploration and not enough on meaningful and rewarding dungeons. I'd rather spend 2 hours in a dungeon and 2 hours trying to figure out how to get into it then running aimlessly from place to place to see if there was something under a rock(metaphor).
Let's be realistic here. The switch is half the price of the ps4 when it launched in Japan. You start getting into supply, demand, cost, etc. So yes the switch will move more units just based on cost alone. The ps4 had far greater issue with supply due to manufacturing and cost of that manufacturing. So this really isn't a fair comparison and doesn't really say a whole lot other than Japan likes things at a lower price point and if enough of a supply is available along with a well rated game it'll sell. I'm more concerned with 2018. While the switch has two great titles on the horizon, the system is still catering to a smaller demographic. Its hoping its portable market dominance sways 3ds and vita owners to help continue its relevance.
@Sinton I'm sorry but this does scream they are struggling to maintain the experience. Sure it is easier to develop a game from the start when all platforms are right in front of you. I'm speaking from experience. However sometimes the platforms your targeting has a weak link. How many times has an indie had to delay a vita version of a game in this scenario. If the switch was a much more powerful platform a lot of the items described in the article would not be an issue. Reworking one or two assets sure. Reworking them all including levels is the kind if nightmare you find in porting a game like borderlands 2 to the vita. That's really what is going on here. These problems would have existed even if the switch version was developed side by side. It has less than half the memory, less than half the performance. Only reason this system will get considered is because it is in ear shot of the minimum PC spec for these games. That is very telling. In this scenario that you propose probably would have resulted in all three getting delayed instead as they would be floundering about with switch issues taking time from other platforms. This could lead to some vitaesque decisions in the long run to get the main game out the door. Maybe even scenarios like project cars on wii u.
The switch version will always be the compromised version. But I think this article outlines another issue. One developers at least in comment sections have been popping up and expressing. This isn't as easy to do as Nintendo suggests. It still requires a concentrated effort to get a modern game running on it. The switch isn't anything new in terms of game development, its an old problem going as far back as the original gameboy. Dare I say further with the nes.
Nintendo probably still feels this game has some kind of controversy attached to it. Even though the GameCube had far worse on it during its life time. Honestly this game is awful to the point that Nintendo is probably doing the fanbase a favor.
Come on man look up what it means to emulate in computer software. There is no such thing as hardware emulation vs software emulation in the context you mean to use those phrases. Emulation is where software is used to interpret the instructions of one platform so another can reproduce the same behavior. This requires an interpreter to emulate that hardware behavior.
Now when hardware is doing this it ceases to be emulation. If the hardware is executing those instructions it becomes native. If it has to replicate a speed or other behavior on the hardware level it is simulation. So this is compatibility through simulation not emulation. This is not hardware emulation, because that means you're saying the same thing twice. I swear one journalist messes something up you all do. Right up there with calling backward compatibility, backwards compatibility. The latter is incorrect.
I don't expect much from this beyond ports of smaller titles and collections. This can be both good and bad. Honestly I hope this just triggers a ps4 port of sf2 to ps4. I have no interest in getting it on switch.
@ThanosReXXX The hooks for XB1 and PS4 are there, but standards change and custom code is still produced. For example the Division which Snowdrop was designed for, doesn't require half the systems or the rendering techniques present in SP:TFBW, given the pseudo 2D nature of the show, the only reason the engine was picked was due to its rendering pipeline already had the means of supporting Maya in a much more native way. Which is contrary to Anvil which uses Max 3D. Maya is important since that is what the show uses and the artists are supporting the game in addition to Ubisofts own staff. Once the code is written it can be repurposed. Its a lot easier to repurpose code that already supports a platform for the game you're trying to build. In the case of BG&E it is neither of these games and will lead to problems. But that is on a code level which is a whole other set of problems from the assets and supported technologies that complement the engine. Tools themselves need to be revisited just as much as the art assets themselves.
As far as those who work on the engine. You never know who is posting on these Comment Sections
As far as an Unreal Engine (which is far more matured than Snowdrop) it should be easier to port that engine over as the distributed load and demands are there to have that technology developed. When 15 games are asking for a feature set versus 2 games within your publishers owned studios, its a lot harder to justify the work. Also it's important to keep in mind that those UE4 claims are based on individuals who do not venture far from Vanilla UE4 and just seek to stay within the capabilities and spec. This isn't always a common thing for larger 3rd party studios producing AAA titles. They'll modify and toy with an engine, even replacing entire components of that engine to the point that it isn't recognizable anymore. The Mass Effect Trilogy is said to be using Unreal Engine 3, but the core renderer of those games was literally rewritten for the project and tools built custom to support their games specifically. So seeking help from say Iron Galaxy who did a UE3 point to Vita and maybe PS3 wouldn't do them a lot of good if they ever wanted to port their ME Trilogy to PS4/XB1. Just a mess. Not that it isn't doable, but its a lot of code to revisit and assets to pair to the platform. It can be problematic. Outsourcing firms like bluepoint can help, but you're still saddled with time, money, and technical + artistic challenges. So if someone says "oh it's on UE4 they can just port it over in a couple of months", that usually stems for a lack of understanding of what is involved in the creative and engineering prospects of a project. It's a lot harder to back port a project then port up as well, something to keep in mind. Again Borderlands 2 for Vita as opposed to an entire collection for PS4.
Switch is certainly a cool little machine, but I feel like it would be served better with titles dedicated to its unique attributes, then trying to shoe horn ports of higher end games. It would be like taking PS2 games and putting them on PSP.
@ThanosReXXX The engine is very flexible in a lot of ways. You can assemble scenes and logic for scripting in a pretty universal way. However it isn't designed with the capacity to scale down easily. There are currently no hooks in the engine for Switch specific development. Even just working with it on PS4 and Xbox One presents.... certain issues.
Snowdrop is still a very new engine and one should take what they say with a grain of salt. Some systems are expertly designed and others need some maturity. Junior staff can do that to a project.
In the long run I'm almost certain that snowdrop will be able to run anything on any platform it is on, but the assets (dependingon the platform) will have to be tailored specifically to anything outside the norm. The Switch is very much outside the norm and it'll be the thing that hinders projects like BG&E2 or South Park The Fractured But Whole from running on the platform. Since the PC, PS4, and XB1 are all targeting a similar spec I can't imagine them having too much variance between assets. Nintendo Switch has a smaller memory foot print which means everything from audio compression to asset handling to any performance enhancements done for PS4 and XB1 specifically to make that project work will need to be redone for switch.
Engines are just a starting point, they aren't the end game. In game development you're constantly stepping outside the bounds of what your engine is intended to be used for in the first place. See Mass Effect Andromeda or anything that isn't a shooter shoehorned into Unreal Engine 3. There are going to be a ton of custom systems that likely had lowlevel optimizations done.
Snowdrop doesn't have a means of scaling some of these differences. A project starting on Switch will be fine. However back porting a project for something that is targeting the high end will have issues dealing with that Tegra SoC and 4 gigs of memory. That isn't even getting into any specialize decompression hardware and how that interacts with third party dependencies like Wwise.
@ThanosReXXX steep runs on anvil. Not snowdrop. Getting Mario rabbids to work is a porting effort exclusive to the project with the intent of releasing the game specifically for the switch. In other words the code does not transition easily between platforms. By time beyond good and evil 2 releases it'll be a next gen game with features well beyond the switch. Don't get me wrong I'm sure massive is trying to get snowdrop working on switch, but any title not specifically made for the switch will not easily port until the end of its relevance cycle. Snowdrop is very resource heavy.
Its not a matter of how you feel about the situation, its a matter of how the team that built the game feels about it. As a dev myself that is a question I ask myself every time someone asks me to back port a game. It can impact a lot and its the little things that shape the experience.
As far as mercy players using rez as a kind of flash bang. Well you just heard one case. Used that strategy in a tempo rez in anticipation of diamond level mercy doing the same thing. The cluster was good and my teams zarya had ult as well. To keep myself from getting chewed up by the bastion for my raise I positioned myself on the other side of both teams bodies, raised, and then proceeded to finish off that bastion while the other mercy was trying to heal an immune team. I managed tag two kills in that mess before popping the newly raised dva and killing the 76 who thought I was in the cluster, then let my team do cleanup on the remaining players as I healed them. Mercy is a very strategic job. A good mercy can be a battle angel a bad one is just battle mercy who doesn't understand the heal to damage ratio and how good flanking can force a dva to waste her shield instead of repositioning and hitting the right targets. I've used this strategy more than once in my climb with my team with great success. Overwatch is a very deep game with many layers. Whether it is comboing ults or using visibility obstructors to buy you some cover like dragons or raises, it all plays a part. Change any part of that and you change how the game is played. I feel like overwatch would suffer on switch. It already struggles in high level matches on ps4 and Xbox one base models. I feel like anyone taking it seriously enough to take with them would just tuck a ps4 or laptop under their arm then chance the switch.
@Spoony_Tech as far as excuses go. He should have stuck with the defacto reason. The switch is just too underpowered to meet their targets. Dropping frame rate is not something CB is big on doing. Cutting back on visual fidelity can impact how the game is played. Such as removing or reducing particle counts or environment objects. Things that obstruct visibility could change the way the game is played. I'm sure a game built from the ground up like Splatoon for such low end hardware will be great, but games like overwatch and lawbreakers would have to make comprises. Gamers really do not understand the role vfx plays in how the game is experienced and played. Just lowering texture quality can rob a player of story information or visual queues a designer might have depended on initially. Cutting back on particles could eliminate a visual obstruction strategy that may or may not have been intended. See mercy raises as one such example. That poo is blinding and a mercy in overwatch can use that visual obstruction to either pick off targets or get to safety as the other team scrambles for the new encounter.
Its all about the visual language of the game and something's can translate to a lower fidelity language with ease while other things just lose something that changes how the game speaks visually. Its something Nintendo owners really need to come to terms with. Yes you can say a lot with a switch visually, but if anything is disrupted in a way that takes away from the experience, then the switch becomes no viable.
It gets more silly when PC gamers talk about tailoring their experience, they lose that fidelity in a lot of cases. I've seen things like lighting effects and foliage paired back. In the former watching for shadows to help give you insight into what might be behind, above, or around the corner is lost when paired back, baked, or dropped in resolution. Putting you at a disadvantage or robbing you of the strategy. BTW I use that in overwatch constantly.
So its not always about the minor step back making it impossible. Though it is usually the case. Games are built like ac unity to target this console generation. Nintendo still made a half step into it. As ps4 and Xbox one titles start dipping into 720p territory it'll be very hard to justify switch support. Then we start stepping into things you've heard before. CPU isn't strong enough to handle the simulation, memory is too restrictive, would require another years worth of work to remake the game for the system, and cow boxes are not cool.
@FragRed this assertion is incorrect. The switch is actually pretty far ahead of the technology curve when it comes to portables. In the us we have to stop thinking of this thing as a home console and more like a psp2000. This claim of them always being behind has only been true of two console generations. In the portable space Nintendo pretty much existed in a vacuum so they could get away with it. Nes was the only game in town, snes was beefier than the Genesis in every way save one very trivial factor, N64 had the beefiest gpu and CPU of that generation and really had a two fold Achilles heel that prevented them from being competitive. Gamecube also had better hardware than the PS2 and honestly was comparable to the Xbox.
So no. Being always behind the curve is really not Nintendo's mo. Price point has always been there game and trying to get away with as much tech at a low cost their mission statement for development. The switch is a marvel to behold, but it can't compete with a home console, because its core wasn't designed too. If Nintendo took a loss and went X2 instead of x1, and definitely added the 4 gigs of RAM it needs then it could compete and provide the kind of experience worthy of being a home console. Hell even the extra ram would help. Keep in mind Sony and Ms were going to go with 4 gigs of RAM at one point before realizing the grievous error they were about to make. Here we are still looking at increased memory in refresh hardware.
While engines certainly make it easier to move from one device to another if designed to do so it still comes with several caveats. Just because an engine runs on something doesn't mean the games made in it will work without effort or little effort. I think that has been the main issue I have taken with the discussion regarding 3rd parties from YouTubers and video game websites like Nintendo Life.
We have the asset problem first. While there are means in some engines to scale down things like textures. Youre still having to fight with half the memory of a modern console. Even then on we you're not just having the resolution of a texture, but many textures used in various rendering effects that materials need to operate correctly. You are also not guaranteed that 50 percent less space thanks to things like the os footprint. The engine code also doesn't scale either so that 200 meg executable won't get smaller and given how risc styled architecture is, you'll find these to be bigger. Then there is sound where third party products like wwise are used. Some designer or audio engineer will have scale back and tailor each file so it not only fits, but decompresses in a manner that doesn't sound like garbage and slow the game to a halt. Then there is the final factor. Custom code. While there are few reasons these days to dip down into the guts of an engine to make a game these days, some times it is still necessary. In these scenarios optimizations, specific technology needs, or other modifications are made. These can range to custom renderer or pipeline modifications that were only intended for the hardware the game was made for and only can be easily ported to a new more powerful machine with ease.
A lot of devs may use unreal engine 4 or other licensed products, but a lot of devs also use in house technology at some stage of their creation process. Ubisoft for example really doesn't depend on external tech too much. They use anvil, snowdrop, and a really old version cry engine which likely no longer resembles the original product. Engines like snowdrop were never intended to run on hardware like the switch. Here we have games using that engine where Ubisoft might pull the plug rather then release a product that is too much for even them to get away with leaving broken.
Lastly I've seen a lot of unreal 4 games try to make it work on the k1, the results aren't pretty. Injustice 2 looks like garbage and runs like garbage on that hardware. Granted the switch has an edge on the shield k1 and would run that game better. At the end of the day you're still stuck with the same problems. How do we scale the game back and maintain as much of the original product as possible. This results in baking in effects that are physically rendered on a modern machine, at that point you're just rebuilding the game.
Sure I mean if you guys really want to see things like PlayStation Home on switch then ya hope for this. Don't get me wrong he was very important in the 90s, but because of him scee found themselves in a very weak position that resulted in not one, but two studios getting shutdown. All because he decided to double down on PlayStation home. His track record at Microsoft is also established in the pre Phil Spencer era. Don't need mattrick legacy in the fold.
I feel like Nintendo has enough trouble maintaining momentum I. Game releases as is. The fact that Nintendo fans are getting frothy over Wii u ports should be a strong indicator of how software starved they are.
I can't see myself using my switch as a dedicated machine. At home games like tekken 7, overwatch, horizon, tales of berseria, etc all dominate my time. The hope of me getting a 3rd party title especially an online title for the switch just seems like a ridiculous proposition. On the go my back log of vita RPGs just and 3ds titles just make it even more unlikely. Toting my switch around seems more of a chore than a benefit.
So I'd say it is fulfilling neither need at the moment. I don't even seen that changing as more games become available. I can see myself using it more portably at some point once my 3ds and vita games run out and more switch games are released. I just don't see it winning me over with the size of ps4s player base, features, and potential to play games the switch can't or on a level the switch can't reach. Dragon Quest heroes is one such example. Sure I could deal with it's graphics on the go, but I want the power of the ps4 when at home. In that scenario I would have gotten the vita version if cross save and cross trophies were a thing. The switch makes it more convenient to do that sort of thing, but I'm not looking to sacrifice performance especially after getting on with a ps4.
Well there is a difference between being considered and actually getting those games. Unless the switch pulls a rabbit out of its hat, they won't see anything beyond ports and maybe what ever lowend game they can shoe horn on it. Unless they are promising mass effect trilogy, I'm not holding my breath for something to get excited over.
@NEStalgia Ya I'm not a fan of using hardware install base numbers in such a loose way. If those were a valid metric the PC would have gotten more attention in the last 17 years than it has. It's a viable platform, but it doesn't bring in the money that the console versions do even with the licensing fees tacked on. Contrary to what Kotaku would have you believe a Geforce Ti 4400 isn't exactly going to be buying Dishonored 2. Indies do well in those conditions and Blizzard continues to find the sweet spot. Even then they tend to do better money on consoles. Like for example android has 1.4 billion hardware units roughly as of 2016, of those devices 40 million can play the latest FF title released. OF that 40 million 3.7 million download it (FF15 sold 6 million in a fraction of that time and FF14 pulls in a ton of money monthly). Of that 3.7 million only 24% are expected to keep playing the game after release and 10% of that is expected to pay money on microtransactions. Granted this isn't the highest downloaded version of the game, but it does call into question just how big of a deal mobile is.
Gonna have to cut this short sadly. I'd love to counter these points, but I think we can both agree that at some point both hardware markets will evolve into something else.
@NEStalgia the data on tablets is a bit misleading. The future isn't that clear cut or else we would be seeing a greater number of success stories in the mobile market. Most game developers crumble or end up selling to a bigger shark pretty quickly. Tablet performance numbers are all over the place. Not everyone is using a tegra k1, let alone an x1 which is in no mobile device. Most people use tables to get caught up on their day, not for distractions for their kids or a battery kill game of ff mobius. In fact we shield most consumers from actual usage to download numbers which are pretty awful. I'm not saying games aren't viable on tablet as some do see success and scrape along, but none are seeing the success found by indies who show up on consoles and pc.
Ps4 is doing very well with some pretty interesting projections going forward. I do not see the portable market continuing in this way as we are an interface away from abandoning our understanding of what constitutes a smart device. Hardware performance is still advancing at a pace thay far out stretches mobile to an extent that nintendo had to double down hard on the x1 just to get into throwing distance of an xbox one. Still a farcry from where they need to be and the hardware is still lagging behind by an entire generation as it always has.
I think we can both agree these mid generation refreshes are dangerous. It could slow console sales as consumers try to figure these things out. The same way the pro disrupted ps4 sales last year allowing xb1 to get some numbers in. Pro did sell well and things stabilized for sure, but it took 2 to 3 months for Sony to get consumer confidence back.
I don't feel like nintendo read the tea leafs right for hardware progression. Games like scaleboud, crackdown, the last guardian, ff15 etc are examples of this. We still have a long way to go not just in visuals, but in simulation performance. Developers are still restricted in what they can do and spend countless resources trying to reach a target through optimization. Not that optimization will ever go away, but the amount of time spent can be reduced.
This was a good move for nintendo, but I don't expect the other first parties to follow as they have much broader view of what is going on in the technology space than nintendo has.
I don't really feel like Nintendo is in its own bubble shielded from what is happening. They've given themselves a unique feature by honestly bowing out of the home console race. Its all portables for them now. Portables you can hook up to your TV like a Sega nomad and play with your friends. Its not meant to be a front and center leader, just a portable machine for when your ps4 and/or TV is unavailable. I'm seeing and hearing more people using it in portable mode and using it during lunch breaks than supplementing time on games like nier, mass effect, or horizon.
It will do well, but only by the virtue of its portable nature that is now canabalizing the 3ds market. Its unable to compete with the 1080p 60fps and boosted hardware which can still render more and do more even when forced down to 960p.
So Nintendo has bowed out into a market they had dominance in and doubling down to head nvidia off at the pass.
Ya these numbers are very similar to the Wii u numbers before its launch. Part of the problem is Nintendo being so secretive with the switch. The other problem is hardware performance makes it a chore to downgrade a title for it. Its really hard to justify bringing a game to a platform that asks you to take things out just to try to hit a technical challenge that we as developers had finally left behind on ps3 and x360. I'm not even talking about graphics only in this statement. Switch is powerful, but not capable. You'll see some great things from Nintendo once they stop doing tiny upgrades and ports of last gen games. Its for that reason you won't see games currently I'm development being released.
Nintendo is hoping to pull a 3ds out of their hat by releasing a steady stream of games you'll want to utilize in two scenarios. This is why many predictions place the system in a league of 20 to 30 million by end of life. 3ds developers and indies will turn their gaze towards it, but don't expect the likes of ea , square, 2k, or Activision to extend it any special courtesy. Hopefully it'll do well enough to grab some attention. I'd like to see mass effect trilogy on it, but that is unlikely given the size of all three games with dlc and ea desire to focus on Andromeda.
The system will have games not just from Nintendo, but sadly you'll be using it mostly as a portable and device you hook up for stints of smash. If you're a Nintendo fan you'll swear by the machine I'm sure, but the nature of the switch still makes it a compliant to a ps4 and not a replacement for one.
So better than ps4 pro, psvr, and Xbox one s. This is not useful information. Thanks gamestop for attempting to pad your own wallets with the hype train.
You seem to be working under the assumption that anyone is upset over the third party situation because the fanbase feels owed or that the same fanbase is under the presumption that it is up to third parties to make this work.
No one is saying that.
It's up to Nintendo you got that part right, they have to convince third parties. What the current showing has brought us is that Nintendo was unable to convince not only third parties, but also their share holders that this thing is worth their time and money. When Sony and Microsoft launched their systems they not only convinced their 3rd party partners that their machines were worth the time, but also got them on board for console specific features of current holiday releases. Where is watch dogs 2? Where was dues ex? Where was south park the fractured but whole? Where was ghost recon? Where was tales of bersaria? Anything in the 6 months leading up to this thing, where is it? Developers are not confident in the hardware power, Nintendo's ability to sell the consumer base on underpowered versions of IP on the go.
So where does this leave us. Hope that Nintendo can bring new IP out fast enough to fill the void till 3rd parties decide what they want to do with this thing while ps4 still brings in the money. Don't get me wrong I love Nintendo games and I enjoy the Wii u, but it was a console that arrived for the wrong console generation. This thing is arriving 2 1/2 years late to this one. All we have to look at is relaunched titles, half hearted last gen remasters, Zelda/Mario, and a good looking new Nintendo IP that reminds us of why we hate the Wii. This is not a good start. Nintendo failed to convince them, you seem to be riding under the impression that Nintendo selling its own games will some how fix this. The window for the first year is not the time to do that. Those releases need to be seen by third parties before launch. It takes 2 to 3 years to make a game at minimum these days. Nintendo played its cards so close to its chest that no one knows what to do with this thing. Now we will see what Nintendo does in the first year and with a little luck by the third year we will start to see releases. Assuming Microsoft and Sony aren't releasing tthr Xbox Zero and PlayStation 5 by then and ask those same developers to pay attention to their new machines all the while making portable versions of their ps4 and Xbox one.
Going to go with almost got it right. Yes that is what we developers look for in a platform. However the strong growing platform is a chicken and the egg problem that we are all familiar with. So not a whole lot Nintendo can do other than foster the tools and strong hardware while getting dev kits in the hands of devs. Nintendo is faultering on the last two. The switch is under powered. No amount of unreal or unity porting is going to magically remove the tedium that will come from down scaling games so those two engines will run at a solid frame rate. That makes things difficult, requires alteration of assets and may require changes to the pipeline to allow for that to work. A lot of studios are using proprietary engines that will need to be ported so 3rd party middlewear like unreal is pretty meaningless in those scenarios.
What developers want is high return from little work. We have already put the time in and now we want to easily slip that onto other machines for a low cost in 3 months. Overhauling assets is high cost and takes more than 3 months. You will see borderlands 2 Vita scenarios with this thing. Developers will have to take their latest creations and pair them back as they go, but what is the incentive when Xbox one and ps4 already control a huge chunk of the market.
Don't get me wrong this is the coolest piece of hardware Nintendo has ever made, realizing a dream that dates as far back as I can remember into the 80s. A concept that was tried with the turbo express and in many other incarnations since. But third parties are clearly not throwing their weight behind this thing. Ubisoft is the most laughable by far. A version of Rayman that was exclusive to Wii u that ended up getting life on several hardware platforms. A snowboarding game that could have run on Wii u or ps3. Just dance, a game that can honestly run on anything and honestly doesn't really show case what the system can do other than be set up at a party. They could honestly release just dance on any Android iOS device at this point with many of these machines being connected to a TV like the shield k1 and people could use their phones etc. Not seeing a lot of faith in Ubisoft here. FIFA the only title out of EA is just as sad with its last gen version of the game. I could just keep going. This is the Wii u all over again with third parties. To add insult to injury the latest GDC numbers are terrible for who is working on this thing. I can honestly say must publishers don't seem keen on investing in switch dev kits as no one seems to have actually worked on the machine. These people are unicorns who have worked with it.
So not a whole lot of faith for Nintendo here. Launch lineup is still soft. I honestly hope by July they have a show for us showing the great games and 3rd party support or its going to be a rough year for them as they crawl into next generation.
Clearly a man who knows what he is talking about /sarcasm
As someone who has worked with the k1 and x1 I can't say this thing will be any easier to work with even with Nintendo's dev kit in place. Just better hope those examples are in English or some engineers day is about to be ruined by having to wait for Nintendo's week long response times.
I can say this the architecture is one part of three important teirs that determine a systems future. Is it easy to work with, is it powerful enough, and how good is first party involvement. The second teir tends to kill the first one as having to rewrite, optimize, and recreate sections of the game can cause a port to crumble under its own wait. The third can help mitigate the second, but again Nintendo has never been very kind in this arena.
From my own experiences not including the switch I feel like patcher is riding on some conversation over drinks and like most either is glaze over when the engineer talks; or its some production monkey who sees engineers getting demos up fast, but not things of substance.
I'm not hearing positive things myself.
This will be a good machine, but expect to end up back on your PlayStation or Xbox by the end of next year.
Developers have access to over 3/4s of Xbox one and ps4 memory at all times. Not little over half. This article is misleading. We have access to morr, but we have to play chicken with the OS in order to access that memory and it is advised we only use that under certain circumstances.
4 gigs is not a lot. Especially if that is a unified memory pool for both GPU and CPU. Even now 6 gigs isn't enough. This is bad news, no matter how you compare it to the Wii u.
Comments 437
Re: Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom Switch Pre-Orders Are Ten Times Stronger Than PS4
@Deadlyblack not even really good preorders, I've never heard of this game till now. For all we know their numbers are so low that 10 to 1 is trivial to how poorly the game is actually doing. Best PR is one that swings this game into a positive like to generate discussion to further drive sales numbers. This isn't even worth looking at demographics or library size of either for analysis.
Re: Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom Switch Pre-Orders Are Ten Times Stronger Than PS4
This stinks of a publicity stunt. No name game from some random no name studio bragging about it's silly ratio. With out actual preorder numbers we could be looking at 10 preorders on switch and 1 on PS4. Let's make this sound impressive so switch owners will buy it and ps4 owners with their over saturated number of options will bump our preorders. Consumers beware on both sides, this game could be hot garbage and they just want your console war dollars in their pocket without actually earning them.
Re: The Studio That Ported Skyrim To Switch Wants To Tackle Monster Hunter World Next
@mahmoodinho98 your position on powerful consoles is a little misguided. Yes that is a outcome depending on the developer, but shoehorning a game and optimizing it onto something that can't handle a design is equally stressing on development. Mhw hits a low mark in visual fidelity, they really didn't push any boundaries. The extra performance let them lazily apply their vision and gave them enough overhead to do what was needed to make the game they wanted. Which honestly is not a bad thing. You should be against weaker platforms for that reason alone as we get closer to higher visual quality the more room less demanding titles have to work. Which is honestly why all these indies love the switch, way easier to port those games to a switch than a vita.
Re: The Studio That Ported Skyrim To Switch Wants To Tackle Monster Hunter World Next
@Krull in light of latest mhw sales numbers it's gold on home consoles now as well. This game was built with online infrastructure baked right in. You don't dare unplug from the internet while playing it. You'll want something tailored to the switch anyway given the technical challenges involved in bringing such a clunky title to switch. So you're hoping for the right thing.
Re: The Studio That Ported Skyrim To Switch Wants To Tackle Monster Hunter World Next
Do we honestly need a reminder of how bad the vita port of borderlands 2 was? How about the colossal nightmare that was Batman Arkham Knight to PC? Skyrim is one thing monster Hunter world, which is still using dithering techniques for transparency and runs like it was built on a psp engine then overloaded with assets that would cripple the switch. Pass. Last I heard these guys weren't exactly on good standings with Capcom either.
Re: Switch Has Beaten The PlayStation 2's Year-One Sales In Japan
@YummyHappyPills
"Well any tech is outdated almost immediately" not really relevant then if it applies to everything don't you think. That is like saying old is old so its old.
Anyway. The Tegra X1 is based on an older architecture used by nVidia. You can think of it as more of an M series GPU before we started just slapping 1070's and 1080's in everything. 2015 is still pretty antiquated. Don't get me wrong, it's still a nice chip and I work with ti, but by time it ended up in the switch the architecture itself was over 5 years old and iterated on. That was the whole point of the Tegra line. Nothing uses Maxwell anymore.
The X2 is shelved, as far as using it in NVidia products. Form factor reduction has been cut and its mostly just SoC for small systems these days. So by that definition I meant shelved. It won't be in a Shield 2.
Long term deals or not. NVidia is in the buisness of making money. All that means is that they have a long term deal with Nintendo to produce chips and not produce any other competing devices on their own. Just as IBM had a long term deal with Sony for the PS3, they were just as able to have that same deal with Microsoft when the PPU technology and its multi Core Tech was thrown into the Tricore CPU of the Xbox 360. Nothing Stopping Sony or Microsoft from making a deal with nVidia for a custom chip that shares some of the wisdom behind the tegra's design using Pascal (like what is used in the X2).
As far as the PS3 goes. Yes. I do. The whole point of the Tegra X and K line was to take what they learned from the PS3 and the original Xbox and apply it to their portable line. They basically stated a "who has the last laugh" situation where they expect the big console makers to come back to them. NVIDIA has never had an easy time in the console space, they've never really understood it. I think they at least understand that much and will keep trying till they either eat AMD's lunch or become a major player themselves. The dealings with sony where no where as bad as Sony's dealings with Nintendo. The bridges themselves never so badly burned between Sony and NVIDIA or Microsoft and NVIDIA as they were there with Nintendo and Sony.
Anyway you're missing the point. Which is the power curve itself is problematic and there are options for Sony to outclass the Switch with a superior product that could catch the consumers attention. Something beefy enough to play something like Horizon Zero Dawn or any other PS4 title down the line in base settings. I would not be surprised if the PS4's next iteration isn't something smaller and more portable in 2 years time or sooner. I doubt sony would go that route, but I wouldn't be surprised if happened. Even if Sony didn't go that route, it could still manage something better than the switch and more costly. Combining that with the PS5 could cut the Switch is life short. which is really what I'm addressing here. The means exist, Nintendo has always gone for withering technology. Everything about the Switch is exactly that.
Re: Switch Has Beaten The PlayStation 2's Year-One Sales In Japan
@ECMIM yes I remember this. Current projections for PS4 and Switch seem to indicate this will happen. I'm on the fence honestly. Microsoft xb1x really screws things up as they are starting to gain a very tiny amount of momentum. If Sony sees a dip in 3rd party sales and ps4 momentum not maintaining, they will push the ps5 out the door with Microsoft not far behind. This will impact the switch as games will no longer be just beyond their reach, but in a far off land in terms of performance. Equally Sony isn't blind to the switch situation. The tegra x1 is an old chip and it isn't outside the capabilities of amd to scale down the ps4 chipset enough to fit in a tablet that can outperform the tegra x1. Not that they would. Nvidia sure is the top dog in portable gpus, if only they were the only act in town it would be an issue. Also nothing stopping the use of the shelved tegra x2 by Sony. So we could see portables from other sources.
I also feel like the audience for Nintendo games is still small and the only reason it has gotten this far is due to zelda and possibly Mario. It has the right cool factor. But this seems like a fast burn more than hype for a long lasting product.
Re: Switch Has Beaten The PlayStation 2's Year-One Sales In Japan
Wish I could say I was impressed with this. PS2 had production issues so bad that you had pre orders going on well into the second year of its life. On top of that, we are talking about Japan here. While I'm sure it is doing very well in the us and Europe, you're counting your chickens early with Japan being your indicator to do so. It's a portable game machine of course it is doing well in Japan. Way too much is being read into this. That trend is going to start to stumble as the life of this system goes on. When Sony and Ms are out of the gate, it's a slow burn, and as much as I hate using this metaphor, it's a marathon not a Sprint. Nintendo shoots for low cost every time and part of that is for accessibility by a larger audience. The PS4 and xb1 are coming down in price with the pro having a good shot at being the same price as the switch going forward. The switch library is going to hit a drought at some point with nothing but remasters acting as a floatation device. The system will slow as we near 2019 and Sony starts showing us what to expect from ps5. By then we will have reached maybe 25 million. Nintendo best becareful if they want to hit 100 million, for all of Sony's posturing , they won't hesitate to release a beefier, more feature rich device to protect PS2 numbers.
Re: Here’s Why Traditional Dungeons Got Axed in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Not a fan of shrines. Too much emphasis in exploration and not enough on meaningful and rewarding dungeons. I'd rather spend 2 hours in a dungeon and 2 hours trying to figure out how to get into it then running aimlessly from place to place to see if there was something under a rock(metaphor).
Re: Smash Melee Champ Resigns from All-Male Rules Committee To Encourage Broader Representation
This is why humanity is a collection of lunatics. Because this actually matters to anyone.
Re: As Switch Hits 1.5 Million Sold In Japan, Data Shows How It Dominates PS4 Right Now
Let's be realistic here. The switch is half the price of the ps4 when it launched in Japan. You start getting into supply, demand, cost, etc. So yes the switch will move more units just based on cost alone. The ps4 had far greater issue with supply due to manufacturing and cost of that manufacturing. So this really isn't a fair comparison and doesn't really say a whole lot other than Japan likes things at a lower price point and if enough of a supply is available along with a well rated game it'll sell. I'm more concerned with 2018. While the switch has two great titles on the horizon, the system is still catering to a smaller demographic. Its hoping its portable market dominance sways 3ds and vita owners to help continue its relevance.
Re: RiME Producer Explains Why The Switch Port Is Coming So Much Later
@Sinton I'm sorry but this does scream they are struggling to maintain the experience. Sure it is easier to develop a game from the start when all platforms are right in front of you. I'm speaking from experience. However sometimes the platforms your targeting has a weak link. How many times has an indie had to delay a vita version of a game in this scenario. If the switch was a much more powerful platform a lot of the items described in the article would not be an issue. Reworking one or two assets sure. Reworking them all including levels is the kind if nightmare you find in porting a game like borderlands 2 to the vita. That's really what is going on here. These problems would have existed even if the switch version was developed side by side. It has less than half the memory, less than half the performance. Only reason this system will get considered is because it is in ear shot of the minimum PC spec for these games. That is very telling. In this scenario that you propose probably would have resulted in all three getting delayed instead as they would be floundering about with switch issues taking time from other platforms. This could lead to some vitaesque decisions in the long run to get the main game out the door. Maybe even scenarios like project cars on wii u.
The switch version will always be the compromised version. But I think this article outlines another issue. One developers at least in comment sections have been popping up and expressing. This isn't as easy to do as Nintendo suggests. It still requires a concentrated effort to get a modern game running on it. The switch isn't anything new in terms of game development, its an old problem going as far back as the original gameboy. Dare I say further with the nes.
Re: 25 Years Later, And Night Trap Still Isn't Going To Appear On A Nintendo Console
Nintendo probably still feels this game has some kind of controversy attached to it. Even though the GameCube had far worse on it during its life time. Honestly this game is awful to the point that Nintendo is probably doing the fanbase a favor.
Re: Hyperkin Reveals HDMI SNES Clone, The Supa RetroN HD
Come on man look up what it means to emulate in computer software. There is no such thing as hardware emulation vs software emulation in the context you mean to use those phrases. Emulation is where software is used to interpret the instructions of one platform so another can reproduce the same behavior. This requires an interpreter to emulate that hardware behavior.
Now when hardware is doing this it ceases to be emulation. If the hardware is executing those instructions it becomes native. If it has to replicate a speed or other behavior on the hardware level it is simulation. So this is compatibility through simulation not emulation. This is not hardware emulation, because that means you're saying the same thing twice. I swear one journalist messes something up you all do. Right up there with calling backward compatibility, backwards compatibility. The latter is incorrect.
Re: Capcom Reportedly Gearing Up for Multiple Nintendo Switch Titles
I don't expect much from this beyond ports of smaller titles and collections. This can be both good and bad. Honestly I hope this just triggers a ps4 port of sf2 to ps4. I have no interest in getting it on switch.
Re: Ubisoft Will Announce More Nintendo Switch Titles "Quite Soon"
@ThanosReXXX The hooks for XB1 and PS4 are there, but standards change and custom code is still produced. For example the Division which Snowdrop was designed for, doesn't require half the systems or the rendering techniques present in SP:TFBW, given the pseudo 2D nature of the show, the only reason the engine was picked was due to its rendering pipeline already had the means of supporting Maya in a much more native way. Which is contrary to Anvil which uses Max 3D. Maya is important since that is what the show uses and the artists are supporting the game in addition to Ubisofts own staff. Once the code is written it can be repurposed. Its a lot easier to repurpose code that already supports a platform for the game you're trying to build. In the case of BG&E it is neither of these games and will lead to problems. But that is on a code level which is a whole other set of problems from the assets and supported technologies that complement the engine. Tools themselves need to be revisited just as much as the art assets themselves.
As far as those who work on the engine. You never know who is posting on these Comment Sections
As far as an Unreal Engine (which is far more matured than Snowdrop) it should be easier to port that engine over as the distributed load and demands are there to have that technology developed. When 15 games are asking for a feature set versus 2 games within your publishers owned studios, its a lot harder to justify the work. Also it's important to keep in mind that those UE4 claims are based on individuals who do not venture far from Vanilla UE4 and just seek to stay within the capabilities and spec. This isn't always a common thing for larger 3rd party studios producing AAA titles. They'll modify and toy with an engine, even replacing entire components of that engine to the point that it isn't recognizable anymore. The Mass Effect Trilogy is said to be using Unreal Engine 3, but the core renderer of those games was literally rewritten for the project and tools built custom to support their games specifically. So seeking help from say Iron Galaxy who did a UE3 point to Vita and maybe PS3 wouldn't do them a lot of good if they ever wanted to port their ME Trilogy to PS4/XB1. Just a mess. Not that it isn't doable, but its a lot of code to revisit and assets to pair to the platform. It can be problematic. Outsourcing firms like bluepoint can help, but you're still saddled with time, money, and technical + artistic challenges. So if someone says "oh it's on UE4 they can just port it over in a couple of months", that usually stems for a lack of understanding of what is involved in the creative and engineering prospects of a project. It's a lot harder to back port a project then port up as well, something to keep in mind. Again Borderlands 2 for Vita as opposed to an entire collection for PS4.
Switch is certainly a cool little machine, but I feel like it would be served better with titles dedicated to its unique attributes, then trying to shoe horn ports of higher end games. It would be like taking PS2 games and putting them on PSP.
Re: Ubisoft Will Announce More Nintendo Switch Titles "Quite Soon"
@ThanosReXXX The engine is very flexible in a lot of ways. You can assemble scenes and logic for scripting in a pretty universal way. However it isn't designed with the capacity to scale down easily. There are currently no hooks in the engine for Switch specific development. Even just working with it on PS4 and Xbox One presents.... certain issues.
Snowdrop is still a very new engine and one should take what they say with a grain of salt. Some systems are expertly designed and others need some maturity. Junior staff can do that to a project.
In the long run I'm almost certain that snowdrop will be able to run anything on any platform it is on, but the assets (dependingon the platform) will have to be tailored specifically to anything outside the norm. The Switch is very much outside the norm and it'll be the thing that hinders projects like BG&E2 or South Park The Fractured But Whole from running on the platform. Since the PC, PS4, and XB1 are all targeting a similar spec I can't imagine them having too much variance between assets. Nintendo Switch has a smaller memory foot print which means everything from audio compression to asset handling to any performance enhancements done for PS4 and XB1 specifically to make that project work will need to be redone for switch.
Engines are just a starting point, they aren't the end game. In game development you're constantly stepping outside the bounds of what your engine is intended to be used for in the first place. See Mass Effect Andromeda or anything that isn't a shooter shoehorned into Unreal Engine 3. There are going to be a ton of custom systems that likely had lowlevel optimizations done.
Snowdrop doesn't have a means of scaling some of these differences. A project starting on Switch will be fine. However back porting a project for something that is targeting the high end will have issues dealing with that Tegra SoC and 4 gigs of memory. That isn't even getting into any specialize decompression hardware and how that interacts with third party dependencies like Wwise.
Re: Ubisoft Will Announce More Nintendo Switch Titles "Quite Soon"
@ThanosReXXX steep runs on anvil. Not snowdrop. Getting Mario rabbids to work is a porting effort exclusive to the project with the intent of releasing the game specifically for the switch. In other words the code does not transition easily between platforms. By time beyond good and evil 2 releases it'll be a next gen game with features well beyond the switch. Don't get me wrong I'm sure massive is trying to get snowdrop working on switch, but any title not specifically made for the switch will not easily port until the end of its relevance cycle. Snowdrop is very resource heavy.
Re: Ubisoft Will Announce More Nintendo Switch Titles "Quite Soon"
@Bunkerneath Snowdrop title. Highly unlikely.
Re: "Lack Of Buttons" Might Prevent LawBreakers From Coming To Switch
Its not a matter of how you feel about the situation, its a matter of how the team that built the game feels about it. As a dev myself that is a question I ask myself every time someone asks me to back port a game. It can impact a lot and its the little things that shape the experience.
As far as mercy players using rez as a kind of flash bang. Well you just heard one case. Used that strategy in a tempo rez in anticipation of diamond level mercy doing the same thing. The cluster was good and my teams zarya had ult as well. To keep myself from getting chewed up by the bastion for my raise I positioned myself on the other side of both teams bodies, raised, and then proceeded to finish off that bastion while the other mercy was trying to heal an immune team. I managed tag two kills in that mess before popping the newly raised dva and killing the 76 who thought I was in the cluster, then let my team do cleanup on the remaining players as I healed them. Mercy is a very strategic job. A good mercy can be a battle angel a bad one is just battle mercy who doesn't understand the heal to damage ratio and how good flanking can force a dva to waste her shield instead of repositioning and hitting the right targets. I've used this strategy more than once in my climb with my team with great success. Overwatch is a very deep game with many layers. Whether it is comboing ults or using visibility obstructors to buy you some cover like dragons or raises, it all plays a part. Change any part of that and you change how the game is played. I feel like overwatch would suffer on switch. It already struggles in high level matches on ps4 and Xbox one base models. I feel like anyone taking it seriously enough to take with them would just tuck a ps4 or laptop under their arm then chance the switch.
Re: "Lack Of Buttons" Might Prevent LawBreakers From Coming To Switch
@Spoony_Tech as far as excuses go. He should have stuck with the defacto reason. The switch is just too underpowered to meet their targets. Dropping frame rate is not something CB is big on doing. Cutting back on visual fidelity can impact how the game is played. Such as removing or reducing particle counts or environment objects. Things that obstruct visibility could change the way the game is played. I'm sure a game built from the ground up like Splatoon for such low end hardware will be great, but games like overwatch and lawbreakers would have to make comprises. Gamers really do not understand the role vfx plays in how the game is experienced and played. Just lowering texture quality can rob a player of story information or visual queues a designer might have depended on initially. Cutting back on particles could eliminate a visual obstruction strategy that may or may not have been intended. See mercy raises as one such example. That poo is blinding and a mercy in overwatch can use that visual obstruction to either pick off targets or get to safety as the other team scrambles for the new encounter.
Its all about the visual language of the game and something's can translate to a lower fidelity language with ease while other things just lose something that changes how the game speaks visually. Its something Nintendo owners really need to come to terms with. Yes you can say a lot with a switch visually, but if anything is disrupted in a way that takes away from the experience, then the switch becomes no viable.
It gets more silly when PC gamers talk about tailoring their experience, they lose that fidelity in a lot of cases. I've seen things like lighting effects and foliage paired back. In the former watching for shadows to help give you insight into what might be behind, above, or around the corner is lost when paired back, baked, or dropped in resolution. Putting you at a disadvantage or robbing you of the strategy. BTW I use that in overwatch constantly.
So its not always about the minor step back making it impossible. Though it is usually the case. Games are built like ac unity to target this console generation. Nintendo still made a half step into it. As ps4 and Xbox one titles start dipping into 720p territory it'll be very hard to justify switch support. Then we start stepping into things you've heard before. CPU isn't strong enough to handle the simulation, memory is too restrictive, would require another years worth of work to remake the game for the system, and cow boxes are not cool.
Re: It's "A Bit Sad" That Switch Isn't More Powerful, Says THQ Nordic
@FragRed this assertion is incorrect. The switch is actually pretty far ahead of the technology curve when it comes to portables. In the us we have to stop thinking of this thing as a home console and more like a psp2000. This claim of them always being behind has only been true of two console generations. In the portable space Nintendo pretty much existed in a vacuum so they could get away with it. Nes was the only game in town, snes was beefier than the Genesis in every way save one very trivial factor, N64 had the beefiest gpu and CPU of that generation and really had a two fold Achilles heel that prevented them from being competitive. Gamecube also had better hardware than the PS2 and honestly was comparable to the Xbox.
So no. Being always behind the curve is really not Nintendo's mo. Price point has always been there game and trying to get away with as much tech at a low cost their mission statement for development. The switch is a marvel to behold, but it can't compete with a home console, because its core wasn't designed too. If Nintendo took a loss and went X2 instead of x1, and definitely added the 4 gigs of RAM it needs then it could compete and provide the kind of experience worthy of being a home console. Hell even the extra ram would help. Keep in mind Sony and Ms were going to go with 4 gigs of RAM at one point before realizing the grievous error they were about to make. Here we are still looking at increased memory in refresh hardware.
Re: It's "A Bit Sad" That Switch Isn't More Powerful, Says THQ Nordic
While engines certainly make it easier to move from one device to another if designed to do so it still comes with several caveats. Just because an engine runs on something doesn't mean the games made in it will work without effort or little effort. I think that has been the main issue I have taken with the discussion regarding 3rd parties from YouTubers and video game websites like Nintendo Life.
We have the asset problem first. While there are means in some engines to scale down things like textures. Youre still having to fight with half the memory of a modern console. Even then on we you're not just having the resolution of a texture, but many textures used in various rendering effects that materials need to operate correctly. You are also not guaranteed that 50 percent less space thanks to things like the os footprint. The engine code also doesn't scale either so that 200 meg executable won't get smaller and given how risc styled architecture is, you'll find these to be bigger. Then there is sound where third party products like wwise are used. Some designer or audio engineer will have scale back and tailor each file so it not only fits, but decompresses in a manner that doesn't sound like garbage and slow the game to a halt. Then there is the final factor. Custom code. While there are few reasons these days to dip down into the guts of an engine to make a game these days, some times it is still necessary. In these scenarios optimizations, specific technology needs, or other modifications are made. These can range to custom renderer or pipeline modifications that were only intended for the hardware the game was made for and only can be easily ported to a new more powerful machine with ease.
A lot of devs may use unreal engine 4 or other licensed products, but a lot of devs also use in house technology at some stage of their creation process. Ubisoft for example really doesn't depend on external tech too much. They use anvil, snowdrop, and a really old version cry engine which likely no longer resembles the original product. Engines like snowdrop were never intended to run on hardware like the switch. Here we have games using that engine where Ubisoft might pull the plug rather then release a product that is too much for even them to get away with leaving broken.
Lastly I've seen a lot of unreal 4 games try to make it work on the k1, the results aren't pretty. Injustice 2 looks like garbage and runs like garbage on that hardware. Granted the switch has an edge on the shield k1 and would run that game better. At the end of the day you're still stuck with the same problems. How do we scale the game back and maintain as much of the original product as possible. This results in baking in effects that are physically rendered on a modern machine, at that point you're just rebuilding the game.
Re: Former Sony And Microsoft Exec: Nintendo Has Surprised Me With Switch
Sure I mean if you guys really want to see things like PlayStation Home on switch then ya hope for this. Don't get me wrong he was very important in the 90s, but because of him scee found themselves in a very weak position that resulted in not one, but two studios getting shutdown. All because he decided to double down on PlayStation home. His track record at Microsoft is also established in the pre Phil Spencer era. Don't need mattrick legacy in the fold.
I feel like Nintendo has enough trouble maintaining momentum I. Game releases as is. The fact that Nintendo fans are getting frothy over Wii u ports should be a strong indicator of how software starved they are.
Re: Rumour: Porting Steep to the Switch Is Posing a Steep Challenge
I think that if this game doesn't make it onto switch , you can kiss any chance of other IP using the same engine good bye on switch.
Re: Sony Thinks You'll Buy A PlayStation 4 Alongside Your Nintendo Switch
I can't see myself using my switch as a dedicated machine. At home games like tekken 7, overwatch, horizon, tales of berseria, etc all dominate my time. The hope of me getting a 3rd party title especially an online title for the switch just seems like a ridiculous proposition. On the go my back log of vita RPGs just and 3ds titles just make it even more unlikely. Toting my switch around seems more of a chore than a benefit.
So I'd say it is fulfilling neither need at the moment. I don't even seen that changing as more games become available. I can see myself using it more portably at some point once my 3ds and vita games run out and more switch games are released. I just don't see it winning me over with the size of ps4s player base, features, and potential to play games the switch can't or on a level the switch can't reach. Dragon Quest heroes is one such example. Sure I could deal with it's graphics on the go, but I want the power of the ps4 when at home. In that scenario I would have gotten the vita version if cross save and cross trophies were a thing. The switch makes it more convenient to do that sort of thing, but I'm not looking to sacrifice performance especially after getting on with a ps4.
Re: EA Is Considering Bringing More Games to Nintendo Switch
Well there is a difference between being considered and actually getting those games. Unless the switch pulls a rabbit out of its hat, they won't see anything beyond ports and maybe what ever lowend game they can shoe horn on it. Unless they are promising mass effect trilogy, I'm not holding my breath for something to get excited over.
Re: Talking Point: PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio Draw Battle Lines, But Nintendo Goes Its Own Way With Switch
@NEStalgia Ya I'm not a fan of using hardware install base numbers in such a loose way. If those were a valid metric the PC would have gotten more attention in the last 17 years than it has. It's a viable platform, but it doesn't bring in the money that the console versions do even with the licensing fees tacked on. Contrary to what Kotaku would have you believe a Geforce Ti 4400 isn't exactly going to be buying Dishonored 2. Indies do well in those conditions and Blizzard continues to find the sweet spot. Even then they tend to do better money on consoles. Like for example android has 1.4 billion hardware units roughly as of 2016, of those devices 40 million can play the latest FF title released. OF that 40 million 3.7 million download it (FF15 sold 6 million in a fraction of that time and FF14 pulls in a ton of money monthly). Of that 3.7 million only 24% are expected to keep playing the game after release and 10% of that is expected to pay money on microtransactions. Granted this isn't the highest downloaded version of the game, but it does call into question just how big of a deal mobile is.
Gonna have to cut this short sadly. I'd love to counter these points, but I think we can both agree that at some point both hardware markets will evolve into something else.
Re: Talking Point: PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio Draw Battle Lines, But Nintendo Goes Its Own Way With Switch
@NEStalgia the data on tablets is a bit misleading. The future isn't that clear cut or else we would be seeing a greater number of success stories in the mobile market. Most game developers crumble or end up selling to a bigger shark pretty quickly. Tablet performance numbers are all over the place. Not everyone is using a tegra k1, let alone an x1 which is in no mobile device. Most people use tables to get caught up on their day, not for distractions for their kids or a battery kill game of ff mobius. In fact we shield most consumers from actual usage to download numbers which are pretty awful. I'm not saying games aren't viable on tablet as some do see success and scrape along, but none are seeing the success found by indies who show up on consoles and pc.
Ps4 is doing very well with some pretty interesting projections going forward. I do not see the portable market continuing in this way as we are an interface away from abandoning our understanding of what constitutes a smart device. Hardware performance is still advancing at a pace thay far out stretches mobile to an extent that nintendo had to double down hard on the x1 just to get into throwing distance of an xbox one. Still a farcry from where they need to be and the hardware is still lagging behind by an entire generation as it always has.
I think we can both agree these mid generation refreshes are dangerous. It could slow console sales as consumers try to figure these things out. The same way the pro disrupted ps4 sales last year allowing xb1 to get some numbers in. Pro did sell well and things stabilized for sure, but it took 2 to 3 months for Sony to get consumer confidence back.
I don't feel like nintendo read the tea leafs right for hardware progression. Games like scaleboud, crackdown, the last guardian, ff15 etc are examples of this. We still have a long way to go not just in visuals, but in simulation performance. Developers are still restricted in what they can do and spend countless resources trying to reach a target through optimization. Not that optimization will ever go away, but the amount of time spent can be reduced.
This was a good move for nintendo, but I don't expect the other first parties to follow as they have much broader view of what is going on in the technology space than nintendo has.
Re: Talking Point: PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio Draw Battle Lines, But Nintendo Goes Its Own Way With Switch
I don't really feel like Nintendo is in its own bubble shielded from what is happening. They've given themselves a unique feature by honestly bowing out of the home console race. Its all portables for them now. Portables you can hook up to your TV like a Sega nomad and play with your friends. Its not meant to be a front and center leader, just a portable machine for when your ps4 and/or TV is unavailable. I'm seeing and hearing more people using it in portable mode and using it during lunch breaks than supplementing time on games like nier, mass effect, or horizon.
It will do well, but only by the virtue of its portable nature that is now canabalizing the 3ds market. Its unable to compete with the 1080p 60fps and boosted hardware which can still render more and do more even when forced down to 960p.
So Nintendo has bowed out into a market they had dominance in and doubling down to head nvidia off at the pass.
Re: Developer Survey Reveals Worrying Lack Of Interest In Nintendo Switch
Ya these numbers are very similar to the Wii u numbers before its launch. Part of the problem is Nintendo being so secretive with the switch. The other problem is hardware performance makes it a chore to downgrade a title for it. Its really hard to justify bringing a game to a platform that asks you to take things out just to try to hit a technical challenge that we as developers had finally left behind on ps3 and x360. I'm not even talking about graphics only in this statement. Switch is powerful, but not capable. You'll see some great things from Nintendo once they stop doing tiny upgrades and ports of last gen games. Its for that reason you won't see games currently I'm development being released.
Nintendo is hoping to pull a 3ds out of their hat by releasing a steady stream of games you'll want to utilize in two scenarios. This is why many predictions place the system in a league of 20 to 30 million by end of life. 3ds developers and indies will turn their gaze towards it, but don't expect the likes of ea , square, 2k, or Activision to extend it any special courtesy. Hopefully it'll do well enough to grab some attention. I'd like to see mass effect trilogy on it, but that is unlikely given the size of all three games with dlc and ea desire to focus on Andromeda.
The system will have games not just from Nintendo, but sadly you'll be using it mostly as a portable and device you hook up for stints of smash. If you're a Nintendo fan you'll swear by the machine I'm sure, but the nature of the switch still makes it a compliant to a ps4 and not a replacement for one.
Re: GameStop Describes Nintendo Switch Launch as "One of the Strongest" in Recent Years
So better than ps4 pro, psvr, and Xbox one s. This is not useful information. Thanks gamestop for attempting to pad your own wallets with the hype train.
Re: Soapbox: It's Nintendo's Job To Make Switch A Success, Not EA's, Ubisoft's Or Capcom's
You seem to be working under the assumption that anyone is upset over the third party situation because the fanbase feels owed or that the same fanbase is under the presumption that it is up to third parties to make this work.
No one is saying that.
It's up to Nintendo you got that part right, they have to convince third parties. What the current showing has brought us is that Nintendo was unable to convince not only third parties, but also their share holders that this thing is worth their time and money. When Sony and Microsoft launched their systems they not only convinced their 3rd party partners that their machines were worth the time, but also got them on board for console specific features of current holiday releases. Where is watch dogs 2? Where was dues ex? Where was south park the fractured but whole? Where was ghost recon? Where was tales of bersaria? Anything in the 6 months leading up to this thing, where is it? Developers are not confident in the hardware power, Nintendo's ability to sell the consumer base on underpowered versions of IP on the go.
So where does this leave us. Hope that Nintendo can bring new IP out fast enough to fill the void till 3rd parties decide what they want to do with this thing while ps4 still brings in the money. Don't get me wrong I love Nintendo games and I enjoy the Wii u, but it was a console that arrived for the wrong console generation. This thing is arriving 2 1/2 years late to this one. All we have to look at is relaunched titles, half hearted last gen remasters, Zelda/Mario, and a good looking new Nintendo IP that reminds us of why we hate the Wii. This is not a good start. Nintendo failed to convince them, you seem to be riding under the impression that Nintendo selling its own games will some how fix this. The window for the first year is not the time to do that. Those releases need to be seen by third parties before launch. It takes 2 to 3 years to make a game at minimum these days. Nintendo played its cards so close to its chest that no one knows what to do with this thing. Now we will see what Nintendo does in the first year and with a little luck by the third year we will start to see releases. Assuming Microsoft and Sony aren't releasing tthr Xbox Zero and PlayStation 5 by then and ask those same developers to pay attention to their new machines all the while making portable versions of their ps4 and Xbox one.
Re: Reggie on How the Switch Will Maintain Third Party Support
Going to go with almost got it right. Yes that is what we developers look for in a platform. However the strong growing platform is a chicken and the egg problem that we are all familiar with. So not a whole lot Nintendo can do other than foster the tools and strong hardware while getting dev kits in the hands of devs. Nintendo is faultering on the last two. The switch is under powered. No amount of unreal or unity porting is going to magically remove the tedium that will come from down scaling games so those two engines will run at a solid frame rate. That makes things difficult, requires alteration of assets and may require changes to the pipeline to allow for that to work. A lot of studios are using proprietary engines that will need to be ported so 3rd party middlewear like unreal is pretty meaningless in those scenarios.
What developers want is high return from little work. We have already put the time in and now we want to easily slip that onto other machines for a low cost in 3 months. Overhauling assets is high cost and takes more than 3 months. You will see borderlands 2 Vita scenarios with this thing. Developers will have to take their latest creations and pair them back as they go, but what is the incentive when Xbox one and ps4 already control a huge chunk of the market.
Don't get me wrong this is the coolest piece of hardware Nintendo has ever made, realizing a dream that dates as far back as I can remember into the 80s. A concept that was tried with the turbo express and in many other incarnations since. But third parties are clearly not throwing their weight behind this thing. Ubisoft is the most laughable by far. A version of Rayman that was exclusive to Wii u that ended up getting life on several hardware platforms. A snowboarding game that could have run on Wii u or ps3. Just dance, a game that can honestly run on anything and honestly doesn't really show case what the system can do other than be set up at a party. They could honestly release just dance on any Android iOS device at this point with many of these machines being connected to a TV like the shield k1 and people could use their phones etc. Not seeing a lot of faith in Ubisoft here. FIFA the only title out of EA is just as sad with its last gen version of the game. I could just keep going. This is the Wii u all over again with third parties. To add insult to injury the latest GDC numbers are terrible for who is working on this thing. I can honestly say must publishers don't seem keen on investing in switch dev kits as no one seems to have actually worked on the machine. These people are unicorns who have worked with it.
So not a whole lot of faith for Nintendo here. Launch lineup is still soft. I honestly hope by July they have a show for us showing the great games and 3rd party support or its going to be a rough year for them as they crawl into next generation.
Re: Pachter Says Switch is the Easiest of the Big Three to Develop For
Clearly a man who knows what he is talking about /sarcasm
As someone who has worked with the k1 and x1 I can't say this thing will be any easier to work with even with Nintendo's dev kit in place. Just better hope those examples are in English or some engineers day is about to be ruined by having to wait for Nintendo's week long response times.
I can say this the architecture is one part of three important teirs that determine a systems future. Is it easy to work with, is it powerful enough, and how good is first party involvement. The second teir tends to kill the first one as having to rewrite, optimize, and recreate sections of the game can cause a port to crumble under its own wait. The third can help mitigate the second, but again Nintendo has never been very kind in this arena.
From my own experiences not including the switch I feel like patcher is riding on some conversation over drinks and like most either is glaze over when the engineer talks; or its some production monkey who sees engineers getting demos up fast, but not things of substance.
I'm not hearing positive things myself.
This will be a good machine, but expect to end up back on your PlayStation or Xbox by the end of next year.
Re: Nintendo Switch to Reportedly Include 4GB of RAM
@Phin68 they will believe me. This is only 2/3rds of what is available to. Developers at all times.
Re: Nintendo Switch to Reportedly Include 4GB of RAM
Developers have access to over 3/4s of Xbox one and ps4 memory at all times. Not little over half. This article is misleading. We have access to morr, but we have to play chicken with the OS in order to access that memory and it is advised we only use that under certain circumstances.
4 gigs is not a lot. Especially if that is a unified memory pool for both GPU and CPU. Even now 6 gigs isn't enough. This is bad news, no matter how you compare it to the Wii u.