Nintendo believes that the Switch will have much better third-party support than the Wii U

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

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Wednesday, 8 February 2017 01:43 GMT By James O'Connor

 

While it admittedly wouldn’t take much to improve on the Wii U’s selection of third-party games, Nintendo creative director has told investors that the Switch has been been designed as a machine that will attract developers to it.

 

The full transcript of Nintendo’s corporate management policy briefing is available on their website. In it, Miyamoto cites the system’s support of the Unreal and Unity engines, as well as their Nvidia graphics tech, as ways in which it will be easier for developers to port their games from PC to the Switch. The system does not have an amazing launch line up, but Nintendo seems confident that this situation will improve.

 

“In addition, third-party developers who are making software for PC can now easily adapt that software to work on our platform”, Miyamoto says. “In the current development environment, Iʼd say that it would take less than a year for them to port a PC game to Nintendo Switch.”

 

Continues...

[LimeMaster]

I'll believe it when I see it.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

they need to get the word out and advertise. break the bank on advertising. The #1 mistake w/ the Wii U is that they didnt tell the consumer that this was a new console and you have to have it. people thought it was an add-on to the Wii. even when the 3DS came out, people thought it was just a DS w/ 3D.

[+Asmodai MVC]

I'm confident they'll have more 3rd party support than the Wii U.  That's a VERY low bar to set.  I think they're crazy if they think a lot of PC/Xbox One/PS4 games are going to port to it though since the specs are so low.  What's more likely to happen is mobile games (iOS/Android) will port to it as it is very similar in hardware to a smart phone (minus the phone) or tablet.  Unreal and Unity are used to make smart phone and tablet games as well.

[compl3x]

Nintendo should just worry about making as many of their own IPs as they can. No one buys a switch to play the games you can play on an Xbox, PS4 or PC.

[+Asmodai MVC]

9 hours ago, compl3x said:

Nintendo should just worry about making as many of their own IPs as they can. No one buys a switch to play the games you can play on an Xbox, PS4 or PC.

So do the same thing they did with the Wii U then that worked out so well for them?

[compl3x]

51 minutes ago, Asmodai said:

So do the same thing they did with the Wii U then that worked out so well for them?

They made no where near enough effort with the Wii U. Poor communication around launch, especially differentiating it from the original Wii. Gimmick controller. 3rd party support that never materialised. Poor launch titles. Average exclusives when they did arrive. Complete lack of online capabilities other consoles had. I say all of this as someone who own 2 Wii Us.

 

On the issue of 3rd party support specifically, no one wants to play the latest Ubi or EA or Bethesda, etc. game on the Switch. No one wants to play 5 year old games like bloody Skyrim. Nintendo has a crap load of IPs they could leverage, that is, if they weren't still wasting time with gimmicks that may have made the Wii a great seller but the consumer is well and truly tired of.

[+Asmodai MVC]

12 minutes ago, compl3x said:

They made no where near enough effort with the Wii U.

 I just have a hard time believing they weren't TRYING with the Wii U.  I don't think they were just sitting round doing nothing or giving very little effort.  I'm more inclined to think they tried hard and it just didn't work.

12 minutes ago, compl3x said:

Poor communication around launch, especially differentiating it from the original Wii.

This one I'll give you.  I'm not sure how much the Wii/Wii U naming confusion actually hurt them but I have no doubt it did to some degree.  On the other hand I don't think they're doing very well at communication this time around either.  nVidia and Nintendo leading the public to believe they'd be using the latest GPU architecture.  Pushing a mobile device that's subject to heat and power constraints as NOT a 3DS replacement and a stop making the Wii U makes most people compare it to the other home consoles where it doesn't stand a chance.

12 minutes ago, compl3x said:

Gimmick controller.

The Switch has no shortage of gimmicks.  Just looking at the controller the Joy-Cons aren't a gimmick?

12 minutes ago, compl3x said:

3rd party support that never materialised.

Exactly, that's what this thread is about and people were hoping they fixed this time around.  You made it seem like this wasn't important in your prior comment and now point to it as a reason the Wii U failed.  Which is it?

12 minutes ago, compl3x said:

Poor launch titles.

There are a large number of articles now about how poor the Switch launch lineup is as well.

 

12 minutes ago, compl3x said:

On the issue of 3rd party support specifically, no one wants to play the latest Ubi or EA or Bethesda, etc. game on the Switch. No one wants to play 5 year old games like bloody Skyrim.

This is absolutely false.  I for example was looking forward to being able to play Skyrim on the go.  The Switch doesn't have the hardware to run the latest and greatest AAA games so why not release versions of last gen AAA games for the first time on a MOBILE device.

12 minutes ago, compl3x said:

Nintendo has a crap load of IPs they could leverage, that is, if they weren't still wasting time with gimmicks that may have made the Wii a great seller but the consumer is well and truly tired of.

Nintendo does have a crap load of IPs they could leverage, the some ones they had during the Wii U era, and again I have a hard time believing they weren't trying their best to leverage them then.  I see no reason to believe they are going to suddenly do a much better job of it with the Switch.

[compl3x]

22 minutes ago, Asmodai said:

Exactly, that's what this thread is about and people were hoping they fixed this time around.  You made it seem like this wasn't important in your prior comment and now point to it as a reason the Wii U failed.  Which is it?

Whether people like it or not, one reason why 3rd party support last time around wasn't there because the system didn't have the power to play most of the 3rd party's games. The switch is also under-powered. Power doesn't necessarily make a good system, but I would argue that if you want the same games to come to your system your system has to be at least as powerful as your competition's.

 

25 minutes ago, Asmodai said:

The Switch has no shortage of gimmicks.  Just looking at the controller the Joy-Cons aren't a gimmick?

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Yes, I know. Gimmicks failed last time, why are they making more of them?

 

25 minutes ago, Asmodai said:

This is absolutely false.  I for example was looking forward to being able to play Skyrim on the go.  The Switch doesn't have the hardware to run the latest and greatest AAA games so why not release versions of last gen AAA games for the first time on a MOBILE device.

 

I think you will be in a minority on that one. Skyrim might be the worst example given its length and the Switch's short battery life when playing more intensive games. Skyrim on the Switch will probably be fairly intensive.

 

 

I look a the Switch and I just don't get it. But time will tell if I am right or if I had no clue what I was talking about.

 

 

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

I think @Asmodai said it best in a previous topic (at least I think it was him).

 

The third party support is going to be there this time, but it won't necessarily be from the big console devs and publishers. There is a big power gap between the Switch and the PS4 / X1 never mind their updated brothers. Instead, the third party support is more likely to come from the 3DS dev and publisher pool, and even the iOS and Android community. They might even attract the Vita community seeing as Sony has not made a successor.

 

EA this week said that they will launch a "custom" FIFA for the Switch. That's not going to last long, as developers and publishers didn't even continue with Wii U "custom" versions after the launch lineup ( i.e BLOP3, Batman, AC3 and TTT2). EA even went back to releasing for the Wii instead, releasing the same FIFA game with an updated title screen before they were called out on it. I doubt they'll go back to that and instead just drop support for FIFA and their other sports games on Nintendo platforms.

[+Asmodai MVC]

1 hour ago, compl3x said:

Whether people like it or not, one reason why 3rd party support last time around wasn't there because the system didn't have the power to play most of the 3rd party's games. The switch is also under-powered. Power doesn't necessarily make a good system, but I would argue that if you want the same games to come to your system your system has to be at least as powerful as your competition's.

I agree with this 100%.  The problem is that Nintendo and nVidia marketing made it seem like it was going to be at least close, even if not quite there, to the performance of the launch Xbox One.  I was never going to compete with the PS4 (let alone the Pro or Project Scorpio) but if it could get "close enough" to the launch Xbox One and third party developers were going to keep supporting the launch Xbox One they'd likely support the Switch as well.  People are upset because they were very hopeful this was the case and then when the specs came out it was radically under powered.

1 hour ago, compl3x said:

Yes, I know. Gimmicks failed last time, why are they making more of them?

Because they worked so well for the Wii and they're convinced they can do it again.  They aren't going to compete with Sony and MS on raw specs, it's just never going to happen.  If you ask me just making a portable more powerful than the Wii U, Vita, and 3DS would have been good enough instead of confusing people with this whole home console thing that's forcing comparisons with the Xbox One and PS4 that it doesn't stand a chance against.

1 hour ago, compl3x said:

I think you will be in a minority on that one. Skyrim might be the worst example given its length and the Switch's short battery life when playing more intensive games. Skyrim on the Switch will probably be fairly intensive.

You'll note I said I "WAS" looking forward... as in not anymore.  I was super excited about a portable that could play Skyrim until the price and battery life were announced.  Now I went from being excited about the Switch to not getting it at all.  Nintendo tends to make a lot of revisions of their hardware (3DS, 3DS XL, 2DS, 3DS new version, etc.) so perhaps I'll buy a different revision later when the price has come down and battery life has gone up but for now I've lost interest in the current model completely.

1 hour ago, compl3x said:

I look a the Switch and I just don't get it. But time will tell if I am right or if I had no clue what I was talking about.

You aren't the only one.

[LimeMaster]

19 minutes ago, Asmodai said:

You'll note I said I "WAS" looking forward... as in not anymore.  I was super excited about a portable that could play Skyrim until the price and battery life were announced.  Now I went from being excited about the Switch to not getting it at all.  Nintendo tends to make a lot of revisions of their hardware (3DS, 3DS XL, 2DS, 3DS new version, etc.) so perhaps I'll buy a different revision later when the price has come down and battery life has gone up but for now I've lost interest in the current model completely.

If they do make later revisions, they'll probably exclude key components in certain regions because they will assume that everyone bought the original version. So basically later revisions could end up costing you more.

[+Asmodai MVC]

8 minutes ago, LimeMaster said:

If they do make later revisions, they'll probably exclude key components in certain regions because they will assume that everyone bought the original version. So basically later revisions could end up costing you more.

Or I could just not get any of them then.  Problem solved.

[LimeMaster]

2 minutes ago, Asmodai said:

Or I could just not get any of them then.  Problem solved.

Yep, that would certainly solve the problem.