Reggie on why Red Dead Redemption 2 isn't on Switch

[Podings]

Certainly it could run on Switch.

And certainly it could fit on a 16GB cartridge if they really wanted to.

- Dial back texture sizes two increments.
- Halve the audio bitrate, and use a slightly lossier compression.
- Do away with all samples and mixing necessary for 4.1 and settle for stereo.
- Reduce the keyframe count and decimal precision on the motion capture data by the amount suitable for the expected drop in final on-screen resoluttion.

Now it fits on the cartridge.

- Take a third off the draw distance
- Reduce the set dressing to half
- Simplify character geometry (quick to do poorly-but-acceptable, fairly time consuming to do well)
- Simplify character rigs and skinning (very time consuming to do well)
- Accept a 30fps target with dips to 20
- Accept a 720p target with dynamic dips to 480p
- Reduce all shader scripts to half the amount of lines
- Use only half the amount of shaders on screen at any time
- No AA or other post-processing
- Accept longer load times
- Accept shorter times for resetting of environmental player traces

Now it runs.

Would they want to release the game with the sacrifices they would have to make? Or with the slightly fewer sacrifices they would have to make, if they decided to spent a lot of money on a port? Maybe they wouldn't. And maybe they won't even care to test the situation, as porting the engine in the first place is sure to be a hassle.