But Panic Button general manager Adam Creighton is upbeat about the Switch's future. Panic Button is one of the Switch's main port specialists, having been responsible for the transition of Rocket League and Doom, and he still thinks that there's plenty of room to grow.
"It's a really neat piece of hardware, and we're learning more all the time. We work closely with Nintendo and Nvidia, and it's an opportunity for us to do more and more with the hardware. It's interesting, it's still pretty early for the Switch as a gaming device, so I'm excited to see what happens on the hardware and the optimization front," Creighton tells USgamer.
Creighton and I talked at length about the Switch's future at E3 2018, particularly in the context of how it will fare in the next generation. I noted that third-party developers are already struggling to make some games work on the hardware without major compromises. Ys 8 and Valkyria Chronicles 4 are two games that look notably worse on the Switch.
But Creighton sees it as more of a game to game issue than a broader challenge for the Switch. "It depends on whether a game is pushing a ton of content. You have a title like Wolfenstein that is supporting so many languages, voiceover, and everything else, so there's a lot more content there," he says.
Creighton and his team have most recently ported Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, which is due out next week, and they've had to deal with issues relating to memory constraints. Perhaps the biggest challenge, though, is that Wolfenstein 2 wasn't developed with the Switch in mind.
Creighton thinks a more collaborative relationship from the start will help immensely in the future. "As people get us involved earlier in the process, we're able to help them with decisions like assets and gameplay, and things like that with Nintendo Switch in mind. That has a benefit when it comes to what might come down the road later," he says.
But will it matter if the Xbox Two and PS5 are on a level far beyond that of the Switch? Creighton says it depends on the direction that Sony and Microsoft decide to go with its next-generation consoles.
"It'll be interesting because who knows what's going to happen with next-generation. Does one party do an even beefier, more powerful machine? Do they look at what's happening with Nintendo and try to do that? Will they do both?" Creighton wonders. "Nintendo in previous generations has made it clear that they're not competing on horsepower. Switch is a great example of delivering that without impacting the quality of the games. And they've made some great partnerships with Bethesda and others to bring triple-A content to their platform."
Creighton also points out that the Switch itself isn't necessarily a fixed platform. The New 3DS is one recent example of Nintendo willingly splitting its install base in the name of a power boost.
"Maybe when they evolve the hardware they'll amp it up one area," Creighton speculates. "Maybe that'll be graphics or hardware, maybe they'll add to the controller set so it has additional inputs similar to other platforms. So there's a lot of innovations to be had."
It's hard to guess what will happen to the Switch once new consoles start to appear. Recent history doesn't offer a lot clues—the Wii U was pretty much a dead letter from the start, and the Wii was well behind pretty much from the start. Should the next generation commence as expected in 2020, the Switch will be in the middle of Year 4, which is a pretty tidy run for any console.
https://www.usgamer.net/articles/what-the-next-console-generation-could-mean-for-switch-ps5-xbox-two
This is from last month, look if its old.
Last edited by Miyamotoo - on 08 July 2018
