OT: RDR2 is of course impossible, but great last gen OW games like RDR1, Mass Effect Trilogy and Witcher 2 would be nice additions to the Switch library.

I'm basically saying its still going to require huge sacrifices for Switch to support a game like RDR2.

Wolf II is like 800p/60 fps on X1, but the Switch had to make some serious scaling back of visuals and tweaks to the game to make it a stable 30 fps.

Basically I'm in the camp that believes pretty much any 8th gen game works on Switch with varying levels of tweaks. Kinda like how a low spec PC can run modern games. I just think many developers skip the Switch for two reasons, a good port requires extra work and sales of core games on that platform may not be worth it. Reggie is ignoring many AAA games are still skipping Switch its likely due to the ports requiring extra work for Switch.

It possible the support Switch is given will change as the userbase grows. But we're also at a point where base consoles are being pushed hard and mid gen upgrades might even be the lead platforms. So supporting Switch isn't necessarily getting easier for AAA games.

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.

RDR2 already has the right art style. They'd have to change it so much they might as well just make a new up capable of running on all 3 platforms. 

The mere idea that a game themed on cowboys has gained popularity makes me vomit on behalf of the world; particularly the people who have more than 7 ancestors in the last 5 generations.

6. Release a metacritic 70 game nobody wants to play

There are some third party games where I'm amazed they aren't on the Switch, the key one right now being Spyro. RDR2 is one I can accept just isn't going to be. To be fair, RDR1 could be a stretch.

Man, GTAV, with all details, realistic enviroment, tons of npcs, houses, cars, in a huge world, etc plays well and look incredible on PS3. And only with 400ish available ram.
Why? Because it was done since the beginning for the hardware.

Switch could handle easily a RDR2 if it was made since the beginning for it. But just porting the already made PS4 version would not be the best solution, would run awful.

Well, considering Ark is running in glorious 640p on PS4 (it can't keep up it's target 720p, nor it's 30fps target), Ark is pretty much a worst case scenario, worse than any port of RDR2 would be.

I agree however that the Switch would be struggling hard to get RDR2 to run properly, like I posted before you'd need to crank down the graphics by a great notch to make it work properly.