By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
potato_hamster on 17 September 2015
Edit Thread
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

Like I wrote, No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.

 

So what are you saying is that game for PS4/XboxOne cost 1.8x, and for NX Home/Portable cost 1.35x and that isnt very attractive!?

You are getting game for cost of 1.35x on two platforms, how that isn't very attractive!? We are still getting one game for Xbox360/PS3 and in same time for PS4/Xbox One, so how exactly for those developers NX wouldn't be very attractive!?

One thing is for sure, NX platform would be incomparably more attractive than making game for Wii U alone or even 3DS alone, thats whole point, with Nintendo plan NX platform will have much better support than Wii U/3DS had, hell if just next Nintendo home console had ARM or x86 instead PPC and console itself have better sale it would be had much better sale not to mentioned all this Nintendo unifying stuffs that will make NX platform attractive to developers.

That's only attractive if they're choosing between one or the other. Let's be practical here. They're not choosing to do one or the other, they're choosing between doing PS4/X1/NX or PS4/X1. Think of the sales the PS4 and X1 will have in 1-2 years from now. Do you think game developers will decide not to develop for two platforms that will more than likely have close to 100M install base in two years? So if a company is choosing between just doing PS4/X1 /NX or just PS4/X1, it's going to be very difficult for them to justify that, as in that stance it's the most expensive platform to develop for, nearly doubling the budget of just developing for the PS4/X1, especially when Nintendo hardware sales have been on the decline for a while now. There is no reason at this point to expect the NX to sell better than the Wii U and 3DS combined over the same time frame. Bear in mind how poorly the 3DS sold when it first hit the market. If the NX combined sales first year is less than 15 Million it's finished as far as third party is concerned, and then Nintendo has absolutely nothing to go back on.

Of course it's more attractive than developing for the Wii U or 3DS individually. However, that doesn't really matter. If you were going to develop for one of those platforms anyways, it's makes it easier to make the jump to make the game the other platform as well, but that doesn't really make much of a difference if you didn't have much intention of developing for these platforms in the first place. Any why would they? If anything you can expect one to cannibalize the sales of the other as people will no longer need to buy both to get the "full Nintendo game experience". Bearing that in mind, if it's anywhere near as close as difficult to port a PS4/X1 game to the NX home as it is for developers to port it to the Wii U, they won't bother. It's simply not worth the hassle, much less the added developmnent cost of making a game for two extra platforms instead of one.