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Soundwave said:

I said the current Switch can run more PS4/XB1 games than it currently gets, developers don't want to bother because it came out too late in the game. 

Just simply not true. You really think developers are like "oh Switch came out too late so we're not gonna bother with it!" REALLY?? That's absurd.

Let me try to explain this very clearly because you just don't seem to understand what is going on here:

Developers will put games on systems where they think they will make a lot of money. Switch has been out for 3 years and has blown by XB1 sales despite coming out later. Developers don't have a cut off date per-generation for when they'll make games for a system based on when it launches as you seem to think, they put games on systems based on the first sentence in this paragraph: will it make good money. Money comes from excited userbase, which in part relies on the ability to have the game be good on the system, and size of that system's userbase. It would make far more sense for them to put games on Switch instead of XB1 despite it coming out later because the Switch has a larger userbase that will continue to grow far larger for years to come.

The reason they don't is the power difference. They either have to make two different games for PS4 and Switch, or downgrade it a lot to the point where gamers might just not be interested in it, or they have to do a lot of work in conjunction with downgrades to highly optimize it for the Switch. They generally don't want to do the first option because that involves making two separate games so costs and requires a second team just to make the same game. They sometimes do the second option but that usually leads to poor sales plus bad will so they don't want to do that either. And there are a few instances of the third option like Witcher 3 which has gotten a lot of praise for being on the Switch but they again usually don't bother with doing this because it takes a lot of work. Why don't they want to bother with doing a lot of work you might ask? It's not because they years ago said oh the Switch came out too late so arbitrarily and against all business sense we'll simply ignore this highly successful system for its entire life despite the fact that we could make tons of money off of by porting multiplats. They don't bother with it because they can already hit two out of three systems with a straight port without having to worry about downgrading the game to the point where it runs poorly and people won't buy it or spending a ton of effort optimizing a port so the downgrades aren't terrible. Instead they can just do a straight port to the XB1, and even though it is a less popular system it means an easier and better port which means more excited userbase which means easier to make money. If Switch 2 closes the gap so a few quick and easy graphical changes to multiplats equivalent to just adjusting some graphical settings down can make it run well on Nintendo's system that'll lead to much more third party support. This imaginary cut off date of yours doesn't exist. Businesses make decisions for business reasons, not imaginary reasons.

If the Switch came out the same day that it did but was a decent amount more powerful to the point where PS4/XB1 games could easily be ported over there would be a hell of a lot more AAA multiplats on the system. Period. There are no imaginary cut off dates when developers decide they'll only support previously launched systems. The fact that you had to come up with this crazy cut off date theory should be a red flag to you when making this argument.

Last edited by Slownenberg - on 15 May 2020