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curl-6 on 24 May 2024
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Farsala said:
curl-6 said:

Easy and inexpensive are relative; it's easy and cheap enough that literally hundreds of PS4 games have been ported to Switch.

There are bottlenecks in production though; the main studios hands may be full already making the PS/Xbox/PC versions, so Switch ports are typically handled by specialized porting devs like Panic Button or Saber, and there's a limited number of those with a limited amount of manpower.

You're missing the point though; porting a finished game, even across a power gap like PS4 to Switch or PS5 to where the Switch successor is estimated to be, is vastly cheaper than making a game in the first place. If a game needed millions to break even on its own, a port may only need a few hundred k.

100s of games have been ported, but 100s of games haven't made it yet. Take the top games from 2023 (according to a random media site), excluding 1st party.

10. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon PS/XB/PC No Switch plans
9. Jusant PS/XB/PC No Switch plans
8. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2- Sony
7. Street Fighter 6 PS/XB/PC No Switch plans
6. Cocoon (Indie) Multiplat
5. Pikmin 4- Nintendo
4. Super Mario Bros. Wonder- Nintendo
3. Alan Wake 2 PS5/XB/PC No Switch plans
2. Baldur’s Gate 3 PC>PS>Mac>XB No Switch plans
1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom- Nintendo
Excluding 1st party we have 1/6 top games that came to Switch, but it was clearly not a technically impressive game compared to the non indie games. And this is 2023, the dominance of the Switch has been known for years. If there was a big audience for these games enough to make a big or easy profit, the Switch ports would have been made.

For a company like SE that is taking forever to port to even PC, I think a few 100k is the low point. For my interpretation, this is the level of sales needed to port from PS5.

Xbox Series X- 200k

Xbox Series X/S- 400k

PC- 400k

Switch- 600k+

Basically I think a Switch port needs to sell at least 3 times an Xbox Series X port, or at least 150% a PC port.

The ones that didn't make it don't change the fact that hundreds did. There simply wouldn't be so many Switch ports if it wasn't viable, period.

Nobody said it was cheaper than an Xbox or PC port, the point is it's cheaper than making a whole new game from scratch.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 24 May 2024