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Forums - Nintendo - Why would devs back another underpowered Nintendo console?

Miyamotoo on 21 December 2016
Mummelmann said:
Miyamotoo said:

 

Not its not.

Comparing if some game is exlusive or if game will come at all on systemy are two toaly difrent things. Also Nintendo never said that Zelda BotW is exclusive Wii U title.

Skyrim is 100% coming to Switch, we saw Skyrim at Switch video, Bethesda confirms support for Switch and at end they confirmed game. Thats a point. I can be more skeptical about Dark Souls 3 for instance, but not about Skyrim, its all very clear about Skyrim.

Not mentioning the other examples?

Final Fantasy Versus XIII; it was confirmed for PS3, they showed videos, both FMV and gameplay, on actual PS3 hardware (unlike Skyrim, both Nintendo and Bethesda were clear on the fact that it is not a Switch build, it's an imposed video sampled onto the Switch screen, not actual people actually playing, huge difference there) and Square Enix were among the biggest supporters of the PS3, vocally so. Do you know what happened? I'm sure you do, can you tell me why exactly it's impossible that Skyrim will not appear on Switch? I'm not saying it won't, my entire point is that we don't know for sure, even ports and games with near-to final builds have been cancelled or moved to other platforms in the past, and the words of a developer or publisher isn't worth all that much (we all remember EA's "unprecedented partnership" with Nintendo with the Wii U), nor does a meaningless picture of logos that people constantly throw around the forums. The 7th and 8th gen have been a festering bog of false promises and missed deadlines. Final Fantasy XIII losing exclusivity to 360 was another good example of major changes, despite reassurances from SE that it would remain a PS only franchise and title. Developers say things, then they might do something completely different.

As for Zelda, it may never have been called an "exclusive", but when a game from a flagship series is announced at the start of a console's life cycle, it's more or less implied that it is, in fact, exclusive. There was not a single reason in the whole wide world  in January 2013 (at which point, the Wii U was merely a couple of months old and sales hadn't even tanked yet) to think that it would be delayed 5-6 times and end up as a dual-platform release (if even that, the rumors might still be true on the Wii U version being axed, I wouldn't be shocked). But I guess you saw that coming from the start? I know I didn't, most people didn't, the amount of outrage would suggest as much. So no matter how one twists it; Nintendo were completely disingenuous in their communication of this title from the beginning, and kept on being so, so why on earth are you taking the word of a 3rd party with zero relation and pedigree with Nintendo as solid truth? A little skepticism is healthy, you quite simply seem incapable of critical thinking on certain matters. 

Difrence with Switch is that in Switich 1st trailer Nintendo choused only few games to show, and they definaly choused games for which they are shure that will be on Switch, and we saw Skyrim on Switch trailer only 5 months before Switch launch, not year or two before launch of Switch.

Today really nothing implies exclusive because ports and remaster are in this gen common thing.

Like I wrote I can be sceptical about not so sure games, like Dark Souls 3 for instance, but Skyrim is sure Switch game from every point.



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setsunatenshi on 21 December 2016
Miyamotoo said:
setsunatenshi said:

I'm pretty sure we've seen Zelda playable, some 3D Mario and some sort of Mario Kart on what appeared to be playable form. We have not seen the same for Skyrim. Besides, as it was pointed previously, I'm not doubting Nintendo will support their own console, I'm only unconvinced Skyrim will be coming to it (and I'm obviously talking about the current remaster, not a port of the PS3 one)

Yes we only saw Zelda playable at Fallon show, is that means that Zelda is only Switch game? :)

Again, whats a point of showing 3rd party game runing on new Nintendo console if that game is not 100% coming on that console!? Nintendo definitely wouldn't show 3rd game running on their console if they are not sure that game is coming. So we have Skyrim at Switch reveal trailer that showing Skyrim running on Switch, we have Bethesda saying that they supporting Switch, and at end we have confirmation from them that Skyrim is coming to Switch, but you are not uncovinced!?

 

Wow, talk about an argument that I didn't make...

I don't doubt Nintendo will have Zelda on the Switch since we've seen it run on it. The 3d Mario game also seemed like actual gameplay of a previously inexistent game, so I'm assuming it's an actual Switch game, the same for the Kart one.

So now that we took the obviously ridiculous points out of the way, nothing you have said convinced me Skyrim remaster is an actual game that exists on the Switch. It looked more like a proof of concept, as in "wow, look how cool it would be to have a game like this on the go without cartoony graphics".

If they actually had Skyrim to be released in or around the console debut date, they definitely would have any real gameplay to show for instead of going to stock footage.

Now having said that, do I think it will actually come out and look anything like in the video? Nothing I've learned so far convinces me of that. It's on Nintendo to prove me otherwise.



Frogger on 21 December 2016
Miyamotoo said:
spemanig said:

It's not. The OG Xbox got good third party support against the PS2. 150m vs what, 23m? What's most important is audience. If Switch sells 20m units and all those people buy multiplats, multiplats will stay. If it sells 150m and no one buys multiplats, they won't.

The Wii had horrible multiplatform support. It isn't a shining example of getting multiplats. For every Fifa, it missed 3 Bioshocks.

OG Xbox actualy had stronger hardware than PS2/GC so porting was much easier, while Wii was 20-30 x less powerful than PS3/Xbox360 so porting game to 20-30x less powerful challenge was real chalanage.

And yet had better 3rd party support than Wii U, 11 Fifa games, 7 NBA games, 6 Need For Speed games, 5 Call of Duty games...how many Wii U had of those games exactly.

You're actively not listening to what I'm saying.



Frogger on 21 December 2016
BraLoD said:
fleischr said:
The only logical explanations are:
1. Switch is probably more powerful than currently believed
2. All 3rd parties are in on some ruse to build up hype for the Switch only to disappoint us more than we ever were with the WiiU

3. The support they are supposedly offering is not for the new AAA stuff, but other less demanding stuff.

Skyrim on the Switch reveal was screaming it, it's a 2011 game, don't expect stuff like TES 6 or even Fallout 4 to hit the Switch, yet, with Skyrim (and Fallout 3/NV for example) they are effectively supporting it and thus on that list.

4. Switch is just really easy to port to regardless of power, and Nintendo convinced third parties that there will be an audience for their games, AAA or otherwise, on Switch.



Teriol on 21 December 2016
BraLoD said:
fleischr said:
The only logical explanations are:
1. Switch is probably more powerful than currently believed
2. All 3rd parties are in on some ruse to build up hype for the Switch only to disappoint us more than we ever were with the WiiU

3. The support they are supposedly offering is not for the new AAA stuff, but other less demanding stuff.

Skyrim on the Switch reveal was screaming it, it's a 2011 game, don't expect stuff like TES 6 or even Fallout 4 to hit the Switch, yet, with Skyrim (and Fallout 3/NV for example) they are effectively supporting it and thus on that list.

The only thing Skyrim special Edition has in common with the Skyrym from 5 years ago is the name... if you look a little deeper you will see is a remaster that includes all graphical effects and techniques of this generation, five years ago it barely run on the ps360, sub 20 f`ps, 90% of the efets turn off, the ps360 where too weak to run the game, now we are talking a game graphically redesign to be a moder game, on ps4 Xone it barelly runs at 30 fps, so please stop repeating the same mantra "skyrim is a 5 year old game" it only has the same name, graphically it is a 2016 new game.



34 years playing games.

 

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Frogger on 21 December 2016
BraLoD said:
spemanig said:

4. Switch is just really easy to port to regardless of power, and Nintendo convinced third parties that there will be an audience for their games on Switch.

Easy to port games with 3x less power than the XBO? Doesn't sound likely.

I don't know, dude. There's a lot of rumors saying the Switch is easy to develop for. Even Patcher said he's heard that it was the easiest out of the three. With Switch supporting UE4, Open GL, and Vulkan, with it using a more modern architecture than both PS4 and XBO, with it having the amount of ram that it has and the CPU it apparently, maybe that's all contributed to a system that's really easy to downport to.

Square was able to downport Tomb Raider 2 to 360 with what seems like relative ease, and that's supposed to be one of the prettiest games of this generation. Switch would surely be astronomically easier to develop games for than 360. Maybe that's the trick here.



DélioPT on 21 December 2016
fleischr said:
DélioPT said:
It's not like they are fully onboard too.
We don't exactly the level of support that is coming. That's something we'll find out in January.

About them actually being there. Well, many things can explain that: better deals; ports being more simple/costing less; Switch being both attractive to console gamers and handheld gamers.

Again, we don't really know what kind of support Nintendo is getting from western 3rd parties.
Actually, what matters the most is how well it does on Switch so more games can keep coming.

Power becomes secondary if you see that money can be made on a platform.
If that happens, then you can bet ports will come even if they are the worst looking ones.

But here's the thing, bad ports usually make bad sales - regardless of whether you're in the heights of WiiU success or the pits of WiiU lows.

it's a waste of developers time better spent on making games better.

Worst looking ports doesn't equal bad ports.
I agree that bad ports might lead to bad sales, but if all that's "bad" about them are the lower graphics, i don't think that will be too much of a problem.

As long as Switch consumers are treated to the same game, i think gamers will tolerate that much.



Frogger on 21 December 2016
BraLoD said:
spemanig said:

I don't know, dude. There's a lot of rumors saying the Switch is easy to develop for. Even Patcher said he's heard that it was the easiest out of the three. With Switch supporting UE4, Open GL, and Vulkan, with it using a more modern architecture than both PS4 and XBO, with it having the amount of ram that it has and the CPU it apparently, maybe that's all contributed to a system that's really easy to downport to.

Square was able to downport Tomb Raider 2 to 360 with what seems like relative ease, and that's supposed to be one of the prettiest games of this generation. Switch would surely be astronomically easier to develop games for than 360. Maybe that's the trick here.

Yeah... Patcher... xP
I mean, maybe it is in fact easier, can be, but if it just lacks the power to do so, there is no magic to solve it, either there will be big compromisses to make it available on it, or it just won't be done, and later is most likely the case.
Devs can make console games fit handhelds, the Gameboy had several ports with insanely less power, but the games were completely changed, pretty much like DQ11 is doing to fit on the 3DS, it's the same game that you'll play on the PS4? Definitely no, but... it also is.

If it's not really at least close to the XBO power, I don't see most devs bringing their games to it, too much trouble, too many compromisses, too little to be gotten back (most likely).

I mean, the "let down" specs has is at better than Wii U when in portable mode, so it should definitely be stronger than 360.

I'm not saying there won't be big compromises. That's why I referenced Tomb Raider 2 on 360. It preserves the original game in its entirety in gameplay, scope and cinematics. It just doesn't look at good. Maybe the "secret sauce" is that Nintendo made a system that it's extremely easy to do that to for just about any current gen game.

To aide with that further might be subnative resolutions in handheld mode. We know that the difference between portable mode and console mode is a resolution jump and not much else, meaning the game will be pretty much identical in all other respects between the two modes. So 720p in portable mode and 1080p in console mode.

Let's use RoTR again. Square was able to get it to run on 360 hardware at 720p looking the way it does. Most people speculate that Switch will be more powerful than that in portable mode. What if, instead of running at 720p in portable mode, the same game targeted 540p in portable mode? Obviously on a big screen that would be absurd (I wouldn't care but I digress), but for such a small screen it would be much more acceptable, and the game would be able to use all those resources to make the game look graphically closer to the XBO version, just with a serious drop in resolution rather than in assets.

Then, when docked, you take that version and boost it up to 720p instead of 1080p. Outside of clarity, a game will look better when targeting lower resolutions. That might be the strategy here. PS4 games target 1080p, XBO games target 900p, and Switch games target 720p when docked/540p when undocked.



AngryLittleAlchemist on 21 December 2016

Thats a good way of thinking about it spem

I guess the real question is : compared to the 360, how much more powerful is the switch wgen docked and undocked? Surely the Vulkan support and easier development contributes to that estimate. The newer architecture should contribute as well. Tge Wii U SEEMED to be at least 2-3x more powerful, just with terrible architecture. However, im not really sure of that math adds up. Even if a Switch is """""only""""" comparable to a overclocked Wii U on the go, its still easier to develop for. So would it be 6-8x more powerful than 360 docked????

I think the real problem here is that consoles have to maje giant leaps in technology to look marg8nally better. A PS4 game looks much better than a 360 gane, but the amount of improbements needed to make that happen are huge. I. other words, even if the Switch is 8x more powerful than a 360 docked( thats a high estimate and im probably wrong on that ine, but when you consider architecture it might maje it so) it would still look like a PS3.75 game. Or maybe PS3.85. Or just a slightly downgraded ps4 version(hopefully)


And ya, if the graphics on Switch arent a HUGE noticable downgrade, than the ports with such easy dev will be fine. Dont forget the Switch OS will probably be less taxing than the PS4's. Then again...if theres only 4gb of ram that might not matter.



AngryLittleAlchemist on 21 December 2016

Sorry for the terrible typing, Phones are hard.

Cant wait till I can rant on these forumns....ON THE NINTENDO SWITCH