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Forums - Nintendo - Hogwarts Legacy website lists Switch version

Agente42 on 18 March 2022
IcaroRibeiro said:
Vodacixi said:

I don't think that was incompetence. Just pure, unadulterated... greed.

Well, and maybe a bit of incompetence too.

It's neither. It's laziness and lack of vision and trust about Switch-only owners. 

KH3 is another story but porting a collection of a bunch of PS2/PSP/3DS games is a breeze and wold sell consistently better than a cloud version

Square is likely to think the only people really interested in KH are playing on PlayStation. Seems a common misconception studios have that Switch gamers only play Nintendo games but I digress 

An action Disney RPG? Nintendo have history of good disney sales and exclusivity disney games( Epic Mickey it´s one big example). It´s pure ideology, is´n disbelief.



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UnderwaterFunktown on 18 March 2022
IcaroRibeiro said:
Vodacixi said:

I don't think that was incompetence. Just pure, unadulterated... greed.

Well, and maybe a bit of incompetence too.

It's neither. It's laziness and lack of vision and trust about Switch-only owners. 

KH3 is another story but porting a collection of a bunch of PS2/PSP/3DS games is a breeze and wold sell consistently better than a cloud version

Square is likely to think the only people really interested in KH are playing on PlayStation. Seems a common misconception studios have that Switch gamers only play Nintendo games but I digress 

Square: *Puts PS2 iso files on Switch cartridge*

*Doesn't work*

Square: "Well, I'm out of ideas."

Spoiler!
Really though, it's not as if Square is incompetent at Switch ports as several FF games and especially DQ XI show, so it's hard to imagine how porting KH games was too much of a challenge.


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UnderwaterFunktown on 18 March 2022
Hiku said:

Based on what I saw, this would seem like a very impressive accomplishment if they got it on Switch natively.
So it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

SKMBlake said:

Yeah but you never got any box art for any cloud game, nor Amazon placeholders.

No, this shows again how incompetent Square was with Kingdom Hearts.

IcaroRibeiro said:

It's neither. It's laziness and lack of vision and trust about Switch-only owners. 

KH3 is another story but porting a collection of a bunch of PS2/PSP/3DS games is a breeze and wold sell consistently better than a cloud version

Square is likely to think the only people really interested in KH are playing on PlayStation. Seems a common misconception studios have that Switch gamers only play Nintendo games but I digress 

The main issue with the original KH games is that Square Enix lost all the source codes for the old games.
They were made back in the day when the companies probably didn't even consider that they would one day need it again, so those old harddrives were wiped.

So what they did was reverse engineer the games just based on the discs.
But if they don't have the original source code, the best they can find on the discs is information that tells the game how to run on a PS2.

Even porting a game like that to PS3 would be very time consuming, because they would have to re-write a lot of the code. It may even be more difficult than programming the original game.

Porting the PS3 game to PS4 and XBO probably required a lot less effort because they use similar coding language, but Switch's coding language is very different, which is a big reason why so many games are either not ported over at all, or arrive late.

The indie developer of Eiyuuden Chronicles expressed that they may not make a Switch version because they'd essentially have to re-code the whole thing for it.

That's how they feel when they have the source code of the game. Now imagine this process when you don't even have the source code, but rather a frankenstein version you reverse engineered to make all the parts move the way they are supposed to, on PS3.

Ahh, I wondered if this might have been the case. But it makes me wonder exactly how those other ports were made if they only had the compiled game, especially PC and Xbox.

Edit: As a side note I seem to remember that they also lost the code to FF8 and yet they managed to salvage that enough to "remaster" it for modern systems including Switch. So it's certainly not impossible, but it does of course complicate things.

Last edited by UnderwaterFunktown - on 18 March 2022

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Vodacixi on 18 March 2022
IcaroRibeiro said:
Vodacixi said:

I don't think that was incompetence. Just pure, unadulterated... greed.

Well, and maybe a bit of incompetence too.

It's neither. It's laziness and lack of vision and trust about Switch-only owners. 

KH3 is another story but porting a collection of a bunch of PS2/PSP/3DS games is a breeze and wold sell consistently better than a cloud version

Square is likely to think the only people really interested in KH are playing on PlayStation. Seems a common misconception studios have that Switch gamers only play Nintendo games but I digress 

That would make sense... if they didn't put the games on Xbox, a market with literally 0 KH tradition. On contrast, KH is fairly popular among Nintendo fans. CoM, Days and DDD all sold very well on their respective platforms. Pretty much as good as BbS did on the PSP. MoM sold better on Switch than on PS4 in Japan and I don't think the story is much different on the west.

There's certainly a market for the series on the Switch. And Square Enix knows it. That's why they are releasing the entire franchise on the console. That's 7 games in total and a bunch of movies/cutscenes. How do we make this in the easiest and most profitable way?

A normal release? Nah, too much work and money. Not only you have to port the games, you have to put them in (somewhat expensive) game carts and distribute them to the stores. And considering that 1.5 + 2.5 is a 50GB game... we either spend more effort into reducing that size or we go for a ridiculously expensive cart. No way.

A digital only release? Hmm, we are getting somewhere now. No distribution, no need to worry about expensive carts. Yeah, that's something. But... can we do it even cheaper...?

Oh, yes we can.

A cloud version. We save on porting all those 7 games entirely (all of them need optimization and tweaks, even 1.5 + 2.5 and DDD), which would be quite a bit of money even if 5 of them are based on old games. And best of all: we can charge ridiculous prices that will be almost entirely pure benefits thanks to not developing shit. They only thing we have to spend money on are the servers, which will be cheap and crappy, delivering even worse performance than the PS3 version of the collection. Even if it somehow bombs due to negative reception, we can almost certainly guarantee we don't lose any money or even win some. It's perfect.

In the end I think it's a combination of everything we all said. It's incompetence, is lazyness, is greed... All in all, KH on Switch is the result of every single bad thing a videogame company could do.

But I'm getting carried away. This is about Hogwart's Legacy. A very ambitious AAA open world game that unlike certain HD collection will have an actual native Switch version. That we should celebrate (as long as it ends up being a decent product).



Vodacixi on 18 March 2022
Hiku said:

Based on what I saw, this would seem like a very impressive accomplishment if they got it on Switch natively.
So it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

SKMBlake said:

Yeah but you never got any box art for any cloud game, nor Amazon placeholders.

No, this shows again how incompetent Square was with Kingdom Hearts.

IcaroRibeiro said:

It's neither. It's laziness and lack of vision and trust about Switch-only owners. 

KH3 is another story but porting a collection of a bunch of PS2/PSP/3DS games is a breeze and wold sell consistently better than a cloud version

Square is likely to think the only people really interested in KH are playing on PlayStation. Seems a common misconception studios have that Switch gamers only play Nintendo games but I digress 

The main issue with the original KH games is that Square Enix lost all the source codes for the old games.
They were made back in the day when the companies probably didn't even consider that they would one day need it again, so those old harddrives were wiped.

So what they did was reverse engineer the games just based on the discs.
But if they don't have the original source code, the best they can find on the discs is information that tells the game how to run on a PS2.

Even porting a game like that to PS3 would be very time consuming, because they would have to re-write a lot of the code. It may even be more difficult than programming the original game.

Porting the PS3 game to PS4 and XBO probably required a lot less effort because they use similar coding language, but Switch's coding language is very different, which is a big reason why so many games are either not ported over at all, or arrive late.

The indie developer of Eiyuuden Chronicles expressed that they may not make a Switch version because they'd essentially have to re-code the whole thing for it.

That's how they feel when they have the source code of the game. Now imagine this process when you don't even have the source code, but rather a frankenstein version you reverse engineered to make all the parts move the way they are supposed to, on PS3.

Three words: Ni No Kuni



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Wman1996 on 20 March 2022

A version of Hogwarts Legacy running on Switch will push the platform to its limits. I expected a cloud version, but apparently not.

It's funny because I was a bit surprised when the game was confirmed to be cross-gen at all because I can see the Xbox One/PS4 versions running a lot worse than ninth-gen platforms. But I couldn't have imagined the game running natively on Switch hardware. But I suppose the Wizarding World is such a cash cow that they find releasing the game on Switch worth the investment.



Lifetime Sales Predictions 

Switch: 161 million (was 73 million, then 96 million, then 113 million, then 125 million, then 144 million, then 151 million, then 156 million)

PS5: 122 million (was 105 million, then 115 million) Xbox Series X/S: 38 million (was 60 million, then 67 million, then 57 million. then 48 million. then 40 million)

Switch 2: 120 million (was 116 million)

PS4: 120 mil (was 100 then 130 million, then 122 million) Xbox One: 51 mil (was 50 then 55 mil)

3DS: 75.5 mil (was 73, then 77 million)

"Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind." - Guru Laghima

JWeinCom on 20 March 2022
Wman1996 said:

A version of Hogwarts Legacy running on Switch will push the platform to its limits. I expected a cloud version, but apparently not.

It's funny because I was a bit surprised when the game was confirmed to be cross-gen at all because I can see the Xbox One/PS4 versions running a lot worse than ninth-gen platforms. But I couldn't have imagined the game running natively on Switch hardware. But I suppose the Wizarding World is such a cash cow that they find releasing the game on Switch worth the investment.

The thing about ports is that they're pretty much always possible. Doom can run on a pregnancy test. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1gcoyo5Ssk

It's just a matter of if they think it will be worth the money and effort. Considering the size of the Harry Potter audience, the demographics of its fans, the demographics of the Switch, and the success of the Switch, it's not all that surprising to me. I think they could probably get it running on 360 and remain fairly faithful if they were so inclined.



AJNShelton on 20 March 2022
Wman1996 said:

A version of Hogwarts Legacy running on Switch will push the platform to its limits. I expected a cloud version, but apparently not.

It's funny because I was a bit surprised when the game was confirmed to be cross-gen at all because I can see the Xbox One/PS4 versions running a lot worse than ninth-gen platforms. But I couldn't have imagined the game running natively on Switch hardware. But I suppose the Wizarding World is such a cash cow that they find releasing the game on Switch worth the investment.

The game is being developped since 2017, the PS4/One versions and the Switch version make total sense



Vodacixi on 20 March 2022

I REALLY hope it turns out to be a good experience. If a game has a Switch version, that's the one I'm playing. I spend two hours a day on a train in order to go to university and back home. Between the classes and working at home its been months since I had time to sit down and have a long gaming session on my PS4 Pro.

So playing on the trains is my only reliable way of gaming nowadays. You guys have no idea how happy I was when they confirmed this version xD



Azzanation on 20 March 2022

I am not suprised. The Switch uses one of the best efficient APIs in the industry. I am not a Potter fan but this game does look like what id expect a Fable game to be in the future.