Last week Ace Combat 7 made its way to the Switch, and according to Digital Foundry it is "one of the most impressive Switch ports we've tested", even besting the Xbox One version in some ways such as a higher resolution UI and a "just about faultless" 30fps compared to the unstable unlocked framerate on Xbone.

Naturally there are compromises as the Switch is less powerful overall, but according to DF, "in typical play though - especially when flying at a decent height - it can take some effort to distinguish the two consoles from a visual perspective."

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2024-ace-combat-7-is-one-of-the-most-impressive-switch-ports-weve-ever-tested

The original game was quite demanding on 8th gen home consoles, so it's nice to see that it holds up well on Nintendo's now 7 year old system.

Another feather in the cap for the crowd that believes that the Switch didn't need a mid-gen refresh, just developers willing to put the time and effort into making games run well on it.

I'm in that crowd.

Also another feather in the cap of the crowd that asks why people think third-party games don't sell on Switch when the Switch keeps getting these tentpole third-party games that aren't half-assed rush jobs that obviously took time and effort.

I'm also in that crowd, and while I'm not going to name names in this post, you know who you are.

Different  games, with different engine and goals scale differntly to different hardware. I honeslty dont understand why this game struggled on 8th gen systems as it doesn't look overly impressive  based on the footage i just saw, regardless a good job by the port team but this doesn't make the port team that did the xbox one version look good considering the power difference, might as well have locked at 30fps and just make the graphics much better.

Agreed, ports like this show how important talent and optimization are; the same game could've been an ugly mess in the wrong hands given how demanding it is on much stronger hardware. Hell, the Switch even bests the Xbox One version in some areas like having a 1080p HUD and a more consistent framerate.

And yeah if ports like this didn't sell they would've stopped long ago, like they did with Wii U. I'll be grabbing this one myself; never played an Ace Combat game before but it looks really good.

So a port coming a 5 years later proves something?  Honestly it doesn't prove anything other then they just had free time on there hands and decided to port to see if to worth it probably do get audience for switch 2 maybe I don't know, they should have ported it 2 years later max. as for the port it slightly closer to most ports ps4 vs switch but the Xbox port seems pretty bad. I'm not seeing anything that proves devs don't put effort in switch ports considering the power difference. 

Did the Switch become a more capable and powerful system than the Xbox One in the past five years? And do you honestly think that's how game development works, that devs just screw around and port fully optimized games for consoles in their free time, and then they go to the publisher and hand off the code to the publisher if they get around to finishing it and say, "You can put this out if you want to, not like we care."?

With the insane workloads and man hours game devs are putting in around the rest of the industry, it sure sounds like those folks at Project Aces have it good.

This game could have been ported at  launch or years ago, why wait 5 years to just port when switch is at the end of it's life cycle. it honestly makes little sense, developer tools  have gotten much better since then thats for sure, so it could have been easy port job no one really knows. I don't get your switch being more powerful then xbox one comment, it was just a bad port job on xbox one and this version just confirms that even more.

Main point here is companies have port teams and budgets some games engines will be way more difficult to port then others and some teams will be more skilled or familiar with the hardware it's not that they don't put no effort which is basically a insult to the port team, unless the hardware is way more powerful and it runs like crap  on much weaker hardware then you can't really blame them. I doubt namco is gonna put way more effort then devs porting day 1 or near release, because those will get way more sales. This game is sent to die.

The game that was sent out to die was the second best selling game in Japan in its launch week, only bested by Luigi's Mansion 2 HD: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/07/japanese-charts-ace-combat-7-skies-unknown-gets-off-to-a-flying-start

Other late-in-life Switch ports are outselling their other console counterparts in the UK as well: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/07/uk-charts-switch-games-take-up-eight-of-the-top-ten

And before you claim that it's mainly games that got a later Switch port so they'd therefore sell better because they haven't reached their saturation on that specific console, see that games that launched at the same time as other versions like Mortal Kombat 1 and EA Sports FC 24 are most popular on Switch.

So no, games aren't being sent out to die.

I ma pretty sure the game was scheduled to come out a few years ago on Switch, but then it vanished from my preorder list. So late or not late I don't care was an instant purchase for me.

Glad to see it ended up a decent port.

So selling 14k in japan where switch dominates is impressive its first week? next week it wont even be on the chart most likely. you are using a week worth of sales as data ponts? last time i checked fifa on switch was doing like 3% of total sales WW or less. trust me if the switch was moving that much thirdparty devs wouldn't wait 5 years to port game that doesn't seem like a difficult  port compared to the more demanding games that have been ported.

Looking at the platform split for FC 24's launch, PS5 has taken the lion's share of sales at 53%, Xbox Series X/S manages 20%, PS4 17%, and finally, Switch makes up the remaining 9%. It's a similar story for Mortal Kombat 1, too, which managed to snatch the silver this week following its number-one debut. Here, PS5 once again comes out on top at 80%, Xbox Series X/S at 14%, and Switch at 5%.