This. It takes more than 3 minutes to make a AAA game in 2018.
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From a business perspective, I am flabbergasted at the lack of Switch support from big 3rd parties
- Thread starter choodi
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This. It takes more than 3 minutes to make a AAA game in 2018.
Yeah I never worry about Japan lol. The system sold 3 million in less than a year which is half of PS4 but the PS4 has been out for more than 4 times as long. We are already seeing big Japanese support and it's pretty obvious it's only gonna get better. I prefer playing big JRPGs on handheld so I hope I get as much as possible on there.
But that's what I mean, just porting games from Playstation and Xbox will, as you say, just produce games that come off as massively compromised and inferior versions. A much better scenario is to make games that are specifically tailored for the platform. this isn't to say that ports don't have a place too though. Doom and Skyrim both look and run fine but my worry is that when next gen comes the difference will be even more pronounced.
Okay you're ragging on Doom, which is a Herculean port of a modern PS4/Xbone/PC game, yet you're calling a port of LA Noire an attempt at a real effort, a port of a very old PS3 game.
Right, okay.
What have I not read and understood?
In both of these posts you're talking about AA games, family-friendly games, older ports and new and exclusive titles coming to Switch. There has been precious little of any of these announced for the Switch so far, so I don't see the reason for the condescension in your post.
As it stands, we have the current market leading console flying off the shelves in Japan, Europe and North America and the announced support from the leading third party publishers has been anaemic at best and non-existent at worst.
Talk as much as you want about the third party publishers already making billions, but I have yet to meet a shareholder that says, "You know what? We already made enough money this year, let's not bother supporting the current market leader."
Personally, I'm not so invested in one platform that I refuse to buy others. I have a PS4 and am happy with it. I don't port beg and I understand the different market conditions that mean certain games are never going to come to the Switch. However, when you look at the market and see a clear runaway success like the Switch and then look at the announced support from pretty much all of the major third parties, you have to say that they are missing a massive opportunity.
If anyone wants to think this is another fanboy port begging rant, then that's fine, go ahead and think that, but it was intended as a frank discussion about what I see as a massive missed business opportunity by publishers all around the world.
Maybe if you port them from a PS3/360 to much more powerful systems like thePS4/XBO.
Getting good results on Switch when porting current.gen titles takes time, effort and a lot of optimization.
People are quick to call devs lazy and dismiss low effort ports - the fact that many pubs/devs are taking their time to deliver their A game on Switch even if takes more time is reassuring. Its not a dumping ground for b-rank spin-off on popular IPs nobody wants like the Wii.
I mean, they have been doing the maximum they can to quickly release games to it (ports). Third parties that never were on board with Nintendo systems (Bethesda, Rockstar) have been releasing games to it now.
Considering Nintendo's history with third parties and the Wii U, it's no surprise that they had nothing planned for the system for the first year, hence the ports. We'll see from now on what happens.
Considering Nintendo's history with third parties and the Wii U, it's no surprise that they had nothing planned for the system for the first year, hence the ports. We'll see from now on what happens.
In terms of Japan I'd agree but things are already starring to ramp up on that front, I'd imagine the vast majority of games from Japan will be coming to the console by 2019 unless sales fall of a cliff. The Switch is never going to get full support from Western publishers though it's just not strong enough. Ports and sports alongside some interesting exclusives will probably continue to be released on the system though.
If you're a big publisher seeking big numbers, I think multi platform is where it's at, and making a high end AAA game work well on switch may not always be possible. It just needs to be the right game.
That said, I do think we'll see them. It takes time to develop things, and it's likely third parties had more reservations about the console prior to launch.
That said, I do think we'll see them. It takes time to develop things, and it's likely third parties had more reservations about the console prior to launch.
I dont think thats true - they are going to bring whatever possible to Switch if they can make money on the system. Its just that their business doesnt depend on Switch - PS/XB/PC will always be the core...well okay maybe not always but for the foreseeable future.
Its also true that it will be much more difficult to continue ignoring the system if we are at nearly 50m consoles sold in 2019 and software sales continue to be high. Pretty sure that shareholders at that point would ask about Switch support if companies had nothing planned for it. As you said...they want always more if possible.
Because most of the big 3rd parties are working on big AAA GaaS games.
Look at EA big game for this year anthem or Activision big games from last year .
It's not as simple to port the games big 3rd parties make now.
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First post nails it. Bigger budget games take time and need to be mapped out years in advance. The majority of the industry has also invested heavily in the PS4/XBO/PC generation of hardware and including a fourth platform that may or may not be able to handle your game can't be easy. Some studios in the industry could also be preparing for their next gen title, depending on where they are in their current project. That's one of the unfortunate drawbacks of Nintendo being on their own release schedule. For better or worse, the industry at large doesn't plan around their systems but instead focus more on the PS/Xbox/PC combo of platforms.
Uh, I know someone who works at a well known port house. They ported a big game to the Vita in 4-5 months....with a very small team.
It was a mess, but still, they got it done. ;)
Considering porting modern AAA games to the Switch takes a considerable amount of time & effort, how come Bethesda was there year 1? They have no real history of supporting Nintendo consoles (unlike, say, Capcom), yet they seem to have been more interested in the Switch than any other major third party, and way before them too. How did that happen?
(this is an honest question btw I realize it might sound like I'm trying to make some sort of point but I'm not, I'm legitimately curious!)
(this is an honest question btw I realize it might sound like I'm trying to make some sort of point but I'm not, I'm legitimately curious!)
Is that what Switch owners want? Token support of ports that are barely passable? I doubt it.
Thinking as an executive, what I really care is how much additional revenue will come from supporting the switch (minus additional development cost), which boils down the number of switch owners that don't own a PS4/Xbox/PC. Some executives might have a bad business history with Nintendo as third parties over the last 30 year. They might also care about having the best looking game that plays at 60 or 30 fps, which means either sacrifice the graphics on the more powerful console or put out a gimped game on the switch.
Did you even read the post I was responding to?
I didn't say that's what Switch owners want. I was simply pointing out big games can most certainly be ported to Switch in less than 6 months.
I made a point of saying "small team" for a reason. If they had devoted a handful of extra people it would have been done well in less than 6 months.
Nintendo agreed to publish their games and handle marketing.
Looking at AAA publishers, you've got plenty of indie/AA games, family friendly games, older ports and also new/exclusive titles coming to Switch. Ubisoft for example has Just Dance, Rayman, Starlink and Mario X Rabbids Kingdom Battle. They don't have their main live service AAA games for the reason I said. EA has FIFA 18 and Fe announced. Again, they don't have their live service AAA games. Take Two has LA Noire and NBA 2K18. Activision has Skylanders. Bethesda has a bunch thanks to their partnership with Nintendo. You can expect more games in these categories in the future from them.
As I said, this isn't 2003/7 anymore when AAA publishers had 10's of AA games that they can just port over easily to any system. They focus on a handful of AAA Live Service games with a different audience focus and higher technical / network requirements.
Bringing those AAA live service games to Switch isn't going to yield as high a return as people think. Especially when the audience for those games aren't on Switch and when the game would need to make changes (that people will perceive negatively) to run on Switch. There are many reasons why those AAA live service games (outside of sports and racing) will likely never come to Switch in the future.
In the meantime, AAA pubs will bring the games over that they can to the system. Hence why EA is bringing Fe and FIFA. Why Ubisoft partnered with Nintendo for Mario x Rabbids. Why Take Two has LA Noire on the system.
Non AAA pubs that do have those types of games (Indie, AA, Family friendly) will bring them to Switch as they are. But this convo is about 'big' publishers as you stated. Could we see AAA pubs start to develop more mid tier games again? Sure, they could start doing that and I think Ubisoft is a good example of a pub that is experimenting in that direction with games like Starlink, as an example.
It is a fair question to be asked by investors and were, in fact, asked. Even more publishers will be asked this year if they do not have a clear plan in place. It has nothing to do with complaining..managements are expected to catch all opportunities perceived to be viable by institution investors.
If you were born in the late 90s, then yes, there have been controversies concerning third parties on Nintendo platforms your entire life.
So then, the Nintendo switch is the true successor to the Nintendo Wii?
It's going to suck reliving 2006 to 2012 again.
Yes they are, but after Wii U fail nobody really couldn't predict that Switch will be such a huge success so only few of them have some games in development for Switch 10 months ago. But now I am pretty sure that last few monts plenty of 3rd parites started working on Switch ports, so we will have much more 3rd party annulments in any case this years, espacily in 2H of 2018.
I have seen many fans of Nintendo claim Switch has phonemically and unprecedented success. i have some reservation on this.
My own 'business perspective' is unless the Switch, in its 1st year "significantly" outsell the first year sell of 3DS, Vita, and Wii U combined.
which according to wiki is 23 million. This is the theoretical size of Switch target audience
3DS = 15.03 million
Vita = 4 million
Wii U = 3.91 million
There are many different factors in play like
- price prints,
- unit volume availability
- competition
- launch games
~ 23 million ( no overlap )
~ 15 million ( overlap i.e. all Wii U owner buy Vita, and Vita owners all buy 3DS )
Wiki is reporting 10 million sales, which if I am an analyst will be a bit disappointing to be honest.
Given that its hardware portfolio has been reduced from ( console + portable ) to single hardware ( convertible )
and Switch has so many factors in its favor.
- acclaimed launch games,
- high volume of availability toward the end of year.
Probably Nintendo knows this and is gunning the "blue ocean" technology again.
The cardboard stuff that can help distinguish the switch from its main competitor ( iphone and android games )
i think switch is doing good, very healthy sales.
but i think its kidding yourself to think this is best thing since slice bread and it's doing fantastically-the-world-has-never-seen this before good
Probably nintendo fans got carry away because Nintendo is doing so much better than the Wii U
So ZhugeEx, what do you think ? the numbers are probably wrong. .. but that's my reasoning
No, the Switch is going to get more core focused third party support too. Not to mention every indie under the sun.
Just don't expect AAA live service games such as Destiny.
The Switch is doing great. You can compare it to past consoles if you want, but in today's market it's clear that Switch is a huge success.
That's right.
The question that the big publishers must answer for the switch is simple: How we make a billion dollar franchise in this system?
We can make it if we treat switch as a piece of the mobile strategy?
Develop AAA games with the old ways llike the ps360 era?
Bring AA projects and hope for the best?
Or they will see switch as the next steam, a new giant market that will make every software profitable but only so much?
It is a fact that the AAA games are not current available. But I am not sure about accracy of your statement claiming they will never come due to absence of audience or required effort for the platform. In fact, I think there is a good chance some will show up. It may be just a process that takes time.
I'd imagine it's a combination of tech specs and the online service not being any good at this point. Wolf 2 on the switch is going to be legit hilarious to see.
There will always be some exceptions of course, hence why I mentioned sports and racing as the two big categories. I guess the best way to think of it is to compare it to the number of live service AAA games that the PS4/XB1 get from the big 4.
But Bethesda had to have some interest in the Switch to begin with for that to happen, right? I guess my question is why was Bethesda interested at all when the Wii U was such a mess and they weren't known for being a steady Nintendo supporter, unlike other third parties.
While people can say its understandable and that hesitation or trepidation with a new Nintendo platform launch was well founded think about this - this is probably the first and only time ever on any platform where the best selling "third party" release in a 12 month period will be an indie game (Stardew Valley) and where indie games have likely cumulatively outsold major third party releases (that were not co-developed with Nintendo or have Nintendo characters in).
That is BONKERS
That is BONKERS
I would much prefer the glorious return of AA games rather than more ports of AAA games so I would be totally ok with that :).
And I agree : we can't compare the actual situation with what it used to be. Games budgets are much higher now, companies as a consequence have less ressources to port everything on every possible platforms. People seem to forget as well that support for the PS4 and Xone wasn't that great at all in their first year. IIRC Assassin's Creed Unity was the first next gen exclusive (except for specific deals with third parties like Dead Rising 3 or Rise), everything else were PS360 ports and it released almost one year after launch. It's riskier nowadays for third parties to support early a console so it takes more time for that to happen.
No offense to Stardew Valley (i love it on my switch) but the fact that the big 2 sports games (Fifa and NBA2k) didn't outsell it shows you why big AAA publishers are hesitant to get their games on switch.
100% agree with this. I think we'll see plenty of 3rd party support for the Switch, just not everything (specifically those big budget service games).
Haven't we already had some of our own insiders say people will be happy with 3rd party support in 2018 on the Switch? Give it until E3, everyone.
Again, a year isn't a very long time for ports, let alone original projects to gain traction at studios without the time, devteam and pipeline to handle it. It takes time to get a support system up and running and an increase in bodycount, and not every studio (yes even "AAA" ones) can afford this overnight porting system you're so sure exists.
Take a breath and read up on how game development works, because your initial premise is edging on "lazy devs territory".
Also, investors couldn't give a shit how fast the Switch is selling when there are currently 10x the amount of PS4/XB1's sitting in homes already they want pubs to be targeting. If there were already 80million switches out there already (and there very well might be in two or three years) and they were *still* ignoring it, you might have a point. But right now rush job ports wouldn't have the huge financial returns you're expecting- certainly not the ones they will have once there are even more Switches sitting out in the wild.
When AAA 3rd party games start selling better, there will be more AAA third party games.
I don't think you can really blame publishers for being gun-shy. Most of their lineup wasn't designed to be ported to tablet-class hardware, and companies that gambled on original productions for the WiiU got burned.
I don't think you can really blame publishers for being gun-shy. Most of their lineup wasn't designed to be ported to tablet-class hardware, and companies that gambled on original productions for the WiiU got burned.
If it helps it seems the third parties are flabbergasted by it too. No one saw it coming after Wii U.
This holiday you'll see if the EAs, Activisions of the world force out 10-12 month ports of upcoming 2018 titles.
This holiday you'll see if the EAs, Activisions of the world force out 10-12 month ports of upcoming 2018 titles.
Wait until E3.
If we don't see any improvement with the Switch still keeping this sales momentum, it will be an extremely stupid move from western third parties (they are just intentionally missing a market).
Japanese third parties are mostly already on board (Square Enix, Capcom, Level-5, Bandai Namco, NIS, Falcom through NIS,... they have already announced something important for the platform or they said they will announce something this year)
As many people already pointed, everyone had the rights to be skeptical about the Switch in 2017 after what happened with Wii U, and games takes time to develop.
E3 2018: i'm not pretending finished games but new announcements for sure.
If we don't see any improvement with the Switch still keeping this sales momentum, it will be an extremely stupid move from western third parties (they are just intentionally missing a market).
Japanese third parties are mostly already on board (Square Enix, Capcom, Level-5, Bandai Namco, NIS, Falcom through NIS,... they have already announced something important for the platform or they said they will announce something this year)
As many people already pointed, everyone had the rights to be skeptical about the Switch in 2017 after what happened with Wii U, and games takes time to develop.
E3 2018: i'm not pretending finished games but new announcements for sure.
This situation is pretty similar to the PS4/XB1 launch. The successful launch caught developers off guard and for the first couple of years the systems were inundated with last gen ports. Indie devs are much more flexible and able to get stuff out quicker than the AAA folks.
Give it a bit more time, you'll likely see a ton of stuff at e3.
Give it a bit more time, you'll likely see a ton of stuff at e3.
I just hope Nintendo concentrates on quality 3rd party titles, as a consumer of course.
Doom? Day one.
CoD? Might even never release if you ask me.
Doom? Day one.
CoD? Might even never release if you ask me.
I don't know... when I think of games outside of the COD / Destiny world, I may disagree with you here. Rocket League is a service game (thought not AAA... yet?) and I'm guessing they are VERY happy with it's performance on Switch. I have no doubt a service game like Overwatch (or any Blizzard game) would absolutely kill it on the system in terms of sales. Same goes for GTA Online.
Based on this logic, a 3rd party company that wasn't already developing for switch should have known immediately at launch that it would be a success and instantly developed a budget, decided what game they would port, created a team of people for the port who were probably already working on some other game for PS4/Xbox, and said port should have come out by now. Sounds simple enough.
Because reducing PS4/one games down to switch compatible is hard when more than just the graphics need to be reduced. The moment gameplay has to be sized down the overall design has to be reassessed. You are oversimplifying an industry where the actual work is highly technical and complex. From a business perspective it only makes sense if it was easy
I think the problem is most "current" games (as in PS4/Xbone) would be pretty difficult to port to Switch and get them running well. They will clearly be the most inferior version of the game, and it will take pretty decent effort. In that sense it IS a risk. Essentially, the only reason people would want to grab it is for portability, which IS really awesome but is it that awesome to enough people?
IMO, it'd be better for third party devs to show support by creating new games for the platform if they are going to have to put effort into it anyway. It's not like porting from PS4 to Xbone or the other way around.