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Reggie on why Red Dead Redemption 2 skipped the Nintendo Switch
- Thread starter vestan
- Start date
It baffles me that Rockstat Games won't try to port Grand Theft Auto V to Switch. Just let Panic Button do the job. Even without GTA Online it would sell millions.
I'll have you know that I'm somewhat of an expert at backseat advising.
Uh, no. DOOM is a corridor shooter that runs at 60 FPS on regular consoles. RDR2 is an open-world game that struggles to run at 30 FPS on regular consoles. RDR2 is far more demanding on CPU, GPU and memory.
People seem to think that any game can be ported to Switch. That's not reality.
I'm impressed how he managed to answer that. Of course the real reason is hardware, but he can't give that answer obviously. He spun it in a way that would make sense to the casual reader, they might buy it. Because it's probably an actual reason for some other games.
his lumbago meter fills as you fight and when it's full he just fucking leaves the game
Don't forget the audio, they'd have to compress it to shit.
On a current Switch it obviously would have to be basically rebuilt from the ground up which is more trouble than its worth.
If a "Switch Pro" is for real and lets say 3x the current Switch performance ... then OK, maybe. RDR2 on XB1 is a 88GB download, but lets say they optimized that to get it to 75GB. Physical version is lets say 32GB cart + rest is required download.
Lets assume a "Pro" Switch has 128GB on board flash (it is after all a "Pro" model), that means you could fit RDR2 (digital) + Smash Ultimate + Mario Kart 8 + DOOM + Splatoon 2 on your internal memory alone ... that's not too bad. If you buy physical you could throw in a couple more games to your internal storage without touching any SD Card storage.
If a "Switch Pro" is for real and lets say 3x the current Switch performance ... then OK, maybe. RDR2 on XB1 is a 88GB download, but lets say they optimized that to get it to 75GB. Physical version is lets say 32GB cart + rest is required download.
Lets assume a "Pro" Switch has 128GB on board flash (it is after all a "Pro" model), that means you could fit RDR2 (digital) + Smash Ultimate + Mario Kart 8 + DOOM + Splatoon 2 on your internal memory alone ... that's not too bad. If you buy physical you could throw in a couple more games to your internal storage without touching any SD Card storage.
They already have a streaming service for the Switch (in Japan, at least, they released RE7 on it), which could run RDR2.
But I guess Nintendo doesn't have the datacenter presence to offer this worldwide, so not worth porting to for Rockstar.
Should be doable.
Or you know what, do RDR1 on Switch. That'd be pretty great, too.
This. Up until now the 3rd party Switch support seems to be based (most of the time) on older titles or titles which are already 60fps on the PS4 / Xbox One.
This way the developers can decrease both the resolution and the framerate, as well as some details here and there, to make it work on Switch.
Games that already run at 30fps on the PS4 / Xbox One are just not doable on the Switch. At least that's what it seems like.
Got some numbers?
As has been pointed out, this isn't about frame rate, otherwise the Crash port couldn't happened.
Who knows what they could have done if they really wanted, but i don't think RDR2 was going to be a playable game on Switch (i mean, have at least 25 fps on average) unless it was scaled down to GTA V level graphics.
The only way this would work would be if there was a streaming version (a la Resident Evil VII and AC Odyssey). Making a version that actually ran on Switch would be far more trouble than it's worth: at the very least, you'd need to redo all the textures in lower res, redo all the models and world assets in lower-poly, compress the audio for the sake of space (though you'd still need to download a colossal amount even if bought physical), make serious compromises to the physics/animation system and god knows what else under the hood. It is simply not worth it, even if sales of the Switch version were comparable to the PS4/XB1 versions. You'd have to redo the entire game.
Perhaps the Switch 2 will get a decent port of RDR2 someday, after Rockstar makes the inevitable PS5 and XB2 versions.
Perhaps the Switch 2 will get a decent port of RDR2 someday, after Rockstar makes the inevitable PS5 and XB2 versions.
It took them a long time to embrace online multiplayer, I'm not confident they could roll this out properly at the level required.
*Maybe* decrease resolution.
Not really. They would have to dial back on so many things that make RDR2 RDR2.
Switch's best bet would be streaming it.
Very slow game too, so it really lends itself well to being streamed.
I don't think the sacrifice to get it running on Switch would be worth it. I would still love to see it be attempted, just to see how it ended up. Many thought DOOM was impossible but they did a good job with what they had but RDR2 is a whole new category. I think it's possibly too big for Switch to deal with without heavy sacrifices.
The only system this game needs to go on right now is the PC. It is hard to even come up with graphics enhancements from the 1X. I can only think of 2 that would really make the game pop insane visuals.
I think you are underestimating the optimization efforts in terms of performance when it comes to Rockstar. A game not running locked every time or that has some bugs does not mean it is not optimized.
Well if you implying that Switch power is reason why GTA V is still not on Switch, you are wrong.
Interesting take, yeah, if they really want RDR2 they could downgrade enough so it could run on Switch,
but with point that they still didnt port even GTAV (that wouldnt had any problem runing on Switch) expecting RDR2 port for Switch would be crazy.
It's 100% fine if RDR2 is not on Switch, the real question is: where is GTA V?
That game released literally everywhere and sold huge numbers on every platforms, and if a game like Skyrim did good then GTA V would be huge on Switch as well.
And power definitively is not a problem right there, si Nintendo come on!
That game released literally everywhere and sold huge numbers on every platforms, and if a game like Skyrim did good then GTA V would be huge on Switch as well.
And power definitively is not a problem right there, si Nintendo come on!
Can you give some more detailed examples how its more complex? Having much stats for example isnt really that demanding at least.
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That's a nice way of saying our system has no hope in running this game so that's why it's not on it.
Problem with the streaming route is the latency it introduces. There are already plenty of complaints about the unresponsive controls when playing locally, add on another ~70ms of lag and that could be a major problem. Even streaming isn't an ideal situation for all games yet.
It's debatable if they could get RDR1 to run on the Switch. Even if they could, there's no way they would be able to get the simulations, draw distance, AI, etc. to work on that CPU.
I'm not sure if GTAV is even possible. The remastered version still runs at 30fps on current gen consoles, indicating that the game could be CPU bound. The Jaguar chips are pretty underpowered by today's standard but they are still more capable than the CPU in the Switch.
Crash appearing on the Switch doesn't prove anything though. It was a remaster of a game designed to run on the PS1. Even with all this in mind, the cut backs were still pretty severe on the Switch. Even with these cut backs there are still performance issues we don't see on other platforms.
Are you just assuming these games are possible on the Switch or do you know something we don't. Especially when talking about RDR2, they would have to strip away so much that it would end up being a different game in many regards.
Problem with the streaming route is the latency it introduces. There are already plenty of complaints about the unresponsive controls when playing locally, add on another ~70ms of lag and that could be a major problem. Even streaming isn't an ideal situation for all games yet.
It's debatable if they could get RDR1 to run on the Switch. Even if they could, there's no way they would be able to get the simulations, draw distance, AI, etc. to work on that CPU.
I'm not sure if GTAV is even possible. The remastered version still runs at 30fps on current gen consoles, indicating that the game could be CPU bound. The Jaguar chips are pretty underpowered by today's standard but they are still more capable than the CPU in the Switch.
Crash appearing on the Switch doesn't prove anything though. It was a remaster of a game designed to run on the PS1. Even with all this in mind, the cut backs were still pretty severe on the Switch. Even with these cut backs there are still performance issues we don't see on other platforms.
Are you just assuming these games are possible on the Switch or do you know something we don't. Especially when talking about RDR2, they would have to strip away so much that it would end up being a different game in many regards.
World persistence. There can be lots and lots of tamed dinosaurs and player-made objects that have to stay in the world in a consistent way. Many objects are destructible. The creatures around are persistent, as are all the objects.
The game logic has to be ready to keep up with this, and account for dozens of players on a single map that can be doing all those things at once. The engine can't easily flush things from memory, because many things are persistent and destructible, down to rocks you can pick up.
From what I see it doesn't succeed very well at this, being buggy and such, but the reason it's so buggy is because it's essentially Minecraft with modern graphics, and that's ambitious.
This (And very poor optimization) is probably also the reason it's the most demanding game out there.
In any case my point here is not to debate the merits of the game, but to say that it's much more demanding than RDR 2. Whether how demanding it is on every platform is justified or not is not my problem, the point is that it is. So RDR 2, being a lot less demanding and running a lot better on every platform, would also run a lot better on the Switch.
His point is that development started before they knew about the Switch, so obviously they could never plan to make the game for it. If Rockstar wanted the game to be on the Switch, they would have planned RDR2 entirely around the idea that it would have to run on all currently available consoles. Therefore, it would not be the RDR2 it is today, but it would be one that could run on the Switch, graphical compromises included.
No, I am talking about his excuse of time. If they Rockstar were interested in switch port, we should have seen GTAV on switch by now.
A RDR2 Switch port would obviously have to be gimped to run on Switch, but could also be a significant upgrade over RDR1 if Rockstar was willing to scale the dedicated resources with what they did for having the game on other plateforms.
That being said, the issues with cart size would remain.
Personally, I don't really care. I played the game nearly 10 hours before admitting to myself that I was just not having fun at all. But I certainly hope that ambitious games by thrid parties will also be release on Switch in the future.
It's been heavily hinted (by Vern, if I recall) that the port was shelved or cancelled due to the cart size issues.
That being said, the issues with cart size would remain.
Personally, I don't really care. I played the game nearly 10 hours before admitting to myself that I was just not having fun at all. But I certainly hope that ambitious games by thrid parties will also be release on Switch in the future.
It's been heavily hinted (by Vern, if I recall) that the port was shelved or cancelled due to the cart size issues.