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Reggie on why Red Dead Redemption 2 skipped the Nintendo Switch
- Thread starter vestan
- Start date
I don't think it's a coincidence that the current gen games we see smashed down to switch are hardy, gameplay-focused games. Stuff like doom, Diablo, Warframe and fortnite can easily suffer a big graphical downgrade and come out the other end essentially undiminished.
Yep, those type of things are the best candidate for ports.
Things like RDR2 are heavily graphics and story driven and just lose a ton of the experience of downgraded to run on a less powerful system. I mean I loved RDR2 despite finding the gameplay pretty meh. I wouldn't have liked it nearly as much playing on the small Switch screen if I was a portable gamer or playing a majorly graphically downgraded version on the TV in docked mode.
These cinematic, narrative driven games need to be played on top consoles (or ideally PC) on a nice, big TV to fully enjoy them IMO. That said, I'm all for ports where possible for those who only play on portables and/or don't care as much about the visual part of the experience to still have access. I'd never buy the games there, but I'm all for as wide an audience as possible to have access to masterpieces.
He's technically not wrong.
Rockstar designed a game with way stronger specs given the information they had on potential platforms. Technically, they could have adjusted the scope to accommodate the Switch's hardware, but we wouldn't have gotten the same game that exists today.
Rockstar designed a game with way stronger specs given the information they had on potential platforms. Technically, they could have adjusted the scope to accommodate the Switch's hardware, but we wouldn't have gotten the same game that exists today.
Saying that RDR2 isn't on Switch because of Rockstars schedule is dishonest. Because Rockstars schedule has nothing to do with there not being a Switch version.
That excuse would make sense if the Switch was technically capable of running RDR2, but since it isn't its dishonest nonsense.
it's not "a bit stronger than wii u". it's significant stronger. wii u never ran doom 2016 with that crappy cpu and 1gb of ram. switch is a half generation ahead and also supports current features and engines. you'll see it in the next future.
Some of you people...
Rockstar isn't the kind of developer to let their games be limited by hardware and designing the game for the Switch is limiting their scope. It just wouldn't be possible with all the little systems and codes the game has. If Rockstar was designing the game for a weaker platform (like GTA5) then maybe it could run on the Switch but they aren't because they care about pushing the details and scope (which isn't always a good thing since they make the games tedious in many ways).
In a way Reggie is right but overall it isn't the reason the game isn't coming to the Switch. Vision is.
Rockstar isn't the kind of developer to let their games be limited by hardware and designing the game for the Switch is limiting their scope. It just wouldn't be possible with all the little systems and codes the game has. If Rockstar was designing the game for a weaker platform (like GTA5) then maybe it could run on the Switch but they aren't because they care about pushing the details and scope (which isn't always a good thing since they make the games tedious in many ways).
In a way Reggie is right but overall it isn't the reason the game isn't coming to the Switch. Vision is.
I'd like my Switch to live! The ability of games to scale is underrated but I think I have to draw the line here.
Yeah, well sure. Undocked, the Switch Is slightly stronger than the Wii U except it has more ram. Docked, it's stronger than that. But it's still drastically weaker than an xb1 or PS4. Or, weak enough that it would be very difficult to downport certain titles.
You are just contradicting yourself at this point. That whole sentence contradicts what you're saying
Lol that's the most unexperienced comment i've read in a while, how much do you know about making and porting a game lol
Sure Reggie, great PR answer but that game won't be possible on Switch because it requires:
- 100GB of game data
- 5GB of ram for all the open world systems to run
- Decent CPU, the game would run at sub-15fps on Switch.
The situation is similar with Monster Hunter World (except for the 100GB of game data obviously)
- 100GB of game data
- 5GB of ram for all the open world systems to run
- Decent CPU, the game would run at sub-15fps on Switch.
The situation is similar with Monster Hunter World (except for the 100GB of game data obviously)
If it's unoptimized it's unoptimized on everything because it's the same codebase. I really don't understand this argument, it's a game that takes lots of CPU and GPU power to run properly and compares favorably to the other versions but it doesn't count because reasons.
It's very demanding, period. It runs at terrible resolutions and terrible framerates on all systems. That's the definition of demanding. And it's not a specific bottleneck because it does so across different platforms, memory subsystems and GPU architectures, meaning it's simply a very demanding game. Demanding=! Pretty
As for DOOM and Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein never ran at half the framerate (It keeps 30FPS very well, unlike PS4 and XBOX One, which have drops into the low forties and very often in the low fifties) and the XBOX One version also goes sub-HD, down to 1000*800 IIRC. PS4 version goes down to 960*1080. And all while not being a stable 60FPS. After the patch, the Switch version runs very well, pushing at least a third of the pixels per second the PS4 pushes and more than half the frames per second, while having very few reductions in visual quality beyond the necessary reduction in asset size.
And after yesterday's patch, DOOM is a very similar story.
There's a post somewhere on Reddit that compares DOOM with today's patch with DOOM at the day one patch. The difference in resolution is night and day, and so is the difference in framerate. And the launch version of DOOM was claimed by many as "a miracle" and "the best the system could offer".
The funny thing is people who actually do want red dead 2 on switch would complain if it turned out ugly and say rockstar didn't optimize. Just deal that some games dont gotta be on switch.
To be fair, Doom on XB1 also runs most of time at 830p.
XB1 is something like 2-3 times stronger than Switch.
It seems like people just want Reggie to say the switch is underpowered when people ask them about porting big budget 3rd party games, otherwise we go round and round arguing about misinformation, spin, PR, blah blah.
If you already knew the reason, what's the point in seeking an answer to pigeonhole somebody into an answer over something largely inconsequential and immaterial?
If you already knew the reason, what's the point in seeking an answer to pigeonhole somebody into an answer over something largely inconsequential and immaterial?
Regardless of whether switch could run it (190GF, 3GB RAM and three CPU cores at 1Ghz vs 6 cores @1.6Ghz, 1.3-1.8TFs and 6GB RAM ehh) it cannot work because the biggest carts they have are 32GB and third parties already don't want to use that since it adds $5-$10 to each copy ordered.
Even if they did ship on 32GB and it cost the same as a blu Ray disc (it doesn't) then they'd have to force the user to download 70GB+ JUST to start their game
Even if they did ship on 32GB and it cost the same as a blu Ray disc (it doesn't) then they'd have to force the user to download 70GB+ JUST to start their game
Because its a dumb and dishonest response. He NEEDS to tell them the Switch cannot handle it.
After Reggie managed to lie about what was, essentially, non-existent third-party support on the Wii U after its first few months this question is almost a freebie for him.
He can put a spin on anything. He's good at it.
I love Nintendo. I trust zero words that come out of Reggie's mouth.
He can put a spin on anything. He's good at it.
I love Nintendo. I trust zero words that come out of Reggie's mouth.
There are certainly countless technical challenges when porting a game like RDR2 to Switch, but I'm not sure file size would be an insurmountable issue that couldn't be solved. With downgraded textures/audio quality and some compression magic game could probably fit on a 32gb cart with a reasonably sized additional download.
Compression can go a long way. 2 CD (1.4GB) Playstation game Resident Evil 2 was crammed onto a 64MB N64 cart already 20 years ago with decent enough results, after all.. And compression tech has only evolved since then.
Compression can go a long way. 2 CD (1.4GB) Playstation game Resident Evil 2 was crammed onto a 64MB N64 cart already 20 years ago with decent enough results, after all.. And compression tech has only evolved since then.
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I'd say 25-30% as powerful docked. Probably 10-15% portable since GPU goes down to 200GF
But bottom line if these next gen games need to run on the PS4 or Xbox One there is a chance they will run on the Switch. And anyway, we have another 1.5-2 years before the next gen so in the interim more and more third party games will come to the Switch and if they are selling that well publishers will have to take note, even when the next gen starts. We'll see how it plays out, but I'm fairly optimistic.
Lol no. More like 50%/25%. How can games like Outlast 2 push a quarter of the pixels per second that XBOX One pushes, in portable mode, if it has 10% the GPU power?
Edit: and basically every other multiplatform game on the system...
Realistically, if tomorrow Mr Rockstar loses a bet and needs to honor it by porting the game on switch with a reasonable amount of ressources (by throwing money and drugs for about a year to Mr. Iron Galaxy for example), what kind of RDR2 are we looking at?
By reducing the assets quality and being a little bit smart, could they halve the game size to fit a 64Gb cart?
Regarding the visuals, and given that the switch is, overall, a good deal more powerful than the previous gen, I would expect the graphics to be in between RDR1 and 2, at a dynamic 720p; is that correct?
Regarding the mechanics of the game, I played it and there's nothing that seemed to me out the realm of what's possible on switch (or even on previous gen honestly). Am I missing something?
I'm asking you these questions out of pure curiosity, as I'm not interested in this game on switch or any other plateform (I hated the 10 hours I played it). But it's a technical benchmark for sure, and I'm really curious to see how far the switch could go when proper resources are allocated to porting an ambitious game.
Let's be honest here: cpu is not surely the reason. Consoles haven't absolutely a decent cpu. RDR is not feasible for the RAM and probably the gpu. But cpu is ridiculous in every home console.
I clearly mean in terms of raw specs. Not saying games can't work on both that's up to the developers to decide.
But in terms of pure stats, 196GF in portable mode vs 1.3TF base Xbox One
I feel like he has a point there. RDR2 development has been long, and there was no way Rockstar could have planned ahead for Nintendo´s next console. Saying that it´s not possible for the game to be on Switch is a different topic. It could be an adapted, simplified version just for Switch hardware but that´s not the topic here.
You'd be surprised. The Switch CPU is actually weaker than the archaic Jaguars in PS4/XB1.
Ehh, 30% maybe
Raw specs (for devs to use, taking out OS):
3 cores @ 1Ghz vs 6 cores @1.75Ghz
3GB RAM @25GB/s vs 6GB RAM @100GB/s (May be wrong on Xbox bandwidth)
200GF portable mode GPU/400GF docked vs 1.3TF Xbox One GPU
At best the GPU seems to be a quarter of Xbox One docked. Of course Tegra vs AMD parts isn't 1:1.
And what no one else is taking about, disc vs cart size. They had to ship RDR2 on two 50GB discs, can't imagine that all fitting into a 16 or 32GB cart
I mean this is a pretty half-truthful response at best but when all eyes are on Nintendo to get 3rd party support, you can't exactly just tell it like it is. It'll be interesting to see what Nintendo manages to do in the long run, especially when PS5/XB4 come out.
But raw specs of a GPU mean about the same as the "raw specs" of a CPU. A Bulldozer CPU with 8 cores at 4GHZ has the same number of cores and threads as a Core i7 9700 at the same frequency, but we both know which one is more powerful. GPUs happen to be in the same situation, because just because they have a number of compute units and of cycles per second, and thus maximum number of operations per second, it doesn't mean the way they do those operations through complex instructions is the same. That's why a Maxwell/Pascal GPU with 4TFLOP performs as well in real loads as a 6TFLOP GCN GPU.
Nobody out there is arguing a Vega 64 is more powerful than a GTX 1080Ti, and yet it's rated for more TFLOPs.
Too many variables to consider for me to give you even a ballpark estimate on that, mostly because I'd have no idea what the target be (visual fidelity, frame rate, world dynamics and interactivity, etc.) but what I can say is that in terms of gameplay mechanics and story telling, all of that could be done with the engine used for the first RDR (though changing the workflow to PBR would still be beneficial for efficiency reasons).
If I were in charge of the project, I would not focus on a high level of visual fidelity, but I would put a great deal of effort into finding optimizations that could reduce the computational load from engine components like physics calculations, weather/wind simulations, NPC path finding/scheduling, etc. I would target dynamic systems and the performance delta needed to make that possible with a game that has the rendering complexity of last gen's RDR. Maybe even stylize the game with a western comic filter to look something like this:
With enough time, money, and talent, it could work. It would look completely different from the original versions, but the moment to moment gameplay and linear story telling would remain in tact, and would definitely fit on a Switch cart.
Well I suppose that`s one way for Reggie to be economical with the truth.
He can't really say "The Switch can't run RDR2 without a substantial downgrade and the opportunity cost isn't worth it to Rockstar. So sorry, we're not getting it and probably won't ever see other Rockstar titles on Switch either.".
He can't really say "The Switch can't run RDR2 without a substantial downgrade and the opportunity cost isn't worth it to Rockstar. So sorry, we're not getting it and probably won't ever see other Rockstar titles on Switch either.".
Yep. This is typical pr speak. Can't hate him for it. Every company does it
Yeah an neither is his. Making false equivalences like that are what seeds things like the lazy dev stuff. But just so you know your post isnt helpful either.
The way I see it, the more consoles it's on the more gamers will see it. Effort goes into these developments and a R*+Nintendo can always rebound with GTA6.
While that's generally true, I would like to see Cyberpunk on the Switch Pro and I still don't see that happening even if Cyberpunk is slated to be backwards compatible with XB1
Imo, the if work involved to downgrade it is a "3", the work involved with cramming that into the last two years of a long ass development is a "10". There's testing and marketing and shit to think about beyond just porting the actual game. Adding switch support late would be no small feat. You got to think of how much is on the line with a production of this magnitude.
Now if they are starting from scratch and the 0.2tf switch is looking at 70m users, and potentially 15% more sales lifetime (at higher rates; See switch vs ps4/steam sales prices), then that's a much different proposition. Anything is possible just follow the $$$.
Now if they are starting from scratch and the 0.2tf switch is looking at 70m users, and potentially 15% more sales lifetime (at higher rates; See switch vs ps4/steam sales prices), then that's a much different proposition. Anything is possible just follow the $$$.
