As of late, many have been rightfully concerned about 3rd party support on the Nintendo switch. With the games we’re getting this year being mainly easy ports, many are concerned that 3rd party support will amount to a similar situation to the wiiU’s 3rd party support, but I have a theory about why we are seeing port jobs, that’s not so doom and gloom, and also uses a bit of logic to find the reasoning as to why we are not getting major 3rd party titles this year. Admittedly, this article will be subjective for the most part, and I could very well be wrong, but still, I think it’s better than just jumping onto the doom train, when the hype train has just barely exited the station.
So, why are we only seeing 3rd party port jobs this year, and not 100% completely new titles/multi plats? I believe this is due to how long it takes to develop games as well as the time frame the developer has had their dev kits and for most of these triple A western developers haven’t had their dev kits for very long. I recall reading an article that stated that some western developers didn’t get their dev kits until later in the year 2016. Taking a guess, we will say September as the earliest this could have happened. This would mean that most devs have had only 6 months to work with the switch until the launch of march this year. AS of now, it would be about 9 months. This may sound like a lot of time, but to a developer, this isn’t much time at all, as games can take anywhere from 2-5 years to develop depending on the type of game.
Now, I can see a few counter arguments coming up, so let me go ahead and dispel them. “But snake pass was ported in a week” I hear you say. Yes, that is impressive, but you have to read more into it. Snake Pass is a simplistic game. The geometry is simple, the models are simple, the textures are simple, the post processing is simple, the core gameplay and mechanics is simple. For most of the game, there are only 2 characters on screen, so by no means is this an intensive game to begin with. Of coarse it would be easy to port, if the developer doesn’t need to drastically alter the core building blocks of the game to even get it to run properly on the platform.
Now, lets say that Rockstar was porting a hypothetical GTA VI to the switch. There is no way in hell it would take a week to port and there is no way in hell it would or could be released in a year, as the game would require drastic changes in order to perform at even a moderate 720p 30fps. Lower polygon assets would have to be made, postprocessing would have to be lowered, texture quality would have to be lowered, crowd density, foliage denseity, draw distance, reflection quality, would all have to be lowered and these optimizations take a long time to finish. Hypothetically if Rockstar began production on said game in september 2016, this game wouldn’t be out until late 2018 or 2019. Where did I get this date? It took rockstar 2 years to port the xbox one, ps4, and pc versions of gta V.
So, why are we only getting port jobs? Because that’s the quickest and easiest type of games to get out to store shelves. These skyrims, dragon ball xenoverses, and Fifa 18’s wouldn’t have taken so much to get out there. Neither of these 3 games are graphically demanding/complex by any means. There is also the fact, that these developers have had access to the dev kits a bit earlier than most other developers as a few were selected by Nintendo themselves to begin work on games much earlier. The way I see it, it was either release these games, or release nothing for 2 or 3 years and if thats the case, I can completely understand why we are seeing mere ports.
Another question you may have for me is “If there are games going into development, why has Nintendo remained silent about them, when they could have advertised them during e3?”, and my answer still remains the same. Too Early. Using yooka laylee as an example, we have known this game has been in development for a while, yet we still do not have a release date pinned down. Because of this, I could see why other developers want to remain quiet on games that may not even come until 2018 or 2019. There are better times to announce those titles. Nintendo Directs, E3 2018, gamescom, TGS, etc. On a new platform, it will always be better to announce your game when it is still going to be relevant. Sure. ubisoft could announce Assassins Creed Switch now, but if it’s not coming until 2018 or 2019, whats the point of talking about it e3 2017 when it will be more relevant later?
Summing things up, game development takes time. It’s been only 3 months since the switch launched. I can understand why some people are worried about 3rd party support, but you have to be patient. It’s too early to tell anything. We probably won’t know for sure until next year or 2019, but that isn’t a reason to go out on a doom parade yet. Lets see how the switch performs for the year and after a holiday with a Mainline mario game. If by the end of the Fiscal year (March 2018) we are not in the 10,000,000-13,000,000 range, I would be worried, but according to sales charts, and analysts, we may even see bigger numbers than this, and at the end of the day, how big this number is, will always be what attracts developers to a platform. Rest assured and enjoy your switches, for it is always darkest before dawn.
Submitted by Rizzo0095 | #Specialdealer Special Offer Online Shopping Store 2016
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