Would Nintendo Switch export support be useful/possible for RM?

[Leaufai]

While the gaming community was skeptical at first, the first half year of the Nintendo Switch has shown that is being embraced by many. No doubt that this is in part because of its dual nature as a home console and a portable one. I think that because of this, it can cater to both gamers that want to play in long sessions (behind the TV) or short bursts (in bed, on train). As such it's something I will be getting somewhere along the line.

Because it seems to be so versatile, it has become a great place for indies and seems to become one for RPGs too looking at the release schedule. While part of that gold rush, that games media are talking about, is going to because of a limited selection at the moment, I think at the core the Switch will be the platform that this generation will be most suitable for indies/RPGs.

This brings me to RPG Maker. It can and has put out those indie RPGs that seem to be such a good fit for the Switch. Existing games such as:

• OneShot
• To the Moon
• Lisa
• Rakuen

As well as promising games currently in development:

• Heartbeat
• Glitched

First of all, would it be doable for the RM devs to design MV or even older engines to be able to export to Switch and second, would you want to play RM games on the Switch?

Thanks in advance for the discussion

 

[Hudell]

The last I've heard from nintendo:

There are no current plans for doing something similar to Nintendo Web Framework for the Switch. We do however support Unity, MonoGame and Unreal.

Also:

The Nintendo Switch is still currently a closed platform, with access being given in specific cases. If you have a project which you think would be interesting for the platform, please send a pitch for it to the following e-mail addresses:
- ThirdPartyPublisher@noa.nintendo.com if you are based in the Americas.
- developers@nintendo.eu if you are based in Europe or Oceania.
There is no set format for the e-mail, we leave it to you to find what fits your project and its current state.
As you astutely mentioned, the Nintendo Switch seems to gather an important interest from the development community at the moment. As such it might take quite some time to get an answer, even a negative one, to such requests.

Until they open the Switch to the dev community (developer.nintendo.com), there's no way of knowing for sure.
I also know nothing about the PS4, but the xbox one seems easy to export to.

 

[Kaliya]

No. You can't just "export" stuff to a console. You need to be a registered development studio with said console creator, in this case Nintendo. Not only that it isn't even clear whether the Switch supports HTML5/JS or if everything is written in something native for the Switch. While it probably does support HTML5/JS in some way (eStore maybe?) it probably wouldn't for a game.

As Hudell said you'd need to contact Nintendo and apply to be a developer with them. PS4/Sony is the same way, and I believe at one point Xbox was much easier for Indies to get onto but that stopped with the Xbox One (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Live_Indie_Games).

 

[Plueschkatze]

Sorry to say so, but it's kinda good that the consoles are "locked" for devs. Otherwise they would be as flooded with games as Steam and the appstores are.

Beside that, the possibility would be cool, but if you want to develop a multiplatform game Unity might still be the number 1 engine of choice, since it makes it easiest to export to all the main markets.

While RPGmaker works well with PC and Mobile (unsure if we have the possibility to export to both android and mac, tho. Since I'm not interested in the mobile market....) Oh and webbrowser!

 

[Leaufai]

No. You can't just "export" stuff to a console. You need to be a registered development studio with said console creator, in this case Nintendo. Not only that it isn't even clear whether the Switch supports HTML5/JS or if everything is written in something native for the Switch. While it probably does support HTML5/JS in some way (eStore maybe?) it probably wouldn't for a game

In terms of export I meant: can be made to work on Switch for a registered dev.

Sorry to say so, but it's kinda good that the consoles are "locked" for devs. Otherwise they would be as flooded with games as Steam and the appstores are.

I was aware that you wouldn't just get to put it on there as easily as the App Store or Steam. My way of thinking was that released games on PC or devs with pedigree (Freebird Games) would be the ones to make the leap to Switch.

 

[Andar]

The Problem here is that one way to enforce such a lock is to keep the data on the API's secret and under NDA. Which means that such a compatibility can't even be programmed without approval from the console company.
And such approval and access to the data usually costs a lot of money, more than a simp!e developers access.

 

[Rukiri]

Being able to create games for the Switch is quite easy for indie developers the issue is the engines you have to use are quite limited, and any custom engines do need to be approved by Nintendo...

RPG Maker MV is to heavily based on HTML5/js it's not going to work...

 

[Kes]

As far as I can see, this isn't anything specifically about commercial development, as all this would be applicable to a free game as well.
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