ports of Obsidian games to nintendo switch

[dherian]

hi guys!!

 

This is probably question to developers. I was just wondering whether you are considering to port any game to Nintendo Switch, like Tyranny or The Pillar of Eternity I and II? Even if it is in digital format.  I'm really interested in nintendo switch, and I love all your games. 

 

thanks for your answer

Edited January 31, 2017 by dherian

[Icelander]

I have been looking into the switch and I am not sure if it would be able to handle a game with the scope..and size of Pillars of Eternity or similar games. I could be wrong, but it is not a powerful system and it has limited space do to its use of SD cards. It is the equivalnt of a mid range tablet. I think it has a tegra quad core processor and its graphic capabilities are minimal. It will handle games optimized and designed exclusively for that system easily enough but if you look at the PC games being ported they are mostly low requirement games. Look at Undungeon as an example. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/laughingmachines/undungeon-pixelart-action-rpg-with-roguelike-eleme?ref=user_menu Which is a great game by the way. I backed it :D but it is not a beast when it comes to system requirements.   Hopefully the devs can shed some light on this.  

[Blarghagh]

I'm having trouble reconciling those arguments with Skyrim coming to the switch. Can you explain? What's your reasoning scope and size wise as to why Skyrim works but Tyranny doesn't? Maybe I'm overestimating Skyrim but I remember it being fairly huge and graphically intensive.

[GingeR13]

I'm also hyped for Switch and i love pillars.

 

Let's face the facts:

-Switch is capable of running skyrym

-Switch carts size can be up to 32 GB

-Switch supports Unity engine

 

So The ports of pillars / tyrrany are possible from specs point od view.

 

The real question is if porting by obsidian or other dev would be worth of time and money and if these ports sells.

 

Switch is hybrid console so it seems ideal system for RPG. You can play in front of TV/monitor and you can take it on the go.

 

I believe that ports would do the job and sells pretty good. Maybe it's up to Skyrim to show the way and prove the point.

[evilcat]

We can argue that Skyrim was using only 2Ghz/0.5GB  GPU/2GB ram. (a bit less than Tyranny)

But Switch is just one specification so it could be easier to optimaze.

Will be easier to say when the thing will came out.

 

Using Tyranny for probing if consoles can take some isometric crpg sounds cool.

Dont have any of pc mustard race vibe, so as long as it pays off, sail to all the ports.

Probably porting on well sold platform makes sense.

Edited February 17, 2017 by evilcat

[lobotomy42]

I think the main problem with porting to the Switch would be mapping the controls.  Both Pillars and Tyranny use a point and click interface with lots of buttons that are easily accessed with a mouse but not so easily with a touchscreen.  So a non-trivial amount of effort would be needed to customize the control scheme for the Switch.  Only Obsidian knows how much that would cost and how much they would need to sell to make that money back. I suspect that they are not likely to start on any port until the Switch can demonstrate some decently high sales numbers.

[GingeR13]

I never thought about it. Controls might be challenging.

 

But on the other hand - next week we'll have Torment on consoles so maybe there is chance for games like this on Switch.

[Quillon]

Torment is turn-based, Pillars is RTwP which makes it a lot more complicated for console controls.

 

Tho radial menu for ability selection when you pause...might work. But still, positioning the party members could take way too much effort with a controller. Maybe they can give rest of the party to the hands of AI Customization(now they are making it) with good presets and lock the controls to player character

 

I don't care if Pillars goes for consoles but if it means good biz for Obs and wouldn't hurt the quality/god forbid, dumbing down, like what happened to Dragon Age, I wouldn't object.

[PlagueOfAthens]

The Switch has a full touch interface, and Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate has been ported to iOS. Regarding RTWP, we did get Dragon Age on consoles, it wasn't great, but it did work.

 

So I think it can be done and, especially in tablet mode, it could be done really well.