Tuesday, October 31, 2017

News:: Report claims that Japanese third-party devs are scrambling to support the Switch now

When the Switch was announced, I took note of who was supporting it and who was on the fence. As usual EA pledged a tepid amount of support, as did other big western publishers like Ubisoft -- who only had several old ports in the works before they announced the Mario + Rabbids hybrid.

But in Japan, things are a little different. Even in Nintendo's home base of operations several publishers didn't believe the Switch would be a hit after the Wii U, a situation the Wall Street Journal touches on a bit in a recent report. Speaking to Gzbrain publishing executive Hirozaku Hamamura, the idea is that some publishers are so far behind in backing the Switch that a lot of their AAA switch projects won't even be released until 2019.

Capcom is mentioned by name, because although they did publish Ultra Street Fighter II early on as a Switch exclusive, they've since followed it up with ports of old titles. Koei Tecmo represents the other side of the equation, having gone full-hog with the Switch out of the gate.

While a lot of pundits are calling out Capcom, you can't really predict the future. They've made their financial situation clear in recent years, and if they spent a lot of time and money creating a new exclusive Resident Evil for example, and the system bombed, they'd be in a horrible situation. At the very least they pledged some support early on, which is more than we can say for the vast majority of western studios.

Strong Switch Console Sales Drive Nintendo Profit Outlook Higher [WSJ]

Report claims that Japanese third-party devs are scrambling to support the Switch now screenshot



via destructoid http://ift.tt/2A3fRVX