Nintendo published this morning the English translation of its recent investor Q&A, and as usual there are a wealth of notable tidbits contained within. Among them are remarks from director and recent TIME magazine celeb Shinya Takahashi regarding how Nintendo intends to attract and keep third party attention on Switch.
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For our previous game platforms, creating our own development tools was a high priority for us. However, since the start of Nintendo Switch development we have been aiming to realize an environment in which a variety of different third-party developers are able to easily develop compatible software, such as by making it compatible with Unreal and Unity as well as our own development tools. As a result, even companies with only a few developers have already started making games for Nintendo Switch. The development of Snipperclips – Cut it out, together! started with one such small team.
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Now admittedly, the upcoming quirky, fun, but unlikely-to-be-timeless
Snipperclips may not be the finest example of a heavy-hitting third party bringing Switch holdouts home to Nintendo in the coming months and holiday season. Takashi continues, however, pointing out that it was this very same welcoming development environment that attracted Todd Howard of Bethesda Game Studios to bring
Skyrim to the platform. Shigeru Miyamoto went on to reinforce this, stating that "it would take less than a year," generally speaking, for PC titles to be ported to Switch by third parties.
Ease of PC-porting could prove to be a boon for Nintendo. Suddenly, the requirements for securing a high-profile third party title are shifted, with publishers needing only commit approximately one year's worth of resources for major releases. Given that Sony's PS4 also possesses a particularly PC-friendly development environment, Miyamoto's remarks are promising – we'll find out soon if they directly translate to actual games.
Nintendo Switch launches on March 3rd, alongside The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and the aforementioned Snipperclips – Cut it out, together! the very same month. Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is scheduled to release on the platform sometime this Fall.
