Nintendo made a big deal about Unreal Engine support when they first announced the Switch. And while games built on the engine have been released for the console already, the latest update might make that infinitely easier for developers.
Support for Nintendo’s hybrid console isn’t experimental anymore, according to a post on the Epic website. As of version 4.16, the Unreal Engine has native support for the Nintendo Switch built in.
Getting a game onto the eShop is still another matter, but it does at least make the process a little simpler (especially for indie developers). In a separate post, Epic confirmed that UE4’s support was certification compliant, allows for networked multiplayer and gives developers a variety of rendering options “to enable you to ship virtually any type of game” for the Switch.
That said, you’ll still have to jump through Nintendo’s hoops first. Budding developers will need to get approval first, after which point they can fill out a Console Development Request form from Epic.
Even presuming those steps aren’t much of a barrier, it’s not known whether this will make a massive difference for the Australian dev community. Locally Unity tends to be more popular than UE4, especially on the student level. But making it easier to push out games on the console can only be good for the hardware, and every gamer that has invested into it. It’ll also be interesting to see if this makes it easier for developers to port existing Unreal Engine games onto the Switch.
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3 responses to “The Unreal Engine Adds Native Support For The Switch”
Let’s talk about Australian games development on Nintendo’s new console.
Has there been any attempt at a temperature check of the Australian dev community’s general thoughts of the Switch?
I remember the dying days of the PS2 era, there was shelves and shelves of EU-developed games that one might call ‘shovelware’ but they were clearly cheaply made games that were easy to get onto a popular platform at the time.
Then the Wii was released and we saw what that did for mid-tier development and shall we say, games of less than supreme quality, from developers the world over. Except for Australia.
Australian game dev got in early on the iOS/mobile game dev goldrush, and that was truly wonderful.
We’re well and truly on the other side of that mountain, though. If local games are going to continue to break through to the big time (whether your personal definition of that be the enthusiasts like us only, or the actual mainstream), they sure as hell aren’t going to do it when they’re put up by Sony to be voted for on PlayStation Plus, one would think. Android Assault Cactus was properly shafted and we all know it.
Or, continue the way we have been, and be constantly gobbled up and spat out by the big US publishers again and again like an abused puppy dog.
Having talked to a few devs at RTX Sydney earlier in the year, I can tell you for certain it’s something many local devs are interested in and are actively trying to develop for. It’s a question of when, not if.
Great news, so now there’s an onus on us to lobby for it as much as we possibly can from where we sit.
Agreed for the most part, care to explain the Assault Android Cactus comment? I’m not aware of what happened there.