I get that, but the Oblivion and Skyrim engines are not compatible with one another. Meaning that every single little event in Oblivion has to be manually reimplemented in Skyrim's engine.
When you're talking about a game the size of Oblivion, that's a big fucking task. And they're relying on volunteers to get this done.
I've sat just about the most technically unsavvy people I know in front of a Steam Deck and told them to stick to verified games,
That's the problem. You have to tell people to stick to a currently small selection of possible games on the system to ensure a console-like experience. Or, you can just pick up a Switch 2 and not have to worry about any of that shit.
I'm a Linux gamer, so I know how powerful and impressive Proton is. But a console like experience, it is not. Many of my Steam games need advanced commands just to run acceptably.
Steam Decks hit their real potential in the hands of someone who is not afraid to fuck around.
Those Wii U ports had the benefit of being ports, which is a situation that will never happen again.
True, but they still had to develop these games initially for WiiU, only for them to bomb there. And the WiiU was an eighth gen console.
Since basically no one played the Wii U, it was more like a machine gun fire of games for the Switch that already had the hardest part done.
If the rumours of backwards compatibility are to be believed, the Switch 2 could just straight up sell Switch games with Switch 2 enhancement patches. Something very similar was shown to developers with BoTW running at 60fps at 4k on Switch 2, and such a patch is known to exist for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
It won't have the same newness factor of the WiiU ports, but it will allow Nintendo's evergreen titles to keep that status until the Switch 2 iteration.
Also, unlike any time in history except for the lifespan of the PSP, there are real alternative options for handheld gaming now as we head into this new Switch successor,
You mean the Steam Deck and clones? I don't mean to burst your bubble, but the least janky of these units has you scouring ProtonDB to check a games compatibility with the unit, and community notes on what to enter into the advanced run commands section or on rare occasions, even what Linux commands to run.
And that's the least janky option. The Steam Deck clones are worse, as at least the SD had the good grace to use an operating system designed for that specific hardware and form factor. Yeah. Switch 2 is pretty safe.
but it will have an impact on the buyer who just wants to play Hades or Doom in bed or on a road trip and now has that many fewer reasons to buy Nintendo's console over a more open platform.
You honestly think they're going to put up with any kind of SD/clone jank?
Hmmm. I did some research on a few games and you are surprisingly correct. However, I did notice something else too.
Nintendo doesn't need extra sales numbers from PC. Their games sell record breaking amounts while being exclusive. Of the top 50 best selling games of all time, 7 are Nintendo games that are either Switch exclusives or WiiU ports, where they did much better on the Switch. Sony, in total, has 1, and Microsoft, in total, also has 1 (2 if you count Minecraft, as they bought Mojang during the latter's heyday). Half of that list is Nintendo.
Years after their playstation debut. Because they know that people who want to play AAA games on a PC do so for reasons the PlayStation platform just doesn't cater to, thus they aren't exactly competing. That and porting costs are reasonably minimal, so it's money on the table.
Games that those platforms use to sell their platforms also come out on PC because they just cost too much to make, and there are too few of them because of how long they take to make now.
Do you really think the PC market is that big that it'll plug a shortfall like that?
Xbox initially only did it because both platforms were controlled and toll-collected by Microsoft (I'm talking specifically about Windows Store, they only put their stuff on Steam much later).
Final Fantasy restricted itself to PS5 and underperformed.
Nintendo generally spends less, but they're still running into the same problem with development time, and that means their exclusive offerings will dwindle as they have to ramp up fidelity on more powerful hardware.
The switch has about 98 first party games, and isn't exactly slowing down. That's not counting third party exclusives, either.
Nintendo generally gets around this by having certain third parties develop its first party games. It also acquires some of these studios to develop these titles. Smash was a Bandai Namco game. Mario + Rabbids is a Ubisoft game. Hyrule and Fire Emblem warriors were made by Team Ninja and Omega Force.
Nintendo also has one more reason not to port: there is much less customer mutual exclusivity between switch and other platforms as there is between Xbox, PS and gaming PC. That is, a person who has one of the three is unlikely to have one of the other two, but may have a Switch for portable gaming.
Phil Spencer of Microsoft thinks this idea doesn't make sense because they haven't been doing it well in years. The big innovation with Halo Infinite is live services and an open world. Their exclusives aren't doing anything other games aren't.
Sony is a bit better and covers a few more genres, and if you're into heavily-cinematic games, Playstation is your no-brainer choice, they've got you covered in all sorts of genres. And they've got the Spiderman games.
Nintendo, meanwhile practically owns the kart racing genre. There is literally no other AAA effort that isn't cash in crap or loaded up with so much MTX crap that even Fortnite would blush.
Mario Oddesey might have a bit more competition nowadays but in 2017, your only options were Oddesey, a (very good) indie game, and a neutered reboot of Ratchet and Clank.
Breath of the Wild came at a time when most open world games were very rigid when it came to how players dealt with tasks and enemies. BoTW gave players a lot more options thank simply going in quiet or loud, and ToTK took it much further. They practically changed how other companies look at open world games.
Nintendo puts AAA efforts into entire game genres that most other companies ignore entirely, even if the audiences do not. This is how they've maintained crazy Switch sales.
Kind of. A big part of Sega's situation is that they shot their reputation in the ass with a 12 gauge in the mid 90s. They were pumping out platforms left, right and center only to discontinue them within a year or two (Sega CD, 32X, Saturn).
Nintendo have been very careful not to make the same mistakes, but even then a lot of people initially had little faith in the Switch because of the WiiU. Even Gamefreak didn't want to release Pokémon games for Switch initially.
As for other companies, their goal is to make titles that sell well on the platforms it releases on. They can afford to rely almost completely on what has come before, all they need to do is do it well.
The goal of a first party game is to sell itself and the platform. So they need to be doing things that other games aren't, in order to sell the idea of 'you can only get this experience with platform X'.
It could on hardware that they don't legally allow me to run it on! And that they don't let me do so is bad.
If Nintendo games weren't trying to sell you on a console, do you really think they'd be trying so hard?
I'm old enough to remember the Dreamcast era Sega and their output after that. Sega's software teams went fucking hard trying to create awesome new experiences that you could only get on Sega's console. Their output quality dropped considerably and they played it boringly safe after they dropped out of the console market.
All that applies to Nintendo titles, especially the latter. If they don't manage it for the titles they already have for which they already did the technical work, Nintendo on PC seems even more unlikely.
True, but Nintendo's consoles already had working FOSS emulators out there they can study. We're still working on the 'working' part when it comes to Xbox OG emulation
Switch games never at any point looked current gen. They could support some games with current gen mechanics, in a handheld form factor.
What are you talking about? One of the first games they brought out on the system was Doom 2016, a VERY good looking game at the time. The fact that a handheld could run it was mind-blowing, even at half the framerate.