Analyst: Nintendo Switch will be easier to develop for than PS4, Xbox One

By Gabe Gurwin December 22, 2016

Pachter Factor Episode 47: The Power of Nintendo Switch

In stark contrast to the Wii U, it appears that Nintendo’s upcoming Switch console will actually be easier to develop for than its competitors, at least according to famed industry analyst Michael Pachter.

Speaking on his YouTube show Pachter Factor, Pachter, who works as a game industry analyst for the firm Webush Securities, answered a question on the extra work developers will have to do in order to move games from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to the Nintendo Switch. Though he agreed that the Switch will likely not be easy for simple port jobs because it almost certainly won’t use a PC environment like the other two consoles, Pachter isn’t convinced that developers will mind.

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“I’ve actually heard from developers that Nintendo is the easiest of the three to develop for,” he said. “The issue is going to be processing power. If the processor is a lot slower, and it doesn’t use the same configuration of cores and the same graphics capability, they have to do something different.”

This means either “dumbing down” the PC and console versions of the game to run on the Switch, or creating an entirely new game for the platform. Unlike the success Nintendo saw with performing this task on the Wii, Pachter doesn’t believe that third-party developers will be willing to develop entirely different versions of a game in 2017. If this is the case, the Switch could very well go the route of the Wii U and fizzle out quickly.

“You saw the lineup — I don’t even remember — 30 publishers are supporting the Nintendo Switch? It was a big number,” Pachter added. “So the question is, are they supporting it with NBA 2K8, or are they supporting it with FIFA 18?”

We’ll find out closer to the Switch’s launch, but conflicting reports from the Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki and Eurogamer make it unclear exactly how much power difference we’ll see — the portable configuration’s screen could sport a 1080p display, and not the 720p display that many had assumed.

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Don’t expect Zelda’s $70 price to become the new Switch standard, says Nintendo

Link looks at his hand in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will be Nintendo's first Switch game to be priced at $70. News that Tears of the Kingdom, a sequel to one of the bestselling and most critically acclaimed titles on the system, will have an increased price compared to its predecessor came as a surprise over three-and-a-half years after its announcement. It also raised questions about what the future of pricing for Nintendo games will be, especially as Sony, Microsoft, and third-party publishers all upped the cost of their new games in recent years.
While Nintendo will release Tears of Kingdom at $70, a spokesperson for the company tells Digital Trends that this will not always be the case for its first-party games going forward.
"No," the spokesperson said when Digital Trends asked if this is a new standard. "We determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis."
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To get more insight into the price shift, I spoke to Omdia Principal Analyst George Jijiashvili, who explains what has caused the price of games to go up in recent years and how Tears of the Kingdom demonstrates that Nintendo will "remain flexible about first-party title pricing." Ultimately, Nintendo fans are finally starting to feel the impact of inflation that's been sweeping across the game industry, even if it's only "on a case-by-case basis" for now.
The price is right
Nintendo claims that not every one of its significant first-party game will be $70, and we can actually already see that in action. Preorders just went live for Pikmin 4, which launches on July 21, after Tears of the Kingdom, and it only costs $60. Still, Zelda's price tag indicates that going forward, Nintendo will at least consider raising the price of its most anticipated games to $70. But why start with Tears of the Kingdom?
When asked why it chose Tears of the Kingdom as its first $70 Nintendo Switch game, a Nintendo spokesperson simply reiterated that the company will "determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis." Still, it's a surprising choice for Nintendo to make that pricing change to just one exclusive game almost six years into the Switch's life span. Jijiashvili thinks the choice to do this with Tears of the Kingdom was a pretty apparent one for Nintendo, although it won't apply to everything going forward.
"If you are going to make a game $70, it's going to be the follow-up to one of your most critically acclaimed and bestselling games ever," Jijiashvili tells Digital Trends. "I don’t think that this means that $70 will become the standard price for all major Nintendo releases. It's worth noting that Metroid Prime Remastered is priced at $40. It's clear that Nintendo will remain flexible about first-party title pricing."

It makes basic financial sense for Nintendo to ask for a little bit more for a game it knows will be one of the biggest releases of 2023. But what factors in the game industry and world's economy at large caused Nintendo to make this decision?
Priced Out
For more than a decade, people got comfortable with AAA video games being priced at $60. Of course, there were occasional exceptions to this rule, but it was seen as an industry standard until the dawn of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Publisher 2K was one of the first to announce a price increase, and companies like EA, Sony, and Microsoft have all followed suit. Jijiashvili chalks this up to inflation-related pressure on game publishers.
"The games industry has already been experiencing a lot of inflationary pressure," he explains. "AAA games are much more expensive to make now than they used to be, but prices have actually been declining in inflation-adjusted terms -- if prices had risen with inflation since 1990, they would now be over $90. On top of that, we’ve had a big burst of general inflation, meaning that publishers are looking at big increases in everything from salaries to tools. It’s going to be really hard for most publishers to avoid passing on all those extra costs at some point."
Jijiashvili provided us with a graphic created by Omdia that "shows what the typical price points for each generation would look like if you adjusted for inflation." As you can see, the inflation-adjusted prices are only exponentially growing, and the big game pricing shifts the graph highlights were all technically not even enough to keep up with inflation when they happened.

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Nintendo Switch Online expands with Game Boy and Game Boy Advance Titles

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During the February 2023 Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced that it is adding Game Boy and Game Boy Advance Games to its Nintendo Switch Online service. Game Boy games will be available for basic subscribers, while the Game Boy Advance games are available for those who are subscribers of the premium Expansion Pack.

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Metroid Prime Remastered just surprise launched on Nintendo Switch

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A remastered edition of Metroid Prime was just surprise announced via February's Nintendo Direct. Even more shocking is the news that Metroid Prime Remastered is available to download via the Switch eShop today.

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