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Nintendo announced Switch Dev kits are $500

347 points by shawndumas 10y ago

webkike 10y ago
When I first saw the switch I said that it could potentially become a huge platform for indie developers. This is definitely a step in the right direction, although I don't see why a devkit would even be necessary. Perhaps you're paying for software? Will this open the portable market to indie developers beyond phone games?
- iancarroll 10y ago
  You are generally paying for unlocked firmware that will run whatever code you want, a feature that pirates would target on retail consoles. IIRC, some consoles also put more RAM in development kits.
  - jsheard 10y ago
    The developer Switch does appear to be different hardware, although we don't know the full extent of the differences yet. Nintendo accidentally showed a devkit with 64GB of internal storage rather than the 32GB you get on retail units. https://twitter.com/_ferrums/status/826816397238030337 https://twitter.com/_ferrums/status/826816397238030337
    - arcameron 10y ago
      Why do they do that kind of thing? If anything, you might expect them to include less RAM & storage so that you're forced to work under tighter limitations.
      - brobinson 10y ago
        Having more powerful hardware allows you to focus on designing/building the game and delay optimization until the game is mostly finished.
      - scotu 10y ago
        I think that having the same hardware would be logic, but I feel that running (especially a game) in debug mode would in fact require more memory...
      - mikeash 10y ago
        I can see using the same specs, but using even less would be weird. You don't win any points if you use less memory than the hardware has.
      - cstejerean 10y ago
        There is no reason to work under tighter constraints. You want developers to be able to push the retail version of the hardware to the limits. In order to do that and still be able to run debug builds you need the dev kit to be more powerful than the retail version.
      - daurnimator 10y ago
        It's so you can leave debug symbols in your executable: for a release you'll strip your binaries and pack them quite tight. For developing you'd like to have more uncompressed data in ram, and you want full debug symbols and debug info on the stack. Not to mention that debuggers themselves take a non-zero amount of ram.
  - BoorishBears 10y ago
    The Wii U kits make with a special version Unity too
  - VonGuard 10y ago
    It's a really interesting approach, considering how rampant Wii hacking was. Maybe instead of hacking the consoles, pirates will just buy dev kits, paying Nintendo a bit of a premium for the privilege? Maybe they're hoping to make a little money on the pirates...
    - monocasa 10y ago
      Modern dev consoles use the same DRM scheme as the retail consoles, they simply use a different (most of the time per developer) certificate, and won't boot retail signed titles.
      - derefr 10y ago
        But there's nothing stopping someone who wants to play a game "for free" from finding a torrent of a retail copy, downloading it, stripping the retail signature off it, using the SDK tooling to apply their own developer cert's signature, and then booting that on their console. It's certainly possible—and already done—with iOS. Likewise, "homebrew" on such a system would probably be like iOS homebrew is currently: an ecosystem of open-source projects where users are expected to download, compile, and sign the binaries themselves using their personal developer certs.
        0xcde4c3db 10y ago
        > But there's nothing stopping someone who wants to play a game "for free" from finding a torrent of a retail copy, downloading it, stripping the retail signature off it, using the SDK tooling to apply their own developer cert's signature, and then booting that on their console. The way this has been impeded on previous consoles is to encrypt retail executables and lock the key in some "secure" coprocessor. These obviously do eventually get cracked, but at that point the system is probably so thoroughly exploited that you can do everything with a retail console anyway.
        sjtgraham 10y ago
        You're exactly describing how iOS AppStore apps work, i.e. Encrypted binary segment that is decrypted when paged in.
  - fsckin 10y ago
    Previous gen Xbox dev kits generally had double the RAM and came with a Visual Studio license. They were very expensive. Now you can pay $19 to unlock a retail Xbox One to run any code you like with a 1GB RAM limit.
- supergreg 10y ago
  Don't DevKits have extra ports for you to connect to the machine?
  - Roritharr 10y ago
    Well this has a standard USB Type-C Port for charging. Would be a waste to use it just for that.
  - vvanders 10y ago
    Dev kits usually have extra memory for debugging overhead and occasionally hardware for cycle specific profiling and the like. Most release games run up to 5mb(or less) to the system memory limits so you can't turn on debugging and waiting for LTCG builds which can take 30mins+.
  - jclardy 10y ago
    The switch has a USB-C port though, which would be more than enough bandwidth for debugging. Mobile dev's have lived with USB 2.0 connections for building games just fine. The problem is likely just that it becomes easier to install third party software if there is some kind of Dev mode inside retail units...but Nintendo's locked down hardware gets jailbroken anyways so I don't see the point in hiding it.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - kabdib 10y ago
    The Xbox 360 devkits had extra USB ports for emulating DVD drives and high-speed data transfer. These kits required a fair amount of labor to put together; they were $10,000, and often hard to obtain. I believe the Xbox One devkits are just production units with different key material (which prevents commercial titles from running, and allows developer-signed bits to run). Theoretically any Xbox One is a devkit, with the right software provisioning.
  - monocasa 10y ago
    Modern game systems are running on top of a real big boy kernel this generation, so you don't need hardware level debugging support. An equivalent to gdbserver is enough.
- markcerqueira 10y ago
  "Huge platform for indie developers." Genuinely curious as to what you are comparing the Switch to (e.g. PS4, PC?) and why you believe this is so?
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    Let me put forward a few possible reasons. 1: Nintendo portable systems have sold really well, so the market could be large. DS sold 154 millions units, 3DS has sold 65 million units so far. Of course no guarantee Switch will approach that. It is more risky with the hybrid approach, and continuing stiff competition from smartphones and tablets. 2: Handheld/portable systems are often better fits for indie scale games. Smaller/cheaper/shorter games. 3: Less AAA competition. Nintendo systems haven't been getting the biggest, latest greatest AAA titles from the large publishers, so indie games have more room to stand out.
minimaxir 10y ago
Doesn't the Xbox One allow you to use normal consoles as Dev kits, effectively making it free? http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/30/11318568/xbox-one-dev-kit http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/30/11318568/xbox-one-dev-kit Can't find recent information on PS4 dev kit prices, but given the number of indie games I see on it nowadays (and receive for free with PS+), I imagine it's not unreasonable.
- shinymark 10y ago
  The price is under NDA but I can say that there is separate, special devkit hardware for PS4 and it costs more than a consumer unit.
  - uptown 10y ago
    $2500
    - iancarroll 10y ago
      This is no longer accurate.
  - plafl 10y ago
    I find the video game console world so strange. Having to pay just to develop feels wrong but that the price is under NDA feels ridiculous. IMO it shouldn't be legal.
    - adanto6840 10y ago
      Apple charges to develop for iOS, correct?
      - krrrh 10y ago
        But you are allowed to say what the price is, which is what GP was surprised by. It's $99 a year FYI.
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
Just want to clarify something: This includes a developer Switch console ($300 value retail). I am guessing the extra $200 gives you additional developer tools, documentation, and debug output and of course run self-signed software. They also sound like they're working with Unreal and Unity to make migrating games easier. If the developer Nintendo Switch could run other developer's retail games normally, I might consider buying one of these instead of a retail Switch just to tinker on.
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  > If the developer Nintendo Switch could run other developer's retail games normally Judging by past Nintendo console dev kits, this will not be the case.
- mileycyrusXOXO 10y ago
  >They also sound like they're working with Unreal and Unity to make migrating games easier. On a related note, Unreal 4.15 released support for Switch development.[0] [0]- https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-15-released https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-15-release...
sdegutis 10y ago
Does this mean it's far more likely that indie game developers can get their games in the legit Nintendo game store rather than some relegated "secondary" game store like Xbox did in the past which nobody ever actually goes to and is usually filled with junk (afaik)?
- oxide 10y ago
  Xbox Live Arcade was absolutely terrible on the 360, akin to Steam Greenlight. There were one joke games for a dollar, just like Steam has now. There were overpriced games, bad games, shit games. Stuff that should be shamefully hidden on a hard drive long forgotten. I am certainly glad about the death of Greenlight, and from what I can tell all the "indie@xbox" hype leading up to the launch of the One has been unfulfilled, with those games seemingly ending up on the PS4 instead. I suppose whoever sells the most consoles gets to have the most indie titles. Then again, I don't own either console, so maybe "indie@xbox" is better off than I'm thinking it is. Nintendo had indie games like Stardew Valley ported over to the Wii U, IIRC, so I expect to see similar footwork done for the Switch.
  - erik 10y ago
    You're confusing Xbox Live Arcade with Xbox Indie Games. In the 360 days, Live Arcade was the featured store that games like Braid and Geometry Wars were sold on. "Xbox Live Indie Games" was a separate storefront that didn't get the same feature space, and was the free-for-all that you are describing.
    - oxide 10y ago
      Thank you! Sorry, I do confuse the two often. I couldn't remember the name for the life of me, I knew there were two different stores though.
  - mratzloff 10y ago
    There were some good games. For instance, I really enjoyed Arcadecraft [1], a game that had you running an arcade in the 1980s and trying to turn a profit while keeping your machines repaired and up to date. [1] http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Arcadecraft/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550c9b http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Arcadecraft/66acd0...
CorpOverreach 10y ago
Any clue if this will be able to also play retail games? Given Nintendo's track record of keeping supply up with demand, some of us may consider just paying extra for the dev kit...
revjx 10y ago
This sounds like an excellent step for Nintendo, if it's true. The Wii U & 3DS development kits are fairly expensive if you're hoping to bash out a title in your evenings / weekends. $500 would give a leg up to those people who haven't got a few grand kicking around to try stuff out on console. I'm hoping they're also going to continue with the Nintendo Web Framework concept, because that was a pretty smart idea too - having a web technology-based execution environment alongside the Unity / Unreal / native stuff.
TheAceOfHearts 10y ago
The Switch looks pretty neat, based on what little I've seen. I can't help but hope that it'll get hacked and that a thriving homebrew community will sprout up. When the PSP was around and kicking that was the main thing that got me engaged in the community, and I still remember those years with fondness. Assuming there's no glaring problems, I'll probably buy one when their new Mario Kart game is available. I definitely have a soft spot for Nintendo. Since real-life has pushed me to become a casual gamer, I've really started to appreciate their simplicity and predictability. For solo, I've enjoyed every Mario platformer, and I'll probably enjoy whatever they release next. For parties, Mario Kart and Smash Brothers are always a blast with friends. Even though it appears to be largely considered a failure by the community, I'm actually pretty happy with the Wii U. I bought around five or six games, and thoroughly enjoyed em all. As I wrote this, I decided to look up what other games have been released since I last checked, and I just found out I have a new Paper Mario game waiting to play :).
- daeken 10y ago
  > I can't help but hope that it'll get hacked and that a thriving homebrew community will sprout up. I'm hoping for the same! Set up a wiki to track everything we know about the device, and we also have a Discord chat set up to discuss the process and work on things together. By default the secret parts of the wiki and chat (where we'll be discussing the details of specific findings, exploitation, etc) are hidden; if you want to be involved directly, message me on the Discord and I'll get you set up. Wiki: http://reswitched.tech/ http://reswitched.tech/ Chat: https://discord.gg/hSMpnuG https://discord.gg/hSMpnuG
  - corndoge 10y ago
    Why hidden? Has it occurred to you that a Nintendo employee could just message you on discord for access?
    - daeken 10y ago
      Hidden just to keep the details of findings slightly lower key until we're ready to do something with them. Nintendo folks could certainly message for access, but I'm not too terribly worried about that; if they patch our bugs in the next version, at least we'll have a toehold. Edit: Also, the whole reason I decided to get back into this was to have a nice challenge, and to turn the Switch into the ultimate portable emulation console. What's the fun of it without the challenge? I look forward to the cat-and-mouse game.
Eridrus 10y ago
Maybe this is the engineer in me talking, but I'm personally a bit surprised that this is still a thing and Google hasn't invested in a system to let you play Android games on your TV easily. They could get further into the home entertainment category and probably drive higher priced sales to the Play store.
- camus2 10y ago
  > Maybe this is the engineer in me talking, but I'm personally a bit surprised that this is still a thing and Google hasn't invested in a system to let you play Android games on your TV easily. Remember this? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of... A failure. ChromeOS will run Android applications. I don't think there is that much room or market for yet another console system. Even the XBox one isn't selling as much as Microsoft wanted; the PS VITA is barely selling outside Japan and the Switch may be the last console for Nintendo if it fails.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    Clearly HN even hates the suggestion, but the thing about an Android-based console would be that it comes with all of the mobile games built in. Some even already have controller support. You could even imagine a "console" that was just a dock for your phone and existing wireless controllers that hit the same price point as a Chromecast. These things all exist in the Android ecosystem, but they're either built by 3rd parties or not really promoted.
    - dahart 10y ago
      > Clearly HN even hates the suggestion You are suggesting https://www.android.com/tv/ https://www.android.com/tv/? You might be jumping to the wrong conclusion about why your first post got a downvote. I don't know, and didn't downvote, but I imagine it could be due to talking exclusively about Android & Google in a thread about Nintendo dev kits...
      - 10y ago
emsy 10y ago
I'm kind of on the fence on this one. I remember the Wii had a much higher entry barrier but iirc still a lot of shovelware. A high number of games makes discoverability harder for "serious" developers (people who don't produce asset flips etc.) On the other hand I don't think this problem should be solved by creating an artificial entry barrier.
- pasquinelli 10y ago
  the reason the wii got all that garbage was because the console was such a runaway hit with the casual market that publishers rushed out to get whatever crap they could onto it. a $500 devkit doesn't have any effect on those forces. the switch probably won't be the runaway hit with the casual market, so publishers probably won't rush out to get whatever crap they can onto it.
normalperson123 10y ago
what else goes into publishing for the switch? what kind of content restrictions are there? is it like the app store where you have to be 100% family friendly? what percentage of the sales do you get as a developer? will they be cracking down on asset flipping games?
- lttlrck 10y ago
  The AppStore is not 100% 'family friendly'. There are M rated games available for Wii and Wii U.
- pasquinelli 10y ago
  i'm not an insider or anything, so you can take it with a grain of salt, but i think the answer to all your questions is whatever is good for nintendo. "what else goes into publishing for the switch?" whatever's good for nintendo. "what kind of content restrictions are there?" whatever's good for nintendo. "is it like the app store where you have to be 100% family friendly?" whatever's good for nintendo. "what percentage of the sales do you get as a developer?" whatever's good for nintendo. "will they be cracking down on asset flipping games?" whatever's good for nintendo. a game console isn't like a mobile platform. it's less like youtube and more like a television network.
  - normalperson123 10y ago
    well in this case, asset flipping will be rampant, devs will get a shred of the profits and etc.
nsxwolf 10y ago
Isn't the real entry barrier getting Nintendo to accept your game? Unless they're about to massively lower their standards...
- pasquinelli 10y ago
  right, but there was a time nintendo wouldn't even look at your game if you were a small indie team and not just anyone could get a devkit, even if they had the money. nintendo is really conservative about this.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    Yeah met an indie team from Mexico last year at GDC who couldn't even get a Dev kit for WiiU.
    - BoorishBears 10y ago
      My indie team got a dev kit with relatively little fanfare a few years ago, maybe things changed as the program wrapped up.
tradersam 10y ago
So my (somewhat unrelated) question is does the Switch replace both the Wii U and 3DS or just the former? The Switch has mobile capabilities as we've seen but does it justify a stop in 3DS sales/development/play? Haven't done much research, just a thought.
- delecti 10y ago
  Officially it only replaces the Wii U. That's so if the Switch flops, they can release a "real" handheld successor to the 3DS in a few years However when the DS was released they also said it wasn't a replacement for the GBA, when that was also pretty obviously untrue. Additionally, word is that Nintendo has merged their 3DS and Wii U game development efforts to focus on the Switch. They also don't really have any 3DS games on the radar for further out than the end of the year. It seems safe to assume that Nintendo fully intends to focus on the Switch going forward.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    If the Switch goes well, they could conceivably produce a “Switch mini” or something.
    - delecti 10y ago
      Absolutely. In fact, given the Tegra basis of the Switch, I won't be at all surprised if in a few years there's both a Switch Pro with updated internals, and a Switch Mini that's slightly smaller and with the controllers built-in, Vita style.
  - kyle-rb 10y ago
    >when the DS was released they also said it wasn't a replacement for the GBA Did Nintendo really say that? I don't see how they could make that argument when the DS literally had a GBA cartridge slot. The Switch not replacing the 3DS is at least reasonable in theory (not sure about in practice).
    - 10y ago
intrasight 10y ago
Why are gaming consoles still a thing with consumers? Why wouldn't they just buy a Chromecast and project phone/tablet games onto TV?
- scrame 10y ago
  Most phone/tablet games are crap. Nintendo is a games company first, and most of their titles are exclusive to their consoles.
  - intrasight 10y ago
    >titles are exclusive to their consoles. well that answers my question then.
- veidr 10y ago
  I'm not much of a gamer, but I am a consumer who buys these consoles (and will be buying the Switch). Here are my main reasons: - consoles have games that are, for many people, much more attractive at the top-end (big-name big-budget games Mario Bros|Kart|Whatever, Splatoon, Grand Theft Auto, Destiny, Halo, etc etc... games I or my kids have heard of and are the canonical game version and not watered-down phone spinoffs) - consoles have real controllers, that all the first-tier games are designed for (compare Mario Bros. for the latest Nintendo console (many hours of fun for multiple members family vs 10 minute novelty game consisting of pressing one button) - there aren't many games for phones that actually work well for multiple simultaneous players on the big tv - 99.9% of phone games are pure garbage, while on consoles it's probably only 75% or so
- seabrookmx 10y ago
  Not sure if trolling.. or if you're just ignorant to such a massive industry. Playstation 4, which is the best selling console of this generation, has shipped 57million units, and Sony also makes publishing profits off many of the popular games exclusive to their system. They also have a paid online service. We're talking billions of dollars for Sony alone. As for why dedicated gaming machines still capture so much of the market as opposed to the "casual/mobile" gaming market: -Latency would be too high via a Chromecast causing input lag in fast paced games such as shooters (though lower latency, gaming specific streaming services do exist from Sony, Steam, and NVidia) -Graphical fidelity wouldn't be comparable. Consoles already are the butt end of many "serious gamer" jokes because they don't have the computational horsepower to provide equivalent outputs to high end PCs (Google the "gaming PC masterrace" memes) -Touchscreens only serve as good inputs for some types of games (strategy and puzzle games come to mind). Racing games, fighting games, RPG's and platformers are usually tailored to controllers. As I mentioned before, consoles are even mainstream considered to the gaming PC market, which has a ton of dedicated hardware and revenue still despite the desktop as a whole being on the decline (atleast with your average consumer).
eriknstr 10y ago
That's still $500 too much amirite? Seriously though, while I'm fine with a license charge for an official release, I don't see why there should be any cost at all just to compile and run an unsigned binary on your own system. Guess it might come down to anti-piracy measures.
- snuxoll 10y ago
  Extra RAM and CPU cycles to run debug builds is a common feature of console devkits.
mrfusion 10y ago
What happened to nes classic? I wish they'd focus on that befor starting new stuff.
- freeflight 10y ago
  They've been selling those since the end of 2016, so what's there to focus on?
  - mrfusion 10y ago
    They're continually out of stock. No place to buy one.
    - jamesgeck0 10y ago
      They were intended to be a one-off thing and were significantly more popular than expected. It takes a relatively long time for any company to react to physical product shortages. The Switch is where Nintendo's bread and butter will be for the next several years. It was in the works long before the NES Mini.
jaimex2 10y ago
Why are they announcing dev kits just now? This should have been done at least a year ago.
- flukus 10y ago
  Commercial devs would have got them long ago. They aren't relying on indie devs to push systems like others do.

347 points by shawndumas 10y ago

When I first saw the switch I said that it could potentially become a huge platform for indie developers. This is definitely a step in the right direction, although I don't see why a devkit would even be necessary. Perhaps you're paying for software? Will this open the portable market to indie developers beyond phone games?

iancarroll 10y ago
You are generally paying for unlocked firmware that will run whatever code you want, a feature that pirates would target on retail consoles. IIRC, some consoles also put more RAM in development kits.
- jsheard 10y ago
  The developer Switch does appear to be different hardware, although we don't know the full extent of the differences yet. Nintendo accidentally showed a devkit with 64GB of internal storage rather than the 32GB you get on retail units. https://twitter.com/_ferrums/status/826816397238030337 https://twitter.com/_ferrums/status/826816397238030337
  - arcameron 10y ago
    Why do they do that kind of thing? If anything, you might expect them to include less RAM & storage so that you're forced to work under tighter limitations.
    - brobinson 10y ago
      Having more powerful hardware allows you to focus on designing/building the game and delay optimization until the game is mostly finished.
    - scotu 10y ago
      I think that having the same hardware would be logic, but I feel that running (especially a game) in debug mode would in fact require more memory...
    - mikeash 10y ago
      I can see using the same specs, but using even less would be weird. You don't win any points if you use less memory than the hardware has.
    - cstejerean 10y ago
      There is no reason to work under tighter constraints. You want developers to be able to push the retail version of the hardware to the limits. In order to do that and still be able to run debug builds you need the dev kit to be more powerful than the retail version.
    - daurnimator 10y ago
      It's so you can leave debug symbols in your executable: for a release you'll strip your binaries and pack them quite tight. For developing you'd like to have more uncompressed data in ram, and you want full debug symbols and debug info on the stack. Not to mention that debuggers themselves take a non-zero amount of ram.
- BoorishBears 10y ago
  The Wii U kits make with a special version Unity too
- VonGuard 10y ago
  It's a really interesting approach, considering how rampant Wii hacking was. Maybe instead of hacking the consoles, pirates will just buy dev kits, paying Nintendo a bit of a premium for the privilege? Maybe they're hoping to make a little money on the pirates...
  - monocasa 10y ago
    Modern dev consoles use the same DRM scheme as the retail consoles, they simply use a different (most of the time per developer) certificate, and won't boot retail signed titles.
    - derefr 10y ago
      But there's nothing stopping someone who wants to play a game "for free" from finding a torrent of a retail copy, downloading it, stripping the retail signature off it, using the SDK tooling to apply their own developer cert's signature, and then booting that on their console. It's certainly possible—and already done—with iOS. Likewise, "homebrew" on such a system would probably be like iOS homebrew is currently: an ecosystem of open-source projects where users are expected to download, compile, and sign the binaries themselves using their personal developer certs.
      - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
        > But there's nothing stopping someone who wants to play a game "for free" from finding a torrent of a retail copy, downloading it, stripping the retail signature off it, using the SDK tooling to apply their own developer cert's signature, and then booting that on their console. The way this has been impeded on previous consoles is to encrypt retail executables and lock the key in some "secure" coprocessor. These obviously do eventually get cracked, but at that point the system is probably so thoroughly exploited that you can do everything with a retail console anyway.
        sjtgraham 10y ago
        You're exactly describing how iOS AppStore apps work, i.e. Encrypted binary segment that is decrypted when paged in.
- fsckin 10y ago
  Previous gen Xbox dev kits generally had double the RAM and came with a Visual Studio license. They were very expensive. Now you can pay $19 to unlock a retail Xbox One to run any code you like with a 1GB RAM limit.
supergreg 10y ago
Don't DevKits have extra ports for you to connect to the machine?
- Roritharr 10y ago
  Well this has a standard USB Type-C Port for charging. Would be a waste to use it just for that.
- vvanders 10y ago
  Dev kits usually have extra memory for debugging overhead and occasionally hardware for cycle specific profiling and the like. Most release games run up to 5mb(or less) to the system memory limits so you can't turn on debugging and waiting for LTCG builds which can take 30mins+.
- jclardy 10y ago
  The switch has a USB-C port though, which would be more than enough bandwidth for debugging. Mobile dev's have lived with USB 2.0 connections for building games just fine. The problem is likely just that it becomes easier to install third party software if there is some kind of Dev mode inside retail units...but Nintendo's locked down hardware gets jailbroken anyways so I don't see the point in hiding it.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- kabdib 10y ago
  The Xbox 360 devkits had extra USB ports for emulating DVD drives and high-speed data transfer. These kits required a fair amount of labor to put together; they were $10,000, and often hard to obtain. I believe the Xbox One devkits are just production units with different key material (which prevents commercial titles from running, and allows developer-signed bits to run). Theoretically any Xbox One is a devkit, with the right software provisioning.
- monocasa 10y ago
  Modern game systems are running on top of a real big boy kernel this generation, so you don't need hardware level debugging support. An equivalent to gdbserver is enough.
markcerqueira 10y ago
"Huge platform for indie developers." Genuinely curious as to what you are comparing the Switch to (e.g. PS4, PC?) and why you believe this is so?
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  Let me put forward a few possible reasons. 1: Nintendo portable systems have sold really well, so the market could be large. DS sold 154 millions units, 3DS has sold 65 million units so far. Of course no guarantee Switch will approach that. It is more risky with the hybrid approach, and continuing stiff competition from smartphones and tablets. 2: Handheld/portable systems are often better fits for indie scale games. Smaller/cheaper/shorter games. 3: Less AAA competition. Nintendo systems haven't been getting the biggest, latest greatest AAA titles from the large publishers, so indie games have more room to stand out.

minimaxir 10y ago

Doesn't the Xbox One allow you to use normal consoles as Dev kits, effectively making it free? http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/30/11318568/xbox-one-dev-kit http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/30/11318568/xbox-one-dev-kit Can't find recent information on PS4 dev kit prices, but given the number of indie games I see on it nowadays (and receive for free with PS+), I imagine it's not unreasonable.

shinymark 10y ago
The price is under NDA but I can say that there is separate, special devkit hardware for PS4 and it costs more than a consumer unit.
- uptown 10y ago
  $2500
  - iancarroll 10y ago
    This is no longer accurate.
- plafl 10y ago
  I find the video game console world so strange. Having to pay just to develop feels wrong but that the price is under NDA feels ridiculous. IMO it shouldn't be legal.
  - adanto6840 10y ago
    Apple charges to develop for iOS, correct?
    - krrrh 10y ago
      But you are allowed to say what the price is, which is what GP was surprised by. It's $99 a year FYI.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago

Just want to clarify something: This includes a developer Switch console ($300 value retail). I am guessing the extra $200 gives you additional developer tools, documentation, and debug output and of course run self-signed software. They also sound like they're working with Unreal and Unity to make migrating games easier. If the developer Nintendo Switch could run other developer's retail games normally, I might consider buying one of these instead of a retail Switch just to tinker on.

Cyph0n 10y ago
> If the developer Nintendo Switch could run other developer's retail games normally Judging by past Nintendo console dev kits, this will not be the case.
mileycyrusXOXO 10y ago
>They also sound like they're working with Unreal and Unity to make migrating games easier. On a related note, Unreal 4.15 released support for Switch development.[0] [0]- https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-15-released https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-15-release...

sdegutis 10y ago

Does this mean it's far more likely that indie game developers can get their games in the legit Nintendo game store rather than some relegated "secondary" game store like Xbox did in the past which nobody ever actually goes to and is usually filled with junk (afaik)?

oxide 10y ago
Xbox Live Arcade was absolutely terrible on the 360, akin to Steam Greenlight. There were one joke games for a dollar, just like Steam has now. There were overpriced games, bad games, shit games. Stuff that should be shamefully hidden on a hard drive long forgotten. I am certainly glad about the death of Greenlight, and from what I can tell all the "indie@xbox" hype leading up to the launch of the One has been unfulfilled, with those games seemingly ending up on the PS4 instead. I suppose whoever sells the most consoles gets to have the most indie titles. Then again, I don't own either console, so maybe "indie@xbox" is better off than I'm thinking it is. Nintendo had indie games like Stardew Valley ported over to the Wii U, IIRC, so I expect to see similar footwork done for the Switch.
- erik 10y ago
  You're confusing Xbox Live Arcade with Xbox Indie Games. In the 360 days, Live Arcade was the featured store that games like Braid and Geometry Wars were sold on. "Xbox Live Indie Games" was a separate storefront that didn't get the same feature space, and was the free-for-all that you are describing.
  - oxide 10y ago
    Thank you! Sorry, I do confuse the two often. I couldn't remember the name for the life of me, I knew there were two different stores though.
- mratzloff 10y ago
  There were some good games. For instance, I really enjoyed Arcadecraft [1], a game that had you running an arcade in the 1980s and trying to turn a profit while keeping your machines repaired and up to date. [1] http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Arcadecraft/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550c9b http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Arcadecraft/66acd0...

CorpOverreach 10y ago

Any clue if this will be able to also play retail games? Given Nintendo's track record of keeping supply up with demand, some of us may consider just paying extra for the dev kit...

revjx 10y ago

This sounds like an excellent step for Nintendo, if it's true. The Wii U & 3DS development kits are fairly expensive if you're hoping to bash out a title in your evenings / weekends. $500 would give a leg up to those people who haven't got a few grand kicking around to try stuff out on console. I'm hoping they're also going to continue with the Nintendo Web Framework concept, because that was a pretty smart idea too - having a web technology-based execution environment alongside the Unity / Unreal / native stuff.

TheAceOfHearts 10y ago

The Switch looks pretty neat, based on what little I've seen. I can't help but hope that it'll get hacked and that a thriving homebrew community will sprout up. When the PSP was around and kicking that was the main thing that got me engaged in the community, and I still remember those years with fondness. Assuming there's no glaring problems, I'll probably buy one when their new Mario Kart game is available. I definitely have a soft spot for Nintendo. Since real-life has pushed me to become a casual gamer, I've really started to appreciate their simplicity and predictability. For solo, I've enjoyed every Mario platformer, and I'll probably enjoy whatever they release next. For parties, Mario Kart and Smash Brothers are always a blast with friends. Even though it appears to be largely considered a failure by the community, I'm actually pretty happy with the Wii U. I bought around five or six games, and thoroughly enjoyed em all. As I wrote this, I decided to look up what other games have been released since I last checked, and I just found out I have a new Paper Mario game waiting to play :).

daeken 10y ago
> I can't help but hope that it'll get hacked and that a thriving homebrew community will sprout up. I'm hoping for the same! Set up a wiki to track everything we know about the device, and we also have a Discord chat set up to discuss the process and work on things together. By default the secret parts of the wiki and chat (where we'll be discussing the details of specific findings, exploitation, etc) are hidden; if you want to be involved directly, message me on the Discord and I'll get you set up. Wiki: http://reswitched.tech/ http://reswitched.tech/ Chat: https://discord.gg/hSMpnuG https://discord.gg/hSMpnuG
- corndoge 10y ago
  Why hidden? Has it occurred to you that a Nintendo employee could just message you on discord for access?
  - daeken 10y ago
    Hidden just to keep the details of findings slightly lower key until we're ready to do something with them. Nintendo folks could certainly message for access, but I'm not too terribly worried about that; if they patch our bugs in the next version, at least we'll have a toehold. Edit: Also, the whole reason I decided to get back into this was to have a nice challenge, and to turn the Switch into the ultimate portable emulation console. What's the fun of it without the challenge? I look forward to the cat-and-mouse game.

Eridrus 10y ago

Maybe this is the engineer in me talking, but I'm personally a bit surprised that this is still a thing and Google hasn't invested in a system to let you play Android games on your TV easily. They could get further into the home entertainment category and probably drive higher priced sales to the Play store.

camus2 10y ago
> Maybe this is the engineer in me talking, but I'm personally a bit surprised that this is still a thing and Google hasn't invested in a system to let you play Android games on your TV easily. Remember this? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of... A failure. ChromeOS will run Android applications. I don't think there is that much room or market for yet another console system. Even the XBox one isn't selling as much as Microsoft wanted; the PS VITA is barely selling outside Japan and the Switch may be the last console for Nintendo if it fails.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  Clearly HN even hates the suggestion, but the thing about an Android-based console would be that it comes with all of the mobile games built in. Some even already have controller support. You could even imagine a "console" that was just a dock for your phone and existing wireless controllers that hit the same price point as a Chromecast. These things all exist in the Android ecosystem, but they're either built by 3rd parties or not really promoted.
  - dahart 10y ago
    > Clearly HN even hates the suggestion You are suggesting https://www.android.com/tv/ https://www.android.com/tv/? You might be jumping to the wrong conclusion about why your first post got a downvote. I don't know, and didn't downvote, but I imagine it could be due to talking exclusively about Android & Google in a thread about Nintendo dev kits...
    - 10y ago

emsy 10y ago

I'm kind of on the fence on this one. I remember the Wii had a much higher entry barrier but iirc still a lot of shovelware. A high number of games makes discoverability harder for "serious" developers (people who don't produce asset flips etc.) On the other hand I don't think this problem should be solved by creating an artificial entry barrier.

pasquinelli 10y ago
the reason the wii got all that garbage was because the console was such a runaway hit with the casual market that publishers rushed out to get whatever crap they could onto it. a $500 devkit doesn't have any effect on those forces. the switch probably won't be the runaway hit with the casual market, so publishers probably won't rush out to get whatever crap they can onto it.

normalperson123 10y ago

what else goes into publishing for the switch? what kind of content restrictions are there? is it like the app store where you have to be 100% family friendly? what percentage of the sales do you get as a developer? will they be cracking down on asset flipping games?

lttlrck 10y ago
The AppStore is not 100% 'family friendly'. There are M rated games available for Wii and Wii U.
pasquinelli 10y ago
i'm not an insider or anything, so you can take it with a grain of salt, but i think the answer to all your questions is whatever is good for nintendo. "what else goes into publishing for the switch?" whatever's good for nintendo. "what kind of content restrictions are there?" whatever's good for nintendo. "is it like the app store where you have to be 100% family friendly?" whatever's good for nintendo. "what percentage of the sales do you get as a developer?" whatever's good for nintendo. "will they be cracking down on asset flipping games?" whatever's good for nintendo. a game console isn't like a mobile platform. it's less like youtube and more like a television network.
- normalperson123 10y ago
  well in this case, asset flipping will be rampant, devs will get a shred of the profits and etc.

nsxwolf 10y ago

Isn't the real entry barrier getting Nintendo to accept your game? Unless they're about to massively lower their standards...

pasquinelli 10y ago
right, but there was a time nintendo wouldn't even look at your game if you were a small indie team and not just anyone could get a devkit, even if they had the money. nintendo is really conservative about this.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Yeah met an indie team from Mexico last year at GDC who couldn't even get a Dev kit for WiiU.
  - BoorishBears 10y ago
    My indie team got a dev kit with relatively little fanfare a few years ago, maybe things changed as the program wrapped up.

tradersam 10y ago

So my (somewhat unrelated) question is does the Switch replace both the Wii U and 3DS or just the former? The Switch has mobile capabilities as we've seen but does it justify a stop in 3DS sales/development/play? Haven't done much research, just a thought.

delecti 10y ago
Officially it only replaces the Wii U. That's so if the Switch flops, they can release a "real" handheld successor to the 3DS in a few years However when the DS was released they also said it wasn't a replacement for the GBA, when that was also pretty obviously untrue. Additionally, word is that Nintendo has merged their 3DS and Wii U game development efforts to focus on the Switch. They also don't really have any 3DS games on the radar for further out than the end of the year. It seems safe to assume that Nintendo fully intends to focus on the Switch going forward.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  If the Switch goes well, they could conceivably produce a “Switch mini” or something.
  - delecti 10y ago
    Absolutely. In fact, given the Tegra basis of the Switch, I won't be at all surprised if in a few years there's both a Switch Pro with updated internals, and a Switch Mini that's slightly smaller and with the controllers built-in, Vita style.
- kyle-rb 10y ago
  >when the DS was released they also said it wasn't a replacement for the GBA Did Nintendo really say that? I don't see how they could make that argument when the DS literally had a GBA cartridge slot. The Switch not replacing the 3DS is at least reasonable in theory (not sure about in practice).
  - 10y ago

intrasight 10y ago

Why are gaming consoles still a thing with consumers? Why wouldn't they just buy a Chromecast and project phone/tablet games onto TV?

scrame 10y ago
Most phone/tablet games are crap. Nintendo is a games company first, and most of their titles are exclusive to their consoles.
- intrasight 10y ago
  >titles are exclusive to their consoles. well that answers my question then.
veidr 10y ago
I'm not much of a gamer, but I am a consumer who buys these consoles (and will be buying the Switch). Here are my main reasons: - consoles have games that are, for many people, much more attractive at the top-end (big-name big-budget games Mario Bros|Kart|Whatever, Splatoon, Grand Theft Auto, Destiny, Halo, etc etc... games I or my kids have heard of and are the canonical game version and not watered-down phone spinoffs) - consoles have real controllers, that all the first-tier games are designed for (compare Mario Bros. for the latest Nintendo console (many hours of fun for multiple members family vs 10 minute novelty game consisting of pressing one button) - there aren't many games for phones that actually work well for multiple simultaneous players on the big tv - 99.9% of phone games are pure garbage, while on consoles it's probably only 75% or so
seabrookmx 10y ago
Not sure if trolling.. or if you're just ignorant to such a massive industry. Playstation 4, which is the best selling console of this generation, has shipped 57million units, and Sony also makes publishing profits off many of the popular games exclusive to their system. They also have a paid online service. We're talking billions of dollars for Sony alone. As for why dedicated gaming machines still capture so much of the market as opposed to the "casual/mobile" gaming market: -Latency would be too high via a Chromecast causing input lag in fast paced games such as shooters (though lower latency, gaming specific streaming services do exist from Sony, Steam, and NVidia) -Graphical fidelity wouldn't be comparable. Consoles already are the butt end of many "serious gamer" jokes because they don't have the computational horsepower to provide equivalent outputs to high end PCs (Google the "gaming PC masterrace" memes) -Touchscreens only serve as good inputs for some types of games (strategy and puzzle games come to mind). Racing games, fighting games, RPG's and platformers are usually tailored to controllers. As I mentioned before, consoles are even mainstream considered to the gaming PC market, which has a ton of dedicated hardware and revenue still despite the desktop as a whole being on the decline (atleast with your average consumer).

eriknstr 10y ago

That's still $500 too much amirite? Seriously though, while I'm fine with a license charge for an official release, I don't see why there should be any cost at all just to compile and run an unsigned binary on your own system. Guess it might come down to anti-piracy measures.

snuxoll 10y ago
Extra RAM and CPU cycles to run debug builds is a common feature of console devkits.

mrfusion 10y ago

What happened to nes classic? I wish they'd focus on that befor starting new stuff.

freeflight 10y ago
They've been selling those since the end of 2016, so what's there to focus on?
- mrfusion 10y ago
  They're continually out of stock. No place to buy one.
  - jamesgeck0 10y ago
    They were intended to be a one-off thing and were significantly more popular than expected. It takes a relatively long time for any company to react to physical product shortages. The Switch is where Nintendo's bread and butter will be for the next several years. It was in the works long before the NES Mini.

jaimex2 10y ago

Why are they announcing dev kits just now? This should have been done at least a year ago.

flukus 10y ago
Commercial devs would have got them long ago. They aren't relying on indie devs to push systems like others do.