Many were surprised at E3 when Dragon Quest XI for the PlayStation 4 was shown at the event but the missing in action Nintendo Switch version of the game wasn’t even mentioned. Polygon caught up with Dragon Quest XI director Takeshi Uchikawa and producers Hokuto Okamoto and Hikari Kubota during E3 to ask them about what’s happening with the Nintendo Switch version of the game, which hasn’t even been shown. Here’s what they told the site:
“We’re making it,” said Okamoto. “We’re still making it. I can’t say anything more.”
When we first announced [Dragon Quest 11], the Switch hadn’t come out yet, and the development kit also wasn’t finalized,” he said. “The hardware specs weren’t out yet, but we were like, ‘We can manage this. We can put this out on the Switch.’”
There’s no telling when Okamoto and crew will be done “taking care of all those many things” that need adjustments before the Switch version launches. In fact, Okamoto, through a translator, kindly asked me to stop asking about when Dragon Quest 11 would come to Switch as I continued to press for answers.
I think companies should make the game for Switch first, then port it to other concoles and go crazy with the graphics then. They would save a lot of money on not needing to downscale everything for switch, and it’d be a lot easier to just add a bunch of higher res textures then trying to recreate all of the textures at lower resolutions.
Or Nintendo could make a normal console, that can handle every game withouth gimmicks and better graphics. Not to mention how overpriced the Switch is specially for people that will never use the portable part. Not to mention the fact that Sony represents 76,510,313 people and Xbox 36,566,839 and than we still have PC gamers. Obiousy Switch sales will be higher aswell 4 years from now but never anywhere close to PS4,Xbox and PC combined.
Also for the people who always say that we don’t need another PS4,Xbox clone , if Nintendo first party is so amazing as everyone on this website claims than whats the worry? I for one would always buy a Nintendo console if they offered the same third party as Sony and Xbox.
I believe Nintendo could make a system that could at least keep up with it’s competitors, without having to jeopardize the overly kid friendly image that Nintendo has. It’s very possible, i just dont think it will ever happen.
And yet the Switch is constantly selling like crazy each week even with the lower performance.
You know the PS4 and XBox One CPUs are actually considered WEAKER than the PS3’s Cell Processor, right? Also, developers have been complaining day one about the performance of those consoles yet when it comes to Switch, a lot of them are pretty happy with it due to the fact it’s easy to work on.
Power does NOT equal Quality.
Just saying.
Carbo, please stops speaking about things you know nothing about.
The Cell processor was more capable when it came to floating point performance which made it great for simulation stuff but new CPUs in the newer systems are better for general purpose code which makes up the majority of code for games.
And the newest systems aren’t really missing the ability to run simulations on their CPUs because their GPUs are better suited for the types of simulations that are most common in games ie. particle effects like rain which is are massively parallel.
As for the shit about devs complaining about performance on the other systems, that’s bullshit and any complaints that they might have for those systems would apply several times over to the Switch.
“Not to mention how overpriced the Switch is specially for people that will never use the portable part.”
People use the TV part? Mine only goes in the dock to charge.
And this is exactly why it should have been two different systems. If you only wanted to use it as portable then they could have:
1. Merged the three parts to cut down the size and weight of the system slightly while increasing internal space which would help with cooling.
2. Used one battery and Bluetooth IC instead of three
3. Used memory that runs at the mobile speed instead of underclocking faster memory
4. Got rid of the ROM chips responsible for storing the JoyCon firmware
5. Made the dock a completely optional purchase.
6. Removed the IR camera.
You would have been able to get the system for closer to $200.
Meanwhile, if they made a dedicated home console version they could have:
1. Merged the dock and main system, removing the need for the DisplayPort over USB-C to DisplayPort to HDMI process entirely.
2. Removed the touch digitizer and screen.
3. Used DDR4 or DDR3 memory which is less dense, fast and power efficient and power efficient per-chip but is so much cheaper that you can have 8GB of it at much faster total speeds for a similar price or cheaper than 4GB of LPDDR4. The TX1 is bandwidth limited so even with the same chip and clocks, it would have been more powerful.
4. Could have given it better cooling and clocked the chip higher.
5. Given users to option to use flash drives, SSDs, and hard drives which are way more cost effective than MicroSD cards.
6. Got rid of the battery that takes up half the space on the inside of the Switch.
7. Got rid of the speakers and audio codec.
They would have been able to get a system that would have been noticeably more powerful yet still smaller than a docked Switch for only $200.
So you ARE overpaying for the system if you’re not using both modes and even then you’re getting an inferior experience in either mode compared to what you would have had if the system was made specifically for that purpose.
Great graphics do not equal great game. Take breath of the wild for example. It is an amazing game! But not the most technically advanced game in regards to graphics. But that game is more enjoyed by people all around then the power hungry games that you see so often on Xbox one and PlayStation. Sometimes, power matters more, like when you have a gameplay element that depends on it. Like fluid simulation or a lot of particles, but for most games, you could dumb down the textures and it wouldn’t ever affect gameplay. The portability of the switch is my favorite part. My wife will watch a movie so I’ll pull out my switch and keep playing. And in bed if I want to play I can. Not to mention taking it to my parents house when I visit so I’ve got something to do when I’m bored, or play it with my siblings.
Nobody said great graphics equal great games. They equal sales but nobodies claiming that graphics make the game though.
You like the portability of the Switch, that’s great, but it’s weak even for a portable and uses an off-the-shelf general purpose SOC and what did you get out of that? Less games can run on it, the games that it does get don’t run as well as they do on other systems and some have modes dropped from them. How is that fun?
@ Carbon
Ofcourse it is selling everyone already owns a ps4 and xbox cause they have been on the market way longer. As soon the ps5 and new xbox drops they will be the ones selling again. That said the Switch hasnt sold 76 million yet like the ps4 (wich is still rising in numbers aswell). I agree with your story about Power and proccesors but that doesnt explain why loads of games are skipping Nintendo consoles , and no its not because they hate Nintendo like allot of people on this website will make you think. For PS4/Xbox its always multiplatform for Nintendo consoles they need to hire other company’s to make ports. So something is off with Nintendo consoles if not power than what?
@ Greg Dabkey
I got a big ass tv and sounds system with a very nice sofa why would I want to play on a tiny screen? To each his own though.
@ Luigi
Yes Breath of the Wild is amazing it deserves a 10 but with more power and better graphics it would have been even better. In my opinion Zelda deserves the best it can be. Lord of the rings was better than allot of movies cause they used real sets , weapons , armor ect. instead of cheap CGI if they changed everything to CGI it wouldnt be as good as it is now.
You mention power hungry games but allot of those game sell just as well if not more than Nintendo games , so allot of peope do like those aswell. I can show you numbers if you want too.
Anyway I never claimed that graphics mean more fun, I spend allot of hours on clash of clans wich is just a mobile game. But the main reason that allot of company’s seem to skip Nintendo is because of the console wich seems to be a power issue to me. They always have to port it and downgrade it and add unique controls wich company’s don’t want to do and rightfully so. Consoles should be made for game developers and not the other way around. If Sony/Microsoft/PC can get the same games withouth any issues and so should a good Nintendo console.
I agree with you about Breath of the Wild. That game is breathtaking (no pun intended) but it came out with performance problems that still persist in some areas now.
I’ve heard people go “If the Switch was more powerful, Breath of the Wild would have been more expensive to make.” Wrong. While I would never discourage optimization, the code that BOTW shipped with could have run at a constant 30 or 60 on better hardware and Nintendo wouldn’t have had to put the money into tweaking things to improve performance after launch.
It also would have looked better… for free. One thing that has always stood out to me about that game is that shadows and ground clutter will be hidden until Link gets really close to them and the highest quality textures get used right under link with the quality dropping only about 4 in-game feet in front of link. With just a few values being changed, that game could have looked twice as good using just the assets that already ship with the game. In other words, the hardware is in many ways obscuring some of the amazing art direction in the game.
Now just imagine that you’re a small indie team working on a game. You may not have the time, skill, or money to optimize a game all that well but you have a great idea for a game that you want to make. Those other systems will power through your shitty code easily but the Switch will have problems with it and you might not know how to fix it. Then your options are to release the game on the Switch poor performance and get called lazy by Nintendo fanboys who claim hardware doesn’t matter or release it on the other systems first then use that money to fund the effort to port it to the Switch at a later date.
Agree about it being overpricedif you dobt care about portability. Here the xbox one s costs $319 which is more powerful with a 4k blu ray player abd the switch is $449. Its a joke.
nintendroidblog
you said they need to add unique controls wich company’s don’t want to do and rightfully so
they don’t need to add unique controls the nintendo switch controllers have the dpad, 2 triggers and 2 bumbers, abyx
2 sticks with l3 and r3 and – and + (back and start) that is exactly the same amount xbox and ps4 has – the ps4 touch pad
When companies port games to the Switch, they’re not re-making assets. A lot of the time they’re using models from lower quality LODs and textures from smaller mipmaps so when it comes to assets it’s actually less work to target the other systems. As for the shaders, Switch is weak enough compared to the other systems that the whole approach to how you would make assets and shaders designed for that spec is different from the other systems. For example, it’s pretty standard on other systems to design all assets to work with physically based rendering which requires 3 to 4 textures per surface that informs a shader of the surface’s color, reflectivity, roughness, and texture. That demands a lot memory bandwidth… something that the Switch has 1/7th to 1/8th of compared to the other systems yet it’s attempting to target he same resolutions as those systems.
Plus as nintendroidblog mentioned, you’re asking that they make their lead platform the one that has the least market share and is the furthest outlier when it comes to specs.
The problem is that the Switch is trying to two very different things, a handheld and a home console. Not only is it weaker than it could have been but hardware in general doesn’t scale anywhere near as well as software does.
They aren’t gonna make users of all the other systems (PS4, Xbox One, & PC) wait just so they can cater to Nintendo who refuses to keep up with the rest of the world. Nintendo chose to be innovative over keeping up with the rest of the world & being second fiddle to others is a consequence of this.
They could develop the versions hand in hand, and make switch the base model.
You’re only saying that because that’s what you want as a Nintendo fan, not because it makes any sense for them.
In this case they started development for the game on other systems long before they knew about the Switch and the Switch happens to be much weaker on top of that.
Sure, future games can have the Switch version developed at the same time and that may allow them to be released at the same time but it doesn’t change any of the development problems inherent to the Switch.
I was talking about future games, not this fame specifically and your assumption isn’t correct. My desire for them to develop on the switch in tandem with other consoles is because I feel it would be a smart move on their part, and would give us all opportunities to enjoy games across the board, not to mention with cross play. So I can play games with my brother who has an Xbox and I play son my switch. Things like this are the reason, not a silly Nintendo fan dream.
Okay, so you think it’s a smart movie.. it’s not though. I already explained why.
No problem! We each have our own opinions.
pretty sure its the other way around you don’t recreate textures at lower resolutions
recreating textures would be when you have low resolution textures and recreate them at higher resolutions
as with mods you create a 4k texture then just downscale that to 720/1080p
Maybe you should ask Panic Button if they could spend a few month on a port? 🙄
Or you should stop crawling in Sony’s ass so deep and do some work on optimizing your games more!
This is a very ignorant comment. This isn’t a matter of Square Enix lacking skill or lacking devotion to Nintendo. DragonQuest XI is whole different level of complexity compared to the games that Panic Button has ported to the Switch. Doom and Wolfenstein mainly take place in small corridors with many being dimly lit. Rocket League is an Unreal Engine 3 game that takes place in reasonably small fields.
DragonQuest XI is a bright, open world RPG. They have to deal with way more complex streaming and LOD systems with a lot more potential objects and more required culling. On top of that, any cut backs graphically will be more apparent because things are so well lit.
Uhm… They ARE optimizing their game for Switch. What exactly do you think they are doing?
I’m going to end up getting this for the PS4 because it’s too much to ask me to wait for any glimmer of a Switch release until after it’s launched on the PS4 in the West.
And that’s EXACTLY why they can’t talk about the Switch version still. Because many of us would hold out if we had news of when it would be coming.
I seriously need to play a Dragon Quest game some day. I’ve always loved the art style. Reminds me a little of the Pokemon anime. To anyone familiar with the series, are the main Dragon Quest series games open world? Just curious.
Reminds you of the Pokemon anime? That’s a first I’ve heard someone say that’s what those games’ arstyle reminds them of. The artstyle is more close to Dragon Ball, though, since Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, does the art for the Dragon Quest games.
Methinks they announced this game for Switch far too early.
Whether they announce it too early or too late is irrelevant. Some people are gonna be upset regardless. The question is who can you live with being upset at you?
this sucks, the ps4 controller is not comfortable, at least for me. i wanted to hold out for switch, but i’ve got the dq hype. my hands cramp like crazy on ps4, i dont know if i can take 100 hours of dq with that thing
I can wait. I’m 112 hours into DQVII and still playing and I have DQVIII to delve into after that. I’m good for a wee while.
Love me some Dragon Quest!