Games Industry has had the opportunity to chat with Bethesda’s Pete Hines, who is the SVP of global marketing and communications. A range of subjects were discussed including the company’s support for the Nintendo Switch platform, which they have excelled at. Hines says that they will put their games on any platform that they believe can run their varied games adequately. He also said that he loves the fact that people may have purchased a Nintendo Switch simply to play one of their video games such as DOOM.
“Well, that was more our philosophy has always been that anything that we are creating, we are happy to bring to as many platforms as will run the game as designed and envisioned,” he explains. “The Wii was just not in the same area that the other consoles were at the time. The issue of: ‘Well, Wii folks won’t play this.’ Maybe they would or maybe they wouldn’t, but why even speculate? I can never get this game to run on that so it’s a moot point.
“Certainly, you’re not the wrong in that the level of support we have for Switch looks pretty dramatically different if you compare the last couple of years to the previous 15. I think that’s due in large part to what that console could do versus any other Nintendo platform relative to the other platforms we were making games for.”
He continues: “One of the things we discovered in talking with Nintendo, is that there’s a segment of their audience who plays other kinds of things on their platform that also likes our stuff. And there’s a segment of their audience — and it’s a healthy size — whose entry point into the platform is our title. [Nintendo] can see what is the first thing people play on a new Switch account, and when it’s a Doom or a Skyrim, they’re like: ‘Somebody got a Switch and decided to play your game before anything else.’
“It’s interesting to see. It definitely fits an audience that [Nintendo] already has, but it’s also clear that we are bringing some new people to [Switch]. I met a guy yesterday who said that the first things they bought on Switch were Doom, Wolfenstein and Skyrim because they are the sort of thing they wanted, and the fact they were on the Switch made them get a Switch.”
I kinda hate how it’s become cool to hate Bethesda these days just because they messed up some things. In the end, they’re still doing a great job and I couldn’t be more grateful for their outstanding attempts to make their stuff run on the Switch. Skyrim on this system is by far the very best way to play it for me. It’s just ridiculous how great it feels to play Skyrim with headphones and this way always have your little Skyrim at hand while completely diving into this complex world.
That being said, when it comes to open world Switch’s limits are kinda obviously revealed. Skyrim runs perfectly well and looks awesome, but it’s soon an 8yr old game. Witcher will emphasize how far open world can go on this console and ultimately, this might become a major selling point, should Nintendo decide to bring a Switch Advance (or however they might call it) that might really be made to also get some of the more modern, complex games to run with some higher settings. And after Bethesda is already on board today, it makes me very optimistic that the next Switch might totally continue Nintendo’s current streak.
I’m just not a big fan of Fallout in general, and they blundered hard last year with Fallout76, all it’s related limited edition products, and how they dealt with people’s reaction to the poor quality of everything was laughably bad.
I like the Elder Scrolls, and Starfield sounded good, but we didn’t see that or ES6 at E3 this year, until we hear somethin new from them, people are just gunna remember what happened most recently.
Aside from those 2 franchises, they haven’t really made anything else, they just publish other studio’s games. Starfield is their first game outside of Fallout and ES since 2004 lol.
It’s not like I don’t generally get the points, but look at what kind of game we’re talking about. How many new franchises did Rockstar release in the past 15 years? I personally can live with them taking their time, if something like Skyrim is the result. They tried out some things like ESO and F76 and while ESO was just not great, F76 was a total disaster. And yes, their mobile games are the tip of that iceberg.
Still, they’re obviously working on the projects that we are expecting from them. It’s a bit like people bashing Blizzard for making Diablo a mobile game. While I can understand how people just don’t wanna play that, I don’t understand how emotional some people get over this stuff. As long as these companies stay dedicated to the mechanics people expect from them, I don’t mind if they ry to earn some extra cash. Sure, if it wastes precious development-ressources it can be a problem but just like Nintendo’s mobile games just don’t affect me, Bethesda’s aren’t either.
It’s not just Bethesda. A lot of companies are handling criticism from their fans & customers poorly these past few years. If you don’t like what they are doing and criticize it, you’re either a troll, a misogynist, a racist, or whatever other term they feel like mislabeling people with. Hopefully it’s just a fad & these companies remember that they shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them: us.
I don’t hate Bethesda.
And I do hate Bioware, so I mean… But yeah I still kinda love Bethesda, and wasn’t even disappointed in Fallout76. It’s clearly a step down from anything anybody who likes fallout would be looking for, but it has appeal, and cause everyone hated on it so hard I only had to pay 18 bucks, which it is more than worth that price.
Bioware on the other hand I feel like betrayed their fans so hard with Anthem. At least Fallout 76 has recognizable fallout-y mechanics, and feel, and tropes, n shit. But Bioware is just like “FUCK OUR FANS! LETS MAKE EA GAMES / DESTINY!”
Yeah, Bioware might be the most hurting story of a studio that gets completely destroyed by the book through a huge company like EA. At times they really managed to create something only they could create; that sense of immersion through a mix of storytelling and gamemechanics that worked out just so wonderful and it seemed like they did all of this wich ease. until we saw how hard they strugled to get there again with Andromeda. Ouch. BTW even if it might be uncool to say this here but I can totally recommend Knights of the Old Republic for phones. it works surprisingly well on touch and is insanely immersive for a mobile game.
BTW you also gotta say that Bethesda at least is able to stand up for their mistakes; something EA wouldn’t do in that way.
They’ve definitely shown some support but they need to keep it strong. Their handling of Wolfenstein Youngblood is pretty poor. Wolf2 could’ve used a bigger cart. Hoping Doom Eternal has a proper physical release.
what’s the problem with youngblood? didn’t catch that
The game is digital only. The “retail version” is an empty box with a voucher to download it.