Why is EA not supporting Switch?

[Steelmaker]

After watching EA's conference yesterday, one of the things that stuck out to me the most was their glaring lack of Switch support. Last year they gave us Fifa and this year they're giving us...Fifa. I am completely puzzled by this as EA showed plenty of games that could easily run on Switch hardware. Why is Madden not on Switch? Why isnt NBA Live on Switch? Why isnt Unraveled 2 on Switch? It just doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me not to support a platform that is on pace to outsell Xbox One by next year.

[Suntory_Times]

It's probably not worth the financial cost compared to other investments they could make. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be profitable, just not as profitable as investing that same money elsewhere as a guess. Likewise many of the titles run on Frostbite, which may not be able to scale down well or at all to the switch's hardware.

Finally Nintendo has a bad name amongst game developers, publishers and more, that and sales for third party games generally are far from great on there platform.

The switch is for the occasional third part port you want to play on the go, the Nintendo exclusives and some simple indies. It isn't going to get major support from third parties, it's one of the costs of having such weak hardware especially when the ps5/xbox 4 is coming soon enough (probably mid way through the switch's life cycle).

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

It's probably not worth the financial cost compared to other investments they could make. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be profitable, just not as profitable as investing that same money elsewhere as a guess. Likewise many of the titles run on Frostbite, which may not be able to scale down well or at all to the switch's hardware.

Finally Nintendo has a bad name amongst game developers, publishers and more, that and sales for third party games generally are far from great on there platform.

The switch is for the occasional third part port you want to play on the go, the Nintendo exclusives and some simple indies. It isn't going to get major support from third parties, it's one of the costs of having such weak hardware especially when the ps5/xbox 4 is coming soon enough (probably mid way through the switch's life cycle).

if they can get Fifa to run on Switch they can get Madden. Not having Madden on Switch in year two is ridiculous.

[Hayabusa85]

Originally Posted by Suntory_Times

Finally Nintendo has a bad name amongst game developers, publishers and more, that and sales for third party games generally are far from great on there platform.

Yep this is the biggest reason their third party support has been lacking for multiple gens now. They got arrogant, thought they could control the industry and the bridges they burned are still burning decades later. Companies like EA will do the bare minimum on Nintendo platforms if they think there is money in it but they are not going to go out of their way to support them.

[BluMan28]

Originally Posted by Hayabusa85

Yep this is the biggest reason their third party support has been lacking for multiple gens now. They got arrogant, thought they could control the industry and the bridges they burned are still burning decades later. Companies like EA will do the bare minimum on Nintendo platforms if they think there is money in it but they are not going to go out of their way to support them.

So 3rd party developers like EA aren't going to make an effort to make a quality version of their game available on Switch, and you're going to blame Nintendo for not having super great 3rd party game sales?

[Member-115369]

Originally Posted by BluMan28

So 3rd party developers like EA aren't going to make an effort to make a quality version of their game available on Switch, and you're going to blame Nintendo for not having super great 3rd party game sales?

It's a vicious cycle for sure.

But really, there just isn't much of a market for western AAAs on Nintendo. A lot of people buy Nintendo consoles as they don't like the CoDs, GTAs, Assassin's Creeds, Fifas, Maddens etc. For instance, the Wii got an exclusive version of a Call of Duty and it sold a bit over a million, vs. the tens of millions it sold on the other platforms despite the Wii being the market leader.

With Nintendo having weaker hardware from the Wii on it's even more of a divide as it means the ports they do get are vastly inferior to the other versions so fans of those games are more likely to buy them on the more powerful consoles or PC.

Nintendo marches to the beat of their own drummer and they've attracted that type of niche fan base (a very large one though) as a result. Thus they're just really not competing for the same market as Sony or MS. They have their own base buying their hardware mostly for their games and niche Japanese titles, as well as people like me who mainly play other platforms but by Nintendo to complement it with their games and niche Japanese titles.

Switch being a hybrid could create a bit more market for those games as more may be willing to buy graphically inferior ports to play on the go if they don't get much gaming time on the TV at home. I'm not convinced that's a huge market though as so many of these games are story and graphics driven so they lose when downgraded and played on a small screen while Nintendo's gameplay focused stuff holds up well played in handheld mode.

[dyne]

Because EA still think they’re the most important developer in the business. If only Visual Concepts/SEGA Sports we’re still around.

The reason they give us FIFA and not Madden is simple. Soccer is a world sport whereas American football is not.

[Petey Parker]

The EA conference was a joke, and I'm not saying that in some kind of fanboyish way. Since I own all three consoles, it doesn't bother me what systems they do or don't put games on since I could buy them anyway. The only thing FIFA got was the Champions League license (which unfortunately probably means PES is dead at Konami), Madden looks the same as it does every year, and Anthem looks somewhat decent but really comes off like EA's Destiny (which everybody is tired of already) Bridges and village were already burned on Battlefront 2 and I don't know what they really could do to save that one. Even with an audience that probably had a lot of EA employees in it, there wasn't really much of a buzz for what they showed.

[Scarface32]

With all their microtransactions BS, do you really want EA making games on the Switch? I don’t even buy their games for PS.

[Talal86]

to be fair, unless a game has a Mario or Link costume, most of the Switch owners won't give it a second look

[Diesel]

Unravel devs say they wanted to do a Switch version but that they don’t have the resources to put in the amount of work it would take to retool for a port.

[Member-115369]

Originally Posted by Talal86

to be fair, unless a game has a Mario or Link costume, most of the Switch owners won't give it a second look

Oversimplifying it a tad, but I mostly agree. Nintendo has done their own thing for a few generations now and has mostly not gotten western AAA games for a long time.

The market for those games thus moved on to the other platforms, and a lot of the Nintendo base either plays those games there (better graphics, where their friends are for online game) or are Nintendo only types that just don’t like many western games.

Add in the cost of porting noted by the Unravel devs and others, and it’s just not worth it. I’d think Madden would do well, but I’m guessing Fifa didn’t sell what they needed it to for them to have confidence in porting other sports games. I thought the portability may have helped third party sales with more people being willing to buy a graphically-inferior version to play on the go, but I guess that hasn’t panned out for EA. Bethesda said they were “pleased” with Doom and Skyrim sales, but never released any sales numbers so it’s hard to say how they did. Being $60 ports of old games couldn’t have helped either.

[dyne]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Being $60 ports of old games couldn’t have helped either.

This right here. If they got 100k sales out of Skyrim I think that could be considered a success considering how old it is and how many other platforms it's been on already.

[professorwho]

I don't want their games on the Switch... or any platform for that matter.

[Leterface]

I would like EA to release a Hockey game on the Switch.

[Gamma_Winstead]

Because EA cares about pretty graphics. They're under the belief that if it's pretty, it's good. Frankly the switch library could clearly tell you otherwise, but oh well.

[tjritter79]

hey, unrelated to topic, I know. But I was alerted to this today.
NEVER heard anything about it before?
Cracks in Nintendo Switch? This video says MAYBE as much as 20%?
I know only 3 people with NS, and two of them have cracks/breaks where the heat vents are.
Couldn't find any other related topic, but if anyone else knows of one, please direct this there!

Nintendo Switch Consoles Are Cracking - YouTube

[Heapashifter]

Originally Posted by tjritter79

hey, unrelated to topic, I know. But I was alerted to this today.
NEVER heard anything about it before?
Cracks in Nintendo Switch? This video says MAYBE as much as 20%?
I know only 3 people with NS, and two of them have cracks/breaks where the heat vents are.
Couldn't find any other related topic, but if anyone else knows of one, please direct this there!

That was just being talked about in the Nintendo Switch Main Thread.

BTW, mine has no cracks.

[tjritter79]

Originally Posted by Heapashifter

That was just being talked about in the Nintendo Switch Main Thread.

BTW, mine has no cracks.

same guy, whose video I posted earlier, posted another. Says Nintendo is turning a deaf ear to numerous complaints regarding the heat buildup in the Switch, making the plastic brittle and creating cracks. These cannot be caused by abuse because all the photographic evidence shows these cracks in the same places. Also, some of the photos show "curvature" as well which also is a clear indication that heat is a factor.

Big N has a lot riding on the success of the Switch, I think a lot of us who have dealt with video games over the years remember the horrible way MicroSoft dealt with RROD on XBox 360's, which allegedly showed close to a 50% failure rate.

[Gamma_Winstead]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I wish the publishers were smart enough to port 360 and PS3 games to the Switch. The Switch could easily run them and they wouldn't be downgraded or require high capacity cards. But they could still charge a fair amount for them because they are on a portable system.

Agreed. There are a LOT of games I'd re-buy just for the portability.