[NS] Nintendo Switch

Moi je veux bien toussa, mais la 3DS nuit a la Switch...

même si Nintendo semble aussi donner l'impression de vouloir "protéger" la 3DS qui se vend toujours avant de clarifier pleinement le statut de la Switch.

The following comes from Nintendo’s Masaru Mitsuyoshi, who held a joint session with Capcom’s Masaru Ijuin about Switch.
- Switch dev kits cost roughly $450 to $500
- originally, the Joy-Cons were still in the research phase and weren’t included in the explanation document
- Ijuin from Capcom said that there was only a touch panel form factor and nothing like the Joy-Con
- Ijuin wasn’t sure in what way the device would be portable, but saw how things worked once the Jon-Cons were revealed
- hardware specs for Switch focus on high performance and low power
- you can achieve nVidia GeForce’s high performance capability in TV mode
- you also can use the same device running with a battery in tabletop mode and portable mode
- Nintendo is adopting an original operating system
- you can use plenty of hardware resources for gaming apps and it can secure enough memory space for these apps as well
- Nintendo is putting a high priority on wireless
- even if you go from TV mode to portable mode with Switch, it transmits without a disconnection
- Capcom had been working on Ultra Street Fighter II & are using their original engine MT Framework
- lots of staff at Capcom are used to the engine
- Capcom began to develop an environment to quickly examine the hardware right away
- they initially excluded support of hardware-specific features and also excluded sound and network support
- after this, Capcom began to develop a PC emulation environment in parallel
- Nintendo provided a GPU emulator which is capable of recreating the same shaders of the actual console on PC
- the Switch version of the GPU emulator is enhanced, so it was easier for Capcom to create a PC emulator
- it’s very easy to do iterations on PC, so the advantage of preparing a PC emulator is quite big
- one month was used to understand tools, development environment, and the SDK
- at first, Capcom could secure just two programmers to do the work
- with only one month and two people, they could port basic engine features
- the staff were accustomed to porting and previously developed a Wii U version MT Framework
- the hardware structure was easy to understand
- the port process was overwhelmingly faster than 3DS or Wii U
- on 3DS, it took four months with four people
- on Wii U, it took three months with five people
- the hardware structure was very easy to understand and it also had similarities to Wii U
- Capcom had told Nintendo that the initially planned memory space wasn’t enough
- Capcom’s request was accepted and the memory capacity became as per to their expectation
- there was some talk about whether they should go capacitive or pressure sensitive with the touchscreen
- the situation was considered based on the associated costs
- to examine the situation with the CPU clock and power consumption, it is necessary to have a high-load application
- during the early development stage, there are not many environments which fit that need
- since Capcom was able to get a grasp on Switch in just a month, Nintendo offered Capcom to work on the task
- Nintendo and Capcom collaborated using each other’s specialties
- Nintendo and Capcom built up a trusting relationship while going through a trial and error process
- Switch’s SOC power consumption takes a bigger toll on the GPU than the CPU
- Capcom asked Nintendo about implementing a feature to adjust the GPU clock corresponding on scenes
- Nintendo said that even if you lower the clock, the overall processing time will be longer
- it also won’t necessarily give an advantage in the end
- Capcom is looking into having the RE Engine compatible with Switch
- Capcom wants to develop AAA titles for the platform