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Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

rawrlab.com

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Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#31

Post by fxtentacle »

weinzierl wrote: post #10

My 12 year old and I made a little game in Godot and it turned out pretty playable. I think in her peer group the second most popular device after the iPhone is the Switch. It would be incredibly cool if we could get our game to run there. I already found two GitHub repos with Godot ports, and this RAWRLAB announcement confirms that it will be doable on a technical level. However, I reckon that we do not qualify for…

Just email Nintendo. They sometimes make exceptions for interesting indie developers and/or hobbyists. And the dev kits are affordable.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#32

Post by LelouBil »

teamonkey wrote: post #17
Aissen wrote: post #14

It's interesting that they did not keep this a paid product, and use that as a lever: 1. to either get more customers 2. or to get Nintendo to remove the terms forbidding the open source release of software built on their platform I am guessing that 1. will happen anyway, and 2. isn't needed since they have found a middle ground with Nintendo hosting details on their developer portal.

The fact that Godot requires/required a third party studio to port your game to consoles is a major turnoff and one of the things preventing developers jumping on the Godot train. From a solo dev point of view, too scary and expensive; from an indie company's point of view it's an unwanted extra expense and a potential point of failure that you can't control. This opens things up considerably, despite the Nintendo wa…

I'd assume for solo devs porting to multiple platforms is harder without external help.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#33

Post by traverseda »

stavros wrote: post #19
weinzierl wrote: post #10

My 12 year old and I made a little game in Godot and it turned out pretty playable. I think in her peer group the second most popular device after the iPhone is the Switch. It would be incredibly cool if we could get our game to run there. I already found two GitHub repos with Godot ports, and this RAWRLAB announcement confirms that it will be doable on a technical level. However, I reckon that we do not qualify for…

How does the Mig Switch site not say at all what the product is? I clicked around for two minutes and still have no clue what it is or does.

Well one of it's main uses is playing pirated nintendo switch games, which they're not going to advertise.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#34

Post by traverseda »

stavros wrote: post #30
weberer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a flashcard. It lets you load copies of games onto a SD card and the Switch will read them as official cartridges. The site mentions that its only for backups of your own purchased games, but most people buy them for piracy.

That's very interesting, thanks, I didn't realize you could load downloaded games onto a Switch like that. I imagined they have some sort of hardware verification.

They do, this is a new and exciting product, likely with an FPGA built in to bypass those hardware locks.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#35

Post by cptaj »

stavros wrote: post #19
weinzierl wrote: post #10

My 12 year old and I made a little game in Godot and it turned out pretty playable. I think in her peer group the second most popular device after the iPhone is the Switch. It would be incredibly cool if we could get our game to run there. I already found two GitHub repos with Godot ports, and this RAWRLAB announcement confirms that it will be doable on a technical level. However, I reckon that we do not qualify for…

How does the Mig Switch site not say at all what the product is? I clicked around for two minutes and still have no clue what it is or does.

Its a flashcart

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#36

Post by stavros »

traverseda wrote: post #33
stavros wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the Mig Switch site not say at all what the product is? I clicked around for two minutes and still have no clue what it is or does.

Well one of it's main uses is playing pirated nintendo switch games, which they're not going to advertise.

Sure, but I guess we all know what "backups" is code for. I just didn't realize they managed to bypass the protections for the Switch.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#37

Post by FrustratedMonky »

magic_hamster wrote: post #28

This is great news! Too bad there's no C# support as of yet. But it's definitely a step in the right direction. Plus, not all projects need the performance boost of C#. Seems like Godot is about to grab a bit more market share from Unity.

In what way? The website says there is C# support. What facet are you describing needs it?

Curious, because would also like to use C#, and website says it does, you say it doesn't. I'm wondering what is up.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#38

Post by troupo »

nogridbag wrote: post #27
weinzierl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that initially and was encouraged, but my further research suggests that you need to buy a development kit about which I could find virtually no info. I can only assume that it is expensive.

It looks like a Switch dev kit is only ~$450 from Googling. I believe dev kits in the past were far much expensive.

This is the insanity I don't understand.

Developing for desktop systems is essentially free.

Developing for iOS devices is $99 a year (plus store commission) for literally anyone.

Developing for consoles? Oh, you have to be a business entity, you have to pass approval process, you have to buy a dev kit, you have to... And then also pay a commission.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#39

Post by mattsan »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #37
magic_hamster wrote: post #28

This is great news! Too bad there's no C# support as of yet. But it's definitely a step in the right direction. Plus, not all projects need the performance boost of C#. Seems like Godot is about to grab a bit more market share from Unity.

In what way? The website says there is C# support. What facet are you describing needs it? Curious, because would also like to use C#, and website says it does, you say it doesn't. I'm wondering what is up.

The website says this: https://arc.net/l/quote/btugrszz

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#40

Post by ukd1 »

koromak wrote: post #21
drzaiusx11 wrote: post #16

I thought Godot was already being used in Switch games for the past couple years; for example, Sonic Colors used Godot for the engine. What differentiates this release? Did the sonic team make their own port or something?

In the PC-to-console world, there is no open solution. Everyone either builds their own ports, or (more likely) pays a porting company to do the work for them, who in turn have built there own solution. Console developer kits are proprietary, no one is allowed to share the API or source code. This seems to be unique in that, if you get a License from Nintendo, you're allowed to access this companies kit for free.

Which then is MIT licensed - so why can't that then be further shared?
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