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Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

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Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#51

Post by helboi4 »

ammar2 wrote: post #43
troupo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Developing for iOS devices is $99 a year (plus store commission) for literally anyone. Don't forget having to buy a MacOS device in this equation.

Yeah that's pretty prohibitive for most people who couldn't spare $450 for a switch dev kit

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#52

Post by gjsman-1000 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #45
nogridbag wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"only" If it's to dev a game with your kid, that pricey. Pricier than the console itself. Pricier than to dev for android or iphone, or any laptop. Or the steam deck for that matter. Expensive dev kits made sense for devs 20 years ago, but today they are just a way to lock the ecosystem.

You’re kidding right?

$450 for a dev kit is a steal compared to older console generations, which were thousands of dollars per device.

Also, I think it is completely fair for Nintendo to think: If you won’t spare even $450 for a dev kit, there’s no way we want your game.

By the way, consider what a Switch regularly costs: $299. You are paying Nintendo only $150 for the privilege of sending you a custom, low-run, modified device that is different in both software and hardware, combined with (likely) an account representative for business and technical questions. That’s kind of cheap.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#53

Post by echelon »

Grimblewald wrote: post #7
TheRoque wrote: post #3

What these people do is super cool. How can one learn to be in a team that does things like this ?

Couple of ways I can think of. 1. Build it and they will come 2. Talk to coworkers about a cool idea you had, gather the interested and start leading that project

> 1. Build it and they will come

This is absolutely true. Make sure you have a Discord or some social means of connecting with folks.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#54

Post by Vespasian »

How does that work with the MIT license?

I presume they signed a rather restrictive proprieatary license and/or an NDA to get access to nintendos sdks and tool (as is common on other consoles).

Then one person breaking the NDA would make the Switch Godotport (and therefore some of Nintendos property (method names /usage )) legally available to anybody else (they didn't sign an NDA after all and it's probably not a copyright violation unless it includes actual code/binary).

I am not a lawyer so I'm probably very wrong.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#55

Post by bjtitus »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #52
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"only" If it's to dev a game with your kid, that pricey. Pricier than the console itself. Pricier than to dev for android or iphone, or any laptop. Or the steam deck for that matter. Expensive dev kits made sense for devs 20 years ago, but today they are just a way to lock the ecosystem.

You’re kidding right? $450 for a dev kit is a steal compared to older console generations, which were thousands of dollars per device. Also, I think it is completely fair for Nintendo to think: If you won’t spare even $450 for a dev kit, there’s no way we want your game. By the way, consider what a Switch regularly costs: $299. You are paying Nintendo only $150 for the privilege of sending you a custom, low-run, modi…

Won't anyone think of the giant multinational corporations instead of the kids learning to program for once.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#56

Post by gjsman-1000 »

bjtitus wrote: post #55
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re kidding right? $450 for a dev kit is a steal compared to older console generations, which were thousands of dollars per device. Also, I think it is completely fair for Nintendo to think: If you won’t spare even $450 for a dev kit, there’s no way we want your game. By the way, consider what a Switch regularly costs: $299. You are paying Nintendo only $150 for the privilege of sending you a custom, low-run, modi…

Won't anyone think of the giant multinational corporations instead of the kids learning to program for once.

No kid is going to learn how to program in Assembly and C++, when interfacing with a custom microkernel, custom graphics API, and all of the technical requirements Nintendo demands (i.e. you must have a launch screen, loading times cannot be longer than X, read speeds cannot peak higher than Y), while cross-compiling your game and all dependencies to ARM, and precompiling all shaders ahead of time, for the Tegra X1, into your game. That's what developing for the Switch literally entails. Develop your game first and then you might get there.

This is a game console, not a PC. Developing games, for better or worse, whether it should be this way or not, is an extreme privilege. Sony basically never allows individual developers to register in any capacity. Xbox does, but if you want to actually publish a game, you're going to be in for a hard time.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#57

Post by diggan »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #45
nogridbag wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"only" If it's to dev a game with your kid, that pricey. Pricier than the console itself. Pricier than to dev for android or iphone, or any laptop. Or the steam deck for that matter. Expensive dev kits made sense for devs 20 years ago, but today they are just a way to lock the ecosystem.

Make the game available on the Switch store for like $5. 450/5 ~= 100, so after 100 purchases you've made back the money.

Sure, you'd have to spend extra time to polish stuff, and that would probably not be super easy, but afterwards you have a fully published game the daughter and all her friends could install.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#58

Post by gjsman-1000 »

lastgeniusua wrote: post #12
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…

I'm not sure the Mig Switch will allow you to play homebrew, it is designed to replicate the (apparently reverse-engineered) security protocol of game cards signed by Nintendo. The Github repos you've seen previously are probably your best bet, they're designed for homebrew development, but to launch these you'd need to mod your Switch: with an unpatched original model (could easily be verified on https://ismyswitchp…

Even with that though, home-brew games are almost nonexistent on the Switch, or extremely minimal. Having the ability to launch a game with a modded Switch, doesn't mean you have access to the SDK, or the documentation. Without those things, you really can't write any useful programs. It's like gaining access to the cockpit of a plane, and having no manual or labels on what all the buttons do.

If you truly want to develop a Switch game, you need the SDK, and dev hardware is basically necessary as well. That's only coming from a deal with Nintendo.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#59

Post by robertlagrant »

bjtitus wrote: post #55
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re kidding right? $450 for a dev kit is a steal compared to older console generations, which were thousands of dollars per device. Also, I think it is completely fair for Nintendo to think: If you won’t spare even $450 for a dev kit, there’s no way we want your game. By the way, consider what a Switch regularly costs: $299. You are paying Nintendo only $150 for the privilege of sending you a custom, low-run, modi…

Won't anyone think of the giant multinational corporations instead of the kids learning to program for once.

> Won't anyone think of the giant multinational corporations instead of the kids learning to program for once.

It's not a binary choice. Kids can learn to program in 1000 different ways. Getting social Brownie points for pointing out someone else isn't being incredibly generous is pretty poor behaviour, I think.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#60

Post by pjmlp »

troupo wrote: post #38
nogridbag wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank US 1983 crash for that.

Gatekeeping is a way to avoid a minium level of quality, instead of a dumpster copy cat trash that inudates all the stores where there is no control.

Want to learn how to do consoles?

Get a toy handeld using ESP32 or Arduino.

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