Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

rawrlab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 228 posts

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#151

Post by araes »

torginus wrote: post #109
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 honestly don't get why console makers get a boner at the thought of disallowing third party software. What do they gain out of this? With proper security protocols you can sandbox your application well enough that hackers shouldn't be able to get to the OS. And if they do find an exploit, the vendor can always force an OS upgrade, and prevent downgrades with hardware fuses, with new games requiring the latest OS. I…

Tragedy of the commons. By making the barrier to entry high, it means that only significantly capitalized businesses with significant assets to wager and lose can actually publish anything. It means that there's (less) app spam, because not every couch publisher can type "ChatGPT, make me a game with the default Unity assets."

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#152

Post by weinzierl »

crysin wrote: post #83
weinzierl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 2. mean exactly? That I am not allowed to publish the source code of my Switch game as open source? What if my Switch port shared code (for example all the GDScript) with other ports. Does Nintendo also forbid me to publish this as open source? Can you use open source assets in a Switch game?

I'm not a licensed Nintendo developer but off of my knowledge from the Wii U era... The Godot game engine cannot include any of the Nintendo Switch SDK nor can your game include any of the Nintendo Switch SDK or APIs unless you are a registered Nintendo developer and have signed their NDA. You cannot share any of Nintendos proprietary code or information. So you could share your source code for a Switch game, minus a…

Thanks!

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#153

Post by ukd1 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #48
ukd1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You aren’t prohibited under the license, but you are prohibited under the contract you agreed to, to get that code. For example, imagine a company hired you to write a library they want to later release as GPL. They still might have rules that you can’t release that library except under certain conditions. The real purpose of the MIT license is not free sharing with the world in this case - it’s so that developers do…

So, it's not really MIT then - as it's MIT + something else.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#154

Post by gjsman-1000 »

bee_rider wrote: post #134
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

It has around a 1Ghz cpu, you have no idea if their little homebrew games will stress that or need all the assembly tuning. Kids have programmed games for their calculators. This is like “throw it together to show off your friends,” it doesn’t need to meet Nintendo’s UI standards.

> This is like “throw it together to show off your friends,” it doesn’t need to meet Nintendo’s UI standards.

In that case, unless it goes on the eShop (thus meeting Nintendo's standards), every single one of her friends will also need a devkit to be able to run it; as retail units can't decrypt devkit-encrypted games, nor vice versa.

Might as well get a Steam Deck before convincing Nintendo to send over 10 devkits for children.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#155

Post by jimmaswell »

circuit10 wrote: post #81
JoshTriplett wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even with that though, home-brew games are almost nonexistent on the Switch, or extremely minimal. One major reason for that is that Nintendo aggressively permabans Switch devices that appear to be modded, preventing them from ever being used online.

This usually won’t happen if you don’t pirate anything, cheat or do anything that looks like either of those, but there’s always a risk

It's just a worse Steam Deck at that point.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#156

Post by graphe »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #76
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

> Even with that though, home-brew games are almost nonexistent on the Switch, or extremely minimal. One major reason for that is that Nintendo aggressively permabans Switch devices that appear to be modded, preventing them from ever being used online.

Homebrew exists on other consoles with this like the PS4 or PS3. There are zero online games worth playing on switch.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#157

Post by graphe »

Retr0id wrote: post #136
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'd recommend canceling your Mig Switch order. First and foremost, it financially supports some very sketchy players in the commercial piracy (under)world. Secondly, it won't let you play homebrew games - only officially signed nintendo software. Thirdly, you'll have to keep your console offline forever, if you plan to use it - you can bet Nintendo will start revoking cart certificates and banning consoles at the fir…

What online switch game is worth playing? I'm sure the mig will be decrypted, and they will just fake the signature for the homebrew games. I think that's how some of the older homebrew worked. The scene is pretty dead since smartphones exist though.

I agree he should just get an old one but aside from maybe not liking the mig guys I don't see a problem with the product. The amount of blood from mining in Africa for my minerals probably isn't too moral either.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#158

Post by cevn »

SXX wrote: post #89
tombert wrote: post #78

I know "asymptotically close to zero" about game development and the like, so if someone who works in this space could answer this I'd be appreciative: what, if anything, would make you use Unity or Unreal instead of Godot for making a game today? This isn't meant as a passive aggressive question to push some kind of open source narrative, but a genuine curiosity. Since I know basically nothing about the industry, I'…

Indie gamedev company co-founder here: 14 people team, 2 games released + next in progress and signed with publisher. There are few big reasons why you can't just go and use Godot. Publishers. Basically 3 years ago when we made our first game together using Godot it was main reason why we were rejected by some publishers. Now situation can be slightly different, but many publishers still have in-house pipeline that o…

Sounds really unfortunate. I also know little about this process, what do the publishers do that we cannot do ourselves? I guess they have pre existing deals with the major console makers that allows them to send things to market with little friction? Maybe that's why some indie devs just target PC, they lock themselves out of the console market but also don't have to deal with publishers?

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#159

Post by graphe »

torginus wrote: post #109
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 honestly don't get why console makers get a boner at the thought of disallowing third party software. What do they gain out of this? With proper security protocols you can sandbox your application well enough that hackers shouldn't be able to get to the OS. And if they do find an exploit, the vendor can always force an OS upgrade, and prevent downgrades with hardware fuses, with new games requiring the latest OS. I…

If you want a device that does everything buy it. I don't care if my Roku doesn't do something all arm devices can do even though it can. I didn't buy a PS4 to install Ubuntu I want to pop a game in.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#160

Post by Retr0id »

graphe wrote: post #157
Retr0id wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend canceling your Mig Switch order. First and foremost, it financially supports some very sketchy players in the commercial piracy (under)world. Secondly, it won't let you play homebrew games - only officially signed nintendo software. Thirdly, you'll have to keep your console offline forever, if you plan to use it - you can bet Nintendo will start revoking cart certificates and banning consoles at the fir…

What online switch game is worth playing? I'm sure the mig will be decrypted, and they will just fake the signature for the homebrew games. I think that's how some of the older homebrew worked. The scene is pretty dead since smartphones exist though. I agree he should just get an old one but aside from maybe not liking the mig guys I don't see a problem with the product. The amount of blood from mining in Africa for…

> just fake the signature

That's not how cryptography works.

Post reply on HN