I would pay money to play VO on the Nintendo Switch. 30 bucks easy. I hear it can be tricky and expensive but with ample time for some advertising, there is a huge potential for a much larger player base. There are so many switch games, but none like VO. Space sandbox games like Dangerous Elite, EVE online and Vendetta Online are my favorite kind of games. It would be so nice to see one of these games on my main gaming device. I’d support a switch version in any way I could! Please consider it Devs!

The problem with this suggestion is that it would require advertising with no guarantee on return. If they had the money for advertising we would already have the players.

Maybe, but the PC world is so vast that games like VO (as good as it may be) get left in the dust. PC gamers don’t want to play these games that came out in 2002 no matter how much advertising they get. There are far too many “better” games that the Nintendo switch will never be able to handle. The Nintendo Switch doesn’t have nearly as many games, and especially games in the space genre let alone good games. Most games that have been coming out for the switch are crappy phone ports... Plus switch gamers, like myself, are hungry for mmo’s on the switch. Most games that come out on the switch do well for themselves which is why we are seeing so many large and small 3rd party games ported over. There are like 1-2 other mmo’s on the switch. If VO came out on the switch I am confident it will do well.

i suggested VO for psvita a long ass time ago on 100,...it didnt recieve well.

I feel like that would be a difficult port to do, especially on PSVita. Nintendo switch is very different and much better equipped for a port like VO. Plus PSVita was a dead system the day it came out.

Iirc this had been suggested some time ago. The major issue for the devs was that the game required constant updates which I think wasn't possible on the switch.

That’s unfortunate... not sure how often they occurred but Paladins has had like 4 major updates since the Nintendo switch release. Sounds like we are talking more that that?

There seem to be 12 updates for VO since June, it's probably way more than that since a lot of these patches usually occur separately but are shown at the end of a series of patches.

Lets remember the last time someone asked Incarnate about this, he said the switch's store isnt set up to work with mmos that recieve frequent updates. Or something like that.

found it

Yea, that thread is, oddly enough, in the iOS board. Must have been why I missed or else I wouldn't have been able to resist saying something. Nintendo's policies and VO updates not lining up very well, at the moment anyways, is unfortunate because holy smokes would a Nintendo port be sweet as hell.

It seems like Fortnite on the Switch updates at least once every few weeks, so I don't think the system has an inherent issue with frequent updates. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean all developers are allowed that privilege -- there could be a fee or some kind of hoops you have to jump through first. I have no idea.

Is there a way the devs could spread out updates? Why do they need to update so frequently?

Is there a way the devs could spread out updates? Why do they need to update so frequently?

When John Bergman gets a cheque in the mail paying for several years of uninterrupted content development and marketing implementation time, VO can do with fewer updates.

VO is a work in progress, which means it needs to not only make incremental updates but also waterfall updates on a regular basis to maintain public interest and (hopefully) attract more revenue to update more frequently. VO on the Switch would be nifty, but to take the words from the horse's mouth:

We have a relationship with Nintendo, but it's a pretty expensive proposition to port, and has to get past a lot of Nintendo-specific barriers. Consoles have evolved a lot, but the process of "cert" (release certification) with dynamic games like ours that are frequently updated.. it can be a big challenge, just from a policy standpoint.

We aren't ruling it out, we just have other goals that are a bigger focus right now.. like Steam and iPhone.

I have read that post. From like 2 years ago, no? I just think the revenue the switch would bring in would be well worth it. I just think it would be a smart move to bring it to the switch to benefit both the player base and increase funds that can be put into further game development.

I just think it would be a smart move to bring it to the switch to benefit both the player base and increase funds that can be put into further game development.

entirely depends on what Nintendo will allow, as well as what the switch player base wants. Incarnate tends to have an insight into this stuff from being in the business much more than us players.

Well said Luxen. The other elephant in the room is plugins. I'm not sure that there is a way to access game files on the Switch without some hackery.

The switch does have both internal and external memory, and games can usually store data/retrieve data from this no problem (in certain folders), so file access wouldn't be a problem, a simple way to check if there is a vendetta/plugins folder present on the SD card and load plugins from here should work well.

The lack of self-updating is what causes the problem, and the lack of this makes the frequency of submitting changes to the store a big problem (build new update, push it to all other clients - then wait for the NS store to update - if it is a big change NS users may be cut off while the update is pending "protocol mismatch error" - any bugs crop up and start at step one). I guess Epic will have quite good standing with Nintendo as someone who won't slyly push spyware or bad stuff later too so maybe this is why Fortnite gets special treatment. GS are unknown, and Nintendo have no reason to trust them any more than any other indie dev.

I know the devs here usually do not like using things like hacks or 3rd party stores or jailbreaks needed, but VO on Switch would probably happen faster when there is a good homebrew system in-place, and if the devs decide to take this route. Which isn't far off btw, April is going to be a fun time to have a switch.

I spoke to Nintendo at GDC this year. We do talk about this kind of stuff. But.. a couple of things to keep in mind:

- Our development resources are really limited, and while porting to the switch might seem "easy", there are usually a lot of unforeseen challenges in any new platform, that results in a lot of dev-time-sink. So, a Switch port could end up soaking up a half-year of development time, due to the mixture of platform and policy challenges. I don't know if that's the case, I'm just saying.. it happens (it's happened to us. Too many times).

- I would rather work on improving the game, and then work on porting it. So like.. new engine/tech (current focus), new graphics and gameplay/features (next focus), then "re-launch" the game on PC.. and then bring it over to console.

- If the primary argument for porting to Switch is "to benefit the player base and increase funds for further development.".. well, let's be honest, there's also PS4 and Xbox. Those are both easier ports than Switch, in some ways. Unfortunately, the reaction to this point is usually more driven by who is a "fan" of which console (and/or which one they own). I don't personally play any of the consoles, so I don't really have a strong opinion, but the decision should be made by what results in the best return on development investment.

All that being said, obviously I'm still having talks with Nintendo, so it's on our radar. Friends of mine have done Switch ports (EverSpace launched recently, for instance). We're aware of the possibility, and we get to hear real feedback from various people (who we actually know) about the trade-offs of different consoles, and their individual levels of market-success there (which can be highly dependent on the specific "deal" one has with a given console, and whether the platform promotes you substantially.. not at all guaranteed for an indie title. In the game industry, it can be easy to spend a ton of money on development, and then have no-one notice your product).

But, I think it's best to focus our resources on "making the game better" for the time being, and then perhaps "making the game more widely available".