It sounds like they don’t want a repeat of the Cyberpunk 2077 scenario, where it would barely run on base PS4 and Xbox One hardware.
To me it sounds like Xbox Series X owners are going to be left out of a game they should be able to run, because MS won’t let them release a game that won’t run on the Series S.
PS5 should be fine, and with the popularity of it they’d be crazy to skip it. Although it depends when they actually release it. If it’s not coming out until PS6 has been out a few years, they may well do. I can’t see it taking that long though.
The Switch 2 will likely be a major platform, so a PS5 release should be easy. Maybe even PS4.
IDK why you think switch 2 existing means they have to support it.
It’s very probably going to have an extremely underpowered CPU again, and supporting it would massively limit what they can do.
CD Projekt RED has said that although it wants The Witcher 4 on all major platforms, it can’t go into any specifics yet
It’s literally the beginning of the article. The Switch is the most popular console around, therefore the next one is most likely a ‘major platform’.
Nintendo is not and never will be referred to as a “major platform” by someone making a moderately demanding game. They refuse to offer the performance required to qualify.
Expecting them to mean Switch is as nonsensical as expecting them to mean it’s going to launch day one on Android and iOS (except that an iPhone will probably be more powerful than the switch 2).
Control came to Switch in streaming form.
I can only assume it didn’t do very well otherwise we’d have seen more of that.
Still with internet connections getting better all the time it’s only a matter of time before they try again. I tried Timesplitters 3 streaming on PSN the other day (I didn’t want to wait an hour for it to download) and found it actually very playable.
I don’t think it is nonsensical. After all Witcher 3 is not only available on the Switch, it does run quite well on there. You can hate on the hardware all you want, some developers did prove time and time again how much the console is capable of if you optimize your game.
Both Witcher 3 and the Switch originally released within 2 years of each other. The same could be true for Witcher 4 and Switch 2.
It absolutely does not run well on the switch. It’s an unplayable stuttery mess at terrible resolution. The fact that they took money for that junk was incredibly disrespectful.
Last gen launched with CPUs that would have been outright bad many years before. AMD pre-Ryzen was a disaster, and games with meaningful CPU demand weren’t possible. That’s the only reason a dogshit version of Witcher 3 could kind of run on switch.
Current gen has actual functional CPUs. The switch 2 won’t be vaguely in their neighborhood and backporting to it won’t be possible unless they severely compromise the design away from resembling cutting edge in any way.
I honestly think you overestimate how much your average consumer cares about being cutting edge in this day and age. I’m playing Witcher 3 right now on Switch despite having a PS4 sitting right next to it. I do think it plays just fine. And yes, a PS4, because almost everything still releases on last gen and without a side by side comparison games look the same to me on both PS4 and PS5.
I believe the next gen will have a slow adoption rate, just like current gen consoles, even if they won’t run into supply issues. Therefore it would be stupid to exclusively target them anyway.
That’s not the point. The point is what the Witcher specifically, is intended to be. It’s a AAA open world game.
Graphics are always entirely irrelevant. You can scale those basically at will. Mechanics are what matter, and making mechanics work on whatever shitty arm chip Nintendo will put on the switch 2 would be an obscene compromise.
Supporting PS5 is not an issue at all. It has an actual CPU. Even having a discussion where Nintendo is a possibility? That’s a massive issue, because a game that can run on their hardware is not a AAA caliber game, regardless of how much you spend.
