Panic Button believes Switch has a bright future ahead, not worried about how next PlayStation / Xbox will affect support
Aside from Nintendo, Panic Button might be one of the companies that knows the most about Switch’s hardware and what’s it’s capable of. The team has converted some high-profile games for the platform, including Doom, Wolfenstein II, and Rocket League. We also found out yesterday that the company is making a port of Warframe.
In an interview with USgamer, Panic Button general manager Adam Creighton expressed optimism when speaking about Switch’s future. He told the site:
“It’s a really neat piece of hardware, and we’re learning more all the time. We work closely with Nintendo and Nvidia, and it’s an opportunity for us to do more and more with the hardware. It’s interesting, it’s still pretty early for the Switch as a gaming device, so I’m excited to see what happens on the hardware and the optimization front.”
With games that do have issues on Switch or may look a tad worse on the system compared to other platforms, Creighton explained that it comes down to a game to game issue instead of a bigger issue overall. And as studios like Panic Button are brought in during development instead of after, that will help as well.
“[I]t depends on whether a game is pushing a ton of content. You have a title like Wolfenstein that is supporting so many languages, voiceover, and everything else, so there’s a lot more content there.”
“As people get us involved earlier in the process, we’re able to help them with decisions like assets and gameplay, and things like that with Nintendo Switch in mind. That has a benefit when it comes to what might come down the road later.”
Also during the discussion, the next PlayStation and Xbox consoles were brought up. When these new systems arrive, some may be concerned as to how that’ll affect Switch and the third-party games it receives. However, Creighton pointed out that things will depend on how Sony and Microsoft approach their next consoles, and Switch could potentially get a power boost if Nintendo were to consider taking it in the same direction as something like the New 3DS.
“It’ll be interesting because who knows what’s going to happen with next-generation. Does one party do an even beefier, more powerful machine? Do they look at what’s happening with Nintendo and try to do that? Will they do both? Nintendo in previous generations has made it clear that they’re not competing on horsepower. Switch is a great example of delivering that without impacting the quality of the games. And they’ve made some great partnerships with Bethesda and others to bring triple-A content to their platform.”
“[M]aybe when they evolve the hardware they’ll amp it up one area. Maybe that’ll be graphics or hardware, maybe they’ll add to the controller set so it has additional inputs similar to other platforms. So there’s a lot of innovations to be had.”
