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Matthew Karch

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

Switch is home to a number of prolific developers, including Saber Interactive. The studio did what many originally thought would be impossible by porting The Witcher 3 to Switch. A couple of other high-profile projects from Saber, Crysis Remastered and World War Z, are also in the works.

In an interview with Wccftech, company CEO Matthew Karch was asked if Switch’s hardware still has any juice left in it. Karch certainly thinks it does, and even teased that “fans will be surprised at some of the upcoming titles”.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

Original developer CD Projekt Red was involved in bringing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to Switch. However, Saber Interactive handled a great deal of the technical work. In an interview with GamesBeat, chief executive officer Matthew Karch discussed the porting project in detail.

Karch mentioned that The Witcher 3 was initially “running at 10 frames per second, was taking 50% more memory than the Switch has, and the build size was 20GB larger than the biggest Switch cartridge.” Saber therefore turned off dynamic shadowed lights, removed screen-space ambient occlusion, and lowered the number of NPCs in the world by 30 percent.

That last change didn’t go over well, as Karch explained:

It’s been a long wait for NBA Playgrounds’ first update on Switch. The game is still missing key features on Nintendo’s platform such as online play. And unfortunately, we’re still without a definitive date for the update.

Saber Interactive Matthew Karch did at least offer up some comments as to why things have taken so long. He says that online play “has been functional for weeks” and he’s “at wits end”.

As for the holdup specifically, it sounds like Nintendo guidelines are getting in the way. Karch had this to say about the situation:

NBA Playgrounds has been rolling out a major update on various platforms over the past few days. But on Switch, players are still waiting for an update, including access to online play.

The wait certainly isn’t any fun, though Saber Interactive will be looking to make things up to the fans. The team is currently cooking up “something big” for those who own the game on Switch, and we could be hearing about it as early as tomorrow.

Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch told one fan on Facebook:

Source, Via

On Tuesday, Switch will have its first sports game. Saber Interactive will be releasing NBA Playgrounds, which just so happens to be the company’s debut title on a Nintendo platform.

We recently spoke with Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch to learn more about NBA Playgrounds just ahead of its release. Karch chatted with us about the art style, roster, modes, update plans, and more. He also spoke about the Switch version, what it’s like making games for the system, and future support on the console. If that wasn’t enough, there’s an interesting note about how the 2007 shooter TimeShift nearly ended up on Nintendo platforms. 

Continue on below for our full interview.


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