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Plenty of developers and publishers have found success on the Switch. Nintendo has hit an absolute homerun with their console/portable hybrid, and the system is still going strong over 5 years after its launch.

One of the developers who’s been supporting Switch is Roll7, and they’ve certainly seen a lot of love through their OlliOlli franchise. In an interview with GamesRadar, Dan Croucher, lead producer at Roll7, shared his thoughts on why the Switch has been such a big hit, along with how the Roll7 team feels about the platform.

I think the bespoke hardware choices on Wii and 3DS, while bringing new game experiences, made it harder for small or cross-platform developers to bring their games to those consoles easily. Switch has removed most of that by being less innovative maybe but more ‘straightforward’ in hardware terms, easy to develop for and feeling less closed to third-parties than previous generations. It’s managed to keep all the things players love about Nintendo consoles and the ecosystem, and also replaced both the home console and portable console for players who like to mix and match.

I think what Nintendo has done amazingly well is to try things out with each new generation. They seem to take a step back and think about what humans want and how they behave.” I think maybe we all need to do that more often.

[Dan Croucher, lead producer at Roll7]

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mereel

2y ago

The switch is definitely more “straightforward” hardware than Wii/U or 3DS, but I wouldn’t consider that praiseworthy. More of a shame, really. I miss weird controllers. I also miss Miis, and Miiverse, 3D sliders. I miss StreetPass.

So from a purely business standpoint, I appreciate that it’s more economical for Indies to bring their games to a Nintendo platform now, but from a consumer standpoint, it’s a homogenizing move that is just like all other media industries. Standardized, boring.

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