Compared to the Wii U, the Nintendo Switch has been getting way more support from third-party developers. Among them is Panic Button, the team that has developed two Switch ports of high profile titles, Rocket League and DOOM. According to the team's Director of Development, the new Nintendo console has far better development tools that previous generations.
Speaking with GamesRadar, Adam Creighton specifically said how the development tools have been improved.
We have a long history developing for Nintendo hardware, and the Nintendo Switch has far better development tools than previous generations. The tools are integrated with Visual Studio, which is new for this generation of hardware, and being able to write and debug code through VS is an enormous improvement.
He also said that the SDK and tools themselves are constantly getting big improvements.
Process and tools-wise, other consoles have arguably catered explicitly to third-party development for a longer period of time, over multiple hardware generations- That said, we’ve seen the 'gold standard' in game developer support flip from one generation to the next, we are early in the Switch’s development cycle, and the SDK and tools themselves are constantly getting big improvements.
Adam Creighton also talked about developing the DOOM Switch port. While the game's scalable technology made the porting more straightforward than expected, developing the port has "wicked hard".
It’s been hard. Wicked hard. But I would expect it to be. This is a title that is so frenetic and action-packed and gameplay-pure that getting it to work correctly on the hardware is really important to us, and we spend a lot of time trying to make sure it measures up from the lens of ‘does it feel like Doom?’
DOOM launches on Nintendo Switch on November 10th in all regions. While the game runs at only 30 FPS, it still looks impressive, as seen in some recent videos.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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