 So, the Nintendo Switch might be forcing some weird things on developers when it comes to updating and patching their games on the Nintendo Switch. And this is the kind of thing that could actually deter third parties from wanting to do anything on the platform. Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't blame to go all around in this, but let's just get right into the exact comments on the situation. This comes from Matthew Karch of Saber, the company that created NBA Playgrounds. And obviously, NBA Playgrounds is on the Switch and is missing features that other versions have. And here's what he says, he says, I don't want to even talk about it. I can't talk about it publicly, but I am at wit's end, online has been functional for weeks. He goes on to say, unfortunately, there isn't much of an update I can revive. There are certain elements of our patch that are absolutely essential, but that are out of the normal Nintendo guidelines. If Nintendo were to approve the patch, it would release immediately. But we are in the midst of a long process of back and forth to get small matters waived. It isn't that we aren't working on this, in fact, getting this relatively simple patch out has consumed more of our time than making further improvements and additions to the game. When I say it is entirely out of her hands, I mean that. We were put in a position where we needed to get this game out at the same time as the other consoles, and because the platform was so new, it suffered in certain areas. There isn't even a change log at this point. Is the same patch, and we've been sitting on it for weeks when asked for an example of what's holding up the approval process, he goes on to say, the simplest one is patch size. There are certain size requirements that you can't exceed in a patch. It took us almost three weeks to get an exception to allow our patch to be larger than the normal size, and the reason it is larger is due to the technology we are using and is beyond our control. In fact, we proposed reducing the entire file size of the game from 7GB to 3.5GB, but because the platform is so new, it doesn't support it now, and that can't be done. And more on reducing that file size, Nintendo won't allow it initially as their system doesn't support it. From our end, it's already done. Once it's supported, we will be able to do that. So there's a lot to digest here. But the general gist of it is the people behind NBA Playgrounds have two things they want to do. One, they have a patch that includes all of the multiplayer and online functionality for NBA Playgrounds that has been ready for probably over a month now, probably a couple months at this point since it took three weeks to even get the size approved. So there's a size limit issue with Nintendo Switch updates. On top of that, in this timeframe, they've been able to cut the size of the game on Nintendo Switch in half, but they can't even release that update because the system itself doesn't actually support the ability to do that, to basically redownload the game at the half thing it is. And a lot of this happened because the game was rushed to market. They did not get as much time to work on the Switch version. They wanted to release it or were required to by someone, whether it was Nintendo or other parties, maybe it was the NBA itself, required to get the game out at the same time on Nintendo Switch as other platforms. So it ended up not having the same optimizations done. So obviously after optimizing, cutting the game in half, you know, going from what did I say, seven gigs of three and a half, that's a huge drop off in game size. And that's very important. And that would also lower conversely lower the size of patches. Now for those who don't know, NBA Playgrounds runs on Unreal Engine 4. And to give a reason why there might be larger, you know, patches with a game that's on Unreal Engine 4 is that everything is kind of condensed down to make the files smaller in batches and packets. And when you make one little change to one of those batches or packets, you have to redownload that entire batch or that entire packet. So say you have an element like a four gig batch of assets of coding of, you know, visuals, whatever, and you make one change to that batch, or in order to update the game, you have to redownload that entire four gigs, even though there might only be a few megabytes of actual differences between the files. That's just how Unreal Engine 4 does it. That's how a lot of engines do it, because the idea is you don't want to be releasing games that are 500 gigabytes, because you don't have any compression going on. And you know, no one's really figured out a better way to handle this at this point when you're using these kinds of engines. So NBA Playgrounds does kind of have their feet tied in the sense that they can't really necessarily make these patches smaller. And there's a lot of back and forth here with a lot of people talking about this. I feel like everyone's in the wrong. Nintendo's in the wrong because they clearly have some limitations with patches that other platforms don't have. This is the kind of thing that can deter third party support. And this doesn't mean that third party games haven't gotten patches. We know that Super Bomberman R has gotten patches after patches after patches, some of them pretty significant patches, but we don't know the size of those. Those patches very well may have fell underneath Nintendo's size limits. And it does look like, because Nintendo did approve it, that on an individual game to game basis, an individual patch to patch basis, Nintendo will approve larger patches. It doesn't sound like Nintendo's being like, look, you can't release large patches. Like that. That's not what Nintendo is saying. They just don't want it to become the norm. What's interesting is that there's obviously other things holding up the release of it because they've already been approved for the patch size. They have an exception to allow that patch size. Now they don't have an exception yet to allow them to, you know, basically have this three and a half gig download that replaces the entirety of the seven gig download. Basically updates the entire game and gets rid of the seven gigs and cuts the file size in half, which on the switch is really important when you're only talking about 32 gigabytes of internal memory. You have a downloaded game being able to cut that from seven to 3.5 is huge. Unfortunately, maybe it's because Nintendo doesn't have their online systems launched. Nintendo at the time does not allow that kind of patching to happen where you can basically, you have a game already downloaded and you can kind of redownload the game and it kind of kicks out the old game and it'll get rid of all of the excess data there and just keeps the 3.5 gigs. The switch doesn't support this at the time. It is something that Nintendo might support in the future, but it is worth noting that that is a critical point for Nintendo switch to not have that. It's also a critical point for Nintendo to have to even take three weeks. Like three weeks seems excessive to approve a patch size, like just the size portion of it to get the telecom. But hey, look, it's okay if your patch is four gigs. That's that we're okay with that. So there's a lot to go around and obviously a lot of this so far has been on Nintendo on the other side of the board. There's the whole maybe it shouldn't have been rushed to meet launch, like to have a simultaneous launch. Maybe it should have been given an extra couple of weeks. So it could have been three and a half gigs at launch on the switch. I think a lot of switch owners would have been okay having to wait a couple of weeks if they were being open and honest about, hey look, we just haven't had as much time to develop on a switch. So we're going to take this extra time and I feel like it would have been okay. Sales would have been fine. There's other things too that people are a little critical with this company. Because of the delay in all of this, they've said they're going to give out free copies of Shack Fu to anyone who has bought the game on switch, hoping to have this online functionality but doesn't have it. But when they announced the Shack Fu stuff, which sounded great, they also went on to say that they have no idea how they're planned to deliver it yet. They just know they're going to. And it makes Saver kind of look a little lost where they're making promises without understanding how they're going to be able to deliver on those promises. And what makes it suck with all of this is that they promised this online update many, many weeks ago without actually understanding the process you have to go through to release a patch on the switch. So they jumped the gun even talking about when they were going to release this patch. Like there was rumors it was supposed to come the week of E3, the week after E3, the week before E3. And lots of that, lots of that came from them that said, hey, we're very close to releasing this and they said that like a month ago. So we're talking about a company that doesn't seem to have a full grasp on how things are handled on the switch before they make promises. Like promising to give away a free copy of a game without understanding how you can give away that copy of a game is very shady. So is saying that you're going to release an update without actually understanding how the update is without even having the update approved. Like if they have the size stuff approved, there's obviously other things holding up the release of the patch. I have nothing to do with size. And until we know the full story, we don't know how much of that blame falls on Nintendo's feet. I mean, certainly Nintendo shouldn't have taken three weeks to approve of the patch size. And maybe Nintendo should upgrade, you know, or allow larger patches without an individual approval. But there is something to be said for Nintendo doing this, even though they're not the market leader, because a lot of gamers are really tired of you get a game. And on day one, you have to download a 50 gigabyte patch for a 50 gigabyte game. And I know that's not the case here, we're talking about a seven gigabyte game. And you know, at most a seven gigabyte patch, we're not talking about, you know, some some big AAA game that's going to eat up all your space on your switch. But a lot of people are really tired about having to download several gigs worth of patches. And some of this again, isn't the fault of the developers, it's the fault of engines and not having more efficient ways to do these things. But it's just a big cluster fuck right now. I don't know how else to say it's a big cluster fuck I, I am kind of lost at what to think right now, because Nintendo definitely is in the wrong a little bit, but Saber themselves is also kind of a little bit in the wrong where they released a game that wasn't ready. And our promising things and promising when patches are going to release and promising stuff without actually understanding how to do all of this, like they should not even be talking about the patch outside of saying it's coming. And we're waiting for approval. That's it. As soon as it gets approved. And they know that and like Nintendo is like, yeah, you can release it like right now. Okay, then they can be like, Hey, look, we're releasing this in a few days. We hope we look forward to it. But they said this without actually being fully approved in the past. That's where the problems run into Saber coming out and saying this. It's just a big mess. And so this person that posted this on Neogaf noted that this isn't actually the first time it's happened. The dev of shifty has also complained in the past that his patch wasn't improved approved by Nintendo because of the size. And because of this, I want to expect big post launch support of Switch games. And this is just unacceptable for a company like Nintendo. And again, this is this is all everyone's fault in regards to the Saber thing. Now with the dev of shifty, obviously, this literally the only thing that stopped the approval was the size of the patch. Nintendo definitely needs to address this. They need to allow larger patches. But at the same time, devs need to start thinking about the end user and that some people actually have capped internet. So if you're a person playing a single player game like Mr. Shifty, and you download a five gigabyte patch, that might be the extent of your allotment for your internet for that month. And that sucks. And I know I don't I don't live in the capped internet space, but I do live in an area where they say they're not going to reduce your internet. But the more I download, the slower and slower my internet gets over the course of a month, which again, I know ISPs are not supposed to do that. My ISP claims they don't do that. But every time I call the complaint, suddenly my internet's faster 10 minutes later. You tell me if they're, you know, what's going on with that. So Nintendo's in the wrong. Saber interactive here is in the wrong. The devil Mr. Shifty, I don't know much about the background of that, but Nintendo needs to relax on some of their policies for patches. But at the same time, companies like Saber and other future devs and any developers need to make sure they do their full research and how to release patches on the switch before diving deep into it. I do worry this could discourage patches. But again, we've seen other games that have had no problem getting their patches approved. Maybe it's because they're devs that work on the AAA developer side, maybe Nintendo lists some of the restrictions for things like call of duty, if that would have came over. And that this is just something to help manage with indie titles. I have no idea. But I want to learn more. We need to learn more. I feel like Saber or Nintendo needs to give us more information on this process for us to really decide what's going on. But either way, this is an issue. Regardless of who's at fault, there is an issue here. And Nintendo is at the center of it. And I do worry about their party support on the switch because of it. Anyways, this is Nathaniel Ruffalojans from Nintendo Prime. If you like this video, you know what to do comment below and subscribe for more. Obviously, if you enjoy this content and you want to support us, I actually just broke one of our microphones or I didn't really break it. It was already broken. Apparently, when we went to record the latest podcast, which will release next week. So for two people, we were down the one mic and that's not the best way to do things. Audio levels are going to be a funky. You know, we need new equipment. We need new lighting. We need a new camera. This kind of stuff is what we're hoping to get with Patreon support with patreon.com slash Nintendo Prime. You can come support us and support our ability to continue to make great content for you that Patreon supports primarily going to be supporting this YouTube channel. 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