Matthew Handrahan, GamesIndustry.biz:

Epic believes that the same process is starting to happen in markets like the US and Europe, thanks in no small part to refinements and improvements made to the Unreal Engine. During State of Unreal, Studio Wildcard’s co-founders Doug Kennedy and Jesse Rapczak came onstage to talk about Ark: Survival Evolved on mobile, and announced that it was being ported for Nintendo Switch. Sweeney also mentioned the mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which was first announced in November last year.

Another example is, of course, Epic’s own Fortnite, which Sweeney believes is “unique” even within the context of the larger trend; principally because the work Epic has done to make it possible will benefit anyone that uses the Unreal Engine.

“So that they can do the same thing,” Sweeney adds. “And that is build one unified game that runs on all platforms, that is the same experience everywhere, and is a social experience that you can play with friends across all of the different platforms.

“What we have is this one engine that’s supporting AAA production values and game sizes and content bases that runs everywhere. This is going to be a great setup for the games industry, because it means that now you don’t have a divide between casual mobile games and high-end PC and console games.”

For Epic, this all makes complete sense and will give Unreal Engine a massive leg up as a development tool.

I wrote about the need for cross-network play in my piece Sold on Cross-Network Play. Much of the piece — albeit not transparently — stemmed from my frustration of having to hook up my Xbox One to play Overwatch with my friends. It was extremely encouraging to learn that players of Minecraft and _Rocket League _would be able to share experiences between Switch, Xbox One, and Steam.

Sony claims that their reluctance of opening cross-network play is out of protection of their community. I think that is a fair stance, but is the Sony community any less toxic than others? I think the real fear is losing an amount of ability to lock in players to PlayStation 4. It’s the same case made for exclusive games and content, the latter I vehemently oppose.

Maybe it’s just the era I grew up in, but I believe in exclusive first-party experiences. Beyond the console wars which were somewhat steeped in technology battles as much as publishing and political ones, there is something to be said for the marriage of first-party hardware and software. Nintendo and Apple are prime examples this, creating unique and often stellar experiences by leveraging both sides of the stack.

Sony can hold their own when it comes to exclusives. It’s time to open the network.

Christopher Dring in conversation with Ralph Egas, CEO of Abstraction Games:

He continues: “Performance is not really the issue. The issue instead is in the size of carts. The 32GB carts are expensive, you shouldn’t be wanting to do that. So we need to fit everything on 16GB, whereas the standard game on PS4 is much, much larger. It’s a crazy ratio we’re talking about. However, thankfully, there are a lot of opportunities for reduction without changing anything anyone will notice. Another thing we can do is do a cartridge version and then do staggered downloads to make the game complete. That’s probably the hardest part. Finding all the new technicalities and quirks that you get with a new platform.

Interesting and somewhat encouraging that performance isn’t the primary challenge of porting to the Switch. Also encouraging that dual-layer DVDs — the ancient technology used by the PS2 and Xbox 360 — maxed out at 8.5 GB. (Apparently, Xbox 360 discs topped out at 7.95 GB.) Thus, I remain hopeful for Final Fantasy X and Kindgom Hearts ports.

Please forgive me for the headline.

GamesIndustry.biz:

According to data from the NPD Group, the device has now achieved more year-one sales than any other console in history. While no figure was specified, it’s likely to be well over five million, as Nintendo reported 4.8 million sales in the US by the end of 2017.

John Ballard, The Moty Fool:

The best-selling console ever is the PS2, which launched in 2000 and sold 157.68 million units over its life cycle, according to VGChartz. Sony shipped 10.61 million units in the first year of  PS2 sales.

Nintendo’s all-time best-selling game console — Wii — sold more than 4 million units within the first 10 months, and totaled 101.63 million units over its life cycle.

As for Switch, management says it expects Switch sales to reach 16 million by the end of Nintendo’s fiscal year in March 2018. That puts Switch way ahead of PS2, and on pace to be the best-selling console ever.

Big-N’s Big Year, indeed.

Christopher Dring, GamesIndustry.biz:

Nintendo’s share have risen more 4.2% and hit an almost ten-year high following the reveal of its Labo concept.

Nintendo Labo is a toys-to-life style Switch project, which combines the Switch hardware with DIY cardboard models to create new gameplay experience. The concept is targeted at younger gamers, although judging by the online reaction, is going to appeal quite broadly.

We’re not entirely convinced by its commercial potential (although it does look great), but Nintendo shareholders clearly are. At the time of writing, Nintendo’s share price is the highest it has been since 2008 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It currently sits at ¥48,320, which is the highest since September 2008, during the initial comedown of the Wii and DS.

Cardboard — overhead: low; margin: very high.