Shortly after Nintendo announced a March 3rd launch for the Nintendo Switch, developer Nicalis announced three titles for the Switch’s launch: 1001 Spikes, Redout and The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+. While Nicalis has been working with Nintendo for a while now, their president, Tyrone Rodriguez, told Polygon recently that the Switch is “by far the easiest and most programmer-friendly” platforms to develop for.
“I know this sounds like lip service to Nintendo, but it’s actually not,” he said. “If this wasn’t true, we wouldn’t be able to get these games up and running as quickly as we have, and we wouldn’t be able to have a launch title. It’s light years ahead of what we were doing with Wii U.”
Admitting that his company used to “enjoy” a lack of competition with other developers on prior Nintendo platforms, Rodriguez said he’s “very happy” Nintendo is seeing support from third parties at launch, adding that “more good games on every platform is good for the industry.”
More than 70 developers have signed on to make games for the Switch, with over 100 games in the works. Whether or not all or most of those games will actually see the light of day is another story entirely. Rodriguez is the first developer to speak specifically about the ease of developing for Nintendo’s console/handheld hybrid, but it’s been noted that the Switch is capable of supporting multiple development tools such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity.
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto himself says most PC games could be ported over to the Switch in “less than a year,” but it’s unclear if that includes titles being developed side-by-side with a Switch version or just those already on the marketplace.
As for Nicalis, all three of their Switch launch titles will come in both physical and digital formats, with extra “trinkets” promised for the launch edition of The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+. The game features more than 6,000 rooms for Isaac to explore, with over 500 different items and weapons to collect.
