Nintendo’s Miyamoto: We’ve “mastered” Unreal Engine 4; PC to Switch ports should take less than a year

Nintendo’s Creative Fellow, Shigeru Miyamoto, has asserted that the publisher has “mastered” the Unreal Engine 4 and that “it would take less than a year” to port a PC title to the upcoming Nintendo Switch.

“Regarding our software development environment, third-party developers who are making software for PC can now easily adapt that software to work on our platform. In the current development environment, Iʼd say that it would take less than a year for them to port a PC game to Nintendo Switch,” Miyamoto said in a recent investor call, as gathered by Polygon.

“That ease of software development has also been felt by Nintendoʼs internal developers. Also, even though game software developers in the U.S. and E.U. are often said to have superior skills to their Japanese counterparts when it comes to software development techniques, Nintendoʼs software developers have mastered state-of-the-art technologies such as Unreal engine, and their skills can now be compared with those of Western developers. Our developers are more excited than ever to create software.”

Miyamoto’s assertions were backed by Managing Executive Officer Shinya Takahashi.

“I have to refrain from disclosing any technological details, but … we have been very flexible when making technological selections,” Takahashi said. “This time, in order to develop Nintendo Switch with high performance in spite of its low power consumption, I feel it was key that the two companies could work together as partners while also fully displaying our individual craftsmanship.”

Sporting a Tegra mobile processor, some are worried that the Nintendo Switch is far less powerful than the Xbox One or PS4, and as such, third-party support may be scarce. Electronic Arts has recently confirmed that the Switch version of FIFA 18 will be “custom built”, different from that of other current-gen consoles.

The Nintendo Switch heads to store shelves on 3 March.