Take-Two CEO on Switch 2 Backwards Compatibility: You Need to Give Consumers What They Wants - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 04 October 2023 / 5,416 Views
There have been reports that some third-party publishers don't want the successor to the Nintendo Switch to have backwards compatibility. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick speaking with GamesIndustry said it is important to "give consumers what they want" and not fulfilling it would be like breaking contract with consumers.
"I'm not sure," said Zelnick. "You need to give consumers what they want and optimize their experience, and you can't not deliver a feature you're able to deliver so as to maximize sales. That isn't fulfilling your contract with consumers. You have to do the very best you can for them. I suppose it's possible the lack of backward compatibility could enhance your revenue for a period of time, but at what cost?
"We're not a hardware manufacturer so we don't get to make those decisions. But I think if you can be compatible technically, then you want to be. However, in certain instances if the leap forward is great enough, that's not a possibility."
There was a rumor last month that claims a developer in Spain has received a development kit for the Nintendo Switch successor.
Another rumor claims development on the Switch successor is "progressing well," but it won't launch until Spring 2024 at the earliest.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I don't think charging $50 on a port of RDR is giving the consumers what they want, but at least this is something we can agree on.
Take-two should start taking their own advice.
GTA Trilogy and RDR1 ports is what he consider the customer want?
I did want the GTA Trilogy. But one that didn’t have 7000 B-class bugs
The biggest problem with the GTA Trilogy, in my opinion, was that it replaced the original individual releases. Which meant the vibrant modding communities around those games were badly impacted. Had the old versions remained on sale, then GTA Trilogy would have been just another option. Instead GTA Trilogy became the only legal option, and a bad one at that.
Now, THAT is interesting. Maybe that explains why the old ones were removed from sale (music licenses coming up for renewal)?
Still, you could have modified the old ones to have new songs and kept selling them, as was done with Crazy Taxi and many other games in the past. That's probably a relatively minor modification to make.
The GTA games have a massive amount of music content based on all the fictionalised radio stations they put into the games and while the stations run the gamut of radio programming genres like talk back etc a hell of a lot of licenced music is used take Vice City the music is based on the setting so for example you have rock bands of the era like guns and roses on the rock station, steal a yardie vehicle and it is most likely tuned to a reggae station and so on and that is just one game , the musical scope in regards to licenced music is way beyond what licenced music you have in games like Crazy Taxi
Very good point. However, while the scope is much larger, the level of complexity to change the music isn't necessarily a lot higher. I don't know as I don't have access to the code (and wouldn't know what I was looking at if I did, LOL!), but it could potentially be as simple as swapping in some new music files (and making sure you match up the genres correctly).
The sticking point is you need to either pay for re licencing and even though the sales of the remasters won't compare to the originals you can be sure that the music publishers will use that previous success to push up the price and terms of the licences and they would see it as licencing 3 full games.
In the case of using new content lets say for argument's sake that removing the files is easy I'm no expert, the cost of finding and buying appropriate licenced replacement material or alternatively the cost of creating new material means just doing the remasters and making them the only pathway for those with an interest in those games by removing the the original games and letting those song licences lapse would make better financial sense since redoing the music for the original would be seen as adding one less reason to buy the Remaster
My point was replacing the original music with the music licensed for the remasters, so that they have the same music. So little to no additional licensing complexity there.
Your point about the old versions reducing the desire for the remasters has some merit, but T2/Rockstar paid a public relations price for not keeping the old versions around so I think there was a business case for continue to offer them. And it's not like it was a charity case, I'm proposing to keep the old versions for sale. :)
We can argue about whether Take Two can credibly speak about this issue. But, regardless of that, this guy is correct with respect to the Switch successor. It would be ridiculous of Nintendo not to make the next system backward compatible, unless it is a totally different technology where backward compatibility is unreasonably complicated.
I don't even see how not having BC could possibly even be an idea for Nintendo. The one thing Nintendo has to do is make sure Switch gamers continue over and buy the next system. No BC would be like Nintendo shooting themselves in the face. At no point have I ever considered the idea that the next gen won't be backwards compatible, because it would literally be the dumbest thing Nintendo could possibly do. So I think BC is a given, I would assume it's not something Nintendo has ever even questions for the next system.
Fair enough, but there's no such thing as a magical system that can do it all. Some things have to be sacrificed to keep costs in check, to keep battery life in check, to keep graphics, performance, portability in check. That's just the reality.
i refuse to support Take Two on the switch im a physical collector and everything they have released on the switch has used the smallest cartridges to save them money
Did they really say "give them what they wants" or was this a little color added for editorial effect?
LOL. It's giving me Gollum vibes. "We wants it, we needs it."
If you had bothered to read the article or even part of it you would see that the headline has a typo.
Sometimes you are just so serious
Why would third party publishers not want the next Switch to have BC?
You'd be surprised, many publishers do NOT want BC to happen because they could just port their games to the new system again, and they would be noticed because there would be a "global reset". Like how the first Switch games released in the first few months got a lot of spotlight.
He could have given us remakes or sequels to the wanderers, bully, gta 3 . But no, that would take away from the gta5 online cash machine
No way he is saying this, he HAS to know what he's doing.
Take Two are snakes. Waiting to strike when you are not looking.
I wasn't aware that Take-Two had produced (m)any Switch games? Backwards compatibility is a nice bonus (and I suspect that the Switch 2 will have it), but sometimes you need to have a big hardware change...
It'll have BC. In Ninty we Trust.
I think it will as well.
Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, DS Phat/DS Lite, 3DS,
Wii (OG model which is the vast majority), Wii U all have backwards compatibility.
Switch has a good reason to not be backwards compatible. It has no optical drive and even many digital Wii U games would be tough to emulate. And Nintendo I suppose could've accepted DS & 3DS Game Cards on Switch if they truly wanted to. But it would be a waste of money, engineering, and awkward to emulate two screens on one tablet/television display.
Nintendo's only reason to not have backwards compatibility on Switch 2 would be refusing to pay for the labor and resources it would take. But it would likely be pretty easy and too profitable not to.
So yes, they're almost surely doing it.
It should happen, but Nintendo has a disgraceful history of exploiting their fans when it comes to re-buying their existing games for new systems.
With the next Switch it will be the easiest its ever been to allow backwards compatibility, but lets see if enough fans demand it, or do they let Nintendo get away with exploitation and an anti-consumer policies once again.
