Me and my brother want to publish a game that we are developing to the Nintendo Switch/2. I do not have a Nintendo dev account, as I might not actually get this done (But I hope I do!), so I can not see the API for the Switch, and am going to develop it as a desktop game to start out with. Once I have the game done, hoe easy/hard will it be to map the buttons (pretty sure this happens on desktop, too, so should not be too much work), request Nintendo Account friends, or access the UV camera (not going too, but hypothetical). I am OK spending a bit of time on porting it, and I’ll cross publishing when I cross that bridge, but how doable is this plan? Has anyone here tried it before? Will I not even have a shot at getting my game published so I shouldn’t try anyway? Thanks for your help, Twineee.
If you have the game running on desktop with gamepad support you have done 95% of the work. The specific things you need to do on Switch is to add the Switch extension to your game. The Switch extension gives you a couple of new API functions that you need to use to work with user accounts, save games and gamepad configuration.
I would not worry about porting to Switch until you have at least a prototype or early access game on Steam. If you manage to reach as far as a Steam release and you have positive reviews from players then it makes sense to approach Nintendo and sign up for a developer account, order a dev kit etc
A few days ago, we finished our first Switch port with Defold, and it was very straightforward. Björn and the team patiently answered even my silliest questions.
Is there a publisher that ports Defold games to the Nintendo Switch?
Thank you guys for the tips.