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Miyamoto says Nintendo has ‘mastered’ the Unreal Engine

We already knew the Switch would be compatible with popular game engine Unreal Engine since Epic Games told us themselves. Now Nintendo executives are claiming they have “mastered” the engine, reinforcing their support for third-party games on the upcoming hybrid console. (via VentureBeat)

While addressing investors, creative director and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto said the Switch will support game engines like Unreal and Unity instead of relying solely on Nintendo’s own development tools.

An anonymous investor pointed out the Wii U’s lack of third-party support and asked about Nintendo’s progress with Switch game development. Miyamoto was positive in response and assured investors the Switch was built for easier development. He also explained PC games could be ported to the Switch quickly due to its custom Nvidia graphics technology.

“That ease of software development has also been felt by Nintendoʼs internal developers,” said Miyamoto. “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.”

Managing executive officer Shinya Takahashi weighed in on the matter: “For our previous game platforms, creating our own development tools was a high priority for us. However, since the start of Nintendo Switch development, we have been aiming to realize an environment in which a variety of different third-party developers are able to easily develop compatible software, such as by making it compatible with Unreal and Unity as well as our own development tools. As a result, even companies with only a few developers have already started making games for Nintendo Switch.”

It doesn’t sound like Nintendo is actually utilizing Unreal for their own games. But since they’ve “mastered” it, they can help developers, especially independent ones, to better make games on the powerful engine.

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Mischa McGill

Mischa grew up with video games and still has a deep love for many - especially fun, colorful RPGs. Some of her favorites include Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Fantasy Life, Kingdom Hearts, Skyrim, Civilization V, and Stardew Valley. She loves nights in with her boyfriend cooking Mexican food, watching Studio Ghibli movies, and going head-to-head in their favorite games. Mischa might not beat you in Super Smash Bros, but she owns a replica of Arwen’s sword and Hermione’s wand, so... don’t rub it in too much.