At this point, Rocket League is available on every major platform of the day- except for Nintendo. Which makes sense, given the Wii U’s relative lack of power, its weaker set of online tools, and its dismal install base. But would the development team at Psyonix consider putting the game on the Nintendo NX eventually? Is that a platform that they have considered in their plans?
When we got the chance to talk to Jeremy Dunham, VP, Marketing and Communications at Psyonix, we decided to ask him this question about Nintendo’s upcoming console. Sadly, he wasn’t too committal on it- but then again, in his defense, it is hard to be about something that Nintendo themselves aren’t willing to fully acknowledge yet.
“Well, the answer to that would be identical to whether or not we would support a hypothetical PS4K,” Dunham said. “It is certainly something we would consider. We consider all platforms, and whether or not they would make sense for Rocket League, whether or not they fit our timelines, whether or not we can afford to make our games on them. Every new brand new platform you work on, that is development time you take away from adding features to the existing versions of the game, for a version that the public isn’t even playing yet. So these are all considerations we have to make when we bring up new platforms.”
Whether or not it does happen, however, would depend on whether it makes sense to do an NX version- something that Dunham revealed depends on a certain set of questions that the team at Psyonix asks internally, before deciding on whether or not it makes sense to put their game on a certain platform.
“But the answer to whether or not we would do it is identical to the hypothetical PS4K- and that is, could we do it? Should we do it? And does the community want us to do it? Those are all things we have to consider, and if the answers are positive, then we would. Now whether or not it would have cross platform multiplayer, our goal for any version of Rocket League going in is to make it cross network, no matter where you are. So really, it would be a matter of understanding our limitations, what they might or might not be in that situation. So in general we would always try to make it work- whether or not we would in this case would depend on whether or not we develop for the platform in the first place, and then whether or not it would be possible.”
So it does not sound like an NX version is a given at this point- however, let us hope that Nintendo can pitch the NX to all developers, including independent developers like Psyonix, effectively, so that games like Rocket League can end up on it.
