We are pleased to announce the availability of a free Godot Engine port for authorised Nintendo Switch developers, supporting projects made with versions 3.5.x and 4.1.x.
This port represents a collaborative effort, co-authored by multiple members of the forums on the Nintendo Developer Portal. It underscores our commitment to make Godot Engine more accessible to a wider range of creators.
Key features of this Godot Engine port:
· Complimentary access: Available at no cost to all authorised Nintendo Switch developers.
· License: The source code is distributed under the MIT License, offering broad usage and modification rights.
· Software provisioning: The software is provided "as is," without any implied warranty or support of any kind.
· Basic functionality included: This port includes only basic functionality.
· No C# or GDNative/GDExtension: Only GDScript is supported. Native extensions are not supported, but you can try to convert them into internal modules.
· Optimization Level: It is important to note that the port is not highly optimized but is adequately efficient for most small to mid-sized game projects.
· Expandability: Having access to the source code, developers with C++ knowledge have the opportunity to add and integrate additional functionalities as needed.
· No support provided: This port is provided without support. Developers are encouraged to engage with the community on the Nintendo Developer Portal for collaboration and assistance. We recommend partnering with porting companies for medium or large-sized projects.
· Access Procedure: Access can be requested through the Nintendo Developer Portal.
Additional details are available for authorised Nintendo Switch developers in the forum section of the Nintendo Developer Portal.
Now there’s no excuse not to use Godot Engine for making indie games for Nintendo Switch!
We look forward to the innovative and engaging games that will come from the Godot Engine development community.
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News Godot Engine Now Available to Licensed Switch Developers for Free
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Hero of Legend
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After Sonic Colors Ultimate, no thanks.
It's definitely good to have options, but as the post itself sort of alludes to, this isn't really meant as a full replacement for the paid ports.
sagadego20
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to be fair blame sega and blind squirrel games on that fuck up
Clov
An ethernet cable girlfriend
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After seeing Vroom in the Night Sky, I think that Bezel Engine ought to be left on the bench
carbvan
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1 mediocre game and you write off an entire engine? It's not even the engines fault. What an odd mindset.
Judging an entire engine by a single game is rarely especially fair, but Sonic Colors Ultimate is probably a particularly unrepresentative example, especially with how much the engine in general has progressed since then.
Hero of Legend
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I forget, did Blind Squirrel create the engine? If they didn't and just (TERRIBLY) use it then I take it back. However surely good uses exist on Switch then, surely?
carbvan
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Godot is an open source, free to use engine that's community driven. They just used a free alternative to Unity because there's no fees or anything attached, and did a shit job with it.
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They basically ductaped the original Wii code to Godot and tried to run the logic off the original code and the graphics on Godot, IIRC. To the surprise of no one, this was a disaster.
For examples of what you can do with Godot if you are given more time/budget/chances to care: https://godotengine.org/showcase/
Blind Squirrel definitely did not create it. They just licensed it and did a pretty bad job of using it.
The biggest Godot game on Switch that I'm personally familiar with on Switch is Cassette Beasts, which has some minor loading and performance issues, but I'd say is otherwise a pretty competent Switch port (as of the latest patch). You can find other games that use the engine at the Godot link posted above or at the link in the OP.
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Oh, this is pretty awesome news! It's probably not gonna be relevant for bigger games (who will need more bespoke porting work), but it's really cool to have the option available for smaller games that won't require a lot of optimization work. Here's to hoping I get to benefit from it in the next couple years 
Hopefully they will implement dotnet support down the line like the PC version
Godot being open sourced means that it hasn’t been supporting Switch since it can’t contains private Nintendo API. Blind Squirrel have to port it themselves and rewriting the original code from a different engine along with a short dev time so results are understandably substandard.
Godot being open sourced means that it hasn’t been supporting Switch since it can’t contains private Nintendo API. Blind Squirrel have to port it themselves and rewriting the original code from a different engine along with a short dev time so results are understandably substandard.
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That's not quite it. An engine doesn't have to contain private APIs to work, and there's ways to work around calling private libraries and software from open source projects. But also, the situation is complicated enough that I wouldn't feel comfortable hazarding guesses as to why this has taken time. (I'd start with the fact that you technically would need to be a licensed Nintendo Developer to get the actual hardware to port, compile, run and test Godot itself, honestly)
Dekuman
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i assume Nintendo is onboard in bringing this engine to Switch right for it to be available to officially licensed devs.
It should be noted that the existing paid ports already support C# on the platform. This is specifically a limitation of this new free one.
It's complicated. The issue isn't so much open source but that there hasn't really been the infrastructure to support private builds with console support until pretty recently. That's sort of one of the main goals of the company W4, which is run by the lead devs of the engine and provide a "official" port with full support. Since the core engine is open source, however, they are not the only option, leading to competing offerings like the one this thread is about, which doesn't cost any money to use, but is a more barebones port with no support provided. Which one is the correct decision for any given project is all about tradeoffs.
Back during the Sonic Colors debacle, there may have been a porting studio or two with experience with the engine, but there certainly weren't any ready-made options. Blind Squirrel also seems to have taken the wrapper approach, which is something that can be done well, but they don't really seem to have been up to the task, at least with the resources provided.
Individualised
Bob-omb
This is like judging every id Tech and Source Engine derived game because Daikatana was bad, this is quite a weird take.
Arrietty
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Hey, what the fuck? Why are you blaming an entire engine on a really bad port that only used it as a backend for graphics?
That is on Sega/Blind Squirrell. Not Godot. Learn shit about game development before you go badmouthing an actual capable engine.
EDIT: Also they did not make the engine... I'm... not even sure where you get this. Godot is an open source free engine people use to make games. It's really capable and good. A lot of my friends uses it and have been making cool games with it. So this entire take on both posts are extremely ill informed. Please do research before you make such extremely baffling takes. Because this isn't any different from shitting on bad games and blaming it on Unity or Unreal instead of like... the game itself. Please.
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Razgriz
I ask of you: are you my Master?
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Godot was just used for the graphical backend. Ultimate runs on a mix of Godot, the original Hedgehog Engine and Blind Squirrel Games' (who were responsible for Colors Ultimate) Xerus engine.
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Either way, this is pretty neat. I like how they worked around the obvious licensing problems by limiting their distribution to the internal Nintendo Developer fora. You only get access to those by signing an NDA, meaning that anyone who can access it has signed the NDA (and in turn, that means they can't share it outside the Nintendo Developer forums, solving the catch 22 that freely licensing this would normally cause with the proprietary Nintendo SDKs).
By the way, if you're doing homebrew dev, Stary2001 has a port of Godot that links against libnx instead of the official Nintendo SDKs: https://github.com/Stary2001/godot , which is worth a mention at least.
Dcubed
Paratroopa
This is great news. Epic and Unity Technologies have far too much power throughout the industry, and Unity have already shown what happens when you have an uncontested oligopoly on game development engine technology. It's also only a matter of time before Epic also end up springing their own trap on UE licensees, who have also already proven that they can't be trusted (as demonstrated by their attempts to trojan horse their Epic Games Store onto mobile platforms and consoles)
The industry desperately needs viable open source alternatives, and Godot is the closest that we've currently got to that.
The industry desperately needs viable open source alternatives, and Godot is the closest that we've currently got to that.
ImpromptuR
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It is a bit raw at the moment.
At the present time, makes little sense to change from Unity to Godot if your are aiming Switch.
I am a believer that Godot 5 will make the jump and will be the standard for indie games going forward.
At the present time, makes little sense to change from Unity to Godot if your are aiming Switch.
I am a believer that Godot 5 will make the jump and will be the standard for indie games going forward.
It seems that you do not know what an engine is or can do...
Hero of Legend
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Okay I get it people. I already apologized above. :/
OctoSplattack
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