Unreal Engine on Nintendo 3DS?

Hi, I have a question how does it actually with Nintendo 3DS? On the website: Lizenzierungsoptionen für Unreal Engine (UE5) Is it not specified.

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Unreal Engine does not support Nintendo consoles, including Wii, Wii U, or 3DS

What you are saying is false… Kinda. While Epic does not support Nintendo based consoles officially… Yes but other studios do. As long as you are a licensed Nintendo developer you can get access to the code.

The more you know :slight_smile:

So you only have to wait for a year after the console is already dead before you can hope to use an unofficial code for the engine that’s not likely to be easy to use.

Considering someone still develops for ps2 I’d say your point is a little weak.
In any case the engine wight now does NOT support any nintendo platform, and this will last a bit. After that it’s experimental land.

Won’t ever happen. Nintendo likely wouldn’t allow it because they’re stuck in 1981 with Mario and sodall else.

You mean like they don’t allow Unity3D on the 3DS ?

I doubt Nintendo would try to prevent it, no reason to do that. It’s just that there’s too much work involved and there’s not enough interest. For 3DS it’s not powerful enough so that’s a different matter.

If you don’t want to be successful then sure, you can develop for a dead platform

Do PS Vita or something instead. Arguably also a pretty dead platform, but Sony is desperate to get something good on it!

Can we be a little more professional about this please? As a licensed Sony and Nintendo developer, I am really tired of pointless “dead” system arguments.

The question here was whether or not the 3DS is supported. A perfectly valid question, considering UE4 supports mobile platforms and Nintendo platforms support Unity. Personally, I am disappointed that at least the WiiU isn’t supported, but I’m also not going to hold out too much hope for the port from the Bloodstained team (it will just take too long). Also, if there is Nintendo-specific code available for UE4, supported or not, I am not aware of it.

Yeah it’s amazing how moderators here are ******* on close partners of Epic Games.

So the question remains then:

Does Nintendo not allow UE4 on their platforms (aside of any reasons)?
Or:
Does Epic Games have zero intent to ever implement support for the Nintendo platforms (aside of any reasons)?

PS: We’re here because we love to create games, not to start platform-wars :stuck_out_tongue:

That’s not really a question, Epic has clearly stated that they considered those platforms not “next-gen enough”. Unity3D has support for both the 3DS and the Wii U, had it for years now, and they’re shipping recent builds as well.

Why this is framed as a Nintendo thing is beyond me.

Like I said, there’s no reason for Nintendo to block it. It’s far more likely to get UE4 support for the upcoming NX than the Wii U, but getting it on there either means that Nintendo has worked with Epic to add support for the console (it’s in Nintendo’s best interest to do that) or that Epic is interested enough in the console to add support for it before they know if the console will be successful or not.

Okay, I’ll word it differently… The engine will most likely never natively support any Nintendo platform out-of-the-box.

In order to develop for any Nintendo Platform, you have to register as a Nintendo Developer (or partner). This is no different to how PlayStation and Xbox currently do it. You can’t just package a game for PlayStation or Xbox, you have to register with them as a developer, pay (big money usually) and wait to receive your developer kit (Software, Hardware kits etc), then you have to download the source build of the engine and manuallymerge the PlayStation / Nintendo / Xbox SDK’s into it. There are PlayStation and Xbox developer sub-forums and documentation that roughly describe how to do it, but it assumes you’re already a fairly advanced user. I have no idea what the Nintendo application process is to be a developer, but I imagine since they aren’t really looking at any form of indie-developer market, that it’s pretty intense.

So, if you’re a Nintendo developer and you have their tools, then there’s probably no reason why you can’t merge it in with the engine since you have to use the source engine for Console builds anyway. Nintendo and Epic would have to work together to make the merging as seamless as possible. There is for example, a whole bunch of Platform-Specific code in the engine already that covers Playstation and Xbox platforms - and Nintendo would have to supply there changes to the engine to get the SDK to work. The studios mentioned above probably went through a painstaking process to get that hooked up.

I’m sure that Nintendo would have no problem with somebody making a game in Unreal Engine on their Platforms, but I also expect you’ll have to jump through hundreds of hoops to get to that stage. And, as somebody already mentioned - Nintendo Platforms are IMO critically under-powered compared to other modern day platforms - something this engine was never designed for. Epic would have to spend a considerable amount of time implementing support for Nintendo Platforms, which 99% of it’s user base will never use. It’s just not worth the effort.

TL:DR; Nintendo and Unreal Engine are at opposite ends of the market.

There’s quite a bit of misinformation in TheJamsh’s posts.

The process for becoming a developer for Nintendo is no different than the one for Sony or Microsoft. And they have been catering to indie users, quite a bit, actually. They constantly feature indie games in their online stores and you get a “free” Unity license when you join their Wii U indie development program.

The Wii U, however, is technically more like the PS3 and 360 than the PS4 and Xbox One, which is the baseline Epic decided to support on consoles (it’s also the platforms their AAA customers demand the most), so they implement platform layers for both by themselves. But as long as you can get your hands on a Wii U dev kit, nothing stops you from making a port yourself. Actually, this is being done by Armature, who are tasked with porting Bloodstained for the Wii U as a Kickstarter stretch goal. However, the game is slated for 2017, when the Wii U’s successor is likely to be released.

As for the 3DS, its tech specs (dual 266MHz ARM11, 128MBs of RAM, of which only 64MBs are usable by the games) are way below the required to run UE4 and even Unity (but I know of a few developers with source access to Unity who actually did their own 3DS ports for a few simple games, but it’s not on the level for general usage). The New 3DS does improve things quite a bit (quad 800MHz CPU, 256MBs of RAM, 170MBs usable by games), but it’s GPU would be a challenge to work with on UE4 and it’s a stop gap for Nintendo’s next platform, porting UE4 for it would come out too late. Nintendo and Unity even announced Unity support for the New3DS and it’s still not released, for example.

Nintendo’s next platform(s) is probably a different story. Rumors hint at their next console having some sort of parity with the PS4 and their next handheld is very likely to use hardware derived from modern smartphones. Square Enix’s Dragon Quest XI, which is done with UE4, was announced as also being on Nintendo’s next console, so it hints they might be planning on securing UE4 support (the Wii U benefited a lot by having Unity support - ports of indie Unity games make up the majority of releases in their digital storefront, so they probably realized the advantages of having popular middleware running on their platforms).

What about going for mobile gfx on the 3DS?

I said everything you did…

Bear in mind folks I’m only going off of experience with Xbox and PS4 - and AFAIK that’s all we know.

Until someone tries it we’ll never know for sure - but mobile builds still have a big requirement of their own. Engine still only supports the newer devices properly.

the 3ds sold more than the ps4 (ps4 35m vs 3ds 57m). yes the 3ds games cost less than the ps4 game but a 3ds game cost less to make. so i think is a good investment for a indie to make a game for 3ds.