Why doesn't Scirra start its own game-porting service for consoles?

I think there are three porting houses that have ported construct games in the past, maybe there are more that I never heard of, would be cool to have a list

https://www.seaven-studio.com/

https://www.ratalaikagames.com/

https://mp2.dk/

Looks like Seaven Studio might've finally gotten to the point of being C3 ready (according to their website). 6 months ago or so they were still only doing C2, so that's positive news.

mp2 are booked out last I checked.

if you targeting consoles, best practice to do your entire game in Javascript, visual and all... that way you can have one streamlined code...JS in this case 100% if possible. and when u go to a 3rd party they just replicate what u did in JS in C++ or C# which is usually used in consoles.

If you're targeting consoles, you'll want to do the opposite. The porting studios use their own wrapping tools to convert the event sheets into C++. They will actually struggle with any custom JS scripting in your project because of this.

That ^ only applies though if you're specifically going for a porting studio that focusses on C3. I'm not sure how many porting houses actually write the whole programs from scratch - that sounds expensive!

Guys))) Make more games in Construct, support devs by money, promote C3 and eventually when Construct gets cult status like Unity, GameMaker, UE, I believe devs will make everything for C3 game to be able to run on consoles, or consoles will implement HTML5 games. It is a huge work not only for devs, but also for us.

I think most engines that support multiple exports are designed around that from the start. Construct is designed around browser tech so all its exports either are bundled with a browser or use the browser included with the platform. Since making their own browser isn’t feasible their only option is to hope sufficiently feature full browsers become available on all platforms.

What construct’s exports do do is still helpful. They bundle your game up into one place.

Porting houses take different approaches. They mostly convert events to c++ equivalents, but when the events rely on browser features it’s probably something they have to often manually address. I do recall one porting house does have their own tool to convert JavaScript to c++, but again they have to handle any access to browser features case by case. I’d guess they are able to port maybe 90% of the game automatically and over time they may accumulate more reusable solutions to the rest.

After that they help with some optimizing for the given platforms. They also deal with the console companies as a middle man. Companies such as Nintendo require you to sign an NDA to even get a hold of an Sdk to even develop for their platform. There’s probably some per console tweaks that are needed for various reasons. There’s probably a lot more to it than meets the eye. Also the porting houses will be lagged behind any new versions of construct so that’s a fair amount to keep up with.

Overall I’d say Scirra already has its plate full with all its current endeavors. The porting houses already port games in general and are familiar with most export platforms. Scirra would have more risk involved as it would take a lot of time to get up to speed and maintain comparability with the different platforms to do the ports in a similar manner.

Ashley I am wondering, if consoles already have browsers, why not HTML5 games?

> I am wondering, if consoles already have browsers, why not HTML5 games?

xbox

You can, play them, but people don't want that... isn't about being able to play it in browser, we can do that already for a while... is about being able to native export to said consoles... sales... since those consoles don't work with in-game advertising.

ud be limiting ur game to just browser users... but the sales... are in hardcopy/digital sales... so if u want a sustainable return on ur work and investment u want a native exporter. not sure if there are many console/browser games that are "pay to own" like on steam and other platforms... would defeat the purpose of having a price for a browser game which u can access for free no download... well.. u could start ur own store with membership monthly for ur games... but then again plenty of other stores/websites doing that already. not sure really im thinking at this now and im confused hahaha.

one game that does well as a html5 game is cut the rope... but even that one the html5 version is limited. where the paid version aka "full" is sold digitally through their own website or other 3rd party stores... otherwise would take very shortly to ride the "viral wave" and cash on it....if it comes...

I meant that if they already have the tech to run an HTML5 game in browser, they should(?) be able to run it native?

I meant that if they already have the tech to run an HTML5 game in browser, they should(?) be able to run it native?

Yes, the tech is all there - but they need to add support for running HTML5 games inside console apps so they can be distributed through the stores.

Yes, the tech is all there - but they need to add support for running HTML5 games inside console apps so they can be distributed through the stores.

Would the concept of how the NW.jS exports basically included chrome work here? Construct exports a console app which bundles a browser that runs the HTML5 game?

fedca Turns out Seaven's homepage isn't quite correct. Just spoke to the producer for them and it looks like they're not ready for Construct 3 yet. They did say hopefully later this year.

Hey all,

Confirming the message here - we're still quite not there yet, we've had more work on Godot 3 than expected so it pushed Construct 3 back a bit, but I still hope to have something solid for this year.

I'll come back here hopefully this year to confirm we can port C3 games to all consoles.

In short, it's because consoles don't support HTML5 games. It's a shame as the technology works brilliantly, especially with the latest features like WebGPU, and JavaScript performance is extraordinary these days. If consoles did support HTML5 games, we'd add support for consoles at no additional cost.

However with no HTML5 support, the only option is to rewrite the entire engine in technologies that consoles do support. This might even end up needing a rewrite per console platform. This is a project that would probably take several staff working for years to get anywhere near full compatibility, if it's even possible - browser things like iframes and the HTML Element object with custom HTML and CSS may never be portable. That would be hugely expensive to the company - and a huge loss if it wasn't compensated by a corresponding vast increase sales - and mess up our whole single-codebase strategy that has worked so well for many years (and which I think is a large part of the reason we even came this far).

There's tons more to say about the subject, and I totally get it that people are very keen for this, and I'd do it if I thought it was realistic for us. But for the time being I think third-party porting services is a pragmatic compromise. What would really make it realistic is for consoles to support HTML5 games. The more people who push console makers for that, the more it will help incentivize them.

Way back in the days of the Wii U era, nintendo released Nintendo Web Framework, allowing web games to be published on the wii u. The only problem is that nowadays that's incredibly outdated from the current web, and probably not worth bringing back for them so late into the switch.

I'll come back here hopefully this year to confirm we can port C3 games to all consoles.

:)