Which Unity version to publish a game for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PS4

Hi!

I will publish a game in a near futur on PC/Mac/Linux, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PS4. I don't have a developer kit yet for each console so I don't have access to the documentation related to them.

I would like to know if I need a specific version of Unity to be compatible with all platforms or if I can upgrade Unity without any issues.

I'am working on Unity 2017.1 for the moment.

Thanks

 

I would suggest 2017.1 actually. It's pretty stable and if you're happy with the features, will be a good starting point. Once you get the kit, you'll re-evaluate it.

The behaviour of professional developers (those that do it for a living) is that they will pick a version around mid dev of Unity that really works for the game, and lock it down. That is, they'll get all the patch releases for it if they fix any issues that need fixing, need them but won't bother upgrading.

Unity makes it easy to upgrade but that's beside the point. Upgrading when your game is running really well is just risk you don't need to take as every new major version (not minor, usually) will add a chance of bugs you'll have to fix. Usually not, but it can happen.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

Do expect to be changing some things in your game source. Shaders are a likely point to start. Switch will be vulnerable to expensive shaders or post effects, and have less ram. Also you will find consoles may need some tweaks to shaders to run. If you stick with Unity stuff you will have no problems. But 3rd party often don't in fact, write shaders properly cross platform. Luckily, it's easy to fix and the forums will help.

 

Thanks for the advices.

We are in the middle of the development actually with the 2017.1 and everything is doing well so I will lock that version for now.

Keeping the framerate stable will be a great challenge but as you said there are solutions.

 

@hippocoder, does Unity already has the Nintendo Switch plugin for 2017.1? I thought it was still only on 5.6. This is the information we see from developers with access.

 

I can't comment.

 

Don't mean to be rude, but it's funny that the guy literally just asked which version he should use to develop his game to publish for Switch, and you replied 2017.1. And when I just as to confirm you "can't comment"? Well, ok them. Makes lots of sense!

 

OP asked

I replied with a reasonable NDA-friendly answer that basing it off what he is already using (2017.1) would be quite safe.

Then the question, specifically was asked:

And my reply is that I cannot comment because it breaches NDA and I'm instructed to close threads like this and direct people to the relevant portals for the particular console.

So I don't think there's any confusion with my answers, just it is not possible to answer specific questions and you should go to the dev portal