Ubisoft Cancels Steep On Nintendo Switch

The Wii U effect... that's what Nintendo suffered half a decade ago when the Wii U came out. It was an interesting little console, but it failed to pick up a sizable audience due to poor sales, being overly expensive, and having poor support from third-party developers later into its life cycle. Worse yet is that a lot of the ports for the Wii U didn't sell very well and also suffered from quality issues, such as having horrible graphics or poor playability. While the Wii U had some moderate support early in its lifespan, eventually the compounding issues resulted in game companies abandoning the Wii U, leaving Nintendo to fend for itself. We're seeing a smidgen of that residual effect bleed over into the Nintendo Switch, where some game companies are pulling support for projects on the Switch after first announcing them or prototyping them on Nintendo's hybrid hardware. One game, in particular, that was originally going to make its way to the Nintendo Switch but is now being shelved by its publisher is Ubisoft's multi-discipline, open-world extreme sports racing game, Steep.

The news came courtesy of a response from the official Steep Twitter account, which was buried in a thread about the game's release on the Nintendo Switch. The PR confirmed that development has been halted for the Switch so that focus can be put on the game's existing platform releases, which includes PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

It's safe to say that a lot of Nintendo Switch owners were not very pleased with this turn of events, and the news soured the mood.

What really made some people angry was the fact that there has been no updates on the official Nintendo website, which still shows Steep coming to the Switch. Some retailers have also still been taking pre-orders for the game as well, which opens up a whole other can of worms.

The Twitter account doesn't say why the game's development is being halted for the Switch or what led to that decision, but apparently Ubisoft didn't think that porting the game to the Switch was worth the costs and effort.

Some developers have run into troubles with performance on the Switch when it comes to the portable mode. While games like DOOM and Wolfenstein 2 are available for the Switch, there are still some performance hiccups in the portable mode, where the game loses about 60% of its GPU power. It can definitely hamper development on games that are specifically designed to run at a certain fidelity at certain frame-rates. It could also seriously affect the game's multiplayer performance where gamers playing in TV mode may have an advantage over those playing in portable mode, where frame-drops and stutter may be more frequent.

Some companies like 2K Games have also forfeited releasing titles like WWE 2K19 for the Switch, even though WWE 2K18 came out for the Switch. Apparently, the costs just weren't worth it.

Steep was originally released back in late 2016 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It looks like it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.