Console support in Godot (original) (raw)

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Console porting process

In order to develop for consoles in Godot, you need access to the console SDK and export templates for it. These export templates need to be developed either by yourself or someone hired to do it, or provided by a third-party company.

Currently, the only console Godot officially supports is Steam Deck (through the official Linux export templates).

The reasons other consoles are not officially supported are the risks of legal liability, disproportionate cost, and open source licensing issues. The reasons are explained in more detail in this article About Official Console Ports

As explained, however, it is possible to port your games to consoles thanks to services provided by third-party companies.

Note

In practice, the process is quite similar to Unity and Unreal Engine. In other words, there is no engine that is legally allowed to distribute console export templates without requiring the user to prove that they are a licensed console developer.

Console publishing process

Regardless of the engine used to create the game, the process to publish a game to a console platform is as follows:

• Register a developer account on the console manufacturer's website, then sign NDAs and publishing contracts. This requires you to have a registered legal entity.
• Gain access to the publishing platform by passing the acceptance process. This can take up to several months. Note that this step is significantly easier if an established publisher is backing your game. Nintendo is generally known to be more accepting of smaller developers, but this is not guaranteed.
• Get access to developer tools and order a console specially made for developers (devkit). The cost of those devkits is confidential.
• Port your game to the console platform or pay a company to do it.
• To be published, your game needs to be rated in the regions you'd like to sell it in. For example, game ratings are handled by ESRBin North America, and PEGI in Europe. Indie developers can generally get a rating for cheaper compared to more established developers.

Due to the complexity of the process, many studios and developers prefer to outsource console porting.

You can read more about the console publishing process in this article:Godot and consoles, all you need to know

Third-party support

Console ports of Godot are offered by third-party companies (which have ported Godot on their own). Some of these companies also offer publishing of your games to various consoles.

The following is a list of some of the providers:

• Lone Wolf Technology offers Switch and Playstation 4 porting and publishing of Godot games.
• Pineapple Works offers Switch, Xbox One & Xbox Series X/S (GDK) porting and publishing of Godot games (GDScript/C#).
• RAWRLAB games offers Switch porting of Godot games.
• mazette! games offers Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S porting and publishing of Godot games.
• Olde Sküül offers Switch, Xbox One, Playstation 4 & Playstation 5 porting and publishing of Godot games.
• Tuanisapps offers Switch porting and publishing of Godot games.
• Seaven Studio offers Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4 & PlayStation 5 porting of Godot games.
• Sickhead Games offers console porting to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S for Godot games.

If your company offers porting, or porting and publishing services for Godot games, feel free tocontact the Godot Foundationto add your company to the list above.

Middleware

Middleware ports are available through the console vendor's website. They provide you with a version of Godot that can natively run on the console. Typically, you do the actual work of adapting your game to the various consoles yourself. In other words, the middleware provided has ported Godot to the console, you just need to port your game, which is significantly less work in most cases.

• W4 Games offers official middleware ports for Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and Playstation 5.