Status of OpenFL for Game Consoles ? (PS4, XBox One, Switch, etc.)

Every console (generally) has a unique API for graphics rendering. This often causes a lot of extra work for supporting each platform. Next, to complicate things further, each platform stakeholder surrounds their development in NDAs that mean that they cannot be publicly discussed and many kinds of source code cannot be released in open environments like GitHub :slight_smile:

I know of four separate solutions for consoles, one is a partnership with a popular console game developer, who has helped provide middleware that runs on nearly every platform, unified with a single renderer. This is mentioned in the presentation you linked, I believe there are releases coming pretty soon using that stack.

The other ones are custom in-house solutions, designed specifically for one or two console platforms. I know one or two of these developers, and may be able to look and see if they would be interested in contributing to a more general open-source library that does not require licensing, but the solution above (in the video) may still be best for most of the platforms.

Even in open-source, due to NDA, these projects would have to be in private repositories

I believe things may be getting brighter for making it easier to port to consoles in the future, though. We have seen Microsoft making bridges between Windows and Xbox development, and the Nintendo Switch (by all appearances) is an ARM device running OpenGL ES and/or Vulkan, both of which are general rendering APIs. OpenFL supports OpenGL ES rendering already for mobile, and we don’t have to hide any of that behind an NDA curtain, so Switch support seems promising!

Happy to talk more, and welcome :grinning:

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