Why the Bezel Engine is Bad

Nintendo recently unveiled a new engine their making called the "Bezel Engine", So far the details are minimal, but there's an inherent flaw with Nintendo making an engine, namely the fact that it will almost certainly be tied to the Switch.





Nintendo's been doing a better job lately with appealing to third party developers, especially the indie devs. There are plenty of engines that have been made to work on the Nintendo Switch, but many of those engines are custom made to fit the developer's needs. While it isn't impossible for an indie developer to create an engine, it will take a long time and the result won't be as good as using the vastly accessible (and free to use) Unity Engine.

The Unity Engine is the most comfortable option for creating games on any platform for indie developers. There are guides on how to do a lot using Unity, and it isn't that hard to get decent results. And that's why the Bezel Engine won't work. Big companies want to use either their own engine or the Unreal Engine, and most indie devs use Unity. The Bezel engine is not only something new to learn, but it also makes porting the game to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or PC a pain due to the need to remake your own game using a more accessible engine.

This isn't to say it doesn't have any purpose. If Nintendo is making an engine that they will be using, it's better than needing to repurpose an engine they made for a previous game to work on a new one. A new, easy to use engine might not be useful for the majority of developers, but if Nintendo uses it then it might be helpful for them.