It's all actually rather complicated, but, yes, Atari owns the rights to the RCT franchise. Frontier developed part of 2 and 3 for Atari.
That is why Frontier released PC, not RCT4.
That is why Frontier released PC, not RCT4.
Why can’t Planet Coaster come to Switch
- Thread starter canand
- Start date
Atari has the Rights to RollerCoaster Tycoon. I am not sure if the have the Rights to RCT3 still, but yes they own the RIghts to RCT. This is why there are so many crappily made attempts of a Roller Coaster Tycoon Game. You can forget ALL of them after 3 sadly.
Joël
Volunteer Moderator
I could make it more complicated by saying that Chris Sawyer holds the rights and is the owner of the RCT brand. He merely licensed use of the brand to Atari (a license that was renewed at least once and currently expires somewhere in 2022 or around that year, if not renewed again).
Because Atari is licensed they can publish games with the RCT brand glued onto it.
Frontier cannot publish RCT games as they are not the license holder. They do have an exception for RCT3 for iOS. And they do have the (copy)rights on the game code of RCT3, so they own the code, but cannot publish or sell it as part of the RCT brand (RCT3 for iOS excluded).
So, doing some research in light of the announcement of Jurassic World Evolution being ported and being released in the next couple weeks and found a few details
1.)Both Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution use the same engine (Cobra)
2.)According to the planet coaster and jurassic world evolution steam pages, they have nearly identical PC system requirements.
3.)Planet Coaster is an older game (newer games tend to be more demanding..)
4.)same developer
So, there shouldn't be much of a problem with porting Planet Coaster over to the switch as well?
It is not as simple as that. You forget that JWE has no Piece by Piece Building. This in large parts is the Reason why the Game is so demanding on your System.
WingardiumLevicoaster
Volunteer Moderator
Same engine is no guarantee of ability to run on a device. The planet games are a whole different beast to JWE with regards to performance.
It is impressive to see JWE come to the switch, but it is important to know that the game will also limit the dinosaur population to 100 so as to keep the game performing well on the switch. Planet coaster is indeed an older game, but the game does still demands a lot of power to render all the peeps, coasters, and individual objects one could place in the park. If it does get a port to the switch, it might have a limit similar to JWE, be it way smaller map sizes or limits the number of objects placed in a park, and having such limitations to Planet Coaster does remove its charm as a creative business sim.
If it is any consolation: Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 is now available on the switch with the wild and soaked expansions included and I have been playing it a lot these days, it runs really well and is a great tycoon game to jump into from time to time.
If it is any consolation: Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 is now available on the switch with the wild and soaked expansions included and I have been playing it a lot these days, it runs really well and is a great tycoon game to jump into from time to time.
You have seen the console editions include a counter indicating how much you can place, so I think if Frontier ported Planet Coaster to the Switch, they can also use that counter, although it will be slightly less than the other console editions.
Well, actually it will be the same as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 editions (meaning it's not up to par with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 editions).