I wish these companies would provide more information on the path to exporting for console. I know there are NDAs, but even for smaller libraries like Monogame and Heaps they at least mention that you can access a repo to do console builds. For the Godot path I was under the impression that you need utilise these companies as a publisher in order the build for console, which opens up a whole host of unknowns at the outset of the project.

Indeed, these are for-profit companies who will handle the porting job or assist you in it (they're not all publishers, mind). They could be more transparent, I agree, but as they want to sell a service, public documentation is probably not their priority. That would be the Godot project's role, except as they explained in a recent blog post [1], as a free software and entirely public project (not a company), they couldn't work on console-specific code let alone host it or document it. It could be done in private by volunteers, but it hasn't been the case so far, only for-profit companies did it - likely because of how complex it is, and how tricky working with console manufacturers is.

So the state of Godot on console is out of Godot's hands, and that's why there is no documentation on it right now. But that might change with a company focused on bridging the gap between Godot and console manufacturers, which one of the W4 founders is alluding to [2].

[1] https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-...

[2] https://twitter.com/reduzio/status/1556931546665422851

I really hope we got a lot of transparency with this new company. I would very much be happy to pay a company a sizeable amount to obtain the console compatible version of the engine. It just needs to be clear to me what the pricing and terms are when I am evaluating game engines for new projects. Right now it is too risky to start a project in Godot with the hope that a 3rd party will deliver a console port for a reasonable price many months, or perhaps years into the future.