Topic: L.A. Noire - OT

@GuruOfGreatness The Game Card contains some of the game files you need to play the game, so you would still need the L.A. Noire Game Card in order to play it. You have to download the rest. If you had downloaded the game from the eShop, you would need about 29.5GB free on a Micro SD card.

In other news, sales of L.A. Noire for Nintendo Switch in the UK account for 20% of the total sales of the new editions of the game. PS4 accounts for 51% of sales and XB1 28%. Presumably this only takes physical sales into account. Not bad for a system with a smaller install base.

That's so much better then 10% or less!

Even better when you consider how little presence Nintendo has in the UK market when compared to other regions of the world. For example, how much better must the adoption rate among Switch users have been in the US?

And WAY better if you take into account how different the install bases are.

@QwertyQwerty I just started the Vice chapter and I'm enjoying it. Frame rate doesn't bother me too much as the game isn't gameplay heavy. I guess I'll see for myself how bad that part is soon enough.

Not to mention the other two machines are 4 years old and have their second hardware iteration down to $200 or less on sale and Switch is just under 9 months old. Not bad for a 9 month old console in one of its worst performing markets to take 20% sales of a 6 year old remastered game against cheaper 4 year old systems, one of which is on its way to being best selling ever.

@NEStalgia 12 months from now when the Switch has twice the install base it currently does we could see some reasonably big 3rd party games sell best on Switch (and not just 'the usual suspects' like Sonic or Lego games).

I know it's not a linear relationship in practice but it's a really positive trend.

@StuTwo Probably more for "second chance" games than new games. For new games the audience that appreciates beta test......errr day one preordering.....is baked into the XStation market so those interested in that are already invested in those systems. LA Noire's success is probably a mix of Nintendo-only players not getting a stab at it before, players that would love it portable, and the fact that a solid chunk of PS4/X1 players already played it on their PS3/X360 and aren't interested in double dipping on a game that was considered overhyped the first time around (compared to Skyrim where even PC gamers might like the Skyrim: Toilet Edition.) I'm going to be curious how Wolfensten does in 2018. That's a good tell of a new-ish release that didn't really do exceptionally on XStation, how it performs when brought to Nintendo.

@NEStalgia Certainly "second chance" games from previous generations - I don't think we'll see many big current AAA games arriving.

If that means we don't get Fallout 5 but we get a port of the old Fallout 4 or we don't get Red Dead Redemption 2 but we get Red Dead Redemption 1 (or Revolver) etc. then I'm more than ok with that and I think Nintendo should be too. Getting those big brands on the console is in many ways more important than exactly which game in the series we get. It should help to ensure that Switch has a broader selection of high quality games in a broader range of genres than the Wii U or the Wii managed.

Presumably remasters and ports have a substantially different sales curve than most new AAA games. The model for selling those seems to be to sell as many millions as possible in the first few months (preferably in the first few weeks) and then accept they won't sell anything more until they dramatically cut the price 12 months later. I would also presume that the publishers know this and mark their expectations accordingly.

@StuTwo 12 months later?? Try 3 months later. It seems most 3rd parties will cut their price soon after the fact these days. We all no the bulk is pre-orders and week one sales then the huge drop off. That's why so many want to release around CHRISTmas to take advantage of a extra month or 2 evergreen sales.

@Spoony_Tech Yeah - I suppose 12 months at full price is an evergreen title really! Most games do plummet in price much quicker than that!

In all honesty I think the fact that Nintendo trains their fans that you don't need to buy on day one or wait until there's a sale (because you might be waiting a long, long time!) is one of the more understated reasons why 3rd parties struggle on their formats - they simply aren't set up to promote and sell games over the long haul any more. It's month 1 (preferably week 1, even more preferably day 1) or bust for them.

I spent £49 on Skyrim but from a purely financial perspective I should have bought XC2 at £42 because 5 years from now XC2 will probably still cost that much but Skyrim will be available for pennies.

Of course the best long term solution for everyone would be for other publishers - big and small - to defend the value of videogames and resist fire sales. But that's not a particularly popular line to sell.

@StuTwo Yeah that's really true, and has really tanked the industry as a whole. I'm not sure when the whole "month 1 is all that matters and then it's the discount bin" mentality started. It think Steam started that drain circling (if I haven't noted to you how much I disdain Steam as the worst thing to ever happen to gaming since EA, there it is. Everybody loves the easy to use platform and the sales....without factoring how much it has devastated the industry as a whole including the very topic you're talking about here.....plus everyone conveniently forgets they were planning the most restrictive DRM that any company ever imagined, making even Apple's early efforts look timid, until EU courts forced their hand to abandon it and now it's "consumer friendly>" Pfft....)

Of course these days for retail with Best Buy and Amazon offering discounts to members, it can pay to get it week 1 anyway. No doubt that's driving publishers to hate physical even more.

But the fact that the publishers set up their business model for "month one only" to mimic the already obviously doomed film model of "out of theaters in 5 weeks and onto home video!" makes me think they all learned from the same school of failure.

I'm convinced most video game executives came from the business end of cinema and television with no knowledge whatsoever of retail products.

I'm not ruling out Fallout 5 and TES 6.....Bethesda seems to be picking up a following on Nintendo, and they've been speaking very openly about this just being the beginning and there's more in their catalogue. Those headliners are better off on every platform if their engine can scale (and they now know it does.) Skyrim will determine that. There's also Dishonored II. It belly flopped last year pretty hard. Mr. Mumbles at E3 didn't help it. Nintendo could really give it a second chance, and that's a pretty current AAA. Not sure the hardcore horror games fit Nintendo as much as the other platforms though.

2K, EA, Activision, I've just ruled them out. 2K will probably continue sports support, but their catalogue is so thin otherwise....it's the GTA studio without much else to show anymore. But they're arguably the least exciting studios on any platform to me.

It's because there's so many games releasing nowadays. An incredible number of games.

Without steep discounts to entice those who weren't willing to buy day one those games get lost in the back release pile which keeps stacking higher and higher. Competition, especially on other consuls were the bulk of the third-party industry releases their games, is incredibly fierce. There are less total games which release on Nintendo platforms and thus less competition, which means games naturally hold their value much longer.

It's also the fact the games are so good and Nintendo has cultivated this environment of lasting value, competition also plays a big role.

Got my copy of L.A Noire. Haven't played it yet but I did finally download it to the Switch system memory last night. Took up 13.1GB, and, although I was expecting it to take longer than one of Nintendo's own games to download which as we know are pretty much just a matter of seconds, I was not expecting it to take 1 hour and 45 minutes lol.

Did it take everyone else a long time too?

I was gobsmacked when I saw how long it would take. Was hoping to at least start the game and play a few minutes of it last night lol. Oh wells.

@GuruOfGreatness You actually could have started the game while the dl was going on in the background. Took me just over an hour. All depends on your dl speeds. Took me less then 2 hours to get Resident Evil R2 and that was 23 gigs.

@GuruOfGreatness
I think Nintendo fans just aren't used to it.

Games on my X1X take several hours to install. Each and every game. About an hour for games on Switch with a download seems pretty routine.

I guess if you're not used to it, it takes a bit to adjust. But here we are. Welcome to modern gaming!

@JaxonH

"I think Nintendo fans just aren't used to it.
Games on my X1X take several hours to install. Each and every game. About an hour for games on Switch with a download seems pretty routine.
I guess if you're not used to it, it takes a bit to adjust. But here we are. Welcome to modern gaming!"

Oh I'm used to it, as I had a PS4 that I sold last Christmas, and an Xbox One that I sold just yesterday lol (I will no longer buy any console that does not offer second screen gaming in any way), I'm just not used to it on Nintendo platforms I guess lol.

Hope you're enjoying your X1X though

Competition, sure, to a degree, lowers prices, but there's a difference between competitive discounts and the race to the bottom which is where the entire entertainment industry has gone (music, film as well.) It was a misguided business model they all fell into the cycle of repeating. Yet all of them feel, and complain about, the unsustainability of the model. Yet all of them are too afraid to try changing it. If these products were treated as products that had value, I think we'd see a lot of positive changes in the industry overall, instead of treating it all as disposable products. I don't think the publishers are very happy with the revenue model right now either. Everybody's losing except people that like seeing "cheap"....unfortunately consumers have learned to watch "price" instead of "value".......that cheap Chinese no-name 50" TV that breaks every other year for $300 is seen as more desirable than the quality one that will last a decade plus for $750. Even though over 10 years the cheap one costs more and provides less.

Considering buying this as it is now around £30 on Amazon UK.

Under 2 hours for 13.1gb isn't too bad really. It's not great but it's not bad either. With the DLC speeds I get in Thailand that would take me about 5 on hours on Switch. It would take a lot longer on Wii U though. BOTW took nearly 20 hours while Xenoblade X took over 24 hours. I'm staying at my parents house in Scotland just now and the speeds aren't great here either, Doom took 1 hour 30 or something like that to download the 8gb. At my mates I could have downloaded that in about half an hour I reckon. Rocket League took less than 20 minutes and that's just under 5gb.