Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@-Green- I get where your coming from. For me sometimes it can be frustrating when it feels like you could be getting hyped for something coming soon but it's been held back for E3 or holidays or whatever but I see it as a chance to finish up some older games, play some retro titles and get some (admittedly lower) hype for AA titles like Kirby/Mario Tennis Aces/Dark Souls. Stay positive my man!!

If that Donkey Kong thing is indeed a tease and not just an inconsequential picture, it could potentially be a remaster of the original DKC trilogy?

@EvilLucario I've pretty much returned to the point where I don't know when I'll finish BotW because more distractions have arrived. Pokken DLC, Fire Emblem Warriors DLC, the surprise release of the Mario Odyssey costumes, the surprise release of more Xenoblade 2 DLC quests (thought the update was just going to be bug fixes), Piranha Pit coming to Splatoon 2 in a few hours, etc.

I do understand though that Labo being the big game for the first half of 2018 can be rather frustrating.

@EvilLucario @bluemage1989 @Grumblevolcano yeah there's no sugar-coating it - ignoring ports, the Switch lineup is not only terrible, but just as bad as (if not worse) than the Wii U droughts that everyone always brings up when disparaging the Wii U. Only difference is, Switch is relying on Wii U ports to fill in gaps, while Wii U only relied on its own games (besides Wind Waker HD).

That being said, most people didn't own a Wii U, so for them the lineup is fairly decent - nothing amazing but just enough to keep some level of interest. Bayonetta and perhaps DK are standouts but everything else feels like filler before the true standout titles coming in the second half of the year. And tbf, if Wii U owners were able to survive those droughts, then they're likely capable of handling Switch droughts as well. And as Grumblevolcano mentioned, there are lots of games on Switch with lots of replayability, as well as online multiplayer, and lots of indies releasing as well. Now that I think about it, the situation isn't quite as bad as the Wii U in roughly the same time period when you factor in the evergreen and online multiplayer games released last year.

@Grumblevolcano As much as I like the Pikmin franchise, I also know that a Pikmin 4 reveal wouldn't be a big surprise. Especially since we've known about its existence for at least three years. It's not a question of it, but when.

@shadow-wolf I would agree with that statement, except for one thing. The number of indies and smaller published games coming to Switch now is far higher than it ever was during the Wii U's lifetime. Just looking at physical releases, we have at least 10 in April and 14 in May that I am aware of so far.

Sure it's not great, but look at Wii U's rate of release. Back in the first quarter after it's release, we saw a grand total of 12 games in three months across the eshop and retail. In the same period of time for the Switch, 165 games have been released, not including Arcade Archives releases. That's a ratio of nearly 13:1, hardly comparable. Sure you might not have anything you are interested in, but this isn't a Wii U level drought by any stretch of the imagination.

Even just looking at retail across similar time periods, Wii U had 4: Hello Kitty Cruisers, DK: Tropical Freeze, Lego Movie Videogame, and Cabela's Big Game Hunter as it for the corresponding three months, while Switch has had at least 13: Rocket League, Lost Sphear, Dragon Quest Builders, Wonder Boy, Monster Energy Supercross, Bayonetta 1&2, Payday 2, Kirby Star Allies, Scribblenauts Showdown, Attack on Titan 2, Portal Knights, and Atlier Lytelle and Suede.

@shadow-wolf ahem What are you talking about? That is so untrue, I would need to make a whole new infographic for Wii U releases. I have one for Switch releases though! And nope there is no possible way.

For the first year of the Nintendo Switch we have had sixty seven retail titles, in North America alone (I mean 2017 not even the full March to March). Even now there is sixteen in the first three months of 2018 alone. From what we've heard there is a confirmed thirty two from now until E3 (June 12th). Now I don't deny that a good amount is shovelware, but that's one hundred and five retail titles IN NORTH AMERICA ALONE. Within the around 4.5 years the Wii U had, the total number of retail titles (at least that I can find) is one hundred and sixty.

Even discarding Wii U ports would be a total of twelve both first party AND third party before E3 2018. Only one has been confirmed past that in Captain Toad (unless you count Bloodstained, then two). Its still ninety three.

Yes this half the year has been light, for Nintendo releases.

But if you compare the first half of the Switches year to now? There was almost no games every month! In fact over the first four months there was only Zelda, Mario Kart, and Arms. Big hitters for sure but stretched reeal thin.

Don't even get me started on the Eshop, the Switch's is miles ahead of the Wii U's in both quality and quantity. Not only that we are getting DLC, both free and paid, for tons of big games.

Look I get that these last three months haven't been "astonishing" but simply based off of the Switch's health from evergreen titles (as you said) and its new found reputation with indies, its nowhere near as bad as the Wii U. I had one mind you and I still love the thing, but the droughts were so painful. This is nowhere near as bad, even for a Wii U owner like me.

@ieatdragonz Note that @shadow-wolf is only talking about this year.

I would bet money there will be more good games released this year on Switch than the entirety of Wii U's run. The vast majority of them won't be games that were also on Wii U. (and I say this as a Wii U fan)

shrugs

@Grumblevolcano The argument gets a little better if you discredit 2017 altogether, but its not much more watertight. There is fifty retail confirmed games coming between the beginning of 2018 and E32018. Out of those six are ports from the Wii U (I would count 3DS and other console ports, but he made it clear that the Switch is relying on WII U games not ports in general).

Don't get me started on past E3 though, without any announcements there, the third party support is already astounding. It demolishes any drought the Wii U ever had. It already has forty seven confirmed physical games, only in the states and before E3. Don't forget the Eshop!

I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but as someone who was pretty young (12-17) for the Wii U's lifespan of minimal hype and the rest being a dead fish, I cannot defend the Wii U. I love the console but damn did it give many hardships, not just for me for Nintendo themselves.

@link3710 @ieatdragonz Both of you are right - the Switch output does demolish the Wii U output in the same time period when looking at both retail and eShop. But I meant looking at just games coming to retail (not smaller games on eShop like indies) and just looking at the first half of 2018. But considering indies hands down the Switch has far more games than Wii U. But looking just at $40-$60 retail games coming to Switch in the first half of 2018, I still think (when ignoring the Wii U ports) the picture is quite similar to a Wii U drought. I emphasize this is when looking at just retail (once again looking at the big picture Switch is doing well with indie support). @Grumblevolcano thanks yeah I meant first half of 2018

@kkslider5552000 Well it's all relative based on what you mean by good games, but it's certainly possible based on the types of games you like. For me personally I highly doubt that would occur - I loved a lot of Wii U games - but once again it's all subjective.

@shadow-wolf I agree what's happening now is a drought in terms of AAA titles, but those happen on every Nintendo system, and occasionally in non-nintendo ones. When someone says a Wii U drought specifically, my first thought is back to when we'd go weeks without a single game releasing, eshop or retail, and I think most people who complain about them are referencing the same thing.

@shadow-wolf I did mention how if you are specifically looking at the first three months of 2018 you only get sixteen, if you want to add extra boundaries, like the 40-60 dollar moniker you do limit the number severely down to nine, and if you remove Wii U ports that's down to seven. If you want to limit it down to triple A... what does that even mean? I mean Lost Sphear is Square Enix, but is it not considered triple A?

Considering what @link3710 was saying, where there were entire weeks without any games period, I don't think applying these specifications helps. The fact that third parties, second A developers, and Indies (some who even make physical copies) on board is something to be proud of.

And I have even more clarity when it comes to the Wii U droughts, of those one hundred and sixty, a whole THIRTY (EDIT: whoops I meant twenty nine) was released on the North American launch day. Hard to believe right? But it's true I just checked it out less then an hour ago.

Having a mainline Kirby for instance is something the Wii U never had, but because it wasn't as great as Robobot does it really make it a failure? Because comparing it to the Wii U droughts is essentially comparing it to nothing.

It's not a drought, but I wholeheartedly understand if you don't want to buy into the smaller titles. Some people buy Nintendo for just straight up Nintendo and there is nothing wrong in that. But it isn't a drought, and even if you removed the Wii U ports, its still better then most of the Wii U's lifespan.

Nah, the lineup is not terrible. It's just a bit meh if you've already played a lot of the games that are getting ported. But there's quite a good selection of games to play that'll come eventually. Octopath is one, Mario Tennis fills that nice early summer filler game, we still know nothing about Fire Emblem, Smash Bros is coming, Labo will be a thing, Pokemon is unknown as well, and we still have no idea what Retro Studios is doing. And to look into the future, we have Metroid Prime 4 and Monolith Soft's action RPG.

I'm not worried for what's coming in the future. It's not comparable to the Wii U droughts. I love my Wii U still, but it was pretty much a Smash 4/Mario Kart/Xenoblade X machine at the end of the day. My Switch is already way more than that, which is fantastic.

To be honest I think it's only light if you have no interest in the games releasing... (Like me, personally)

Most of the games I'm wanting is at July / Summer releases :/ While there's none I'm 100% committed to buying for Spring release...

Wish some of them are around Spring instead But games releases can't really be released earlier, sad. I really wanted to play them now... T_T

@link3710 @ieatdragonz Good points. I will add the disclaimer that I got a Wii U in late 2015, so I missed many of the early droughts and had enough games to play thru the other droughts (still have games to play, in fact, before I get a Switch). Although a Kirby game did release for Wii U (rainbow curse) but I am not sure if it qualifies as a mainline game.

@EvilLucario Yeah I agree it isn't terrible. I might have been a bit harsh in my original post. It just annoys me when people keep saying the Switch has an amazing game release schedule while the Wii U didn't, but don't take into account these last few months (although I didn't experience any drought significantly since I got the Wii U in 2015 and still have a backlog, so I technically don't have the experience to truly relate the two).

For me personally, I think the Wii U is my favorite console, perhaps more than the PS3. It brought me back after a few years of not being really into games, and it had Splatoon, Mario 3D World, Breath of the Wild, Wind Waker HD, Mario Kart, Smash, Yoshi, Bayonetta, Mario Maker, and other games. Splatoon was such a magical experience for me, when I first played that game in a store I was amazed in a game in a way I hadn't been for years. But it's all subjective.

@darkfenrir Same here. The first big retail game that will be coming out I want is Dark Souls, which is late May. Then Ys VIII. Might look into Octopath as it looks good, but nowadays I have a bigger preference to more real-time combat over turn-based so I'll wait there. Smash Bros is obvious as well. Mario Tennis looks really awesome, it'll be my first Mario Tennis game since the GBC/GBA ones. Not a terribly huge Fire Emblem fan, but I did enjoy Awakening and Fire Emblem 7 so I'll be watching Fire Emblem 16 too.

Then there's indie games I want, like Hollow Knight and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Totally want those games as well.

If anything, I have a huge saturation of games I want to play. That's just me though.

@shadow-wolf Totally get what you mean. I also loved my Wii U, and I personally did not feel any droughts because I had such a good time with the games that did come out. Despite it now just being a Smash 4/Xenoblade X machine for me, I had a ton of good fun with all the games that came out for it.

@EvilLucario Yeah I hear ya. And it makes sense about what you say on the Switch. By the time I get a Switch later this year I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of good games and a backlog not unlike what I had for the Wii U.

to be fair, I do think a lot of the people complaining about Wii U droughts never actually ran out of things to play on their Wii U. Wii U did have major droughts but most people straight up don't play enough video games for it to be a big deal. The reality is that the majority of gamers play a small handful of games every year.

But outside of a very specific, almost arbitrary, individual person's preferences (especially since Switch is often attracting similar types of indie games (ft. a small selection of AAA games) that Wii U got anyway)...yeah Switch will have the better lineup in one year than Wii U's entire lifespan. It's not even me saying so because of any opinions on any games, it's just blatantly true. Or at least incredibly likely based off of how things have gone.

@shadow-wolf Well I hope you enjoy your Switch when that day comes, its really fun to play around with. I never expected the form of handheld/console hybrid to be so fulfilling but once you get it in your hands, it just clicks.

And you know what? I am right up there with you championing the Wii U. I absolutely loved the console, and have had the same experiences with Windwaker HD, Smash, Mario Maker, 3D world, and Mario Kart. Is it the best nintendo console? I wouldn't say so, but it trumps Gamecube, GBA, Xbox, and maybe even 64 in quality titles (now im just fanning the fire here lol).

Although I do think the Switch is the Wii U but polished up, with better hardware, quality of life improvements, and no full droughts (although I am tired of talking about those haha). Splatoon was great on Wii U but its even better on Switch, Mario Kart got its battle mode finally, and now we can have the definitive version of Hyrule Warriors (its better to think of this one as not a Wii U port but a 3ds one, as a lot of its content is essentially the 3ds one). The Wii U was, and still is, great. But the Switch is on its way to being my favorite console of all time.