Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@DarthNocturnal So I checked it, and it's not possible. Murch (the gear NPC) says the following if you're offline: ''Uh... You realize you're offline, right? I can't help you until you're on the Internet, so come back once you get connected.''

I wish I could upload a screenshot, but I can't figure out how to do it.

Edit: I found an image online:

Nintendo says the reason for Splatoon not having cloud saves is so that if your rank goes down, you can't abuse the save system to revert to the higher rank. I guess it's understandable but I'd have thought they'd be able to find a way around that without disabling cloud saves completely.

Also, the message about not supporting cloud saves has been removed from the Dead Cells and NBA 2K19 pages, so I guess those two will indeed support cloud saves.

@Dogorilla I mean, other online games seem to do fine, and still support cloud saves (on other systems at least). @Therad brought up a good point about the lack of dedicated servers. Which kinda creates this backwards loophole that is now the Nintendo Switch Online Service

It boggles my mind that Nintendo didn't opt to go with dedicated servers for multiplayer to begin with for Splatoon 2.

@FaeKnight It wasn't surprising they didn't though, Nintendo has always been 1-2 generations behind Sony/Microsoft on the front on online. Starting with in (I think) the GC era when Nintendo called online gaming a fad, PSN and Xbox Live were rather basic back in the PS2/Xbox era but look how much those have grown to in the PS4/XB1 era.

PSN was non-existent on the PS2. If a game supported the network adapter, it was up to the company or a 3rd party to supply the online servers for the game. Which mostly went through Gamespy, I believe. Right up until Gamespy decided to get out of the game server business.

I’d imagine that Nintendo could catch up if they wanted to. They’re a wealthy international company. At this point their online thing is just another one of those dumb ‘quirks’ they have that they shove into everything.

Their paid online is just them getting even more greedy and wanting to charge us while doing as little as possible.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The writing has been on the wall regarding paid online multiplayer on consoles for years. Ever since Microsoft first decided to charge for it on the X-Box and people didn't object it's been inevitable that their competitors would follow suit. Sony did so, and it's no surprise that Nintendo has decided to do so. Anyone who says otherwise obviously wasn't paying attention. Before X-Box Live launched, the assumption was that nobody would pay a fee for online multiplayer. Afterwords it was proven that yes, people will pay for it. Extra features like free games, cloud saves, or video streaming are just that. They're extras tacked on to make the service look more appealing. But what you're paying for is the ability to play your games online.

I consider it a minor miracle that Nintendo didn't decide to do this years ago, and that they are only charging for online multiplayer on the Switch.

@FaeKnight I'd say it's the other way around. It doesn't cost Sony or MS $60 per year per user to keep the servers up and running, that's ridiculous. The actual costs would be a fraction of that, a very tiny fraction. Not even worth charging for. You are paying for the ''free'' games and the discounts. Online play is just being held ransom behind a paywall to entice more people to pay for it.

The ''free'' games that Sony and Microsoft offer each month is what constitutes to most of the costs of the sub, not the servers. That's why I've always argued it should be free, because it surely shouldn't be $60 a year to play online. Plus, this ''service'' is making them billions each year in revenue. I don't know how big the profits are, but the $60 per user certainly isn't necessary to ''maintain their servers''.

Then there's Nintendo. People have used the same argument; ''we have to pay for their servers''. Well, they don't really use dedicated servers in the first place, so you're paying for nothing in that regard. But as a result this also leads to games not being included in the cloud safe feature, a feature that still doesn't have an alternative. Surely there are NES games, but what else is there? What else are you actually paying for?

All those online subs are load of rubbish IMO!

Remember @Octane, "free games" wasn't even part of the service for quite some time with either Microsoft or Sony. It was just voice chat and "play games online". Microsoft also backpeddled on netflix, Hulu, and Youtube being gated behind Gold membership. Actually, they had to backpeddle regarding games that have their own subscription service and that are only online being gated by Gold membership too.

Also, I never once claimed you're paying for the servers to exist. Servers (or a lack of them) tend to be the game publisher's responsibility, not the console manufacturer. You are, in fact, paying for the ability to go online for a multiplayer session. The other stuff is extras other companies tacked on later. The argument I have used is that Nintendo is just following what their competitors are doing. As such if people are so offended now by having to pay a fee to play online multiplayer, they should have voted with their wallets back when Microsoft first introduced Xbox Live and decided to charge for playing games online.

At this point in time, the public has voted with their wallets. And the decision was overwhelming, people will pay a fee to access online multiplayer on their console, but not to access video streaming. Especially if they are already paying a monthly fee for the streaming service it's self. And the console gaming industry has taken that to heart.

@FaeKnight Pretty much, Nintendo is following Sony/Microsoft but is 7-13 years behind dependent on what aspects of the online you're looking at. There's backlash for it being paid, that happened when PS4 online was announced to be paid too but the bigger backlash as far as I can tell is that Nintendo Switch Online is pathetic compared to modern day Xbox Live and PSN.

Yeah, the "Instant Game Collection" thing feels to me like a bad joke. You get a set of 8 (I think) games which you can play as long as you maintain your PS+ membership, but those games can and will change regularly. At least with Microsoft's Games with Gold you can chose if you want the offered games or not, and if you decide you do the game is yours free and clear. The NES part of Nintendo Online sounds closer to what Sony does with it's Instant Games Collection, only without the ever changing small list of games you can play. Instead Nintendo says they will be adding new games to the list over time.

Not to mention Xbox and Playstation have dang few games I'd even want to go online with. While even with my (admittedly small) collection of Switch games I have games I am willing to go online with. And will be adding more. Monster Hunter Generations, Super Mario Party, Mario Kart, Uno, Civ VI... Okay, maybe I'll get more use out of the online service then I initially thought.

What do analysts call the average number of games owned by a console owner? (I always forget the word) With Xbox it's like 6! Sony is similar I think. A subscription service gets more money out of more people that otherwise would not have purchased a game. Now when BotW had more copies sold than consoles lol! And software sales outselling other formats combined in some instances, how on Earth does a company turn that into a subscription service without charging well over 200 quid a year!?!

Uhm, where are you getting a number of games analysts say gamers own for a given console? Cause I can't find any statistics like that anywhere.

EDIT: The only thing I could find was a single survey, in which out of a sample size of 886 people...
200 people said they have between 0 and 49 games
127 people said they have between 50 and 99 games
299 people said they have between 100 and 249 games
145 people said they have between 250 and 499 games
57 people said they have between 500 and 999 games
58 people said they have 1000+ games

@FaeKnight Ha! Attachment rate

@ReaderRagfish And you can literally see those games in the UK charts.

@GrailUK It's probably somewhere between 8 and 12 games sold per console, in line with most other (popular) consoles. But that means that every gamer who has a relatively small library of 50 games, there are 4 or 5 people who only own 1 or 2 games.

Also, BOTW never outsold the Switch, those numbers were shipped, not sold though customers. Nintendo simply manufactured more copies of BOTW than consoles

Yeah that's why I say the average consumer doesn't give a crap about 2018 being a bit light. Because the average comsumer doesn't buy that many games to begin with.

Besides, and I will repeat this over and over, people have a tendancy of just buying games but never play them. Honestly it's their own fault for doing that and then whining "I have no games to play".

@Octane Thankyou Captain Pedantic. My point still stands Most folk owning a console own GTAV, or FIFA, or Mario Kart (In Japan it looks like Splatoon). You can see this in UK charts. They tend to do other stuff than play video games. Probably like football, so have a PS4 because it can play football. They certainly don't hang around on PushSquare talking about games. But Sony and Microsoft are getting them to spend extra cash with their subscription service. They are still charging for online but shoved a game rental service down folks throats to squeeze em further!)

I'm glad Nintendo aren't doing this practice. The NES games are a lovely added value to a basic service and the cloud saves are welcome - but I reckon it's more the fact they would lose money with such a high attach rate than they are super nice folk.

I certainly don't claim to be right, and happy to be proven wrong.

I personally have...
35 PS2 games
28 PS1 games
134 digital xbox 360 games (spread between the 360 and xb1)
68 physical xbox 360 games
129 digital Xbox One games
8 physical Xbox One games (one of which contains 6 XB360 games as part of it the bundle)
4 Gamecube games
10 digital Switch games
1 physical Switch game
1 physical Switch game pre-ordered that will be delivered in October

O.o Didn't realize I had quite that many games. I thought my collection was closer to 200 games, not over 400.

EDIT: Mind you, for those 360 games that are backwards compatable with the XB1 I don't keep them all installed at any given moment. Or every XB1 game for that matter. No where near enough hard drive space for that.

EDIT 2: Most of the digital XB1 and 360 games I have thanks to Games with Gold as well, and a good number of them I tried because it was free then uninstalled due to not liking it.

EDIT 3: And that's not including my GBA, 3DS, and PS Vita game collections.