Topic: Disillusioned with Nintendo

Hey Guys this came up in a conversation last night that I thought was really interested and wondered if anyone else here felt the same.

I always have Xbox parties on a Sat night, me and a few friends meet up online to randomly F about in MMO's whilst indulging in our recreational hobbies - been doing since the 360 era.

We started talking about how Nintendo have failed to grow with thier customer base like every other console developer.
We were talking about MarioKart 64 weekends when in the 90's when ever any of our parents went away we would all pile our TVs and consoles into thier lounge and turn it into a 48 hour hotbox.

Recently and keen to try to grab that nostalgia we all grabbed a switch (a few literally from thier sleeping kids) and tried playing Smash and Splatoon together.
Unfortunately the crazy hoops you need to jump through to get a lobby together, (that's before deciding which voice app suits everyone as not everyone will use certain apps) killed any enjoyment we gained from the evening.
Which is a shame as Nintendo games are amazing for that stupid fun with friends, yet they make it so hard for those of us who have supported them from more or less the start to engage in our hobby because the company didn't evolve with our aging needs.

I think this is why I can come across as quite critical towards Nintendo as it refused to grow up with us opting to stay a kid in never land instead and I miss the old friendship.

@Chaotic_Neutral I think Nintendo percieve multiplayer in the same room healthier than everyone being on their own, together (y'know, with the curtains drawn etc lol.) Their voice app is more loud speaker than head set so that person can be 'present' in the room. It's a different outlook sure.

@GrailUK trying to get a group of 40 year blokes together for a few hours on the weekend is a nightmare. Plus it's more fun playing a tabletop or card rather than video games when we can get together.
It's just shame that Nintendo doesn't give us the option of easily playing online together like literally every other company does. Especially given the adverts like Animal Crossing showing friends playing together online - it doesn't show the limitations.

I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean, we play regularly on Xbox but would be nice of we could do the same playing the games we grew up with.
No idea what kids games have to do with this as we are adults.

@Chaotic_Neutral Hey, not saying they haven't any room to improve. But back in the day, sure it wasn't the easiest thing to arrange, but a couple of friends bringing their Xboxes over to play LAN Halo was the bees knees. It felt kinda undignified playing games wearing a headset lol (an don't get me started on them silly gamer chairs these days hahaha.)

Yeah, there are a few hurdles there on the Nintendo side of things. Especially Splatoon. I haven’t done the whole lobby thing since the second game, but man does that take time to setup. I’ve been there man. Mario Kart 8 is probably the easiest one to setup, cause all you gotta do is have all of your gaming buddies as friends with your user account. Then you start an online match and the rest are able to join from the friends menu. Local multiplayer is even easier, it’s one of the main modes on the Home Screen. But I see your gripes and even though I do a lot of solo gaming these days, I understand. I have never touched an Xbox, so I can’t say how much easier it is.

I wouldn’t know since I generally stick with single player gaming and I’m too shy to talk with my voice in online gaming.

@JadeKitsune the random people online in games like smash ultimate group chats genuinely have issues, take it from me. I’ve encountered a group of drunk 40 years olds on a Thursday night and a teenager living in his mom’s apartment who bosses her around and says the most outrageous stuff so far

@Chaotic_Neutral Best to just ignore Anti-Matter he thinks everyone should play kids games and not Mature games no matter what age or what type of games you like. According to him your are a bad person if you like mature games.

Anyway I know what you mean. My friends and I use to spend the weekends playing GoldenEye on N64 and later games like.World of Warcraft and such. Nintendo is just Nintendo sadly and I find playing splitscreen is far better on the Switch then online. My friends and I get together and play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge, Borderlands 2 and a few others once a month. Though if you are not living in the same area I can understand where you will need to settle with online. Still if you are able to be in the same room splitscreen is still alot of fun.

Nintendo is decades behind when it comes to anything online. They are very out of touch with 'what gamers want' to the point that they don't even provide basic functionality for anyone. Switch, for all its boons, was even a step backward. I found the Wii U to have better functionality online (voice chat built in, what a novel idea -.-) It blows my mind that some people at Nintendo thought a separate app and device being required for less than the bare minimum for online play was a good idea. Especially given that it's far from some new fad and people have been using better for decades now.
Anything that is played online, I actively avoid Nintendo consoles if at all possible. It's so much easier and better literally anywhere else.

That might have been us 😅😅😅

@JadeKitsune Its not too bad if you find a few people with similar attitudes to yourself, open lobbies however are usually pretty toxic - weirdly it's the youngers who seem to behave the worst.

I mean, each to their own I guess. I've never really played online games with friends, I just see online as a better version of game AI. Pretty much always open lobbies, occasionally with voice chat depending on the game

However, I still have games nights. And Nintendo's hardware tends to dominate games nights. Halo LANs were definitely a thing for a brief period when I was in High School. But as I got older and my friend group changed it became card games, Cards Against Humanity being the big one for a while. Since the Switch came out the Switch has taken over that space pretty much entirely. Mostly Jackbox games and similar titles but also Mario Kart which, really, has been a regular games night hit in one form or another for games nights since forever. Same deal with Smash

When I look at the other platforms? I mean sure, they also have Jackbox games. But I have over 10x the games on Steam than I do on Switch and counting out the games that have local multiplayer support on both? I have maybe 20% more games on Steam that support local multiplayer. And in terms of quality, subjective as it may be, I'd say the Switch wins hands down. No contest

So the thing you're discounting here, local multiplayer, that's the Switch's niche. That's where it shines. And if you're going to skip over that part of the Switch's library entirely and focus on its one biggest weakness? Then sure, it looks pretty average. Which is fine, different products for different use cases. That's a good thing

Personally, I've never been a fan of voice chat with randos; seems to be filled with toxic people, not to mention issues with games children want to play (and kids are certainly common for most multiplayer Nintendo games). For playing with friends, most people I know just use discord for voice, whether it be a xbox game or a Switch game or a pc game; it's a pretty easy option.

That said, I agree Nintendo is very inconsistent with the quality of their online. Splatoon might have fairly consistent connections, but I'm sure many of us recall the common disconnects when we had more than a few people on our animal crossing islands. And then there are things like mario maker 2 multiplayer which lags like it's 1999.

Overall I mich prefer what Nintendo gives is than xbox or playstation, but Nintendo definitely has some weak points.

I see your point, and that’s why I rely on PlayStation for my online gaming fix nowadays… the fact that you have to pay for online play creates a basic expectation that the online play needs to be good, but Nintendo’s is barely passable free.

Besides, playing online with friends is as simple as going on a discord or WhatsApp call and putting your phone or laptop next to you.

That would be the case but 1 of the guys in the group refuses to use Discord and another won't use anything related to Facebook so Wattsapp and Messenger are out of the question.

We will stick with Xbox as it Does everything we need, but my point was that it's sad to see such a prominent tech company blatantly refusing to move with the times.
I hope the next nintendo console fails as a result.

That’s a bit mean wanting the next Nintendo console to fail because you don’t like the online and I doubt that the next console will fail seeing as it’s nintendo.
But I never seem to have a problem with Nintendo since their games are and still really fun.
I’ll still call out some of there choices like shutting down fan projects but overall I’m not really disillusioned with Nintendo and the switch is still my favorite console of all time but hey that’s why opinions are a thing not trying to change your mind.

@Greatluigi it's not really mean, if the next console is as far behind the competition as the Switch then what's the point?
I would love to see Nintendo do a Sega and focus on the games rather than the hardware.

Imagine how TotK could perform running on XsX or PS5 instead of having to rely on a last gen (for Nintendo) engine and being stuck with basic HD visuals and a minimal refresh rate.
The Switch is a "Basic" console that charges a premium fee for less than you get elsewhere. Christ, half of the Switch forst party library are games from the Wii-U that they charged full price for again - I supported Nintendo through that era and got royally shafted by them. Thier Business plan is 80% Charging for the same handfuls of games, they even locked virtual console behind a subscription this gen.