Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@rallydefault Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time with Mario Kart World. They did a pretty good job with the roster and music and the controls, but content wise this game feels lacking.

The only game modes are 2 battle modes (the 2 worst from 8 Deluxe), a fairly empty overworld, knockout tour, and races. Most of the world feels like straight lines or blank spaces, which isn't in an unpopular opinion (which Nintendo tried to silence by compromising online gameplay). I'd say the world does feel very barebones and is only there to call the game open world.

'hundreds of collectibles' may be a lot, but literally every collectible (I've seen) just gives you a single sticker, with very limited customization. It's hard to find things on the map especially later on, since they don't guide you very well where they are at.

I still really like Mario Kart World and I think it does get a lot more hate than it deserves, but it feels like the $80 price tag was only there because they knew they could get away with it.

Of course most of the people who bought it only paid $50. I do wonder if they made it $80 rather than $70 partially to make the bundle feel like a better deal.

@PikminMarioKirby
I just completely disagree. I have a hard time believing people who say the free roam feels empty have actually spent much time in it. There are tons of cool places, and a lot of the switch missions are creative and fun.

The medallions can be tricky to get and actually take some thought. The ground question blocks make you explore every nook and cranny of the courses.

“Barebones” makes zero sense to me, but goes a long way in explaining the modern gaming mindset, sadly.

@FishyS Considering the new Pokemon bundle which is also $500, with Legends Z-A NS2 Edition standalone being $70 rather than $80, I doubt they made Mario Kart World $80 just to sell the MKW bundle.

@rallydefault Yeah, MKW has an open world that's twice the size of Breath of the Wild and that's certainly a lot of content, and something that took a lot of time and effort to create.

The criticism that it's barebones is largely coming from people who are only interested in the racing, where it's all about how many modes, circuits, drivers, vehicles, etc. that you get. Air Riders may well turn out to be a better game for them.

@UpsideDownRowlet A much larger percentage of Pokemon are being sold outside of the bundle. Around 6 million in the first week, half Switch 1 and most of the Switch 2 half were people who already owned a Switch 2. I'm sure the bundles will sell well over the holidays, but it's different than that off-season push in June when there was only one real game and the bundle seemed like a comparative great deal.

I guess we'll have to wait and see if other games are $80 to really tell what Nintendo is thinking. If the next 3D Mario is $80 I feel like the outcry will be even louder than with Mario Kart since it won't be bought with a bundle by most people.

Interesting that it seems like Legends Z-A might end up being the limited time bundle now, not MK World. I've noticed the Legends Z-A bundle has been out of stock at multiple UK retailers for about a week or so meanwhile MK World still has plenty of stock and is being restocked when needed. The MK World bundle is also price dropped by £20 so you're essentially getting the game for £14.

Eshop has revealed Age of Imprisonment's file size to be 42.7GB which overtakes Prime 4 as the largest file size for a Nintendo game.

That file size is fricking huge. Kind of makes sense though, since even though it is still published by Nintendo (a master of file compression, at least during the Switch era), its developer is Koei Tecmo.

I was already going to pass on Age of Imprisonment since I'm busy with other games and still don't have a Switch 2 as of yet though, so I'm not going to complain about it, I'm just surprised.

Makes sense to me. Age of Imprisonment will have tons of audio and cutscenes, which tend to add a huge bulk of file sizes.

Checking out Daemon X Machina Titanic Scion now that gyro aiming is patched in, and graphical settings allow turning off lens flare and chromatic aberration to decrease GPU load (and thus help stabilize framerate), and I gotta say, I'm liking it a LOT more now than when it launched.

Next up is Star Wars Outlaws. Wanna see how much better it is after a few patches. I was already loving the game at launch, so this feels like a pretty nice bonus.

Bought Dusk for $5 on sale, and thinking about Ball X Pit. For now it's on the wishlist. Not that it's too expensive, just not sure how much I'll enjoy it. If it hits $10 I'll grab it.

Very pleased to see Assassin's Creed Shadows announced and looking so impressive on NSW2. And Fallout 4 is a great announcement as well. These games need gyro aiming- pretty sure they'll have it though.

Yea, makes sense. I don’t think people realize how pretty this game is gonna be. I’m stoked. Zelda next Friday, baby!

I've got used to such file sizes (and in some cases far larger) on the PC side of things, but it's certainly a step up from Switch 1 where you could pretty much count the games bigger than 16GB on one hand. Well, at least of the ones I've got; there probably are quite a few in total.

My attitude is that if they've got 64GB cartridges, they might as well use them. Even those of us getting most of the games as downloads can fit a decent number that size onto a 1TB SD card.

@Matt_Barber
I have a 1TB microSD express full of NSW1 games, and another with NSW2 games that has 285 GB left unused. And it's only been like 4.5 months. I have a 3rd unused which I plan to split my NSW2 games across- one for exclusives and the other for multiplats. But even that probably won't get me past Year 1.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is 90 GB. We'll see how big Assassin's Creed Shadows is.

We're so cooked 😆

Age of Imprisonment looks cool, but I'll be waiting to play that until I do my NS2 Edition playthrough of TotK. So my next day one Switch 2 game is probably going to be Metroid Prime 4.

After that? I have WAY too many games to play as is in my backlog, so I'll probably coast along focusing on that until the new Fire Emblem comes out. Unless Nintendo announces a new Mario or Xenoblade or something, which I'm not expecting, but who knows?

Will likely play through Luigi's Mansion on NSO with my nephew as well after it launches on Halloween.

@JaxonH @Matt_Barber
My solution to storage currently is to just let the vast majority of my Switch 1 library live only on my OLED. And if I want to move it to Switch 2 then I'll just go into the VGC menu and download it. Yes, it's somewhat going back to the good old days when we were told to "clean the fridge" on the Wii before they added SD Card support. But with internet speeds these days it's not much of an inconvenience

I'm only going to get a microSD Express card when I start running out of space for Switch 2 and Switch 2 patched releases. Which, admittedly, I'll probably hit early next year at this rate. But still

@skywake
I do that too, especially being able to overclock on NSW OLED and the new Lite OLED. And while most games can output 720p docked image in handheld with stable locked 30fps, only NSW2 can guarantee 60fps for many of these games (albeit constrained to max handheld image portably). But thats still preferable for games like Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, Crysis Trilogy, etc. And some games are just my faves and I prefer NSW2 as my main platform so having them available is convenient (Portal 1/2, Ori 1/2, Trails and Ys games, etc).

Since I undoubtedly want to run at least some NSW1 games on NSW2, may as well cram a full 1TB mSD EX card with nothing but NSW1 games exclusively. The ones that get the full 60fps benefit and still look good in handheld, and the favorites for convenience.

Once 2TB mSD EX release then it'll be a bit easier. Split 2 cards for exclusives and multiplats, 4 TB total, which will last half the Gen, then curate for the 2nd 4 years whittling down to just the best of the best.

@skywake @JaxonH I just work on the principle that I don't need to have my entire library installed at once and keep what is down to the relatively small number of games that I'm currently playing, might play in the near future or are just generally good for a quick go at random.

It's a habit I picked up from having literally thousands of PC games, and installing all of them on any single machine would just be impractical even if I had the storage.

A Nintendo account posted this.

Why am I just now learning Hyrule Warriors has online and local Gameshare for co-op?

Gameshare is a feature I want to see developers take more advantage of (doesn't hold breath)

Never saw this coming. After Monster Hunter Wilds' massive launch reaching 10m units, sales cratered to less than half a million the following quarter, and now it's even being outsold by Rise in the most recent quarter. It still has yet to cross 11m units, while Rise is pushing toward 18m.

Think about that. Why?

Obviously poor PC performance is a major contributor but I think it goes deeper. Everyone here knows Monster Hunter is my favorite series. I've been known to bloviate on and on and on about how great it is, much to the irritation of other members at times, I'm sure 😉. I've consistently put in a minimum of 400 hours into every single entry since MH3U on Wii U, even reaching a staggering 800+ hours in Rise for Switch, not counting the 50 hrs in the demo or the 100 hrs in the Steam version.

But Wilds was different. It was the first time, ever, I played a MH game, since all the way back in 2013, where I lost interest before even completing Low Rank. So many reasons I could give. I hated how the new "palamute" ride autonavigated to the monsters. In Rise it always showed the Monster locations on the map after first discovery but the maps were smaller. It was designed for portable play. Wilds maps are in the vein of World. And even Rise didnt autonavigate. What's the point of a big massive world if you're Uber lifting to every fight?

To make matters worse, your slinger could gather from a distance while on your ride, and they made sure every necessary resource was along the routes the ride takes, completely negating any need for exploration to gather. Combined with nullifying the need to explore to find the monster and you end up with a game where there is no reason to explore for any reason... ever.

Even Rise with its portable styled maps had hidden scrolls to find and bird buffs to collect, ensuring exploration was integrated with gameplay at a fundamental level. But Wilds was a house divided. A game designed against its' biggest strength- the world itself.

There were many other issues with the game such as camps being destroyed and having to rebuild, but I maintain the single greatest problem was negating any need, desire or utility for exploration.

And I think word of mouth spread concerning that issue. Or at least, as a result word of mouth concerning how great the game is failed to spread, unlike prior entries such as World and Rise. Many criticized World, and Rise for that matter, for overcasualizing the series. And I definitely think there's some legitimacy to those claims. Although now, in hindsight, I think World was remarkably similar to the older entries all things considered and though Rise pushed the envelope further, it still maintained the addictive fun of the essential game loop. Wilds, unfortunately, did not.

And that's why I think the game's sales have tanked so hard. It says a lot that I reserve no anticipation for a future Switch 2 port and have already moved on, eagerly awaiting the announcement of the next entry from the Rise team. Not that I wouldn't give the game another go if it ever did get ported, but I have no reason to believe it would hold my attention any more than it did the first time. Besides, if they can't even get it running right on PC I don't think they're capable of the technical challenge a hybrid port would present.

I do think Wilds marks the end of an era though. Gone are the days of separate entries across Nintendo and PS/Xbox/PC. Wilds sales vs Rise is a shot across the bow to the suits at Capcom. They sold twice as many copies with a game built for a PS3-powered handheld as their massive AAA blockbuster. Heck, even Rise on Switch alone has sold as much as Wilds has across all other platforms. It is for this reason I believe the next portable entry will be for all systems (though I won't rule out a temporary exclusivity deal on NSW2), and the next "blockbuster" will be developed with NSW2 in mind, to hedge against a repeat of the Wilds fiasco.