Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@Polvasti In fact I'd argue XCX is a worse upgrade than the free LA/EoW one, because all it does is apply the pretty bad DLSS upscaler — to pretty detrimental effect in handheld in particular since to hit 60fps they have lowered the internal resolution from what it is without the patch, and without making any changes to the game's code itself like improving pop-in and draw distance of objects and NPC's...

@Buizel
No free S2 Editions, no. Not unless you count certain games like Brain Academy and Toad's Treasure Tracker also getting GameShare in addition to the graphics updates with their free patches.

@Polvasti @rallydefault Thanks.

Yeah it definitely seems they factor in how the game is doing / how much it would benefit for an extra sales/marketing push when considering the extent of content added and the price.

DKC Returns’ update at least got a sale from me. I was unsure about the game but Dixie convinced me. And AFAIK that wasn’t a Switch 2 specific addition?

@Buizel
Yea, I think you can play Dixie on Switch 1.

There is no rhyme or reason to which games get free updates, which games get paid NS2 Editions, how much they cost and how many improvements will be included. So don't even try to make sense of it. Just assume every upgrade will be $10 ($20 if new DLC is included). Sometimes they're only $5, and sometimes they're even free. And when that happens that's fantastic. But it's a roll of the die every time, so it should never be expected.

Just give me my 60 fps and higher resolution and I'm happy. If it costs $5-10 so be it. If it's free, great, but I try to never expect it.

Resident Evil 7 and 8 looking great, and with gyro aiming confirmed. But until they unlock with RE Requiem I'm still playing Mario Tennis Fever and Xenoblade X. Or at least, I was. Losing hours of progress in XCX by accidentally overwriting my save has really discouraged me from continuing. Had to get the skell all over again, when last year I had the entire team decked out with skells.

Then Ys X: Proud Nordics dropped and it's kinda captured my attention. If you own the Switch 1 version of Ys X, there's no upgrade path. So Idk if $70 for the same game is really worthwhile for the extra content. But the 60/120 fps options and higher resolution could be.

@OmnitronVariant
Xenoblade X does not use DLSS. It renders at 4k and applies a basic anti-aliasing filter to smooth things out. Think it's SMAA.

@rallydefault
You can. The update was for both versions. Only difference is resolution and framerate.

I'm sure there is a "rhyme and reason" behind pricing decisions on upgrade packs. . . its just not a public facing one, nor one Nintendo feels the need or desire to make public-facing. Which is to say, it hinges on things like sales predictions, marketing plans, and cost-of-development, rather than "a singular public Policy". How much a given upgrade costs only matters to the public once its actually for sale, and Nintendo clearly wishes to inculcate a habit of "just wait for the damn official announcement".

@metaphysician
Well, yes. That's almost certainly true. I mean there's no discernible rhyme or reason to us as consumers, so it's pointless trying to recognize some pattern.

Idk why it's so important for some to "understand" it anyways. As if understanding it will change anything. Just play games. Buy what you want; don't buy what you don't want. Upgrade what you want; don't upgrade what you don't want.

@JaxonH

Oh, that's easy: because they want to create the illusion of understanding and control. It makes things simpler, versus having to learn to deal with uncertainty.

In terms of whether they give free updates versus Switch 2 editions, I suspect a big reason is if they want to seriously advertise that game or IP. The official Switch 2 editions will be in stores and generally will be advertised more and more obviously than a free update is. For Xenoblade X, I bet they wanted to use the Switch 2 Edition as an excuse to sell more copies and also keep the series in people's minds; for e.g. Game Builder Garage, they likely just saw a free update as a cheap showcase of Switch 2 capabilities but aren't really focusing on that IP enough to bother with a bigger advertising campaign.

Digital Foundry just described XCX as "probably the worst Switch 2 Edition yet."

That's perhaps a rather over-dramatic way of putting it, but I'd still think that it belongs in the bottom tier of the ones that you have to pay for.

@Matt_Barber

Let's see...There are 9 Nintendo-published Switch 2 editions so far (including Wonder) and a bit over 50 third party ones. I doubt Digital Foundry has looked at the kemco switch 2 editions or most of the other more minor third party games. Looking through their videos and articles... it looks like they have reviewed relatively few Switch 2 editions. So perhaps XCX is the worst of those.

Or they just wanted clickbait...

@FishyS I'm pretty sure that they're only talking about the ones that they've taken a detailed look at and, to be fair, they were still quite positive about the boost to the frame rate.

Anyway, I can cast my mind back to Kirby and the Forgotten Land and, at the time, many were complaining that you didn't get much for your money with it, but now it looks like the high water mark for Switch 2 Editions so far.

Does anybody know what time is Fallout 4 releasing today in the UK?

As well as buying a Switch 2 I've also bought a PS5 Slim with disc drive because I was worried about price increases going forward. Both purchases were secondhand. One thing I didn't even realise before buying it was Sony provides free upgrades where available to PS4 games and its absolutely incredible the amount of games that have been transformed with 60fps and increased resolution and cost nothing extra. Of course this is perfectly normal on PC where you just scale up or scale down the settings depending on the power of your pc but it is a great feature on PS5 and was very pleased to see.

I feel Nintendo should have provided a few more free upgrades but then the Nintendo eco system of its software is all around more expensive. Even simple games that have been given away by Epic with their weekly free games can be fairly big money on Switch. However I'm still very much enjoying the Switch 2 experience but I just feel software pricing is not competitive.

@BonzoBanana

This is not really a fair comparison, because I'm sure Epic Games pays the publishers of those games so they can give them for free, as a marketing ploy to get people to join Epic. Those same games still aren't free on Steam or the Playstation Store, and most of the times third party games cost the same amount of money in those two stores as they do in the eShop.

I know the "Switch tax" on third party games used to be a thing a few years ago, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore, which you can easily check out by going to Dekudeals.com and comparing the prices of games in the eShop to other platforms.

I double check a lot and most are definitely the same, but prices can also be pretty random; I was looking at a new game a few days ago which was the same price on xbox and switch but slightly more expensive on steam and PS5 for no obvious reason.

I can see your point but Epic free weekly games is part of the landscape of PC gaming and it has been going for years, there maybe other retailers to pay for the same games but most tightwad gamers like myself will just get it on Epic. I looked at the Nintendo store and seems like a lot of very weak games at quite high pricing which pads out their selection of games but there are definitely great deals too. Only today I bought the two Metro games 2033 and last light as a bundle for £2.39, Kingdom Come Deliverance for £3.99, Windbound for £1.59 I think and a small game Zumba Garden for 89p which is great and very addictive. I'm building up a Switch 2 library very cheaply. What with Wolfenstein 2 the colossus for £5.24 and the Bioshock trilogy which was £7.99 there has been some very good deals. Yes some of these games have been available as freebies on epic I believe. I'm building up a nice library of games for very little money.

For anyone in the U.S., Best Buy is having a pretty good physical game sale. 10-20 bucks off a ton of titles, including first-party (Odyssey is 30 bucks off, actually). Even some Switch 2 games!

....I decided to turn off that option that enables HDR for all software....wtf? All of my Switch 1 games look so much better now. I figured the option would've made those games look a little better with it on at least. lol

@Joeynator3000 That's not how HDR works. It has to be implemented into a game, and each game uses it in different ways.

It's be like turning on automatic DLSS for a game that doesn't have it built in. It's do nothing