Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Do people really want just an echo chamber of "switch is perfect and nothing is wrong with it" opinions? It's good to get all kinds of viewpoints, even if you don't agree with them. Personally, I think some people are overlooking the fact how crazy it is that something so small is as powerful as it is.

True. They are pretty biased. At least they actually bring up the positives, rather than be hyper-focused on all the negatives.

Exactly, and since the last page was only talking about negative reviews done by IGN and Gamespot and such, I thought I'd post one on the other end of the spectrum.

Sorry for the double post, by the way.

My turn! My turn!

@FGPackers
Yea, but IGN probably draws the largest audience out of all the video game websites, especially when you consider they literally have IGN divisions across the entire world.

But then part of me wonders if it really matters all that much. Microsoft/Sony consoles have always been the focus at IGN, and there's no debating that this review is going to generate a HUGE number of clicks for them (I would say go and see for yourself - but then you become part of the issue! lol), and they have their own bottom line to meet in terms of viewership.

This is exactly what we discussed in the games rating thread: outlets giving low scores purposefully to generate those views. And this is where Nintendo's habit of radio silence REALLY comes back to bite them. It's so easy to hate on Nintendo - we've been saying that for years. And now it all comes out in the wash and really could hurt them with the Switch. It's a freakin' brilliant console that nobody else can match, but they very well may screw up the whole thing because they refuse to enter the arena and try to control their message.

For example, have we STILL not received an update on the Joycon issue? You know Microsoft or Sony would have been all over the websites and Twitter accounts assuring people they would have a fix for it. Nintendo? One vague Twitter post along the lines of "they probably know about it," and that's it. That kinda stuff can undo you in a connected world.

I prefer reviews that talk about both the good and bad things, however, it seems most reviews nowadays tend to talk about one or the other. It seems we can't have a good console that has its low points, and viceversa.

EDIT: I was seeing the DF review that Toad put, and it seems we finally have an answer to the mistery - it uses a stronger version of the X1, based on Maxwell tech, similar to this year Shield Tablet. Not bad at all for Nintendo using outdated tech! They really went for a (mobile) powerhouse this time.

I've fully decided I'll wait on Switch for my birthday. While there's lots of fantastic games especially indie games coming to Switch in the near future, most of them are April or later so I don't really lose out by just waiting a month and a week longer than if I bought at launch.

BotW will be Wii U for me.

I appreciate how objective and informative the DF review is.

IGN's review was brutal. If I have that connectivity issue in my living room and Nintendo stays silent about a fix, I'll probably ship it back to Amazon before the end of the return period.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

@AlexSays
Yea, it's mind-boggling that they aren't communicating about this, which worries me. Maybe they honestly don't know if they can fix it with firmware right now, but they really should say something. Gawd, a "Hey guys - we know the problem, and we can fix it in firmware. We'll have it patched up launch week" would go a long way right now.

Well, just personally, I pretty much do right now. I've made my decision, I'm getting a Switch, now I want to ride the hype train. For the next couple of weeks I don't care what anyone else thinks of Switch, I just want to enjoy it, so why would I bother reading the all-too-inevitable sour reviews.

Then that's a good idea to not read reviews. But trying to discredit actual reviews just because they're negative isn't healthy. (not referring to you, obviously, just in general)

@BiasedSonyFan read my edit, please. "not referring to you..."

i will wait at least till the holidays this year before considering to buy the switch. i bought the 3DS on launch date and do not regret it but at that time there was already an animal crossing and metal gear solid game announced. switch has a good lineup for this year but it's not enough for me to justify the 310€ pricetag.

No, but I do want to see what are essentially tech sites give reviews where they understand the tech. As I said the IGN review was a long ramble without much clarity. They were throwing in stuff like cartridges as a negative because of capacity constraints in Zelda making the textures too low res. The game is 13GB, we know there are 16GB and 32GB cartridges already. If you're going to talk about the cartridges, how are the load times? That's the point of difference. Capacity isn't an issue in this case at least.

I'd be fine if it was just a negative review. I'd be fine if their opinion was backed by some valid criticisms. If they questioned the merits of portable gaming when phones and tablets exist. If they wondered what market there is for a home console if they fail to get AAA third party releases. Questioning the market for a pure Nintendo box after the Wii U's poor numbers. I wouldn't share their pessimism but I'd be ok with the different point of view. Especially from a non-Nintendo focused publication.

But when the criticisms are focused around feelings rather than the raw facts of a particular storage medium. When they complain about the battery life when playing BotW in portable mode but gloss over the fact that you're playing BotW in portable mode. When they complain about software niggles that may be addressed in the day 1 patch and give it a pre-release score anyways? I think it's worth calling them out on it.

I find it funny that it's so easy for us (yes, "us" - this includes me) to get so upset with these "reviews" from "journalists" on these websites and You Tube.

News time, people: Most of these journalists are just schmucks in their 20s/early 30s who, more usually than not, have no real press credentials and don't even have a degree in English, journalism, or communication. They are typically people who graduate from college and can't really find anything else OR can't hack it in a real journalistic environment.

I know because I used to be one of those schmucks (though my degree is in English) and was surrounded by them in our office every day. Yet here we are getting our pants in a twist because of what singular dudes and gals have to say with varying degrees of subjectivity. There is nothing objective or, I would even say, "sound" about reviews in the gaming world. It's pretty much like walking up to your friend when you were younger and yelling at each other about a game you liked but he didn't, with pretty much the same amount of factual evidence being used lol

Bottom line: don't get so upset by this stuff. And honestly, don't read it if you know it's going to upset you. I haven't read the IGN one because I can pretty much picture it based on what you guys are saying, and I don't want to give them one more click.

@rallydefault
All the more reason to criticise them. It's not like there aren't publications out there making decent hardware reviews. For example this review of the PS4 Pro by a bunch of PC gamers...

@skywake
There are some great reviews out there, I agree. The Digital Foundry one, as others have been saying, seems very fair. Almost as objective as you can be, really. I also enjoyed Gameinformers' review mostly because they started with a fairly obvious statement: "reviewing consoles is dumb." And I'm not saying this because I only want to hear good things about the Switch. I'm saying this because it's true. It's dumb. Especially when the thing is going to have so much more functionality with the Day 1 patch, which was exactly the case for the PS4, for those with amnesia (PS4 needed its day-one patch to connect to PSN).

Anyway, the big outlets like IGN are not out there for fairness. I know. And it sucks, but it's just their modus operandi. They want to get people upset and make them click, not present balanced, sensible information. That doesn't get your comments section bumping like a good ol' thrashing or canonization of a piece of hardware/software.

@rallydefault
I think part of it is that there's a mismatch between the types of people who should be reviewing different things. For game reviews you want someone, as you said, with probably an English major of some kind. The same as you'd want for someone reviewing movies or books. Even comedians and actors can be good for that sort of role. A game review is effectively a subjective opinion of a bit of art.

But that's not what you want for a hardware review. For that you want someone with a technical background. You want someone who knows how many GB of RAM it has and what that'll mean for the kinds of applications it can run. They'll be able to pinpoint potential bottlenecks and design flaws. They'll know the specs that are impressive and which ones are underwhelming in the context of the device itself and what it's trying to do. They'll know the difference between something that may be a hardware issue and something that can be resolved with a firmware update.

You don't expect a film critic to give a good review of a smartphone. Why do we expect a game critic to give a good review of a console? Essentially it's the same thing.

@skywake That's... a really good point. I mean, there are certain things anyone can pick up on simply as a 'gamer'. What does it feel like? How is the interface? How do the game cartridges taste? But I've certainly preferred the DF's clear cut, bullet point style objectivity to a lot of coverage from games websites.

Even Nintendo Life's coverage verged into "What is there to say about the Switch? Well, it's IMPORTANT! Nintendo's most IMPORTANT console ever!". But that doesn't tell us anything about the Switch, only the circumstances into which the Switch arrives. In fact, it basically tells us about everything in the games industry except the Switch; about the state of the competition, about the commercial failure of the Wii U, and so on. There's certainly more of a narrative to that style of coverage, but I feel if overdone it detracts from the focus on the product itself.

I think there's been an increasing tendency across a lot of games coverage to bring an external narrative and use that as a backbone for the review or article; skimming over the question of "what is it?" in favour of "what does it mean?". What wider significance does it have? And in extreme cases, there's almost a sense that the writer considers themself (arguably not a word) to be 'above' the video game in question, and so decides to use the allotted inches to write about something they consider cooler. In fact, there's a well made (if slightly sweary - be warned) rant on that subject here.

So yeah, I'm definitely a bit tired of the reviews that feel like they're trying to make a wider statement than, "this is what the product is like". I mean, I get the appeal of the brash statement. It's big and bold and sexy and attractive. It plays into the confirmation bias of people already leaning in that particular direction - giving them an "Aha! I was right!" feeling - and even attracts people who hold the exact opposite opinion and feel incensed. By appealing to one side's confirmation bias, and the other side's annoyance or anger, you effectively draw everybody in and have them squabbling away in the comment sections, which only results in more refreshing and click backs. Controversy is all-inclusive, and you don't get controversy by muddling around with in the murky middle-ground.

And to demonstrate my point... I really want to have a look at that IGN article now - simply because I heard it was overly detractive.