Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@DefHalan Sony and Microsoft? Microsoft has very very little first party development to speak of at all at this point, they drained Game Studios years ago and lost Bungie while Rare is a shadow of itself that releases little. Sony has some great studios but they have less first party titles per year than Nintendo, this year just happens to be an amazing treasure trove for PS4, but it's not the norm in terms of first party.

You're talking about Nintendo as a single studio/publisher and comparing it to all third party studios combined on the other platforms. Yes, of course Nintendo platforms don't get as many third party games, but many of the ones it gets are unique, and that's not a new situation. Anyone that's all about third party quantity isn't really who Nintendo's targeting. We're still draining the 3DS pipeline at this point which is where most of Nintendo's exclusive third parties are. In a different universe Monster Hunter XX would be launching this week on Switch, Radiant Historia and Echoes would be releasing, etc. That isn't going to be launch month on a new console, but that day will come.

Nobody front-loads a console launch. That's part of what happened to WiiU. PS4 launch had 3 first party titles, one of them good, the other two not so much, and a bunch of filler ports from PS3 from the third parties. Launch year didn't look much better. As for a game a month, Zelda in March, MK8 in April (plus the Lego City rerelease, Arms likely in May (or June) (along with Disgaea5 Complete which is really a PS4 port), and then we'll see. That's 3 months into a new console with your big game ,little game cycle, and excluding all the indies (including physical release indies.) Major blockbusters in March are not good business. The blockbusters are Fall/Holiday. And there's a ton of games slated in that time window, assuming they all make 2017. But so far we're not seeing true droughts either, unless you're a WiiU owner where MK8 isn't too exciting for us, but for everyone that didn't have a WiiU, which is MOST people, which was the whole problem, that's a HUGELY exciting release.

Game development turnaround time in the HD world is 2-4 years average. Breath of the wild was over 5 years. FFXV was 10 years. If Nintendo dropped WiiU 2 years ago and did nothing but Switch development we'd be looking at a boatload of games. In a year or so. For now we're still getting a new Zelda, Mario, Kart rehash, new Splatoon, new IP, new Xenoblade (at least on Japan release schedules) in the first 10 months. Plus the third party releases (SMTV, FE Warriors, Steep, etc.) Fire Emblem next year in a series that's cranked out 4 major titles for the 3DS in the last 4 years, that's a studio that lets no grass grow under their feet. WiiU style game droughts meant 1-2 first party games per YEAR. This lineup is pretty deep for the first 10 months of a console. Especially considering it doesn't include any western multiplats that wouldn't be announcing anything until E3 if they're doing anything.

Im just sitting here and enjoying every hit the gaming inc brings to my table. The comic on the former page is genius though^^

But im still confused how the king of handhelds hasnt figured out yet that people might want to go outside with their handheld where the sun shines. Even with a blend film? i cant really play outside.

That reminds me
I wonder what castle vidcon would have to say about the switch

@NEStalgia according to quick googling: Microsoft released 8 games last year. Sony released 20 games last year. This year Nintendo has 9 games and most of them don't have a confirmed date and could easily slip into next year. To me that is low. I expected more for how little the Wii U got.

@DefHalan
That seems high for Microsoft and Sony. I mean, 20 games from Sony last year? Erm... I don't think so. That's probably counting games that were simply funded by them in part, kind of like giving Nintendo credit for Bayonetta 2 or Snipperclips; it's technically "their" game, but they didn't really devote developer resources to it.

@Nintenerdguy Yeah i was really looking forward to play her in the garden. Before i got the switch i was constantly fantasising how epic it would be to play Nintendo games in the sun. I mean the really good games feel like summer themselves so this would be overkill.

But im not giving up^^ Ill try to dock it and play on my pc monitor which will be standing under a sun umbrella. Maybe the bigger screen will make it playable.

@Nintenerdguy Nah still not very good visible. I want that Nintendo summer^^

@Nintenerdguy Heres how it would work for Switch.

HDMI Cable from the Switch dock to your Elgato.

2nd HDMI cable from the Elgato to your TV, so you see the game in real time when playing.

Micro-USB cable from the Capture Card to your system, to power it and collect the footage. This connects via USB 2.0, at least on mine.

Don't worry about not having a HDMI port on your PC/Laptop, because those are rarely, if ever, HDMI in.

@rallydefault I was looking at Developed and Published games. Sony has a lot of their VR games, which really boosted their numbers.

Here's my count of confirmed published titles in NA from Wiki, like for like. This year:
Nintendo: 9 Switch, 8 3DS -> 17
Sony: 11 PS4, 3 PSVR, 0 Vita -> 14
Microsoft: 5 XBOne -> 5

and last year:
Nintendo: 7 Wii U, 18 3DS -> 25
Sony: 12 PS4, 10 PSVR, 1 Vita -> 23
Microsoft: 5 XBOne -> 5

From what I can tell you're comparing the numbers in bold....

@skywake Since Nintendo seems adamant about the Switch not replacing the 3DS and being a Home Console, I wasn't comparing portable lines. If we were, numbers get crazy with mobile development and I don't really know how to compare those numbers lol. So I was just looking at Home Console development/games.

Or to rephrase, since Nintendo are pushing a PR line so as to not squash their biggest current platform and you're ignoring one of the major platforms that Nintendo puts resources into entirely. But sure, you compare Sony's full list of published games from last year to a partial list of games from one of Nintendo's platforms this year. That's very fair minded.

@DefHalan There will be at least 1 or 2 more titles for this year announced at E3,there always is.Plus any Directs they have planned will contain some surprises,maybe smaller E-shop titles though .Even if one or 2 of the already announced titles drop into 2018,I'm certain we'll still end up with a bigger list of 1st party games than we have now.Plus they need to keep this consistent flow of releases going into next year and beyond,especially if 3rd party's still aren't on board by then.If they were to put out 3 or 4 more titles this year than they normally would on average and the same again next year,that'll answer the question of what they were up to during the Wii U's last year or so.It might seem like there's not much just now but once the big releases start landing and then every month or 2 after another is on the way along with the smaller ones,it'll be hard to keep up.Plus whatever they have planned for the online subscription and VC on top.When we look at the Switch's full 1st party line up at the end of the year,it's arguably going to be stronger than any previous consoles first year,Sony,Microsoft and Sega included.

@skywake or I actually believe Nintendo is going to keep the 3DS alive for a while. And I am focusing on the area I care about. Here we talked about Nintendo stopping development of Wii U games to better support the Switch, but that isn't what happened. Nintendo just increased production for the 3DS, and the Switch launch line up suffered, in my opinion.

@OorWullie I would be happy if more titles were released this year, I hust don't think we will get more major releases before the end of the year. We will see. Either way, I will still get the Switch for Mario Odyssey

@DefHalan
Come on, man. @skywake has a legit point. You want to compare games between the publishers, but you're going to ignore the fact that Nintendo needs to develop for two consoles WHILE giving Sony credit for three?

You're wrecking yourself, brosef.

To be fair when the Wii U launched we didn't know about:

• Wind Waker HD
• Wii Party U
• Mario & Sonic @ Sochi
• Super Mario 3D World
• Wii Sports Club
• NES Remix
• Dr Luigi

Those were all "first year" games that Nintendo published. Yes some of them were small but some of them were pretty significant. But the point remains, we didn't know about them at this stage. I don't think it's outlandish to think that we don't have the full year of the Switch mapped out already.

@skywake Yeah, history shows us that Nintendo wouldn't even bother turning up at E3 unless they were pretty confident of stealing the show...they've held some things back for the event, no question.

These would definitely be good features to have, but I'm not sure we'll see all of them Year 1. VR feels more like a mid gen feature, it's probably going to take Nintendo some time to polish this and it'll be more helpful to have something like this mid gen when interest starts to wane in the system. Cost shouldn't be an issue as the glasses themselves shouldn't cost too much (as it would basically just be plastic, the Switch itself would do all of the legwork), but the Switch may have problems with graphics locked in at 720p or even 1080p.

I'm also not sure 3DS will get VC this gen, it may not be possible for them to emulate 3DS games sometime this gen (there certainly isn't a reliable emulator now). I expect some ports of 3DS and Wii U games, but not full on VC. Not sure they would use phones/tablets the way you describe either, I could see them working as an alternative for an extra handheld unit possibly, but not as an add on for an existing handheld unit.

@Bolt_Strike @Nintenerdguy I think that Video Capture and Virtual Console have both been confirmed for release this year - though, quite how deep VC will dip in to Nintendo's back catalog is anyone's guess at this point!

I'd personally love to see some 3DS games make the 'switch' The dual screen functionality - and the fact that the 3DS is still very much alive and kicking - are what give me doubts...but we can dream!

I have serious doubts about VR on Switch - I think that VR tech is something that a company needs to back 100%, or just not bother...sure, there have been murmurs from Nintendo hinting at VR in the future - but a half-baked VR experience would almost be a waste of time, especially coming in to the market this late in the day. I could be wrong of course...the VR market is flooded with new hardware - but seriously lacking any 'killer apps' - so, if Nintendo have just one truly great piece of VR software to compliment a Switch VR experience, it'd be a very different story...but other companies are throwing serious money at this tech, so my fear is that anything Nintendo might be developing in this area could be too little too late by the time it were to hit the already crowded market...we'll see! (...Virtual Boy on Virtual Console anyone? )

I would rather see the VC get a huge number of Sega titles.