Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Well they can easily have killer apps for VR and still make it a mid gen upgrade, that's not an issue.

Prime 4 would be a good candidate for a killer app. It's already in first person, so that makes it suitable for VR.

I think the killer app for VR is more likely to be watching live (or delayed or even old!) sports events and concerts. VR "experiences" have a great and obvious appeal but I'm not sure "traditional" videogames in VR will ever be enough of a mainstream pursuit that big budget games are ever made specifically for VR.

In terms of games I think that Nintendo could do some very clever and potentially great things but I wouldn't expect them to do the obvious things (i.e. Metroid Prime in first person). Something fun but lightweight like Wii Sports or 1-2 Switch properly adapted might be a better bet as a "killer app" for VR. Or something specifically social that flies contrary to the naturally anti-social nature of VR (does anyone remember the old kids show "Knightmare"?).

@Bolt_Strike Metroid Prime VR in 720p with downgraded visuals... I think I'll skip.

@Bolt_Strike @StuTwo Absolutely, Nintendo are at their best when they are innovating - despite VR being an already crowded market place, no one supplier has that 'killer' software that makes their particular headset/product the must have - that's where Nintendo could, potentially, make their mark ..like they did with the Wii - they weren't the first company to experiment with motion/full body controls - but they managed to make a complete hardware/software package that made their spin on the genre the must have bit of kit (simple controls + Wii Sports + good price = market cornered!) ...they've done it so many times before, I wouldn't put it past them doing it again!

p.s. @StuTwo YES! Knightmare was AMAZING!! ..needs to make a come back!

Just imagine being able playing Breath of the Wild like that. It would be a gift from heaven for all of the YT LPers...

Absolutely not. Passive experiences won't sell VR, the fantasy with VR requires interaction. When you see VR in science fiction are they every just putting on goggles and watching? No, they're moving around and using full body control. Something that's more like a movie or a casual game like Wii Sports or 1-2 Switch is not going to be the killer app for VR, it's going to have to be closer to an open world game. Something that really immerses you in the game's world and shows off a wide range of actions and mechanics.

Now if they want to go social, the best option would probably be Pokemon. Allowing the player to interact with other players face to face virtually would really show what VR can do as a social device.

Oh boy - I'd be all over that like a panda at a bamboo buffet!

@rallydefault nope only counting the PS4, not Vita. Skywake has a point, just isn't the data I was looking at for a reason, I was comparing the Switch to its direct competition which according to Nintendo is Xbox One and PS4.

But surely even if you're only looking to compare against other home consoles then PSVR isn't their direct competition. It's an expensive piece of niche kit (that's already been outsold by Switch). The overwhelming majority of PS4 owners will never be able to play those games.

Plus of the 10 Sony published games for PSVR a couple were bought in and they were mostly very slight "games".

For Nintendo to have 9 Switch games already scheduled for them to publish this year isn't bad and if they announce a few more at E3 (which they will - even if the games they announce are "Pushmo Switch" or "SNES Remix") then they'll be publishing more games than they've published for one of their home consoles in a single year for a long time (I'm sure @skywake would have the figures on that).

Aside from which the numbers doesn't matter. One BoTW matters more than half a dozen Mario Party or Mario Tennis games when it comes to actually selling a system.

@StuTwo I disagree. Just like Wii Fit (with the board) and Motion Plus games for the Wii counted as Wii games that required an accessory, PSVR is an accessory for the PS4. It isn't a different system, I can't own a PSVR without a PS4 and use it. So I count them as PS4 games.

BotW is also on the Wii U, which I have owned since launch, so BotW isn't that important to me. Quality over quantity is important, but that was people were saying during Wii U droughts. It didn't work. It seems most people want quality and quantity. I just find it disappointing Nintendo barely supported the Wii U to "gear up" for the Switch and the Switch comes out with the number of games we expect from 1st party, not more. If Nintendo hadn't stopped supporting the Wii U, and still had 9 Switch games, then I don't think it would be as disappointing for me

Dude you counted like 10 PSVR games. You said it yourself.

The PSVR is a separate "system" for Sony to develop for as much as the 3DS is for Nintendo to develop for.

If I own a Switch and not a 3DS, I can't play most 3DS games.
If I own a PS4 and not a PSVR, I can't play most PSVR games.

So if you're gonna pad Sony's numbers with PSVR titles, then you need to do the same and include 3DS games for Nintendo.

At least if you're even attempting a somewhat fair comparison.

I saw your response above, and that's bologna. PSVR is a separate system. It needs its own power source! That beast is not an accessory, nor does it carry accessory-level pricing. The stuff you USE to play it (those wand things and the PS Camera), now THOSE are accessories.

@rallydefault You can own a 3DS and play 3DS games, you can't own a PSVR and play PSVR games, you also need a PS4. They're not the same.

@DefHalan We can remove the Wii Fit and Motion Plus games. Wii still stomps on every non-handheld console twice over on QUANTITY of software releases, if we want to go by quantity. Quality, is a different matter.

PSVR is not being sold as an accessory, it's being sold as a platform, costs as much as a platform, and just so happens to require having another platform to use it. It has it's own game casings, brandings, and logos. Not the same as a $30 Motion Plus attachment, and Sony's not shying away from very deliberately handling it as a platform. Maybe you do or don't want to make an argument that it is or isn't but if we're actually contrasting games on platforms as actual fans instead of creating internet arguments for the sake of being contrarians it would just be intellectually dishonest to not count PSVR as a platform (that happens to depend on the PS4 platform beneath it.)

All the same, we're still contrasting the quantity of games on a 3 year old platform that's already replaced itself with an upgraded model and has an accessory that costs as much as itself, in the prime of its lifespan against a 3-week old platform. That's also a dishonest comparison. If we're going to compare the first 10 months of Switch's life to anything in its competitor's space, we need to compare it to the first 10 months of XBO and PS4. I'm a launch day Switch owner, I was a launch day WiiU owner, a launch day 3DS owner, and a launch day PS4 owner. Also a launch day Vita owner. I haven't been a launch day XBox owner. Switch's launch is bolstered tremendously by BotW, none of the other platforms had anything like that going for it. The rest of the launch is par for the course. PS4 had a terrible launch, Vita was actually ok with Golden Abyss, but it went south really fast after that. 3DS launched with nothing, and WiiU actually had an AMAZING launch provided you had't played most of the launch games elsewhere before.

But WiiU is what happens when you front-load the launch. That was everything they had for months on end, and then it was done and forgotten, and we were left with rumors. PS4 stayed almost worthless for over a full year with nothing but HD collections of PS3 games filling out the library (slowly.) And it really wasn't until this past year that the PS4 became really vibrant, 3 years and post-replacement into its lifespan. We bought PS4's because we knew "greatness was awaiting", and it was! But it took its sweet time getting here. And it seems to have awaited for replacement hardware to obsolete ours. Meanwhile our total list of 2017 games (assuming they all launch on time, of course) for the first 10 months of a console is much, much better than what the PS4 saw in its first 10 months, so I'm not sure I understand the complaint. XBox launched with more than PS4, quality aside, and it clearly didn't fare nearly as well as the PS4.

My point is there's nothing unusual for a console launch here. And what we do see is better than the current #1 (excluding 3DS) had in the same time.

Remember what I said earlier that HD games take 2-4 years average, ranging up to 10 years to develop. WiiU was abandoned this past year. One can argue 2 years ago. Ok, so that means if they fully abandoned WiiU. Including no color splash, TP HD, Xenoblade, Tokyo Mirage, and had every studio working on Switch (they weren't some were working on 3DS) then games would still be arriving sometime between now and 2 years from now. That would be if it's exactly as you describe and they halted all WiiU 2 years ago and did only Switch development, it would still have a 2-4 year turnaround. And that's just what we're seeing. Some of them in the launch 10 months, some after. We're getting new Zelda, Xenoblade, Splatoon, a new IP in Arms, new FE in 2018, new Mario. That's most of the core franchises within a year or so. Right in line with the 2-year Wii abandonment time table and the HD dev cycle.

I think the point you're missing is the fallout from the initial WiiU debacle. It took Sony 2-3 years post launch to get PS4 games in gear, and that assumes they started working on them while PS3 games were still ongoing. But Nintendo got started on WiiU games late and only then realized that HD development takes a lot longer than they thought. Their fault, absolutely. That means they were developing WiiU games through most of WiiU's life, and the ones they announced in the beginning are the ones we got at the end, and a few were obviously halted for Switch (Zelda, Retro's game, etc.) That means they started Switch games during that last 1-2 year WiiU gap, meaning only some of them are coming up "ready" in time for immediate release.

Most importantly they can't saturate the market with games all at once. If you dump 10 top tier games all at once, on launch day you reach a tiny audience, and ou get a lot of customers saying "which two should I buy?" if you release them slowly over a year, you get a lot more sales. And a lot less droughts. If they did all their major franchises on launch day, all at once, then we'd have a 2-4 year wait to see anything of significance from first party again. THAT would be a heck of a drought!

@Octane Similarly you can't own a PS4 and play PSVR games, you need a PSVR which actually costs more than a basic PS4. An accessory that costs more than the "console" is the platform. Even if we include PSVR we're still comparing a 3 week old system and it's 10 month launch period to what at the end of that window will be a 4 year old console in it's prime, including between 2 iterations and the PSVR" accessory" $1200 in hardware. It's not a fair comparison. We can only compare launch windows, or we'd need to table this whole conversation until we can compare what Switch games are announced over the next 4 years.

@NEStalgia I don't care about the line-up comparison. I just think that the Switch-3DS and PS4-PSVR argument was a terrible analogy.

I think that counting first party games is pointless anyway, because Sony and Microsoft don't rely on them as much as Nintendo does. It way more important for Nintendo to release x number of first party games every year, then it is for Sony or Microsoft, as they also rely on third party support.

@Octane
The pro controller is an accessory. The charging Joycon stand is an accessory.

The PSVR is not an accessory.
The PSVR is a system in and of itself.

And my analogy wasn't "terrible." That's your opinion. I think it was great. Because it shows it is a SYSTEM, just like the 3DS.

@rallydefault PS4 is required to play PSVR games. Just like the PS2/3 were required for Playstation Eye games. Just like the Xbox 360/One is required for Kinect games. It is an accessory to the system, not its own system. You don't have to count it like that for yourself but, I am counting it because to me it is relevent in my opinion.

@NEStalgia TLDR but I read the final paragraph. I am not wanting 10 amazing titles dropped at launch. I just was expecting to see more than 9 Switch titles. Loke most people here were talking before, we were expecting Nintendo's lack of Wii U games was them building up the Switch Library, but it looks like that isn't the case.

@rallydefault
If I own a Switch and not a 3DS, I can't play most 3DS games.
If I own a PS4 and not a PSVR, I can't play most PSVR games.
If I own a Wii and not Super Mario Galaxy, I can't play Super Mario Galaxy, therefore Super Mario Galaxy is a system.

I don't care if the PSVR requires its own power source. All controllers require a power source too, but they're often just batteries. The PSVR doesn't run the games, the PS4 does and it can't do anything without the PS4. I wouldn't object to not calling it an accessory, but it's most definitely not the same as a video game system.

@Octane Fair point, but for Nintendo the most important point is having a steady seeding of first party offerings through the year each year more than dumping "ok here's a full library day 1, knock yourself out!" Which they seem to be openly acknowledging.

@DefHalan Not necessarily. Like my reply to Octane above, what is important, no critical, for nintendo is steadily seeding games all year every year. They need enough to spread them out to have at least a 1st party game a quarter or more...something they didn't do for WiiU. That means the dev timeline of delivering over the next year or two is spot on. That also means even if they have things finished, they might not announce them until they strategically need the game to fill the lineup so they create the appearance of a steady stream of deliveries. If we go with the 9 switch titles for the first 10 months figure, that's still about a game every 4.25 weeks. That indicates they're accomplishing that goal.

This industry, consumers forget. remember that Horizon game on PS4? Yeah that came out a few weeks ago. Forgotton. By Christmas nobody will know it existed. Dump a bunch of games at once, they're forgotten in a few months and then NL is complaining "there's no new games!" A game a month is an excellent number. yeah, that includes 1-2-Switch. But it excludes all the 3rd party and higher profile indie games that are also coming creating a more robust library, albeit, largely in the Fall.

@rallydefault Are you STILL harping on about the PS VR not being an optional accessory?!

Give it up, man. Nobody agrees with you except yourself.