Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Whitewatermoose @Nicolaison We've been over this already I think.. Why would they want to keep their older games exclusive to these ''classic'' hardware boxes? They are more expensive to develop, manufacture and the profit per game is way lower than a digital copy on the eShop. There are shipping and storage costs involved too. So, regardless of whether some people refuse to buy the VC games again, these NES mini bundles aren't in any way, shape or form more profitable for Nintendo. They could even lower the price of their VC titles and still make better profit, or give free downloads away to those who already downloaded the games on their Wii U and/or 3DS.

@Whitewatermoose nah. They'd make more money selling each individual game for $5+ than a bundle for $60 or so.

@Whitewatermoose No, because in the long run they'd be losing money. Why buy a Nintendo system if you can play their games on iOS? That's just a terrible strategy. Easy short term profits perhaps, but not sustainable in the long run.

(Going back a few posts..)

PS4 had PS+ - Nintendo could do a Netflix-style PS+-type-thing as well, sure ..I wouldn't expect it to come with the already announced online subscription service though - if anything, it'd be a premium extension to the online service (like PS+ is an extension of PSN)

..personally, I'd be pretty disappointed if Nintendo scrapped Virtual Console altogether with the Switch - I'd love to just download a few classics from their back catalog to a MicroSD card and take them with me on the go - it'd be a big miss for me if they tinkered with the tried-and-trusted formula too much ..I'm hoping that the lack of official announcement is because they're figuring out how transferring purchases from WiiU to Switch is going to work - all will be revealed soon I'm sure!

@NaviAndMii Isn't that what they are doing with their online subscription thing? It is like Netflix because you don't get to keep your games and they change monthly. Sure it isn't a big amount of games a month (how many is it a month? Is it just one?) But that is why it is so much cheaper than PS+

I agree that VC on mobile is a dumb idea but I don't think this is the reason. I don't think people are thinking that the Switch isn't worth getting because you can get Mario Run and Pokemon Go on Android/iOS. I think the VC if it could work on mobile would be a similar sort of thing.

The issue is that with fairly insignificant exceptions smartphones aren't great for classic games. Super Mario World can run on Android but playing it with a touch screen is not the best way to play it. Mobile is at its best with games that can work with a single touch screen input. Classic games with that interface would all be sub-par experiences.

As others have said, the NES Classic model is far less profitable for them. Even before you take into account retailer margins, shipping and the hardware itself? They charge about twice as much for games on the VC. When you take that stuff into account the gap is even bigger. And despite the reset on everything Nintendo you need to remember that VC games were still regularly the best selling releases on the Wii U and 3DS eShops.

And in any case, I don't think it's a question of either or. I think Nintendo would be wise to give people different ways to buy these classic games. Some people like one model more than the other. The NES Classic style device is a relatively low-cost collectable item that doesn't require you to buy into their bigger platform. The VC as it is works well as a way to sell a bit of nostalgia to people who are already invested in the bigger platform. A subscription service could be good for people who don't know where to start.

It's not always either-or, they can do more than one thing.

I love the VC but I wonder about the viability of it. Licensing, building each game's emulation front end, game popularity. VC will never be a true catalog of games, just the most popular ones or the ones people shout and whine the loudest for. Which is ok but we are at a point where how many times can you buy OoT or Super Mario World? If there has ever been a time to either let it go or restructure it, the Switch is it.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Cross buy needs to be a thing. If I have it on Wii U or 3DS I shouldn't need to buy it again. But people on forums like this forget that not everyone owned the platforms you owned...

What are you taking about? I'm speaking to the fact that vc is a terrible way to fill out a library because it is all greatest hits or fan petitions/whining. And that licensing and dev process contributes to that (and isn't an easily surmountable issue). How many times can you keep putting the same games on offer while leaving out so many others and still have your platform be considered a reasonable investment? I have the same issue with PS classics as well. Cross buy doesn't address what I said. The transition of games and past purchases reconciliation is a whole other animal. Doesn't matter what you owned before as my issue is with the content.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Cross buy means that I'm not buying the same content over and over again. I buy it once, I own it, it follows me across new platforms. So that's what I was getting at there. You're right, we're not going to buy Super Mario World and Ocarina of Time over and over again. They need to recognise our previous purchases.

The rest of it? Well as I said, people on forums like this forget that there's a wider audience out there. There are people who will own a Switch who have never had a copy of Super Mario World or Ocarina of Time. Those people will always exist. We can whine about those games being released over and over again but Nintendo isn't doing that just for fun. They do it because there's a market for those games. Nintendo would be stupid not to give those people who are new to Nintendo the option to get those games.

For people like us? Yes, the VC needs to cover more obscure releases. It needs to have a wider collection of games and offer something we haven't seen before. Like when they released Sin & Punishment, Earthbound and Xenoblade. But that's always going to be secondary to cross-buy and having all of the staples available.

@DefHalan Oh, I see what you mean! Yeah, I think the online subscription service includes 1 'free' NES/SNES game per month (with added online multiplayer functionality) - but, like you say, you don't get to keep it at the end of the month (unless, presumably, you pay for it?) ...I suppose that that wouldn't exclude N64 and beyond (that's why I got confused) those titles could perhaps still be available for download, but would presumably be pay-only (?) - all will be revealed soon I'm sure!

When Nintendo finally does tell us the details about their online (maaaaaybe E3, but eh... probably not lol), one thing is for sure: no matter what it is, people are going to hate it. They could announce they are giving us 2 free SNES games a month that you get to keep, online play, a free Golden Retriever, and one of those Switch cookies mailed to you on your birthday, for 2 bucks a month, and people will still find something to complain about.

I know I'll be ticked if that Golden Retriever isn't hypo-allergenic. (I'm not allergic, but my wife is. See ya later, Rufus.)

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That really makes no sense though. You are buying the game for that platform only. I bought Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U, I do not expect to get it for free on the Switch. It would be nice if Nintendo did not make people buy games twice though. They still charged people to download their old Wii vc games on their Wii U for a price.

I was talking about the VC service but still, in principle? Why not? All of your purchases should carry over.

With that said there are two reasons why I don't care about retail releases as much as the VC. Firstly there aren't many games that are released as is across console generations. Early on in a console's life there are ports but beyond that? It doesn't happen that often. When ports do appear later on in a console's life they're usually remasters more than they are ports. Twilight Princess on Wii and Twilight Princess HD on Wii U are not really the same game.

The second reason is that there's no way to track physical purchases reliably. At least not in a way that doesn't potentially open the system up for abuse. Especially when the new platform can't even physically read the old platform's media. Microsoft got around this on the XBOne by having you physically put the disk in the tray as a kind of pseudo backwards compatibility. Your old digital purchases were also recognised. On the Switch? They can't be fair to people who got physical copies of those games because the Switch can't read disks.

But the Virtual Console? All of those games were brought digitally. All of them are going to be more or less exactly the same on the Switch without any enhancements or extra features. The whole point of the VC is that the games are authentic to the original systems. So I see no reason why they should be charging people to access them when they paid full price for them on a previous Nintendo platform.

@Ryu_Niiyama It's not a popular opinion but I've felt that way for a while. What is VC's future? It certainly doesn't turn much of a profit, and it's never going to be complete. It was a neat idea, but part of that was because that was something that was missing for a long time, games that had been missing since the 80's, and lets face it, the Wii couldn't really do very much of it's on beyond being a kind of "everything" box.

OTOH, Switch is arguably the first ideal platform to actually have the VC on where it can actually capably run games from any prior platform if retooled for it, and most it can probably do in straight up emulation, and has the whole hybrid aspect.

But between indies and new games, I can't see how there's too much demand for playing 20 year old games other than specific classics, and mostly to people who already played them 10 times. We DO know there will be some kind of NES/SNES support, due to the free subscription game thing. Maybe they have a rabbit to pull out of their hat about how they'll differentiate VC this time.

@Pahvi
They technically didn't call them Virtual Console games but in general? Yes. When they start adding features like that I think it becomes more acceptable that they can then ignore your previous purchase.

I'll put it in another context so it becomes even more clear. If I was to buy an album from a digital music store the expectation is that I can download that music on the device I purchased it on. I also expect that I can download and play that music on any future devices I own. If someday that store offers a higher quality of download? I'd assume I'd be able to download that also.

But having brought the album digitally? I don't expect to get a discount on the live version of that album. I don't expect a discount on future albums by that artist. If they release a deluxe edition with a bunch of bonus tracks? I don't expect to get that for nothing either.

Why should it be any different with games?

Will it make the Switch?

@Octane I don't think so, and frankly i can't care less. The best shooter is already coming to the Switch!

@Pahvi
I could imagine an alternate universe disk based version of the Switch where when putting in the original Wii disk for Super Mario Galaxy it downloads a version of that game that can run on the Switch. Or in a similar way it might see I downloaded Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii U and lets me download it to the Switch. That's how the XBOne handles things. But what I don't expect is for something like Twilight Princess HD to be available to me if I have the original Wii version. Just like I don't expect to get Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for nothing because I downloaded Mario Kart 8 and the associated DLC on Wii U.

Yes at some point a SNES VC release that I owned on Wii U will be less than an enhanced version on the Switch. It might be at the point where they add online multiplayer. But for the VC in general? It's a unique service where there is no excuse for cross-buy not to exist. All purchases are digital and the games, by definition, don't change between console generations.