Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@SLIGEACH_EIRE @BLP_Software To add to that, according to the survey, the 2.5 month old Switch is less well known to the (UK) sample group than the 3.5 year old PS4 and XB1, however it's MORE well known than PS4 Pro and Scorpio, the big new flagships from the much more popular companies. And a whopping 18% of the sample group has not heard of any currently produced game system at all? Another odd poll with skewed results based an oddly chosen sample set. I wonder why they didn't include 3DS which is much more relevant when comparing brand awareness rather than selecting individual products of extremely different ages.

@NEStalgia Here's a thing to consider.

Current generation consoles.

So...no Vita. No 3DS. Both 8th generation handhelds.

But Switch is Nintendo's 9th generation console...so...surely shouldn't the sample omit PS4 and Xbox One and...well everything actually. And a console cycle isn't based on how powerful it is by the by, it's by the launch of a new marketing campaign for a new install base under a new brand.

@BiasedSonyFan
Again, I never said people were buying it despite not wanting it. Nobody was saying that. I was saying that the fact it launched when it did made it more appealing than it otherwise would have been. If it had launched later on when those factors were working against rather than for it? The game wouldn't have sold anywhere near as well.

I honestly don't know why you think this is such a crazy thing to say. You spend hundreds of dollars on a game playing machine, you buy some games for it. Inevitably your standards at launch will be lower because of that fact. Publishers have known this for ages, it's something that historically some have gone out of their way to exploit. It's not an unknown thing

Random question again, anyone else using or used these sites that tell you when a store has stock of something? There's like...4 or so of them out there, was wondering if they're accurate. I think one of them is not accurate, since it said a store had 3 Switches in stock, and I just called the store, and nothing.

But yeah if any of them are actually accurate, it would help a lot.

@BLP_Software Very true. My default cynical approach to journalism is to assume the misuse of words and general imprecision (at best) and an agenda (at worst.) Thus in this case my assumption was that when they said "current' generation consoles" what they really meant was "consoles currently (or soon to be) available for sale" and not accurately referring to the actual console generation. But that should include 3DS and Vita, but exclude WiiU which is discontinued. Instead they have consoles from 2 different generations and no handhelds from the same generations, and one console that doesn't actually exist (or even have an an actual known market name yet) compared against a 3.5 year old category leader.

The numbers appear to reflect a confirmation of perception that "the longer a product is marketed the more people become aware of it" more than any other useful information. 3.5 year old marketed products at the time, 4.5 month marketed 2.5 month sold product less known, 7 month old product not marketed very much known less than that, and product that does not have a name or exist yet known less than that. And 18% of people surveyed either don't know what a video game is or think an SNES is current.

@Joeynator3000 I wonder how they claim to gather their inventory information if they don't have access to the inventory system for that company?

Pfft, I dunno how all that stuff works. xD
But if it does work, it would be helpful. lol

Hey it can happen! So long as I read interesting things, food for thought etc. I'm happy to be challenged (and even proven outright wrong - as happens every now and then). The world would definitely be a duller place if everyone were exactly the same as me. Not to mention nothing would ever get done.

Plus being unreasonable on the internet is as pointless an exercise as it is ubiquitous.

@NEStalgia I understand that Peter Moore has now gone (oddly he's now CEO at Liverpool). Otherwise it's a good synopsis of EA. They're obviously not evil but their destiny is so tightly bonded to that of Microsoft and their (largely joint) vision for the industry is, in my opinion, so depressing.

I don't expect much of anything out of them on a Nintendo platform - even one that might be very successful like the Switch. They'll have just enough that they've got an iron in the Switch fire but no more and they'll have no problems with undermining the platform if it suits their purposes.

@StuTwo Wow, I had never even heard about the switchover to Wilson, last I checked he was still running Sports. Well, that sticks another mismanagement feather in their cap. Why would you replace on guy from the Sports division without enough knowledge of the moving parts, to ANOTHER guy from the Sports division who's even greener at the company and was mostly involved in the Asia market?!?

Of course Probst STILL has not been forced off the board, only because he owns so much stock (tank the company deep into debt to the point it's barely stable all in a matter of a few years....buy all the stock while it's worthless, then abdicate leadership....if I didn't know better one could think that's an intentional strategy....<grin>) so the guy who nearly tanked them still has pull over executive hiring....I suppose we should be glad they're only going for inexperienced rather than "new vision" leaders now! He might not be involved in the day to day, but the poison that once tainted the well is still all over the dipping bucket.

But absolutely agreed about their destiny being inextricable from MS at this point. They became an MS second party more or less, in part because they needed to at the time. It's a strategy that's backfiring though. That sounded great during the X360 when Sony wet the bed with PS3's debut. Now that XBox is clearly waning in influence, I doubt they're happy being so tied to them. Both companies bet the bank on the notion of ever higher spending for ever higher production value, SaaS, and the idea that games could replace cinema. While recent surveys show they were not incorrect, they were able to help push the market to desire that end, the trouble is that the earnings don't necessarily outpace the increase in costs, while XBox still spirals down into ever greater debt. They can offset the debt (for now) from other divisions. EA can not.

@StuTwo Nothing odd about Peter Moore being CEO of Liverpool FC. He's from Liverpool and his office was a mini Anfield! The man has literally got his dream job!!

@Whitewatermoose Activision's situation is a bit different from EA's. EA was mismanaged and gutted from the inside out into a debt sink and "restored" by people with a very different view of what it should be doing than what it was doing. It's not really the shareholders that are forcing them to make over-budget games but an internal strategy to act as a Hollywood studio. To make matters worse the biggest shareholder is the guy who gutted the company into a debt sink to begin with. Who also still is the chairman. They have a mismanagement problem, or rather, had one that lingers on and on and never found the right person to right it so they're committed to the path that said mismanagement placed them on.

Activision is a victim from the outside. Hostilely taken over by Vivendi, gutted not by accidental mismanagement and poor direction but intentionally extracted of every penny they could be excavated for to bail out the foundering leech of a company that bought them for the sole purpose of excavating them. The finally threw off those shackles and their CEO is practically a hero managing to resuscitate the near-death company and make it healthy again after the state they were left in. Yeah they have fewer games but they're operating from a position of necessary austerity. I actually expect Activision's getting close to a point where they can start investing in riskier propositions again soon. EA will never be in that position without more experienced leadership. Wilson, nice guy though he seems to be, is not that leader.

The leech that sought to consume Activision is the one now gunning for Ubisoft with the exact same stated goal, to bleed them dry as completely as possible to save their own failing company.

Ubisoft needs to fend it off. They're the last of the major 3rd party power publishers that is still run by its founders- people who live, breath, and love video games.

This is why I wish people would get past their personal grudges with Ubisoft- because they're a good company, with good people, and talented developers, and despite having to make hard calls sometimes as a business, they do truly care and make a commendable effort in supporting Nintendo, and thus supporting us.

@JaxonH I'm with you on that but ill just sit back and watch the comments fly about UBISoft.

The way Ubisoft handled the launch of Assassin's Creed Unity was unforgivable...

• They knowingly released a broken game
• They placed embargo's on review sites to prevent them from warning people
• They didn't warn people that the game would require a day 1 patch
• The day 1 patch didn't fix the game
• The big new feature they advertised, co-op, was absent

They were responsible for one of gaming's darkest days - an absolute scandal - corporate evil of the highest order...

Don't even get me started on the money-grabbing, unbalanced micro-transactions they like to use in their games!

Good people?! ...pfft!

I don't think it's an accident that Ubisoft has such a bad reputation, lol.

Yeah there are definitely reasons people are wary of them.

Well, it's that balance you have to remember with any company. All companies are full of "good" and "bad" people, and realistically, the only information we have to use as judgment for or against are the products they release. And yea... they haven't exactly been considerate of the consumer in a lot of regards lately, so that doesn't cast such a great light.

I think a lot of people overlook some of their really good smaller games, though. Like Child of Light and the Anno and Heroes games on PC are pretty fantastic. But the bigger games (with bigger problems) will always grab more news.

"You're lacking evidence" said the person who just outlined the evidence

@Nintenerdguy Nintendo has 65 million reasons why. They'd be stupid not to but I really hope the Switch gets one too.

@Nintenerdguy
3DS is probably more likely simply because it'd require less effort. But I think a Switch release is very possible and would definitely make bigger waves.