Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@NEStalgia I don't think the companies care, they just stick with whatever they have and can say about their system. The PS4 happened to be a little more powerful than the Xbox One, so they used that in their marketing. It's the best selling console too, so why not use that? And yeah, like you said, the PS2 didn't sell 150 million units on power alone. I'm sure their marketing team will be fine, I don't expect them with their hands in their hair running around the office not knowing what to do.

@StuTwo I feel that those people would rather buy a PC instead. A decision that's made even easier since every Microsoft game is also on their PC store. We'll see though.

@NEStalgia The 3DS is an interesting case as whether a bigger screen is an upgrade or not depends on who you ask. You can even see this on this site, plenty of people were disappointed when Nintendo discontinued the smaller New 3DS because they liked it more than the XL model. Hence there are 2 ways of looking at it, either the 3DS XL and New 3DS line were upgrades or only the New 3DS line was an upgrade.

If Switch gets a new model in the next few years I think it'll be a smaller, handheld only model for those who don't care about TV gaming (i.e. if you have the original Switch model there's no reason to buy the new one for yourself).

@StuTwo
Yea, that's a good point. The crowd that the One X will attract will certainly be smaller, but there's a good chance those people have a bit more money to throw around if they're willing to pay that much for the hardware. They would certainly be the "high-end enthusiasts," as seems to be the term of the week lol And those people are way more loose with their cash. So even if they don't sell a ton of X's, maybe the ones they do will have incredibly high attach rates and such. Who knows.

It is interesting, though: will those high-end people just opt for a PC instead if they don't already have one? I don't know. I game on my PC more than my consoles. But I will say this: sometimes it is NICE to just flop down on the couch and play a game rather than sit at my computer. No, I don't have a desk job, so that doesn't factor into computer fatigue like a lot of people have, but I will admit that sometimes gaming on my PC feels a little too "active" or tense. Just your body posture and such are more rigid when you're at a desk, and your hands and arms are doing a lot more motion with the mouse and board. That's great sometimes, but sometimes you just want to chill and kick your feet up with a console. It's totally an individual choice on the way you prefer to play your games.

@Grumblevolcano I think the sales reflect that overall, most people saw the XL as an upgrade. I'm thinking it's the Nintendo loyalists that are more prone to want the smaller version . I have both, of curse, and have used both, but I admit it's mostly the XLs that got the most use. The small original was used more for those rare occasions I wanted a pocket device. The screen sure looked sharper on the little one though! N3DS however was a "PS4 Pro" of the 3DS line.

I agree though, the next Switch model is the side-grade to a smaller companion unit (I do NOT want to think of Lego City fonts on a tiny screen...) But "New Switch" will almost certainly be a thing, just like Pro and 1X. (I don't think they'll use the New name this time....oh geeze I hope not... )

@rallydefault The way I see it - if a console like the One X is a BMW then PC gaming is a kit car. It might be faster but most people either lack the technical skills or the willingness to deal with the hassles it brings (even if the performance might actually be cheaper or less constrained overall).

The high attach rates are something that's important to note. We talk about the PS2 selling 150 million+ consoles but not every one of those console sales was of equal value. The first 20 million consumers paid more for their consoles and spent far more on games. When a console has to be less than £100 for a consumer to buy it then how many £50 games is that consumer really going to buy?

When you think about it you become very aware of just how vulnerable and tight the business models that underpin market actually are behind some of the astonishing sales figures that we hear.

I think moving from PS4/XBox One to the true next generation will be a very hard sell all around. Which is part of the reason why I think that the PS4 will be around (and prominent) for long enough to become the best selling home console ever.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/07/splatoon_2s_next_spl... I was wondering if buy this game, so welcome news. Now only, Must remember this.

That's not really the point. The image can only look as good as the bitrate and codec will allow. Netflix is giving you a <20Mbps stream so overall it's not going to be better than a standard, higher bitrate 1080p BluRay. It might be better for specific kinds of content but it's also going to be worse in others. That's how the maths works.

And in any case your internet speed doesn't really make much of a difference above a certain point. Once you're above the recommended speeds the only improvement you will see is with buffering/reliability. If I'm on HD Netflix with a 10Mbps connection and you're on HD Netflix with 100Mbps? When the HD kicks in on my stream we'll be watching literally the same thing. It's the same deal with UHD content.

Note that I'm not saying 4K is pointless. I'm just saying that 4K Netflix is only really 4K for marketing reasons. It could have just as easily been running at 1080p with a higher bitrate. Technically it would have given you very, very similar results even if you viewed it on a 1080p set. 4K sets being in the wild does not mean we're actually consuming "4K content"

@Octane PS4 Pro is 25% of PS4 sales?

Last I checked they said 1 in 5 was a PS4 Pro. Thats 20%

Fun to see this debate though XD

1 in 4, 1 in 5. Close enough. My point still stands.

@BLP_Software ^^^^^^

Perhaps he meant PS4 Pro sold %25 as much as regular PS4s sold separately. That means 1 part PS4 pro, 4 parts PS4, total of 5 parts, 20% of combined sales.

In on topic news, Splatoon 2 seems to be doing decent here in the UK.

I'm kind of hoping a Switch upgrade will also improve performance on the tablet. If it winds up being a dock that adds more brawn to the TV performance, I'll probably just skip it.

A PSTV-esque unit for $200 seems like an inevitability.

@Ralizah I'd at least hope that a new model switches (hah) to the newer, more efficient Tegra chips. Should allow for better battery life at the very least.

@Ralizah I could easily see a mid-gen bump that boosts undocked performance. It doesn't have to be much more powerful since it still only needs to render 720p. That said it's 100% dependent upon nVidia. They can't change the whole SoC out for an X2 without making too big a spread in specs, so I don't know if nVidia is planning a die shrink on the X1 at any point or if it's as small as it goes already.

@skywake
That's...literally exactly what I was saying, dude. But you ignored the part where I said I owned an UHD Blu-Ray player and use it quite frequently. You also didn't tell me if you owned a 4k TV.

New Mario Kingdom Battle footage. Great stuff.

I ignored it for a reason, it's not relevant to the discussion. All I'm saying is that people having 4K sets doesn't mean much if they are not watching content that can take advantage of 4K. My original post was just to say that the transition from SD to HD was a big deal because we also moved from SD to HD in other aspects. That's less of a thing this time around.

During the HD transition people jumped from...
DVD -> BD (5x the disc capacity)
S.Vid & Composite -> HDMI (interlaced analogue -> digital)
MPEG -> H.264 (1/2 the file size)
DVD -> SD Netflix (a drop in quality for convenience, HD Netflix came later)

This time around we're talking about....
BD -> BDXL (2x the disc capacity)
HDMI 1.4 -> HDMI 2.0 (more pixels is the only major change)
H264 -> H265 (2/3rds the file size)
HD Netflix -> 4K Netflix (going from sub-BD to just over BD quality streaming)

Don't get me wrong, 4K matters. I just think it's a bit misguided to say that it matters as much as the jump to HD did. When we went from SD to HD it was a huge leap in just about every aspect. I for one was pretty hyped about the transition. I was buying BluRays back when they were still 5x the cost of a regular DVD.

But 4K? Well no, I don't have a 4K set yet. I've eyed them off in the shops and it's definitely an improvement. But it's more of an incremental improvement than the game changing jump from SD to HD was. And even when I get a UHD set and start building a collection of UHD BluRays I won't be buying movies again like I did with BluRay.

BBGC is way superior for getting those gaming discounts.

Ya, doesn't BestBuy Canada offer GCU like in the States? If so, that's the way to go.

That said, I used my student email to sign up for 6 months Prime free just 24 hrs before the Corrin P2 amiibo went live. Perfect timing. I'll take free Prime, maybe even the $49 half price offer for students, but 1 year for $100, when BestBuy does better for $15/yr ($30 for 2 yr membership), with no time restrictions (can get discount years after release) and 20% off amiibo, and all games (hate how Prime discount doesn't show for half the games listed), even season pass or controller bundles with games get the discount...

4k is super overrated. The vast majority buying into 4k won't buy a TV that is big enough to be able to gain any benefit. The average American household needs to buy a 75" TV or sit closer to gain a benefit. Or both.

But HDR is a visible improvement and this is what should be focused on.