Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@BLP_Software My thoughts would be that they keep paying for some deals that are clearly superflous because they have some strong personal relationships between the top management of Sony and the top management of e.g. Activision.

Plus "I managed a department to 90%+ market share" sounds much stronger on a CV than "I managed a department to 70% market share but I probably maximised our profits".

@StuTwo It does however come at a price and this is entertainment and gamers.

Sony fans are mosy ubaware of it but the rest of us on Xbox or Switch end up shafted, and even some games end up restricted by Sony and dont reach their full potential. No Mans Sky and Street Fighter V come to mind.

Its a mess and I wonder at what point ANY EU nation takes notice because we are at the point where it really really feels less like competition and now kicking the dog when they are down so they dont get up

@StuTwo I dunno. I don't it's that bad. Like I said, it's just competition, it happens with every luxury item, cars, tech, whatever. Prices drop when the competition releases something new.

I'm not too worried about it, because it means that Nintendo and Microsoft will also make their products more attractive as a counter move, and because Sony is a business in the end, they need to make a profit. They can't sell everything at a loss and pay every company for exclusive deals.

@Octane They are posting nearly record profits.

They quite clearly can afford to pay companies and sell at a loss. Hell they just bought Funimation!

@BLP_Software So maybe there is some 'loss leader' strategy going on. Pay off Street Fighter V (lose money) but collect on the online subs (ker-ching)? (Only a guess. I am usually wrong lol.)

@Octane Well, during the N64 era NOA made deals with third parties for exclusives to accomodate for the lack of general third party interest. However, during the GCN era the new administration at NCL took away NOA's power to make such deals. There were lots of deals made during the Wii U era, but mostly between NCL and Japanese companies, while Western companies were largely kept out of the loop. It's my understanding though that the current administration restored NOA's power to make such deals.

@Hitokage1 It was about time I guess. I always wondered why Nintendo hasn't opened more big studios like Retro in the west. I think they had one in the US, but they never produced anything noteworthy. Let's hope they can secure some neat deals in that case.

@Octane Competition? In some ways yes but in others it is a monopoly. Whilst consumers and individual companies can do well from a rising monopoly they are ultimately devastating to the industry once established.

One clear example of where it could easily go wrong is in Sony and Microsoft paying big 3rd parties like Activision for "marketing support" so that their format is featured prominently in advertising. It's become an integral part of the business plan for some of the big 3rd parties - they would have a big black hole in their accounts without it.

Now in the past when Sony and Microsoft were genuinely engaged in competition that was great but, today, Microsoft has effectively stopped competing. Sony seemingly continues to pay for some marketing support deals but they don't need to - they have in many countries an effective monopoly and they have to be portrayed as the lead platform. From a rational financial perspective they should stop it - they're not really getting any added value from it at this point - but when they do it'll hurt the industry.

Note I wouldn't necessarily go as far as @BLP_Software - I don't think that Sony are as yet a monopoly (there are too many viable alternatives like mobile gaming) but I wouldn't be surprised if there are some countries where Playstation represents upwards of 90% of the "traditional" gaming spend. That's well beyond the realm where healthy competition can exist.

It's kind of weird how the moment Gamexplain posted a video on ARMS, the first comments that pop up are people saying that the game is dead and Splatoon killed it. I wonder why it seems that people do this a lot.

@-Green- Because it's the truth? I was among those who was planning on getting ARMS but moved over to Splatoon due to their short time frame difference and the fact that Splatoon is a recognised brand at this stage.

@-Green- It's a meme right now, so people are doing their part, unconsciously or consciously, to propagate it. Online communication seems to encourage hivemindy behavior from a lot of people for whatever reason. You'll see ideas, phrases, judgments, etc. catch on and spread like wildfire, and then promptly disappear once the time has come to propagate the next fashionable meme. It's kind of fascinating to watch.

Unfortunately it must be somewhat true. Splatoon is a much more outwardly seeming complex game, with multiple modes and events constantly taking news headers. ARMS' complexity isn't as obvious, though it's there, and to be honest it doesn't have nearly as interesting as a world or gameplay as far as modes go.

So naturally all the Switch owners that are buying the games each month have mostly moved on. I hope their upcoming updates for arms breathes new life into it.

I don't know why anyone expected ARMS to be able to compete with Splatoon 2. At this point, Splatoon is one of Nintendo's bigger IPs, and ARMS is a complete newcomer, with less content and depth to boot.

@KirbyTheVampire My sentiments exactly. Being a new IP, ARMS had minimal exposure and very less time to market itself as much as Splatoon 2

Sky Rider is on the coming soon page in eShop. I am probably getting my hopes up but it has a Sega vibe to it (Planet Harrier).

Remember when the first Splatoon was also heavily criticized for being light on content?

I play Splatoon 2 more than ARMs at the moment for a very simple reason... the former has a level-up system that gives you more stuff to play with, and ARMs doesn't. But I still appreciate the latter for being less demanding progression-wise, as well as taking a break from unreliable teammates.

This "Splatoon 2 killed ARMS" talk?

Yeah that right there is why Nintendo isn't releasing a Smash port this year. That actually would kill ARMS (and Pokken).

Maybe a loss in appeal, but not dead. I'd imagine they share some audience in the Ninty people and early adopters but I'd say they're different enough to be for different people.

Is that saying all fighters have less depth than team-based shooters by default? (Not to be confused with content). Honest question.

FWIW, I haven't bought Splatoon 2 because I have ARMS, and MK8D. Splatoon 2 didn't do enough to differentiate it from the Wii U version, whereas ARMS is totally unique.

So yeah, in my little world at least, ARMS killed Splatoon 2.