Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

No, the numbers are bad.
Germans wait for these:

Then the Switch will sell millions here!

PS: No, these are no fake boxarts. These are real games.

Given the Switch is likely to run at a lower resolution and it has less RAM? They probably won't use as much space on Switch. No reason to have those absurdly high resolution textures it the Switch can't load them. Plus if they compress some of the audio I'm sure they'd save even more space.

I think we'll be surprised at how much smaller the game will be on Switch. Without compromising much.

LOL those games WTF

@skywake so my 64GB should be on for DOOM at least.....?

No one knows for sure. You need to ask Bethesda for that info. But you should be fine.

It really depends on how much they scale down their assets. My point was more that there is a LOT of room for them to scale them down if needed. The Switch does have half the RAM of the PS4 and it's probably going to be running at 720p anyways. So if I was to guess, and @Therad is right that it's a guess, I'd say it's going to be quite a bit smaller than the other releases.

Eh, I'm starting to think no Animal Crossing is a bad move. Would've synced up nicely with the mobile game next year. Ah well - maybe after the new Yoshi and Kirby games come out and we're all waiting for Pokemon and Prime.

So Super Mario Odyssey is 5.7GB in size.

A single save file for NBA2K18 is 5GB.

So, is this a AAA thing? Is western game development inefficient (It crops up there a lot more after all)? Did someone skip work and the intern designed the save file?

There are huge questions that need to be asked to 2K right now.

@BLP_Software 5.7 GB for Odyssey? Holy sheet, that's impressive.

@rallydefault Who's to say that Nintendo isn't working a way to have both? Would be cool if they do have a AC for the Switch and had some kind of connection to the mobile game. Also, we have only heard about Kirby and Yoshi because I believe they will come out in the first few months of the year. We will get another direct in December or January telling us what else is coming later next year. I would be surprised if 1st party was anywhere as good as this year but you never know.

We still haven't heard what Retro is doing and next year is when they shine! I really hope they've been working on more then one game this time just like Rare use to do back in the day.

@BLP_Software This is actually one of the reasons why Nintendo going third party would be horrible: they do some pretty damn good magic when it comes to their own games in their own hardware. I remember Mario 3D World was like 2 GB in size.

@rallydefault Nintendo haven't said anything about what games are coming next year. Come October or November we will be told about the first half of next year, then during April/May we will hear about the second half.

@Spoony_Tech im hoping Nintendo has some big exclusives from third party or second party studios to plug those gaps if they cant keep tje monthly big game releases like this year. We still don't have the third party support to keep the system selling during such months.

This may be interesting to give a watch: https://twitter.com/Variety/status/905925303364722688

@FragRed "Come October or November we will be told about the first half of next year, then during April/May we will hear about the second half." Got a source for that?

@BLP_Software It's not a western or AAA thing. You cannot expect third parties to trim their games down to a size that's comparable to Nintendo's games, because they are less experienced with the Switch's hardware than Nintendo themselves. I mean, yes they could work on it for another year or so, but you get my point, that's not economically viable.

Then there's the issue that a multi-platform game needs to be optimised for multiple systems, giving the developers far less time to devote as much time and resources on a single platform as they could've done if the game was an exclusive.

We also need to take things like voice acting (sound in general) and more complex textures into account, these take up a lot of space and can also contribute to a bigger file size. Even the difference of compressed midi files or a fully orchestrated soundtrack can make a difference. Doesn't apply to all games, but it's still something to take note of.

That being said, 5GB for a save file is absolutely ludicrous, and I can't fathom why they need that much space for a single save file.

@Octane I wasn't complaining about the size of the game. Third party file sizes I just roll with now. Unless its a Titanfall 40GB of uncompressed audio thing.

I was complaining about the save file. Why, regardless of the game, is a save file the same size as Nintendo's holiday flagship release?

@BLP_Software It's a 2K thing. And like I said, I have no idea...

The first half of 2018 lineup will probably be Kirby, Yoshi, Fire Emblem and some Wii U ports. Say for example something like:
January - Nothing (releasing games in January is pointless, if you can't make it December then delay to February or later)
February - Kirby
March - Smash 4 port
April - Fire Emblem
May - Super Mario Maker port
June - Yoshi

@Octane Also, did you actually read my post, where I explicitly state, several times, it's the save file I'm bringing point to? Would have saved you all that time writing up about the size of the game.

I'm going to do some more digging. Regardless of how much needs to be saved, it shouldn't be gigabytes. There are far more efficient ways of storing data like stats.

@BLP_Software I know. But you did ask specifically if ''western'' development was inefficient, and I've seen more people talk/complain about large file sizes in general, not just the save file. So it was partly a general response to the this thread. In short: Large file sizes make sense, to a degree; however, 5GB for a save file does not.

It's just how announcements usually happen. Well maybe not the exact timing but Nintendo have made quite a point of announcing stuff within about a year of release. I mean think about it, what upcoming games do we know about for the Switch and how many of those are scheduled for release in the next 9 months or so?

So to that end I think it's fair to say that as we get through the big games for the end of this year they'll start talking about the games for the first half of this year. And then once we have those games in our hands they'll start talking about the end of 2018. And when we get past those we'll start hearing about early 2019 etc

Yeah. We don't have info on Switch's 2018 release, so we will probably get a Direct on November to lay the ground work for next year.