Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@BLP_Software There's plenty of value in it if you're interested only in portable but want types of games that previously weren't available portable. Less value if you only want a home console, assuming the fact that the majority of its games are exclusive, and the exclusive games don't interest you is true.

But lets be fair. For months you were kind of negative on Playstation, Playstation games, "The Naughty Dog Camera(TM)" and seemed like you were all into Switch and its games. Now you're down on Switch and its games and that it's not valuable if you're not using both home and portable.

It sounds to me like you're just getting kind of bored and jaded with gaming in general and probably need a break from it.

@KirbyTheVampire I think the main reason people want M rated games from Nintendo is that it's very rare to see an M rated game that lives up to the standards Nintendo (typically) sets for it's games. As other people have mentioned, Geist and Eternal Darkness, the two M rated gamecube games they published, offer a very different experience compared to most M rated games, focusing on haunting experiences over raw blood and gore. I'd love to see another Geist personally, developed in-house if possible, considering the originally really needed some gameplay refinements as it was. (Although Super Mario Odyssey is basically the spiritual successor to the best parts of Geist's gameplay, pun fully intended.) Eternal Darkness on the other hand, I've never secured a copy of, but from what I hear it's quite different from most horror games on the market as well.

@NEStalgia Hindsight is 20:20. And I appreciate, as stated, that people who like the portability or older games for portability, will be very, very happy. I would lie if I said DOOM is tempting and on my Xmas list.

The hang up is, I feel like I am buying games because of the hardware, not because they are inherently good games. That's my main hang up. I'm not buying DOOM again, because it's freaking DOOM, it's because it's portable. I didn't buy any 3D Zelda before BOTW, but I did because it looked mildly interesting for once, and it was portable.

It's weird, but I think FIFA is what really sold this issue to me: We can sell you a game just on the basis its portable, not on the merits of the game itself. And that's...yeah I'm not fond of that.

And I still am down on PlayStation, mostly ffor discarding most of the franchises they had that made the PS1 and PS2 such hits for me (That'll do it for anyone, if you lose what made you like it!).

Value is entirely subjective. Worth is not. The system is evidently £280 worth, as that's the price people are willing and able to pay. It's value however, is down to you. This is also true in reverse, an object can be very valuable to you but not be worth much in reality.

So it's value, to me, comes from being able to utilise the full product. The Switch's full product is that of both worlds. This isn't necessarily the fault of the Switch (Because after all it is myself who has no reason to you know, leave the house at all!), but it's also one of those things where "Anywhere, Anytime, with Anyone", is dependant entirely on you. As I am, no, it doesn't have that inherent value. It did, when I had friends around and went out a lot, but not now.

And buddy, I am jaded with gaming. I spent £9000 a year and 3 years of my life on a degree in Game Design. Know what it was? 3D Animation and Modelling, Making Websites, 12 page + design documentation covering story and visuals first with a paragraph on gameplay maybe 8 pages in, and advice on how to carve up your game for DLC and microtransactions. Oh, and we weren't allowed to work in 2D or make platformers.

Notice something? This is the Western approach to it. How to make a product. The EA way, the Sony way (The university is Sony partnered and gets all the dev stuff). Not making games, but products. And like Jordan Amaro said in his Splatoon 2 interview, there is no actual wrong way to make games, just the right way for you. The way I do it by instinct is how he described it in the interview.

How was that viewed at university? As wrong. Marked down. Told its wrong. My enthusiasm for this industry did pretty much melt over 3 years until I saw that interview and realised what a huge pile of BS it was. My enthusiasm for gaming is coming back, but through my mental illnesses and bad experiences brought on by that "Game Design" experience, it leaves you looking at everything like its just a product. Early on, I saw the passion in the games. It's why I was excited.

Now? It's depressing. It really is. My opinion on Switch will change over time, depending on games and how it evolves of course, but right now, while fun, it's not yet great. Just...good.

And remember, on a 10 point scale, good is 6-7.

Let people have their opinions, good and bad! Switch is not nearly as perfect as people make it out to be, and that's okay. The criticisms need to be heard just as much as the praise. And if it the appeal wears off for someone after less than a year, I think it's important to look at why, and see if it can happen to others. Whether people agree or not is irrelevant.

Not directed at you, @BLP_Software, but rather the people who find it offensive that you (and others) aren't a walking billboard that sounds like you're paid a check by Nintendo for every positive word you use for it.

Judge the system for what it is, not for what it isn't... wait, I've heard that before

@Operative2-0 To be fair I'm working on keeping my interests and things I like on the low down. People in my Game Dev Network find my "Endless Nintendo Positivity" (Yes, really) irritating, and ask why I keep sharing and talking about games no one cares about.

No one from here should go there XD Ever.

A game console will rise or fall on its library. It can have the best library and concept in the world, but if the games don't resonate with you, then it doesn't even matter.

Let people have their opinions, and we can have ours. I certainly make it known when I'm not enjoying a game or system.

@Octane What PS4 is: A game console that has none of what I loved about past systems.

Well let's be real. What it is, is not interesting to me. And part of that is in fact, because of what was discarded. If I view it in isolation like I do most things? Well...

It's a perfectly fine console. Capable, CPU aside, and crap controllers aside, and ignoring the online fee, but a lot of the games are...not in my line of taste. The wider library, while as large as other systems at this time, isn't aiming at me, at all. It's a perfectly fine system, hampered by the above issues, and by not being aimed at me, despite past consoles doing so.

And no, Knack doesn't count.

@BLP_Software Haha, I get you. As someone that is often on an opposing viewpoint on many things on this forum, I know how it is to be seen as the negative nancy, the buzzkill or the killjoy. It sucks, but it also at least encourages discussion like your post above. Of course, your college doesn't seem to offer much discussion either way, but at least we know not everyone thinks like your university. Yet, at least.

@Operative2-0 I mean, some people are relentlessly negative, and obnoxiously loud about it. That's not the same thing as sharing feelings of discontent or disappointment in something in a constructive manner.

I make it known when I don't like something, but I don't belabor the point constantly and try to drag other people down to my level of misery.

@Operative2-0 They were all very...anti-Nintendo there (They said the GBA should count towards GameBoy sales, and other quite asinine things!) and the other students were...well lets say all too willing to just roll with it.

Whereas I have this instinctive, not even learnt but natural approach to game design that falls exactly in line with how Japanese development goes.

My real worry is this is what the next generation of developers are being taught, by people funded by companies like EA and Sony.

@Ralizah I think even that has its place. To be honest I get what you mean, I can sometimes be like that myself, but in the end I think they all deserve some sort of reflection of some sort. I feel similarly to the ridiculously over the top praises I see sometimes. Not just here, but in general.

@BLP_Software Hey, I was only joking

I haven't played Knack yet, I joke a lot about it, but it does look like a mediocre platformer/action game to me, so I'm not interested. I still need to play Ratchet & Clank though. However from what I've played of Gravity Rush, Tearaway and The Last Guardian this gen, I do hope they continue to make games that aren't the typical realistic game, and are a bit more experimental in nature. None of them sold well unfortunately...

Whenever I feel dragged down by constant whining or uninformed and foolish dunces, I take a walk. I live by two rules:
1. Don't sweat the little things.
2. Your hopes are just as rational as your fears.

At the end of the day, it's just video games.

@Octane I haven't played Knack yet either. That game seemed to fall into the Sonic 1, Crash 1, Pokémon Gen 1 of "Okay, you've got something here, refine it in a sequel" kind of thing, but apparently that wasn't meant to be with the unequivocal failure the sequel was.

I think Knack was a victim of it's own hubris. Being a PS4 launch title meant it had big things to show alongside Killzone and a remastered PS3 game from a year prior, but that lead to same unhealthy expectations.

That and Mark Cerny should just...stick to hardware really. Let's be real. (Even then Id argue he isn't good at it, given his idea of an upgrade is overclock the already bottleneck inducing CPU, and put an even BIGGER GPU and heatsink in there, boom done, whereas the Switch and One X both follows Moore's Law of more power = smaller form factor!)

Ratchet and Clank is a great time. The reason I bought a PS4. Sadly its likely to be the only entry we get on the system, so...there's that I guess. Maybe Spyro remakes will happen? Though given Spyro was my first ever game I will rain unholy criticism if anything is remotely out of line with that, more so than I did with Crash

I hope Sony continues to make these none service based games too. Otherwise that leaves Nintendo as the sole bastion of an era. Problem is, for some reason, they don't sell too well on PS4. Niche I guess? Or maybe the PS4 marketing and angle really has damaged the potential of games they used to be really good at selling in the PS1 and 2 days. It'd be rough but understandable if their mature push has built a market simply not interested in these kinds of games we are, and it just became unprofitable.

Sony needs to understand, as Nintendo seemingly has with their need for mature games (Which we are getting a swathe off in a month span soon!), that you really do need to cater for everyone. Sony did that so well in earlier systems, but right now, with PS4? It's great, but a shame they only started doing that 3 years in and realising, hey, maybe people want other styles of games.

@Operative2-0 I think that over the top praise has little value. I don't really want to hear opinions from an echo chamber...

...at the same time though if everyone in the echo chamber is happy and they're not hurting anyone outside then why not let them be a bit happy?

I think it's a shame if @BLP_Software is feeling a bit down on the Switch. It's a shame if he's feeling a bit down in general.

He's not the first person to have put all of their passions into a hobby and found that the hobby doesn't turn out to be quite what it is to other people what it is to him and doesn't quite give back what he'd hoped it would.

We've all stared into that deep dark abyss wondering 'why do I have 6 copies of Pokemon, 2 GBA's, countless GC-GBA connector cables and multiple Gamecube memory cards full of Pokemon box eggs? Is this making me happy?'

...

Personally I'm very, very happy with my Switch. It's not perfect, the operating system and ancillary services need a lot of work and the majority of games on Switch so far have appeared on other formats (often much earlier and much cheaper). But I think that's reality for modern games development - particularly for smaller developers.

We're not in the 80's any more - all consoles are built along pretty similar lines and almost all games are built on middleware anyway. It's not like the 16 bit days when the Mega Drive had an Aladdin game that the SNES couldn't have handled and the SNES had a completely different Aladdin game that the Mega Drive couldn't have handled. Given it's easy and cheap to port it will happen and should - even if it adds only 10-20% to the existing stack of sales it's likely to be worth the time. Unless there's a specific commercial deal that makes exclusivity more attractive (these will only normally happen for bigger AAA games that sell the hardware or make a statement).

So indies will always be multi-platform. But Switch is an ideal home for them and may even become the most important platform for indies over the next few years.

I see the Switch as an incredibly promising start, in which Nintendo has got all of their marketing and development ducks in a row for perhaps the first time ever. It will be successful and Nintendo will remain in 'the game'. It's a long way to go before it realises all of that potential though.

Roll on Mario.

@BLP_Software
On Switch: Well of course portability is a core appeal of it....it's the first and only of it's kind, so that's a big deal. It fills a need/desire that was previously unfulfilled by any product so it will resonate with a lot of people in a big way. As a dedicated handheld it's mindblowing in it's power and games it can run, and more importantly in its input schemes. And as you said, as a hybrid it's excellent. Sure it has no particular hardware strength as a dedicated tv console. There's little reason to buy it over a PS4 as a dedicated TV box as it's worse at that particular job. HOWEVER, it has a different library consisting of many games you can't get on the other platforms, and ultimately more games (like Fire Emblem) that were locked to portable only will be brought to the TV for play for the first time since the Wii....so there's definitely merit to it for any player. I get what you're saying, but I don't think the value of it is diminished in a meaningful way if you prefer one of its modes mostly or exclusively, so long as the library appeals to you. Sure playing Doom or Wolfenstein on Switch seems a poor choice compared to PS4 or PC if you prefer it to look the best it can or play as smooth as it can and don't need it to leave your TV. OTOH, I you couldn't pay me enough to play Disgaea 5 on a PS4. Yes, because of portable. Don't need portable? You still gain the benefit of instant-on instant-off suspend rather than waiting for a snail PS4 or PC to boot and shut down. It's still a different experience even as a dedicated tv box.

Game degree: Well, there's your problem. University is almost always the wrong solution to any problem outside fields like medicine, law, architecture, engineering, natural/theoretical science, etc.. You said it yourself, it's an industry sponsored program to produce the employees trained the way they want them to be trained, and YOU get to foot the bill AND pay the middle man for the privilege. OTOH, that is the way the companies want employees trained because that's their interest. But as with most such things the unholy union of corporate and academia produces a fail. Instead of learning a craft/trade/skill/theory, you get an employee training program to a certain school of thought and procedure paid for by yourself. Splitting games for additional revenue streams isn't design principle for learning....it's an employee policy guide.

It has less to do with Western vs. Eastern, and more to do with the company isn't sponsoring the program out of generosity and enlightened principle. They're doing so to force the industry to model itself in their best interest going forward, and they have the pockets to make it happen. Of course it's with some irony that it's a Japanese company doing so.....

And that's certainly what went wrong with the industry if that's the training. Back when the great games were made there was no "university program" to do it. People with the mindset simply made it happen using general knowledge from other fields. As soon as something becomes proceduralized and institutionalized it becomes a jobs program where people are paid to repeat the pre set steps rather than risk deviating from proven formula. As you said: A product. But, then, even Miyamoto said he made "products" back 15+ years ago. It's always been a product, not art, even to him. The difference is he's an industrial designer that applied his know-how in product making along with his own decision making rather than following a factory-line checklist.

I say this with sadness as I haven't an artistic bone in my body, but people that made them before were using their own creativity to solve concepts. What you describe today is training people who like CONSUMING games on how to produce games on an assembly line from Ikea-printed instructions. And now the toolkits exist to make that more doable.

Thus the industry is a mixture of uncreative people who like consuming games therefore wanting to be part of the industry provided they're told what to do, mixed with people who REALLY want to be making $1b summer blockbuster films for Miramax but the gaming industry is easier to get into so they go there and push the budgets.

@BLP_Software how did i insult you? by saying your crying? you ARE crying.... like..

What more do you want?

Do you know how big the video card is in my computer? Do you know how big my computer is? Have you watched the advancement of video game technology since the 80s? Like look how big the switch is.. it is a damn console you can play in your hands.... its not good enough for you? Go ahead and tell me how they could have made it more powerful because i already think its the most impressive piece of technology ive ever seen.

Go ahead... tell me how nintendo should have made a more powerful handheld.

@Inertiacreep They made it incredibly clear that their issue was that the library doesn't have any games that wow them, not the hardware. In fact, they said they rather enjoy the hardware. Why are you trying to argue a non-issue?

@link3710 are you serious? jesus christ tell that dude this [removed] just came out....

_{@Inertiacreep Seriously, last warning, no profanity, and let's keep it civil here, alright? - Octane}