Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@GrailUK It most certainly does.

I can't believe some dev went to the effort of acquiring the rights for Danger mouse and put him in a crappy game. I loved DM when I was young, he deserves so much better. What next SuperTed?

Chuckle Brothers.

@Octane there are a lot of reasons why a game might be format exclusive. Outright money hatting is a probably very rare but there’s a whole ocean of ‘grey’ between money hatting and genuine ‘don’t care we only want to ever publish the game on this one format’.

A platform exclusive is clearly attractive to format holders from a marketing and sales perspective so it makes sense they try to secure them if possible.

Format holders have a wide range of tools available that don’t involve directly transferring money to the publisher. They can promise exposure on their e-shops or through their propaganda machine. They can promise more work for hire down the line as a condition of keeping work ‘exclusive’ for a period. They can cut licensing fees for a period of time.

All of these have the advantage that they never need to be reported. They can even be ‘informal’ agreements between executives with no legal basis (but don’t turn up at the golf club again if you break your word).

So, in other words, Sony shouldn’t be money hatting any games - they don’t need to. Their ‘soft power’ is so extensive - owning 70 million pairs of eyes and gatekeeping what they see when they turn on is more valuable than money (Nintendo, of course, do similar things where they can).

Given that Sony are known for making aggressive moves to defend their market share I don’t think it’s a big leap to suggest that there probably are some games which are exclusives by ‘agreement’ even if they’re not actually bought and paid for.

@Octane Keeping games off other platforms is part of the reason they pay for exclusives in the first place.

@IceClimbers If it's exclusive, yes. But they're not paying to have Monster Hunter on Xbox and PC as well, but not on Switch for example.

I think it is abundantly clear that many developers (in particular Capcom) got cold feet with the Switch before it launched. As a result, and this is going back a few years, the console just didn't figure in to their development schedules. Because companies operate a couple of years ahead of themselves, many are now realising the mistake and trying to accommodate it.

I see people mentioning Monster Hunter World. As it happens the game's directors have been talking about it again today and why it's not on Switch.

MONSTER HUNTER WORLD DEVS ON SWITCH RELEASE, AND PLEASING HARDCORE FANS

http://me.ign.com/en/ps4/142422/news/monster-hunter-world-dev...

@Octane The whole business model of Sony and the PS4 is to pay to keep games off of competing consoles. That's practically all they do.

@SuperWeird Thanks for your contribution to the discussion with some well-founded arguments

Hasn't this thread covered the 'money hatting' topic once or six times already... I'm sure this is not the first time Jaxon and Octane have discussed it anyway

Don't let that stop you of course, all good fun 👍

@SLIGEACH_EIRE With immense salt accumulating by frustrated Switch owners: http://nintendoeverything.com/monster-hunter-world-devs-on-th...

Acceptance of facts seems REALLY hard for said Switch owners.

I’ll buy the inevitable Monster hunter World Deluxe for Nintendo Switch XL.

@MFD
Perhaps. The article only states one actual fact as to why it's not on Switch right now: development started 4 years ago, and for the dual reasons of simply not knowing the Switch hardware at the time AND 3rd parties being hesitant of Nintendo at the time, that makes total sense.

The other "fact" that you may be referring to (given that you used the plural of the word) is the part about "choosing the hardware that best fits the game" (loosely paraphrased from the article). Yea. That part's garbage. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell ya.

The thing that gets my gruff is some of the people on here and elsewhere who are danged rhetoric hawks when it comes to public statement from Reggie or other Nintendo officials, but what it comes to something like this you're willing to just give it a pass? Funny stuff, man.

(Oh, I should mention: I DESPISE Monster Hunter games lol I don't give a rat's behind if this thing ever comes to Switch.)

@rallydefault Acceptance of facts. The first being what Capcom said. The 2nd being the simple fact that World is NOT coming to Switch.

The comments indicate that many people still believe Sony moneyhatted World, which is outright false and utterly ridiculous.

R.B.I. Baseball 18 Announced, Coming To PlayStation 4, Xbox One And Nintendo Switch

http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/01/21/r-b-i-baseball-18-anno...

I've no time for Baseball myself personally, I'd rather watch paint dry. But another one is coming out. The 2017 version on Switch got slaughtered.

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/nintendo-switch/r_b_i_bas...

@rallydefault
"The other "fact" that you may be referring to (given that you used the plural of the word) is the part about "choosing the hardware that best fits the game" (loosely paraphrased from the article). Yea. That part's garbage. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell ya."

Of course they are talking about when the game started development.
They didn't plan a Switch version back then because they didn't even know what a Switch would have been four years later and that's ok, so how possibly could be not ok that they did not think the Switch would have been a good fit BECAUSE OF THE SAME REASON???
The fact that they did not even know what a Switch would have been four years later, you know...

And don't tell me that they should port it now it would be like creating an almost new game and by the time it would be ready people would perceive it like an old game not worth their time.

To be fair, anyone who ever thought Monster Hunter World would ever come to the Switch really needs to take a step back and take a deep breath. This is a game designed for the PS4 and Xbox One and began development at a time the Switch didn't even exist. Then remember the Switch is not powerful enough to be able to run such a game without so much in downgrades it would just be pointless.

Then again, you should also remember that this is Capcom and even if the Switch sold tens of millions more they would still shrug it off and throw the odd cheap to port game here and there.

I personally wouldn't use Monster Hunter World as an example, but I'm sure behind-the-scenes there's some business deals that sort out that exclusivity junk if it's not up to the developers.

Microsoft did it a lot last generation (DLC packs with CoD as an example), Sony's doing it a lot this generation (Destiny DLC as an example). It doesn't really matter, just support the games you want.

One word: DOOM.

_{This post was sponsored by id Tech 6 - not all engines are built equal, some are built better!}