Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

I Never like VR.
Ridiculous Expensive, Mediocre gameplay, Health risk, Uninspiring titles, blegh !
I see VR somewhat like Killing machine from .Hack VR set (player died by playing VR)

I... doubt you can play VR and dies from it anymore than you are playing your phone and dies from it.

It just didn't make sense, and besides, most of those games tend to be having some extra stuff... and SUPERNATURAL stuff happening. So unless we reached where technology is integrated into our nerves or something, the most you get is probably nausea/dizzyness, or other kind of health related matters that makes it negative for you...

Xbox one X is a new gen in all aspects except it has full backwards compatibility. It has roughly the same power leap as gens have had traditionally. If MS had drummed it up as a new gen, it would have been seen as such.

For VR to be good you need to have fast response times, the time from when you are moving your head to the screens updating needs to be super fast. This means refresh rates on the screens are important, but you also can't have input lag from the sensors.

But this isn't the biggest hurdle. The biggest hurdle is that VR isn't suited for living room play. Most consoles are connected to the main TV. I don't think it will be socially accepted in a long time (if ever) to use the shared space for something that is basically a solo experience. To be able to get widespread reach this needs to be addressed.
Having one person sitting in the couch and flaying with their arms around with no regards for their surroundings doesn't really fly in a family.

@Therad The main problem with the Xbox One X is that it won't have any exclusive games. Anything produced that could take advantage of the additional power will be held back by the original Xbox One. That's where Microsoft has a big problem with their "Nobody is left behind" idea. A new generation would eventually after two or three years at most do away with being held back.

The Xbox One X is really Microsoft fighting a fight from the generation launch, by now saying what Sony did - telling everyone it's the most powerful console in the world.

Yeah, I wouldn't call Xbox One X a whole new generation because it's a more powerful alternative model rather than a replacement to the Xbox One.

It would definitely be interesting if Sony made the PS5 centred around VR. Thing is, unless a new version of PSVR came with the console as standard (which would make it very expensive), I still don't think it would be different enough to the PS4 to make it worth buying a whole new console.

That sounds a bit like my gritty reboot fanfic ‘Postman Pat Begins’. I’m especially proud of the part where Pat has to call on his friend Sam - an explosives expert more generally known by his nickname ‘the Fireman’ - and the heavy part where you find out that Dorothy Thompson has become addicted to heavy anti depressants to help her cope with her life crushing existence living with Alf.

In the game version the ultimate weapon is obviously the Greendale Rocket launcher.

I think the future for VR and it’s true potential and success is likely to be found in ‘experiences’ more than games.

I can see it eventually being huge for live sports rights for instance - you could effectively put your head in the stadium (for a premium of course!). The same for theatre.

As for the more general question of when we’ll see a ‘new generation’ of consoles - I think the answer is ‘when components start to get difficult to source or when sales of current generation consoles slow’. I do expect future consoles to look a lot more like Xbox One X though (complete with ‘no one left behind’).

It just makes no sense to cut off 100 million customers for an arbitrary reason. Instead you leave it a few years before you start releasing games that aren’t compatible with the older model (by which point most active players have upgraded).

Well in a sense that has been the general trend over the last 10 years or so. Because of the explosion of mobile devices companies have been pushing the "low power draw". Not to save the planet but more because they want to get as much power as they can on battery and in very small devices. I know it's a few pages back but if you look at that graph again you'll notice that the slope of that line is the average across both generations. And if you can visualise it you can see that it was steeper 10 years ago than it is now.

@StuTwo I understand what you are saying that cutting off 100 million install base doesn't necessarily make much sense when launching new consoles, though this is how all previous generations have worked. You either upgrade to the next system either early on or when the last generation ports dry up and it didn't really seem to be a problem. It's seems to be only now with this generation that people have started changing attitudes.

A lot of people are predicting Sony to release the PS5 either in 2019 or more likely, 2020 with games already in development for the launch though Microsoft will I am sure hold out another year. Both companies have kinda said there will be a PS5 and Xbox Two in interviews.

Xbox One X not being a new generation is a way to make Sony look bad if PS5 doesnt surpass what is a last generation machine. Quite clever.

@FragRed only because architectural differences made forward compatibility impossible and/or because the leap in power was so great it simply didn’t make sense.

Even so we’ve seen consistently that the successor to a successful platform has implemented backwards compatibility so that publishers can continue to concentrate on the previous generation for a year or so until most of the active user base has moved over.

Since both Microsoft and Sony are on x86 and basically running PC hardware they’d be crazy to cut out support for the PS4 and Xbox One. It’ll take them longer to migrate users than it did last time (& I’d guess that the move from PS3/X360 has been slower and harder than they’d hoped).

@StuTwo I think the PS4 would prove the migrating players over from the PS3/Xbox 360 wasn't slower or harder than hoped. The huge sales milestones it has been reaching suggests the opposite. Even with Microsoft's butchered Xbox One launch, both consoles enjoyed greater sales than either previous consoles. In fact the PS4 is doing as well, if not better than the PS2 in terms of momentum.

@FragRed I don’t know. How many games are still dual released on PS3? There were fewer last year but there are still plenty (mostly not in genres that gamers posting online are likely to care too much about though!). That those games still exist is a clear sign that many PS3 owners haven’t upgraded and won’t until their console actually breaks.

The record sales for PS4 have also taken a lot of effort and clever work on Sony’s part. A lot of those sales aren’t necessarily upgrades from PS3 but customers won over from Microsoft’s ecosystem or the Wii. They’re now in a more defensive posture in the market and that makes it a lot harder to tell their existing customers “shell out £400 now please”.

I honestly think the next upgrade will be a harder and slower sell in the same way that the upgrade from DVD to BluRay has been a much harder sell than the upgrade from VHS to DVD.

@FragRed
"The main problem with the Xbox One X is that it won't have any exclusive games. "
I heard from my friend the reason Xbox brand is struggle because not just only struggled on 1st party games, but also... xbox lack of Kawaii or Cute games for Girl audiences, something that Mostly on Nintendo machines (NDS, Wii, 3DS).
Even xbox has their Cute games, but the amount of those games are very few, very hard to please Japanese customers.

@StuTwo I think a lot of those last generation dual releases is due to the fact Japan hasn't been so eager to upgrade to the newest console as the rest of the world has been. I do agree however that Sony did have help from both Microsoft and Nintendo having butchered launches or just failed systems.

But it also helps that Sony is perhaps best place in terms of a diverse library of first/second party games. Microsoft has really been quite narrow in the genres they focus on while Nintendo is entirely about the family image. Even with the Switch there's little outside that type of game that Nintendo will release.

I also don't think Sony had any idea that Microsoft were developing the Xbox One X when they were designing the PS4 Pro. The Pro was obviously designed to be in the same vein as Nintendo's New 3DS or the DSi. It was a minor upgrade to keep sales coming in and to help market keep the PlayStation fresh in people's minds while they work on the true successor to the PS4.

Nintendo comment on Switch stock situation

Business Journal in Japan recently asked Nintendo about the present domestic Nintendo Switch stock situation and received the following official response:

“We are shipping the Switch every week and recently the shortages have almost been resolved. At present (as of the end of January 2018), we receive almost no feedback from our customers regarding shortages.”

A Book Off representative was more ambiguous in the article stating the selling and purchasing prices fluctuate daily according to the stock situation, but it is within a normal range.

http://www.japanesenintendo.com/post/170527165364

I hope that puts an end to the nonsense that some people say that Switch sales are hampered in Japan because of shortages.

@Anti-Matter Microsoft never understood the Japanese market from the very beginning of the original Xbox. They tried to push it as an American machine in a country that is perhaps the most different from the US in terms of the games they play, and it just went downhill from there. Even when they tried to launch the Xbox 360 with some exclusively produced Japanese JRPG titles, they still didn't manage to get it right. And now with the XBox One, Microsoft didn't even bother trying to please the Japanese crowd. I think they will go through Nintendo by selling games on the Switch if they want to get in on that market.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE
Switch sales will be "hampered" from now until E3 due to no big games. MAYBE Bayonetta will cause a slight bump, but unless this Kirby game is the best thing since sliced bread, this machine needs something big and soon to keep its momentum. And I hate to be so negative, but being a Nintendo console, I feel like the moment it loses momentum in sales will be the moment the insanely negative headlines will return, and then then we resume the Nintendoom.

@rallydefault I think Labo is the big 1st half of 2018 game.

@Grumblevolcano That would be disappointing beyond words.

I think we'll get a big release before E3, though. I'm still expecting another Nintendo Direct soon.