Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

How about a different take? Holiday 2018's Classic Mini ends up being the GBA (containing a variety of GB, GBC and GBA games) and has Mother 3 as one of the games, exclusive to the GBA Classic Mini like Star Fox 2 was to the SNES Classic Mini. Then Holiday 2019's Classic Mini ends up being the N64.

@JaxonH Alright, thanks.

Nintendo does praise other companies. The Splatoon devs were discussing how much they like Battlefield. And Nintendo sent NES Classics to Xbox.

Just because you need to dig for it doesnt mean it doesnt happen.

If anything the praise is a PR stunt.

Nah, I think VC definitely impacted sales. It's not the only factor in play, but it's definitely a big one. When they are dropping 2-3 VC games every week, those are games people will buy no matter what. Just look at Super Mario Bros Arcade Archive. And they will buy it at the expense of anything else on the table. Some people have enough money to buy both. So it's not like those games sales would just completely plummet, but they would decrease. And if they decrease enough to no longer be that impressive, it could stop the influx of developers rushing to mine gold.

Switch is doing much better so sales will be improved across the board. But $15 a week on 2 VC titles is like $60 a month. Believe me, there are a lot of people that would, as a result, buy less indies. Maybe not the major ones- Rocket League, Minecraft, these are well insulated. But for all the rest... they would be in direct competition with VC. The games are practically identical in some cases. 8 and 16 bit pixel art style side scrolling games...

Nintendo would certainly counter this by releasing a very slow drip feed. One game every two weeks maybe. A slow enough rate so as to have negligible impact on other games.

@Grumblevolcano That would explain why they've been more freely mentioning the Mother 3 speculation for the last few years, instead of flat out ignoring it.

@JaxonH And Zelda and Mario compete with games like Skyrim too, but they're not going to hold back on those titles either. I think VC has some kind of impact, because every game that costs money is competing with other games in some way, but it also sounds like a weird artificial system to keep their older games off their console, just to ensure some indie games don't completely bomb. Even though it sounds like people would prefer Nintendo's older titles over said indie games. I can only ask why?

@Octane

It has nothing to do with what I like or what I prefer, this is just an observation.

It is absolutely paramount that Nintendo get third parties to support their system. One only need look at sales of 3rd party games on Switch vs Wii U, 3DS or Wii (any platform that was selling VC) to see the stark contrast. Sure, you can cherry pick a dozen games on any platform that did well, but you have to look at the big picture.

And this is not a theory, this is proven economic fact. People have X amount of disposable income. By monopolizing the digital storefront, they do so at the peril of third party sales. And this has been observed for years- thankfully we now have a direct comparison to make with a Nintendo platform that is not selling VC.

Furthermore, it's the fear of failing to build a healthy third-party market more than anything else. Which is why I believe, if they do bring games, they will do it two years into the console lifespan after a third-party market has already been established. Because once you get people buying those games and they see how good they are, they are much more likely to continue buying them even when there is competition. Open the floodgates with VC right away, and that's all anyone will focus on.

Business tactics are not elementary. People go to schools for years to learn how to properly manipulate situations like this to their advantage.

He is correct you know.

With x disposable income you are meant to put needs before wants. With the remainder for your wants.

And if faced with a VC library of proven quality, memories for many consumers and so on or third party titles with unproven quality and dodgy business practices held within, which are they more likely to want?

Nintendo Switch UK eShop Charts - February 18th 2018

1: Bayonetta (NEW)
2: Rocket League
3: Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition
4: Stardew Valley
5: FIFA 18 (Up from 6th)
6: Golf Story (Up from 7th)
7: Overcooked: Special Edition (Up from 9th)
8: Celeste (Down from 5th)
9: Enter The Gungeon (Up from 10th)
10: Arcade Archives: VS. Super Mario Bros. (Up from 11th)
11: Worms W.M.D (Up from 12th)
12: Human Fall Flat (Up from 13th)
13: Bayonetta 2 (NEW)
14: Dragon Quest Builders (Up from 15th)
15: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Down from 14th)

Bayonetta 2 finally showed up on the charts. Wonder how it has done physically as a niche Nintendo product in retail in the UK tends to not show up in many stores. If my theory is right Bayo 1 is so high due to the codes included with physical copies.

Also FIFA 18 keeps climbing.

I should point out that this matters more in regards to indie games rather than bigger retail third party games. VC isn't going to affect sales of Skyrim or Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 that heavily. Random indie title #35 though? Yeah, it absolutely will affect it.

It's a psychological thing. People are far more likely to pick up an old Mario or Zelda over an indie game because they're known brands. That's on top of the fact that said Mario or Zelda is likely to be cheaper.

Is there anyone here who can honestly say they really wanted to get X indie game, but they didn't get it because they bought a VC game instead? It doesn't work like that, does it?

Even if you literally only had £8 available for buying a game... if you wanted to buy Scram Kitty on Wii U but also wanted an N64 VC title, you might get the VC game first, but it would be unlikely to deter you from eventually getting Scram Kitty.

In most cases the only gamers going to be that financially restricted are kids, and are they really going to buy a SNES/N64 game ahead of a new 3rd party release anyway?

@gcunit Look at it at it this way. Let's say you wanted to buy [insert indie game] which released on Switch on a Thursday but on the day before there ended up being a Nintendo Direct that revealed traditional VC was starting on the same day as [insert indie game] with games like SMB3, SMW and LttP being the first VC games with new games each week. So you buy SMB3, SMW and LttP day 1 then say on the next Thursday F-Zero and Super Metroid comes so you buy them and then the process continues which may mean you don't buy [insert indie game] at all because of all the VC games or your purchase is massively delayed say a year later for example. If enough people did that, [insert indie game]'s sales would be much worse off than if VC didn't exist.

Yeah, indies on Switch are definitely shining and lack of VC is one of the factors. For me, I don't mind the lack of VC on Switch. Between Wii, 3DS and Wii U, my VC needs are pretty much covered.

@gcunit I'm not speaking for the majority I'm sure but there have been many times I have taken a VC title over an indie title (only have sporadic access to eshop cards so the balance is admittedly often low!!). There are some great indie devs out there and I have bought there games plenty but I have been burned by more indies than I have VC titles and so I just go for what I feel is the safer bet.

@Grumblevolcano

100% agree

To be fair, this is the first time a Nintendo Switch gets consistent quality indie titles too. There were hardly any quality games on the Wii shop. And the Wii U missed out on so many good indie games, no wonder the VC titles topped the weekly charts.

If an Indie is less interesting than a Virtual Console title I already own a few times over, than I don't think that's Nintendo's problem.

I don't like this idea of depriving us all of VC because it might help Indies sell more. There's got to be some other way. In a market where Sony and Microsoft are able to support Indies and the release of their own kinds of "VC", I don't understand where the problem is.

@Harmonie Well on Sony's end the "VC" is so poor quality and hilarious infrequent it may as well not exist, so no issue there.

And MS is pushing towards services exclusively so everyone is along for the ride regardless.

@Harmonie It has nothing to do with being less interesting. There's many interesting indie games that can get skipped in favor of a VC title solely because the latter had Mario or Zelda in the name.

Also, Sony and Microsoft's classics don't have issues coexisting with indies the same way their current titles don't have an issue existing alongside big 3rd party titles. Nintendo's systems typically have way different purchasing trends - third party games get completely stiffled by Nintendo's own titles. This is true of their legacy content vs indies as well.

I'm sure the lack of VC on Switch has played some sort of role in Indie developers success, how much so is debatable. But another factor is that the Indie scene has grown considerably since the Wii.

The Wii was limited in technology and a tiny amount of memory space. Wii U was powerful enough for most but wasn't easy to develop for and was a failure. The Switch has plenty of power, only a few Indies don't find it enough, it's a breeze to develop for and it's doing well. And one last thing, I remember on Wii U, developers had to sell a certain quantity before they got paid any money. Nintendo have improved terms and relations with Indies. Sorry, no, one more last thing, Nintendo have gone after Indies in the last number of years. They can't get the big 3rd party support so they went down this avenue.

There's no reason why you can't have both but Nintendo haven't given 3rd parties all that they want. But I've said it before that if I was given a choice between Indies or 3rd parties, I'd choose the latter all the time. When I hear another Indie game is coming to the Switch, I immediately think there's a good chance it'll be one or a combination of; 2D, pixelated, sidescrolling, platformer.

There have been some truly excellent Indie games but you don't buy an expensive supercar to drive at 30mph when it's capable of so much more. I'm sure there are a lot better analogies but I'm tired and I'm going to sleep.