Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@NEStalgia Actually before the video game crash of 1983 video games were unisex because they were sold as electronics. But when Nintendo brought them back in the US they wanted to avoid the entire prior association with anything video game related and marketed the NES as a toy (hence ROB and the Zapper, you know the drill). That meant it had to go in the toy aisle and Nintendo had to choose: put it in with the manly G.I. Joes or the pink, doll-infested Barbie aisle. Naturally, Nintendo sided with Joe. And ever after that, video games were for boys.

@NEStalgia And the sad thing is I have memories of wanting to play NES at my babysitter's house when I was three and not being allowed to, but the same aged son and the other boy she watched who was my age were allowed to play the NES. They got to play Rad Racer while I had to go take a nap (every day, so not just once). The reason? "Girls don't play video games." It's 27 years later and I'm still mad!

US eShop charts (May 4, 2018)

15. Robonauts
14. Kirby: Star Allies
13. Celeste
12. Super Mario Odyssey
11. Splatoon 2
10. the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
9. South Park: the Fractured but Whole
8. Overcooked: Special Edition
7. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
6. Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition
5. VS Super Mario Bros
4. Rocket League
3. Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy
2. Stardew Valley
1. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

DK has quickly taken over, pushing everything else back a spot (except for Naruto, which jumped Rocket League to hold it's spot. It was even briefly #2 before DK took it over). South Park is still holding on, while it looks like Kirby may be DK's biggest casualty, as it has slid day after day recently, almost off the charts.

That's exactly what I wanna see... World domination

Number one video game on Amazon. Number one video game on the eShop.

Give the monkey his due

There's a rumour doing the rounds that is so blatantly fake as it started from GameFAQs but lets run this down the disappointment scale.

Firstly they say the Online Service will be revealed May 7th

-Goes live September 24th
-Dedicated voice chat through an existing chat service, with Discord being rumoured.
-Exclusive eShop discounts
-Games With Gold style retro offerings you keep for the duration of your subscription.

Okay we knew all but the voice chat thing. Big whoop.

Virtual Console

-Nintendo is dropping the brand and replacing it with Nintendo Classics.
-Games will be cheaper than their VC counterparts.
-Launches in August with NES and GBA games.
-SNES and N64 games to come Late 2018 or early 2019

So, sound believable to be honest. It's the most logical change to VC is to make it cheaper.

E3

-Apparently the presentation is 36 minutes.
-Spyro Reignited Trilogy is revealed.
-Fire Emblem Lustrous Daybreak: Holiday release
-Yoshi Flipped Around: August release
-Paper Mario. Not developed by Intelligent Systems, returns to the partner system but with the same character limitations as Sticker Star and Colour Splash. 2019

So my first on these first things - Fake. A 2019 game? They already said 2018 exclusively. Flipped Around is a dumb name but August is probably right. The Fire Emblem name is also dumb but then again...

As for holding back Spyro, that's dumb. Really dumb. Paper Mario, people wont like that news. Then again IS doesn't seem able to juggle both that and Fire Emblem (Notice the decline for PM happened right as FE exploded).

-Super Mario Odyssey DLC: Playable Luigi with 70 new moons released that day. Wario and Waluigi planned for later.
-Crash Bandicoot amiibo adds harder time trials to N. Sane.
Black Ops 4 Battle Royale is the only BLOPS4 content coming to Switch. But it has cross play with PC and Xbox One!

So, Luigi playable I can believe, they have teased that. Wario and Waluigi, hell no. Fans dream there. Crash amiibo is admittedly likely. It wouldn't be the first amiibo from Activision.

BLOPS 4 though...no. Again withholding an announcement for a dumb reason only this one is underwhelming. Cross play in a HUGE game would be a blow for the PS4 though.

-SEGA AGES has Sonic Adventure and Adventure 2 revealed.
-Super Sonic Racing takes elements from Sonic R with some characters in vehicles. Nintendo exclusive content
-Metroid Prime 4 trailer: 2019
-Pokemon Switch is a reimagining of Red/Blue with graphics somewhere between Sun and Moon, and Pokken.

Okay so both Adventure games would be great, don't know if they would do Dreamcast so soon, but they did say it was possible and if so that is the strongest way to start. Super Sonic Racing seems a little dreamy but that also feels like the vibe the tease gave.

Metroid Prime 4, again, they said 2018 only. Pokemon, boy there will be rage but it feels safe and underwhelming. Graphically honestly that will be just fine but the concept is...meh.

-Five Nights at Freddy's is coming to Switch, but the content may have been censored by Scott Cawthon, but not because Nintendo wanted it. It was his choice apparently. Fall 2018
-Two Smash Trailers, one revealing Captain Toad, the other revealed Crash and Spyro. This is why the Switch release of Spyro was quiet. Mix of Smash 4 and Melee. Launches September as we expect.
-Ice Climbers revealed in the Treehouse.

Smash, the date seems right. That's the game to launch the online with. FNAF though. Ugh. That seems like a weird decision to censor it on the creators behalf.

Honestly this all seems fake. The online stuff seems solid enough because most of it is regurgitated already known quantities. The VC stuff, whatever.

E3 though, that has to be fake. That is far too underwhelming on both Nintendo's end and on the third party end with announcements that are late, watered down releases, and some disappointment.

But what kills it is 2019 games.

I know Nintendo said they would "feature 2019 games at a later date", but I'm going to laugh my butt off if we get 2019 games announced during the E3 spotlight anyway and they're pretty much only gameplay/CG teases while Treehouse only has those 2018 games.

You heard it here first folks. Though if I'm wrong, that's whatever.

As for my expectations about the online though, they're gonna be rock bottom. I don't think they'll be able to deliver something good with it. All I want are cloud saves at bare minimum at the very least.

@EvilLucario Honestly the downside to "Only 2018 games" is that..well...we know what they all are already.

Fire Emblem
Smash
Yoshi
Maybe Pokemon

Tada. I already know their first party E3 lineup! Who would have known?

The only surprises are from third parties and judging by the western third parties, they wont be good surprises.

They want to sail this one on Smash hype but the problem is just like Sony, and MS, I dont take kindly to being shown a game I have already seen/been announced.

@YummyHappyPills Either way, it's an interesting situation. If they're really serious about selling 20 million Switches this fiscal year and only plan on revealing 2018 games, then they BETTER have a damn solid 2018 line-up that beats the crap out of anything else. Smash alone cannot sell 20 million. Maybe paired with Pokemon, but despite both series' mass appeal you need more than that. I truly believe Nintendo swallowed some big fact pills dealing with the Wii U, so they can't afford another system like that now, of all times.

And if they realized they can't live on 2018 only for E3, then they'll probably be forced to show at least some 2019 games during their spotlight.

So I'm expecting good games from E3 AND surprises.

Of course they're gonna show one or two 2019 games. They said they were going to focus on 2018, and never explicitly stated they would not show any 2019 games.

They always show one or two games for the following year, it's just not the focus. They make a point of telling you it's not the focus so that you don't go in expecting a whole slew of games announced for next year. Doesn't mean there won't be any.

A 2019 game is absolutely no evidence of that being false. It's not to say I believe it's true because honestly, I don't. But that's certainly not the reason why.

Also, Yoshi Flipped Around has got to be the stupidest name I've heard in some time. If they name that game Yoshi Flipped Around, I will concede a bunch of stoned monkeys have been let out of their test cages and successfully assimilated into corporate Nintendo.

@JaxonH

> stoned monkeys

Don't you mean stoned apes? Idk what Funky Kong does in his free time...

@EvilLucario They better have something other than the "Big 3" we know are slated for the second half of 2018.

Yoshi will be a AA game. Smash is the big hitter. Fire Emblem isn't big ENOUGH yet unless Heroes really had an impact (Which it may have, we need to see!)

My problem is...going in...I only expect 3 or 4 first party releases this year now. Same as last year, you know? Yet we know them all going in. Granted we knew them all going in LAST year too. Mario, FE Warriors, Xenoblade.

The surprises last year came for "Later" games like Yoshi, Kirby, Metroid, Pokemon, and 3DS stuff.

So they can show off Bayonetta or Metroid some this year, but I dont think they will. They already ruled out the same kind of surprises as last year.

If they are serious about 20m Switches, right now, I dont think they can. They could get CLOSE.

In 2018 you have one big AAA title - Smash. Pokemon again is nebulous.
You have loads of the variety, the mid-tier stuff like Yoshi, Kirby, DK, Labo, FE. But Labo isn't proving the unit pusher I think they wanted.

Thing is they will also still be selling things like Mario Kart and Odyssey, those will roll over.

Third party support could be big. Could.

But with a watered down barely BLOPS4 port (Albeit with cross play!), FNAF, Spyro and Crash, Dark Souls (Eventually), loads of JRPGs, Octopath, Wolfenstein, stuff like Starlink, its all very...prominent but not exciting.

Sure there is the rumoured Fortnite. Sure we COULD get some heavy hitters like GTAV. I dont think we WILL. Not yet.

Plus with Nintendo being so damn adamant about controlling the message if the Spyro rumour is real, then screw them for withholding that info until THEY wanted to. It would be nice to know its coming like everyone else instead of being special. If they have a reason to, like Smash, then fine. But its not likely.

Excitement for Switch is at a low. Its getting a lot of great games from Wii U, third parties (Albeit with some issues like price or performance or content if BLOPS4 is real...) but the palpable hype isn't there. There isn't a buzz just...more games woo.

They need to generate excitement to fuel the push to 20m. Smash can do that. Pokemon can do that. But not alone. They want third parties to excite with their big games but I dont think third parties are ready yet. At least it sure as hell doesn't feel like it.

I think if things stay as they are, accounting for all the software in 2017 that will continue on shelves, and this year, 20m IS possible, but only guaranteed with a price cut.

@YummyHappyPills
Out of those 4 games though, we haven't seen 3 of them. So why get in a tiff over wanting to see new stuff when this is new stuff we haven't seen.

Think sometimes people just want new announcements for the sake of new announcements, but don't actually care about the games being announced. Oh, Pokémon coming to Switch! Havent seen so much as a name or logo, it's already on to the next game. On to the next game. Fire Emblem? So much is a name or logo but the hype has already sailed past for that one because we know it's coming. Onto the next game. Metroid Prime, Smash Bros, Bayonetta 3... don't care anymore. Onto the next game.

If we haven't seen anything, not even a screenshot, and we don't even have an official title yet... then I take very kindly to being shown those games because they are brand new. And very exciting when we do see them. So the three seconds of shock that you would've had when you see the game is coming and you didn't know beforehand... that's lost. Ok. That's three seconds of shock value though. That's not enough to just wad these games up and toss them in the trashcan and say you want 4 different ones shown off just so you can get that three seconds of shock value.

Know what I mean? These are unrevealed games. They're basically as close to complete new surprises as you can get without being 100% complete surprises. Aside from knowing they are in the works... that's the only difference. And the great thing is, if they show off those 4 specific games, that means we literally know nothing for 2019 or 2020 or 2021 or 2022 aside from Metroid Prime 4 and Bayonetta 3. Which means they're going to have a lot of announcements to make in the coming year or so.

@JaxonH Labo, Wii, Wii U, Switch. Need I go on with the weird names. We might not think of any of those as weird now but when they were announced it was a different story.

@JaxonH They revealed they ARENT showing 2019 games. They said so in their press release:

https://gonintendo.com/stories/307905-nintendo-outlines-plans...

Sure we have yet to see 3 of those games. Thing is, are they enough to drive hype to 20m? Smash and Pokemon combined could. But would a console FE do numbers to move units? After Heroes it could. Yoshi is Yoshi and will probably have the same impact Kirby did, assuming that GOD AWFUL name isn't real...

Seriously. "Flipped Around". No. Bad. Back to the drawing board Good Feel.

I suppose one of the things is I am channeling the inevitable reaction of people I know. "But it wasn't anything NEW". This is what I get for being around PushSquare too much XD

I guess my biggest fear is that it ends up being...underwhelming? Not bad. Just...okay. Those are the games. Those games are good. But Nintendo has set some hiiiigh expectations with 20m by March.

I still do expect a holiday price cut at least.

@YummyHappyPills But what does "featured" even mean? Gameplay demonstrations at Treehouse? Announcements, period?

It's all PR talk that can be spun however you want, and until E3 comes around it can go either way.

@EvilLucario In this instance I think it's obvious they mean "Will be shown later". I mean that works. I can only hope they looked at Sony repeating E3 2016 several times in a row at PGW16, PSX16, E317, PGW17 and then PSX17, and said nah, lets keep it close to release stuff with the odd long term project.

Thing is I look at their lineup and the trend of 1 big game every month is met. I here people want Animal Crossing this year and personally...I want them to wait until May 2019.

New Leaf was a June release in the West, and AC is the perfect summer game. Kids just got out of school, get em AC. Long summer nights? AC. Sure it released in November in Japan but AC can release during the apocalypse in Japan and still sell XD

It's like Splatoon. The perfect Summer title. Plus, if it did come in 2018...um...where would they release it?

Put Yoshi in August, Smash in September, FE in October, Pokemon (Probably) in November. Where would AC fit that wouldn't smother Yoshi or FE?

@YummyHappyPills The way I see it, "featured" as a word is almost meaningless. Granted, the thing we know from past Nintendo events are that they shifted to the near future instead of "hey we're gonna announce this real cool game. When can you play it? 5 years from now".

However, they have also done some things to tease stuff that's still coming later alongside the cool stuff coming soon. E3 2017, we got the 2018 games, Metroid, and Pokemon. September 2017 Direct, we got Doom and Wolfenstein II. January Mini Direct, Dark Souls and some other ports that don't have a release date yet (The World Ends With You). March Direct, Smash Bros. I'm very confident we'll still get something of the sort with some tease of 2019. It won't be the main focus with 2018 taking up the most energy and time because it's Smash Bros, one of their biggest hypemen possible, but I still see 2019 taking up some form in E3 2018.

Now that said, it's as you say: they've got all sorts of games already coming in 2018. They can't fit much games there. That leaves a few possibilities: a big or niche game launching in December, or they'll announce an early-2019 game to fill that void like Kirby did.

@YummyHappyPills "-Fire Emblem Lustrous Daybreak: Holiday release"

~cough~ More like Fire Emblem: I ran Radiant Dawn through a thesaurus app amirite?

@TheLobster Lol that’s hilarious. Adding more fuel to the theory that this leak could be fake.

@EvilLucario @YummyHappyPills @JaxonH Gotta agree with @JaxonH @EvilLucario here. Remember E3 2017? Nintendo said they would focus on Super Mario Odyssey. Apparently the word “focus” means something different in the Nintendo dictionary because they spent all of four minutes in the 30 minute long E3 presentation on Mario Odyssey. If spending less than a fifth of the total time on a game counts as “focusing” on it, then “featuring” games releasing in 2018 does not mean they won’t have any brief announcements regarding 2019 games.

Fire Emblem is probably December. I don't see the point in releasing it in October. It has a cult following, and the fanbase will buy the game anyway, doesn't matter when it releases, so it's a very safe December title. Kinda like Xenoblade 2 last year, or what Sony did with The Last Guardian in 2016.