Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Knuckles-Fajita Heck if I know.

(Also I really need to figure out how to properly figure out BBcode here)

I'm not comparing them, I'm highlighting them. Put simply:
1. Switch software sales are up year on year, dramatically
2. 3DS is pretty much not getting any new content at this stage

Not news, not surprising... but it says a lot about where Nintendo is at

Oh, I misread. My apologies.

Anyway I'm gonna just replay Dark Souls... er, I mean Crash N.Sane Trilogy on Switch while I drink salty fanboy tears across the Internet.

@EvilLucario Wouldn't it be sweet if Dark Souls came out on Switch? What if it even had an amiibo? Wouldn't that be cool?

@Knuckles-Fajita I thought you were pretty excited for that one.

@Octane And then it bombed for me. Its far too shallow and if I want a visual programming suite...I have better options.

I like whenever investor reports come out because like two people are silly enough to imply Nintendos in any danger then the other 1000 posts are just the "doomed" sarcastic posts

Everyone is talking about how long the Switch has been out, as if that matters. It competes in the 8th generation of video game consoles and the numbers must be compared to the other 8th gen consoles, regardless of the fact that they had a head start.

@Agriculture It really does matter, though. Because context actually matters.

Just as it won't make any sense to talk up the "decline of Sony" when the PS5 initially sells less than the Switch does mid-life. Because you have expectations for console sales in the middle of their life cycles versus the beginning.

@Knuckles-Fajita I told ya so?

That's a shame to be honest. What did you think of the quality of the toys(?) themselves? And the games?

@Agriculture I hope that's sarcasm. You can't always compare consoles 1 to 1.

Except that it's also doing pretty well on that measure. It's already over half the install base of the XBOne and at the rate both are going it'll overtake it by the end of 2019. In terms of current sales it's selling only behind the PS4 in terms of hardware and software sales. Software sales it's quite a bit behind but that makes sense given how far ahead of everything else the PS4 is in terms of install base. But hardware sales it's pretty damn close.

So I'm not sure what your point is here....

The next Xbox is certainly gonna be interesting to keep an eye on, though. Remember that Microsoft is preparing for the future with their studio acquisitions and stuff. And if they leverage their backwards compatibility initiatives to allow complete backwards compatibility with all Xbox One games with no strings attached, that's a pretty good incentive if Sony fumbles up somewhere there.

@Octane The toys themselves...are fine tbh. Sturdy enough.

The games? What games?

@Knuckles-Fajita Well, the software. The fishing game looked interesting.

@Octane I didn't build the rod or bike. So yeah...

@Knuckles-Fajita You picked the house over the rod?!

@Octane I just went with what I felt like. Meh. It doesn't matter really.

What does that even mean? Can't compare 1 to 1? I guess by not being identical in terms of software, you can't compare the PS4 and Xbox One either. If you really like Cuphead it won't matter, you're getting an Xbox One.

If this is what you mean, then yes, I can see how Nintendo has more exclusives to swing around to get people to buy the Switch, but in hard numbers they are still far behind. If you mean that you can't compare the Switches sales to the PS4 and Xbox One, then it's completely wrong. Consumers don't care if someone was late to market. It's no different from when PS3 was delayed a year - Sony just had to work harder to catch up to the Xbox 360. Nintendo has a massive 3,5 years to catch up. But on the positive side, they do have a lot of WiiU games that can be ported.

My point is that it's not sustainable to be a niche console. It's going to be even harder in the future, with increased cost of game development. If someone wants to develop a game, they currently are looking at 4 times the install base on the PS4, so that will probably be the highest priority. It feels like the Gamecube era all over again.

Sony has already started to fumble the ball by various ways to shut out competition, such as not allowing cross play, and by locking down Fortnite accounts logged into a PS4. What I want to see is a market that resembles the seventh generation of consoles. Hard competition and similar sales between consoles and some blue ocean stuff to draw in new people into gaming. What we seem to get now in the eight generation is Microsoft and Sony trying to take over the whole market, and Nintendo having a huge uphill battle.

@Agriculture Of course it's ''behind'', it came out last year. And no, consumers don't care how much a system has sold, it's the other way around, if people care about a system, it will sell. You won't find a big sticker on the box of your Switch that says ''WARNING! Only 18 million units sold!''.