Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@EvilLucario Nintendo could do with more of those bundles in general. BotW + Expansion Pass, Splatoon 2 + Octo Expansion, etc.

@IceClimbers A large JRPG is never a "support" title. It's a niche title, which constrains it's sales, but is a major release, not a support title. By that standard Ni No Kuni II, FFXV, Octopath, Persona 5, SMT V, are all support titles, not major releases.

Pokken DX was support, FE Warriors a new Mousu game in the spirit of the super successful Hyrule Warriors, Odyssey a landmark entry of Nintendo's flagship brand, Skyrim...an old game, but the first handhled port of one of the most popualr games in the West in decades, and a major JRPG.

This year is an expansion pack for that same JRPG, a party game, a new Pokemon remake (but a divisive one for some), and a visually-not-so different ultimate/collection/anniversary edition of an iterative fighting game, albeit a very popular one (at least to the group that buys this hardware.)

More than the narrative has changed (Now, note, the lineup overall this year is actually better with all the third party games and Octopath in the summer. But we're talking really about Nintendo's output and more to the point their presentation of their output.)

@Octane Yeah I could see MP4 easily being the series' best seller to date just because of the hardware it's on and, unlike Wii, the audience that hardware attracts.

@EvilLucario I think most of the complaints come from not the actual lineup but from Nintendo bungling (as always) their communications with the Smash coverage. Add to that the fact that 1st party output this year is not as strong. Pokemon should be huge, but because it's the "small" game, the Yellow remake to tide us over until the new gen next year it's not as interesting as a brand new 3D Mario, and Smash is just an iterative fighting game, not as interesting as a formula reboot of a massive adventure/open world/rpg-ish game. No fighting game but Street Fighter and Smash really lights up any charts. It's a niche genre smaller than RPGs except SF that has an iconic brand and Smash that doubles as a casual party game so it reaches sales far beyond fighting niche. And Mario Party, you said it yourself, isn't as big or interesting as Kart, even if Kart is a port.

It's true that the first party stable is a pale comparison to last year's. But every conversation ignores the big 3rd party support with tons of RPGs, Starlink, etc this year that makes it huge. (Plus Nintendo really considers all titles from the year to be HOliday sellers, so they'll be including DQ:B, Bayonetta, etc as part of their Q4 roster.

@NEStalgia Well I mean, we're never going to consistently get something like 2017. 2017 in general was really good, and EVERYONE, not just Nintendo, ended up delivering less this year than last year. We went from a bajillion Sony exclusives last year to "just" (in quotes because they are high-budget exclusives at the end of the day) God of War, Detroit: Become Human, and Spider-Man. So sure, maybe 2018 isn't too impressive for now (even though there's been a lot for non-Wii U owners), but by the end, on the Nintendo side at least, it's going to make up for it with some quality stuff and every company has been cooling off in this year.

@NEStalgia @EvilLucario Nah, no way anyone would've predicted the current sales. 4-5 million lifetime would be in line with the rest of the franchise, not 5 million in its first month. We're looking at 10 million lifetime I think. If Metroid Prime can double its sales too, from 2-2.5 million to around 4-5, that pretty good. That would guarantee another entry for sure. Now all we have to do it hope it's any good!

@EvilLucario

@Octane I forgot about Shadow of the Colossus. Oops. Still though, I can count the amount of Sony exclusives last year on more than one hand compared to this year.

@EvilLucario True, though Sony's cooloff seems to be about setting the market for PS5 while Switch is fresh out of the gates. MS...well they don't have exclusives And they really seem bent on getting rid of generations (a good thing for me as a 1X owner if true.)

But you are right about the tale of two switches and why a Nintendo site (or even general gaming site) will have a very different feel, or "narrative" as IceClimbers put it, because for most of the general public this year has been amazing title they were denied for 2-4 years after amazing title one after another, while anyone on a Nintendo site likely owned a WiiU and was met with 6 months of nothing new followed by a thinner than last year holiday.

Though I'm not quite so generous as to not point some fingers at Nintendo for that schism their own making. Their pacing has definitely been off, and they no doubt planned on FE and/or Yoshi to be in the lineup this holiday when they started that release calendar in January. That made for some unfavorable optics, and capping it off with a "Smash is all we care about" image is a self inflicted wound only Nintendo could achieve

For the same reason a well marketed bad game outsells a poorly marketed amazing game 10:1, any negativity seen here and elsewhere still leads to Nintendo's own missteps.....the Switch has a fantastic (3rd party) lineup this year even with their own poorly paced 1st party release schedule, and while they could have easily used some marketing magic to spin that hype, they instead played it protectionist with 1st party titles and created an unnecessary negative image. Keeping the internet blindly singing praise isn't unimportant these days.

@Octane "We're looking at 10 million lifetime I think."
....but...but....single player games are dying.... (How's For Honor and The Crew 2 working out, Ubi? Up to t 5M yet?)

@EvilLucario I don't even remember the 2017 exclusives. I probably own them all. I just don't remember what they are.

@EvilLucario That's true. Though I feel like this year it's a bit more quality over quantity. Knack II, the WipeOut Collection, Everybody's Golf. I'm sure they're all fine games, but I didn't pick them up at launch. If I can get Pikmin 4, Metroid Prime and a new IP from Nintendo next year, that's going to be the best year in gaming with TLOU, Ghost, Sekiro, Days Gone, Control, RE2 and Babylon's Fall. And Dreams too, somewhere in there...!

@NEStalgia Tbh when both PS4 and Xbox One were fresh out of the gates, they were laughably terrible with exclusive games. They didn't receive a single "really good" exclusive until Bloodborne and Halo 5 came out, and Bloodborne isn't particularly mainstream. Everything else were multiplatforms that came out on PC and/or released the generation beforehand (Destiny, Metal Gear Solid V, GTA V, Last of Us, Halo Master Chief Collection). So the Switch is already better than both of them combined within their respective time frames.

The only thing is that they get a bunch of third-party support instead, which I find completely pointless because of PC.

@NEStalgia Oddly enough, it did so well that it placed in the 10 top-grossing games by digital revenue of July, and that's without any micro-transactions, loot boxes, season passes and DLCs. Just the base game. Sitting there between all the service games. EA should take a note of that when developing their next single player Star Wars game... Oh wait! They already cancelled it...

@NEStalgia I think the original plan would've been:
August - Yoshi
September - Smash
October - Super Mario Party
November - Pokemon Let's Go
December - Fire Emblem

Then Yoshi and Fire Emblem were delayed leaving Nintendo with Smash, Smash and more Smash.

@Grumblevolcano That's not entirely true, you left out those "unannounced games" Nintendo apparently has up it's sleeve for the holiday season but refuse to reveal.

Re.Smash. Not sure where it will finish up sales-wise, as it’s still very difficult to predict what Switch will sell. However I get the impression Nintendo sees it as not quite a top tier, Kart-level seller but the most likely to become one. And they are going to hype this version into the ground to push it into that tier.

@FragRed It was never said those unannounced games would be normal games so 1 of them has already been announced, Labo Toy-Con 03. Wouldn't be surprised if the rest is stuff like Labo Toy-Con 04 (there's a few things left from the initial reveal trailer in January), Switch Sports and Switch Fit.

@EvilLucario Oh absolutely agreed. Worse, Bloodborne is ultra niche, and Halo 5 released incomplete and broken. I do agree that Switch is definitely ahead of both in the same timeframe in terms of exclusives, of course I think people expect more of Nintendo because N doesn't secure those third party deals to the same degree. (I don't blame them not playing for the AAA graphics fest but they still have been too slow on that AA Japanese tier uptake to fill that gap.) Personally I think they came out of the gate not sure what way to go, not convinced of the Switch's success. Ishihara of TPC already admitted he told them it would fail....there was doubt in the company, and that doubt carried over into how they persued even Japanese third parties. That's on track now....but it set them back a while, so despite the exclusives being better, they have relied too heavily on pushing them. Meanwhile, now that they have the third parties....they neglect to promote them....

I don't think 3rd party is pointless because of PC. Those consoles are PCs which is really the point the big western publishers wanted out of them. It's just a really cheap, tiny, efficient PC, albeit a weak one. I had a thread here debating between getting back into PC and getting a 1X for my multiplats back in Jan. I went with the 1X in the end. Waaay less hassle than messing with drivers and firmware updates that fix one thing and break 5, and $500 video cards that last 2 years. And no need to muck with a keyboard. But if you have a gaming PC, yeah, most of those libraries are pointless. But the point is you buy that as your gaming PC. XBox was always meant to be that. PS4 just copied at the insistence of EA/Ubi/2K/etc. Publishers just want outlets to sell there wares....thus smartphones and tablets are the final frontier....

@Octane I suppose the raw profits of a service game though make up the difference. They can sell barebones games with low production costs and keep recurring revenues off it. GoW can't do that. IMO publishers won't be happy until gaming is as vapid as Facebook, with just as many members. You don't do anything you just muck with stuff, tell your friends about it, they shouldn't care, at all, but somehow it produces billions. I mean what better business model. Tell the "snowflake" kids everything they do is super awesome, and that the world wants to know about it and they'll spend every waking hour on it We call it "games as a service" but I think it's really less about making gaming into cable TV, and more into making gaming into social media. (Just wait until it's an ad platform!)

@Grumblevolcano I'm tempted to flip flop FE and Yoshi in your list, but yeah, they'd want Yoshi out before Black Friday even though it's a better December release. The rest sounds about right. Still, at least they can pretend to hype Pokemon like they believe it's a bigger game than Smash. Because it is..... It's as though they forget Pokemon is the #1 franchise in gaming..... Heck, just pretend Starlink is Starfox.....because it is.....and advertise it like it's your own.

@NEStalgia Yeah, what a surprise. AAA Multiplayer games sell huge when there's only a few to choose from. Everyone makes multiplayer. AAA Single player games start to sell huge because there's few to pick from. I don't see how these companies can't see that gaps in the market are what drive sales. Well, that and just making an incredibly fun game. At least Bethesda still gets it... mostly.

EDIT: As for the Pokemon promotion, Nintendo has basically no say in that. TPC is fully in charge of promotion, and they hate Nintendo Directs for whatever reason.

@NEStalgia Probably because Nintendo doesn't really know how well to leverage third-parties. They've always been good at pushing their own games, for better or worse, because before the Switch they were all they had (and even for the Switch, pretty much every single game that sold over 1m+ is an exclusive and/or published by Nintendo).

And while PC gaming does have its annoyances, I'm willing to stick with that much more than PS/Xbox consoles that want to throw around power and specs when PC already exists to school them if I actually wanted power. And not only can I play games on my PC, but I can also get work done since everyone needs a PC, but not everyone needs to play games. (And for personal reasons, a beefy PC also allows easy recordings so it can make casual YouTube/Twitch stuff much easier)

You can definitely tell the change in Nintendo's attitude to Monster Hunter since the World situation.

@FragRed Most of those unannounced games are probably third party ports (RE4, anyone?) and other Labo set.

Maybe we get a port of NES Remix Pack or a digital only title like Pushmo or Mario vs DK. Don't expect anything beyond that!