Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@NEStalgia
It may not be ideal, but its far from prohibitory. Just a lot of "what ifs" and "but theoretically's".

Particularly since all games play a portion of the content given what's on the cart (the game is not unplayable without the download) and the eShop will likely be around for a long time, and SD backups are a thing.

Also, from the horse's mouth there isn't a download:

https://nintendoeverything.com/will-tales-of-vesperia-definit...

@NEStalgia
Btw you can actually play your games on any hardware. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying to you.

I have 2 Switches and can use either one, just not at the same time. Deactivate on eShop for one, launch eShop on the other to make it the active system.

That's not changing.

edit

Also, it's simply not true that "most" games are doing downloads. It's just not factually accurate. Most aren't doing downloads. Some are. Some fairly, some unfairly. But most aren't. The bigger games tend to though. But we don't get too many of those.

@EvilLucario If that's garbage, what do you call it takes 5 days to download 80GB game... (that's with not turning off the laptop)

I was originally going to make Resident Evil 2 my January game, but I'm leaving on a vacation a day or two after it launches, so I'll just go with Tales of Vesperia on Switch instead and pick up RE2 cheap down the road.

I'm holding off to see if it comes to Switch anyways.

Been down this road too many times before.

@JaxonH Well they confirmed in EU it doesn't.....that doesn't confirm if they're short changing the US or if the photo is wrong. I'm hopeful though. So far I suppose some games play a portion from the cart...that's at least a plus.

Having to deactivate and change your primary isn't really a solution at all, that's something different. I don't know if Nintendo has any caps on how often you do that, I know Sony and MS do have caps on how many times a year you can do it. But unfortunately since you have to do it for the entire CONSOLE it defeats the point. If I buy Smash digitally, and I buy Bastion digitally, and I decide I want to play Smash on Switch #1 and Bastion on Switch #2, and want to play each, I'd have to keep switching my "primary" several times a day. That's not how "unified accounts" are supposed to work. If I could move it per-game that would be one thing. If I had to be online to play on a non-primary (like the other consoles) that would be fine. But telling me I have to deactivate all my digital games on one machine to play any of them on another machine, plus must have both machines in hand to switch it back and forth....that's not really a solution, that's abusing account administration in unintended ways to work around a glaring hole in their digital licensing model. As it stands physical lets me move my games (and with cloud saves, all my saves except Splatoon, Smash, etc) from machine to machine like I used to with 3DS on-cart storage. Digital? Locked to one machine, or, rather, I have to keep changing which machine is my primary every time I want to play a game on a different system than last time. Imagine an all digital library that way? System 2 would be unusable without access to system 1? Or I have to buy games on different accounts depending on which machine I wish to play it on which is based on which long game I may have running in one or the other. Also rendering useless the benefits of cloud saves (without continuously changing your primary system.) That's not really a workable system. And I wouldn't trust that non-stop primary changing raises red flags about possible abuse/hacking/piracy etc and gets ban hammers if abused. I do remember people talking about that "solution" but it's really not a solution. The whole point of unified accounts is the ability to log into any system and play your library (which does not involve first deactivating your other one as playable.) Without that, it's not really unified, we might as well have the old system because I need separate accounts with separate purchases on each Switch I may own. I suppose with cloud saves though I could still use account 2's purchases that way. Better than nothing, but if I buy physical I need only one copy, not two, to do that.

Edit: PS4 deserves some grief for how archaically they treat digital as well. You can move a game from HDD to HDD, but you can't copy it, meaning there is no possibility for backups at all. That's pretty backward. But Switch takes the cake that your account is locked out of your games outside whatever machine is marked as "yours."

Edit2: Well "most games", may in this case mean "most games NL writes articles about" so I indeed my have a perception bias there

@NEStalgia
Well ya, you'd have to keep switching it.

But the complaint last gen was, games were tied to hardware. Lose the system, lose the games. That's no longer true.

Switch is a portable system. When are you going to honestly need to switch games to another system back and forth? That's why I say it's just hypotheticals. In practice the Switch comes with you. Unlike Xbox, you don't need to access on another system that's stationary at some other location. It goes where you go. And you can still access games on another system. Beyond that seems nitpicking compared to where we stood with Wii U. A complaint for a future generation, not today. More pressing issues than the slightly inconvenient nature of signing in back and forth on multiple Switches that are portable in the first place. I dont see the issue anyways. One account at a time. Nothing wrong with that. As long as it's not tied to the hardware.

@JaxonH Good point about the games not being lost with the hardware entirely, though IIRC don't you still need the old system to deactivate and thus still need to call Nintendo and beg them to believe you? So it only half fixes the problem and is still pretty backwards. I love some ways that Nintendo is backwards, but other aspects continue to amaze.

But yeah, much like their presentation of cloud saves, they seem to think that all that matters for online is "disaster recovery" and not, you know, actual usage. Digital content's main feature is convenience. Switch manages to make digital more inconvenient than physical, and it becomes even more apparent, ironically, with the addition of cloud saves, since now my physical games can be used the same way I used 3DS games between systems, while digital can not. Definitely a swing and a miss as far as Switch digital goes. With Amazon dropping discounts, had Nintendo let me move my games freely I'd have splurged on a 400GB card and gone digital. But with the restrictiveness, no, physical still must win. It's ironically more convenient and is, in fact, the only meaningful way to get the most out of cloud saves!

Not a hypothetical, though. You yourself have 2 switches. I have 2 Switches. And they want to sell multiple Switches in special editions like with all handhelds before it. My usage pattern comes from the way I used my 3DSs. One "big" game loaded and always ready to go in one unit (Dragon Quest, Xenoblade, ACNL, etc. that's my kind of daily go to. Leave it in suspend at all times ready to play without save points. Then have various, games to either whittle at (Octopath, Sushi Striker, in the past, Project X Zone, Devil Survivor) in the second machine...two different experiences ready to go. If I want to move onto a new "main" game but still noodle with the old one, main game goes in #1, old game moves to #2. With physical, now with cloud saves, it's identical to 3DS so my needs are mostly met. But it does mean digital games don't really become an option, limited to unpleasantly dealing with indies that way, and big online games like Kart/Smash/Sploon. Of course if I switch actives to play my indies on #2, I can't play Sploon on #1....

Cloud saves (finally after a year and a half) restore the way I played with cart-saves on 3DS. But it not only doesn't entice me, but actively gives me reason to avoid digital because it provides less usability.

Plus, the outside theoretical example that you don't have your Switch you're playing with someone else's and want to show them a game or play a quick local session on theirs....you don't have access.

But it's definitely not nitpicking or a future generational complaint. It has an actual influence on how I can use it today, and makes digital less functional for me. It's a valid, and immediate criticism. It may not be the mainstream use case, but digital comes with certain minimum expectations by precedent. If it were just sign in sign out I wouldn't actually matter. But device activation/deactivation has a little more serious consequences to it (even if they're not raising red flags for it currently.)

Also the ability to deactivate it online really would be useful for that disaster recovery situation. Calling and begging isn't very modern.

Well, fortunately the US situation is resolved too, no extra download!

@NEStalgia
I dont use my 2nd Switch for my main account. Testing only.

There should be a way to sign in and deactivate online, Ill concede that, but there's no begging involved. Its your account. If you want it deactivated, they'll do so. It's not like last gen where there was no proof you owned the games.

Still, on a priority list this would be somewhere around #67. People spend so much time nitpicking every little thing that when an actual, real issue arises you can't tell the difference through the sea of noise.

Priority should be 100% cloud backups, party chat across the board and messaging.

Everything else is nitpicking small potatoes. And they'll never get that message when everyone proceeds to complain about everything. Focus. Priorities. Once we have the save backups addressed, a universal messaging system including voice chat that's not game by game, then come talk about the convenience of signing in multiple accounts at once (which is likely a lost cause anyways cause that'll allow buying 1 digital game and using on multiple systems simultaneously, and right or wrong that aint gonna fly with them)

Heck, I find myself frequently setting the Switch up in tabletop mode at my computer and playing games while browsing forums.

I have an HDMI splitter so I just press a button it and oh look, my Switch/Wii U/future PS4 is now playing on my other monitor. Easy as that while I can browse the Internet on the second monitor. Convenient as hell!

If I clear the cache on my Nintendo Switch, will it delete save data?

Dunno if some of you were interested by Cities Skylines on Switch but if it was the case, forget it !

It's just unplayable. The framerate is like 15fps, Freezes and crashes with the sounds and the CPU is overflooded.

One of the biggest French website just did a review : 3/10 o_O

Yikes. Thanks for the heads up. I was hoping the choppiness in the direct was just a by product of whatever editing they did.

@Cobalt is that your own conclusion or are you just copy pasting that from that review? @Heavyarms55 did some testing for himself over here.

@JaxonH Hah! Well different priorities apply to different people. For me, that one would be a priority (if they want me to buy digital.) If they'd rather I buy physical, then, sure, it's a low priority. Voice chat can be 100% deleted from existence if my priorities matter. It's just not a feature I care at all about.

Cloud saves were important, but not for backups (not allowing local backups remains a failing not just by "industry standard" but by Nintendo's own past standard.) They were important to restore the very same "move my game from machine to machine" functionality the DS family had with on-cart saves. Similarly that's the main reason I subscribed to PS+ for years. I had an upstairs and downstairs PS3, then 4, and it was much easier keeping my saves synched with cloud saves than bringing a thumbdrive back and forth. However even the PS3 did allow me to copy saves with a thumbdrive which I used between subscriptions. It's particularly frustrating that the only reason they don't allow local backups is to cover their own poor planning with online games like Splatoon where everyone else stores the player profile server side. Rather than fix Splatoon, they restrict backups....then charge you for them....and then omit Splatoon anyway. It would have been so easy to just store Splatoon profile data online, one-way. Like most online games. Like other games on Switch do. But changing that admits error. And they can't do that. So instead everything else must change to save face and make it look like the plan. I realize that's typical Japanese business....but it's so darned infuriating at times.

Moving your games around doesn't really necessitate simultaneous play, that's up to them, though it wouldn't kill them to allow that since every other platform allows that....... we all know they wouldn't allow that because Nintendo is Nintendo.....no penny escapes their gaze But the catch on the others is it works only on 2 systems and the second needs to be online. Switch being portable almost mitigates that concern out of the gates, it'll be used without connections much of the time. So they could also require the online and/or instead of a game activating/deactivating per account they could activate/deactivate per game. It lets them keep hardware locking games but you can move them individually. That would make it work the same as physical, if I move the cart from my machine and loan it to you, you have the cart, not me. Doing that digitally, with per-game per-account rather than per-hardware unit would be beautiful. Since they already have the hardware lock mechanism they already have all the tech in place to do that, too. They could sell it as a feature! (For NSO subscribers only, naturally )

Ultimately for PS/XB they'd rather not allow simultaneous play either (well Sony...MS sells that as a feature of Gold they call "Home XBox" so maybe they would) but the risk of people doing that with 2 machines was a necessary concession to make the service work the way everyone expects it to with a primary that doesn't need to be online and an account that can play anywhere.

That said, that difference, of late, has been influencing me to buy more on the other platforms than Switch if it's something the other player in my household may want to play but not dedicate full retail price to. Even with my remaining GCU subscription at Best Buy, $60 for 2 players is a lot more palatable than $100 for 2 players. Or $100 versus $160 if it's a "needs a season pass" game. But Nintendo's the inventor of "Pokemon Yours, Pokemon Mine" releases....I don't expect that kind of value from them. Much as that depresses me

Somehow debating against your endless optimism makes me sound like I'm bashing Nintendo all the time I love Nintendo, love Switch, but these criticisms are annoying on a daily basis all the same (I have a line of criticisms for PS4 as well. ATM, XBox is winning with very few criticisms. I'm sure they'll find a way to break that eventually )

@darkfenrir Woohoo!

I have to say I really like City Skylines. Even with some performance problems, it is really good city sim.

@toiletduck That's the review : I'm not interested by that kind of game but my wife was... :/

@NEStalgia
It's not really optimism, it's just an "I'm in this for a fun hobby, not a pinata to vent personal frustrations" attitude. Sure some stuff I take issue with. The few things that really matter, I'll say my piece, once, and move on. If I wanted to perpetually complain I could do that about my job. And I'm NOT one of those people always complaining about my job. Oh they dont pay me enough. Oh they dont do this. Oh they should do that. Oh shut the **** up already I'm tired of hearing it. Shut up and be thankful you even have a job you ingrate. Don't like it? There's the door. That's what I wanna say to those people.

Everyone always has a laundry list of complaints, I just get tired of hearing about them constantly, as if people here can do anything about it anyways.

I think games MIA on cloud saves is ridiculous, and said as much when it became known, but then I moved on. I swear not an article goes by now without 5 different people complaining about ports, as if we didnt get Octopath, didnt get Monster Hunter Gen Ultimate, arent getting Valkyria Chronicles 4, arent getting Mega Man 11, didn't get Mario Tennis, aren't getting Mario Party, Smash, Pokemon, Yoshi, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion, Metroid, No More Heroes, Bayonetta, SMT, etc etc

Dragonball Fighter Z will drop, and they'll complain its "a port and full price". But when MH World came to PC 8 months later, full price, it was happy happy joy joy all day long.

Hypocritical childish nonsense.

Im so tired of hearing complaints. Some are genuine but even those, I can only take hearing them repeated over and over and over again so many times, on every gosh dang article.

Its not actually complaints like yours that bother me, although I'd still say it doesn't warrant repeating. Say it once and be done with it, then lets move on and talk games.

Its the ridiculous complaints about ported games, treating port like a dirty word when, in truth, it's a fabulous blessing to get a great game ported. Like, there's no Diablo on Switch. Should we just NOT HAVE DIABLO ON SWITCH because it would technically be a port, and that's a dirty word?

I've got a word or two in mind for the mindless drones who don't use their brains for two seconds. I honestly am beginning to think it's a front. A convenient excuse to cut down the system in the only desperate way people know how.

So, should we NOT HAVE DOOM ON SWITCH just because its a port? Oh that's a much better solution. Ya. Let's not have games on the system. Then we can brag all day about 90% of the games being new. Cause God forbid a game exist before, that's outrageous.

Never thought I'd see the day people COMPLAIN about getting 9 Final Fantasy titles on a Nintendo console.

Drives me up the wall. These people arent gamers. They disgrace the gamer name.

So ya, that's what I'm fed up with. Not you or the little issues you have. I'm just gosh dang sick of hearing constant illigitimate complaining ALL. THE FREAKING. TIME.