Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@link3710
That leaked a while back.

Said Castlevania would be PS4 only thanks to another one of Sony's "We'll pay you to not release on other platforms... oh Switch is too successful and you'll miss out on too much money? Well let us pay you to not release until after it comes to PS4 and we trick everyone into thinking it's the only version that'll be released" maneuvers. (seriously, anyone still denying they operate by paying money for 3rd party games to NOT come to other platforms is in denial).

But fret not. It was also leaked that it's definitely coming to Switch. It just won't be announced until around the time it releases on PS4. You know, the ol' Crash/Spyro trick.

It's the boy who cried wolf. Over and over and over, making it seem they're the only ones getting a game. And time and again, these games get announced for Switch. Don't buy into it... They're coming. Konami's just getting paid to help trick people into buying a version they don't really prefer. Otherwise they'd announce at the same time.

@OorWullie Konami are skint? Why are you saying that? I thought they were making huge amounts of money outside the gaming industry?

@EvilLucario Yeah, I adore the game myself, so much playtime logged, I just wish it had certain additional features. Just had forgotten how much of a system seller it could be to someone who isn't so jaded about it as I am.

Introducing a new match type to adventure in the latest patch to adventure helped significantly, though. If we'd had the Ring Shot challenge and one more spread out throughout the story mode, I think it would have felt a little more varied. Three mission types just weren't enough variety. The bosses were fantastic though, I still replay those occasionally.

@JaxonH Thanks for that good news! I'm thoroughly used to it with Activision now (I'm not even considering getting Spyro on any other platform other than Switch at this point), but it hadn't occurred to me Sony might pull a timed exclusive for something like Castlevania. I guess it makes sense though, with the Smash buzz...

Huh, they just awarded another Switch package on the Price is Right today (that's two in one week).

This one had only one console though, and was paired with ARMS, Lego Marvel Superheroes, Minecraft Story Mode, and Monopoly.

@RR529 ...at least you can sell Monopoly. Still, that's some good advertising for Nintendo, I wonder if they're actually supporting this or if it's just because the Switch is a hot item at the moment.

@JaxonH Weird thing is how often it's only Switch they pay to exclude, with X1 also being included. But yeah, I don't mind "timed exclusives" but "timed exclusive discussion about" is a whole other thing. I still wonder how much of DQXI's "adult reasons" for delay on Switch was due to technical problems, and how much was due to "oh Sony paid us so we don't even have to start spending money on Switch for years!" I'm also starting to believe that whatever special cozy relationship S-E and Sony have enjoyed for decades has shattered in a million pieces with the sudden all at once "the entire FF back catalog since the mid 90's is now coming out everywhere all in 12 months! reveal.

@link3710 still not sure about Spyro it's been up for XBox preorder for ages. But of course Switch is Sony's target. OTOH if it's like Crash the visuals will suffer more than they actually should on Switch

@RR529 I've always presumed Price is Right prizes are fully sponsored.

@link3710 Aces is the epitome of excellent gameplay... I remember when the game was first announced I was pissed.. this was around the beginning of the year when hardly anything had been announced for the year except like Octopath with no release date yet, and I was expecting something big to be announced at this time..
And Aces was the big announcement... oh the disappointment... a Mario Tennis game? Thats it? The hell if I think that's worth $60.
Demo comes out
I play that s*** for like 8 hours straight... literally have to make myself stop and go to bed.
Anxious for release to play it again
Happily pay $60
Will never doubt another Mario sports game

@NEStalgia
We'll never know most the stuff that happens behind the scenes. What we observe is probably just the tippity top of the iceburg though. You might not be able to see the wind, but you know it's there cause you can feel it blowing.

I imagine Square Enix, at this point, realizes there's a LOT of money on the table with Switch. Sony can't afford to make deals over every single game and pay for exclusive privilege, even temporarily. The more successful Switch becomes, the higher that price will need to be, and the more it's gonna cost em each time, and the more games that are gonna need to be prevented from releasing day and date. Which will cost even more money.

People have caught on-
you can only fool us so many times. So I say have at er. Wanna keep wasting money, go for it. But people are wising up to this practice.

@NEStalgia I dunno, I've played Crash pretty much entirely on Switch, and it seems more than suitable (other than the total lack of reflections) Definitely not enough of a downgrade to make me want to play it on PC over Switch.

@JaxonH It's interesting that it seems they haven't considered XBox to be nearly the threat Switch is. At least outside the Square-Enix sphere anyway (there really must have been something special there considering over 2 decades of exclusivity....that's not your ordinary bribery!)

@NEStalgia I'd imagine it's because the XB1 doesn't have anywhere near the volume of exclusives the Switch does. Why pay to get more timed exclusives when you're already soaring above your competitor in terms of actual exclusives.

@NEStalgia
While games like FFX and XII never came to GC, Wii, Wii U, Xbox or 360, I feel like maybe there were reasons. Leaving Nintendo the gen prior to GC, Xbox being new, then 360 not selling in Japan, and Wii being underpowered, then U failing, etc etc

But then you look at games such as FFVII and IX and it makes no sense. VC was thriving on Wii, Wii U and 3DS.

So ya, something else was going on for sure. Maybe some of it was just, no solid alternative until now. But that definitely isn't the whole story.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_dealing
Seems to be illegal in US, EU and a host of other countries. I don't think Sony would want to risk that.

Lol I always enjoy the conspiracy theories

Are people still believing that Sony and/or Microsoft are deliberately paying off developers and publishers to delay games on the Switch? It's like people have gone super paranoid now Nintendo has a big success on their hands.

@FragRed Um... yes? Not every game of course, most have other reasons. But publishers paying for timed exclusives is a fact about the industry. Anyone remember when Microsoft paid to keep Rise of the Tomb Raider an exclusive for a few months?

https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/5/9104411/rise-of-the-tomb-rai...

Timed exclusives are well documented facts. Now, whether Spyro is one or not is quite questionable, I'll give you that, the only reason it seems likely is the number of industry leaks indicating it is. It's a weird one, that's for sure.

Sony does it as well, with multiple publicly documented cases in recent memory:
https://www.fraghero.com/mans-sky-timed-exclusive-ps4/

And Nintendo of course paid for full exclusivity of Octopath Traveler, why do you think they ended up publishing it?

Then you have titles like Nier Automata that were originally targeting only PC and somehow ended up on PS4 first, with PC and XB1 getting delayed releases. I'm not saying every game that misses a system is part of a deal, but if you don't think there's a couple backdoor deals regarding timed exclusivity going on each year between ALL the companies, you're mistaken.

@Therad Funny, rebates were illegal too. Didn't stop Rockefeller. Burning down competing refineries in the middle of the night when they refuse to sell to you is also illegal. Yet Rockefeller never did time. Amazing what happens when you can plausibly deny involvement, leave no paper trail, and own the law.

As I said to someone else in another thread about another topic, "It's only illegal if you get caught" is the motto here and business at large. Like with trust cases the odds of getting caught are amazingly low, proving it's true is near impossible if the involved parties are both interested in keeping it quiet, and even if you do get caught there's a million loopholes and gyrations of plausible deniability baked into all these deals to the point that "it's illegal" is a fancy way of saying "it's legal if you do it this way, and include that clause."

Illegal backroom dealings is pretty much standard operation for day to day business in most companies worldwide. Of course it's never illegal. Page 1347 subsection c article 2 clearly has a clause in the past tense indicating that it is indeed not an illegal exclusive dealing at all!

Sure, decent folk don't behave that way. Unfortunately decent folk rarely climb the ladders of success to corporate or governmental leadership roles. In fact they're all but precluded from the role. Two executives handshaking a deal over dinner isn't exactly something that can be tried in a court. Thus it happens on a daily basis throughout all business. And it doesn't really matter if it's legal or not. It only sees the light of day if one of the parties reneges on the deal.

@FragRed No, it's not a Nintendo thing. It's a business world at large thing. In this particular instance it just involves Nintendo.

Edit, and also the joy of modern corporate law is, even in the very unlikely chance you do get caught, all the individuals plead innocence, the company pays the $500M fine with cash out of the dividends drawer for 6 months, and keeps on going on doing whatever they were doing before while making grandiose PR noises about how they've installed a new ethics panel to ensure the integrity of their enduring relationship with their valuable consumers.

@NEStalgia Businesses are becoming too big and too powerful with every day that passes. The bigger they are, the more dodgy they become. Rather sad world we live in.