Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

I’m not concerned. Streaming is the future, much like flying cars. Flying cars are possible, but not nearly mass-market ready. Streaming video games is possible, but not the required infrastructure to be a replacement.

Streaming is the future like 3D TVs were the future, like VR was the future, like projectors in your cell phone were the future, just like digital games were the future, etc etc

Even assuming it to be true, it will remain a physical impossibility to completely replace native games for many decades, perhaps even beyond the span of our own lives.

At best it takes a minority slice of the market.

@JaxonH

https://www.superdataresearch.com/black-friday-2018/

Digital games ARE the future, though. More and more people are buying games digitally as time goes on. Furthermore, for the home consoles, at least, physical media is inadequate to the point where you have to install the games to the system hard drives to actually play them, making them glorified install discs.

And even then, with the promise of native 4K home console gaming on the horizon, file sizes of AAA games will continue to balloon, which means that more and more of the data needed for these games to run properly will have to be downloaded separately from what's included on the discs.

I don't think we'll ever hit a point where home console games don't maintain some sort of retail presence, but the idea of owning "physical copies" of modern AAA games is becoming increasingly antiquated.

Well I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I was going to play Valkyria Chronicles 1 as much as possible, but my younger sister, after finishing Pokemon Let's Go, started on BotW and is pretty much addicted to it so effectively she's holding my Switch hostage. So I can't exactly play VC1 any time soon...

Hopefully this means after BotW I can get her hooked to Xenoblade 2 afterwards :^]

@Ralizah
Of course they have, nobody denies that.

But it hasn’t taken over, and that’s the point. Regardless of the fact it’s been increasing for years and years, and despite the fact so called experts have said we would be “all digital” in the “next few years” many times over, physical is still prevalent, and even the majority of global sales.

So no, its not the future yet, and it’s not the future any time soon. Its future is simply taking a share of the market. That share will increase over time, but we won’t see a “completely all digital future” within our lifetimes if I had to bet. There’s too much demand for physical. And it will take decades to phase that out, if it’s even possible to phase it out completely. The ballooning file sizes and elimination of Net Neutrality is precisely why physical will remain in demand. As downloading 100 GB + per game is not sustainable for the masses, and won’t be any time soon. We might have to download updates and even install, but physical media is still very much alive and will continue to be.

Which serves to even further the point about streaming. They can’t even manage to phase physical out with digital. And yet we are to believe they are somehow going to eradicate both digital and physical with streaming that requires internet (and good internet at that, completely eliminating vast swaths of their potential customers)? No... they want a streaming future, but their wishes aren’t going to line up with reality.

@JaxonH Any analysis that ends with them saying one mode of media consumption and distribution will completely rule the roost is short-sighted and amateurish. You'll never, 100% remove physical media from the equation for anything. With that said, I do expect digital sales of games to keep growing to the point where that mode of distribution becomes the default way most people buy their video games. This will especially be the case as generational change in game-purchasing habits becomes more evident.

People who think streaming video games will become prominent in the States any time in the near future is living in a silicon bubble, though. Major swaths of the country simply don't have the sort of infrastructure that can consistently facilitate that sort of service.

It is not consumers that will decide if it is good enough or not, it is the publishers. So it is EA, Ubisoft, Warner Bros, Activision etc that will decide if you should have it or not. The real cut off point will be when it is cheaper to stream than porting and maintaining different platforms.

I can see the appeal for publishers, one platform to maintain and develop for, faster bugfixes and it can reach new audiences, such as mobile and smart TVs, both bigger than the current market. No license money to platform holders either. And no stinkin' pirates can steal the code. Or tinker with it. And don't forget all the delicious subscription money. Recurring revenue is King!

There is also some appeal for consumers. Instead of buying a new console every 5 years for 300-500, they can buy a controller for 50 and plug it into their TV and suddenly have a gaming library. Always the latest FIFA or call of duty ready to go. It isn't like anything will really change for the masses, you already pay for online, you are already connected. The difference is that it will be simpler, patches will be instant and you won't notice them, less connection troubles, no running to the store to buy the new game, you do not even have to do anything to get the latest FIFA, you just get a notification. And one less box in the living room.

@Therad It's a bit of both, it's important to remember that the massive backlash to Don Mattrick's vision of the XB1 is a big factor for why a streaming future isn't already here.

I just laugh whenever topics like that come up because there's no way we'd ever have good enough internet to make it anywhere near as responsive as local games. When the internet isn't such a laughing stock thanks to greedy telecoms, maybe I can see a streamable future.

I can't see streaming having mass appeal anytime soon - most simply don't have the resources. Myself? I live in the biggest city of a high income country, have a reasonably paid job and am a video game hobbyist... Yet as things stand I am unable to reliably stream games.

Not even to mention that streaming-only is counterintuitive to the Switch's success. How are you going to take a game with you if you require a stable Internet connection?

But it won't be Nintendo pushing streaming, it will be game publishers such as EA, so they don't have to pay licensing fees to platform holders and to only have one platform to develop for. If your experience is worse isn't their concern, as long as they gain more money.

@Therad If you're streaming is worse then it is their concern as it means that person likely won't bother subscribing to their platform. And with some countries such as Australia and huge parts of the US having poor internet speeds, that is a lot of potential customers who may avoid subscribing and playing the games. And that is totally their concern.

@FragRed only if they lose more revenues then they gain.

But they won't do it with all games. Not at first. If I would venture a guess, it will start with ea sports titles. And those are yearly titles anyways, so who cares if you spend $60 on a sub, you would have spent that anyway... And now you can play it on your phone as well as your TV! Oh, and you can also play Madden not just FIFA. So you test it, but it feels a bit underpowered, so you buy a couple of packs...

Another scenario, when the next battlefield is released, you also get to try it 4 weeks before everyone else if you have the one year sub... So naturally as you are a fan, you buy the sub to play it before anyone else despite having pre-ordered it... it is also more stable and get patched much faster than the ordered version. Sure it is a bit slower than it used to be, to accommodate the latency, but so is the console version. So you just keep playing it online instead, and can also have a quick match on the bus. Win win.

Another scenario, no Timmy, we won't buy you a $360 box to play Mario on. But we can give you Rayman Legends + Another titles for $60! And you can play it on you existing phone! Isn't it great?

I don't think anyone will just turn off all their games, at least not until they are sure they will have a higher profit margin. Having a box to play games on are a necessary evil, not a benefit in most cases. If I thought streaming would be good I would cheer for it. But I am to tech savvy for that. But most aren't.

It isn't the first time they changed stuff to accommodate their model, not the customer. And it won't be the last.

@Therad That's right. The entire industry wants to get rid of physical because digital means more revenue, so they want to cut out the middleman: retailers. Plus it kills the second hand market. For third party publishers, the platform holders are another middleman. And streaming is their solution to that. Loyalty fees aren't an issue with streaming. At least, not right away. Google and MS will find a way to capitalise on that I'm sure.

Can't we just fill this thread with less depressing content like pictures of puppies and kittens getting blown to bits in a warzone or something?

Agreed. All this pointless talk about how cloud gaming is gonna ruin consoles annoys me. Physical copies of games will still be around even if cloud gaming does come into fruition. Honestly, people believe anything they see in the internet.

Finally made a start on the on the DK dlc for Mario+Rabbids and have to say its been great so far. I really enjoyed the base game but the dlc takes everything up a notch. I appreciate having separate character development to the main game as it means I'm not starting off with OP characters and DK is pretty good character to have added. I really hope Nintendo and Ubisoft have another game in the making as this (and Starlink which I still haven't gotten around to playing yet) show what can go so right with well managed partnerships.

@bluemage1989 I hope Starlink hasn't put Ubisoft off collaborating with Nintendo. The extreme price drops makes it pretty obvious it hasn't been successful but the toys to life aspect is the obvious issue, not the game itself.

Anyone seen the battery bug issue the switch had(?

@Grumblevolcano Starlink still performed substantially better on Nintendo than on PSXBox. If it were enough to put them off Nintendo collaborations, it would be enough to make them pull out of PSXBox entirely. Assassin's Creed 8 a Mad Box exclusive confirmed!!1

That poor game has been bargain basement almost as much as Fallout '76. At least they had Nintendo to fall back on.