Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

This Witcher 3 rumor. Everyone is talking about how it will run and look,but what about the
Switch battery life when playing it?
I'm guessing it's gonna last for a good hour, if the game ever gets ported.

Bah, no time for Witcher 3 (I mean, who has even heard of that game!?!). I can't bear the wait. SEGA have just renewed another trademark for Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. So this and the 'ripe' one the other week...surely...

@MsJubilee I don't see why it'd be significantly shorter than any other game that utilizes boost mode and taxes the system's resources in handheld mode. Which means between 2 - 3 hours in handheld mode. Not amazing, but not a dealbreaker if you connect it to a portable battery between sessions.

I just don't think it would run well.

Just finished Resident Evil 4 for the first time (I played it on Gamecube a decade a go, but only got so far). The game is phenomenal - definitely a highlight of the 6th generation, and still holds up well today. As much as I'm annoyed at Capcom for the £30 price tag, it's still worth every penny - I definitely recommend that anyone who's not yet played it picks up on Switch.

@gcunit
No it’s fine, you feel how you feel, just seemed kinda extreme is all. I do think Pokémon looks pretty slick though. Sometimes I think it’s easy to forget just how rudimentary games on 3DS looked and played. It still sticks to the formula but, so is Luigi’s Mansion 3, for example, and that’s ok. It still comes across as a gorgeous high budget game built ground up for the system in question.

As for Fire Emblem, I don’t think strategy games are typically visual spectacles, at least, certainly not FE, but it seems in line with Path of Radiance on GC and Radiant Dawn on Wii. And we have to keep in mind, Switch is basically a PS3. I know it’s easy to get accustomed to PS4 and X1 games, and then feel like anything lesser than is inadequate, or at least, anything lesser than the most immaculate graphical showpieces on Switch. But... Switch is a mobile system, and the jump from 3DS has been enormous. Graphical expectations should be in line with PS3, 360 and Wii U. I know technically games might look a little better because it has more ram and all that, but from a macro perspective that’s roughly on par with Switch games (pretty much the same, just a jump from 720p to 1080p). And if you take a title like say, Fire Emblem, and compare it to games on other similar hardware, it’s a decent looking game. I won’t say it’s a great looking game, but it gets the job done. Certainly better than the low budget efforts I’ve seen with countless other SRPGs. And after playing Awakening, Fates and Echoes, Three Houses feels like a noticeable leap forward. So from my perspective it feels like we are getting a true next generation Fire Emblem game. Because the last one I played was roughly on par with a GameCube game.

Just to provide some perspective, here’s Path of Radiance (the actual Fire Emblem GameCube game). A decent looking game. Fans generally loved the look, which has been a standout for the series. Radiant Dawn on Wii looked about the same, since Wii was basically a GC with a Wiimote.

And Three Houses with the ground level views and snazzy new redesigns. I think it’s a really big step forward for the series.

Or, to give another comparison, just to show the improvement of textures and models.

It’s not some bombastic graphical showpiece, but it’s a good looking game. It’s an improvement over what we’ve seen before, and that’s good enough for me.

edit
Btw, Darksiders: Genesis is officially up for preorder on Amazon now. Like, you can actually purchase it. MSRP is $39.99

Apparently Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated is more of a remake than a remaster and has a multiplayer mode.

Oh, and it's only $29.99. Day 1 for me!!!

@IceClimbers I’ve never even played it, but $30 is a price I could split with my friend and be okay with. Nice!

What do you people do to your controllers? I've had my original Joycon with my launch switch console, still fine. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours.

I have a feeling my joy con are close to death. Ever since you guys started saying you're having problems is when mine started acting up. Thanks for the Jinx😂

I treat my cons carefully, but already got drift on the included set after 6 months. so I bought a yellow pair new at the start of the year, no issues since. I try to use my pro docked, or 8bit in tabletop, but sometimes I’ve gotta play handheld.

My joycon have never had issue.

My analog of my Xenoblade Pro controller, however, seems to get dirt or dust trapped underneath on a regular basis, to where when I push UP, it intermittently activates. In the calibration screen it kind of shows a flicker. If I push the stick down and blow really hard it seems to work for another hour or so. Then I’ll notice in Final Fantasy XII, when I’m running forward I suddenly start walking and then running again and then walking. So I blow in it again and it fixes it for another hour or two.

Idk. Kind of annoying but not the end of the world.

Oddly, the issue only started once everyone else started talking about “drift” with their joycon.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (a play on “Of Mice and Men” perhaps?), one of Xseed’s coming titles, looks very interesting.

@Link-Hero It is mostly the set pieces that are repetitive. As an example, many of the ruins are the same pieces scrambled together in different forms. The same with trees, rocks, bokoblin camps, shrines and dungeons. It is my most played game on the switch, but it isn't flawless by any means.

From the small amount of research I’ve done it has become apparent there is an inherent design flaw with the Joy-Con and Pro Controller sticks. The drift is caused by white dust - formed by rubbing on the sticks from general use - falling into the controllers and then interfering with their input detection.

I have 3 sets of Joy-Con and a Pro Controller. They are all affected to one degree or another with this ‘drift’ issue. I have taken great care with all of them as I do all my controllers. Doesn’t matter, the issue is unavoidable and there is no permanent fix.

The only long-term solution I’ve seen work is actually replacing the sticks themselves with sticks made from a different material - even metal. Again, there are YouTube videos and articles online about this.

My experience with Nintendo UK about this was a total non-starter, no willingness to come to a solution with me. Henceforth, i’ll never buy another Nintendo controller for the Switch. It would be futile. Even if I go out and buy a brand new Pro Controller at some stage the same issue will occur.

Compressed air and blowing can temporarily alleviate it but from what I can gather, the ‘drift’ is simply a defect that will happen to most people at some point.

Considering the price of these controllers, I think Nintendo should get a lot more negative criticism about this than they have.

Fixing the fault at a hardware level by actively and methodically changing the materials used for the analogue sticks should have been a high priority for Nintendo. Instead, they continue to sell a product that they know full well will suffer from this annoying flaw, over and over again.

I like the joycons a lot. It's very cool being able to hold half of a controller in each hand. But Nintendo needs to alter whatever aspect of the production or design process is leading to half of their Switch controllers malfunctioning and constantly triggering inputs when the darn stick isn't being touched.

I've long criticized a lot of the fake news that people spread online concerning the Switch, but I do think people need to get angrier and more public about the joycon issue so that Nintendo is forced to address it.

@Ralizah I’ve long been a vocal supporter of Nintendo and spread nothing but positivity about the Switch since launch but the design/manufacturing fault which blights the Joy-Con and Pro Controller and how Nintendo have not publicly addressed this issue and made a ‘fix’ revision to the hardware is shoddy in the extreme. It only fuels the perception of Nintendo as quite a greedy company which was very evident in the pricing of the controllers for the Switch from the outset.

They planned for households to buy many sets of controllers for their system. Least they could do is actively respond and resolve the ‘drift’ issue once it became clear it was due to a flaw in their own design, materials used to manufacture the controllers.

If they fixed the Pro Controller and Joy-Con and publicly advertised that fact, I’d go and buy a new Pro Controller and two sets of new Joy-Con straight away.

I like the joy cons for portable play. My first joy con has problems with the left stick moving on its own. My 2nd pair is a mario red joycon and the left joycon also drifts a lot.
My pro controller is working great for now and that’s why I only play docked

If controllers develop drift faults within warranty, is Nintendo refusing to deal with them?

My Switch has only had around 600 hours put on it since launch day. In the summer of 2017 I bought the yellow joy-cons and have used them almost exclusively ever since - so I'd guess my yellows have had at least 500 hours. No problems with them and no problems with my original neons.

But if they do develop problems now then I'll have to accept that they're outside the warranty period. Of course it would be gutting if my yellows were to deteriorate suddenly, but based on my experience so far I'd begrudgingly buy some more immediately because I'm happy with the use I've had from them?

What figure would people say is a reasonable figure to put on life expectancy? You're lucky if you can get 500 hours out of a car without developing faults, and unless you're a whizz with mechanics you'll do well to fix most car faults for less than the price of a set of joy-cons.

Mechanical things suffer wear and tear. If you have a warranty use it, and shout to high heaven if the warranty provider doesn't fulfil its liability, but otherwise you just got to suck it up. If someone sells you something with a 1 year warranty, is it reasonable to expect it to last 3 years? You hope it will.

@gcunit Literally no other controller I've owned has developed issues like this. I've owned my DS4 for 3 years longer than my joycons and it still works like it's new. Something is VERY wrong in the Joycon production process for issues to be cropping up for such a huge number of people. We shouldn't have to "suck it up" when Nintendo is shipping out defective products, or products that are far more prone to developing defects than the competition.

Issues haven't even been limited to the joycons. Remember the issues people were having with the Pro Controllers early on? I'm genuinely baffled that Nintendo suddenly seems to be struggling to manufacture functional controllers.

Switch is an amazing console. The joycons are neat controllers. But this is simply unacceptable. I'm just lucky that the drift hasn't been a major issue for my launch joycons.

@Ralizah I'm no expert on manufacturing and warranties, but I'd have trouble accepting that a product that successfully lives out its warranty was defective.

It's understandable to be disappointed/upset if you don't get the durability you hoped/expected, but if a product lasts for its warranty period, why should a manufacturer do anything unless it sees a negative impact on its reputation that then negatively impacts sales?

And no, I don't recall the Pro Controller issues (I don't have a Pro) - what were they?

@gcunit Issues with the D-Pad, apparently. There were a lot of complaints about the D-Pad on the launch Pro Controllers.

A controller that isn't actively abused should be able to go for more than a year or two without major issues cropping up. I don't see what "outliving its warranty" has to do with anything when literally every other controller seems to have a vastly longer shelf life before it starts having issues. I could mention my 30 year old NES controllers that still work like a charm, but I gave the DS4 example because I'm willing to concede that less complex controllers are probably less likely to develop major issues over time, and it's hard to get simpler than the NES pad.