Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Grumblevolcano Like Banjo Kazooie?

@JaxonH @Grumblevolcano

Last I heard, Playground Games was working on the Fable reboot.

Lols, I thought you'd like that, @JaxonH .... Very nice special edition, so watch for that going up! It's pretty good, I'd say; at least it isn't 'bump attacks' & it controls well, with nice design, etc

@Magician
Heard the same. I hope it’s true because they do have some beloved IP they should be bringing back. Fable has the potential to be a solid mid tier exclusive. I also fear a lot of what made it so popular is being ahead of its time. Even today the game holds up pretty well. A new Fable would need to be excellent.

They need more RPGs, and JRPGs for that matter. A huge swath of the PS playerbase also plays Switch because it gets so many Japanese games. The difference is, Switch offers hybrid play. So people have no issue buying a game a second time or choosing Switch over PS. For Xbox though, they’ll need nothing less than exclusives. What they SHOULD have done is buy up Sakaguchi for a price he couldn’t refuse, similar to Nintendo with Takahashi and Monolith Soft, and have Sakaguchi make high budget JRPGs. Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon (and Tales of Vesperia, which was exclusive to the 360 in the west) helped establish the Xbox brand among JRPG enthusiasts. That’s what they have been missing this generation.

And timed exclusives aren’t going to cut it because people will just wait for it to come to the platform they really want it on. We see it with switch games all the time. Oh, announced for PS4? I’ll wait for the Switch version. They need permanent exclusives from a studio that can make top-tier JRPG‘s and I just don’t know of any they could acquire aside from making Sakaguchi an offer. If they paid him enough I guarantee he would come back to make games for them instead of making Tera battle on mobile. Everybody has their price. And if they had Sakaguchi JRPGs and actually INVESTED to make a long running series like Final Fantasy, people would buy a console to play those games (or PC, but in their eyes either way is a win).

Microsoft’s biggest weakness, to this day, is not sticking with franchises that don’t do 5 million +. That has been their downfall. Lost Odyssey sold well over a million copies. On a platform that had no presence in Japan! That’s as good as Xenoblade originally did. But look at the difference- Nintendo groomed the series and has helped it to become more popular to the point it’s now their premier JRPG franchise. Microsoft, on the other hand, had the golden goose itself and just threw out because it “didn’t sell well enough”. We’ve seen this time and again and it has to stop. It HAS to stop. You can’t become the #1 console by ONLY catering to games that sell the biggest numbers.

edit
It’s out! Catherine Full Body is live on the eShop.

@JaxonH VIII is one of the best games I've ever played, full stop. The story isn't XC level "wow" but it's close in many ways. And knowing Akira is Dana's VA made me enjoy Astral Chain just that much more.

Also, RE Microsoft, that was the prior management that threw out the golden gooses. The sames ones that thought charging $100 more and installing visible spyware would outsell the competition. When Spencer walked in the damage was done and his job was to dig it out. We've been seeing with studio acquisitions and such he's definitely poised for that now. Maybe not for JRPGs. But companies like inExile aren't exactly going to crank out 5M+ figures....even 1M+ figures half the time. But they're RPG bulwarks for those in the know regardless.

In that regard, I don't know that MS's niche ought to be JRPGs. They tried that with Sega's help long ago. Even Spencer is trying still. Squeenix has been on the MS stage more than the Sony stage in recent years. PSO was a huge win. But overall, XB has no Japan presence, they're not poised for a Japan presence, and between PS and Nintendo, JRPG fans already have their homes. MS would probably do better to focus on something else that isn't already a lock. WRPGs isn't a bad angle. Nintendo vastly underrepresented them, PS4 sort of does. And largely the CRPG genre went out of favor short of "BUT SKYRIM!!!1" for a long time now. If anyone at all seems poised to bring the CRPG back into fashion, it's Microsoft....they now have the all-out kings of the genre in their tent. Urquhart, Fargo, etc. They've been toiling in semi obscurity for far too long.

Edit: If they play their cards right I could see Nintendo= Family/weebs/hipsters at roof parties, PS4=mainstream+weebs, and XB=gamer nerds/geek-hipsters.

Playing Catherine and I’m really loving it! Once you understand the game play it’s a ton of fun. It’s literally Pushmo. When I first played I didn’t get it. I was confused. Now, I get it. It’s Pushmo with sex. And I’ve been really craving a new Pushmo, but this is way better. Of course, it comes with a few tweaks and different rules, different kinds of blocks, etc. The presentation and voice acting, top notch. It’s such a different type of game, there’s really nothing else out there like it.

I’ve never played the Full Body Edition though, despite owning it on PS4. Looks like they added a ton of new levels in addition to the third love interest. And if anyone didn’t know, Troy Baker and Laura Bailey do the voice work in this game (the same VAs for TLOU2, which is definitely one of its strong suits- no one can ever say the voice work in that game isn’t spectacular). I don’t like Baker but there’s no denying his talent. I always thoroughly enjoy listening to the characters he voices.

It feels surreal having Trails of Cold Steel III and Catherine Full Body on my Switch right now. And on Switch Lite, they are the natural progression of what Vita wanted to offer.

@NEStalgia
I don’t think it should be their niche, they do need at least one premier series that you can only find on Xbox. Similar to Xenoblade and Bravely Default on Nintendo. Not so much for Japan, but for the west. There’s just as many if not more JRPG fans in the west than in Japan.

I agree they should focus on other RPG types, but I still think they need at least one premier JRPG exclusive, or studio that makes premier JRPGs for them. Can’t have zero. Can’t have nothing. They need another Lost Odyssey. To this day people still talk about that game, even if the sales don’t reflect the hype it does a lot for their image. Having people talk about how one of the best JRPGs ever made can only be played on Xbox. That’s what they need to get back. Like Nintendo, All they need is at least one good premier exclusive in each genre. That would do it. One great JRPG Xbox exclusive, one great 2D platformer (Ori fits the bill), one great this, one great that. At a bare minimum.

Oh my gosh, Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong was just announced for Switch!

Look in my signature. You’ll find Bloodlines 2 is one of my most anticipated titles! Granted, Bloodlines 2 is a sequel to Bloodlines, from the same team members, And it’s regarded by some as one of the greatest RPG’s ever made. The license for Vampire Masquerade sees all kinds of different games from different devs, from Bloodlines RPG to visual novels, but this one that was just announced is actually an RPG! It’s not from the same studio doing Bloodlines 2 but, the source material is phenomenal and it’s an RPG. And it appears to be a higher budget game.

This could be good.

Yeah, just saw that, too, @JaxonH .... Pretty hyped!

Really excited to play more Ys games on Switch. Even with the port's performance issues, Ys VIII was still one of my favorite JRPGs this gen. Just a really solid title all-around, even if it sort of looks like an upscaled Gamecube release.

@JaxonH

I still haven't played Vampire the Masquerade: Coteries of New York.

I haven't seen a discount deep enough to warrant a purchase yet.

@Ralizah
NIS isn’t the best at optimization and those games were never lookers in the first place. Even Trails III, while looking superb in handheld mode (even my Win2 couldn’t match it, when it looked equal it had like 20fps choppiness turning the camera), there’s no AA. And docked doesn’t seem optimized at all, it’s basically the same as handheld, only the jaggies stick out more cause it’s on a huge TV. Doesn’t look bad but, doesn’t look great on the TV either.

But I’m just happy the games are coming. Seems like they wanna do their back catalog now. I’d expect Memories of Celceta to be announced by year’s end.

@JaxonH Yeah, the visual issues didn't really bother me. The enormous, sustained framerate drops did. Thankfully, it seems like the ToCS3 port doesn't suffer this issue. Hopefully Ys IX will be more well-optimized in this regard.

Anyway, Memories of Celceta is licensed by XSEED, and they don't seem to port games to new platforms with their own resources, so I think it's going to take some social media pressure to even have a possibility of that.

& I don't think they'd get NISA to do it for them..... @Ralizah

@JaxonH Troy Baker always reminds me of the travesty of Vesperia's oddly shoehorned voice additions with a different actor for Yuri....

I thought the trash can was the natural progression of what Vita wanted to offer....

I think MS gets that with JRPGs. I think they've been trying. The PSO exclusive should convince management of the response to that. I don't really like the idea of every platform being an island of games. Nintendo is and always will be that. Sony is doubling down on that. Only natural for MS to do that to. They're getting the "premier" announcements of more and more Japanese games (DMC, FFXV, etc) so the relationship building has been going on for a while....if it amounts to anything, we'll see.

Persona 5 on XBox..... Watch NL explode.

Late July will be interesting, for sure.

@NEStalgia @JaxonH Yeah, the utter lack of variety and quality in their first-party offerings is Microsoft's achilles heel, IMO (that and the fact that Japan kind of hates the Xbox brand). They have a couple of decent shooter series that still feel like they're stuck in last gen, a car game, and then a number of Z-list exclusives that I wouldn't waste time on even with they were free (you know: Crackdown, Sea of Thieves, etc.) They had a chance to diversify a bit with Scalebound, but then that went up in flames. That's a far cry from the 360 days, when, even putting aside the large amount of timed exclusives on the system, they still had something for everyone that could only be played on that system.

I don't understand, for example, why they aren't leading at all with some big-name family game. Nintendo has Mario, Yoshi, etc. Sony has Ratchet and Clank. Microsoft owns Rare. Why is Banjo-Kazooie 3 not a thing? Can you even imagine the response from a certain, older portion of the gaming community?

I like a lot of what Microsoft is doing lately, but I really need to be convinced that they're prepared to bring the exclusive goods. Games worth buying systems to play. Sony absolutely has those with games like Horizon, Spider-Man, God of War, Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, etc. Nintendo has always been about those sorts of experiences.

Is anyone REALLY excited for Forza, Halo, and Gears still?

Arguably the only console exclusive games worth getting excited about were a couple of 2D indies, and they've since ported those to the Switch.

@Ralizah I kind of wince at them flogging Halo still. Though I haven't been following Infinite, it feels like an old, stale brand that had its trilogy, tried to become CoD, didn't....and it's just kind of....there? It was amazing when it first launched as X-BOX OG's killer app....but then it's just kind of......Destiny was Halo's future...and that kinda went down in flames too. Gears can be cool if it's modernized well. They haven't done much new with Gears but the formula doesn't feel stale....it's niche though. Ultimately its strength is as a co-op story shooter, and that's legitimately a rare fined. Same for Halo, really. Uncharted tried for that but didn't quite do it well. Their GOOD stuff that's unique isn't exclusive. Minecraft, Ori, Lucky's Tale, Outer Worlds.....Switch has it all. But maybe that's not so bad....I'm not sure why gamers treat exclusivity as a holy grail and open platforms as teh devul . Crackdown 3 was just so dismally awful. Even for free I couldn't waste time on it. SoT...it's not for me, but those that love it seem to love it. I'm not sure that's a fail....just a WTF for those of us conditioned to....erm....digital social distancing?

Stil, though, if comparing to the 360 era....it's all in the former management. Remember, by the end of the 360 they effectively shut down Microsoft Game Studios....basically entirely. Shuttered the teams, fired the talent...they went into the One with a head full of "exclusives are over" (not a bad mindset if it were true, honestly), "timed exclusives are the future", and some really bad ideas. The problem is by the time it backfired, everyone was already gone and the building was dark and the board wanted the division gone.

So they've literally been running the generation with basically no studios at all, no talent at all, and a business plan oriented to buy a few months exclusivity on Tomb Raider. The former clowns at the helm (going back to the Windows management.....they had the people that produce IIS and .net running XBox..... .................) And they left the whole brand with no resources. Building that back takes a lot of time. And money. And they've had both. And they've been using part of their E3 time to show that they're doing that. The current gen was always a lost war for them. They made the platform a good place to play your games and build loyalty but the real work was "future proofing" the brand for the next gen.

OTOH, I still cringe whenever people beg "we want exclusives!" I don't. I want good games and I want to play them on whatever hardware and ecosystem is best for me to play them on. Why do we have to muck with buying $500 dongles to play the 4 games we want from a specific publisher? With that I have to side with the old MS management for having a customer-friendly idea, even if the idea went down in flames. I love Nintendo games and because I want Nintendo to remain Nintendo I don't want them to ever go "third party", but at the same time, exclusives and hardware vendor lock to them is about as anti-consumer as it gets....and we always sit here begging to be force-fed more vendor lock.....we're kind of deranged masochists.... Can you honestly say you wish Ori WASN'T on Switch and instead you had to buy an X1 for it? If only Halo was also on Playstation and God of War were on XBox and R&C on Switch live would be better for all of us. And I'd STILL buy at least one of their hardware platforms for the different graphics quality for some games.

Of course a world where every game is on every platform is most ideal. People aren’t arguing against that when they say they want exclusives. What people are saying is, these platforms own their own first party studios and they want to see good exclusive games come from them. People are saying, “If I am to buy the system I need to see good exclusives from it“. And rightfully so. I care about Xbox exclusives because every platform has them, and I want them to be GOOD. Why wouldn’t somebody want a platform’s exclusives to be good.

At the end of the day, all MS exclusives come to pc anyways so I’m not phased. But in a way I think them buying up studios and exclusives can actually help make progress toward more multiplat games. Because as long as Sony is getting away with it they’re just going to keep doing it, but if they have somebody dishing it back at them they might think twice about it. It’s a check and balance, so to speak. And really that’s the whole reason Microsoft got into making consoles in the first place, specifically to eat up some of Sony’s marketshare. And to that end, they’ve succeeded. Every Xbox sold is one less potential PS console sold. It brings a check and balance. If one company gets too haughty and anti-consumer, the other will keep them in check- it’s gone both ways back-and-forth several times.

MS with DRM and online, MS with game sharing, Sony with the $10 Online Passes you had to buy for each and every 1st party game (Wipeout online? That’ll be $10 more please). Sony with the anti-crossplay. Nintendo is unable to provide that counterbalance.

@NEStalgia
Gears 5 is amazing. That game deserves more praise. It’s one of the best cover shooters I’ve ever played in my life, if not the best. And the fact it’s designed for not only single player but for co-op, even cross platform with PC, is incredible. Anyone writing that game off as just “oh more Gears and Halo” has about the same credibility as someone saying “oh more Mario and Zelda”. Yes it’s more, and thank God for it because it’s astounding. Halo, it’s good. But not Gears 5 good. But Infinite may change that. Who knows. Still. Master Chief Collection with mouse-gyro on Steam Controller is incredible.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps, I’d put that on par with Donkey Kong Country tropical freeze which is one of the best video games I’ve ever played and easily the best 2D Platformer. That game also deserve a lot more credit than people give it. Ori is worth buying a console for, IMO. Which is why it astounds me people ignore the first one on switch, like... do you know what you have access to?!

But they need more. At least the old leadership had the sense to sign deals for a few JRPG‘s to be made. I credit Spencer a lot. But he needs to follow suit. Get Sakaguchi back and make Lost Odyssey a staple franchise. Make Blue Dragon a staple franchise. Not only would it benefit them it would benefit gamers because he’s wasting away on mobile right now.

Btw Vita May have ended up in the trash bin, but it’s promise was always so much more. You see glimpses of it with Trails of Cold Steel and Persona 4 Golden and the abysmal YS VIII port (Ralizah should play on Vita, it’ll make one appreciate the switch port!) but... then it just kinda sputters out. The FPS catalog is case in point. Call of Duty and Resistance were so bad (and yes I played all the way to completion). Games were made by the same company in about six months and they were panned as abominations. Assassins Creed Liberation was cool, when you compare it to switch actually having some of the best main line in trees that look almost identical to the PS4 version with Gyro aiming... difference is pretty stark. When you look at all the excellent FPS switch has gotten, Borderlands 2 with gyro for example, and compare to Vita... ouch. And I played the heck out of that game too. There’s so much it wanted to do but it didn’t have a full button set and it just didn’t have enough power. And because it didn’t have the exclusive lineup it ended up not getting the sales needed to see better support. But the fact it got as many games as it did as a testament to the loyalty a lot of devs have to Sony. Just look at Catherine Full Body or Secret of Mana. You never saw that kind of loyalty to Wii U 7 years after it’s launch, despite them basically selling around the same amount.

Gears 5 was good though the open world segments felt like pretty much every open world game, open world for the sake of open world which would've been better in a more linear approach. Also the last act is kind of meaningless unless there's future campaign DLC/expansion/updates which I hope happens but who knows if it will (Gears 2 and 3 had campaign DLC but Gears 4 didn't). Multiplayer stuff doesn't have enough content though apparently future updates will fix that. Gears Tactics I'm really looking forward to, hopefully it gets a Xbox release date announcement on July 23rd.

Halo 5's campaign was bad but the multiplayer was really fun, I also like that the classics are being properly playable all in 1 collection eventually (the PC releases somewhat broke both the XB1 and PC versions of MCC). Infinite there's not really much to say given Microsoft pulled a BotW on that game (a few teasers but mostly silence for 2 years).

Forza suffers from licensing problems, I doubt it would've stayed a mostly annual franchise if the games didn't get delisted after 4 years (probably 1 Motorsport + 1 Horizon per generation if there weren't licensing issues). While I like Forza Horizon 4, there's less single player stuff than in Forza Horizon 3 naturally a result of the Games as a Service model of Forza Horizon 4.

My hopes for July 23rd are release dates and gameplay for a variety of already known content that don't currently have release dates as well as new announcements.

@NEStalgia "Consumer friendly" is a buzzword that doesn't really mean anything. Their "consumer friendly" moves are meaningless if they result in the consumer fleeing to opposing platforms.

Anyway, when people say "we want exclusives," they don't mean "we want games to brag about others not having access to" so much as they mean "we want high-quality games meant to drive people to the platform." Exclusives, insofar as they often have more resources invested in them by the manufacturers and are designed to boost the profile of the brand as opposed to making as much money as possible, are a good thing in this industry. Exclusives are the reason Nintendo is still a thing and we're not living under a one-console Sony dictatorship. It's not about denying others so much as it is about harnessing the positive power of competitive capitalism to create as attractive and rewarding a games platform as possible.

This is why people get so angry about EGS' paid exclusivity antics. Nobody wants these companies to money hat exclusive games that would have gone to multiple platforms otherwise. People want these companies to invest their resources in talent and projects that end up elevating the medium as a whole.

As you mention, Microsoft has (had) no talent, no ambition, and no real presence this gen, and that's not good for anyone. I want Microsoft to invest in making the Xbox brand competitive and attractive again. I want them to give me a reason to buy a damn Xbox! You seem to be anti-exclusive, but, answer me: are two nearly identical boxes with access to all the same games really better than separate, competitive platforms that craft memorable, compelling experiences in order to bring in more business? I don't think so.

I'm not unhappy that Microsoft put Ori and Cuphead on Switch, but it certainly does nothing to entice me in their ecosystem. It does the opposite, really: it teaches people to disinvest, because their best games will go elsewhere anyway. Why invest in the Xbox brand, at that point, unless you just really, really like Game Pass?

@Grumblevolcano
Gears Tactics is on par with XCOM 2. Maybe even better (at least, according to my brother- From what I’ve played I like them about the same).

It’s REALLY good. It’s almost like Gears was designed to be a strategy RPG from the beginning. More of that. They have a real winner with gears tactics. I couldn’t believe they released it on Steam day one but not Xbox! Fine by me, but I know a lot of Xbox gamers want to play it.