Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@link3710 Holy crap I love you idea of the remake with your playthrough affecting the following title! I hope that happens!

I'd honestly just be happy with a GBA Fire Emblem collection on Switch, but your idea sounds super cool too!

Also kinda do want FE Awakening remastered for Switch. But I know that's unlikely.

So happy to see the original NES Fire Emblem localized with a physical release.

But I do hope to see the SNES entries localized or remade, particularly Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776

NES
FE Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light
FE Gaiden
SNES
FE Mystery of the Emblem (remake of 1st FE on NES with new content)
FE Genealogy of the Holy War
FE Thracia 776
GBA
FE Binding Blade
FE Blazing Sword (1st to release in west)
FE Sacred Stones
GC
FE Path of Radiance
Wii
FE Radiant Dawn
DS
FE Shadow Dragon (remake of original FE on NES)
FE New Mystery of the Emblem (remake of Mystery of the Emblem with new content)
3DS
FE Awakening
FE Fates
FE Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Switch
FE Three Houses

@JaxonH You missed Shadow Dragon on DS. Since both 1 & it's remake 3 got remade on the same system somehow.

@Knighty_IX 4 & 5 is a pipedream yeah. I don't think 6&7 in a single package is too much though? Binding Blade was specifically developed to reuse as much of Blazing Blade as they could to reduce development time. I'd also find it surprising to see a Blazing Blade remake that doesn't take the opportunity to at least cameo some additional Binding Blade characters anyways.

What is it with Nintendo and re-releasing legacy content for a limited time lately

Fire Emblem is especially a weird as hell game to do it with considering it's the very first time the original Famicom release has been translated in English

This is such a stupid practice

Y'all want Mother 3 localized but I bet 5 dollars that's going to be limited time as well if it does happen

@TheFrenchiestFry I think it's because of next gen. Nintendo's potentially concerned about not reaching Switch sale targets because of people getting Series X/S and PS5 instead (especially Series S given it's same price or cheaper than Switch dependent on the region). So they throw in the limited time releases that just so happens to be removed when the current fiscal year ends to keep people's focus on the Switch (fear of missing out).

Switch will likely be the best selling system this holiday though the targets Nintendo have set for Switch sales this fiscal year requires more than that.

Roughly 10m Switches have sold between March and September.

Back in March Nintendo projected 19m Switches would be sold between April 2020 and March 2021.

The Switch is set to blow past that projection.

@Magician @Grumblevolcano Yeah, they haven't raised their target from 19 million have they? I know they've raised their production numbers significantly (I think they're targeting producing 25 mil this year), but sales has stayed the same.

That got raised even further, to 28-30 million. Nothing official has been said, probably because they’d rather blow past targets than risk upping targets and falling short, but at the rate sales are going, and judging by actual units being produced, the expectation is 25+ million. Could be closer to 30, but I’m going to just say 25 for now.

Yeah, I could maaaybe understand the argument in regards to 3D All-Stars, but there's no way limited time availability of an (relatively niche)
30 year old NES ROM would disrupt the next-gen news cycle in favor of Switch coverage in any perceivable way.

@Grumblevolcano I highly doubt a 30 year old Famicom game is going to even remotely put a dent in next gen sales or attention regardless, as huge for Nintendo as this is

By the by, I have a better idea as to why all these limited-time items end at the end of the financial year. I'm guessing it's to incentivize people into buying just before they announce the new version. And then, they'll probably announce the new version and only have it out for a few weeks prior to the games all ceasing to exist to drive up initial sales of that.

As such? I'm expecting two or three more limited time games to show up with the same date.

@link3710
That’s a reasonable theory. I could buy into that.

Personally I don’t care one way or the other though as far as “limited releases” go. I’m going to get them, so I don’t see what the big hoopla is. Not saying I agree with the tactic, I just fail to see why it causes such a stink with some people.

Ya got 6 months. Buy it or don’t. But don’t complain about not getting it when you get plenty of opportunity to get it if you want it.

edit
There’s also this potential leak going around. Can’t say if it’s legit, but it seems like it could be.

@JaxonH that's hilariously believable for a "my uncle works at Nintendo" sorta leak.

Eh, production order increases and sales forecasts are two different things. Just because Nintendo increased their manufacturing request doesn't mean they'll sell all those Switches within the next five months. No, more realistically the Switch will sell 9m units from October through December and another 3m from January to March. Landing at around 22m Switches sold for the 2021 fy.

Breaking the record of 21m consoles sold in year, set by the Switch the previous year.

Passing the lifetime sales of the 3DS in fewer than four years of being on the market.

Yadda yadda yadda.

Production orders follow sales forecasts. You don’t produce what you don’t think you can sell. But sales forecasts are only done once a year whereas production orders are updated throughout the year to meet demand. Going to get a far more accurate idea of sales from production then from a forecast made way back in March.

That doesn’t mean anything is guaranteed. But if Nintendo normally produces 20 million a year, and suddenly increased production to nearly 30 million this year, that means they believe they are going to sell an extra 10 million consoles over what they usually sell. And if they normally sell 18, that means they believe they’re gonna sell 28. It’s really as simple as that.

Not to mention, anyone who works in manufacturing knows about total quality management and JIT (Just In Time) Delivery to reduce storage and inventory costs, a TQM methodology which actually originated in Japan, although it’s now implemented worldwide at virtually every single company worth their salt: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_manufacturing

And while nobody can predict the future, I’m inclined to believe Nintendo over random opinions in forums, because Nintendo is basing their production on actual sales data. If they’re producing an extra 10 million, it’s because they believe they’re gonna sell an extra 10 million. And if they believe they’re gonna sell an extra 10 million, it’s got to be for good reason.

@JaxonH

And I feel you're grotesquely overestimating by several million, six million to be precise.

We agree to disagree, yes?

I'm confident enough to ask "bet money", but I'm not sure how we would resolve said bet.

@Magician
I’m not estimating anything. Nintendo is. I’m just sharing what Nintendo believes they’re going to sell. I choose to believe their estimates, but the estimate is theirs, not mine.

Not sure why you’re so hung up on being right though, talking about making bets? Seems like you’re taking Nintendo Switch sales a little too seriously. But if you want to call Nintendo and bet them they’re overproducing by 3-6 million units, and tell them how, without any actual data analysis or statistical modeling software, random fan site commenter #53,045 somehow knows better than their PhD trained business analysts, I’d love to hear their response.

Maybe they’re overestimating. That’s certainly possible, and I’m not going to rule that out. If you believe otherwise, hey, more power to you. Nothing wrong with that. But I use the Bayesian approach to update my beliefs based on probabilities. I see Nintendo upping production by 10 million units. And not just through words, but via their actions. And I see sales this year are, thus far, roughly twice what they usually are. That’s enough to weigh the probability more likely than not. But it’s not that serious. It’s really not. If they’ve bitten off more than they can chew then they’ll learn that lesson the hard way.

My tinfoil-hatting demands satisfaction, sir.

Well there's the July - September results on November 5th, I guess we'll see then whether Nintendo increases the projections from 19 million. I thought it had already been increased in August but the 22 million isn't what Nintendo's telling their investors.

I think it's partly about wanting to better balance physical unit sales. It makes sense for the physical special edition to be a limited release - and they don't want to disincentivise purchases of that. So you get the strange situation of the digital release also being time limited.

It's complicated by the fact that the limited edition physical release was probably always lined up for Japan. Someone in HQ probably (quite reasonably) said "oh this stuff sells really well in the US too now - why don't we offer the same package in the West on the same basis?", so they make a translation but it now has the added complication that the game isn't available on NSO in the West (it is in Japan) because it's an outright hack not an original ROM.

My thought is that eventually they'll recognise that as a whole their logic is flawed, they'll relent and the digital release will not be time limited.