Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Grumblevolcano The problem with a "silent" revision of that nature is that it makes it very very difficult for anyone to release packaged exclusives for the revision. The packaging itself would have to have disclaimers left right and centre and the majority of consumers wouldn't actually know if they have "Switch 1.0" or "Switch 2021" if it's been so silent and the packaging on the console itself just says "Switch".

Aside from which - the install base for the regular Switch is now 80 million. This huge install base is the carrot for publishers. The unbadged "Switch 3.0" will probably never offer that kind of install base so releasing a game exclusively on it would be a bit like releasing a launch title on a new console.

Digital games are, of course, a different proposition. The eShop can just check if the game would run on your console.

Still - I tend to think that a silent revision will never really get exclusive games. If they explicitly badge it as "Switch Pro" then I'd see exclusives as a more of a possibility (and Nintendo will probably do a tiny number, New 3DS style. I think relatively minor exclusive "Switch Pro" modes in games that release more generally will be more common. That and some games that release generally but which are really compromised on the regular Switch...).

I bought Doom 1 and Doom 2(classic) on switch. How long are the games?

@StuTwo I think it's also worth considering that Nintendo may look at Switch in a similar to Microsoft and Xbox now.

We have Switch, Switch Lite, and presumably it'll be called Switch XL.

Then in a few years, Switch XL replaces the other two, we get a Switch Lite revision with the more efficient version of the Switch XL chip, and then we get another revision, which eventually phases out the Switch XL.

Mobile processors, and the speed at which Nvidia seems happy to shove features they never thought about before into a mobile chipset, lends itself very well to the "iPhone" model, only every few years instead of every year.

I'm not sure how they'd work it, but that way you have a continually rolling userbase that by the time you move over to stopping support for the OG, still has 30 or so million users on Lite and XL.

@StuTwo I was meaning certain names would be very obvious successor names like "Switch 2", "Super Switch" and "Switch Advance" whereas something like "New Switch" or "Switch XL" would suggest it's just a revision. By going for a name like the latter 2, Nintendo wouldn't be starting from 0 but could eventually drop support for the original Switch and Switch Lite over time.

@Rambler The great thing about metacritic is that it grants you access to all the reviews...so while a measure of variance might be interesting, you can get a quick idea on this by looking at the game's page and seeing the various scores. Personally what I do is take a look at reviews across the spectrum to get an idea of the good and bad qualities of a game.

Confidence intervals could work if you consider that reviews are samples of what is a greater sample of opinions in the population (although, arguably and perhaps demonstrably, critic reviews may follow different trends to the wider population) . But I think that's getting overly analytical because it implies an objective truth that can be drawn out given enough sampling.

@timleon @Rambler
That would make things much easier, assuming critic reviews are from the same distribution. There’d have to be a balance between reliability and practicality. A simple repeatability measurement would be practical.

But I would propose this- assuming the critic reviews can be considered random samples from opinions at large (which isn’t true, but it’s an assumption we’re going to have to make for the calculation to work), we can simply find the Standard Error of the Mean. Take the standard deviation and divide by the square root of how many reviews there were. Multiply that by the t-score needed to achieve 95% confidence (which can easily be done in Excel, so if the data was exported you could have formulas do all the work automatically). If you’re just doing napkin math for an estimate, use t=2

1 Write down aggregate score
2 Calculate and write down standard deviation (SD) from all individual scores
3 Divide SD by the square root of number of individual scores. This is Standard Error of Mean (SEM)
4 The confidence interval around the aggregate is +/- twice the SEM (or use Excel for exact formula).

All this could be done automatically though in excel if you just had a way of exporting the score data. In fact, it’s something their aggregate website should provide. Frankly, I’m kind of surprised they don’t provide any kind of margin of error calculation.

ALSO OF NOTE, their aggregate isn’t the true mean, so you’d have to calculate the true mean first when deriving the Standard Deviation.

talking about third party games build specially for Switch like Monster Hunter Rise, e impossible ports like Doom Eternal e The Witcher 3.

Why are there still no reviews of Balan Wonderworld from the major news sites? The game's been out for 2 days, there can't still be an embargo on the reviews, can there?

@Bolt_Strike Maybe there were just no review copies sent out before launch it something. When a game from a major publisher doesn't have any reviews at launch, you know that even they know it's crap.

@Bolt_Strike maybe because of the epiletic problem caused by the final boss of the game, Square Enix don't want negative plubicity for the game, or all the press and major content Creators is busy taking about Monster Hunter Rise(since Balan Wonderworld have the unfortunately fate of releasing on the same date of Monster Hunter Rise).

I dont really think a review is necessary for balan. Watch some gameplay on it or early impressions( NL did one too), and most people come to the conclusion it's hot garbage.

Monster Hunter Rise is now officially the #1 AND #2 game in the NA eShop (standard and deluxe editions).

It's also the #1 selling game on Amazon US, where it's been for several weeks now.

@NintendoByNature Oh, I know it's hot garbage, that's not why I want to see the review. I just want to see reviewers trash the game and how low the scores will go, it'll be funny.

@JaxonH Here on Amazon UK Monster Hunter Rise isn't faring as well.

The highest ranked item related to the game is the Pro Controller at #37, the Switch bundle at #55. That's it.

No version of the game is on the chart. The Collector's Edition was on launch day, at like...70 something.

You have to go to the Switch only sales to get the game to appear with the Collectors Edition at #45.

For reference, the games currently on the all systems are:

Animal Crossing #6
Super Mario 3D World #8
Super Mario 3D All Stars #9
FIFA 21 (PS5) #13
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe #14
Just Dance 2021 (Switch) #25
GTAV (PS4) #27
Super Mario Odyssey #28
Ring Fit Adventure #30
FIFA 21 Legacy Edition (Switch) #33 **(Yes Really)**
Assassins Creed Valhalla (PS5) #36
FIFA 21 (Xbox) #42
Super Smash Bros #43
Super Mario Party #44
Hades #46
LEGO Harry Potter (Switch) #47
Minecraft Dungeons (Switch) #54
Hitman 3 (PS5) #59
Mario & Sonic #61
Red Dead Redemption 2 #82
Splatoon 2 #83
UFC4 (PS4) #84
GTAV (Xbox One) #87
Avengers (Xbox One) #92
F1 2020 (PS4) #94
Hitman 3 (PS4) #96
Outriders (PS5) #98
Avengers (PS4) #99

So take away, Monster Hunter (And PVZ to my annoyance) is being outsold by the usual evergreen Switch games, that are outselling everything, every version of FIFA, the usual casual stuff here in the UK like GTA, the bloody SWITCH VERSION of FIFA 21 and even Avengers and Outriders preorders.

The UK man, Nintendo has made great strides here, but there is a long way to go because that is depressing reading.

On the UK eShop though, Monster Hunter is #1 and #2. So there is that.

What I think will happen is Balan Wonderworld gets poor reviews and flops initially. Then with some patches and a Game Pass release, it gets a second life.

That's what seems to happen nowadays, games that studios are concerned about not doing particularly well get put on Game Pass and sees massive growth.

@Haruki_NLI
To be fair, it's sold out on Amazon UK, and that's probably why the rankings are lower right now.

It says it won't be in stock until March 31st which is basically a week after launch. People are probably just buying elsewhere. And all the other listing are from 3rd party sellers.

So ya, even in the UK, there's good reason why.

That said, UK was always Nintendo's weakest market. The NES and SNES never blew up there like it did in the USA. Whereas here, everyone grew up on Nintendo and is more inclined to be open minded toward their products and games.

Thankfully, USA is a massive market while UK is pretty tiny, so the good news is, they're strong in the big markets and their weak markets don't have as much influence.

But they're still doing wonders gaining marketshare in the UK. I remember the Wii U and 3DS era. Nothing charted over there. It's a pretty stark contrast to today.

@Bolt_Strike yea I get it. I'd imagine it'll be 10 bucks in no time.

@Grumblevolcano
I don't think Balan is a game that can be fixed with patches. There's bugs, and then there's gameplay that's just flat out not fun. When it's the latter, there's not much that can be done.

@JaxonH so Monster Hunter Rise the second best/highest selling game of the franchise at the end of 2021? 10 milions units sold at minumum for Switch version of Monster Hunter Rise? and 12/14 milions units sold with the PC port of Monster Hunter Rise included?

@GrumbleVolcano Balan Wonderworld more like Balan Brokenworld that what i found out about Balan Wonderworld in YouTube and in the internet, Yuji Naka chance of making a good/excelent 3D plataform, for what i have seen, is not archived, many people come to the conclusion that Balan Wonderworld could be one of 2021 worst games.

The UK is probably Nintendo's weakest major market, and when half of the top ten games there every week are Nintendo exclusives, that tells you how well they're doing worldwide, lol.

Anyway, when a game is nowhere to be seen on physical charts and near the top of the eshop best-sellers chart, that usually means there was a small print run, or physical distribution has hit a snag, or what have you.