Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

I preordered the N64 controller for myself and some Series 5 Amiibo cards as a gift. And because it was enough to tip over the free shipping threshold I added some My Nintendo rewards to the cart. I had 600 platinum coins which was enough for the Yoshi canvas pouch and pens

I wanted those holographic Metroid posters but I just spent 800 platinum coins on the Zelda Skyward Sword HD art frame. Provably take me 2 yrs to get enough coins again to get the posters. They’ll be long gone by then.

Oh. My. Goodness. This here… this is mind blowing! Get this.

The Switch OLED, on MAXIMUM BRIGHTNESS + Wifi, playing Zelda Breath of the Wild, a full AAA game, not some garage indie, gets 5 Hrs 20 Min compared to the v2 Switch which gets 4 Hrs 15 Min. That’s over 1 HOUR extra playtime on max settings. Let this sink in. The BARE MINIMUM PLAYTIME for a AAA GAME on MAX BRIGHTNESS is OVER 5.25 hrs! You can crank that screen and not worry about a thing! No need to dim brightness and salvage battery… OLED is having none of that. OLED wants you to enjoy your games in full capacity.

@JaxonH I'm not normally one to hope for a cruddy outcome, but in both of those cases, I wouldn't be surprised and I may even find a little enjoyment in seeing them fail a little. Not bc I don't want the content, bc I do, but both are just absurd. And therefore, I'm hoping enough people don't buy it To make a change.

@NintendoByNature
Ya, I kinda feel the same. I think a lot of ppl are going to look at joining a family plan now to save $. Which at the end of the day, results in little to no additional revenue for Nintendo. So it’s a great solution, as it offers us an entry point while not paying a single extra penny (and often even paying less) and ensures Nintendo doesn’t see a massive revenue spike for the Expansion,

@JaxonH totally. I already have a family plan with my daughter and I may ask my work buddy to join. Not sure yet. But even then I'm still looking at 40 for me

Nintendo is abusing their fan's trust. So I'm going to say this expansion pack is the worse of the two. SQ was lazy, nothing more.

I'm not so sure Nintendo expects any additional revenue. If that was the case, why offer a Family Plan at any stage? That just has them lose money.

Why keep handing out Free Trials to the service semi regularly? Why give the stuff away with games like Overwatch and Tetris 99?

Genuinely this feels like Nintendo just shutting investors up (wouldn't be the first time mind) and also shutting the Twitter patrol up who want more.

People needed to understand that adding more games, especially games already on sale on Switch, that deal would need to be pretty sweet. But that's what people wanted.

Heck, people wanted more stuff in general. So now Game Trials are monthly, that costs money, adding DLC into the service will have cost factored in.

People wanted Nintendo to do more. The price has to go up. The same will happen to Game Pass one day.

I mean let's be real. What actually sane company says "Let's allow 8 people on the service for the price of 2".

That's 6 people getting in for basically free. If this was any other company there'd be a lot of "Oh Hell Naw" in those offices.

Again, I don't think Nintendo really cares that much. Investors bugged em to charge for online, they do so, people want more games, more features, the price does need to go up eventually.

Of course, the online could be better. In my personal experience the service is fine. I can play many online games with people from around the world at once, here in the UK, Scotland, freaking North Carolina, California and Hong Kong all in one game. And it runs absolutely buttery smooth.

But when my mate with crap internet from Ireland pops in. It all goes to hell. Lag, pausing, stutters, the works.

Almost like the actual problem is on the global infrastructure.

Judging by how most subscription services actually run, most of them actually. Just look at all of the video streaming apps, how many of them acknowledge account sharing by having distinct profiles? Hell Netflix literally has different tiers for allowing more screens at once

Also, I think some people don't realise is that there's more to revenue than just the price. Ok so this NSO+ right now seems kinda average but lets say they expand it to include more first party DLC. Possibly even all first party DLC. And you might ask what sane company would move to a model where they're not charging at point of sale for DLC. Well, one that recognises the cost of risk. Which is all of them

Think about it, you're Nintendo and you allocate development time post release to games. At a point where potentially you're not entirely sure how well the title will continue to sell or how long the game will hold people's attention. You're targeting a platform within a platform. What proportion of those people who have the game at that point, are still engaged with it AND know about the DLC will pay up? Unknowns on unknowns

But lets say NSO+ comes out and is an alternate way for people to access this content. Well now all of a sudden Nintendo knows with confidence how much money is coming in for this DLC up front. They can use that to pay for ongoing development of potentially more commercially risky projects. There's also the added benefit now where the DLC, being "free", will push people who skipped the game but have NSO+ to pick up the game. And that incentive still exists even for people leaching at the tail end of a Family Membership

@skywake Indeed. If it was as black and white as people make it out to be, the old "greedy Nintendo" argument, then yeah, Nintendo is frankly out of their minds giving this good of a deal. The investors would be having a fit.

Bit we know it's not that simple.

It's like the argument that Bayonetta 3 likely won't make a profit, that's acting like the 30m sales of Animal Crossing exclusively get funded into the next Animal Crossing. They don't.

Extra money is mobile. Poorer performing products can be subsidized by high performers. It's a strong business model.

Not every game needs to be a multi million seller. That's where some companies falter.

That's what NSO is. An extra revenue stream and yeah lots of that fee is to cover the absolute mountain of licensing for third parties.

@Eel
We got another one. My brother wants to join, and sent me his email. I'm going to email it to you now so you can send the invite.

@JaxonH ah! Great. I’ve sent him the invite. The group is full now!

I'm seriously blown away by how good Metroid Dread is. The further I get, the better it gets, the more I love it.

This is up there with Zelda BotW and Monster Hunter Rise for me. And it's coming dangerously close to Metroid Prime 2, my definitive favorite game ever. I'm still not sure a 2D Metroid can top that, but even if it doesn't, it's at least within a stone's throw.

It's everything I ever wanted from a Metroid game in HD. At least on the 2D side, anyways.

I need more. I really do. I'm not even done with the game and I'm already starting to feel separation anxiety knowing it can't go on for too much longer.

@JaxonH so you saying Metroid Dread could surpass Super Metroid? soon i gonna play this amazing game in my extended battery Switch.

check out all the 300 itens that is gonna apear in the 2.0 update and Happy Home Paradise DLC

@JaxonH
I'm almost at the end myself now and I definitely don't want it to finish. At this stage I'll probably play some Super Metroid once I'm done

I do kind of wonder if the absence of Earthbound is for a particular reason. A "Link's Awakening" or Advance Wars style remake for example - or a compilation package of all 3 games.

Nintendo knows that - as niche gaming brands go - Earthbound is rock solid but it's also not a series that really has any natural point for sequels (that would be in anything other than name).

Likewise it seems obvious now in hindsight that the Mario 3d All Stars collection being time limited was - in part - to clear the decks ahead of N64 games coming to NSO.

In terms of the price - which everyone else has discussed - I don't know why anyone is feigning surprise. Nintendo very rarely prices their games low - even old ones. If they signalled that 20 N64 games were worth about £10 a year then how do they sell new games that are about as long and no more content rich? It's one thing to flood loads of NES games (that last about an hour if you save scum) into your ecosystem but games like Ocarina of Time and DK 64 (though I care not for it) are huge, possibly over-developed, time sinks that last at least a dozen hours however you play them - such games create major competition for new games (whether first party or not). Like I've never played Kirby 64 or Star Allies and I'm sure that Star Allies is vastly better looking but do I really need to buy Star Allies if I've never played Kirby 64 and that's "free"?

One big long term question is whether it makes sense for Nintendo to come to more substantial arrangements with Konami and Capcom for their back catalogues (possibly purchasing them outright if that were a possibility).

@StuTwo
The precedent had been set with NES and SNES for $20/yr, and that was after accounting for cloud save backups and online access. So the actual NES/SNES portion felt like $10 on top of $10 for cloud saves + online.

Adding N64 and Genesis is great. But, going by the very precedent set by the base model sub, anything more than $10 extra was unexpected. Especially given there’s no ownership. Maybe I could see $15- it would be a bit high, but ppl would come around to it. But $30? It’s too much, and definitely more than any of us were expecting.

Hence the Animal Crossing DLC a being tossed in. Because they know it’s a hard sell adding $30 to the cost for N64 games. It would be different if you owned them, but this is a rental, so the value of each game is not what it would be if buying them.

I mean, if they want $50/yr, I would expect a full suite of VC. GB, GBC, GBA and DS added in would make it feel much more complete. $50/yr gets you access to the retro classics.

The saving grace is the family plan. Family plan is the solution. 8-way split makes it $10/yr. Even a 4-way split makes it the same price as the base service on a solo plan.

@Giancarlothomaz
Imo… yes.

@skywake
Same. That or Samus Returns, or Metroid Prime 2.

I know some people aren't happy that the Pearl/Diamond Switch versions aren't like from the ground up transformations into the more modern style of Pokemon games, but I honestly don't really care.

I haven't properly from start to finish sat down and played a mainline Pokemon game in maybe a decade? I also have no idea where my DS even is anymore, that hasn't been touched in about as long. I do get it, if you own the DS versions - especially Platinum, there probably isn't a huge value proposition here, especially as Nintendo are charging full price for these but I am not entirely sure you are even necessarily the intended audience for this?

I am just excited to be able to play a mainline Pokemon game on my Switch that will hopefully not have all of S/S technical problems, since this uses a blend of chibi overworlds and then more modern 3Dish battles.

Plus, my Sister is going to be playing this at the same time and it'll be cool to be able to go through this together, as we don't see each other much anymore living in different cities and the Switch has really been a way for us to hang out in a way that feels organic.

And just generally, I am really excited to have both that and the new SMT game to really sink some hours into on my Switch. Haven't really had a meaty time investment on my Switch since I stopped playing Rise.

October has turned out to be a phenomenal month. Monkey Ball Banana Mania started us off with a bang, followed by the incredible Metroid Dread, Tetris Effect: Connected and Switch OLED, with Disco Elysium, Castlevania Advance Collection and Subnautica double pack, Crysis 2 and Crysis 3, Dying Light, Fatal Frame, Voice of Cards and Mario Party SuperStars. I love months like this that are chock to the hilt.

Seems Dying Light is a really high quality port too, per Digital Foundry. They use a reconstruction method to achieve 1080p docked and 720p handheld that looks remarkably close to native. I'm glad, because I love games like this with gyro aiming in handheld.

Crysis 3 Remastered has also taken me by surprise as a really fun game, especially given I didn't like the first. So that's two high quality shooters, one 3rd person and one 1st person.

I need to get back to soooo many games I stopped playing halfways through. But I can't. I just keep falling further behind. Like, I couldn't even finish Monkey Ball, Tetris Effect or Disco Elysium because of Metroid. And before that I never finished Monster Hunter Stories 2, Neo TWEWY or Zelda Skyward Sword HD, and before that... it goes on and on back to 2017 with the Switch launch.

The real question is- should Voice of Cards get priority (I loved the demo) or Fatal Frame. Don't have time for both.

@Pizzamorg
I am just excited to be able to play a mainline Pokemon game on my Switch that will hopefully not have all of S/S technical problems

I kind of agree. That's why this particular Pokémon is appealing to me. Sword was OK, but wild areas were a bit rough. We'll see how Legends turns out, but it seems Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will provide a Pokémon experience that doesn't feel rough, be it aeathetically or framerate wise. It feels like the old handheld Pokémon experience, but in nice, crisp HD with more modernized assets.

I don't have room on my 1TB micro SD to hold every Pokémon, especially since they're all so similar. I suspect I'll end up archiving Sword and Shield, and maybe Legends depending on performance. But Let's Go Pikachu and Brilliant Diamond will be permanent fixtures in the portfolio.

SMT, obviously, mega hype.