Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

http://www.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=222560247

• Capcom predicts 100million PS4's and 40~50million Xbox One's will be sold by 2020.
• Predicts Street Fighter 5 will have long legs due to its e-sports popularity
• Capcom is a rare Japanese video game developer with a heavy focus on overseas consumers, must make games to appeal to the foreign consumers
• Talks about Monster Hunter 4 G's sales are being lower in the West compared to Japan, but is explained that it is due to the fact that the handheld market is only 10% of the dedicated video game market compared to Japan where handhelds are popular, and that they are taking the proper procedures to make sure that Monster Hunter grows overseas

It's obvious that Capcom needs to put major Monster Hunter title on a home console to make the series grow outside of Japan. It's just a matter if where and when. Monster Hunter makes a lot of sense on the Switch, when you consider its immense popularity in Japan, and the country's gradual shift towards portable gaming. But with Capcom's comments on the vast PS4/XBO install base, and western markets being a main priority for the company's future titles, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a major Monster Hunter title heading to the PS4/XBO.

Apart from it being the latest in portable HD dedicated gaming experiences, perhaps not.

Perhaps, but Nintendo, I get the feeling, is not the sort of company that likes to be beholden to others like that. Sure, it appreciates the customers that MH brings, but as we are constantly reminded, Nintendo aims to broaden the gaming audience so going big on what is still a niche title seems unlikely.

@skywake

Monster Hunter isn't as big in the west, but I wouldn't say it's not selling. Sales in the west are a lot higher than you think. Capcom actually gave us a regional breakdown of Monster Hunter 4G sales. It has sold 4.1 million units as of Sep. 2016. With 65% of sales coming from Japan and 35% of sales coming from overseas markets. The series has peaked in Japan, but Capcom sees huge potential for growth outside of Japan.

@MarcelRguez
So you're saying that the Switch needs to win over as many from the 3DS audience that it can. And on that point I think it's fair enough and I agree. And of the franchises people got the 3DS for? Monster Hunter is high on the list. And with the franchise selling to ~1/6th of the 3DS' audience? I'd agree with that also.

But that's where you lose me. Because you're not talking about the game not appearing on the Switch, you're talking about the audience being diluted by a PS4 release. And most of those sales were in Japan, a country where the PS4 hasn't sold that well. Worse case scenario you're talking maybe a few hundred thousand gamers not getting the Switch because they can play it on the PS4. More likely it doesn't make a dent at all on the Switch and instead the audience for Monster Hunter grows slightly by being available to the ~50mill PS4/XBOne owners outside of Japan.

I don't think the Tegra is anything to worry about.

People get so caught up in numbers and words these days that it's easy to lose focus of the reality; in which case, negative reaction is mostly hyperbole.

If we assume based on reports that the Switch's SoC is indeed in the 1 TFLOP ballpark, then first things first - well done Nintendo and Nvidia, that's an impressive feat for a system that can go mobile.

But on point, lets look compare with the competition. The XB1 is believed to be in the 1.3 TFLOPs ballpark. That makes a difference of roughly 0.3 GFLOPs or, to look at it another way, 23%. This in itself is not a large drop off, especially given that relatively few studios actually have the finance or time to develop software that, quote-unquote, 'maxes out' the hardware. Therefore, that drop-off in performance should be largely negligible for a majority of titles that are ported to Switch.

This comparison isn't the most important, however. The PS4 is believed to be in the region of 1.8 TFLOPs; which means the difference in available performance between it and the XB1 is 38%. This means there is a greater gap in available performance between the PS4 and XB1.

Turn your attention to the titles available on these systems. The industry and the customers who purchase these products have all changed drastically even over the last 10 years, let alone 20 and earlier. The times of 'night and day' differences between output has largely eradicated.

Children, once the core audience for video games, no longer argue about what system is better. (I work in a school so have first-hand knowledge of playground natters...) Put me on a stake, but the people who genuinely care about pixel-peeping, lighting differences, shading, texture mapping, a micro-second drop in frame rate and more have become a niche. Their interests lie not primarily in the concept of gameplay, but in the ability of the hardware.

Looking at the mainstream demographic then, how many people out in the wild, regardless of being a child, teen, single adult or parent, actually notices or even cares about the differences between the PS4 and XB1 output? Remember; this is a 38% drop-off. If people are arguing that Nintendo has dropped the ball because the rumoured number of TFLOPs appears low, then they are missing the point entirely. Hardware is only as good as the way you use it.

Of course, none of this takes into account how studios will actually develop for Switch. This is newer hardware with support for more modern initiatives - I'm willing to bet therefore that even if ports are scarce, indie and mobile developers will not hesitate to bring their games to this system.

@Emperor-Palpsy If you're going to use quotation marks, please don't write quote-unquote as well, I get all confused

@Emperor-Palpsy Precisely, if the Switch is indeed able to achieve the 1.0 Teraflop threshold and supports the modern engine, then it will be more than fine. And congratulations will be in order to Nvidia, it will be an impressive technical feat for a portable device that doesn't seem to be targeting the price of a kidney. A small vocal minority of graphic ladies-of-the-night will whine about limitations, just like the PS4 vs Xbox One whine on multiplatform games, but the vast majority of people won't care in the slightest as long as the games are there.

Tegra X1 is reported to achieve 1.0 Teraflops. Now, Tegra Parker ought to be able to go a bit further than that, with more power efficiency. Sounds good to me.

@MarcelRguez
We're talking about fractions of fractions. Monster Hunter is not a system seller for Nintendo's portables in the West. It is a system seller for their portables in Japan but Japan is not very interested in the PS4. So saying Monster Hunter on the PS4 will do anything to Switch sales is a bit of a stretch. It will probably help sales of Monster Hunter overall but it won't be at the expense of the Switch.

If you want to talk about franchises that matter for Nintendo? In Japan Monster Hunter on the 3DS is third to Pokemon and Animal Crossing. So in Japan, where the PS4 isn't going anywhere fast, Monster Hunter matters. But in the US it's behind Pokemon, Mario, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion, Nintendogs, Paper Mario, Fire Emblem, Tomodachi Life, Mario & Luigi, Kingdom Hearts and Donkey Kong. So I doubt Nintendo are losing sleep about Capcom pushing for Monster Hunter on the PS4 & XBOne in order to capture a western audience.

@Samurai_Goroh Our profanity filter doesn't like the w-word that you used to describe people who like graphics.

They'll be losing sleep over it if going multiplatform to grow the series in the West means PS4/XB1 while skipping the Switch completely. And yes, that is a possibility.

I would not put it past Capcom at all to make that move and forgoe their Japanese base all together/expect them to switch (pun totally intended) to PS4 for the sake of the western market.

@IceClimbers The fortunate thing is that a MH game on the PS4 (and Xbox One) could also run on the Switch (although it needs to be ported over). So it works both ways. If it ends up as a PS4/Xbox title, it's very likely that it'll come to the Switch, but if they're developing for Switch, then it's pretty likely that it'll end up on other platforms too.

@MarcelRguez
Again, I could see where you were coming from if Monster Hunter didn't exist on the Switch. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the game also appearing on the PS4 in addition to the Switch. A move that to the extent it will impact Monster Hunter sales it'll do it mostly in regions where the game hasn't sold well on the 3DS.

And I agree with the Switch needing a broader audience but again, I don't see how Monster Hunter not being on the PS4 changes that. Even if the PS4 version pulls everyone interested in that game outside of Japan away from the Switch. On the Wii U Bayonetta, Xenoblade, ZombiU, Rayman, Just Dance, Skylanders and Lego games were bigger than Monster Hunter in the US. Monster Hunter in the US on the Wii U was on par with Call of Duty, The Wonderful 101, Batman, Assassin's Creed, FIFA and Mass Effect.

That's before we consider franchises that never appeared on Wii U and 3DS that could matter more than Monster Hunter. Overwatch, Dark Souls and Madden. Literally anything Rockstar or Bethesda touch. There's a whole collection of games that the Switch needs far more than Monster Hunter if it's going to win over western audiences. And that does include all of the Nintendo franchises, all of which are going to be the #1 reason to get a Switch.

... that's what she said.

@skywake
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate sold over 1.4million on the 3DS outside of Japan. That's a lot higher than the overseas sales of Kingdom Hearts 3D from Square Enix, and is on par with the overseas sales of Nintendo's own 3DS titles like Fire Emblem and Donkey Kong. There is clearly a market for Monster Hunter in the west. It's not as non-existent as you make it out to be.

@MarcelRguez
Well of course when I list Wii U third party games that outsold the Wii U port of Monster Hunter in the US it's not a long list. There weren't many third party games on the Wii U. But even so, the ones that did appear all made as much an impact on the Wii U as Monster Hunter did. I also agree that we can't do much other than read tea leaves, there isn't an exact equivalent to this. I just think it's odd to think it'll have a huge negative impact on the Switch.

@MumboJumbo
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate sold about the same as Kingdom Hearts 3D outside of Japan. But in the US Kingdom Hearts sold better. In any case a hundred thousand here or there isn't the point. The point is that outside of Japan Monster Hunter is well down the list of important releases on Nintendo platforms. It'll be further down again if third parties take an interest in the Switch.

Basically they'd be stupid not to release the game on Switch given their big audience for the game in Japan. Japan likes portables, the Switch will be the new portable system. It only makes sense. Outside of Japan? The PS4 version might make an impact. But I doubt it'll have a massive negative impact on Switch sales given that the game didn't find much of an audience in the west. Not enough for it to be a game people in the west will buy the Switch specifically for.

There is just something about Monster Hunter that gets to people it seems, just by making a basic statement like they did Capcom have set off a lot of people on many forums. Is it the scars of losing Tri to the 'casual non-console' the Wii still showing through? Is it how it is practically the only critically acclaimed 3rd party game to not appear on either the Xbox One or in particular the PS4? Is it the scorn of people who don't like to play on handhelds, and they would be fine with it on any of the Switch (Doc mode)/Xbox/PS4? Or possibly all of those things?

I dunno why Monster Hunter is held on such a high pedestal, higher than a lot of obviously more popular games. Sony haven't cared about the franchise in years and they've been doing just fine without it and it completely baffles me why they suddenly are desperate for it not just to be on their system but to be an exclusive. Similarly Capcom have achieved a level of consistent success that is rare for them with all the big MHs selling over 4 million. Yet people seem really, really desperate for this random rumour to be true in the face of most logic that I can see, who funnily enough I'd imagine were less than impressed with a certain Rise of a certain Tomb Raider's first year on the market.

Lest we forget Street Fighter 5 and all that. But I guess we'll be none the wiser until at least PSX or more likely January the 12th so this is just random speculation that rarely goes anywhere so eh.

@skywake
Nintendo had over a dozen million sellers on the Wii U, including several multi-million sellers. But the hardware sales remained sluggish. That's because there is a very clear overlap between the audiences that are buying titles from Nintendo's 1st-party franchises. It's not right to think that a major Monster Hunter title will be less of a system-seller than every other Nintendo franchise. After all, major 3rd-party titles are what Nintendo's hardware needs to attract wider audiences.

With total sales of over 38 million, Monster Hunter is Capcom's 2nd biggest franchise after Resident Evil. It has overtaken the likes of Mega Man and Street Fighter, despite being launched 2 decades later.

You are assuming the size of Monster Hunter's overseas audience can't expand. As Capcom have stated in their recent results briefing, their plan is to grow the series in overseas markets. Monster Hunter will only get bigger in the west, once Capcom gives it a heavier marketing push.

@Octane Capcom already made comments on Sony and Nintendo's differences in how they approach business, suggesting that Switch/PS4 multiplats from them are unlikely to happen.

I can see Capcom making it a PS4/XB1 release, skipping the Switch, and then westernizing the franchise by changing the formula in order to appeal to the western market while killing their Japanese base in the process. I would not put Capcom past that. And what a glorious train wreck it would be.

Capcom is moneycom. You're talking about the company that sells 7 versions of street fighter with 10 pixels difference each at full price.

Nintendo, a new portable, and monster hunter is burning a hole in their margin estimates.

Nah, capcom wants the business. Releasing on a new nintendo that you can carry with you is insta business for them. We'll reap the benefits in the west

@erv Nintendo isn't marketing the Switch as a portable though, they seem very set on marketing it as a home console so the 3DS isn't cannibalized while they of course don't care about the Wii U.

Maybe they'll change the marketing starting January 12th when the holiday season is over but at the moment, being able to take the Switch anywhere is just an extra.