Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@JaxonH yes i noticed the game run well, is not the trainwreck Digital Foundry make us think the game is and @Kermit1 eesh time for us to go mute on social media in regards to Pokémon Scarlet e Violet, and @Grumblevolcano this long maintanace on eShop could be Nintendo preparing the release of next Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC.

Tactics Ogre is looking insanely good.

I had no idea how ahead of its time this game was. The sheer depth of mechanics dwarfs any other console srpg I've seen. So many mechanics in play at once. It's actually kind of intimidating- I'm no stranger to strategy but this game is on another level.

On another topic entirely, so many steelbooks releasing lately. Spent a fortune securing them all. In the last month alone, I've got:

Xenoblade 3, FAST RMX, Bayonetta 3, Mario Rabbids NA version, Mario Rabbids EU version, Splatoon 3, Persona 5 Royal, Diofield Chronicle, Tactics Ogre Reborn, Chaos Head NOAH, F.I.S.T. Forged In Darkness, with Pokémon Scarlet, Pokémon Violet, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet combo gold version, Atari 50, Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core and Fire Emblem Engage steelbooks on the way. And Radiant Silvergun coming at some point. And Doom Eternal. And crap, probably more I'm forgetting.

It used to be easy (relatively speaking) to collect Switch steelbooks, but man... lately they've gone off the rails. I'm going broke trying to keep up. All the EU exclusive ones I either have to preorder an EU version of the game with steelbook as bonus then sell the game, or buy the steelbook on eBay for around $45 on average. But some are EU exclusive and will be pretty rare. Listings will decrease and prices increase. Been through it before.

Gosh dang it...

SIFU looks like an immaculate port. Do you know what this means? It means I'm gonna have to buy it. Probably the collector edition with the steelbook. And the digital version.

This may sound twisted, but I was kinda hoping and even counting on it being a bad port so I could safely ignore it. Too many other games releasing.

But of course it's a great port. When you want a good port they're crappy and when you want a bad port they're excellent.

@Eagly

@JaxonH Replace that with Kermit replica materials and that's me.

And a frame rate test for SIFU

It's pretty close to perfect. A tiny brief blip of a few frames on rare occasion, but 99% of this video is a solid straight line

I think Bayonetta 3 combat has put me in more of a mood for this. Had kind of written it off for a while thinking it was super difficult and a rougue-lite, but no. Difficulty seems moderate. And it's not so much a rogue-lite as it is an arcade game with limited credits. Each death you age by 1 year, getting slightly weaker with age but gaining techniques as you age. Beat the game before you die at 120 yrs, or whatever it is.

Turns out Dark Souls Remastered is another ideal game for the Switch OLED. Game looks immaculate on that screen. Especially when you're trudging through dungeons filled with shadows.

BTW, I've always been able to see the influence Monster Hunter had on this series, but it's especially amusing to me that you get special weapons when you cut the tails off of dragons in this game!

Perfect game for portable play when you activate airplane mode. Starting it with online play enabled makes it where you can't put the game to sleep without it quitting back to the title screen. Offline mode avoids this. Only difference is the lack of gimmicky online features (bloodstains, messages, invasions, etc.)

Pity it doesn't look like we'll be getting the sequels on Switch.

@JaxonH Sifu looks VERY smooth. Good reminder that a lower framerate can work out fine if it's stable. Impressive looking port so far, although I'll want more info on how it runs in handheld mode specifically first.

I mean, probably depends on your definition of expensive and how much you play games vs "collect" games. I mean I usually buy something like 5-7 games a year I bother to track. Some of them smaller titles, some of them I don't really track, probably around $300AU/year Then ontop of that NSO+ which I share but for arguments lets say it's $60AU/yr.

Then there's hardware which, well, we haven't had for a while. But I'm usually buying some tech which is mostly used for gaming. Eg this year I got a Quest 2, last year I built a PC for my TV for games, 2019 I built my main PC and got a 1660Ti for it (which is now under my TV). A fair chunk of that wouldn't be "gaming" but most of it certainly is so lets count it. So maybe all up something around $70AU/mo? Which is a bit.....

.....but I've also over the last 3 years gone from having 1 album on Vinyl to having a collection of 38 records. And in that same time I've spent ~$1200AU on audio gear from Sonos and ~$300AU on headphones. Which I'm fairly sure comes out to a tad more..... especially if you were to include Spotify Premium into the mix.....

Anybody know if Sifu has a reversible cover with the female protag on it?

Gaming is definitely not an expensive hobby, not necessarily at least, even with Switch. When budget is a concern, my rule for buying games is for each hour of playtime to be worth 1 € or less, eg if I buy a game for 30 € I should get at least 30 hours of playtime from that game. This is not an absolute rule of course, as many games are easily worth even 2 € / hour, but in general has worked quite nice so far.

On average, I use my Switch about 600 hours each year, which means that I spent 600 € maximum, even less when you factor in RPGs, farming sims, roguelites, etc, that offer huge value and replayability. This means that I spent about 50 € each month for gaming, which is a very fair price, much better than other entertainment media imo, because you get to keep the content and have the option to play it again in the future, or even sell it (physical) to get back some of your money.

As an example, if someone decides to buy Stardew Valley, Dead Cells, Slay the Spire, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Hollow Knight, and Monster hunter Rise (pretty wide variety of genres), you can easily spent 600 hours on those games alone in one year, for less than 200 €, almost 100 € if you find some of these games on sales.

Agree that gaming is not necessarily an expensive hobby. It really depends how you approach it.

Sure, if you the top-spec versions of every console and regularly buy AAA games on launch...yeah, that adds up. Same if you're big into collecting, particularly for certain retro consoles.

But personally I find in these instances time becomes the limiting factor. The more games you buy, the more likely it is you're getting less time out of each indvidual game.

Video games generally offer great value for money. Let's say you buy Breath of the Wild for £50 and get 50 hours gameplay out of it... I personally can't think of many other hobbies that cost only £1 per hour. And that's just taking things at face value. Many games are massively replayable - I've personally got over 200 hours out of Fire Emblem Three Houses in the space of 3 years, and over a lifetime of owning Pokemon Red and Blue I suspect I've put over 1000 hours in.

And then there are just loads of options for saving money. Whether it's sticking to the previous generation, buying cheap games seconds hand, or sticking only to Xbox Game Pass (which has quite an expansive library - wouldn't be surprised if some people relied on this for all of their gaming needs).

Not to mention that most adults got into gaming when they were kids, where I'm sure they only had a small, finite pool of money to play around with... (Personally I got maybe 4-5 games a year and still spent a large chunk of my free time gaming)

Tldr: there are ways to afford gaming if you're smart and selective about what you play. Naturally, as with anything, there are compromises to be made.

Gaming is technically expensive for me (even in a non system year I spend at least a grand (usually more) a year and I did buy a ps5 and series x this year) but I am not a collector. I just have an interest in a lot of genres so that adds up. I also have an interest in gaming adjacent collecting like statues/figma. However things like gamepass help mitigate costs and I am winding down my collectibles spending. That being said this is likely my last gen of buying all systems. I’ll be redoing my PC when TES6 comes out and I have a backlog that should comfortably take me into my retirement years. I’m going to spend next year working on my retro setup.
My focus is shifting to maximizing my career(s) and wealth , finishing my formal education and preparing for my mother (my siblings can care for our father) needing assistance as she is now 70. Obviously I have time but the next decade is crucial. So I’m trying to step outside of hobbies that have no value outside of pure entertainment. I’m also finding that gaming doesn’t fulfill me the way it used to as I expected it to be in a better state by now.

That's an interesting snippet of insight into your mind. What kind of 'better state' had you expected?

Ok, I personally don't have a Switch, but my ex-best friend got one a few years ago. We used to play it all the time, and I need help remembering the name of a game we played. I'm gonna name some things from it based on memory. There's some kind of dog with wings, you might have orange-red hair. Your raft thing broke and you gotta find all the pieces to it. The game is rated E10+, and the title has "2" in it. EVerything in the world is made up. There's some purple wand thing you unlock later in the game. It's sort of a puzzle game, from what I remember. I also remember some area you unlock later is called Lonely Road. I haven't played this game in 4 years and I wanna at least remember the name.

The way I see it... the purity of physical games is likely to continue to be eroded. I'll still be buying physically, but the attraction of building a physical collection next gen will likely further diminish due to Day 1 patches, partial downloads required, etc.

...so I see Switch as possibly my last hurrah. Therefore I'm buying up nearly everything in physical form that I can get my hands on and see merit in if it looks at all possible that it will become scarce. Spending a lot. But Switch is the golden age of gaming, or as close to it as you can hope to get, where portability, resolution, breadth of library all come together like never before and perhaps never again.

Whatever comes after Switch, don't expect it to be nearly as successful. I just can't see how it can be. And then by the time the Switch successor is itself getting succeeded, we're going to be that much further down the line of digital delivery and big capitalism dominating the gaming environment.

Wallet... now is the time.

@gcunit
Switch is going to be like Wii, I suspect. Lot of ppl will keep playing the system for many years into the next generation.

But, do not underestimate the demand for Switch 2. There's a reason ppl can't stop talking about it and rumors won't go away. Ppl are thirsty for the hybrid concept. If Switch 2 can hit a $399 price point and offer 8th gen power, it's going to get inundated with quality ports from 8th/9th gen consoles that couldn't run on Switch. And ppl are gonna be all over that

Just like Switch was inundated with Resident Evil 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, Revelations, Revelations 2... Switch 2 will see RE2 Remake, RE3 Remake, RE4 Remake, RE7, RE Village, etc. All the games skipping Switch this gen are going to flood onto the next Switch.

Basically, handheld/hybrid gaming will essentially stay 1 gen behind in terms of getting the big games. And there's a lot of ppl who will want those games on a hybrid handheld system, and there's a lot of ppl who will have not yet played them. Just like we see today with the games Switch gets.

Idk if it'll match Switch numbers, but I don't foresee any future Switch that doesn't break 100 million units sold.

Anyone else find this 3 month gap before Zelda a bit sus?

If a new system were to be announced 3 months prior to Zelda and release day and date with it, what would we expect to see?

I would think we'd see no major games release during that timespan. Food for thought. May turn out to be just a gap leading up to a big release. Or, it may turn out they plug the gap with Advance Wars or something else.

But this doesn't exactly inspire confidence we won't see new hardware launch alongside Zelda.

And there aren't many games scheduled afterward. Either we get a February Direct that fills out 2023, or we get a Feb/Mar Direct that announces a new system for May.

The Switch will definitely be like PS2, where people were just buying games for it years after the successor released. Probably not from Nintendo, but definitely third-parties who will want to keep milking that userbase.

Switch 2 will be day one for me (or launch year, depending on how soon it releases) if purchases carry forward and its the same basic concept. I'd love a continuation of this generation.

@JaxonH That is definitely an interesting gap. I wouldn't be surprised at this point if this was due to new hardware. However, I could also easily see this gap being filled out with games in the February Direct.

@JaxonH My prediction is we see:

• December - Advance Wars (given a release date in the Indie World tomorrow)
• March - Detective Pikachu (given a release date in a January Pokemon Presents alongside the announcement of a Scarlet/Violet Expansion Pass)
• April - Metroid Prime remaster(s) [announced in the next general Direct as the "one more thing" alongside a confirmation that Prime 4 is still coming to Switch]