Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@JaxonH ah yes I remember looking back on this one a couple of years ago...it doesn't get any less funny xD

I got the Wii U hilariously wrong and I wasn't sure how I thought the Switch would do (though with BOTW at launch, I certainly didn't think it would do as badly as the Wii U).

But I do think I saw how things could go well for it in its first year, and those random thoughts turned out to be incredibly correct. Mostly in that I saw the lack of massively big 3rd party games as a potential advantage as long as the handful of smaller games did well and Nintendo came through with a strong first year of old and new games of their own, and that they were re-doing what they tried to do with the 3DS launch, but correctly this time.

It is still amazing though that the early 3rd party support of Mass Effect 3 and Arkham City and COD did so much worse than the early 3rd party support of Tetris Puyo, Disgaea and a mediocre Bomberman game.

People like that don't really learn, of course. First it was: "Nintendo Switch will be a failure." Then it was: "Nintendo Switch third-party support will die off once the next-gen consoles come out." And until recently, it's been: "Nintendo Switch sales will soon die off because Nintendo won't release a more powerful revision."

For hardcore partisan loyalists, it's always a matter of just jumping from one doomer talking point to the next when it comes to the competition.

There needs to be a term for the AAA game obsessed discussions on gaming and how they don't reflect reality, because Nintendo's refusal to follow the other two consoles' lead has rotted brains like our parents always thought games would. :V

For years now I'd see some people here be like "but what about AAA games" from people with so little knowledge that they never can actually bring up more than a handful of games that Nintendo is even missing out on, and I think that sums up AAA gaming's relevance on Switch more than anything I can say. (also almost none of those games will ever be even 1/4 as popular as Minecraft or Fortnite lol)

Apparently Ninty are giving its developers a 10% raise, good for them.

https://kotaku.com/nintendo-switch-union-pay-raise-layoffs-po...

@jump Minty always doing their employees good...

@kkslider5552000 It's one of those areas of gamer culture that deeply weirds me out.

You see so many people who claim only to care about AAA productions, and, like, why does it matter to you how much money was involved in a game's production? It's the equivalent of a person claiming to only watch Marvel/Disney and James Cameron films, because smaller horror films/romantic comedies/documentaries/etc. don't have enough money on the line. You'd end up cheating yourself out of most of the best films released in a given year.

And then you could easily argue (and I would argue) that the way budgets and development times have skyrocketed in recent years for big third-party blockbusters is fundamentally unhealthy for the industry. You get fewer games overall, and less diversity in terms of game design because, the more time and money you invest in a thing, the most pertinent it is to make a return, which means you lean on models that have already proven to be winners.

It's why the majority of major games you see from Western studios now tend to be action-adventure games with open-world/semi-open world environments, crafting systems, and light RPG elements.

It's why I'm so happy with Nintendo's current direction. You have a few BIG productions, yes, but they also release so much other stuff: JRPGs, competitive shooters, SRPGs, 2D platformers, sports games, etc. Most of it looks good, but isn't expensive enough that it takes five years and hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Meanwhile, they contract projects out to partners like Ubisoft, Koei-Tecmo, Capcom, WayForward, etc. to get an even wider diversity of releases on the system.

Switch has so much stuff coming out for it all the time, and almost none of it is cinematic third-person action-adventure stuff with crafting and RPG mechanics. The system feels like a throwback to older generations in the best possible ways.

@Grumblevolcano Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the best selling Mario Kart, if you combine the Wii U sales(8 milions and the Deluxe sales 50 milion), but i dont expect Nintendo would do a second Booster Pack to extend Mario Kart lifespan, the game is nearly 10 years old, for that reason i expect the Switch sucessor to launch with a brand new Mario Kart game, not Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Deluxe

@Ralizah Very much agreed there. More AA and mid-budget titles helps provide variety and allows for more creativity and risk-taking.

It's why I hope Microsoft learns from Hi-Fi Rush's success and allows their studios to do more of that sort of thing.

I've always equated it to only listening to Lady Gaga and other trendy pop songs on the mainstream radio stations.

It's catchy music and there's nothing wrong with liking that, but if that's your obsession to the extent you snub your nose at any music from an artist that's not guaranteed to top billboards, you're cheating yourself. And lying to yourself if you think just because those albums sell the most records and win all the awards, that means it's actually the best music.

Almost every game I play nowadays is AA. And that's not because I specifically seek AA games out. It's just how the cards fall. It just so happens that all the good stuff that appeals to me seems to not be AAA, because as was previously mentioned, AAA is confined to a very specific recipe nowadays, to the point those genres are homogenized more and more each year.

There's a few AAA I love, like Monster Hunter Rise, but for every one of those, there's a dozen Fire Emblem's and Octopath Traveler II's and Triangle Strategy's and Mario Rabbids and Xenoblade 3's and Trails of Reverie's and Pikmin 4's and Redemption Reaper's and Persona 5's and Splatoon 3's (though I suppose you could categorize Splatoon 3 as AAA).

I haven't played Hi-Fi Rush, but it looks exactly like my kind of game. I've always felt Xbox had high quality fun gameplay in their games, but because of their proclivity to follow Sony in making nearly every game a massive AAA or bust, they miss so many opportunities to appeal to Switch gamers.

Halo Infinite with gyro, Gears 5 with gyro... these games are straight fire. Ori games? Straight fire. And now Hi-Fi Rush too? Instead of investing in 5 massive AAA titles, invest in 3, and take the resources from the other 2 and pump out half a dozen AA games that don't need to be constricted by that mega-budget cookie cutter. Not only would it flesh out their release lineup, it would provide far more variety. Those games may not sell to their core base but it would certainly appeal to gamers like me who aren't their core base. And if they want to grow, they need to draw more gamers in than just those who love western AAA and gamepass freebies.

@Ralizah in addition to people wanting their money’s worth with games/movies I’d throw in they just want to chase the zeitgeist conversation about the big event release.

Maybe it’s an introvert/extrovert thing where the group discussion of the event like a big production release of movie/game is more important than the experience of a movie/game itself. It would explain why people keep complaining why x franchise sucks but they keep talking about it rather than going for the thing they would like/gets legitimate praise.

My 1TB microSD card arrived and everything's now transferred over to the new card. I'm now officially ready for the next Direct. Cutting it a bit close but my old one (400GB) was so close to running out of space that all it would've taken is a few shadow drop announcements like "Octopath 2 demo out now" and I wouldn't have had enough space.

@JaxonH
I don't even care or like with AAA games like you have mentioned from your post.
I prefer the underrated / unpopular games that still have their fans.
And speaking about music, I prefer the underrated / unpopular musics too like Super Eurobeat songs, 90's Eurodance songs, 80's remix songs by Youtubers, BEMANI rhythm games music.

@Grumblevolcano In before Nintendo announces they couldn’t be bothered to optimise their games, so these shadow drops are all going to need separate 1TB SD cards each.

sadly Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom will be the first Nintendo game priced at $70 eesh

@Giancarlothomaz I'm still buying that game on day one... or two depending on how it looks.

I locked in my preorder mere minutes before the online listings were yanked, lol.

I wonder what this means for the voucher program?

It's possible that $70 listing for Zelda was an error, but we'll have to wait and see.

@Giancarlothomaz
Sadly?
Smash and BotW were €70(tax included) already here. I'd say it was inevitable. They saw that they could sell it for that price.
Just buy them physically. They are cheaper most of the times.

Gonna say both Smash and BOTW were £60 here.