Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@NintendoByNature
Dekudeals is so clutch. It's like IsThereAnyDeal but for Switch gamers.

@JaxonH exactly. Just waiting on Amazon to price match octopath II and I'll grab it there. Of course, no gamestop stock anywhere local.

@JaxonH Muramasa is on Wii and vita.

@NintendoByNature I restarted Hollow Knight twice and still never finished. 😝 I always get hopelessly lost and don't want to use a online guide and then stop playing eventually.

@FishyS I think I eventually gave up due to a boss fight I couldn't get past. I still want to give it it's due as I know I'll be playing silksong on day 1 whether it's through GP or on switch.

I nearly bought Hollow Knight the other day but it wasn't in the sale, saw on Deku Deals it's been half price before so I left it.

@FishyS @NintendoByNature It seems somewhat unrelated to y'all's sticking point in the game but for me personally what got me out of the various stoppages in playing was watching some mossbag lore videos. The story can be learned by itself but everything having meaning all of the sudden did make the game a lot more exciting.

@chiiizu I'm sure there's tons of stuff I glossed over when I played it years ago. I've always been a surface level thinking gamer anyway. Lots of things fly right over my head for the most part lol

Mixed feelings on Pokemon Legends ZA being a 2025 release. On one hand, I'm relieved that they're taking extra development time and not forcing it out the door for this year. Pokemon very much needed a breather.

But man... without Pokemon in the holiday season I have no idea how Nintendo intends to keep Switch momentum going this year. Their lineup through the first half of this year is incredibly niche outside of Peach. I worry that this could be a "Wii fall of the cliff" type moment for them. I don't think Prime 4 is enough to anchor a holiday season either - that's a game that's bigger in internet list wars and hype than in actual sales performance.

@IceClimbers

The gap between Arceus and ZA is nice to see, perhaps it'll be less broken on arrival than Scarlet and Violet were?

I imagine Nintendo intend to coast for the next twelve months. Plenty of games yet to be released between now and the NG Switch's announcement and launch. Worrying about a multi-million dollar corporation is silly. I'd like to believe they're more solvent than a potential nine-month downturn in momentum.

Couldn't be worse than that Sony statement of "no new first party announcements in 2024".

That 10 billion loss in Sony stock value was gnarly.

@NintendoByNature I mean if you're not scholarly analyzing and cross-referencing every bit of dialogue and text, the game essentially tells you nothing. Seeing the lengths the community goes through to figure anything out at all is truly insane, I fully believe you could be laser-focused on even two or three playthroughs and not be able to figure out an enormous chunk of the lore. (heck, so much of the accepted lore is technically just theories based on all the cryptic allusions the game has) The story is great, but to anyone who isn't a fanatic, it's incomprehensible without outside help.

@IceClimbers Yeah I really didn't expect to feel so shaky about the Switch's future all of the sudden. Like can anything realistic feasibly carry the switch to next March?

@IceClimbers
At this point, Nintendo could completely disengage from Switch development and sell 15m consoles in the FY on back catalog alone. I don't think Pokemon game #7 was bringing in any new Switch gamers that the first 6 didn't already persuade.

Switch won't fall off a cliff like Wii because Switch isn't a fad like Wii. The Wii dropped as casuals lost interest and quickly moved on. The Switch has a sustainable customer base that's far more engaged and less fickle. New customers are buying for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, not whatever big holiday title they may or may not have (not to say those can't help boost adoption rate) but for sure, the majority of Switch sales now are on back catalog.

It'll be a light year. Splatoon 3 Side Order, Mario vs DK, Princess Peach, Luigi's Mansion 2, Endless Ocean, Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, probably Metroid Prime 2 Remastered and Metroid Prime 3 Remastered leading up to (if we're lucky!) Metroid Prime 4 this holiday. And I'm sure they have a few more surprises tucked away for H2 to coast to the finish line and push at the tape.

3rd party releases like Unicorn Overlord, Penny's Big Breakaway, Ys IX, Trails Through Daylight, Star Wars Battlefront Collection and Dark Forces Remaster, Eiyuden Chronicles, World of Goo 2, Ace Combat 7, Fantasy Life I, Sonic Generations Remaster, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, Epic Mickey, Perhaps either Decapolice or Professor Layton...

These are smaller, more niche titles but the kind of stuff gamers like us tend to salivate over. Meanwhile the bulk of new sales will be for evergreen mainstream titles. Not a massive, impressive year by any means, but enough to keep joycon in hand another year until the new era begins.

As an aside, I can't believe they did it! They finally freaking did it!

VB is a console I wouldn't care to play on Switch. But 3DS? Yes please...

https://www.retrorgb.com/virtual-boy-emulation-finally-arrive...

@IceClimbers I disagree like LM3 sold 13.98 million so LM2 wouldn’t be niche. Anyway, so far the 2024 lineup is:

• January - Another Code Recollection
• February - Mario vs. Donkey Kong
• March - Princess Peach Showtime
• May - Endless Ocean Luminous
• Summer - Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD
• 2024 - Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door

Considering this, it feels like there’s 2 likely outcomes:

• Direct around April to fill in the gaps for the rest of the year and announce release dates for LM2/TTYD. In this outcome, TTYD is June at the earliest.
• In the very near future (e.g. later this week) TTYD gets a trailer with an April release, LM2 gets a release date for June/July sometime within the next few months and a Direct happens around June to fill in the gaps for the 2nd half of the year. See how barren the 2nd half of 2023 was before the June Direct for example.

I’m leaning towards the former.

@Grumblevolcano That assumes LM2 is their June title. It should be a 5+ million seller, so by default it's their biggest seller of their known lineup. Still, out of what we know is launching (and has launched) in the 1st half of this year, everything but Peach is very niche.

@JaxonH That's fair. The question is though, how much further can Switch's back catalog carry the system? That remains to be seen. Regardless, there's still plenty to play this year and I've got a backlog to get through!

@IceClimbers
Hard to say, but I imagine it's been carrying the system for at least the last year or so already. Not because big games haven't released, but because the backlog in totality is just so much more appealing to someone who doesn't yet own the system.

Sure, to us it may feel like old news. But to the consumer who has yet to buy a Switch, all the hype and excitement we experienced for each and every one of those titles is all balled up into one big impulse purchase.

Assuming Switch 2 never came, I think Switch could do another 13m through Mar 2025, another 9m through Mar 2026, another 5m through Mar 2027, another 2m through Mar 2028, and from there on out it would likely total another 1m the rest of its production run, just barely crossing 170 million units sold over its lifetime.

With Switch 2 releasing 2025, I'd curtail that estimate to 160 million sold over its lifetime.

But what do I know. I'm just pulling numbers out of the air lol!

@IceClimbers Nintendo problaby have some games to it sleeve, i would not doom ourselfs, before knowing Nintendo’s line up for this year

If everyone could stop saying this is a dry year, that would be great. Do folk not like video games these days?

@GrailUK I remember 2023 was a dry year and Nintendo had no notable releases past Zelda in May.

And then the June Direct happened.

Nintendo is suiying Switch emulator Yuzu over claims of piracy and IP agressivo