The Switch eShop Now Lets You Search for Game Demos

...Nintendo's getting there

That's pretty nice

Music! Please!

Cool............I guess?

I just want that groovy Wii shop music

Still so basic.

Well I would just search 'demo' in the search box and it would of pulled up all the games with demos..... but hey, still a nice touch

Finally!

I was able to do that before. We need a demo section to make it easiest.

When will Nintendo take the switch UI out of early access alpha? 😋

This was the number one requested eShop feature I believe.

@rjejr will be thrilled given he gets his money's worth for any console out of the demo section alone.

Screw it, this is off topic but I can't contain myself. L.A. Noire is so dang good on Switch! And it's actually playable from cart without any download. The entire open world is available and half the case files (or, at least a portion anyways). Full 1080p docked/720p handheld, the game looks practically identical to the PS4 version. Only it also has motion controls, and it also has touchscreen support, and it also has HD Rumble, and you also get a handheld version and a portable console version and a console version all in one. And gosh dang did I mention this game looks good?

And Rocket League... don't get me started. I can't believe I'm playing this game on a friggin handheld! It looks so good!

All this off the back of the incredible DOOM, which to be perfectly honest I would put up there with Mario and Zelda as one of the best games on the system. I say all three of these games are absolute must-have's that any Switch owner should add to their libraries.

Not there yet, but it's improving.

Slowly but surely...

@evilnatt I was thinking that same thing earlier today. It’s a great tune...somehow just so ‘Nintendo’.

I’d love to have an option for some ambient menu music in general.

Good. Now let the Switch users rate the games they bought. Sony lets PS4 users do it, why not Nintendo?

I’d be lying if I said I’ve never gone to the eShop just to hear the little loading screen tune. Reminds of the Wii eShop somehow, feels good.

On one hand, I miss the eShop music and graphics of the Wii and Wii U days, but I totally understand Nintendo's wanting to do everything they can to get the shop to load as quickly as possible, and said features would probably bog it down.

I do think they definitely need to get a step on putting game genres in the catergories list however. The addition of "Games on Sale" and searching for games with demos is nice, but the eShop is at a stage where it gets overloaded so quickly that games just a week old are already getting pushed off the "Recent Releases" page.

Wow, finally.

I am still looking for a way to easily see things on my wish list...

@JaxonH I can't seem to find it on the US Amazon store... They only have a UK imported version... Isn't that weird?

I'd rather ask for some music. For the Home screen as well... If possible, make it the Mii Channel theme

@Nincompoop Maybe because of trolls giving a game zero and fanboys giving it 10? If I'm not wrong, the Wii U had a rating system as well out of 5 but fanboys and trolls ruined it.

Music !
Music !
Music !
E-shop Menu without Music = Tasteless Ice Cream

One step at a time. New features and improvements will be added over time.

How hard would it be to have a simple tab for demos? I love my Switch but the eshop really does need to be redone and reorganized. With all the good games we are getting on it, it is becoming quite hard to sort through them all.

@Nincompoop I think I would prefer without ratings. It would only hinder me and clutter the UI. I am not someone else and I do not want to rate my games.

@Yasaal Big difference is that you had to play at least an hour of a game before you could rate it on eShop.

Which is vastly better than how it is on other shops or even on metacritic. Where you can rate games as soon as you download them or even if you never play them at all.

@GC-161 True. Sadly there was still no way to monitor and prevent trolls and fanboys from drastically affecting the score...

@Yasaal Trolls or fanboys? Well, that sort of thing is what you usually see on PSN, Steam and especially on metacritic.

On eShop the system at least forces them to buy and play the full game for an hour before being able to rate it. Which is a good way to cut down on the troll/fanboy crap.

For the Japanese speakers/owners - is there a way to search for demos on the Japanese eshop? Sometimes there are demos that haven't yet reached the uk (or in the case of Tetris have better options).

@Yasaal Based on the games rating in PS4, I'd say it's pretty accurate. No one who bought a crappy game like Vroom in the Night Sky will give it a 5 stars just to troll others into buying it. Nor would any one who bought SMO give it 1 star. Maybe there will be one or two idiots who will do that but the scores of the majority will overwhelmed the troll ratings.

@GC-161 Both. Trolls negatively affect the score by giving 0s and all while fanboys overrate a game by giving it the maximum score they could give. Both are problems.

And yes the 1 hr rule did block most of them to a certain extent. But I think Nintendo did the right thing by omitting the system entirely for the Switch. I like it's clean look except for the lack of music.

@Nincompoop Agreed. But there is a certain limit to how much you could prevent trolls and fanboys from underrating or overrating games which is why Nintendo's step of removing the feature entirely kinda makes sense doesn't it?

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the Switch OS. Give me Wii U 2, Nintendo, you can keep this trash! Wii U was better at launch, in 20-frickin-12!

@Yasaal Overrating and underrating balances each other out doesn't it? 😉

@Yasaal Nintendo is taking its time implementing features on the Switch. The system obviously came out waaaaay before it was ready for showtime. We can thank the Wii U bombing for that.

Thing is, don't expect the eShop to be so bare bones once Nintendo starts charging us a monthly fee.

Screw Charts and give me my Wishlist.

@SteveF well, there is a "watch list" which I use as my wish list. Does that count?

@BornInNorway81 really? Personally I find the OS to be the best I've used.

@GC-161 Makes sense. We still know next to nothing about the new service and Nintendo has just given us a next year window to talk about it, though obviously the eShop won't be a significant part of it imo. I really hope Nintendo announces a date soon.

Add welcome stuff but please don't screw an amazing OS. The best from all the console's

@GC-161 You get people around here who rate games without ever playing them as well

No music please. I can’t understand why people want this in the eshop. It used to drive me up the wall on Wii U. It is always very Nintendo and nice, but after about a minute I start to get irritated with it and mute the TV. I suppose if people enjoy it, there’s no harm in it being there, I’ll just have to mute the switch when browsing. 🙉.

I much prefer the simplicity and cleanness of the switch eshop. Would just prefer a few more tabs, and genres to browse to make it easier to find what you are looking for.

I think demo games should have its own tab on the left... just under coming soon!!! That’s where it should be, seems there aren’t enough demos atm for that right now I guess.

@Riff-the-Don
This is how you search for demos in the Japanese eShop:

1. Change the keyboard layout to 日本語 ローマ字入力.
2. Type taiken (it will come out as たいけん)
3. Choose the first alternative in the auto completion list; 体験. (demo is 体験版)
4. Search.

The day I buy a switch they add this feature, well time to download all demos then.

@vinicity that's great thanks!

I find the eShop a delight to use mainly because it’s so speedy. A few more search options would be nice but it’s so so much better than previous iterations. I can dip in whenever and have a quick browse. Not bothered about the music. It was pleasant in the past but did get a little annoying.

@vinicity : I used to do that, but those steps are now unnecessary as the Japanese eShop has the demo search function too.

Better fast and responsive, than bloated and sluggish like Wii U e-shop.

I am a web developer, and can appreciate Nintendo's "minimal viable product" approach to the Switch OS and E-shop app.

People are stupid, if they call this fast, fluid and simple OS a alpha product. Have they forgotten how slow and awful it was on the Wii U?

Nobody needs "feature creep". And as long as there isn't more content on the NS e-shop, I can't really see the problem yet?

Nintendo will slowly develop more features, while the e-shop gets more and more content. By having a simple and basic foundation, the OS and e-shop can be developed exploratory and more naturally, and hopefully keep some of it's speed and simplicity over the years!

Consumers should just have some more patience. They will get a better product down the line, with Nintendo's new smarter incremental approach to OS and feature development.

@maruse
DOOM? Or LA Noire?

DOOM is on Amazon just not easy to find in a search. LA Noire is not. I ordered from BestBuy. Maybe there are other options for you in Japan?

It’s done this for a long time...

@JaxonH L.A. Noire.
I already ordered DOOM (along with Skyrim)
I can order through Play-Asia, or I could wait for the release of the game in Japan. I read somewhere that it releases on December 7th, so I can wait a bit.

Useful feature to have as more demos appear.

No Music!!

In fact, nothing should be added that doesn't make the searching and shopping experience easier or faster.

Gaming is fun, shopping is not. In, Browse, Purchase, Play. The sooner the better.

@JaxonH Like the other guy said, I just search for "demo", I'm annoying, but I'm not an idiot. So far I only downloaded Blaster Master or whatever it's called, my kid has his friend over and they played for an hour. We got Sonic Forces day 1 so I didn't bother with that one. Been thinking about Octopath.

I don't agree with the article that this or a demo section will get more demos though, they sort of fell out of fashion a couple of years ago, devs must have caught on to people not buying games after playing them. Very rare is a demo these days on PS4, they were weekly on PS3.

Good news! I’d like to experiment more with my genres, so this should help.

You used to be able to just search "Demo" but this does make things a bit more convenient, especially if you don't have the touchscreen available.

@Yasaal Actually, those who subscribe to Nintendo's online service will get to enjoy special deals & discounts on eShop.

So I think the eShop will go through some important changes in 2018.

@GC-161 Let's hope it remains so. You never know with Nintendo. One day Reggie says the Switch has Bluetooth support and at launch it's something else. I too want to believe in that statement as much as you do, but I'd rather not get my hopes up and take it with a grain of salt.

Never understood how these companies always take a ten steps back with ui and features when they move to new consoles.

@Yasaal LOL What I told you is written all over Nintendo's website. That is not hearsay or Reggie getting his facts wrong. It's what they can confirm about the service at this time.

That is, subscribers to Nintendo's online service WILL be able to enjoy special deals and discounts AND they'll will be able to play specially modified Virtual Console games that have an online multiplayer feature added.

Again, that's just what they are willing to confirm about how things will work.

@GC-161 Lol I didn't disagree with your point at all. I just said you can't take Nintendo's word for it. They have a knack for saying something and doing the other.

If you've gone to Nintendo's website to the same place you got this info from (ie: the Online Services page) there is a small piece of text that reads 'Subject to change'. This is very insignificant to everyone and that's true, but in Nintendo's case they make full use of it. They often go back in their promises and statements. Which is why I brought this tiny thing up.

Don't forget that Nintendo previously said "We have longterm plans for the Wii U and will not abandon our customers" a few months before the reveal of the Switch before Nintendo stopped having to do anything with it. The Bluetooth thing I mentioned above was a recent example. But they have a lot behind as well. I want these offers fulfilled as much as you do, but like I said, always take news with a grain of salt, especially with Nintendo.

@Yasaal You got to be kidding me by using the Wii U as an example of Nintendo going back on their word. That's a lousy example. I dunno if you got the news but the Wii U BOMBED.

So of course they had to change their strategy and plans accordingly.

That situation has absolutely no relevance to what is about to happen on the Switch.

C'mon son.

@GC-161 Oh pls don't tell me you think the Wii U was a failure everywhere. It was an obvious failure by sales, but it was a great console apart from the sales point. Most people just forget how excellent the console was and just remember the negatives.

I get that people change their strategy and all, but they never gave a specific reason or excuse as to why they suddenly changed their statement. It hurt the Wii U owners. They thought they'll get at least some support for a while but the second the Switch ad came out, everyone forgot the Wii U, which is bound to happen given that it was a failure by sales, but it doesn't excuse the fact that Nintendo went against their word without a proper justification for Wii U owners' satisfaction.

And no relevance? Oh come on, this is the same company we're talking about. It's Nintendo. It's not as if we're talking about another company. Once a company fails or goes against their promise on one occasion, there is absolutely no guarantee that they'll do something different on the next occasion. Wii U era Nintendo was Nintendo. Bluetooth Headphones on Switch was Nintendo.

Looking at that trend you can't say for sure that we'll be getting the said eShop titles a discount and free VC. Heck. I think they'll suddenly change their mind and give useless discounts (15% off) and make VC paid with only slightly reducing the prices.

Can you guarantee Nintendo will do exactly what they said? No.

why not just make a page with demos?

@Yasaal The Wii U was a massive failure. Full stop.

That you're trying to say that Nintendo lies or goes back on their word based on them trying to move away from the sinking ship that was the Wii U is silly. They had to change their plans. It would've been dumb for them to stick to their original plans.

And again, the Switch is a massive SUCCESS. The polar opposite of the Wii U. So there is zero reason to expect them to suddenly change their plans for next year.

But we shall soon see. It's only a couple of months away.

@EternalDragonX

That shouldn't be so hard to understand, when the companies start all over from scratch with a totally new OS every time they release a new console.

Then it's actually very logical, that they are missing a lot of features from the previous generation, that was developed over years.

It's difficult for Nintendo to transfer an old OS from a previous console to a new one, when the hardware and functionalities are so fundamental different in each generation. It's difficult to make that work.

Also, it takes a lot of resources to build a modern game console OS. People and developers demand a lot of features compared to the old GameCube days. And it has to be extremely minimal and use very little of the consoles resources to run, so all the power can be used for the games to run fantastic.

That is why a game console OS often is tailor made for a very specific hardware, so it can run as efficient as possible. That also speeds up the development time, witch there isn't much of to begin with.

All this make it almost impossible to transfer the old OS to a different hardware, and you have to start all over. The hardware just changes so much in 4-5 years.

When you compare it with iOS or Android, then these are developed for phones and tablets that slowly changes hardware every year. iOS or Android is always adapting to the newest hardware, that doesn't change fundamentally in every generation, like we see with Nintendo consoles. It's a totally different philosophy.

It's like small changes comparable with how the hardware of the 3DS have also changed over the years.

@GC-161 Woah you're just stereotyping the Wii U based only on it's sales. That's not how console gaming works. At least when you're talking about a past console. But enough of that.

I just gave a recent example of the Wii U. There were many such instances in the past in which Nintendo suddenly went back on their word and backstabbed those who believed them. I hope you've seen my other example of the Switch Bluetooth headphones chaos that ensued a few months back (and which is the most recent example of Nintendo suddenly changing their words). To say that it would've been dumb for Nintendo to stick around with the Wii U is a big insult to all those who bought the Wii U with such enthusiasm and support. I'm not saying they port over Switch games to the Wii U, that's not how gaming works, but they brought nothing to it.

And yes it's quite obvious the Switch is a commercial success but that doesn't excuse the fact that Nintendo won't mess up or not change their words. Many a time they have made drastic decision changes (SNES CD with Sony anyone?) or times when they went against their word as well. And when a firm has these qualities in them, one can't trust them completely. Perhaps hugely loyal fans like you may have a lot of faith in them, but many people like me do remember.

But as you said, We'll see next year if they remain the classic decision-changing Nintendo, or the new image they've tried so hard to adopt with the Switch.

@Yasaal Nothing you have said so far proves that Nintendo will not implement what they said they would only a few months away.

I say we wait and see. And if they do carry out what they said they would, I want you to write an emotional apology letter to Nintendo.

If they don't, I'll help you sell your Nintendo products so that you don't have to deal with them ever again.

Deal?

@GC-161 Lol that's the point. Since the first comment till now my point was that Take this announcement and the service's features with a grain of salt. It was that easy to understand.

And woah, just because I doubted a company due to their past behavior I should write them an apology letter? I mean, if that was intended as a joke then yeah but in all seriousness that's complete nonsense. I'm judging Nintendo not by my view, not by critics' view, not by your view but I'm judging Nintendo by Nintendo: What they've done in the past, I'm noticing that and predicting what is likely to happen. Predictions are never guaranteed to be true but on the other hand they're usually not guaranteed to be false either (if you have a meaningful prediction that it).

And you're talking as if I dislike Nintendo or don't like their products. I love Nintendo. They made my childhood. But that doesn't mean I don't see them as a company, a business. Those are important things as well and added by the fact that I study Business at a higher level I know and study these things as well so notice them all the time.

I'll be happy if I'll be proven wrong. But yet, I haven't made a point to prove myself either right or wrong. My point remains the same as it was at the start: don't take Nintendo's word for Nintendo's actions. They have a history of not following what they have said, so take any of their news with a grain of salt. This doesn't specifically mean we stop believing them, but take a neutral stance and don't get your hopes up too high. That's all.

@Yasaal But according to your own words, Nintendo has done you more harm than good.

I say you ditch them and join the PC master race.

@GC-161 First of all no, I haven't said they've done me more harm than good. AAMOF I haven't even remotely used the word harm here. Lol I've enjoyed their products a lot.

And PC Master race is a farce. They're a group I personally loathe. I'd rather suck up to Microsoft than be a PC Elitist.

I just noticed that the other day and was like "when did that get there, but... great!". It's about time to put a tab on the left for genres now.

I wanted this, and the ability to change my theme. 1 out of 2 is ok, for now.