Nintendo Plans To Increase "discoverability and visibility" On The Switch eShop

Yeah, it's currently pretty bad. I'm glad to hear this!

Give the Music for E-shop menu.
Switch E-shop is Too Quiet.

My only complaint has been a lack of categories. Otherwise I don't think it's designed bad at all.

Yup, more search options would be very welcome.
Something like the Steam store would be ideal.

I am fine with the eshop. It is minimal and fast. Only a videogame genre category is something they miss.

The problem is in their digital system. I still don't get why you have to buy the games again on if you buy a second switch or why you have to call nintendo to transfer the games from one system to another.

Meh, I rarely use the eshop for browsing. I only go there to buy a specific game. In fact I mostly just buy on the website without even touching the eshop.

Give me a bin. I want to hide the games I have zero interest in - otherwise I’m rummaging through the trash each time

Actually I think the eShop is fine, apart from lack of genres categories.
The games pages open very fast, with screens, videos, file size, description, features, all accessible.
The special offers have their own spot, which is fine. Open the game you are interested in and see when the deal ends.
Then there is the Coming soon section which I love so much, it delivers almost every day with new games thrown in all of a sudden.
Ok they could make a proper Demo section too, instead of leave it hiding in the Search function.
And let's not forget the news section of the console main menu, all devs are free to have their own page and I can't see how they could get more visibility than this. Heck, look at Violett's spam about the levels playthroughs.

I don’t bother with eshop. If you have access to the internet just buy it from their site and it’s ready for you on your switch.

There are categories to search by. Hit Show More at bottom of recent releases and viola categories appear on the left... this should be more apparent though. There should be something like an All Games tab on left with a better and more prominent search function including categories, price, age rating, release date etc at the top of page.

While I don't think it's terrible, there's definitely some room for improvement. As mentioned already, they should have categories for different genres. Music would be nice, but not necessary.

@PLATINUM7 Unless I'm misunderstanding you, there is a genre categories section. There is a button under the recently launched games to see all and there you can choose a category.

I would like to see a rating system with the possibility to write short reviews.

How do you buy from the internetsite? That doesnt seem to work in australia.

Plus i think the e shop is great. Very straight forward. I hope they dont jazz it up and complicate it.

This is something that should have happened a long time ago. The DSI and even the 3DS was horrible to try and find any game on them, and unless you added them to your wish list, or (like I did) write them down in a notebook for later use, they became lost. Switch and Wii U were pretty bad too, but you could at least just go into the 'all games' section and search around, but yeah, it definitely needs an update...so...when will the update happen...if it's up to nintendo, next year or so.

@Mikemario It doesn't work too well here either. I've even tried it on the Playstation, and it's still kind of difficult.

It works fine for me now, opens quickly and isn't buggy. But apparently we're in a hurry to turn it into PSN, with huge ad spaces everywhere and a slower running shop because of it.

Whatever, it'll be ready by September so prepare for the banner ads

"Nintendo plans to listen to its consumers. It will not action those complains. It will nearly listen"

yours sincearly

• GameCube Luigi's Mansion VC

Give it some [removed] music

As long as they keep the full list view. 3DS eShop can be right in your face with its "discoverability and visibility" and yet I have yet to figure out if it's even possible to view games outside all those themed category folders that fill up the menu. Lately I even have trouble spotting the upcoming games section among the icons. XD

The thing with the eshop I have been saying for a while is how basic it is. We just need more options for searching, better ways to sort games by sales, and even a simple 1-5 star system would be appreciated. I have also felt that featured games in a few categories would be a great idea. Featured indie game, Featured recent release, featured game under 30 dollars, etc. Also some thematic music and the option to turn it off if you don't want it.

What it doesn't need is lots of fluff and animations and other distractions that don't add anything of substance.

Just adopt the Wii U shop set up that’s fine

Definitely could use with more search / sort options like by price & genre. It would also be nice to introduce star ratings for titles & to create wishlists.

If they mean stuff like user scores and sales rankings, then I'm not in favor.

Those actively work against the individual discovering games they might like. Or that's how it works for me at least.

It'd be nice with more labels and sorting systems. I hate to sound like a broken record, but it'd be great to know more up front how big the file size for a game is.

This will be great to find new hidden gems.

You can search by genre, then price etc, and even games with demos -but it’s all a bit hidden.

I’m looking forward to the facelift, and I hope it doesn’t slow down the e shop too much.

I guess news for now highlights games in a certain genre etc, rather than it being in the e shop itself

All it needs is catagories.

Heres the Neo-Geo stuff
Heres the indie stuff
Heres the Nintendo stuff
Etc...

I loved the Wii U eshop, something similar would be great, but anyway... It works, I can buy games, never had problems with that, so I'm fine with it.

About a year ago Nintendo asked me to do like a 30 minute survey about the Switch and I complained about the eshop a lot in it. Glad change is finally coming.

@NewAdvent Exactly. There are millions of options yet Nintendo chose none (song reference )

It needs categories, genres and some other segmentation to allow browsing of certain types of games.

If it does have to have music (which i personally really feel is unnecessary) either make sure it doesn’t slow the experience or give us the ability to turn it off.

Every indie game should had a short 10 minute demo to show you how they would play like, maybe put in 1 to 3 levels or sections from the game to help entice player. They also need to implement a refund system like Steam so if we bought a game we didn't expect to suck (like WWE 2K18 and Troll & I) then we could refund it within a certain period after the purchase.

Genre searching is a thing. Its called search. It gives you filters by genre, price, and other stuff

@Anti-Matter

Wii U: 1
Switch: 0

For those thinking it's fine, just remember most Switch owners aren't visiting sites like Nintendo Life every day. The eShop is just a list of recent stuff essentially, and while it does okay, it could stand some improvements. I think some of the News content should really be at a store landing page, maybe.

Yes, hopefully they can integrate something like Steam, GoG or Origin and not like Windows Store. "Currently on Sale!" should be front and center, maybe below latest big title. As well as some kind of trend tracking based on previous purchases, so it will know that I am interested in sRPGs and 2D platformers, but not shooters or racing games.

I think it's fine for the most part, just needs some more categories to improve discoverability.

A "Recommended for You" category that actually works as intended (based on your purchase history) would be nice, for example.

The search function already allows you to search by genre and sort the results by price, release date, etc.

@belmont You don't. All you have to do is deactivate your account on the first Switch in the eShop and then log in on the second Switch. You can then download your games again.

The only case where you'd have to call Nintendo is if the currently active Switch is broken or stolen.

@IceClimbers I think he means that you should be able to download on two switches and play on both without deactivation on one. If they're in the same household one purchase should be sufficient. It would bring Nintendo closer to pairity with Microsoft and Sony's approach and much more fair to the consumer.

All to make the eshop better. Functionable but as the comments pre and maybe post, It's needs improvements!

@MadCow74
Glad you mentioned having reviews on the eshop, I kind of miss the WiiU's basic review system even with its limitations.

Perhaps the ratings could be by NintendoLife and also Metacritic (and I know that might start a massive discussion about why not include/exclude every other review site, which one is best or "my site is better than your site" etc etc!)

Looking forward to the improvements. Right now it reminds me more of the Windows Store than anything else - broad categories, a "what's coming/what's on sale" area, but if you don't know about something there's a good chance you'll never see it unless you browse through everything. As more and more titles are added, that's going to be a mess without a major overhaul.

Something definitely needs to be done. Games disappear into a long unorganized list after just a few weeks, unless it’s a top seller. It’s not even alphabetized. Bad for gamers, really bad for developers. One positive to that arrangement for gamers, however, is that it could be a strong motivator for developers to put their games on sale. The sale category make games much more discoverable. I knew nothing about Heart snd Slash until I found it in the sale category in the eshop. I’m glad I did. It’s a fantastic game.

I wish there was a way to organize my wish list by most wanted, not just by most recently added. My wish list is about 80 deep now.

I would like them to bring back the user star ranking system, where you had to have played the game for an hour to rate it and then you could rate it out of five stars. But I'd like to be able to give half stars as well. That way we could have a better idea of what is shovelware on the eshop right away, since there is so much of that these days.

@1-UP_MARIO Some regions don't have eShop available on the web yet to access on their smartphone or PC, so they have to purchase their games on their system. One such country is Australia.

Personally, I'd like to see a 5-star rating for user feedback on games. Otherwise, Categories and a Featured Tab could be nice.

@NewAdvent I sure do hope so. Nintendo has to fix their eShop.

I wish Nintendo would detect which games I own physically and if any of them has DLC, put that front and center in the eShop. It’s such a pain when I have to do a search for a particular game just to get some DLC bits.

@MadCow74
Then they should make it more apparent. Have a categories tab on the side alongside recent releases and charts.

I like how fast and simple it is. We could use some more options, and another layout, but don't make it slow and bloated like the Wii U e-shop. Then I rather would keep it like it is, and have the current speed and responsiveness.

@Erchitu @joey302
Really? The Wii U e-shop was so bloated and slow!!! Why would you ever go back to this?
The store design was ok, but just to slow and sluggish. I hope Nintendo keep prioritize speed and responsiveness over to many features with the Switch!

There is so much rubbish that the good games can get overlooked. Indi games need to be kept in a seperate category from physical games.

Just about anything would be an improvement since finding things on the eshop stinks.

@dres Yeah, it was slow, but it was cute It was categorised as it was easy to find things. I never been in a hurry so I don't really cared about the slowness They could do something like it, but quicker obviously, but as I said, as long as it works and as long as if I can buy games, it's just fine for me

They have to, otherwise all the downloads get buried. There are soooooo many!