Cathousemaster

Watched the smash presentation first on YouTube, which was definitely a mistake.

The E3 direct was going great, until I hit the start of the smash presentation... Then realised that was IT.

Given how successful the switch has been in the market, I was expecting a (mini?) flood of 3rd party, non-indy titles. But there was basically nothing.

Smash is one title I can't get into, and is a 100% no-purchase for my house. Pokemon probably for the kids, and likely to get Mario party.

But this is E3 ... Where is everything else? Labo? AC? Metroid? Third parties? More Splatoon?

Fire emblem looked great, but if there is nothing else they are going to show... This is one of the worst, if not the worst E3 ever from my perspective.

Got a huge backlog, will go back to Gungeon and Zelda.

My kids will love this. Co-op Pokemon. Looks simple enough to get them into the game.

I think this is fine for Xmas, this is a Pokemon Adventure for the Switch.

Be picking up Kirby for the kids, probably digital. Finding we are changing the cartridge very rarely these days.

So many releases ... 20+ in a week. I'd hate to be a small developer and have a release in a week like this.

30%? How can Microsoft have a 30% share of gaming? If this is US that makes sense, but then it's almost irrelevant.

And if MS is down to a 20% share, including the massive revenue from Xbox Live... They are in a lot of trouble.

Anyone who hasn't played this, really must. It's an incredible experience. Not sure I'll buy this again, as did play the Wii version to death.

If these shut down in Australia, there will be no toy stores left. Kmart sells horrible plastic Chinese imports, and there is nothing else. Won't affect video games (thanks JB) but for the kids, there will be no where left. Only a handful of independent stores, like Toyworld which is hideously overpriced.

Smash is a service game, just like Mario Kart. People complained about that, and look how it is selling.

They can upgrade the control system for the controllers, this will have portable 2 player games, LAN modes, lots of networking support.

Then they can upgrade the levels and characters - textures and models. Add new characters. And new stages. DLC, chat via the mobile apps.

What else do people want? What is the point of rewriting the entire engine?

This is all about content - and the best way to have lots of new content, is for the smash Switch release and for it to sell a lot.

I'm starting to play more of the Switch games and demos, and at this rate I'm going to have to introduce a 25% score penalty on this site.

Games will start getting 11's...

I see there is the usual over optimism from Nintendo around 1 year into the product life. I bet they said the same of the Wii.

I really hope they iterate the hardware every couple of years, then it can continue indefinitely.

Because, really... Where can they go from here? Surely this is the final evolution of Nintendo gaming.

And if Sony announce a portable PS3 / PS4 at E3 ... We'll see how long the switch lasts.

It would be good to research what the Singapore studio have released previously. I was looking at applying there a couple of years back...

I'm a little worried by this news. Nintendo doesn't rate this IP strongly anymore, and I really didn't enjoy the 3DS Metroid title... All shooting, little Metroid

Fingers crossed!

The game has a full remapping system for all controls. I have played it for a couple of hours and find the controls hard tbh. I might try remapping again.

At a minimum its one stick for movement and two buttons (shoot and dodge) - the problem is you really need to use the second stick for aiming to play properly.

Might have to invest in a pro controller and try more.

I'm finding Issac is more fun - although the levels in Gungeon are random, the overall structure is the same. It can take a while to clear the first level, but the bosses can be very hard unlike Issac. So I've died maybe 20 times, and only got to the second floor once. The repetitive levels makes it less interesting...

They could just "invest" giving Xbox timed exclusive EA games - or combine Xbox Live with EA online service.

Either way, no one would really care

About time. The series has been underpowered for years, strangled on the 3ds.

Now that a HD version is finally out, this can become the norm ... And Capcom have time to work on the Switch version.

It's also selling so well, because it's finally available to a new, adult audience. Rather than target gamers who were SICK of MH games and ports, target an audience starved of it.

People shouldn't whine, it will definitely come to Switch eventually in a great portable format.

People are ignoring two aspects of this:

1/ the core of this is software - not cardboard. We'll have to see how well the software is written, how much depth there is to it - and what activities there are to perform with it.

2/ this isn't a product - this is a genre. There are going to be multiple products, based on multiple ideas - each of which has unique software.

There is nothing stopping people gluing this to wood or plastic and making it stronger - nor people hooking it into other systems.

From Nintendo's perspective, this adds value to their software. It's not like Wii play, where a bunch of mini games was sold for low value - this is taking a simple piece of software and adding value. It's just what they like.

And just to state the obvious:

1/ Nintendo is going to make billions from this. It's a whole new genre, and no other company can easily do this. The switch was designed for this.

2/ Now we all know why they are increasing production and are confident about sales.

3/ this is their answer to VR at least at this stage

It's a lot more expensive than I expected. I wouldn't want to be paying $100 AUD for these, unless it was $100 for everything.

The whole point of cardboard kits is you can make your own out of scrap...

My son has been addicted to making traps and kids out of cardboard. He will lose his mind over this.

And my youngest will love transforming into the robot and running round.

Instant buy for my house...

I would rather have a much higher 3rd party release rate, so we get to the point where virtually all 3rd party games release on the switch.

Exclusives are much less important to me. They just deprive someone without a switch from playing a specific 3rd party title.

Nintendo needs to be careful that Sony or MS don't do a "switch 2" before they do, as that might end things badly. Even a portable PS3 would be incredible.

Who is going to do this? It will render the bulk of current and all future games unplayable. No online, etc.

If Nintendo care enough, they will update the firmware that all units ship with to beyond version 3.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure my new Switch unit shipped at version 1.0...

When is the last time, maybe outside launch that any console topped 200k in a week? What is the all time record for Japan?

I was shopping in Australia last night, I had picked up a switch a couple of weeks back - and my brother in-law was looking for one.

The JB hi-fi I was at was sold out - and we looked at the stock units in the computer for all stores. 3/20 stores had stock left, maybe 20 units in all.

So it's very close to sold out now in Australia - full price, no discounts.

Monster Hunter should smash 2, maybe 3m on the PS4. You all underestimate it, and the install base on the PS4 is huge. It could sell 10m globally, more than the Switch install base. A lot of people have been waiting for a high end Monster Hunter title...

Capcom won't be kicking themselves, but do have an obvious way forward with a portable version on switch for next Xmas...

Can't wait to see what hardware revision Nintendo has waiting for us...

The PS4 sold 5.3m from November to Feb during launch (which could be as little as 2 months), and then 4.7m in the next 6-7 months.

Switch has the opposite pattern, probably due to stock.

You can bank on at least 1m sales just in Japan in the next 4-6 weeks (sold 250k last 2 weeks alone).

Now all 3 console makers have healthy sales, and everyone should be happy. No signs of discounts for the Switch either, which means the dollars will flow for Nintendo.

My kids will open theirs on Xmas day, and we still have our WiiU and a solid backlog.

I can see us buying up to 3 over time - one for me, 2 for the kids.

Great time for gaming.

Man, still haven't played Bayonetta 2... It's been sitting there for months.

But I'm happy to announce I'm finally joining the Switch club... Bought one tonight for the kids for Xmas. Picked up Odyssey and splatoon 2, and got just dance as effectively a freebie. $600 AUD.

Let the witching hour begin.

XC1 destroys XCX for me. The combat was better, the characters played different, the levels were actually varied and much more interesting, they were dynamic and changed over time ... And the story was a lot better. The main missions were pretty embarrassing in XCX and the story towards the end... Groan.

Most importantly, the balance of everything was much more coherent - improving the character relationships meant you could totally change up your combat strategy. Compare this to XCX where you had to grind to hit a level boundary, so you could buy a better mech, and a bigger gun.

Bring on XC2. If its half as good as XC1, this time with the gfx of XCX ... It will be worth it.

@ThanosReXXX I haven't played it, so I guess it's not fair to pass judgement. For the record, I wasn't blaming unreal per-se ... Rather that unreal can encourage some level and lighting design that doesn't scale well across many devices.

But hearing that they switched engines 3 times, it makes you wonder... Did they model and design everything first, only to realise it doesn't work "real time"? Or did they all own super-high end systems, such that only when the game was finished they realised it doesn't work for anyone else?

This is a strong advantage of console development BTW ... Because it's running on target hardware from day#1, you see the problems from day#1 .. not just before release.

@faint been around, but only posting occasionally. Working on getting Grimoire rolling on Steam, but nothing else. Ridiculously busy alas.

If the original engine, i.e. the game engine bites, no porting company can help.

It's going to take a rewrite, and that is a much much bigger job than a port.

Just looked it up - it uses unreal engine. There is the reason right there. Not much porting to do...

They didn't say it would happen, rather it could happen if the figures this year warrant it.

Face it - most 3rd parties have egg on their face from under supporting the Switch. The more switch sells, and the better games like Doom go... The more they will be planning for it next year.

And for an obvious hardware upgrade... What about a 4G / mobile version of the Switch? You'll get a bunch of people upgrading and you'll start attracting developers who need a regular online connection along with portability.

Then couple that with a new Pokemon game, Monster Hunter, GTA, fallout, Metroid .. and something like Pokemon Go ...

Anyway, this time the ball is squarely in Nintendo's court. They can kill the golden goose, or ensure its setup for years to come.

This is the upgrade for all those DS users in the world... All 100m+

It's going to sell well, and it's generated a heap of media for Nintendo, Bethesda, Doom and the Switch.

The port was done externally, which means it's a fairly simple dollars tradeoff.

Win win. While everyone sits here complaining about specs, everyone else is actually playing games and having fun.

Have fun 😀

There is a lot they could do with the hardware.

Portable cheaper only version with no detachable controllers.

Updated version with a solid state hard disk, say 500GB.

Or even a switch 2018 with upgraded graphics. Imagine if they revved the capabilities of the hardware every year or two.

And lots of VR or AR potential.

Depends what they plan for the DS. Imagine all those Dev resources now focused on the Switch.

Mario kart deluxe has almost outsold Zelda? Guess this doesn't include WiiU sales.

Still haven't bought a switch, so at least 1 more sale coming!!

So who thinks this and the new Metroid are both worthy of the same score? 8P

Play! Zine gave it a 75 which has dragged metacritic down to 97... Which is still good, given 66 reviews. They marked it down on being too easy.

Time to buy a Switch...

If it's the previous 30 sec, games need to be upgraded to support this. This implies an in memory buffer to be allocated of a certain size - hopefully then the OS will compress and add the last frame buffer to the recording.

What this means, is that the less OS memory used by a game - the longer the recording could be.

I don't know if the Switch had built in hardware for video compression like the PS4 does, but that would be handy.

What is the resolution on the recorded videos?

When you hit the capture button, it just writes the current capture buffer to media.

Add engine programmer for grimoire, I'm looking at what it will take to port that to the Switch. Check it out on steam.

The ending still creeps me out. One of the most unique gaming experiences ever.

Having the physics and input thread run at a different rate from the rendering thread is very common, and can be done to ensure movement and play are consistent, if a frame rate is inconsistent.

However there is minimal point to having input at 60hz, if the rendering is locked at 30hz...

It's the same everytime a new console is released, and it was definitely the same for the WiiU

By the time flowerworks released on the WiiU, the store was saturated... And it was impossible to get any real promo on the store itself.

You'll find that generally the biggest selling games in every console generation are the first ones released... Not the last ones released (even though the install base is highest at the end)

This is 100x better than Metroid returns, which is a serious disappointment.

Going to amend my score to 7/10 now, probably 2/3rd through it. I have too much to say, won't rant on here (typing via phone).

I think this is a classic case of "bigger isn't always better". Still worth a buy for Metroid and platforming/shooting fans, but this is a very, very shallow Metroid.

I'm a couple of hours in now. The fact that I'm not itching to get to playing it probably says enough.

It's a very good game, but it's not really a Metroid game. It's too easy, and the secrets are pretty much spoon fed to you. That alone sort of breaks the point, where it's supposed to be about survival and working out how you can survive long enough to get to the next checkpoint.

The controls feel harder than they should and the counter attack dominates the game at this stage.

It may highly appeal to a new generation of Metroid fans, but I'm definitely in the old school bracket. I need to die when I stuff up 😀

8/10 at this stage.

Pity that revenue increase is almost certainty going to be a one-off...

Add what does "19th" refer to? Maybe results in Japan, or listed Japanese companies? Because it's certainly not worldwide, not even close.

Yesterday I met with a friend who switched companies. He surprised me by saying he had bought a switch...

I asked him why, and he had played Zelda on someone else's Switch, and he wanted to play more.

This is his first Nintendo console and his first Zelda game.

The portable nature means the console and games are going to be exposed to a lot more people... Even more so with the dual controllers etc

Hacking is nothing to do with this. Like the post said, this was never intended to be a long term supported product. Even the extra shipments were a stretch.

But this will give them food for thought the next time they do this... They will double the price and double the shipments.

This was a fantastic game on the WiiU, my first copy died on its disc... Ended up buying it again digitally.

It's not a lazy port, it's just the way the engine and game works. It's the same speed on all consoles. As ram goes up, it takes longer to load everything into ram.

For anyone that hasn't played this, it's going to be the 2nd best game on the Switch until more games arrive. And there is probably more than 100hrs of game play here to get to 100%. Easily the best Lego game to date.

If this gets down to $30 AU, I'll buy this again for the Switch when I get one. It will totally keep the kids occupied.

@sillygostly financial years vary by company. For the company I work for, it starts in November. For Nintendo it starts in April, ie March is the last month.

Re: Zelda .. Does this track digital copies? There would be your 11%

This is a bad idea, and a bad path. Are we sure there is no way to connect a switch to a TV without the dock... By holding it?

A Switch is not an tablet, as it has no support for 3G/4G. If this game requires any internet support, it needs to be played at home only. But not on the TV.

It's like a WiiU game

I'll get this just for hard mode. Sick of overly easy Zelda games (compared to the original!)

I have enjoyed it, but it feels too shallow and lite to me even compared to other mobile games (still playing Pokemon Shuffle & a similiar FF game).

The small maps and limit of 4on4 just makes it too simple. If there was no leveling, and it was more about pure strategy (i.e. Advance Wars) it would have been much better.

Will play occasionally, but I can't see myself getting into this.

It does look quite nice though (esp. on a S7 Edge!).

The WiiU will definitely have an active place in our house once the Switch arrives here. Things that hurt previous consoles include batteries (in the Wiimotes) - and no HDMI support.

WiiU will remain active until the hardware fails ... and I hope that isn't anytime soon.