Dringo

Interesting. Obviously huge numbers, but a bit behind what World did... which I am surprised about in Japan, considering that market's love of portable play.

Bit of a good headache for Capcom. PlayStation is clearly the bigger home for Monster Hunter, but only just, and the gap between PS5 and Switch in terms of capabilities is vast. I guess it'll be a while before the next one, so maybe cross-platform between PlayStation and Switch 2 is possible.

Interesting challenge.

I think Nintendo can follow this hybrid concept for a bit. It doesn’t look like its competitors are interested, so unlike the old days when they lost the tech arms race, they’ve got a corner of the console industry to itself.

But obviously it’s not Nintendo’s style to just keep iterating. It’s done it from time-to-time (NES to SNES, GB to GBA, DS to 3DS), but never for too long.

@UltimateOtaku91 Also ‘dollar sales’ it’s revenue

@lokozar I think a Switch 1.5 to keep the console relevant for longer would make sense. But equally, doing a slightly enhanced version for a few years with a proper new one to follow also makes sense.

I don’t think either is especially unfriendly. The competition is so fierce Nintendo can’t afford to be like that

@lokozar you talked about smartphones having these screens.

Why bother making a premium Switch? Just do a new console. Far more powerful. Why would you want Nintendo just to knock out a slightly enhanced Switch. Doesn’t sound consumer friendly at all.

A replacement model that works with 4K TVs makes sense. Leave the big fancy screen with more power for the next machine.

But it still won’t be powerful as an Xbox or PlayStation. Nintendo toys aren’t about that

@lokozar It’s not about it being not good for consumers... what’s been rumoured here is an updated version of the current device. Better screen, improved output... if it was a new device, it would mean those who just bought Switch consoles will be left behind. It needs to stay in keeping with what exists, but makes some tweaks whilst maintaining the current price point. I fully expect this Switch is going to effectively replace the previous one.

There will be a new Switch eventually. That’s going to happen. This isn’t it. It’s an updated model. Which is quite normal. And the more enhanced it is, the more expensive it will be (because Nintendo operates its hardware business like a toy company, and don’t sell at a loss).

But part of your complaint was comparing Nintendo to other types of companies. And my point was those companies have different strategies and priorities. And comparing Nintendo to iPhone or PS5... those aren’t apples and apples.

@Kamalen Sure. Quite possible. But it's all relative.

I don't know what it's like in the US, but BOTW is the only game to actually have that price tag in the UK, which was then due to the high costs of the carts, which have come down since. So I wouldn't rule out it being more in line with the other games.

@lokozar I'm not riled up. I'm not especailly bothered. You're the one a little upset about it

Of course, there are other ways of doing things. But it's not Nintendo's way. It's now how it delivers constant brand growth, and it's not why it attracts the investment it does. It doesn't see itself as an Apple or a Sony or a Microsoft. It's not about hardware or services. It's about making digital toys.

On the Sony forums there's tonnes of people slagging off Sony for the way it does things (especially pricing). Xbox is the same around the fact they're not bringing out exclusive content. Apple gets more criticism than any of them.

But they are all being successful and have fans, and if you don't like the tech approach, don't go for Sony. If you don't like the toy approach, don't go for Nintendo. If you don't like the services approach, don't go for Xbox.

It's not about defending Nintendo. This is how it does things. And it works and it's successful. It's not going to chase Sony, that's a different business. It's not going to chase Xbox, that's a different business. And frankly, they'll lose to them.

When you say 'up their game'... I've never seen Nintendo doing so much and being as innovative and heavy in marketing and development as I've seen them right now.

@RetroOutcast Galaxy never wowed me. I thought it was ok. The whole Wii and Wii U era disappointed for me. 3DS was solid, but Switch has knocked my socks off with Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Fire Emblem, LM3...

But different for different folks

@lokozar I am actually a business journalist. It's not about liking Nintendo, it's about understanding market mechanics and the need for constant growth to ensure shareholder value.

Nintendo doesn't just have to keep being profitable. It's not about viability. They're not an independent business. They need to keep growing, getting bigger, expanding the audience, so that they can deliver returns to their investors. It's how capitalist society works.

The reason Nintendo charge full whack for ports is to ensure value is maintained in its brands. Skyward Sword is $60 because Breath of the Wild 2 will be $60. Zelda is the value, and devaluing it by producing budget-priced products isn't the company's objective.

Switch needs to deliver for everyone. It needs to deliver strong battery life for commuters, it needs to compete with the market, it needs to deliver profit and ROI, and it needs to keep growing.

There will be a fully new Switch in a few years with more powerful hardware, but it won't ever push the envelope, because Nintendo operates as a toy business vs a tech business.

It's not a case of defending them. You can criticise capitalism all you like. But if Nintendo started selling consoles at a loss to deliver more advanced products, that revenue stream goes... it potentially means smaller margins, which means reduced profit, which means share price falls, investment drops, and the company declines along with its products.

So whine all you like about how unfair it is that Nintendo isn't giving you the best thing possible. They'll be a new, more powerful Switch eventually. But for now, they've got an innovative, effective product that is satisfying a huge audience. And I know I for one think it's a great machine. An OLED version sounds great.

@lokozar Where are you buying Switch for $400?

PlayStation and Xbox consoles tend to lose money with the companies making up the profit from other areas. Nintendo doesn’t have that kind of business.

Equally, smartphones cost a lot of money and gaming is so intensive it basically eats battery. Also smartphones have economies of scale, they’re ubiquitous and have a bigger audience. Nintendo’s device is a dedicated gaming device, thus a smaller potential market, reduced capabilities for economies of scale, and therefore need to be made with that in mind.

The reality is the Switch is awesome. Its games are awesome. Therefore, keep at it Nintendo

@BloodNinja I own all of them. And I take the convenience of Switch over anything the other machines have to offer.

Although i am glad I have the PS5. Those high end single player games are incredible

@BloodNinja Yeah. Lazy of them. Should be more like EA.

@BloodNinja A bit like Breath of the Wild. Bare minimum. And Odyssey, the longest Mario game ever made, bare minimum. SNES Mini and NES Mini, so few games in there, nothing remotely new, bare minimum.

Just Nintendo all over. Bare minimum

Skyward Sword is a great game and I am definitely going to purchase it.

But the majority of sales will come from new fans who probably came in with BOTW. And they’ll need to set expectations. It’s Zelda, it’s wonderful, it’s unique, but different to the one they played before.

But honestly, I don’t think these comms are going to be a huge problem. Because the game is good.

@PBandSmelly @Juga To me a ‘100%’ is to achieve every challenging element in a game. It means getting every star and flag in Mario, but not completing it again as every character for a sticker. It means completing every shine, memory, dungeon and side mission in Breath of the Wild, but not to worry about the billion koroks.

I still feel like I experienced everything those games had to offer

This is exciting. A way to keep the Switch fresh amongst the fanbase as PS5 and Xbox Series games start to arrive, and will likely add a couple of years onto the lifecycle

@luckiernut 1m a month production? 6m units in the market by Christmas. Remember less than 3m were made for the Switch launch

@NEStalgia Actually, the limited time release is about extending the life of products. It keeps the Mario games at ultimate value. Now it’s £50 a game, rather than a £50 collection

@BloodNinja I think you’ll struggle to make a good return with over 10m units in the market place. Limited run, not limited quantity

I know it’s illogical but... the reason these games exist was to celebrate the anniversary of Mario. Mario anniversary ends... so do the games .

It’s weird. But Nintendo is weird.

Looks like a GameCube game, ha! Have you played on recently?

This game was my game of the year in 2020. Utterly fantastic remaster/remake

How people value things varies. I know lots of people on here are mortified at the idea of a game that required little work being charged £50 for... but value for me doesn’t depend on how much work went into it, or how big the budget was. For me it’s ‘Will I get a lot of gameplay out of this for my money’. If the answer is yes, then I’ll get it.

Skyward Sword is like 40 - 50 hours of Zelda goodness. That’s around £1 an hour. I’m in.

It’s different for different people. But this is why the Mario 3D collection as a bargain for me. That was 2 months of joyful gaming for me

It was an underwhelming Direct, but really, it shouldn't have been. It's the H1 Direct. The big event games, Mario and Monster Hunter, were already announced. It shouldn't have been a surprise.

There was a lot of third-party stuff, and there's at least one sizeable Nintendo Switch exclusive every month until July. The next showcase, whether that's E3 or another Direct, will reveal the rest-of-the-year stuff. Hopefully some of the bigger brands will be there.

Splatoon gets a sequel because it is a massively popular franchise. F-Zero doesn't get a sequel because it's not a massively popular franchise.

@Doktor-Mandrake It's actually a different team doing Perfect Dark. The Initiative

@Doktor-Mandrake Sea of Thieves. Superb game. Just had its biggest ever month and is more popular than any Rare game before it. And it’a chief designer is the same person behind Banjo and Donkey Kong Country. Composer is the same person behind the Conker and Killer Instinct soundtracks.

Rare isn’t dead. More alive than ever. They’ve got another team now, making Everwild.

@Euler There’s no point in the teams just doing the same thing. The Mario Kart team did Arms.

As someone who does this for a living, I can tell you each generation means more pressure, more competition, needs to do more things... every major Switch game required more time and, significantly, more people to do. More people means fewer, bigger teams, which means fewer, bigger games.

Ocarina of Time took half the time and a third of the people of BOTW, and it was seen as a big team back then and a huge amount of time.

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to just fill your entertainment time with other things. But there’s plenty out there to entertain

@Doktor-Mandrake Except they have their most successful game ever right now...

(And also, frankly, their best game)

@fafonio Rare would do a good Banjo

@MS7000 Nintendo always have fallow years, it’s the nature of development. Normally, 4 years into a cycle (not that 4 years is normal for Nintendo), we would have seen the next games from the Mario or Zelda teams. But their games aren’t finished yet. They just take longer.

3DS is much easier to develop for than modern HD devices. It’s not really a fair comparison.

As for 2021... you know, it’s really hard to say right now. We’ve got a game every month until April, we know that. All games publishers are holding off their announcements until they can be more certain of a release date — COVID is making it tough to accurately set a release date at the moment because it’s causing hard-to-predict slowdown in certain situations. This is why we are getting games set for May and June (Resi, Ratchet) announced only very recently, because they will be only weeks away from going gold.

It’s frustrating, I also want to know where these games are... Breath of the Wild has been in development for 4 years. Nintendo 100% could show us something. But they won’t be able to set a date. We saw how many delays we got last year, sometimes by weeks, sometimes by months, sometimes indefinitely.

Anyway. My point is that Nintendo may have a good year for us this year. We just don’t know. But we know those teams won’t be far off. The next generation of major Switch games are within touching distance

@Euler No. But Odyssey was much harder. I’m not talking the ports and remakes. The other big games are taking much much longer. That’s why we have these ports, because the big games take longer to make. It’s an industry norm these days. Fewer, bigger games with online functionality.

@MS7000 Last year was a relatively quiet year, but still brought us Animal Crossing, 51 Worldwide Games, Paper Mario, Mario Kart Tour, Hyrule Warriors 2, alongside the remasters/ports of Mario, Xenoblade and Pikmin. It also brought us various DLC releases for Smash and Pokemon, plus updates to games like AC.

2019 was a bit better with Luigi’s Mansion, Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Astral Chain, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Super Mario Maker 2, Yoshi’s Crafted World, Tetris 99 etc...

But look, the game’s industry today is different. Games take hundreds of people years to make. Look at how many Halo games we got last generation. How many Naughty Dog games. Rockstar has made one game in the last 8 years.

Games take longer to build, and those games are supported for longer through DLC, updates and online events. Games like Smash, Splatoon, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Breath of the Wild, Arms, Tetris 99, Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem... Nintendo kept working on them for long after release. Some are still going. This happened a bit with 3DS and Wii U, but now it happens as standard.

This is just the reality of the games business. People are playing games for longer, buying fewer games, spending more on them... and developers were supporting them for longer.

@Euler People make fewer games today because they take longer to make and live for longer through DLC, live events and updates. It’s not a Nintendo thing, but an entire games industry thing. Comparing numbers to previous generations are a bit pointless. Each game on Switch required more people and longer development times to those on 3DS, and even Wii U. It’s the same for PlayStation, it’s the same for Xbox.

@sixrings That's really not sensible. Put all the games out at once? How are you going to play them all?

The ports are all about keeping people engaged with the platform between the big launches. Keeps conversation going and people playing... that's why they're spread out. When there's a gap in the schedule, plug it with an old classic.

@MS7000 I don't think 3D World is 'bare minimum'... simply re-releasing it with no additions would be that.

Ports keep Nintendo platforms alive. Most other console makers have big third-parties to help them keep the console alive, Nintendo only has itself. They release more original content than almost anyone, and yet the fans still complain.

@Narrator1 Unlikely. Capcom doesn’t own Zelda

I mean, I was already 100% on-board with this game anyway. A Mario game I've not played before and a crazy open world 6 - 8 hour game on the side.

Sounds incredible

Nintendo’s long-term goal is to have all of their classic games on one service. But they feel it makes sense to release regular titles over time to keep people engaged and new people subscribing.

In other words, be patient. If there’s stuff on there you like, keep subscribing. If there isn’t and you don’t need online play, unsubscribe until there is. But those games you’re all waiting for will come

@Perryg92 yes.

I enjoyed the first Yooka. Not perfect but not bad for a first try. Impossible Lair is a gem, really high quality.

But I have my suspicions this isn’t a new game at all

The reason to release a new version isn't to expand the Switch install base, but to ensure existing fans are still playing.

Are the people from 2017 still playing Switch? It's that audience that a new Switch is for

Nintendo always like to announce things late. And with COVID-19 making things tricky to predict, it makes sense to announce when you know when it’ll definitely launch

@StuTwo I just assume the team isn't together anymore. They're just doing something else.

But it would make sense for some DLC

@Clyde_Radcliffe It's to do with the nature of the customers. DLC sells to fully engaged players. It's harder to sell DLC for games that target more mainstream audiences. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen (Mario Kart 8 should get more DLC, although I suspect the problem is the team has been disbanded)... but that's why a very hardcore game like Smash gets DLC, while a big family friendly party game like Super Mario Party doesn't

@sixrings Barbara Broccoli said in a recent statement she didn’t like the old Bond games. You also need to get the likenesses to all the actors from the movies. It’s a huge licensing mission.

Whereas for IO’s game, they’re not using any movie actors.

But this has nothing to do with Nintendo. They just said yes. It was on Microsoft to sort it out. And as Spencer said, it just became impossible

@nocdaes So Phil Spencer has tried it twice. First back in 2007/8 when this was first made. And then again for Rare Replay.

EON don’t like the old Bond games. Barbara Broccoli has been quoted for saying they were violent for the sake of being violent (which is a bit rich for the makers of James Bond).

Maybe all the money they’re losing delaying No Time To Die will change their minds

@sixrings There are no differences. It’s not a Nintendo decision. It’s EON who is saying no

So, the reason this game doesn’t exist has nothing to do with disagreements between Nintendo and Xbox. It’s all because of EON

Nintendo don’t acquire franchises to do nothing with them. By owning Astral Chain, it means they can build games from the series even if Platinum is unavailable. They’re not reliant on one developer for the series’ development. That doesn’t mean Astral Chain 2 isn’t Platinum, it just means that if they need to utilise a Koei Tecmo or whatever, that’s an option.

This forum has just become Wii U fans moaning about ports. Or demanding sequels to games like F-Zero and Fatal Frame, two of Nintendo’s biggest flop franchises. It’s a real shame. Games today take bigger teams longer to make, that’s why Nintendo has been porting to plug the gaps, and why Nintendo focuses in on the bigger bets they know will be worth the investment and has the bigger demand. A good F-Zero in the 1990s took a year and a small team. Today it would take at least 3 years and, say, a modest team of 150. It’s just not realistic. It wouldn’t make its money back and only satisfy a small portion of the fanbase.

But then Nintendo do support flop franchises, too. Like Bayonetta, Pikmin and Metroid. So there’s a chance. I just wish people were a bit more reasonable