Ludovsky

@BeautyandtheBeer Tbh I kind of don't mind the lack of ranked battle because, though I could be wrong, that makes me feel like a full national dex is all the more likely(though I wouldn't be surprised if the game focused instead of what pokemons were instead in the national dex at the time of Platinum).

If anything, I felt like Sword & Shield more than previous titles specifically felt like it was catering to the competitive multiplayer crowd first and foremost with all the quality of life stuff to make leveling up IVs passively with pokejobs/hyper training(using XP candies to reach lvl 100 faster than ever before to unlock that) easier than ever before while having one of the singleplayer story/campaign that felt almost like an afterthought with how quickly it was over compared to older titles(which, for competitive players is almost a boon because it means less story to trudge through before all the post-game multiplayer/competitive facilities and all were unlocked)
.

@BenAV IT's weird because as a pokemon fan, but not a fan of competitive gaming, I felt like Sword & Shield seemed(when looking the way the game was designed, stuff it did introduce to make training pokemons IV/etc easier and so on) like it was designed for the competitive gamers first and foremost... which was the bit I liked less about it because it's the traditional titles which I was missing in my opinion.

@Cipher36 tbh my point is less animal Crossing and more the precedent it sets.
I wouldn't be surprised to see more games DLCs end up on there, and specifically for multiplayer ones.

If you think about it(oof things do turn out that way) I could see groups pooling together to get a "family" plans between friends for the convenience of all getting at the same time the expansion of a game they're playing at the time that Matt -very- DLCs added to the sub

@FishyS I dunno, in my experience it's not that uncommon

@Cipher36 Tbh my opinion is this deal is aimed much less at the individual plan and more at family plan.

For a single player Animal Cross player... even that free DLC would be... eh.

But for an entire group of eight players all sharing the same family plan so they could visit each others online(especially as you don't even need to live in the same house or even state to share a family plan by my experience)?

This could have terrific ramifications.

Because you'd be basically talking about up to eight players getting the DLC at the same time without needing to "purchase" it(purchase is between quotation marks because someone is still paying for the sub after all, but even then you're talking about paying 80$ to make the DLC available to eight people at once. At 25$ per person if individually purchase, you're talking about 200$ which means that even two years of sub would still be less).

@FishyS Tbh I suspect the DLC is aimed less at single suscriber and specifically more at family plan.

With up to 8 users in a single family plan(all of whom who can use their own console), that benefit definitely would stack up with games that have online/multiplayer functionality like Animal Crossing do.

And there's chances of furthermore games getting DLCs made available through that NSO expansion, so I wouldn't be surprised if later ones also had a online/multiplayer focus specifically to make that family plan more attractive(especially as you don't even need to live in the same house or even state to share a family plan with someone)

@InkIdols I think the emphasis here might be "right now" but something occured to me.

What Nintendo might be trying to push here is specifically their family plan.

That Animal Crossing DLC? Available to every member of a family plan

That's up to seven players(if we don't count the person paying the subscription) who don't have to purchase the DLC. And Animal Crossing totally has multiplayer functionality, so you can bet there's groups out there who already met each others through the game and got a family plan together who'd probably get to benefit a lot from this.

In the long run, with a good focus on DLCs for more multiplayer games... this could be perhaps a better offering than "just" free games(which would likely never happen specifically due to the fact the family membership allows to share benefits with every members of the group of up to 8 people)

@Hurblyburbly I think the same a bit, but the way I look at it I think what Nintendo will be slowly trying to do is specifically push forward the family plan.

Specifically when it comes to the "free" DLC like the upcoming Animal Crossing expansion.

And that's the thing, individually it is "only" a 25$ purchase. But for a group of eight players(the max supported by a family plan), that would be eight individual purchases of 25$ for a total of 200$... meanwhile, the family plan cuts that to just 80$ to "cover" 8 separate players.

And that's the other thing, Animal Crossing is a game which saw a lot of multiplayer use during the pandemic. And perhaps I'll be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wouldn't be the only DLC to be made available through the service specifically for that reason.

It's also why Nintendo probably will never include "full" games however because those would be "too much" of a benefit to share between 8 people.

But crucial DLCs to multiplayer games, suddenly made available to an entire group of players on the same subscription without needing to purchase them individually?

That could prove terrific if they play their cards well, and make keeping the cohesion of multiplayer groups terrific.

I don't expect it, but I could see a massive shift if something like Sunbreak for Monster Hunter Rise was ever to be made available as a benefit of the service(though honestly I suspect THAT would be too big of an expansion considering expansion to Monster Hunter games are almost akin to full new games of their own, ontop of the fact I expect the service to focus on first party titles)

@CelS i'm torn myself and it definitely seem so but I think that like the initial NES collection it perhaps focus a bit too much on one thing: current rather than future offerings.

Because more than anything what Animal Crossing means is that it sets a precedent for future DLCs of other games also benefitting from this.

The area where this might become a MASSIVE deal.... is that there's a family plan option for that NSO expansion.

Considering that said family plan can not cover two or even four but a whopping eight different people, this could have HUGE ramifications for multiplayer games in the future(and Animal Crossing is definitely a multiplayer game).

To put it that way: for the price of a subje foll priced game per year, you're giving access to games DLCs for up to 8 people that otherwise would have had to purchase it individually.

With just that Animal Crossing DLC we're talking about 80$ vs roughly 225$ if everyone in a 8 users family plan h had all individually purchased the DLC.

In a way, thinking about it that's likely why full game will never be coming to the service(-because then that would be too many sales lost) but DLCs expansion of multiplayer games very well may

@Joeynator3000 Honestly I know they're saying they're supposedly remasters but honestly plenty of folks would have been fine with ports of the originals.

@Fighter_Hayabusa Began to try it this morning before work, but I can confirm it seem to run well!

@Friendly If it means anything, they already teased a map that seemed very expansive and seemed to be a call-back to the kind of world design found in Super Metroid.... even teasing potential nonlinear progression as a result.

@Entrr_username "The only thing I'll say for the first paragraph is that the game is rated T for teens. Kids shouldn't even be on it."

Do you truly think Epic really cares when it brings them so much money that kids are?

And ultimately this is about not who's playing Fortnite but rather that one of the biggest video games company out there is not only making a game mode in the same genre(Werewolf/Mafia) than an indie studio but even copying wholesales the nuances that indie had introduced to stand out in the first place(assignements that need to be completed by non-impostors as a way to attain victory, impostors having to sneak their way around while avoiding suspicion to actually murder anybody especially to try to delay the call of an emergency meeting to discuss who might be impostors... this is a fair nuance from Werewolf's purely turn-based "just close your eyes everyone while the werewolves merely point fingers to decide who dies tonight and then you'll open your eyes to point your fingers at who you think is a werewolf).

This is a multi-billion(not millions, billions) dollars company that would have more than enough budget to hire actual designers to come up with original ideas and instead they copy wholesale even the tweaks introduced to a formula by a much smaller studio. And specifically only as said smaller studio had grown to visibility.

Like... they have the means to be more original than that.

@ModdedInkling Tbh the fact this guy seemed to go beyond "distributing ROM online" to "actually monetizing his website doing that" seem to have been the biggest sticking point there I believe. Like... it's kind of a Do Not Do That when the thing is (from a legal point of view) already sketchy as it is and which can really go against the whole "archiving" argument.

Especially considering bittorrent/etc existed since forever and still continue to exists.

Though honestly I kind of wishes the gaming industry could be coerced into at least partly contributing or allowing the creation of something like an "Archive of Video games".

Like... "If it's no longer being printed/digitally distributed and was to be played on a console that is no longer being produced or supported... then it's addition to archival collection should be allowed so that modern players could have a mean to experience the work of programmers and composers and know it Existed... at least until the owning company actually decide to make a modern port/etc of the game in which case it MAY be allowed to asks for the delisting"

In short: don't support the game, then don't complain. Support the game with modern ports, then yes you can complain about "illegal" distribution.

I know it's unlikely to happen anytime soon however.

@Funneefox While I personally think Nintendo should chill out already with the lawyer stuff when video game archiving is enough of an hurdle as it is, I'd argue that ebay is probably the worst place to hunt for game.

I had much more luck finding older games, specifically legit ones(I checked) too and at affordable prices as a bonus, on a local craigslist equivalent in Quebec/Canada("Kijiji") ads of people just trying to get rid of old stuff they don't need anymore
than I ever did finding anything below absurd prices on ebay.

I'm not sure why it was, but I think the thing is that with ebay the expectation from these people is specifically to make money and a ton of it to the point a lot of them are doing it almost professionally whereas simple traditional "want to sell" ads places like re: kijiji/craiglist(maybe Facebook Marketplace? I haven't tried yet) is people less concerned with making money and often just trying to sell an old game they don't need/etc and figuring it might as well go to people who might enjoy it/etc I.e.: sellers who're more concerned about it not cluttering their house/shelves/etc anymore than they are about the money they'd make and thus less likely to be familiar with what they "could" get from the likes of ebay/etc... or even care.

Basically think less "the places where specifically hope for an auction to rise to good amount so they can make good buck" and more the kind of places that might as well be better thought of as "digital flea's market" or the like.

@mariomaster96 Honestly you might be onto something with the personality aspect. If you look at recent games like not just Zelda titles but even stuff like Mario Odyssey, you can see that Nintendo was often drawing from specific artistic inspirations and styles and balanced a lot of the visuals, palettes and lighting to try an convey such effects.

Effects that can be easily lost in "upscales" like this which focus only on technology and not how they can be used to enhance the original intent instead of overwhelming it.

Like.... Skyward Sword was clearly inspired by the art of impressionists who'd paint environment in small brushstrokes that have to be viewed at a distances to truly appreciate the way they blend and meld into hue and shapes(as up close the brushstrokes would seem too thick to truly notice the details, ironically).

Similarly Breath of the wild was itself inspired by the work of other painters, something that can be lost upon with unbalanced use of shaders and lighting.

In fact, if anything... looking how cel-shaded characters stand apart from the more muted background in Breath of the Wild feels intentional and sometimes even remind me of old style cartoons where background artwork were often (slightly desaturated) watercolored paintings whereas characters were more vibrant/saturated cel-shading that would "pop out" in the image further.

That kind of shader/lighting such as in those mods can often lose this effect.

@HefHughner Localization is still pretty costly. Especially japanese to other languages like english is particularly quite the hurdle.
Like, just in the early day there were issues in UI interface itself because japanese language is kinda "symbol" based so every single kanji can be comparable to a full word in other language... so trying to translate relatively compact japanese scripts would often see game runs out of space/character limit because a single character in japanese could be equivalent to a 6-12 letters word for example... but character limits for item names/etc(and the space allocated in the UI) were often patterned after the compact japanese script so words often had to be abbreviated, often in hard to parse fashion.

This is (slightly) less an issue in modern games, but then voice-acting has begun being involved and with those we're talking about recording studio, recording session/etc and still making sure the text flows nicely/sound okay and that the translation/localization was done well.

Also another issue I've heard of is that text in japanese is often very different from european language in that just in speech a lot of non-japanese speaker do when trying to speak japanese is "using too many words rather than not enough".

A lot of japanese text is very short, almost seemingly simplistically so if it was purely translated word-to-word but that's because rather than using "tons of word" they let context give other nuances of a situation.

So you can't "just" translate text from japanese to english but instead very much need to further develop the text so it's easier to parse/etc by western audience which is a process which can see a lot of hit and misses if you don't know what you're doing.

@Stubborn_Monkey It sounds like the shop part might (eventually) be closed, but games will continue being supported patches/etc otherwise.

In a way, they could "afford" to shut down the Wiishop of the original Wii in no small parts because online patches weren't really a thing yet with the Wii, but they definitely became one with the 3DS and WiiU.

And while the amount of WiiU out could be seen as negligible for this kind of decisions, the amount of 3DS out there very much isn't negligible even if they aren't as actively "used" by their owners(in general. I know there's still people frequently using theirs but let's admit it... they're likely not the majority, especially with the Switch close to 85 million consoles now and still selling).

@tkdboy1889 Tbh it doesn't help a lot of these games never got localized here and honestly considering they're third party titles, actually localizing them would make it an hurdle in itself to get this here

Since then there would be a debate of who would even foot the bill of localizing the title and whether it should be a NSO collection title or instead sold separately. And then the matter of who gets to publish and profit and that's not even getting into the cost-analysis of whether enough westerners would be curious enough to buy a likely niche title. Unless a lot of marketing money is then spent to market it as the predecessor of Persona but again to a still very unknown outcome since people like Persona games but specifically the "modern" ones that are "Actually Flashy enough to grab attention"(and ultimately still sold much less than the fans seem to think they did).

Honestly there's reasons we're not getting this in the west, even if it's disapointing.

@tkdboy1889 "whereas PC players can usually brute-force with powerful hardware or at the very least turn down their settings to get better performance."

Honestly the "can just brute force through poor optimization thanks to powerful hardware" is why I wishes sometimes more game were made with weaker hardware in mind first.

It often feels there's a lot of games that go "You absolutely need X console/GPU/etc to play this" not because they're particularly visually demanding in any way that even looks good but just because they're that poorly optimized but "hey, the players have the hardware to brute force through it".

It's seriously why I hope the Switch last longer and remains popular long enough to force more devs to at the very least pay some kind of lip service to optimization rather than the "not at all" that's frequently seen.

Too often the story of a Switch port I've heard was not "it was impossible for us to make the game run at all to the console" but rather "we had no ideas we were doing so many things coding/graphics wise that we didn't even need and not cleaning that up make the games run so much better on all hardware".

Like... seriously. It took a grossly underpowered platform getting popular enough for many developers to literally admit just how much their own optimization was subpar even for the more powerful existing platforms of the time.

Honestly it's kind of why I'd love the world of "we need better hardware" to just take a chill pill and let developers actually learn how to optimize for existing hardware rather than throwing them at stuff like the PS5 to get barely better results because it gives them that much horsepower to just brute force unoptimized games through.

And then we wonder why we need (now even more inflated in costs because of shortages) absolutely costly GPUs and processors to run anything "new" even on PC often leaving a lot of games out of the reach of anybody but the most well-off players.

@VoidofLight It's kind of weird too because the grass itself isn't even.... super intense compared to the entire fields in something like Breath of the Wild(where it's ironically where the game experience it's best performances, the more demanding places usually being villages)?

@BenAV I'd say if you're interested in this to simply save up and get it, even if slightly later, at the full price if you ever can.

Unlike big publishers, a lot of indie titles' games are often close to underpriced at base price so when they're at sales they're often close to losing money unless the amount of copies sold is absurdly massive(which is usually out of the reach of most indie developers in term of visibility).

There's a reasons(if I recall well when I saw this discussed) folks like Shovel Knight eventually stopped putting the game on sales because though they were "selling" more copies, ultimately the "revenues" of selling the game at discounted price was leading them to barely break even until they just began to sell at regular price where they indeed sold "less" copies but eventually made up their development costs if I recall.

And that's saying something knowing the phenomenon that Shovel Knight was.

@IronMan30 Tbh it helps a lot of the better games... don't require additional expenses to be localized here since a lot of those titles are very much the ones which never got a localization sadly.

@roboshort I dunno if I'd call "The game that gave birth to effing Persona" a bad choice of a thing to include.

If anything, the annoying thing is that it's Japan-exclusive(since it never got localized).

@WhiteUmbrella I'd say it depends.

A core flaw of the WiiU wasn't that it depended on just it's core fanbase.
If anything, it's biggest failure at launch is that it failed to cater to it at all during the crucial launch year.

Recall, the WiiU didn't even launch with a Mario or Zelda games. At all.
It took literal years before we got.... Mario 3D World which was nice but not the kind of 3D exploration platformers fans had grown to enjoy.
And the only Zelda games we got ended up ports of Gamecube era games and again, only after years.

That's the thing.
If anything, the only things it had at release was third party games... but they weren't what the fans wanted and ultimately a lot of them proved to be throwaway effort from the third parties themselves.

So if anything the WiiU's flaw was to trust third-parties to pick up the slack of a lack of first party releases too much. But the fans of third parties had already their Xbox and Playstation lines so it left it to fans of first party to create and initial momentum for the console.... and they had nothing.

Contrast to the Switch's first year where it's ultimately been BOTW and Mario Odyssey both launching during that crucial launch year period that ultimately created all that momentum that forced third party to give the Switch any look at all if they wanted a piece of that rising pie(especially since it was starting to drag in both traditional and new fans just like the Wii before it, but this time through people actually enjoying traditional games and buying more stuff than just WiiSport).

@Restryder Pretty much as you say.

The only reason this is able to be compared to the Switch at all is that it's priced so aggressively that it's likely being sold at a notable loss(which Valve likely intend to make up on by being the monopoly of the PC market taking a cut from every game... and hear me out, if this attain dominance as some wishes for the result would be that a lot of those Steam sales would become increasingly less common and the algorithm would increasingly start skewing toward the full prices 60-70USD "AAA" millions-copies-sellers game Steam can take the bigger cut from than "indie game that's only 20USD and sell only a respectable 250k copies")

But thinking this overtake the Switch alone forget the Switch already sells at a profit(unlike this) and could turn that thing's strategy on it's face by just.... starting to sell Switch at a lower price.

Sure the difference between the Switch OLED and the (cheapest, most are more costly) Steam Deck is only 50$.
But what if the OLED drop it's price and the difference becomes 100$?
Or what if the base Switch model continue being sold and ALSO drop by 50$? We'd be talking a different no longer of 100$USD but of 150$USD.

And Nintendo has a lot of "home advantage" in the simple marketing department due to simply already be established as something discussed not just on hobbyist sites but also in mainstream medias such as newspapers and TV. Ontop of already being highly visible in physical stores as mainstream as Walmart(an arena where the Steam Deck doesn't offer -retailers- much reason to sell an all-digital product offering no reasons for consumers to return to the store).

It could still do well. Mind you. But I think the margin for success might be different than people expects.

This could be a very solid success at 5-10 millions units sold. But I don't think (because so much just.... marketing logistics alone is working against this device) it may ever reach beyond 20-25 millions units sold in it's lifetime.
Plus there's the matter that we still don't know what the initial supply will be like. The Steam Machines was such a fiasco because *highly nonstandardized if I recall) production was chiefly handled by third parties whom Valve merely threw the SteamOS at.

Which, unless Valve massively overhauled their negotiations with component supply chains and productions plant could lead to a potentially limited launch very much seeing the same stock shortage issues already affecting Xbox and PS5.... but potentially while selling even smaller amount of units.

There's a lot of unknowns about whether this will "suceed" or "fail".
For another factor: while people are writing a lot about this in comparison to the position of Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft and talking about the 90-120 millions strong supposedly "active" Steam userbase... they're forgeting that said userbase is ALSO a thing Steam Deck would be competing it.
Because these people are Steam users -because- they already have a gaming-capable PC so before Steam Deck can convince people to jump from other consoles to the Steam Deck... it need to convince enough of it's very own userbase that this is a device they indeed want in addition to or in stead of their PC.

@HalBailman Honestly while I don't expect them to really be pressured enough to drop the price, if this does come gunning for the Switch and somehow DO pressure it....

Nintendo can afford to drop the Switch's more than Valve could afford to drop this thing's price further.

Simply sell, the Switch sells at a profit while everything this article mention seem to point that even the cheapest Steam Deck(whose storage size and speed might be an unstated weakness for the larger size of PC games) is likely sold at a loss.

So Nintendo likely could just drop their price from "Sell at a profit" to "Break even prices" which, iirc the profit margin of Switch consoles being roughly 50$, could mean the OLED for ~300$, previous baseline Switch for 250$ and Switch Lite for 150$.

So unless Steam Deck can drop below that 400$ asking price, we'd be talking differences of 100-250$ by which point the answer would easily be "Sure it's weaker but we already know it has games that were popular enough to sell 20-35 million copies sold and cost a ***** load less more".

But to drop price the Steam Deck would need to go from "likely sell at a loss" to "sell at a greater loss" just to catch up to Nintendo selling at "Selling at just no profit but no loss either" if Nintendo wanted to go that route.

Ultimately though Nintendo was always adverse to selling at a loss and why would they not? The last time they did that was the WiiU and we know how much of a disaster that was.

Ultimately though, my personal thought is I dislike consoles being sold at a loss to drive up the demand for "better" hardware. Sony and Playstation doing so is the main reason we keep having these forced generational leap even on PC where, unlike the heavily discounted of these consoles, players would always need to pony up the "real" cost of hardware which often resulted in "Games being cheaper on PC" frequently being offset by "PC hardware cost a heckton to upgrade to keep up" every times a new generation landed. And tbh it worked for Sony/Microsoft because "look at our affordable all-in-one hardware package" is one of the chief contributor to a lot of players(and thus developers and genres) going from PC to consoles for a while.

And some justify it because "Tech has to progress" but I wonder.
Seeing the cost in added cut taken from game sales, the rising cost of game development leading the standard AAA game sale price to rise from 60$USD to 70$USD, the constant tales of overworked development studios and burnouts and toxic work environment.... I wonder if this progression truly is natural or entirely being purely "forced" just so a few(already extremely rich) industry players can find a way to stand out by simply throwing more money at things and (an extremely limited and increasingly same-looking) visual spectacle instead of competing for who can make the most unique and compelling games.

But then again I'm the kind of people who's growing to NOT want prettier game but, as the quote someone else posted at some point, rather want " shorter 'worst' looking games made by better paid and less overworked development teams".
And while I say 'worst' looking games, I mean purely from a technical standpoint because what I'm talking about is stuff like Hades which managed to be extremely stylish and compelling WITHOUT driving it's entire development team into the ground and burnout.

But I know that kind of goal won't be a thing as long as industry players keep artificially subsidizing "hardware generation upgrade" before the tech is ready to NOT sell at a loss(and be better understood/grasped by studios) in a situation where the games that keep getting the most coverage are always the most "cinematographic"(i.e.: the kind usually being made by the studios and publishers most able to overwork their team even as they throw millions at the development and marketing to achieve said "cinematographic" cachet that increasingly look the same whichever AAA game you're looking at even as "lesser" industry players struggle to stand out due to lacking the budget to create this marketed cinematographic style most gaming media focus on meaning so many unique and compelling experience can often fly under the radar).

@UltimateOtaku91 Honestly while it IS true people do buy digital games much more than they used in the past, I think people still underestimate even just the psychological incentive for people to have even just the idea of the possibility of having physical "backup" of media when it comes to all-digital consoles. Which is why I suspect those all-digital models don't seem to have picked up all that much. Console people might indeed buy more digital games than ever, but psychologically they still aren't there yet and might still not be for a long while.

It's why I suspect the Steam Deck might also only primarily do well only with people who're already intensive Steam user because all-digital with a storage that'd need to be either the higher end models or be supplemented with the additional purchase of microSD cards is probably gonna be a detriment in the eyes of the mainstream even if it's purely based on the perspective that '"you can't even own your games on disks anymore" of it.

This said, ironically something like the Steam Deck(decently powerful hardware sold at a discounted cost) might be better situated to compete not with the Switch but Playstation/Xbox consoles due to the fact that Sony and Microsoft selling powerful artificially discounted hardware was one of the thing that was dealing more of a blow to PC gaming(where people had to pay the "real" price for hardware upgrades even before chip scarcity and scalpers inflated the price of GPUs and other components).
So as I've begun to mull it, I think there is indeed a possible niche for the Steam Deck but it's just not the one people think it is.

Ultimately there's more overlap with the games that actually sell numbers on Steam and those that sells on Xbox/Playstation than there is with those that have actually sold on Switch in general. So it might be better as a way to begin stemming the flow of players from PC-to-Console in general than it might be as a mean to start a Switch-to-Steam migration.

@Justaguest Or not.
If you look at the games who succeed on Switch there's not a whole lot that are the "big games you can play on the go!" that got people initially talking about the Switch... it's ultimately always been the stuff that could already run on the Switch as a weaker handheld that sold. Sure Doom eternal's on Switch but it's still "less powerful" games which generally ended up selling more.

Plus what will sell in December will likely have more to do with "what mainstream consumers can find even at places like Walmart without having to look up stuff online" than just specs. Unless Valve go out of their way to increase their retail presence(and that's an uphill battle to convince retailes with a digital-only console that offers no reasons for consumers to come back to the retail store to buy games) they'll likely remain a niche product primarily only at however large or small the niche of Steam user who really want another platform to play their games on(when most of them already had a PC rig in the first place built to their specification) just so they can play them on the go(instead of at home, which the number of Steam users might mean plenty are still okay with).

There IS a crowd for the Steam Deck(after all, there is a crowd who don't care for Nintendo first party games but might enjoy PC games on the go), but I just don't think it's as large than people think it really will be even with the discounted price of the Steam Deck(it was more or less confirmed by Gabe Newell that unlike other handheld PCs it's being sold at a loss just to get a chance of establishing itself at all).
Even with a user base of 90-120mil Steam users... it'll be good if even as much than 10-25mil make the jump to get a Steam Deck over it's lifetime(and we still don't know what supply will even be like at release, especially with the shortage of more powerful processor/chips out there).

@UltimateOtaku91 I don't know if that many sales are the Lite, but I do see it as an handheld to.

It's just that when people were cheering about the ability to play "big games on the go" I saw it as the opposite: the ability to finally play my previously handheld-exclusive RPGs on a TV screen again when home(while still keeping the ability to play them on my commute).

Which is to say I always saw the Switch as something where it was previously handheld-only titles that had more to gain from it's hybrid nature than what "big games" got from being able to be played on the go.

Especially when looking at a lot of the games which have seemed to sell/not on Switch.

@johnvboy Heh, it might be played as a handheld/home console but it does ultimately remain a dedicated handheld.

Just that it's the one that finally included a TV connection accessory that's actually not a pain to use as part of the base package.

A lot was written about it as a "you can play your big games on the go" console but in practice(even in term of sales) it's always been more of a "You can play all those handheld/handheld jRPG both on the go AND your TV when you get home". Might sound the same but there's still a nuance(you can see it in stuff like even just game UI; You can compare Monster Hunter Rise and World's UIs and clearly see Rise's UI was in no small part built with the handheld, rather than TV, screen in mind).

As ultimately that's also my feeling on the thing; that handheld got more of a benefit of the simple support to be played on TV(after returning home from a commute/etc) than larger games got from the ability to be played on the go.

@Damo Otoh the Series X is, iirc, sold at a loss(and thus need to recoup said loss on game sales which, with rising development costs of game themselves, is also another reason the standard price of game is threatened to eventually rise from 60USD to 70USD)

Switch consoles have always sold at a very small profit if I recall(iirc, something like only around 50$ for the base 299$USD model).

So even a higher "total dollars sales" might not mean much unless people buy the games to go along with that Series X.

@jowe_gw Honestly I'm just tired of the "race to the bottom" prices that are use to drive up the "demand" for more powerful hardware.
Because ultimately it ends up being paid in higher game costs,(to cover the cost) higher game development cost(which itself drive up the cost of games further which's why we're moving from 60USD to 70USD), which ends up requiring more work from game studios which increasingly lead to overworked teams and burnouts as execs keep trying to extract more work from studios for higher profits and

Honestly, I'm just tired.
And the thing is, if the hardware was sold for it's "real" cost(like on PC, even before crypto inflation BS)...we likely wouldn't even be there because the hardware would have to be more reasonable and thus even some publishers like EA/Activision/etc wouldn't even be there because they'd have to compete on the quality of games not "how much money they can throw at them to make them shinier" to the levels that any games that even remotely fail doesn't just mean a temporary loss for the studio but the whole place closing down that increasingly lead the gaming scene to become so streamlined and homogenous because taking risks means the possibility of failure which can mean "your entire studio is fired".

I'm honestly tired.

@ThatNyteDaez Honestly.
Edit: okay, confirmed the thing is selling at a loss/near loss : https://kotaku.com/gabe-newell-describes-steam-decks-price-as-painful-for-1847301377

I think this thing's pricepoint is only possible because it might follow the Playstation/Xbox philosophy.
i.e.: "We artificially sell it less than it actually cost to make, with next to no profit margin on console sale because we know that the real price would lead people to never buying it and us not establishing a presence on the market otherwise".

So in short: It "exist" only because it's likely not sold at the "true" price it would otherwise cost. And I have extremely mixed feelings about that approach when we keep hearing about overworked game studios and burnout... but a lot of that burnout exists because of the demand for higher graphics because of the demand to keep up with higher powered hardware... which only sells because it's not sold at it's real cost.

Not sure how I feel about a (even if not certain since playerbases are possibly different anyway) attempt to pull this against of the few consoles who's kept away(since the Switch was made to still sell at a profit, thus closer to it's "real" cost instead of lower) from this hardware horserace and the burnout-inducing graphics they lead to in the industry.

Like, I've seen noted the OLED barely makes much of a different margin of profit even at a higher cost because of the cost of the OLED screen and added storage.

So I have a hard time to see how the 399$ Steam Deck would NOT be selling at a loss.

Like, ultimately if the Switch is indeed what they're gunning for... then Valve can shut up about Epic Games trying to price them out of the digital PC market by "giving away free games and purposefully losing money just to establish themselves"

@Kirgo Yeah, that's a factor. Plus the dock being a separate purchase rather than included by default.

Honestly, if the dock hadn't been part of the default package on Switch it would never have took off I think.

This can still carve it's niche, and perhaps even just that niche would be good enough in Valve's eyes.... but short of entirely overhauling the way they see hardware distribution, negotiating deals with the like of frigging Walmart and other average retailers(instead of just specialized electronics/game places)... I don't see this becoming mainstream. At least not this iteration unless they re: adjust their course.

But Valve has always been... kind of borderline "libertarian laissez-faire", so I don't see them doing, well, that. This approach kind of worked on PC but I don't really see it working on the retail front(and especially not without physical games to sell, which is a good way for retailers to go "eff you" about selling your console since physical goods is what get people coming to their store).

@russell-marlow I... don't know about that.
Ultimately, the people who see this Steam Deck will be ultimately of two category(and usually have to be both).
They'll need to be gaming people AND internet-always-online-people like us who're commenting here.

The OLED?
The OLED can be likely found about by simple "actually went to the Walmart and saw they got Switch in stock" people.

That's the core difference between Valve and not just Nintendo but all the other console manufacturers. The thing they likely will have that Valve(unless Valve massively change it's "They will come if we build it" laissez-faire that seem to forego establishing/negotiating a retail presence and the like) is that not only you don't need to be a gaming person to know "of" them.... you don't even need to be online to.

Don't hear me wrong. I think this might be able to carve a niche, but I don't think it'll do so by managing to displace anything or anyone.
It might carve a niche in "Steam users who wishes they could play on the go like a Switch", but ultimately a LOT of people who're primarily Steam users are still primarily PC gamers... because the "PC" is the platform/console/formate they're comfortable with using a mouse and keyboard or playing at their desk rather than a TV.

Ultimately it comes down to logistics and I don't feel like Valve is really well-placed to compete with the other three on that front. It might dominate the digital format through PC, but on the hardware front it still has a lot to learn not in term of specs but simply in terms of "actually distributing the thing and getting it known to people who're not terminally online".

@Nintendo_Thumb Also I suspect Nintendo's strength here might not even be anything to do with the hardware but another thing that Valve seem to have purposefully ignored in all it's previous offering.

That is, a retail presence and the distribution network(and negotiated deals with retailers/etc that go with it) to actually get their console into people's hands.

Even with scarce supplies you can expect to find a Switch not just in video games or even general electronic stores, but even in non-gaming places like... Walmart.

And somehow I don't expect this thing to be available at Walmart(especially not without any physical game to sell), let alone in a widely available fashion.

And that's the thing. With "can be found at the Walmart", you don't even need to be a gaming person to know of the Xbox/Playstation/Switch. You don't even need to be an internet person to.

@WhiteUmbrella Honestly it's one of the thing that bug me.

People shout out at Epic for trying to pricecut Steam away from it's dominant position(i.e.: offering free games at an operating loss, simply assuming they can keep throwing money away until they achieve a dominant position).... but honestly with how this thing keep being compared to the Switch I can't help but feel like it's an attempt to do the same at Nintendo.

I.e.: "Look at how much better console is but, oh, that's only affordable at all because we're selling it at a cut price by throwing money to try to edge out the competition".

Granted there's more to it than just that.
I mean, I know that with how established the big three are, they couldn't get established without either selling something "remarkable" at a cut price or releasing "something of similar power"... which would make the point of getting this moot if it was no more powerful than a Switch.

Though it remains to be seen if they will up their distribution/retail presence with this or keep thinking they can coax with just Steam pre-order.

@boxyguy the thing is about the price specs is I want to know how much profit margin they make on it or if it's sold at a loss(which would mean... a whole other bag of things in my eye).

Even at 350$USD, the Switch OLED actually apparently doesn't make that much of a profit margin(in fact, comparable to the previous Switch apparently, even with the increase, because of the added cost of the OLED screen and storage iirc).

@Gwynbleidd Honestly it's barely a higher resolution than the Switch so... I wonder how well it will truly run. Or be enjoyable.

Thinking about even just factor like text size with many games being infamous even on Switch for how hard to read they are when playing on handheld, I could see this problem being worst on "switch-sized screen playing literal PC game without console-specific UI changes".

That's another factor I hadn't thought about(and I already can't help but wonder if that thing might not be sold at a literal loss at 399$, or how run it would run if it's indeed as powerful as people think it is when the 2017 Switch itself was already infamous for how hot it could run while being much "less" powerful).

@johnvboy Honestly the "probably won't even know it exist" is likely to be the biggest hurdle for this.

It might just be outsider perspective but so far Valve's hardware efforts have seemed.... very "they'll come if we build it" laissez-faire that doesn't seem to pay much attention to stuff like offline retailers/etc which remain a huge portion of the console proper market.

Come what may, the average Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft console can be found in such places as monolithic Walmart of all things. So it's not even non-gaming but literally non-internet person who can expect to find their game consoles.

The fact this seem to remain primarily pre-ordered through Steam, unless there's massive changes, make me think this will be more directly marketed at people who are.... ultimately already PC gamers.
And while it's not everyone, a lot of people game on PC because their PC rig is THE one they built to play their games on.

It could be a very interesting product this said but I feel it is kind of fated to remain niche on this simple logistic factor alone. This said this could be exactly the "niche" Valve intend for it, and need nothing more than said niche.

Ultimately though the PC game market feels like, on game selection alone, it's more in competition with Sony/Microsoft than Nintendo so I guess we'll see how it goes.
This could be an attempt at trying to woo back the kind of indies who ended up selling more on Switch than the PC platform where the scene was born but if that's the case it might be "too little too late" because the people who'd wanted to "play indie games on the go" already likely have a Switch and thus would be unlikely to buy this just to go back to a PC environment.

@Kirgo Honestly I feel a SD card will be a must with this thing, especially the lower end model.
Ultimately the Switch kind of coast "okay" with it's storage because it has a physical option AND that physical option means that games on Switch are made with a 16GB cartridge storage in mind. So the largest Switch games are 14GB on average but MANY PC games are in the 40-50GB+ range. When they don't outright reach a bloated 100GB size.

@Serialsid Honestly, in hindsight(and especially because Nintendo's exclusive is a thing) I'd be almost more interested in buying this instead of a Playstation/Xbox than a Switch.

Since ultimately... those are the platforms whose games are more likely to be featured on a PC platform anyway.

Anyhow, that's assuming it works as well as advertised/can be distributed and sold to meet demand/actually sells enough to be supported in the long run.

@westman98 Honestly this.

Plus... I won't lie, this is a SOLID offering from Valve if it works as advertised or even if it works even just "mostly" as advertised(they do put forward the point of "you can adjust game graphics settings" so I suspect that "can run AAA games, and well" will come with the caveat of "if you adjust settings accordingly so it doesn't overheat").

But ultimately Valve kind of has that problem on their hardware effort where, well.

There's a reasons Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are where they are and it's partly because ultimately they've become very much expert at retail distribution/negotiation/marketings.

Come what may, even in Walmart you're able to buy a Switch/Playstation/Xbox console(maybe not the PS5/Xbox because of all the supplies issues, but the fact is Walmart IS a place you can go for those).
With Valve... I'm not sure they'll have the negotiation/distribution chops to distribute this reliably outside of their own direct order system which could greatly hinder this thing's reach.

@WhiteUmbrella I suspect the core difference is if Valve decide to actually up their "hardware distribution, marketing and 'negotiation with actual retail chains" " deal for this.

Come what may, mainstream people can still buy a Switch/Playstation/Xbox at the Walmart. Unless Valve wise up(and that's if they indeed want to "compete" at all more than just carving a niche), they could still end up not selling enough console if they coax on "we've made it so we guess they'll come" laissez-faire.

Plus, knowing that even with it's weak hardware the Switch's profit margin(for the console, not the games) isn't super high... I can't help but wonder if this things truly sell at a profit even at the 399$ prices or if it'll be "as good" as advertised.

Some people seem to think this'll be the "4K Switch" but there's already people doubting it when they look at it.

Plus, recalling how hot even the 2017 Switch could run, I can't help but worry about the running temperature of this thing.

I won't lie, it DOES look good but I can't help but wonder if it's "too good to be true". At the very least, at least unlike the Steam Machines this platform seem to be built with clear standard and concept(since iirc the Steam Machine was ultimately just "we'll give some rough specification to hardware manufacturers to make their own and we'll throw the SteamOS at it" laissez-faire).

@Brummieendo90 Honestly this.
The only I could need though is if the OS' UI could be updated to allow "hiding" the game icons for physical games that aren't currently slotted into the console.

I kind of like it shows my collection, but ultimately it would make it much easier to find my digital games when I want to play them. After all, my physical games ARE easy to find since I own the actual boxes for them. I don't need the UI to display them at all them.

Honestly I think the core difference between the Switch and WiiU is just there. Physical games on WiiU were displayed in the UI only if they were in the actual disk slot. Whereas on Switch they'll always be displayed on the UI.... unless you actively delete them.

Starting to have a relatively sizeable physical collection, I've grown to delete (physical-owned) games from my Switch just to make it easier to browse the UI for what few digital games I have installed at a time.

@Tom-Smo Honestly, it's pretty good.

Plus if you look at the weekly/total sales of other games you can see that not only Stories 2 has done better this week than the first-party Mario Golf.... it's actually done better in it's launch week than Mario Golf is doing in term of total sales so far.

Plus if you look at the textures/models style and complexity used in Stories 2, it's quite possibly they already budgeted all along for this kind of sales.

It's easy to forget that most jRPGs are budgeted not with 1-2mil launch sales in sight, but with only 500k-800k lifetime sales in mind when they calculate development costs and expected profits.

@westman98 Plus Japan still very much is in the grip of COVID, so it's not impossible it could be seeing more digital than physical sales,. Or at least close to as much digital than retail sales.

Plus, I just checked. The game in third place is Mario Golf but only sold 17k copies this week.
But if you look at Mario Golf(again, a first party title), you'll notices that Mario Golf only has a total of slightly more than 120k sales, despite launching much earlier.

So despite selling "only" 130k copies, Monster Hunter Stories 2 has already done better on it's launch week than a first party title like Mario Golf has done so far despite launching quite earlier.

@the_beaver To be honest, do keep in mind those are purely Japan retail sales only, and only on Switch.

This doesn't include digital sales, worldwide sales or sales of the PC version(which is currently the no.3 top seller on Steam. Interestingly a similar performance than the Switch eshop being no.3/no.4 best seller with first-party titles like Mario Golf and Zelda Skyward Sword).

@Lord Honestly I don't know how "bad" the number truly are.

Ultimately it's still a jRPG spinoff of a better known title and while knowledge of the Monster Hunter franchise helps, jRPGs have always kind of sold less than fans seem to think they do as a genre. At least outside of Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest(and I'm not even getting into the juggernaut that is Pokemon).

So it was always a "risky" comparison.

On the flip side, generally devs do have a good idea of how much they sell/don't sell so they've generally planned development(and specifically, the cost of development) accordingly.

So as a result a lot of the (better planned) jRPG can turn up a profit with surprisingly low amount of sales when compared to other genres.

And while Stories 2 is indeed pretty, it's also done in a fashion where you can perhaps guess how development may have indeed been less costly than believed. Compared to even Rise, many of the monsters use not only much simpler textures but also a lot less triangles in their geometry compared to the smoother models used in re: even just Rise.

Plus being longer to play, jRPGs tend to also be slower burns when it comes to sales.

So I could be wrong, but I feel that even in Japan 130k sales at release is.... not bad.

Recall that this is a game that also not only happened to be out in the west(in many countries at that) but also happens to be out on PC as well where it's currently(at least, when looking at it from my account) to sit as the third best seller on there.

Plus it's also selling both physically and digitally on Switch, whereas the numbers we have here (I believe) are purely physical sales purely for Japan alone.

I don't expect it to reach the massive numbers of Rise.... but 1 million worldwide sales feel at least well within it's reach and I suspect it's budget might have been thought with that in mind(and thus likely "breaking even" well before then, such that if it reaches 1mil that would be the "expected profits" number proper).

But yeah, on average a RPG doing even just 500k-800k worldwide sales(total sales, not "release day" sales) is usually a solid performance.