No interest in the Lite and not worth side-stepping my launch Switch for a few extra hours of battery. Will keep waiting for another revision next year.
It's not a bad game, but the writing has been on the wall for the toys to life games for awhile. Activision (like it usually does) completely killed it like they did with Guitar Hero/Rock Band by flooding the market with toys and over-saturating it with Skylanders. Then Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions came alone riding it's coattails as well as with the first waves of amiibos. It kinda peaked in 2015 then fell off a cliff.
I feel Nintendo is doing it better now with very strategic and limited amiibo releases only releasing small handfuls at a time every few months. Not huge dozen piece waves with certain pieces more limited than others. It's still a good idea to reserve pieces though when you can because you never know how common stuff will be down the road or how hard to find on launch day.
If Microsoft ever bothers to even sell Scarlett in Japan, I'll be surprised. I know Xbox has been a joke over there for years, but I don't know how they can look at those numbers and think it's worth selling their hardware in Japan.
If they come out with a "New" Switch or pro or whatever they want to call it next year, then yeah I'll consider an upgrade then. As it stands now, a few extra hours of battery aren't worth the cost of side-stepping in my book.
Cool for those who haven't gotten a Switch. Not enough to justify side-stepping over to it. Will continue to patiently wait for Switch Pro or whatever they'll call it next year.
Switch mini this year to sell Pokemon and Switch Pro next year to help compete against PS5/Scarlet.
The current Switch is still within shouting distance of the base PS4 and Xbox One, and even being on the verge of a new console generation next year, you still tend to get a year or two of cross-generational releases and Switch will still probably be able to get some third party support if PS4 and Xbox One versions of games are being made on top of their 9th gen counter-parts.
I do think though by the time maybe 2022 rolls around and we are full on running primarily 9th gen only, Nintendo is going to have to consider releasing a true successor to Switch. Even if they keep the more hybrid dynamic, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to put a more capable mobile chip set in a system by that point. That will also have given the current system a good 5 year run before ultimately being replaced.
It's a pretty cool piece for the Retro gamers out there, but $150 is a pretty steep asking price for it. I'm sure some diehards will jump on it who don't want to go through the trouble of modding their systems, but I personally just don't play N64 enough to justify half the cost of a modern system for it.
You think they could put a handful of them in large urban centers around the country. LA or SF, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, etc. I'm surprised there's not one in Seattle given you can't really shop the one at the Nintendo of America HQ. XD
Switch mini makes more sense to launch this year. Portable only at $199 with new Pokemon games coming. It's the logical hardware successor to 3DS. A Switch Pro probably is in the works, but makes more sense to launch next year in 2020 to keep Nintendo relevant in the conversation with the impending PS5 and Scarlet launches. I'm not expecting any kinda true Switch successor until at least 2022.
I've never owned an Xbox One, but I will say a big reason I still keep my 360 around is because of the Banjo ports to it. I'd love a version of Rare Replay on Switch and given the track record of stuff like Cuphead and Lucky's Tale making it over, I think the chances of Switch getting it just went up a decent amount. I mean, if they aren't gonna make Banjo-Threeie, they can at least give us the cleaned up ports of the older games.
This is probably the biggest shake up to the dedicated gaming platform industry (i.e. consoles) since 2001 when Sega dropped out and MS released the original Xbox, hence lower stock prices. Streaming services like Stadia, XCloud, and PS Now are here to stay and will steadily improve over time and could definitely be seen as an alternative to dedicated native hardware.
I think where gamers need to take heed is if companies like google and the AAA big boy publishers attempt to position these services as out right replacements for consoles and PC. Physical media will eventually wind down completely albeit probably the generation after PS5/Scarlet. But if the ability to purchase games out right even digitally and not even save and install them to your local system gets taken away, that's where the gamers needs to put their foot down and vote with their wallets and not support these services.
I kinda figured they'd give an option to build in portable mode with the touch screen and then you can play the levels on your TV when docked.
Probably a day one purchase, but I was still kinda hoping for SMB2/USA assets added in on this one. It still could happen maybe as DLC or something, but Mario Maker got played a ton on my Wii U. This one will probably as well on Switch. I just hope they make all the Mario Maker 1 levels automatically playable ala a LBP style compatibility.
I don't mind digital, but in a generation or two if Sony, MS, or Nintendo try to force a streaming only option down consumers throat, I'll probably just stick to PC gaming at that point.
Give it a few years once it's long off the shelf and you can't find physical games as easily any longer and the online store is long shut down. It'll be a lot like GCN and N64 are now. A lot of physical releases will hold decent value and since a lot of it was kid owned, it was never taken very good care of.
I just don't get why all these smaller companies think they can jump immediately into the turbulent waters of hardware vending. You look at all the failed consoles in the mid-90's, the phantom, all the failed android boxes from a few years like the ouya, gamestick, mad catz mojo, etc, and the most recent hiccups with something like Atari Box/VCS & Coleco Chameleon. Even mighty Valve and the billions they have in the bank completely dropped the ball with their haphazard Steambox lines which repeated the same mistake the 3DO had done back in the 90's.
Now is that to say some 4th pillar could rise up and be successful next to the big 3 in the console space? It's not impossible, but you just look at the way the industry is trending with digital distribution and streaming in the next 10 years, I scratch my head at anyone who wants to make major forays into the hardware market nowadays. I think companies like Nvidia have the right idea with things like the Shield. Not huge market penetrators, but a niche product that can have an audience and a side project to their main business of producing graphics cards.
There would still be a market for digital codes in a retail package albeit small. There are plenty of parents out there who don't want to give their kids access to a credit card on their accounts so they end up buying physical eshop cards at retail stores or codes online through places like amazon that are emailed to them. And there are also people who enjoy getting the physical items in a collectors edition that just purely buying digital wouldn't provide them.
Just don't support this micro-transaction BS in general. EA puts so much effort into this casual cash-cow that the game proper suffers. The AAA publishers monopolize the licenses where they maybe at best have one legitimate competitor (in FIFA's case it's PES) and can generally recycle the same game most years with minimal changes.
You got back 15 years during the sixth generation and how many options for sports games you had. The fact the only legit baseball sim made nowadays is a console exclusive is crazy to think about coming from then. Sports games fans put up with the BS because it's the only option in town most years. Recent Madden's are the perfect example of EA coasting on it's monopolized laurels.
This version is a bit more newbie friendly with the map on the side. Any of the past versions you were hand drawing a map or looking for a walkthrough.
I understand wanting to change up the gameplay some and maybe adding a new mode, but I think many just want a S&SASR3 instead of the team racing gimmick they're trying to force into the game.
Let's be honest, the initial previews and feedback for the game were mixed at best. If the delay refines or changes the game up enough to where it's overall a better experience, then I'm okay with the 6 months being used to make it a better game.
Nearly every TV sold nowadays is a "smart" tv that has these apps built in. There's a few remaining people out there that probably use an original Wii in their bedroom as a netflix box. Beyond that, 90% of Wii online support has long been terminated. Just the last piece of the eshop (to give people a chance to use their points) and these few streaming services were the last pieces that held out until now. It's probably only a matter of time before support for PS3, 360, and even the Wii U eventually get wound down in the next few years, especially once PS5 and Scarlett launch.
It's still a phone at the end of the day. People don't want to haul annoying extras like a controller shell along with them. If it can't use the stock screen and fit comfortably in your pocket, people over the age of 13 won't give a S HI NY U NIC ORN
Switch is still considered a primarily gaming platform and isn't competing in the mobile phone space necessarily. Yes, it is a portable gaming device, but it's seemless integration with TVs at home and use of tactile buttons are is it's biggest differentiatior compared to devices like this. Most would agree touch-screen gaming outside of the more rudimentary mobile games is garbage.
Never-mind the fact it's costs 70% less and many games on the Switch are a hell of a lot better than the endless shovelware on the google play and ios stores.
Since GameStop owns ThinkGeek, you can actually reserve one in store at your local GS store and not have to pay the $40 shipping if you really want one.
I still find it surprising some people refuse to pre-order pieces like these and then get flustered when they sell out and can't find them anywhere. Nevermind the fact Nintendo has been keeping stock on these pretty close to the vest as to not over-produce them.
There were always going to be a few downsides to Nintendo launching brand new hardware halfway through a traditional console cycle. This is one of them.
We're probably still a couple years out from Scarlett and PS5 hitting the market (I'm still thinking 2020 for them, won't be any sooner than holiday 2019) and Switch was already still a notch below the base PS4 and XBO let alone the Pro and X. It IS a portable system, so some level of being under-powered should be expected.
That being said, it's already struggling to get any sort of significant uptick in third party support (it's definitely improved some over Wii U) but we've seen eighth gen projects like Steep being canned because the system can't run it well enough. Some developers like Panic Button have done an admirable job scaling games like Doom and Wolfenstein 2 to run well on Switch, but those are not huge open world games by any stretch that would need more horsepower to run.
The difference between the "New" 3DS and a potential Tegra X2 powered Switch "Pro" is a bit different imo. The New 3DS line was only a very minor upgrade with a few enhancements. Only a handful of games (Hyrule Warriors, FE Warriors, Xenoblade, Minecraft, SNES VC, etc) utilized or required that extra bump in power since the vast majority of games made after it released were still made with the base 3DS model in mind. The goal of a potential TX2 Switch would be to get more third parties on board, but any games made for it wouldn't run on the base model and that's where Nintendo is kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Do you come out with a more powerful model next year barely two years after launching your most successful piece of hardware in over a decade to try and get more third party support on board while the system still has a few more years left in the tank? You'd have the ability to build a larger userbase with the more powerful model now while the system still has some legs, but the 20 or so mil current Switch owners might feel a little left out in the cold. You know Nintendo first party games will always be developed with the base first gen hardware in mind, but if some major third party games only get made requiring the Switch Pro? That'd be a sticking point for sure. And are third parties going to be gungho making games for the enhanced Switch only when the majority of the first iteration owners won't be able to play the new games without upgrading? The Pro and the X got around this by requiring developers to make games to run on all iterations of the hardware. I don't think Nintendo might have that luxury with Switch although they could easily enough let it be up to developers and publishers whether they want to make Switch Pro only games or not.
If Nintendo does announce an enhanced Switch next year, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out.
Retro stores can't sell most of those old sports games for .99 cents let alone any sort of re-release or remake. They must have plans or something for dropping seven figures on them.
Their "support" for Vita has been token at best since about 2015. After the PSTV flopped in the west they all but gutted support of the portable outside of Japan and Asia. What you had left in NA and Europe was a small dedicated group of western publishers like NIS, Aksys, and Xseed localizing a handful of japanese titles for the west.
All this is them finally killing even PS Plus support for the system. More or less their final nail in the "legacy" platform coffin as they've called it the last few years. You can blame the grossly-overpriced proprietary memory cards, their stupid insistence of offering a 3G capable model of the handheld that you couldn't even play online over cellular networks with the subsequent data service needed to use it being too expensive to afford and not worth investing in, a medicore at best launch line-up, and the advent of tablets/smart phones amongst other things as to why the system flopped at retail.
Credit to Nintendo with the 3DS though. They saw early sales of their system lagging in 2011 after about six months and aggressively dropped the price from $250 to $170 and it took off from there.
While the garage is definitely great for creativity for new individual projects, Nintendo should definitely release expansion kits via free software updates so kids will have more to do with it. Maybe even have contests for new projects created by users that get turned into legitimate ones by Nintendo themselves.
This strikes me as some form of test market for Wii/GCN games on Switch given the similarity in hardware between the Shield and Switch itself and Nintendo's relationship with nvidia. I think it's only a matter of a formal announcement of when these games are going to start being offered on the eshop. For those hoping to have GCN/Wii games playable on Switch at some point, this is a strong sign pointing towards that in the near future.
Even the "gimped" versions of BLOPS3 on PS3/360 a few years ago had multi-player and zombies. Just no single player campaign. That'd be pretty weak if Switch just got one mode for their CoD version.
I'm actually ok with this. The end of May was a log-jam of releases anyways so this works out with one less game having to worry about buying at that time.
At least last year's HD Sega flashback wasn't as bad as their previous AV ones they've been selling at places like Walgreens since 2010. It still had some compatibility, frame skip, freezing, and glitch problems, but the sound emulation at least didn't make you want to stick rusted forks in your ears because it was so off key and painful to listen too.
If Sega is more involved and they actually take a page or two from Nintendo on the NES and SNES classic, maybe AtGames will put out even a halfway decent product this year. But I'm always going to have very tempered expectations when it comes to their products until they prove otherwise.
The game clearly needed another few months in the development pipeline, but leave it to 2K to have to get the game out in time for Christmas. The problem is had they delayed it until Spring, most people would have started to think about waiting for 2K19 and that is the inherent problem with annualized sports games in general. You have a small window to capitalize on their sales (six to eight months) before they get relegated to the bargain bin in anticipation of the new one.
Unfortunately 2k18 on Switch will probably be relegated to the scrap heap of bad wrestling video games along with the likes of the first Raw game on Xbox and Royal Rumble on Dreamcast. It's true some PS4/XBO ports have to be scaled back on Switch, but games like NBA 2k18 and Doom have shown they can at least be competent ports at a very playable 30fps in the hands of the right development team.
Sad to see it go, but the Toys R Us store my town had closed shortly before I moved here several years ago so I only sparingly got to visit them as a kid in the 80's and 90's. I will say if they do go under this year, my final memory was driving an hour to the closest one with a friend a couple years ago just to get one of the large Yarn Yoshi amiibos they had that were exclusive to them.
Nothing I've seen from the teaser makes me believe this is anything other than a Smash U port or Smash 4.5. All DLC included plus some new content from games like Mario Oyssey and BotW. They'll just call it SSB for NS like they did for Wii U and 3DS.
Based on how long Smash U was supported via DLC into 2016, the average development cycle of the last two Smash games being six years, the average length of HD development in general, Sakurai being burnt out on making new games, and Nintendo's current track record of cashing in on U ports, I'm leaning more towards enhanced port then entirely new game. And you know what, I'm a-ok with that because Smash 4 was a great game and a port with all that expensive DLC included in one package at $59.99 would be a great value for those who never played the U version.
It's not just a lack of baseball games on Nintendo systems, it's a lack of baseball games in general. Go back and look at the heyday of the sixth generation and the options you had. Triple Play/MVP, High Heat, All-Star, MLB the Show, and World Series/MLB 2K. Nevermind all the spinoffs and arcade style games. Each console had at least a few choices each spring.
Then publishers like 3DO and Acclaim went belly up or others stopped making baseball games like 2K did. If you would have told me back in 2003 that 15 years later, we'd only have one legitimate baseball sim being made yearly and it was a console exclusive, I honestly wouldn't have believed you.
It comes down to publishers like EA monopolizing sports licenses and increased development costs. RBI Baseball might be a fun little occasional distraction, but it's not a meat and potatoes sim like The Show is.
Think about yearly sports games these days.
NFL - Madden is your only choice because EA has NFL exclusivity. Even NCAA is dead because of the lawsuit that was settled a few years ago.
NBA - NBA 2K and Live technically, but Live is still an after thought at best.
MLB - The Show is PS exclusive. RBI Baseball is a fun little arcade style game, but it's very bare bones.
NHL - EA is your only option. 2K stopped after 2010.
Soccer - At least here both FIFA and Pro Evolution are decent sims most years.
Only basketball and soccer get two choices. Every other sport is essentially only one game to choose from.
People have to remember a lot of these major PS4 and Xbox One projects have been in development for at least two to three years before they formally get announced to the public. A lot of developers have maybe had their SDK's for a year at most.
Switch is bolstered by the fact it can run modern engines like snowdrop, unity, and unreal and also has a very pc friendly nvidia GPU, but it's still from a technical standpoint about halfway between a seventh gen and base-eighth gen box and that could limit the amount of third party support it can receive.
Being an indie darling is a good way to differentiate itself and also the portability factor is good too. We're still probably a good two to three years away from any sort of "true" next-gen PS5/Xbox Next set of boxes and I think more multi-platform projects will get a Switch port, but it may never be to the level of what both the PS4 and XBO get due to limitations.
Reminded me of Gal Fighters on the NGPC. I suppose this is fine and all, but if you're going to go this far, why not just bring KoF XIV at this point? Switch definitely could use some legitimate fighters beyond USF2/SF30th & Pokken Tournament.
3DS will probably still see a trickle of releases through 2018, but I think this is the year the system transitions into more of an entry level/budget system for Nintendo which is not an uncommon practice from them when the end of a hardware cycle rolls around for some of their successful hardware lines.
Like the GB Micro, DSi XL, and Wii Mini before it, the 2DS XL is probably the final iteration of the successful 3DS hardware line as Nintendo winds down support for it.
Heaven forbid you delay it a couple months to fix these issues. But nope, gotta get it out now for Christmas and patch it later, especially an annualized sports franchise.
To be fair, the PS4 and XBO versions have been received pretty mediocre at best in most critic scores, so this port was already behind the eight ball. Just hope when they go back to the drawing board for 2k19, they'll have a working framework to make it at least a playable port.
Half the reason MS and Sony did the X and Pro was to extend the current generation a few more years so I'm thinking 2020 at the soonest. They want a generation similar in length to the seventh gen which was about seven to eight years and the current systems are 4 years old now. Sony is selling PS4's in droves so they are in no rush to retire their current cash cow and MS is going to want to get at least a couple years out of the X.
Turning that same coin it's going to take a few more years for the native 4K capable graphics cards and tech to get cheap enough to release around a $400 price point. Even the One X isn't quite there yet (it's closer) and it's $500 right now. MS and Sony won't sell tech at a loss if they don't have to like previous generations due to development and other rising costs. That's a big reason the base PS4 and XBO were considered under-powered when they launched in 2013.
This actually leaves Switch in a good spot imo. Games are still going to be made in mind for the base PS4 and XBO systems for a few more years and as we've seen with games like Doom, the system is at least on paper capable enough to be within throwing distance to get some third party multiplats. Hypothetically, say PS5 and Xbox Next would release in Fall 2020. Nintendo could release a more capable Switch 2 in 2021 and give the current system (at worst) at least four years of support before looking to potentially replace it. So imo, releasing a new system halfway through a traditional cycle may not hurt Switch in the long run.
There's no real advantage to owning an Xbox at this stage, at least if you have a halfway capable gaming PC these days. Crossplay on paper sounds like a good idea, but it also really eliminates the need to purchase an Xbox since all of MS's first party exclusives come to W10 too.
The One X sounds like a good mid-generation upgrade compared to the PS4 Pro, but what good does all that extra horsepower do you when third parties are primarily carrying your system library right now? They canceled Scalebound earlier this year and while Cuphead has been a critical indie darling, it, Super Lucky's Tale, and Forza 7 are a pretty weak holiday line-up. Crackdown 3 and Sea of Thieves are Spring 2018 at the soonest now. Even throwing out the fact all those games can also be had on PC, Sony's own studios have been cranking out some great exclusives for PS4 this year and already has a few great games lined-up for the first part of next year. All that horsepower of the X is great, but when those third party games can be had on PS4 as well, even if they'd look better on the One X compared to the Pro, PS4 still has the better overall library and first party output to complement it's third party support.
Switch imo continues to be what the Wii U was. A great complementary system to any PS4, XBO, or PC user. You've got your power systems for online home gaming with Nintendo as a change of pace system for it's exclusives, emphasis on local multi-player, and the ability to take it on the go.
The Explorer's edition of Zelda should've had a flavor that had the expansion pass included. Otherwise pretty par for the course on the hardware front from them. The Green Zelda 2DS is pretty neat, but too bad it wasn't at least a 2DS XL.
Comments 174
Re: Guide: How To Find The Improved Nintendo Switch With Better Battery Life And Screen
Not worth the side-step for me. Gonna wait for a different revision if the "Pro" model is still in the works.
Re: DuckTales: Remastered Is Leaving The Wii U eShop On 9th August
Already had it physically on PS3, but for that price digitally on my Wii U, it was worth double dipping.
Re: Video: Watch An Unboxing Of The New And Improved Nintendo Switch Revision
No interest in the Lite and not worth side-stepping my launch Switch for a few extra hours of battery. Will keep waiting for another revision next year.
Re: Deals: Starlink: Battle For Atlas Starter Pack Drops To A Ridiculous £10.99 In The UK
It's not a bad game, but the writing has been on the wall for the toys to life games for awhile. Activision (like it usually does) completely killed it like they did with Guitar Hero/Rock Band by flooding the market with toys and over-saturating it with Skylanders. Then Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions came alone riding it's coattails as well as with the first waves of amiibos. It kinda peaked in 2015 then fell off a cliff.
I feel Nintendo is doing it better now with very strategic and limited amiibo releases only releasing small handfuls at a time every few months. Not huge dozen piece waves with certain pieces more limited than others. It's still a good idea to reserve pieces though when you can because you never know how common stuff will be down the road or how hard to find on launch day.
Re: Japanese Charts: Fire Emblem: Three Houses' Dominance Continues With Another Number One
If Microsoft ever bothers to even sell Scarlett in Japan, I'll be surprised. I know Xbox has been a joke over there for years, but I don't know how they can look at those numbers and think it's worth selling their hardware in Japan.
Re: Soapbox: Should I Wait For Switch 'Pro' Or Is The 'New' Switch SKU Worth An Upgrade?
If they come out with a "New" Switch or pro or whatever they want to call it next year, then yeah I'll consider an upgrade then. As it stands now, a few extra hours of battery aren't worth the cost of side-stepping in my book.
Re: New Standard Nintendo Switch Revision Offers Significantly Improved Battery Life
Cool for those who haven't gotten a Switch. Not enough to justify side-stepping over to it. Will continue to patiently wait for Switch Pro or whatever they'll call it next year.
Re: Nintendo Focusing On Switch Install Base To Combat Next-Gen Performance Gap
Switch mini this year to sell Pokemon and Switch Pro next year to help compete against PS5/Scarlet.
The current Switch is still within shouting distance of the base PS4 and Xbox One, and even being on the verge of a new console generation next year, you still tend to get a year or two of cross-generational releases and Switch will still probably be able to get some third party support if PS4 and Xbox One versions of games are being made on top of their 9th gen counter-parts.
I do think though by the time maybe 2022 rolls around and we are full on running primarily 9th gen only, Nintendo is going to have to consider releasing a true successor to Switch. Even if they keep the more hybrid dynamic, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to put a more capable mobile chip set in a system by that point. That will also have given the current system a good 5 year run before ultimately being replaced.
Re: Play Your Nintendo 64 On Modern Displays With The Super 64 HDMI Adaptor
It's a pretty cool piece for the Retro gamers out there, but $150 is a pretty steep asking price for it. I'm sure some diehards will jump on it who don't want to go through the trouble of modding their systems, but I personally just don't play N64 enough to justify half the cost of a modern system for it.
Re: Nintendo Finally Opens A Second Official Retail Store
You think they could put a handful of them in large urban centers around the country. LA or SF, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, etc. I'm surprised there's not one in Seattle given you can't really shop the one at the Nintendo of America HQ. XD
Re: Is This Our First Real Look At Nintendo Switch Mini?
Switch mini makes more sense to launch this year. Portable only at $199 with new Pokemon games coming. It's the logical hardware successor to 3DS. A Switch Pro probably is in the works, but makes more sense to launch next year in 2020 to keep Nintendo relevant in the conversation with the impending PS5 and Scarlet launches. I'm not expecting any kinda true Switch successor until at least 2022.
Re: Original Banjo-Kazooie Team "Pleased" About Duo's Return, But Unsure A New Game "Would Sell"
I've never owned an Xbox One, but I will say a big reason I still keep my 360 around is because of the Banjo ports to it. I'd love a version of Rare Replay on Switch and given the track record of stuff like Cuphead and Lucky's Tale making it over, I think the chances of Switch getting it just went up a decent amount. I mean, if they aren't gonna make Banjo-Threeie, they can at least give us the cleaned up ports of the older games.
Re: Nintendo And Sony Shares Drop Following Google's Stadia Reveal
This is probably the biggest shake up to the dedicated gaming platform industry (i.e. consoles) since 2001 when Sega dropped out and MS released the original Xbox, hence lower stock prices. Streaming services like Stadia, XCloud, and PS Now are here to stay and will steadily improve over time and could definitely be seen as an alternative to dedicated native hardware.
I think where gamers need to take heed is if companies like google and the AAA big boy publishers attempt to position these services as out right replacements for consoles and PC. Physical media will eventually wind down completely albeit probably the generation after PS5/Scarlet. But if the ability to purchase games out right even digitally and not even save and install them to your local system gets taken away, that's where the gamers needs to put their foot down and vote with their wallets and not support these services.
Re: Guide: What's New In Super Mario Maker 2 For Nintendo Switch?
I kinda figured they'd give an option to build in portable mode with the touch screen and then you can play the levels on your TV when docked.
Probably a day one purchase, but I was still kinda hoping for SMB2/USA assets added in on this one. It still could happen maybe as DLC or something, but Mario Maker got played a ton on my Wii U. This one will probably as well on Switch. I just hope they make all the Mario Maker 1 levels automatically playable ala a LBP style compatibility.
Re: Nintendo President Says Company Is Working On "New Methods" For Nintendo Labo
Labo just needs to drop in price period. Put the kids down to $30 to $40 and they'd start moving some units. $70 to $80 is still too much.
Re: Future Business Shift Could See Nintendo Move Away From Home Console Development
I don't mind digital, but in a generation or two if Sony, MS, or Nintendo try to force a streaming only option down consumers throat, I'll probably just stick to PC gaming at that point.
Re: Looking For A Brand New Wii U? That'll Be $800 Please
Give it a few years once it's long off the shelf and you can't find physical games as easily any longer and the online store is long shut down. It'll be a lot like GCN and N64 are now. A lot of physical releases will hold decent value and since a lot of it was kid owned, it was never taken very good care of.
Re: Random: Project Cars Studio Is Creating Its Own Games Console, The Mad Box
I just don't get why all these smaller companies think they can jump immediately into the turbulent waters of hardware vending. You look at all the failed consoles in the mid-90's, the phantom, all the failed android boxes from a few years like the ouya, gamestick, mad catz mojo, etc, and the most recent hiccups with something like Atari Box/VCS & Coleco Chameleon. Even mighty Valve and the billions they have in the bank completely dropped the ball with their haphazard Steambox lines which repeated the same mistake the 3DO had done back in the 90's.
Now is that to say some 4th pillar could rise up and be successful next to the big 3 in the console space? It's not impossible, but you just look at the way the industry is trending with digital distribution and streaming in the next 10 years, I scratch my head at anyone who wants to make major forays into the hardware market nowadays. I think companies like Nvidia have the right idea with things like the Shield. Not huge market penetrators, but a niche product that can have an audience and a side project to their main business of producing graphics cards.
Re: Feature: Digital vs Physical - What Is Your Preference for Nintendo Switch?
There would still be a market for digital codes in a retail package albeit small. There are plenty of parents out there who don't want to give their kids access to a credit card on their accounts so they end up buying physical eshop cards at retail stores or codes online through places like amazon that are emailed to them. And there are also people who enjoy getting the physical items in a collectors edition that just purely buying digital wouldn't provide them.
Re: Switch FIFA 19 Players Are Not Happy About EA Promoting FUTmas Event
Just don't support this micro-transaction BS in general. EA puts so much effort into this casual cash-cow that the game proper suffers. The AAA publishers monopolize the licenses where they maybe at best have one legitimate competitor (in FIFA's case it's PES) and can generally recycle the same game most years with minimal changes.
You got back 15 years during the sixth generation and how many options for sports games you had. The fact the only legit baseball sim made nowadays is a console exclusive is crazy to think about coming from then. Sports games fans put up with the BS because it's the only option in town most years. Recent Madden's are the perfect example of EA coasting on it's monopolized laurels.
Re: Phantasy Star Joins The Sega AGES Line On Switch Today
This version is a bit more newbie friendly with the map on the side. Any of the past versions you were hand drawing a map or looking for a walkthrough.
Re: Sega Teases New Track And Music For Team Sonic Racing
I understand wanting to change up the gameplay some and maybe adding a new mode, but I think many just want a S&SASR3 instead of the team racing gimmick they're trying to force into the game.
Let's be honest, the initial previews and feedback for the game were mixed at best. If the delay refines or changes the game up enough to where it's overall a better experience, then I'm okay with the 6 months being used to make it a better game.
Re: Nintendo Suspending Wii Video Streaming Services Early Next Year
Nearly every TV sold nowadays is a "smart" tv that has these apps built in. There's a few remaining people out there that probably use an original Wii in their bedroom as a netflix box. Beyond that, 90% of Wii online support has long been terminated. Just the last piece of the eshop (to give people a chance to use their points) and these few streaming services were the last pieces that held out until now. It's probably only a matter of time before support for PS3, 360, and even the Wii U eventually get wound down in the next few years, especially once PS5 and Scarlett launch.
Re: Nintendo Reiterates It Has "Absolutely No Plans" To Offer First-Party Games As Cross-Platform Titles
So can I expect Uncharted and God of War on Switch down the road?
That's about the equivalent question this article is asking Nintendo.
Re: Famitsu Teasing "Possible Revival" For A Cancelled Level-5 Game
Maybe they dug up their old True Fantasy Live Online code from the original Xbox that was canned by MS and ported it over to Switch.
Re: Huawei Is Launching A New Gaming Phone To Rival The Switch, And It Costs Over $1,000
It's still a phone at the end of the day. People don't want to haul annoying extras like a controller shell along with them. If it can't use the stock screen and fit comfortably in your pocket, people over the age of 13 won't give a S HI NY U NIC ORN
Switch is still considered a primarily gaming platform and isn't competing in the mobile phone space necessarily. Yes, it is a portable gaming device, but it's seemless integration with TVs at home and use of tactile buttons are is it's biggest differentiatior compared to devices like this. Most would agree touch-screen gaming outside of the more rudimentary mobile games is garbage.
Never-mind the fact it's costs 70% less and many games on the Switch are a hell of a lot better than the endless shovelware on the google play and ios stores.
Re: This Lovely Boo Bean Bag Chair Will Steal Your Heart, And Your Money
Since GameStop owns ThinkGeek, you can actually reserve one in store at your local GS store and not have to pay the $40 shipping if you really want one.
Re: Here's A Look At The In-Game Goodies You'll Get With Splatoon 2's Octoling amiibo
I still find it surprising some people refuse to pre-order pieces like these and then get flustered when they sell out and can't find them anywhere. Nevermind the fact Nintendo has been keeping stock on these pretty close to the vest as to not over-produce them.
Re: Rumour: New Nintendo Switch SKU Planned For Late 2019
There were always going to be a few downsides to Nintendo launching brand new hardware halfway through a traditional console cycle. This is one of them.
We're probably still a couple years out from Scarlett and PS5 hitting the market (I'm still thinking 2020 for them, won't be any sooner than holiday 2019) and Switch was already still a notch below the base PS4 and XBO let alone the Pro and X. It IS a portable system, so some level of being under-powered should be expected.
That being said, it's already struggling to get any sort of significant uptick in third party support (it's definitely improved some over Wii U) but we've seen eighth gen projects like Steep being canned because the system can't run it well enough. Some developers like Panic Button have done an admirable job scaling games like Doom and Wolfenstein 2 to run well on Switch, but those are not huge open world games by any stretch that would need more horsepower to run.
The difference between the "New" 3DS and a potential Tegra X2 powered Switch "Pro" is a bit different imo. The New 3DS line was only a very minor upgrade with a few enhancements. Only a handful of games (Hyrule Warriors, FE Warriors, Xenoblade, Minecraft, SNES VC, etc) utilized or required that extra bump in power since the vast majority of games made after it released were still made with the base 3DS model in mind. The goal of a potential TX2 Switch would be to get more third parties on board, but any games made for it wouldn't run on the base model and that's where Nintendo is kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Do you come out with a more powerful model next year barely two years after launching your most successful piece of hardware in over a decade to try and get more third party support on board while the system still has a few more years left in the tank? You'd have the ability to build a larger userbase with the more powerful model now while the system still has some legs, but the 20 or so mil current Switch owners might feel a little left out in the cold. You know Nintendo first party games will always be developed with the base first gen hardware in mind, but if some major third party games only get made requiring the Switch Pro? That'd be a sticking point for sure. And are third parties going to be gungho making games for the enhanced Switch only when the majority of the first iteration owners won't be able to play the new games without upgrading? The Pro and the X got around this by requiring developers to make games to run on all iterations of the hardware. I don't think Nintendo might have that luxury with Switch although they could easily enough let it be up to developers and publishers whether they want to make Switch Pro only games or not.
If Nintendo does announce an enhanced Switch next year, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out.
Re: Liquid Media Acquires Acclaim Entertainment Video Game Properties
Retro stores can't sell most of those old sports games for .99 cents let alone any sort of re-release or remake. They must have plans or something for dropping seven figures on them.
Re: Sony Will Step Away From The Handheld Games Business In 2019, Leaving It All To Nintendo
Their "support" for Vita has been token at best since about 2015. After the PSTV flopped in the west they all but gutted support of the portable outside of Japan and Asia. What you had left in NA and Europe was a small dedicated group of western publishers like NIS, Aksys, and Xseed localizing a handful of japanese titles for the west.
All this is them finally killing even PS Plus support for the system. More or less their final nail in the "legacy" platform coffin as they've called it the last few years. You can blame the grossly-overpriced proprietary memory cards, their stupid insistence of offering a 3G capable model of the handheld that you couldn't even play online over cellular networks with the subsequent data service needed to use it being too expensive to afford and not worth investing in, a medicore at best launch line-up, and the advent of tablets/smart phones amongst other things as to why the system flopped at retail.
Credit to Nintendo with the 3DS though. They saw early sales of their system lagging in 2011 after about six months and aggressively dropped the price from $250 to $170 and it took off from there.
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Says Nintendo Labo Has “Absolutely” Met Company Expectations
While the garage is definitely great for creativity for new individual projects, Nintendo should definitely release expansion kits via free software updates so kids will have more to do with it. Maybe even have contests for new projects created by users that get turned into legitimate ones by Nintendo themselves.
Re: Just How Good Is The Nvidia Shield Wii Emulator, And What Does It Mean For Switch Owners?
This strikes me as some form of test market for Wii/GCN games on Switch given the similarity in hardware between the Shield and Switch itself and Nintendo's relationship with nvidia. I think it's only a matter of a formal announcement of when these games are going to start being offered on the eshop. For those hoping to have GCN/Wii games playable on Switch at some point, this is a strong sign pointing towards that in the near future.
Re: Rumour: Call Of Duty Might Be Headed To Switch, But Only As A Battle Royale
Even the "gimped" versions of BLOPS3 on PS3/360 a few years ago had multi-player and zombies. Just no single player campaign. That'd be pretty weak if Switch just got one mode for their CoD version.
Re: Dark Souls: Remastered Succumbs To Delay On Switch, Along With Solaire amiibo
I'm actually ok with this. The end of May was a log-jam of releases anyways so this works out with one less game having to worry about buying at that time.
Re: AtGames Confirms It's Making The Mega Drive Mini, Then Deletes Tweet
At least last year's HD Sega flashback wasn't as bad as their previous AV ones they've been selling at places like Walgreens since 2010. It still had some compatibility, frame skip, freezing, and glitch problems, but the sound emulation at least didn't make you want to stick rusted forks in your ears because it was so off key and painful to listen too.
If Sega is more involved and they actually take a page or two from Nintendo on the NES and SNES classic, maybe AtGames will put out even a halfway decent product this year. But I'm always going to have very tempered expectations when it comes to their products until they prove otherwise.
Re: Video: Here's More Evidence That The Switch Port Of WWE 2K18 Really Is Terrible
The game clearly needed another few months in the development pipeline, but leave it to 2K to have to get the game out in time for Christmas. The problem is had they delayed it until Spring, most people would have started to think about waiting for 2K19 and that is the inherent problem with annualized sports games in general. You have a small window to capitalize on their sales (six to eight months) before they get relegated to the bargain bin in anticipation of the new one.
Unfortunately 2k18 on Switch will probably be relegated to the scrap heap of bad wrestling video games along with the likes of the first Raw game on Xbox and Royal Rumble on Dreamcast. It's true some PS4/XBO ports have to be scaled back on Switch, but games like NBA 2k18 and Doom have shown they can at least be competent ports at a very playable 30fps in the hands of the right development team.
Re: Toys R Us Is Preparing To Liquidate Its U.S. Business, Reports Claim
Sad to see it go, but the Toys R Us store my town had closed shortly before I moved here several years ago so I only sparingly got to visit them as a kid in the 80's and 90's. I will say if they do go under this year, my final memory was driving an hour to the closest one with a friend a couple years ago just to get one of the large Yarn Yoshi amiibos they had that were exclusive to them.
Re: Super Smash Bros. For Switch Is Coming This Year, And It's Got Inklings
Nothing I've seen from the teaser makes me believe this is anything other than a Smash U port or Smash 4.5. All DLC included plus some new content from games like Mario Oyssey and BotW. They'll just call it SSB for NS like they did for Wii U and 3DS.
Based on how long Smash U was supported via DLC into 2016, the average development cycle of the last two Smash games being six years, the average length of HD development in general, Sakurai being burnt out on making new games, and Nintendo's current track record of cashing in on U ports, I'm leaning more towards enhanced port then entirely new game. And you know what, I'm a-ok with that because Smash 4 was a great game and a port with all that expensive DLC included in one package at $59.99 would be a great value for those who never played the U version.
Re: Soapbox: What Happened To All The Great Baseball Games On Nintendo Consoles?
It's not just a lack of baseball games on Nintendo systems, it's a lack of baseball games in general. Go back and look at the heyday of the sixth generation and the options you had. Triple Play/MVP, High Heat, All-Star, MLB the Show, and World Series/MLB 2K. Nevermind all the spinoffs and arcade style games. Each console had at least a few choices each spring.
Then publishers like 3DO and Acclaim went belly up or others stopped making baseball games like 2K did. If you would have told me back in 2003 that 15 years later, we'd only have one legitimate baseball sim being made yearly and it was a console exclusive, I honestly wouldn't have believed you.
It comes down to publishers like EA monopolizing sports licenses and increased development costs. RBI Baseball might be a fun little occasional distraction, but it's not a meat and potatoes sim like The Show is.
Think about yearly sports games these days.
NFL - Madden is your only choice because EA has NFL exclusivity. Even NCAA is dead because of the lawsuit that was settled a few years ago.
NBA - NBA 2K and Live technically, but Live is still an after thought at best.
MLB - The Show is PS exclusive. RBI Baseball is a fun little arcade style game, but it's very bare bones.
NHL - EA is your only option. 2K stopped after 2010.
Soccer - At least here both FIFA and Pro Evolution are decent sims most years.
Only basketball and soccer get two choices. Every other sport is essentially only one game to choose from.
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo's Riding High On Switch's Wave, But What Does It Need To Do To Stay There?
People have to remember a lot of these major PS4 and Xbox One projects have been in development for at least two to three years before they formally get announced to the public. A lot of developers have maybe had their SDK's for a year at most.
Switch is bolstered by the fact it can run modern engines like snowdrop, unity, and unreal and also has a very pc friendly nvidia GPU, but it's still from a technical standpoint about halfway between a seventh gen and base-eighth gen box and that could limit the amount of third party support it can receive.
Being an indie darling is a good way to differentiate itself and also the portability factor is good too. We're still probably a good two to three years away from any sort of "true" next-gen PS5/Xbox Next set of boxes and I think more multi-platform projects will get a Switch port, but it may never be to the level of what both the PS4 and XBO get due to limitations.
Re: SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy Brings Two-On-Two Fighting Action To Switch
Reminded me of Gal Fighters on the NGPC. I suppose this is fine and all, but if you're going to go this far, why not just bring KoF XIV at this point? Switch definitely could use some legitimate fighters beyond USF2/SF30th & Pokken Tournament.
Re: Reddit Wonders If Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Is Coming To Switch
3DS will probably still see a trickle of releases through 2018, but I think this is the year the system transitions into more of an entry level/budget system for Nintendo which is not an uncommon practice from them when the end of a hardware cycle rolls around for some of their successful hardware lines.
Like the GB Micro, DSi XL, and Wii Mini before it, the 2DS XL is probably the final iteration of the successful 3DS hardware line as Nintendo winds down support for it.
Re: Review: WWE 2K18 (Switch)
Heaven forbid you delay it a couple months to fix these issues. But nope, gotta get it out now for Christmas and patch it later, especially an annualized sports franchise.
To be fair, the PS4 and XBO versions have been received pretty mediocre at best in most critic scores, so this port was already behind the eight ball. Just hope when they go back to the drawing board for 2k19, they'll have a working framework to make it at least a playable port.
Re: Feature: Yooka-Laylee Jumps Onto Switch in December - We Learn All About It
@BigBluePanda My guess would be $39.99 like the other versions that released this past Spring.
Re: Talking Point: The Dust Settles on a Giddy Retail Period for Nintendo Switch - What's Next?
Given Skyrim probably doing pretty well (which is a six year old game), I could very easily see a version of GTAV coming to Switch at some point.
Re: Guide: The Top Nintendo Black Friday 2017 Deals in the US
Re: Ubisoft Thinks The Next Console Cycle Isn't Far Away, So Where Does That Leave Switch?
Half the reason MS and Sony did the X and Pro was to extend the current generation a few more years so I'm thinking 2020 at the soonest. They want a generation similar in length to the seventh gen which was about seven to eight years and the current systems are 4 years old now. Sony is selling PS4's in droves so they are in no rush to retire their current cash cow and MS is going to want to get at least a couple years out of the X.
Turning that same coin it's going to take a few more years for the native 4K capable graphics cards and tech to get cheap enough to release around a $400 price point. Even the One X isn't quite there yet (it's closer) and it's $500 right now. MS and Sony won't sell tech at a loss if they don't have to like previous generations due to development and other rising costs. That's a big reason the base PS4 and XBO were considered under-powered when they launched in 2013.
This actually leaves Switch in a good spot imo. Games are still going to be made in mind for the base PS4 and XBO systems for a few more years and as we've seen with games like Doom, the system is at least on paper capable enough to be within throwing distance to get some third party multiplats. Hypothetically, say PS5 and Xbox Next would release in Fall 2020. Nintendo could release a more capable Switch 2 in 2021 and give the current system (at worst) at least four years of support before looking to potentially replace it. So imo, releasing a new system halfway through a traditional cycle may not hurt Switch in the long run.
Re: Microsoft Wants To Reach Gamers On Rival Systems, Says Xbox Chief Phil Spencer
There's no real advantage to owning an Xbox at this stage, at least if you have a halfway capable gaming PC these days. Crossplay on paper sounds like a good idea, but it also really eliminates the need to purchase an Xbox since all of MS's first party exclusives come to W10 too.
The One X sounds like a good mid-generation upgrade compared to the PS4 Pro, but what good does all that extra horsepower do you when third parties are primarily carrying your system library right now? They canceled Scalebound earlier this year and while Cuphead has been a critical indie darling, it, Super Lucky's Tale, and Forza 7 are a pretty weak holiday line-up. Crackdown 3 and Sea of Thieves are Spring 2018 at the soonest now. Even throwing out the fact all those games can also be had on PC, Sony's own studios have been cranking out some great exclusives for PS4 this year and already has a few great games lined-up for the first part of next year. All that horsepower of the X is great, but when those third party games can be had on PS4 as well, even if they'd look better on the One X compared to the Pro, PS4 still has the better overall library and first party output to complement it's third party support.
Switch imo continues to be what the Wii U was. A great complementary system to any PS4, XBO, or PC user. You've got your power systems for online home gaming with Nintendo as a change of pace system for it's exclusives, emphasis on local multi-player, and the ability to take it on the go.
Re: Nintendo Outlines Black Friday Deals, With A "Link Green" Zelda 2DS Leading The Charge
The Explorer's edition of Zelda should've had a flavor that had the expansion pass included. Otherwise pretty par for the course on the hardware front from them. The Green Zelda 2DS is pretty neat, but too bad it wasn't at least a 2DS XL.