On another note, this also makes me wonder about ratings being affected by difficulty. Cuphead was given lower scores by some due to high difficulty. (Undeservedly low, in some notable cases.) Celeste is at least as difficult as Cuphead in it's own way, however, most reviewers so far see past the raw difficulty factor and understand what makes solving each problem rewarding with every screen. Celeste is more cerebral than Cuphead, and I think that's an important point. Celeste is special because you need to use your head and your reflexes, not just your reflexes.
Ugh, so many wasted circuit boards, screws, and plastic moulds. This hurts me more than others because my work involves electronics recycling. They probably did toss out the remains and allowed the powderized chemicals to drift into the air or leach into whatever dump site they chose after rain. I don't think they would actually do this today, the EU's recycling policies have evolved quite a bit over the past 24 years. This would be especially illegal in Germany today.
On a side note... This is the TRUE Mario. That happy go lucky Mario in all the games and media? That's just a stage act, which SMB3 alluded to. Mario is actually a homicidal psychopath with a penchant for destruction. (Proven by SMB1 manual.) So now we see his sunken, horrifically evil face. It's even worse than I imagined. It's high time for a Koopa Revolution!
@SLIGEACH_EIRE Exactly, and an average of about 19,230 sales per title is pretty damn good for old NEO-GEO titles. There's surely many titles on WiiWare, DSiWare, and eShop that have never sold so many copies. Imagine how many more sales of retro Nintendo entries there would be if Nintendo had revamped and relaunched the Virtual Console to coincide with the originally planned online infrastructure release date of Autumn 2017...
@MIDP Well, like I mentioned before, there's a difference between being straightforwardly critical and being unfairly and demeaningly critical. One can debate both a company's policies and a deceased president's former decisions, and make postmortems/proposals about what could have been and can be done better, without being vulgar and haughty about it. This does make a difference in the professional world, which does not require being "PC," but rather, mindfully choosing your words and maintaining a decent demeanor. Especially when you've reached Pachter's age.
It sounds like you've allowed the regressivism of "PC culture" to color your thoughts in a certain way... Which is kind of ironic, if you think about it. Your position is that everyone should be allowed to say almost whatever they want in whatever context, even if they're being high and mighty, with a few notably horrendous exceptions. Which is basically the opposite side of the coin- you completely skim over nuances, and somehow interpret things like "straightforwardly critical instead of demeaningly critical" as "can't make any criticism at all", since you hold to a sort of "anti-PC" position. From your position, if you can't be demeaningly critical without reprisal, it's somehow the same as not being able to make criticism at all... Which ironically mirrors "PC reactions" in an uncanny way.
Iwata's previous line of thought for online gaming that you're referencing goes back to about 14 years ago. You're talking about an era where internet access was still a relative luxury, Xbox Live was in it's infancy, the PS2's online features had just barely begun to lift off, the Gamecube modem/ethernet adapters pretty much only provided online support for Phantasy Star Online and LAN support for three 1st party racing genre titles, and the Dreamcast was still the only console that had actually managed to launch with a basic online infrastructure. You're going off on a tangent, talking about ancient history and extrapolating that into Iwata making poor decisions throughout his life.
The truth is, you don't know what was going on in Iwata's head at any point in time. You don't understand what their perspective was from any era. And yet you preemptively determine that you know best, and attribute Iwata's thoughts and decisions, both from the distant and recent past, to some inherent point of failure. Which is not so different from what Pachter does. So I understand now why you're so eager to defend him.
Interest in the Switch is rising, while interest in VR is waning. For VR in particular, development projects from respondents have dipped below 20%, and it's only shrinking. Seems like this wave of VR was yet another fad, and devs are beginning to wise up towards developing for Switch.
A particularly interesting tidbit: the most popular platform to develop for by far is PC. 60% of respondents are currently developing for PC vs 36% for mobile, 30% for PS4, 26% for XB1, and everything else is less. (NS rose to 12% up from 3% - this tells us why there hasn't been much in the way of big 3rd party support yet, but it's on the way.) Thr amount of development going on for PC even eclipses mobile by a significant margin. I still remember when some industry pundits said PC was on it's way out in the early-mid 00's. Today, it's by far the most popular platform to develop for. A lot of people think it's mobile... Nope.
One thing's for sure- PC isn't going anywhere. It's here to stay.
@Yorumi There have been other developments, too! For example, crowd funding had now become a viable (if imperfect) method of funding game production. One of the best PC games of last year, Divinity: Original Sin 2 was crowdfunded- after the first game was also successful after being crowdfunded! Nontraditional types of games like Doki Doki Literature Club are also on the rise. (And that one is free, no strings attached!). Not that consoles aren't getting good games, but it seems like with a few notable exceptions, creativity throughout the console business is slowly stagnating, while on PC it's flourishing.
There's negative things too, like the price of GPU's skyrocketing due to multiple market factors. Many say it's due to mining, which is part of it, but that's not the whole story. It's also borne on the backs of consumers who have only bought NVIDIA products, even in times when they've been worse deals for worse hardware, and accept paying the exorbitant price jacks no matter what. NVIDIA has no incentive to go beyond Pascal, since they're making money hand over fist, which won't change until AMD's close to releasing Navi. And NVIDIA invests their profits into car GPU's, not necessarily better deals for gamers. And all of this is just one issue.
And then of course, by next year, multi chip module GPU's will release, and we will finally see a significant generational leap after so long. Titles like Cyberpunk 2077 (and maybe Star Citizen?) will exemplify this difference in scope. The rift between what's needed for new AAA titles will grow, and so will the rift between what's needed between those and indie titles.
Meanwhile, Intel will still be on top, but not be the untouchable behemoth they once were. AMD's market share influence is rising, and even Intel has recognized that by using AMD's Vega chips for their new iGPU's on upcoming Coffee Lake chips. (And presumably Cannon Lake as well, eventually.)
Put together, there's a lot of shifts going on in the PC market, and it's different from the pendulum swinging back and forth between Nintendo's or Sony's or Microsoft's direction. It'll be interesting from here on out!
@RETRO_J Uh oh, looks like you took the red pill and realized that NL doesn't necessarily have the desire to engage in an in-depth discussion with dissenting viewpoints, especially not if they're well reasoned. It's a classic tactic, eliminate the weakest target to make a point seem stronger than it really is. As a double whammy, it misdirects from how a discussion on the matter would actually evolve.
For example, I do think Labo has some good potential, but also have some qualms with it's fundamental shortcomings, such as not being built to stand the test of time. Responses I've seen on this criticism have ranged from wrapping the cardboard in ugly/gaudy hardening tape to "Who cares how long it lasts, it just exists to make Nintendo money and sell consoles." These can then both be countered with, "Should we even accept a product where the suggestion of the base material being fortified with ugly/gaudy tape is valid, just because it has the Nintendo label?" and "If it turns out the software is not so good, does basing the higher price on loose references to STEM constitute fraud on some level?"
That would actually be a challenging and stimulating discussion, though. We should expect that standard, but that doesn't necessarily get the clicks.
FINALLY! But still, it's a great patch, and it's free. Just how it should be- reward the players for buying your game, instead of fleecing them for more cash.
@NEStalgia Yeah, I sat and wondered to myself last year several times, staring at the parts laid out with the incomplete build @ midnight, "Why is it so difficult to get everything together? Should I take the prolonged length that this little project of mine is going on as a sign that I need to do something different? What will I accomplish in doing all of this?"
...But I pressed on anyways. Was it worth it? Pfff, hell if I know. Most people wouldn't have gone through all that. I guess my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know how it would turn out in the end. Badly enough that I pushed through until nothing useful was missing, until the pieces fit together. Eventually, the cold, brushed aluminum door on the front of the case finally felt like it was inviting me, rather than pushing me away. And when that midtower case just barely fit between those metal cylindrical bars on the bottom left of my somewhat cramped desk setup... That's when it finally felt right. And I've hardly had to do any maintenance since. (But I should probably open it up to get any dust out soon...)
Since I'm using a Ryzen 5 1600, and it only clocks up to 4.0 GHz tops anyways (with voltage tuning, though I'd rather just set it up to 3.8 GHz with minimal tuning, having it last longer and not work as hard), liquid cooling is just not worth the expense and risk in this setup. Even the stock cooler could keep it quiet @ 31°C when idle and 40-50°C under load on stock clocks. I'm satisfied with just letting the computer breathe, inhale and exhale, it doesn't need to be a mini fridge on top of that.
I would consider my desires relatively conservative for an enthusiast, actually. One friend I've known since high school won't accept anything less than a full tower, steel frame, water cooling with 240-360mm radiator and multiple 120mm fans, $400+ GPU (GTX 1070), an unlocked Core i7, 32 GB of 2400 MHz RAM (he's still using top of the line DDR3), 200mm x 30mm fan on the side AND front of the case, multiple SATA III SSD's and two 2TB Caviar Black HDD's, and a quiet noise profile. (Rollers on the bottom of the case also a plus.) And he still wants to upgrade.
Me? I'll be fine for a while... ^ _ ^
Until Navi GPU's release and I wake up @ 5 AM to go camp outside the Micro Center. ʘ _ ʘ
@MIDP The key here is in what Pachter meant by what he said. There are plenty of ways he could have expressed his distaste and disagreement with Iwata's business decisions and philosophy, as well as Nintendo's admittedly archaic policies, without being condescending and insulting. He could have even said most of what he said anyways, while simply rephrasing them in a neutral and not arrogant way.
For example, simply saying, "the late Satoru Iwata" instead of, "the late and not so great Satoru Iwata." And explaining himself by phrasing in ways such as, "I believe Nintendo would have been better served by doing such and such, based on this and that knowledge", instead of phrasing it as, "What the hell is Nintendo thinking", while tying that in with deriding Iwata's business decisions and philosophy. Pachter could have easily disagreed with Iwata without acting patronizingly superior about it.
The way he phrased what he said was a low blow, especially now that Iwata is dead and cannot defend himself. There's a difference between being straightforwardly critical and being unfairly and demeaningly critical. Pachter's penchant for the latter and failure to demonstrate the former is key to what makes his behavior unethical and unprofessional. The only reason he's able to get away with it is because he's silver-tongued, not bombastically incendiary. He is a master of obfuscating the meaning behind his words.
@NEStalgia Did I mention that I also spent over $100 on fans? I even shelled out for a 120mm Gentle Typhoon for the bottom intake fan. Nothing else would do. And the stock fan wasn't enough for the CPU. I went for the Cryorig H7 heatsink/fan, AND got a 120mm Cougar fan so the heatsink can have dual fans, AND a 120mm Aerocool Shark fan for ventilation. Also an Aerocool 200 x 20 mm fan for those drives in the front. Last but not least, I got an 80 mm Noctua fan with a horizontal PCI/e slot attachment to provide extra cooling for the GPU! But it wouldn't fit on naturally, so I had to bend it with pliers until it would fit! ^ _ ^ Nice and airy... ◎ _ ◎ BUT WAS IT ALL WORTH IT?
@MIDP The topic was on the pricing structure of Super Mario Run. Pachter said, "I think the problem with Super Mario Run is, to quote the late and not so great Satoru Iwata, it's free to start. And he said this a couple of years ago, and I think I did a Pachter Factor/Attack about this, he said- he was questioned about what he thought about free to play. And he said, 'we prefer [the term] free to start.' And he didn't explain it. But we now are seeing it..."
He went on to talk about how he made a bet with someone that Nintendo would charge at least $10 for Super Mario Run, due to their business model of putting a high value on their properties and being wary of the mobile market's race to the bottom, which Pachter described as "being stuck looking at the rear view mirror to their past." He later went on to talk about potential download numbers, saying that with a premium price, it would largely be dependent on Nintendo fanboys. Then he mused, "What the hell is Nintendo thinking?", saying SMR should have been free to play with paid DLC, or in other words, joining the mobile race to the bottom.
So essentially what Pachter did there was insult Iwata posthumously for his business decisions and philosophy. Then Pachter inserted his own ideas as being better, insinuating that Iwata and the other executives made poor leadership decisions for Nintendo, wondering why the rest of them would go along with it.
And he made money from those comments. That is the height of arrogance.
@NEStalgia Well, I was getting into AM4 for 2017, and I wanted to jump straight from my old HDD to an NVMe for the boot drive. Still got another few SSD's for games and an extra HDD for backup storage, though! I do have a valid excuse beyond being a slobbering nerd, honest! An empty PCIe X4 path wouldn't have been very useful, and I would have felt an emptiness inside if it were empty... so I decided to populate it. I physically ran out of space for more 2.5/3.5" drives, and I'm also using an M.2 SATA SSD as well! It wasn't a waste of money in my case, because the only things that were paid for at retail was my old HDD back from 2010, and the NVMe drive last year. All the other SSD's and extra HDD I got free from work. So I'm a bit of a special case. Speaking of which, the case was free too, got that from work.
It's true that businesses still typically use HDD's and SATA III SSD's for mass production loads... But individual consumers usually like having options, so NVMe drives might interest them more than enterprise NVMe drives currently interest most businesses. My 250GB Samsung 960 EVO was about $120, which is... the same price today. Exorbitantly priced? Maybe. But what other more practical use is a consumer going to get out of that PCIe X4 path? Certainly not a dual 1 or 10gbps ethernet adapter, like businesses might use. Using it for a second GPU gimps it. May as well use something!
The PS4 Pro definitely shows more benefit from using an SSD than base PS4, but hey, improvement is improvement. And since consoles can't really be upgraded in too many ways... Hey, why not?
The PS4 Pro uses an overclocked Jaguar, up to 2.1 GHz on each core instead of 1.8 GHz. I would say that's a bottleneck at this point for more demanding titles. But at least it's not nearly as much as it is for XB1X, which also uses the Jaguar, while having an improved GPU... Talk about bottleneck city!
SSD's don't have as drastic of performance improvements on PS4/Pro compared to PC, especially on more demanding titles like The Witcher 3, where processing power is the bottleneck moreso than the drive. Nevertheless, switching out the basic crap HDD for even a merely decent SSD can make a significant difference in certain titles, such as GTA V. So using an SSD for HD consoles is demonstrably better than a placebo in multiple cases.
By M.2 SSD, I meant M.2 PCIe X4 NVMe, not M.2 SATA, my bad. I'm just used to "M.2" meaning "NVMe" since that's typically what people are looking for; whereas M.2 SATA offers no tangible benefits for transfer speeds over SATA III, since it's still bound to the SATA controller.
Using CrystalDiskMark on my Samsung 960 EVO NVMe drive, I get 1698 MB/s (or almost 1.7 GB/s) sequential read and 1333 MB/s (or over 1.3 GB/s) sequential write. (And even 3169 MB/s sequential Q32T1 read, OOOH! ) Compare that to the advertised speeds on these microSD cards... But that's somewhat for naught, considering Random 4K read is 41.84 MB/s and Random 4K write is 114 MB/s. (Not 4K Q32T1.) Those Random 4K values are the truly important part of an NVMe drive's value proposition. Compare that to most HDD's, which don't necessarily even break 0.5 MB/s Random 4K read or 1 MB/s Random 4K write... Or my Samsung 830 SATA SSD, which has 22.96 MB/s Random 4K read and 73.89 MB/s Random 4K write. Not quite twice the performance of modern SATA SSD's for general OS use and gaming, but hey, still improved performance.
Good to know about network transfer speeds... Will be interesting to see what is found out over time.
I would be interested to see if utilizing an SD card for more demanding titles (like Xenoblade 2) makes more of a difference vs. game card than in others. The difference is probably negligible in many titles, though.
@MIDP If it were the case that his comments were simply his private opinion, which he wasn't making money and generating hits from, then yes, my response would be mere "PC outrage." However, the fact that Pachter used his show, which he derives an income from, to essentially apply a disrespectful title to Iwata posthumously for the sake of generating extra hits, regardless of the amount of time passed, is worthy of scorn. He made money off of his negative post-Iwata comments. That is unethical and unprofessional, no matter how one looks at it.
@Nintendoforlife Qwerty definitely shouldn't have brought character judgement into the argument, but then again, Alex is accusing a user of spreading disinformation, when right there in the article written by one of his colleagues, it's essentially recommending a very expensive card partially based on a V10 rating... Which is not only worse than V30, it applies to video recording, not gameplay. Although, I would say the context that's based on constitutes misinformation, not disinformation. And Rayquaza rightfully picked up on that line of discrepancy, but was wrongfully shot down by Alex. So Rayquaza is owed an apology as well, honestly. Alex shouldn't have put himself out there like that.
@QwertyQwerty Your comments would have been better directed @ Darren, since he's the one listed as posting the article.
Yeah, between yesterday with the Pachter article, and now today essentially recommending an upcoming memory card that possibly won't have good operating specs behind that shiny new 512 number, instead of just waiting for release and testing it, that's two strikes in a row for Darren. (NL hasn't ever been very good with dabbling in the whole tech press offshoot article thing they've had going on for a while, though.) Let's see how tomorrow goes!
"If you've already purchased a 400GB model then you might be wondering if that extra 112GB is worth upgrading for, but know this - Integral Memory's new card meets the Video Speed Class 10 (V10) standard, making it perfect for the Switch where fast data transfer is a real bonus."
Sounds like a purchase recommendation, rather than just simply reporting on it, to me... I mean, V30 is what you should be looking for with video recording at this point, and even if you were, that applies for taking videos with a phone, smart device, or digital cam/recorder, not gameplay on a Switch... This seems more like not knowing what the numbers mean, rather than straight disinformation for marketing purposes, though.
@NEStalgia Also, I'm curious if you know how much 4K random read/write/access speeds would make a difference while playing from SD card instead of game card on NS. You probably already knew that 4K random access is far more important than sequential for OS functions and gaming on PC. (And of course, all of the marketing for SSD's, flash memory, the like focuses on the B1G NUMB4R5 of sequential speeds, even though in reality it's not always the most important metric.)
For example, my M.2 SSD achieves over 2gbps sequential read/write... whoopdie doo, it's only several hundred mbps 4K random read/write, and that's what determines the drive's actual performance in practice.
So, yeah... any thoughts? I've certainly noticed a positive difference on PSP playing from a Memory Stick instead of UMD, and 3DS has marginal boosts playing from SD instead of game card, but I don't have any super testing results, and I don't know about this round with NS...
@Faruko @RamrodDestroyer Reading and writing save files would be sequential, no? What about 4K random speeds for actually running a game from the SD card? Those are the most important metrics for gaming on PC, not sequential. I don't know how important they are for NS, or if it handles that differently, but if the principle is somewhat similar, especially for games that need resources quickly accessed on the fly when playing from SD, then having a card with higher 4K random read/write/access couldn't hurt. (Which the card linked in the article doesn't look too promising, on that matter.)
@NEStalgia That's a good point, real world network speeds in console gaming are throttled by the companies connecting their clients. There's no way they're going to allow anyone to use an ethernet adapter with CAT6 or higher cabling into a fiber network to actually reach a 330 mbps - 1 gbps connection rate onto company servers while in networked gaming sessions or online shop access.
This card is labeled UHS-3, but it's really UHS-1/U3. In any case, performance with each individual card can vary, so they each must be tested individually. One user found they were reaching 55 MB/s read and 83 MB/s write, for example. It's not the advertised 100 MB/s "transfer speed" in practice. Thus, doing testing in addition to research is important for an accurate depiction of performance. It's also worth keeping in mind these are the sequential values, the 4K random read/write/access speeds for files transferred/swapped on the fly (i.e. important for gaming) would be a lower value.
Nevertheless, at $67 for an 128 GB microSD card with this degree of performance range, it's a better deal than the upcoming 512 GB card referred to in the article. So much for, "Take that, SanDisk!"
@thesilverbrick Well, considering one would need a similar level of empathy as a certain American President who uses the same exclamation, to be able to work with someone like Pachter on a prolonged basis, it actually fits pretty well.
@JustJulyo I understand, and if Pachter had presented his post-Iwata sentiments in a more objective and neutral fashion, while maintaining professionalism in his prose, there wouldn't be a problem. Even if he said the same things he did, but only in private outside of business, it would still be horrible, but ultimately a whatever sentiment. But the fact he used his profession, from which he generates income, to propagate such a message with the meaning behind it ascribing a disrespectful title, is unacceptable. If he used the same words in the context he did on my deceased grandmother, especially since he'd be making money off of doing so, I'd want to punch him square in the face. And I'm sure there's plenty of people who would feel the same way if that were said about someone they deeply care about. Apply the golden rule. There are plenty of people who would do the same thing for Iwata, if Pachter told them what he said to their faces.
Wow, another clickbait Michael Pachter article after all this time! Feels like a blast from the past, NL used to run these all the time! However, uh... There's a reason why those fell out of favor:
Pachter often made jokes at the expense of others, such as in the "Nintendo fans will essentially buy a polished turd if it has the Nintendo brand on it" insinuation with the cardboard comments. Which is whatever. But making light of Iwata's passing, even with the full context in mind, is still in poor taste to this day, which he was forced to apologize for. But that didn't excuse his poor, unethical, and unprofessional behavior in the first place.
So if you're asking whether it's too soon to be giving this man attention yet again for easy clicks...
Yes. Yes it is. And I'm guessing whoever is responsible for this little beauty of an article has a short memory on the matter.
We should contact Nintendo Life to please not publish anything related to this man's content again, due to his callously opportunistic use of Iwata's passing to generate more income from insensitive idiots.
@MFD I think it's more likely that a wholesale console upgrade with improved base specs will be introduced by 2020/2021. The whole external CPU/GPU in the dock route is feasible with USB 3.1... But then again, look what happened to Sega CD/32X, N64DD, etc. The Genesis in particular was doing great giving some real competition to the SNES, but few were willing to bite on expensive peripheral upgrades with a questionable future, and many consumers were burned.
The NS is doing excellently now, but that could go downhill if major mistakes are made. Nintendo is in the black with billions in the bank, but they're not invincible. A specs upgrade through the dock would just be repeating history. Exactly how much it would be, I don't know, but I'm guessing those involved with making the 90's era specs upgrade peripherals still have lingering memories of those failed experiments.
By the time 2020/2021 arrives, the currently unpalatable high price of the Tegra X2/Pascal/Parker will have significantly dropped, which should make it a shoe-in for the NeXt Nintendo console upgrade SKU. It'll be a long wait to potentially have zero problems with Xenoblade 2 and the like, though...
@JaxonH 1st point: True for the PSP/Vita, and the Sega Nomad as well now that I think about it, but that doesn't take away from the capability being included in marketing materials, with relatively cheap peripheral accessories making it possible. (Certainly a lot cheaper than Nintendo charges for extra docks! )
2nd point: Well... The Switch has to do that too. The cable connection is just relegated to the dock instead of the console itself, although the console still has to connect into the dock and process the connection. Either way, minus the NS having exponentially higher processing power and clock rate, being underclocked while portable and boosting up to stock clocks while docked, the desired effect is similar in practice.
3rd point: Besides the ports of PS1 games (and the capability of the PSP to readily emulate pretty much any PS1 game in such a small package, no mean feat for 2004 era portable tech, especially considering the O3DS has some trouble with more demanding SNES titles), the likes of modified ports such as Persona 3 Portable on PSP and Persona 4 The Golden on Vita, and the likes of Ys Seven, Valkyria Chronicles 3, or Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity on PSP and Rayman Legends, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel 1+2, Muramasa Rebirth, and Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remastered on Vita (not to mention the Nomad actually using Genesis cartridges)... Well, yes, less processing power than their dedicated home console contemporaries. But then again, the Switch has that same property as well, and yet we're not necessarily chastising Nintendo's system for that shortcoming, nor should we. We should recognize the achievements made in each era.
4th point: True, NS is what standardized readily switching between TV output and portable play, except for some hiccups on particularly demanding titles such as Xenoblade 2. However, despite it being the most popular implementation of this type of feature thus far, it's still important to consider what came before from a historical context. To ignore history is to ensure repeats of past follies in the future. In this case, it also reminds us that this feature is nothing original, and that sometimes the giants give each other ideas, despite the stigma of it only being Sony taking all of Nintendo's ideas.
@electrolite77 Agreed! For what it's worth, cryptocurrency rates recently dropped like a rock again, so hopefully that will curb the currently unreasonable GPU prices by the time the next generation releases later this year. Vega iGPU's with graphical prowess roughly matching an NVIDIA GT 1030 at stock, and potentially matching the upcoming mobile-focused GT 1040 if overclocked by a few hundred MHz when combined with 3200+ MHz RAM, are also releasing on both budget-mid range AMD APU's and mid-upper range Intel CPU's this year, so budget builds without discrete GPU's are going to be viable alternatives for many this year. RAM prices will still be high, though.
@MFD @JaxonH Well, I can think of two mainstream "hybrids" that had the same "TV or portable" idea as the NS (minus the NS clock speed being much higher, underclocked when portable, set to stock when docked)- the PSP-2000 onwards and Vita-1000 & TV. Granted, I don't think Sony ever specifically referred to them as "hybrids," just as portables with the amenities of a home console (which is similar in practice), with extra peripheral cabling being needed for TV output, and Bluetooth tethering being needed for extra controllers. The NS indeed provides such multi-functionality better, but the fact remains that the basic premise behind the concept is nothing new at all.
As for FPS, consoles in general still cannot necessarily be relied upon to maintain consistent frame times capped @ 60 FPS, not even the shiny upgrade console varieties. For example, Destiny 2 is locked @ 30 FPS on XB1X, and the Crash Bandicoot remakes are locked @ 30 FPS on PS4Pro. It was made apparent what some industry executives really think about their customers when Phil Spencer made these comments @ E3 2017 when interviewed by GameCentral:
GC: What also frustrates me is that the only number I care about is the only one that you and Sony don’t obsess over. Which is 60fps, which I understand is easier to do on the Xbox One X than any other console.
PS: That’s correct. But… [laughs] Why do you care about 60fps?
GC: It’s the only number that [significantly] affects gameplay and yet it’s the only one you two never go on about! No-one can tell the difference between 4K and 1080p and all that nonsense…
PS: You just broke your whole argument now!
GC: How?
PS: You just said these games could run on a Commodore 64, they would not run at 60 frames per second on a Commodore 64.
GC: Uridium did.
PS: [laughs] I’m not disagreeing with you. But it’s a subjective opinion that that’s the only one that matters.
Phil Spencer condescendingly tried to steer the conversation in a certain way, and revealed their motive when GC countered that Uridium on the C64 achieved 60 FPS all the way back in 1986. (So therefore, asking the question why 60 FPS isn't standardized by now on this brand new $500 console over 30 years later, since frame rate has indeed always been a primary metric affecting gameplay, whereas resolution is secondary.) Phil essentially referred to both frame rate's and resolution's importance as subjective, when in fact, the importance of frame rate is objective and of resolution is subjective. They believe they can decide what's best for their customers for them, altering their narrative to fit their marketing line. Regardless of where one's personal preferences lie, that sort of behavior should give anyone pause to fund the coffers of such people.
That said, there are certain games (such as Mass Effect) where 60+ FPS makes the animation actually look "too fluid" in an alien sort of way to me. (Fitting I suppose, given the subject title!) So for those games, I actually prefer to intentionally lower the frame cap to 30 FPS so the animation looks more natural. But generally, I do much prefer stable frame times with 60+ FPS, even if it means having to lower the resolution to 720p/900p/1080p. Many developers are smart enough to do that on their own, but people like Phil Spencer won't necessarily give you that option.
The soundtrack of Sonic CD has always been it's main claim to fame. (With the US tracks being better in some places like Quartz Quadrant, and the EU/JP tracks better in others like the final levels.) The level design, however, was categorically more bland or more cramped than Sonic 2 and 3&Knuckles. The 8-spin dash was too speedy for the levels to accomodate it in many cases, for example. Enemies were also more bland, and not placed strategically. So the overall win would go to Mania here.
@Henmii "They showed just a logo, so that they can go full out at next E3. Its much further in development then many think!"
That's the sentiment many people thought was true back during E3 2014 and 2015 about BotW... Took until 2017 and the end of the Wii U before it finally released. And several key Monolith Soft staff members who could have been working on Xenoblade 2 were pulled away just to make that belated deadline happen:
I wonder what it's going to take just to get MP4 finished in a somewhat timely manner? Well... the key Monolith Soft staff's involvement with Nintendo is closer than being merely a 2nd party at this point... and even the less experienced members are damn good at getting projects completed in record time... Maybe some of them should help make MP4 as well?
Project Octopath Traveler, Fire Emblem, and Metroid Prime 4... But I put in a vote in for TWEWY: Final Remix since the original is so damn good, and deserves this second outing! The return of Suda51 and Travis is also a great boon for the NS library!
And, uh... yeah, Metroid Prime 4 ain't releasing this year... they don't even have footage to show the public yet. Remember a certain other big title that took much longer than expected to finish, and had almost no footage shown publicly for the vast majority of it's development time? Yeah... similar deal here. MP4 isn't going to be finished until 2019 at the earliest, and for all we know it might not be until 2020. Also, Bayonetta 3 likely won't be finished until next year. Rereleasing 1&2 is just to whet peoples' appetites and get them talking about 3.
Going by the review, the game may as well be called "The Legend of Vesta: Portal to the Federation Tracks" And then the sequel could be called, "Vesta's Adventure: Portal 2 the Spirit Force"
@Fazermint Technical reasons, which is only going to become more exacerbated over time until the inevitable console upgrade is released. Granted, that's not a problem for Dark Souls Remastered in particular.
@NoxAeturnus What the total sales comparisons do prove, however, is that in many cases, 3rd parties necessarily have to go in with lower expectations on Nintendo's platforms than on others. As you said, even Nintendo themselves have low expectations for 3rd parties on their own platforms- probably much lower than others would have on theirs.
This can be a good thing in a way for indies, because it means if you're approved (in whatever strange and archaic way Nintendo handles it), then you don't need to worry as much about meeting minimum thresholds. For larger publishers, however, they're probably a lot more cautious about this prospect- certainly the DOOM and Skyrim ports were risks that just so happened to pay off decently, especially considering they were sold at full price, while being half off or less everywhere else by the time the Switch ports arrived. Not everyone will have Bethesda's/Panic Button's fortune, though. Hopefully Dark Souls Remastered will also pay off for FromSoftware/Namco-Bandai. I'm not holding my breath on cross-platform play, but as long as the NS version gets multiplayer functionality, I think it's going to have a significant audience!
@Enigk @NoxAeturnus There was a cooking tournament minigame on Star Ocean: Second Story back in the day, which completely relied on luck... Got through it until last round, then BOOM! Failure. I smashed my PS1 like I did the N64... Didn't turn out so well... That PS1 is dead now. Didn't do that ever again from PS2 onwards...
Award for toughest console goes to the N64 though! My first one is STILL alive after repeated beatings! Granted, it uh... displays a literal blood red tint for EVERY game now when it's used... ◎_◎
@NoxAeturnus Agreed for adults, upper teenagers and above should be able to internalize or talk about their feelings rather than lashing out. For children, I think something like a 2/3DS is more appropriate than a Switch. They can use a Switch at home, but otherwise, not out in public without some bulky protection.
@PhilKenSebben I agree! I was just saying there's a difference between something like Dark Souls and something like Mario Party when the CPU's RNG is involved.
@NoxAeturnus One of the whole reasons why publishers/developers went outside of Nintendo platforms ever since the 80's/90's in the first place is because competing against Nintendo's 1st party products is inevitable on their platforms. It's impossible to avoid comparing 3rd party to 1st party sales on Nintendo's platforms.
So over 500k sales in the first month of release on Steam alone, with over 2.5 million owners and nearly 2.4 million players (people who own and have actually played the game) to date. (Which also means there's over 100k people who bought DOOM and haven't played it yet...) Compared to the NS version, it's difficult to find all the numbers since Bethesda isn't releasing digital sales numbers, however, industry insider John Harker has mentioned that DOOM sales on Switch reached around 60k @ retail back in November:
What all of this means is that 3rd parties can potentially do relatively well on Switch... But for that to happen, it usually takes either star power, a good bit of fortune, or a big publisher backing the product. Yes, DOOM and Skyrim are relatively old games by now, but the fact is that even big names from 3rd parties will rarely ever (IF ever) perform anywhere near as well as Nintendo's big guns on their platforms, whereas on other platforms like PC, it's a whole other story.
@NoxAeturnus Eh... it depends. Like Mario Party 1-3 back in the N64 heyday when I was a kid, I smashed the hell out of those cartridges and controllers. (And most of them survived!) Because after a 50 turn single player round was about to end with me in the lead, then in the last few turns, the CPU lands on chance time and steals EVERY star... That kind of thing flipped a switch in me that hadn't existed previously in other games. Even games like The Lost Levels never frustrated me anywhere near that much, up to that point in time. There's something about when success is absolutely bound to elements of chance, manipulated by either an algorithm or an unseen hand, that a sense of profound unfairness can trigger a strong emotional response in people.
There's a difference between something just plain being difficult, and something being seemingly (or actually) rigged after putting in time and effort into it. In any case, kids shouldn't even be given fragile electronics in the first place, they should be given ones which can take a beating.
@maruse Except Dragon Ball and FIFA are hugely popular franchises, so of course Xenoverse 2 has sold over half a million copies and FIFA on Switch has sold as well as it can, or at least in Europe and Japan... Any examples of particularly high-selling 3rd party titles that aren't based on highly popular franchises?
Switch is showing it's dominance in Japan already, meanwhile elsewhere FIFA sales account for single digit percentages of sales on Switch, with the vast majority going towards PS4, then XB1 afterwards.
If anything, Nintendo needs to build up as much 3rd party support as they can, because... Well, it should go without saying, but 3rd party sales that don't involve highly popular franchises like Dragon Ball tend to suck compared to 1st party sales on Nintendo's platforms. Yes, 3rd parties line the digital charts- and exactly how much did everything sell there? No one is telling. But sure ain't the millions (or 100s of thousands, in most cases) that Nintendo's 1st party products sell.
So yeah, diversifying the ecosystem as much as possible is key for the Switch's overall health and longevity. There's a 1st party drought going on right now for instance, it should be filled with 3rd party offerings, such as... Oh, hm, I seem to have forgotten one of the possibilities... Something involving Dark shadows and turbid Souls... huh, well, I'm sure the name will come to me...
@aaronsullivan You're right, it's not accurate to compare this to pizza boxes. Those usually have wider perforation, as you note, while for Lab-O it's more narrow. The grade of cardboard used in pizza boxes is usually really trash tier, too. Cardboard can only be recycled several times before the quality of the wood pulp degrades into a useless substance, and a lot of food transportation grade cardboard tends towards the end of that life (re)cycle. Whereas the cardboard material related to use for electronics (except for REALLY awful products) tends towards the beginning, and is easier to preserve.
Now that I think about it, there's been a plastic rendition of corrugated cardboard for decades now as well. I remember back in the '90s that Nintendo had a plastic variety of full height single wall corrugated "plasticboard" for their magazine holders, sold in the Power Supplies Catalog. I'm guessing it wasn't used for Lab-O because cardboard imparts a more natural appearance, but the plastic variety could be interchangeable. For the piano, I could see that with black and white dyes/gloss looking really nice.
@aaronsullivan The price of cardboard depends on the quality of materials, glue/binding, specialized coatings, and corrugation. In particular, non-corrugated is really cheap and flimsy, whereas full height triple wall corrugation is actually surprisingly tough, with an appropriate price to match.
From the looks of the images, it seems like the cardboard used for Lab-O is full height single wall corrugated in some heavier use areas (like the piano keys), partial height single wall corrugated in much of the support structure, and non-corrugated in the outer edges. I wouldn't be too surprised if they cheap out on the binding/glue for a mass produced product that's not expected to hold up over time, and we can definitely see that the coatings used are minimalist, to be generous. (Hence why it's so easy for someone to mistake the product for junk to recycle.) So the quality of most of the cardboard used here is really on the cheaper side. Charging $70-80 is very profitable.
@GravyThief A lot of Germans are SUPER gung-ho about recycling, environmental conservation, etc compared to Americans. A lot of wasteful things Americans do actually pisses Germans off. Even things like leaving a petroleum powered car running in neutral for more than a minute. Happened to my sister recently in Germany, some random woman went off on her (in German, of course) for that.
Comments 5,813
Re: Review: Celeste (Switch eShop)
Now THIS is a 10/10 quality review. Bravo, Jon!
On another note, this also makes me wonder about ratings being affected by difficulty. Cuphead was given lower scores by some due to high difficulty. (Undeservedly low, in some notable cases.) Celeste is at least as difficult as Cuphead in it's own way, however, most reviewers so far see past the raw difficulty factor and understand what makes solving each problem rewarding with every screen. Celeste is more cerebral than Cuphead, and I think that's an important point. Celeste is special because you need to use your head and your reflexes, not just your reflexes.
Re: Random: Images Resurface From 1994 Showing Nintendo Destroying Counterfeit Games With A Steamroller
Ugh, so many wasted circuit boards, screws, and plastic moulds. This hurts me more than others because my work involves electronics recycling. They probably did toss out the remains and allowed the powderized chemicals to drift into the air or leach into whatever dump site they chose after rain. I don't think they would actually do this today, the EU's recycling policies have evolved quite a bit over the past 24 years. This would be especially illegal in Germany today.
On a side note... This is the TRUE Mario. That happy go lucky Mario in all the games and media? That's just a stage act, which SMB3 alluded to. Mario is actually a homicidal psychopath with a penchant for destruction. (Proven by SMB1 manual.) So now we see his sunken, horrifically evil face. It's even worse than I imagined. It's high time for a Koopa Revolution!
Re: Retro Rules As Nintendo Switch's ACA Neo Geo Library Hits 1 Million Sales
@SLIGEACH_EIRE Exactly, and an average of about 19,230 sales per title is pretty damn good for old NEO-GEO titles. There's surely many titles on WiiWare, DSiWare, and eShop that have never sold so many copies. Imagine how many more sales of retro Nintendo entries there would be if Nintendo had revamped and relaunched the Virtual Console to coincide with the originally planned online infrastructure release date of Autumn 2017...
Re: Retro Rules As Nintendo Switch's ACA Neo Geo Library Hits 1 Million Sales
And yet there are people who say Nintendo shouldn't spend time and resources on Virtual Console...
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@MIDP Well, like I mentioned before, there's a difference between being straightforwardly critical and being unfairly and demeaningly critical. One can debate both a company's policies and a deceased president's former decisions, and make postmortems/proposals about what could have been and can be done better, without being vulgar and haughty about it. This does make a difference in the professional world, which does not require being "PC," but rather, mindfully choosing your words and maintaining a decent demeanor. Especially when you've reached Pachter's age.
It sounds like you've allowed the regressivism of "PC culture" to color your thoughts in a certain way... Which is kind of ironic, if you think about it. Your position is that everyone should be allowed to say almost whatever they want in whatever context, even if they're being high and mighty, with a few notably horrendous exceptions. Which is basically the opposite side of the coin- you completely skim over nuances, and somehow interpret things like "straightforwardly critical instead of demeaningly critical" as "can't make any criticism at all", since you hold to a sort of "anti-PC" position. From your position, if you can't be demeaningly critical without reprisal, it's somehow the same as not being able to make criticism at all... Which ironically mirrors "PC reactions" in an uncanny way.
Iwata's previous line of thought for online gaming that you're referencing goes back to about 14 years ago. You're talking about an era where internet access was still a relative luxury, Xbox Live was in it's infancy, the PS2's online features had just barely begun to lift off, the Gamecube modem/ethernet adapters pretty much only provided online support for Phantasy Star Online and LAN support for three 1st party racing genre titles, and the Dreamcast was still the only console that had actually managed to launch with a basic online infrastructure. You're going off on a tangent, talking about ancient history and extrapolating that into Iwata making poor decisions throughout his life.
The truth is, you don't know what was going on in Iwata's head at any point in time. You don't understand what their perspective was from any era. And yet you preemptively determine that you know best, and attribute Iwata's thoughts and decisions, both from the distant and recent past, to some inherent point of failure. Which is not so different from what Pachter does. So I understand now why you're so eager to defend him.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@Yorumi @NEStalgia Also! Some interesting metrics from GDC 2018:
https://cdn.fbsbx.com/v/t59.2708-21/27020406_1527377510703322_1696869526278242304_n.pdf/GDC_State_of_the_Game_Industry_Report_2018.pdf?oh=f1c000ed33b9b07221badea08380e65a&oe=5A6BADD6&dl=1
Interest in the Switch is rising, while interest in VR is waning. For VR in particular, development projects from respondents have dipped below 20%, and it's only shrinking. Seems like this wave of VR was yet another fad, and devs are beginning to wise up towards developing for Switch.
A particularly interesting tidbit: the most popular platform to develop for by far is PC. 60% of respondents are currently developing for PC vs 36% for mobile, 30% for PS4, 26% for XB1, and everything else is less. (NS rose to 12% up from 3% - this tells us why there hasn't been much in the way of big 3rd party support yet, but it's on the way.) Thr amount of development going on for PC even eclipses mobile by a significant margin. I still remember when some industry pundits said PC was on it's way out in the early-mid 00's. Today, it's by far the most popular platform to develop for. A lot of people think it's mobile... Nope.
One thing's for sure- PC isn't going anywhere. It's here to stay.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@Yorumi There have been other developments, too! For example, crowd funding had now become a viable (if imperfect) method of funding game production. One of the best PC games of last year, Divinity: Original Sin 2 was crowdfunded- after the first game was also successful after being crowdfunded! Nontraditional types of games like Doki Doki Literature Club are also on the rise. (And that one is free, no strings attached!). Not that consoles aren't getting good games, but it seems like with a few notable exceptions, creativity throughout the console business is slowly stagnating, while on PC it's flourishing.
There's negative things too, like the price of GPU's skyrocketing due to multiple market factors. Many say it's due to mining, which is part of it, but that's not the whole story. It's also borne on the backs of consumers who have only bought NVIDIA products, even in times when they've been worse deals for worse hardware, and accept paying the exorbitant price jacks no matter what. NVIDIA has no incentive to go beyond Pascal, since they're making money hand over fist, which won't change until AMD's close to releasing Navi. And NVIDIA invests their profits into car GPU's, not necessarily better deals for gamers. And all of this is just one issue.
And then of course, by next year, multi chip module GPU's will release, and we will finally see a significant generational leap after so long. Titles like Cyberpunk 2077 (and maybe Star Citizen?) will exemplify this difference in scope. The rift between what's needed for new AAA titles will grow, and so will the rift between what's needed between those and indie titles.
Meanwhile, Intel will still be on top, but not be the untouchable behemoth they once were. AMD's market share influence is rising, and even Intel has recognized that by using AMD's Vega chips for their new iGPU's on upcoming Coffee Lake chips. (And presumably Cannon Lake as well, eventually.)
Put together, there's a lot of shifts going on in the PC market, and it's different from the pendulum swinging back and forth between Nintendo's or Sony's or Microsoft's direction. It'll be interesting from here on out!
Re: Video: Not Everyone Is Pleased With Nintendo Labo
@RETRO_J Uh oh, looks like you took the red pill and realized that NL doesn't necessarily have the desire to engage in an in-depth discussion with dissenting viewpoints, especially not if they're well reasoned. It's a classic tactic, eliminate the weakest target to make a point seem stronger than it really is. As a double whammy, it misdirects from how a discussion on the matter would actually evolve.
For example, I do think Labo has some good potential, but also have some qualms with it's fundamental shortcomings, such as not being built to stand the test of time. Responses I've seen on this criticism have ranged from wrapping the cardboard in ugly/gaudy hardening tape to "Who cares how long it lasts, it just exists to make Nintendo money and sell consoles." These can then both be countered with, "Should we even accept a product where the suggestion of the base material being fortified with ugly/gaudy tape is valid, just because it has the Nintendo label?" and "If it turns out the software is not so good, does basing the higher price on loose references to STEM constitute fraud on some level?"
That would actually be a challenging and stimulating discussion, though. We should expect that standard, but that doesn't necessarily get the clicks.
Re: Freedom Planet On The Wii U Just Got A Sizable Update
FINALLY! But still, it's a great patch, and it's free. Just how it should be- reward the players for buying your game, instead of fleecing them for more cash.
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@Nintendo_Thumb I read it...
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@NEStalgia Yeah, I sat and wondered to myself last year several times, staring at the parts laid out with the incomplete build @ midnight, "Why is it so difficult to get everything together? Should I take the prolonged length that this little project of mine is going on as a sign that I need to do something different? What will I accomplish in doing all of this?"
...But I pressed on anyways. Was it worth it? Pfff, hell if I know. Most people wouldn't have gone through all that. I guess my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know how it would turn out in the end. Badly enough that I pushed through until nothing useful was missing, until the pieces fit together. Eventually, the cold, brushed aluminum door on the front of the case finally felt like it was inviting me, rather than pushing me away. And when that midtower case just barely fit between those metal cylindrical bars on the bottom left of my somewhat cramped desk setup... That's when it finally felt right. And I've hardly had to do any maintenance since. (But I should probably open it up to get any dust out soon...)
Since I'm using a Ryzen 5 1600, and it only clocks up to 4.0 GHz tops anyways (with voltage tuning, though I'd rather just set it up to 3.8 GHz with minimal tuning, having it last longer and not work as hard), liquid cooling is just not worth the expense and risk in this setup. Even the stock cooler could keep it quiet @ 31°C when idle and 40-50°C under load on stock clocks. I'm satisfied with just letting the computer breathe, inhale and exhale, it doesn't need to be a mini fridge on top of that.
I would consider my desires relatively conservative for an enthusiast, actually. One friend I've known since high school won't accept anything less than a full tower, steel frame, water cooling with 240-360mm radiator and multiple 120mm fans, $400+ GPU (GTX 1070), an unlocked Core i7, 32 GB of 2400 MHz RAM (he's still using top of the line DDR3), 200mm x 30mm fan on the side AND front of the case, multiple SATA III SSD's and two 2TB Caviar Black HDD's, and a quiet noise profile. (Rollers on the bottom of the case also a plus.) And he still wants to upgrade.
Me? I'll be fine for a while... ^ _ ^
Until Navi GPU's release and I wake up @ 5 AM to go camp outside the Micro Center. ʘ _ ʘ
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@MIDP The key here is in what Pachter meant by what he said. There are plenty of ways he could have expressed his distaste and disagreement with Iwata's business decisions and philosophy, as well as Nintendo's admittedly archaic policies, without being condescending and insulting. He could have even said most of what he said anyways, while simply rephrasing them in a neutral and not arrogant way.
For example, simply saying, "the late Satoru Iwata" instead of, "the late and not so great Satoru Iwata." And explaining himself by phrasing in ways such as, "I believe Nintendo would have been better served by doing such and such, based on this and that knowledge", instead of phrasing it as, "What the hell is Nintendo thinking", while tying that in with deriding Iwata's business decisions and philosophy. Pachter could have easily disagreed with Iwata without acting patronizingly superior about it.
The way he phrased what he said was a low blow, especially now that Iwata is dead and cannot defend himself. There's a difference between being straightforwardly critical and being unfairly and demeaningly critical. Pachter's penchant for the latter and failure to demonstrate the former is key to what makes his behavior unethical and unprofessional. The only reason he's able to get away with it is because he's silver-tongued, not bombastically incendiary. He is a master of obfuscating the meaning behind his words.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@NEStalgia Did I mention that I also spent over $100 on fans? I even shelled out for a 120mm Gentle Typhoon for the bottom intake fan. Nothing else would do. And the stock fan wasn't enough for the CPU. I went for the Cryorig H7 heatsink/fan, AND got a 120mm Cougar fan so the heatsink can have dual fans, AND a 120mm Aerocool Shark fan for ventilation. Also an Aerocool 200 x 20 mm fan for those drives in the front. Last but not least, I got an 80 mm Noctua fan with a horizontal PCI/e slot attachment to provide extra cooling for the GPU! But it wouldn't fit on naturally, so I had to bend it with pliers until it would fit! ^ _ ^ Nice and airy... ◎ _ ◎ BUT WAS IT ALL WORTH IT?
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@MIDP The topic was on the pricing structure of Super Mario Run. Pachter said, "I think the problem with Super Mario Run is, to quote the late and not so great Satoru Iwata, it's free to start. And he said this a couple of years ago, and I think I did a Pachter Factor/Attack about this, he said- he was questioned about what he thought about free to play. And he said, 'we prefer [the term] free to start.' And he didn't explain it. But we now are seeing it..."
He went on to talk about how he made a bet with someone that Nintendo would charge at least $10 for Super Mario Run, due to their business model of putting a high value on their properties and being wary of the mobile market's race to the bottom, which Pachter described as "being stuck looking at the rear view mirror to their past." He later went on to talk about potential download numbers, saying that with a premium price, it would largely be dependent on Nintendo fanboys. Then he mused, "What the hell is Nintendo thinking?", saying SMR should have been free to play with paid DLC, or in other words, joining the mobile race to the bottom.
So essentially what Pachter did there was insult Iwata posthumously for his business decisions and philosophy. Then Pachter inserted his own ideas as being better, insinuating that Iwata and the other executives made poor leadership decisions for Nintendo, wondering why the rest of them would go along with it.
And he made money from those comments. That is the height of arrogance.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@NEStalgia Well, I was getting into AM4 for 2017, and I wanted to jump straight from my old HDD to an NVMe for the boot drive. Still got another few SSD's for games and an extra HDD for backup storage, though! I do have a valid excuse beyond being a slobbering nerd, honest! An empty PCIe X4 path wouldn't have been very useful, and I would have felt an emptiness inside if it were empty... so I decided to populate it. I physically ran out of space for more 2.5/3.5" drives, and I'm also using an M.2 SATA SSD as well! It wasn't a waste of money in my case, because the only things that were paid for at retail was my old HDD back from 2010, and the NVMe drive last year. All the other SSD's and extra HDD I got free from work. So I'm a bit of a special case. Speaking of which, the case was free too, got that from work.
It's true that businesses still typically use HDD's and SATA III SSD's for mass production loads... But individual consumers usually like having options, so NVMe drives might interest them more than enterprise NVMe drives currently interest most businesses. My 250GB Samsung 960 EVO was about $120, which is... the same price today. Exorbitantly priced? Maybe. But what other more practical use is a consumer going to get out of that PCIe X4 path? Certainly not a dual 1 or 10gbps ethernet adapter, like businesses might use. Using it for a second GPU gimps it. May as well use something!
The PS4 Pro definitely shows more benefit from using an SSD than base PS4, but hey, improvement is improvement. And since consoles can't really be upgraded in too many ways... Hey, why not?
The PS4 Pro uses an overclocked Jaguar, up to 2.1 GHz on each core instead of 1.8 GHz. I would say that's a bottleneck at this point for more demanding titles. But at least it's not nearly as much as it is for XB1X, which also uses the Jaguar, while having an improved GPU... Talk about bottleneck city!
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@NEStalgia For what it's worth:
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/PS4-Pro-SSD-Upgrade-Does-SATA-III-Make-Difference/Testing-Methodology-Results
SSD's don't have as drastic of performance improvements on PS4/Pro compared to PC, especially on more demanding titles like The Witcher 3, where processing power is the bottleneck moreso than the drive. Nevertheless, switching out the basic crap HDD for even a merely decent SSD can make a significant difference in certain titles, such as GTA V. So using an SSD for HD consoles is demonstrably better than a placebo in multiple cases.
By M.2 SSD, I meant M.2 PCIe X4 NVMe, not M.2 SATA, my bad. I'm just used to "M.2" meaning "NVMe" since that's typically what people are looking for; whereas M.2 SATA offers no tangible benefits for transfer speeds over SATA III, since it's still bound to the SATA controller.
Using CrystalDiskMark on my Samsung 960 EVO NVMe drive, I get 1698 MB/s (or almost 1.7 GB/s) sequential read and 1333 MB/s (or over 1.3 GB/s) sequential write. (And even 3169 MB/s sequential Q32T1 read, OOOH! ) Compare that to the advertised speeds on these microSD cards... But that's somewhat for naught, considering Random 4K read is 41.84 MB/s and Random 4K write is 114 MB/s. (Not 4K Q32T1.) Those Random 4K values are the truly important part of an NVMe drive's value proposition. Compare that to most HDD's, which don't necessarily even break 0.5 MB/s Random 4K read or 1 MB/s Random 4K write... Or my Samsung 830 SATA SSD, which has 22.96 MB/s Random 4K read and 73.89 MB/s Random 4K write. Not quite twice the performance of modern SATA SSD's for general OS use and gaming, but hey, still improved performance.
Good to know about network transfer speeds... Will be interesting to see what is found out over time.
I would be interested to see if utilizing an SD card for more demanding titles (like Xenoblade 2) makes more of a difference vs. game card than in others. The difference is probably negligible in many titles, though.
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@MIDP If it were the case that his comments were simply his private opinion, which he wasn't making money and generating hits from, then yes, my response would be mere "PC outrage." However, the fact that Pachter used his show, which he derives an income from, to essentially apply a disrespectful title to Iwata posthumously for the sake of generating extra hits, regardless of the amount of time passed, is worthy of scorn. He made money off of his negative post-Iwata comments. That is unethical and unprofessional, no matter how one looks at it.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@Nintendoforlife Qwerty definitely shouldn't have brought character judgement into the argument, but then again, Alex is accusing a user of spreading disinformation, when right there in the article written by one of his colleagues, it's essentially recommending a very expensive card partially based on a V10 rating... Which is not only worse than V30, it applies to video recording, not gameplay. Although, I would say the context that's based on constitutes misinformation, not disinformation. And Rayquaza rightfully picked up on that line of discrepancy, but was wrongfully shot down by Alex. So Rayquaza is owed an apology as well, honestly. Alex shouldn't have put himself out there like that.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@QwertyQwerty Your comments would have been better directed @ Darren, since he's the one listed as posting the article.
Yeah, between yesterday with the Pachter article, and now today essentially recommending an upcoming memory card that possibly won't have good operating specs behind that shiny new 512 number, instead of just waiting for release and testing it, that's two strikes in a row for Darren. (NL hasn't ever been very good with dabbling in the whole tech press offshoot article thing they've had going on for a while, though.) Let's see how tomorrow goes!
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
"If you've already purchased a 400GB model then you might be wondering if that extra 112GB is worth upgrading for, but know this - Integral Memory's new card meets the Video Speed Class 10 (V10) standard, making it perfect for the Switch where fast data transfer is a real bonus."
Sounds like a purchase recommendation, rather than just simply reporting on it, to me... I mean, V30 is what you should be looking for with video recording at this point, and even if you were, that applies for taking videos with a phone, smart device, or digital cam/recorder, not gameplay on a Switch... This seems more like not knowing what the numbers mean, rather than straight disinformation for marketing purposes, though.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@NEStalgia Also, I'm curious if you know how much 4K random read/write/access speeds would make a difference while playing from SD card instead of game card on NS. You probably already knew that 4K random access is far more important than sequential for OS functions and gaming on PC. (And of course, all of the marketing for SSD's, flash memory, the like focuses on the B1G NUMB4R5 of sequential speeds, even though in reality it's not always the most important metric.)
For example, my M.2 SSD achieves over 2gbps sequential read/write... whoopdie doo, it's only several hundred mbps 4K random read/write, and that's what determines the drive's actual performance in practice.
So, yeah... any thoughts? I've certainly noticed a positive difference on PSP playing from a Memory Stick instead of UMD, and 3DS has marginal boosts playing from SD instead of game card, but I don't have any super testing results, and I don't know about this round with NS...
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@Faruko @RamrodDestroyer Reading and writing save files would be sequential, no? What about 4K random speeds for actually running a game from the SD card? Those are the most important metrics for gaming on PC, not sequential. I don't know how important they are for NS, or if it handles that differently, but if the principle is somewhat similar, especially for games that need resources quickly accessed on the fly when playing from SD, then having a card with higher 4K random read/write/access couldn't hurt. (Which the card linked in the article doesn't look too promising, on that matter.)
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@NEStalgia That's a good point, real world network speeds in console gaming are throttled by the companies connecting their clients. There's no way they're going to allow anyone to use an ethernet adapter with CAT6 or higher cabling into a fiber network to actually reach a 330 mbps - 1 gbps connection rate onto company servers while in networked gaming sessions or online shop access.
Re: Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage
@Rayquaza2510 You're correct, the card on offer in this article is a poor value.
By contrast:
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-microSDXC-UHS-3/dp/B06XX3X9JD/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1516717171&sr=8-9&keywords=uhs-3+micro+sd+card
This card is labeled UHS-3, but it's really UHS-1/U3. In any case, performance with each individual card can vary, so they each must be tested individually. One user found they were reaching 55 MB/s read and 83 MB/s write, for example. It's not the advertised 100 MB/s "transfer speed" in practice. Thus, doing testing in addition to research is important for an accurate depiction of performance. It's also worth keeping in mind these are the sequential values, the 4K random read/write/access speeds for files transferred/swapped on the fly (i.e. important for gaming) would be a lower value.
Nevertheless, at $67 for an 128 GB microSD card with this degree of performance range, it's a better deal than the upcoming 512 GB card referred to in the article. So much for, "Take that, SanDisk!"
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@thesilverbrick Well, considering one would need a similar level of empathy as a certain American President who uses the same exclamation, to be able to work with someone like Pachter on a prolonged basis, it actually fits pretty well.
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@JustJulyo Wait... Alex WASN'T pantsless this whole time!? 😱
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@Meowpheel In response to...?
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
@JustJulyo I understand, and if Pachter had presented his post-Iwata sentiments in a more objective and neutral fashion, while maintaining professionalism in his prose, there wouldn't be a problem. Even if he said the same things he did, but only in private outside of business, it would still be horrible, but ultimately a whatever sentiment. But the fact he used his profession, from which he generates income, to propagate such a message with the meaning behind it ascribing a disrespectful title, is unacceptable. If he used the same words in the context he did on my deceased grandmother, especially since he'd be making money off of doing so, I'd want to punch him square in the face. And I'm sure there's plenty of people who would feel the same way if that were said about someone they deeply care about. Apply the golden rule. There are plenty of people who would do the same thing for Iwata, if Pachter told them what he said to their faces.
Re: Random: Turns Out Everyone's Favourite Video Game Analyst Was Right, Nintendo Fans Will Buy Cardboard
Wow, another clickbait Michael Pachter article after all this time! Feels like a blast from the past, NL used to run these all the time! However, uh... There's a reason why those fell out of favor:
https://gonintendo.com/stories/266853-gonintendo-will-no-longer-share-michael-pachter-commentary
"Iwata the late and not so great" sums it up.
Pachter often made jokes at the expense of others, such as in the "Nintendo fans will essentially buy a polished turd if it has the Nintendo brand on it" insinuation with the cardboard comments. Which is whatever. But making light of Iwata's passing, even with the full context in mind, is still in poor taste to this day, which he was forced to apologize for. But that didn't excuse his poor, unethical, and unprofessional behavior in the first place.
So if you're asking whether it's too soon to be giving this man attention yet again for easy clicks...
Yes. Yes it is. And I'm guessing whoever is responsible for this little beauty of an article has a short memory on the matter.
We should contact Nintendo Life to please not publish anything related to this man's content again, due to his callously opportunistic use of Iwata's passing to generate more income from insensitive idiots.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@MFD I think it's more likely that a wholesale console upgrade with improved base specs will be introduced by 2020/2021. The whole external CPU/GPU in the dock route is feasible with USB 3.1... But then again, look what happened to Sega CD/32X, N64DD, etc. The Genesis in particular was doing great giving some real competition to the SNES, but few were willing to bite on expensive peripheral upgrades with a questionable future, and many consumers were burned.
The NS is doing excellently now, but that could go downhill if major mistakes are made. Nintendo is in the black with billions in the bank, but they're not invincible. A specs upgrade through the dock would just be repeating history. Exactly how much it would be, I don't know, but I'm guessing those involved with making the 90's era specs upgrade peripherals still have lingering memories of those failed experiments.
By the time 2020/2021 arrives, the currently unpalatable high price of the Tegra X2/Pascal/Parker will have significantly dropped, which should make it a shoe-in for the NeXt Nintendo console upgrade SKU. It'll be a long wait to potentially have zero problems with Xenoblade 2 and the like, though...
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
Oops, forgot to ping you
@JaxonH 1st point: True for the PSP/Vita, and the Sega Nomad as well now that I think about it, but that doesn't take away from the capability being included in marketing materials, with relatively cheap peripheral accessories making it possible. (Certainly a lot cheaper than Nintendo charges for extra docks! )
2nd point: Well... The Switch has to do that too. The cable connection is just relegated to the dock instead of the console itself, although the console still has to connect into the dock and process the connection. Either way, minus the NS having exponentially higher processing power and clock rate, being underclocked while portable and boosting up to stock clocks while docked, the desired effect is similar in practice.
3rd point: Besides the ports of PS1 games (and the capability of the PSP to readily emulate pretty much any PS1 game in such a small package, no mean feat for 2004 era portable tech, especially considering the O3DS has some trouble with more demanding SNES titles), the likes of modified ports such as Persona 3 Portable on PSP and Persona 4 The Golden on Vita, and the likes of Ys Seven, Valkyria Chronicles 3, or Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity on PSP and Rayman Legends, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel 1+2, Muramasa Rebirth, and Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remastered on Vita (not to mention the Nomad actually using Genesis cartridges)... Well, yes, less processing power than their dedicated home console contemporaries. But then again, the Switch has that same property as well, and yet we're not necessarily chastising Nintendo's system for that shortcoming, nor should we. We should recognize the achievements made in each era.
4th point: True, NS is what standardized readily switching between TV output and portable play, except for some hiccups on particularly demanding titles such as Xenoblade 2. However, despite it being the most popular implementation of this type of feature thus far, it's still important to consider what came before from a historical context. To ignore history is to ensure repeats of past follies in the future. In this case, it also reminds us that this feature is nothing original, and that sometimes the giants give each other ideas, despite the stigma of it only being Sony taking all of Nintendo's ideas.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@electrolite77 Agreed! For what it's worth, cryptocurrency rates recently dropped like a rock again, so hopefully that will curb the currently unreasonable GPU prices by the time the next generation releases later this year. Vega iGPU's with graphical prowess roughly matching an NVIDIA GT 1030 at stock, and potentially matching the upcoming mobile-focused GT 1040 if overclocked by a few hundred MHz when combined with 3200+ MHz RAM, are also releasing on both budget-mid range AMD APU's and mid-upper range Intel CPU's this year, so budget builds without discrete GPU's are going to be viable alternatives for many this year. RAM prices will still be high, though.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@MFD @JaxonH Well, I can think of two mainstream "hybrids" that had the same "TV or portable" idea as the NS (minus the NS clock speed being much higher, underclocked when portable, set to stock when docked)- the PSP-2000 onwards and Vita-1000 & TV. Granted, I don't think Sony ever specifically referred to them as "hybrids," just as portables with the amenities of a home console (which is similar in practice), with extra peripheral cabling being needed for TV output, and Bluetooth tethering being needed for extra controllers. The NS indeed provides such multi-functionality better, but the fact remains that the basic premise behind the concept is nothing new at all.
As for FPS, consoles in general still cannot necessarily be relied upon to maintain consistent frame times capped @ 60 FPS, not even the shiny upgrade console varieties. For example, Destiny 2 is locked @ 30 FPS on XB1X, and the Crash Bandicoot remakes are locked @ 30 FPS on PS4Pro. It was made apparent what some industry executives really think about their customers when Phil Spencer made these comments @ E3 2017 when interviewed by GameCentral:
GC: What also frustrates me is that the only number I care about is the only one that you and Sony don’t obsess over. Which is 60fps, which I understand is easier to do on the Xbox One X than any other console.
PS: That’s correct. But… [laughs] Why do you care about 60fps?
GC: It’s the only number that [significantly] affects gameplay and yet it’s the only one you two never go on about! No-one can tell the difference between 4K and 1080p and all that nonsense…
PS: You just broke your whole argument now!
GC: How?
PS: You just said these games could run on a Commodore 64, they would not run at 60 frames per second on a Commodore 64.
GC: Uridium did.
PS: [laughs] I’m not disagreeing with you. But it’s a subjective opinion that that’s the only one that matters.
Phil Spencer condescendingly tried to steer the conversation in a certain way, and revealed their motive when GC countered that Uridium on the C64 achieved 60 FPS all the way back in 1986. (So therefore, asking the question why 60 FPS isn't standardized by now on this brand new $500 console over 30 years later, since frame rate has indeed always been a primary metric affecting gameplay, whereas resolution is secondary.) Phil essentially referred to both frame rate's and resolution's importance as subjective, when in fact, the importance of frame rate is objective and of resolution is subjective. They believe they can decide what's best for their customers for them, altering their narrative to fit their marketing line. Regardless of where one's personal preferences lie, that sort of behavior should give anyone pause to fund the coffers of such people.
That said, there are certain games (such as Mass Effect) where 60+ FPS makes the animation actually look "too fluid" in an alien sort of way to me. (Fitting I suppose, given the subject title!) So for those games, I actually prefer to intentionally lower the frame cap to 30 FPS so the animation looks more natural. But generally, I do much prefer stable frame times with 60+ FPS, even if it means having to lower the resolution to 720p/900p/1080p. Many developers are smart enough to do that on their own, but people like Phil Spencer won't necessarily give you that option.
Re: Which Is Better - Sonic Mania Or Sonic CD? Iretrogamer's Power Team Debates It Out
The soundtrack of Sonic CD has always been it's main claim to fame. (With the US tracks being better in some places like Quartz Quadrant, and the EU/JP tracks better in others like the final levels.) The level design, however, was categorically more bland or more cramped than Sonic 2 and 3&Knuckles. The 8-spin dash was too speedy for the levels to accomodate it in many cases, for example. Enemies were also more bland, and not placed strategically. So the overall win would go to Mania here.
Re: Feature: The Biggest Nintendo Switch Retail Games of 2018
@Henmii "They showed just a logo, so that they can go full out at next E3. Its much further in development then many think!"
That's the sentiment many people thought was true back during E3 2014 and 2015 about BotW... Took until 2017 and the end of the Wii U before it finally released. And several key Monolith Soft staff members who could have been working on Xenoblade 2 were pulled away just to make that belated deadline happen:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/xenoblade-chronicles-2-staff-analysis.9222/
I wonder what it's going to take just to get MP4 finished in a somewhat timely manner? Well... the key Monolith Soft staff's involvement with Nintendo is closer than being merely a 2nd party at this point... and even the less experienced members are damn good at getting projects completed in record time... Maybe some of them should help make MP4 as well?
Re: Feature: The Biggest Nintendo Switch Retail Games of 2018
Project Octopath Traveler, Fire Emblem, and Metroid Prime 4... But I put in a vote in for TWEWY: Final Remix since the original is so damn good, and deserves this second outing! The return of Suda51 and Travis is also a great boon for the NS library!
And, uh... yeah, Metroid Prime 4 ain't releasing this year... they don't even have footage to show the public yet. Remember a certain other big title that took much longer than expected to finish, and had almost no footage shown publicly for the vast majority of it's development time? Yeah... similar deal here. MP4 isn't going to be finished until 2019 at the earliest, and for all we know it might not be until 2020. Also, Bayonetta 3 likely won't be finished until next year. Rereleasing 1&2 is just to whet peoples' appetites and get them talking about 3.
Re: Review: Vesta (Switch eShop)
Going by the review, the game may as well be called "The Legend of Vesta: Portal to the Federation Tracks" And then the sequel could be called, "Vesta's Adventure: Portal 2 the Spirit Force"
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@Fazermint Technical reasons, which is only going to become more exacerbated over time until the inevitable console upgrade is released. Granted, that's not a problem for Dark Souls Remastered in particular.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@NoxAeturnus What the total sales comparisons do prove, however, is that in many cases, 3rd parties necessarily have to go in with lower expectations on Nintendo's platforms than on others. As you said, even Nintendo themselves have low expectations for 3rd parties on their own platforms- probably much lower than others would have on theirs.
This can be a good thing in a way for indies, because it means if you're approved (in whatever strange and archaic way Nintendo handles it), then you don't need to worry as much about meeting minimum thresholds. For larger publishers, however, they're probably a lot more cautious about this prospect- certainly the DOOM and Skyrim ports were risks that just so happened to pay off decently, especially considering they were sold at full price, while being half off or less everywhere else by the time the Switch ports arrived. Not everyone will have Bethesda's/Panic Button's fortune, though. Hopefully Dark Souls Remastered will also pay off for FromSoftware/Namco-Bandai. I'm not holding my breath on cross-platform play, but as long as the NS version gets multiplayer functionality, I think it's going to have a significant audience!
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@Enigk @NoxAeturnus There was a cooking tournament minigame on Star Ocean: Second Story back in the day, which completely relied on luck... Got through it until last round, then BOOM! Failure. I smashed my PS1 like I did the N64... Didn't turn out so well... That PS1 is dead now. Didn't do that ever again from PS2 onwards...
Award for toughest console goes to the N64 though! My first one is STILL alive after repeated beatings! Granted, it uh... displays a literal blood red tint for EVERY game now when it's used... ◎_◎
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@NoxAeturnus Agreed for adults, upper teenagers and above should be able to internalize or talk about their feelings rather than lashing out. For children, I think something like a 2/3DS is more appropriate than a Switch. They can use a Switch at home, but otherwise, not out in public without some bulky protection.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@PhilKenSebben I agree! I was just saying there's a difference between something like Dark Souls and something like Mario Party when the CPU's RNG is involved.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@NoxAeturnus One of the whole reasons why publishers/developers went outside of Nintendo platforms ever since the 80's/90's in the first place is because competing against Nintendo's 1st party products is inevitable on their platforms. It's impossible to avoid comparing 3rd party to 1st party sales on Nintendo's platforms.
As for DOOM in particular:
https://rectifygaming.com/dooms-pc-sales-figures-announced/
https://steamspy.com/app/379720
So over 500k sales in the first month of release on Steam alone, with over 2.5 million owners and nearly 2.4 million players (people who own and have actually played the game) to date. (Which also means there's over 100k people who bought DOOM and haven't played it yet...) Compared to the NS version, it's difficult to find all the numbers since Bethesda isn't releasing digital sales numbers, however, industry insider John Harker has mentioned that DOOM sales on Switch reached around 60k @ retail back in November:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/npd-november-2017-call-of-duty-ww2-1-sw-ps4-1-hw.11227/page-48
http://vizioneck.com/forum/index.php?topic=5895.0
(Also worth noting that Skyrim on Switch surpassed 100k sales in November)
https://www.resetera.com/threads/npd-november-2017-call-of-duty-ww2-1-sw-ps4-1-hw.11227/page-29
For what it's worth, John Harker also revealed the Nintendo Direct date over a week before it went live:
http://vgculturehq.com/january-nintendo-direct-rumored-for-the-11th-according-industry-insiders/
What all of this means is that 3rd parties can potentially do relatively well on Switch... But for that to happen, it usually takes either star power, a good bit of fortune, or a big publisher backing the product. Yes, DOOM and Skyrim are relatively old games by now, but the fact is that even big names from 3rd parties will rarely ever (IF ever) perform anywhere near as well as Nintendo's big guns on their platforms, whereas on other platforms like PC, it's a whole other story.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@NoxAeturnus Eh... it depends. Like Mario Party 1-3 back in the N64 heyday when I was a kid, I smashed the hell out of those cartridges and controllers. (And most of them survived!) Because after a 50 turn single player round was about to end with me in the lead, then in the last few turns, the CPU lands on chance time and steals EVERY star... That kind of thing flipped a switch in me that hadn't existed previously in other games. Even games like The Lost Levels never frustrated me anywhere near that much, up to that point in time. There's something about when success is absolutely bound to elements of chance, manipulated by either an algorithm or an unseen hand, that a sense of profound unfairness can trigger a strong emotional response in people.
There's a difference between something just plain being difficult, and something being seemingly (or actually) rigged after putting in time and effort into it. In any case, kids shouldn't even be given fragile electronics in the first place, they should be given ones which can take a beating.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
@maruse Except Dragon Ball and FIFA are hugely popular franchises, so of course Xenoverse 2 has sold over half a million copies and FIFA on Switch has sold as well as it can, or at least in Europe and Japan... Any examples of particularly high-selling 3rd party titles that aren't based on highly popular franchises?
For FIFA in particular:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-10-02-fifa-18-takes-no-1-three-out-of-five-copies-sold-on-ps4
https://mynintendonews.com/2018/01/16/japan-fifa-18-on-nintendo-switch-has-officially-overtaken-fifa-18-sales-on-ps4/
Switch is showing it's dominance in Japan already, meanwhile elsewhere FIFA sales account for single digit percentages of sales on Switch, with the vast majority going towards PS4, then XB1 afterwards.
Re: Soapbox: Alex And Dom Discuss If Dark Souls Will Really Work On Switch
Shouldn't the question be,
"DOESN'T Dark Souls Belong On Switch?"
If anything, Nintendo needs to build up as much 3rd party support as they can, because... Well, it should go without saying, but 3rd party sales that don't involve highly popular franchises like Dragon Ball tend to suck compared to 1st party sales on Nintendo's platforms. Yes, 3rd parties line the digital charts- and exactly how much did everything sell there? No one is telling. But sure ain't the millions (or 100s of thousands, in most cases) that Nintendo's 1st party products sell.
So yeah, diversifying the ecosystem as much as possible is key for the Switch's overall health and longevity. There's a 1st party drought going on right now for instance, it should be filled with 3rd party offerings, such as... Oh, hm, I seem to have forgotten one of the possibilities... Something involving Dark shadows and turbid Souls... huh, well, I'm sure the name will come to me...
Re: The .52 Gal Deco is Blasting Its Way To Splatoon 2 This Weekend
Wouldn't that be more like half a gallon?
Re: Random: Cleaner At German Video Game Age Ratings Firm Almost Mistook Nintendo Labo For Trash
@aaronsullivan You're right, it's not accurate to compare this to pizza boxes. Those usually have wider perforation, as you note, while for Lab-O it's more narrow. The grade of cardboard used in pizza boxes is usually really trash tier, too. Cardboard can only be recycled several times before the quality of the wood pulp degrades into a useless substance, and a lot of food transportation grade cardboard tends towards the end of that life (re)cycle. Whereas the cardboard material related to use for electronics (except for REALLY awful products) tends towards the beginning, and is easier to preserve.
Now that I think about it, there's been a plastic rendition of corrugated cardboard for decades now as well. I remember back in the '90s that Nintendo had a plastic variety of full height single wall corrugated "plasticboard" for their magazine holders, sold in the Power Supplies Catalog. I'm guessing it wasn't used for Lab-O because cardboard imparts a more natural appearance, but the plastic variety could be interchangeable. For the piano, I could see that with black and white dyes/gloss looking really nice.
Re: Random: Cleaner At German Video Game Age Ratings Firm Almost Mistook Nintendo Labo For Trash
@aaronsullivan The price of cardboard depends on the quality of materials, glue/binding, specialized coatings, and corrugation. In particular, non-corrugated is really cheap and flimsy, whereas full height triple wall corrugation is actually surprisingly tough, with an appropriate price to match.
From the looks of the images, it seems like the cardboard used for Lab-O is full height single wall corrugated in some heavier use areas (like the piano keys), partial height single wall corrugated in much of the support structure, and non-corrugated in the outer edges. I wouldn't be too surprised if they cheap out on the binding/glue for a mass produced product that's not expected to hold up over time, and we can definitely see that the coatings used are minimalist, to be generous. (Hence why it's so easy for someone to mistake the product for junk to recycle.) So the quality of most of the cardboard used here is really on the cheaper side. Charging $70-80 is very profitable.
This site gives a good indication of all the different things that can go into cardboard quality:
https://www.randwhitney.com/custom-packaging-products/corrugated-cardboard-boxes/
Re: Random: Cleaner At German Video Game Age Ratings Firm Almost Mistook Nintendo Labo For Trash
@GravyThief A lot of Germans are SUPER gung-ho about recycling, environmental conservation, etc compared to Americans. A lot of wasteful things Americans do actually pisses Germans off. Even things like leaving a petroleum powered car running in neutral for more than a minute. Happened to my sister recently in Germany, some random woman went off on her (in German, of course) for that.