Smigit

Bummer but at this point I’d be more surprised if they announced the feature than them stating it won’t be there now. Surely if it was happening it’d have been announced at launch when sales would have most benefited.

Not that it’s been stated, but if the trade off is we have those Devs who did the Switch work developing it porting another title then I’d take that over mod support.

@Medic_alert wouldn’t surprise me if accounts created before the service goes live get a free few months too. That said, we’ve all had free online for a while now even if the full service suite hasn’t been available so we’ve done ok.

I’d hope the Switch games would be compatible. I’d be totally ok with a “Switch Mini” that had the performance of the Switch but a single screen hinges design similar to the DS line that didn’t have the switches removable controls. Perhaps a smaller 720p display too to improve pocket ability.

I do hope whatever they do isn’t a new platform that’d not Switch compatible. It’d mean undoing so much great work.

@ShadJV I believe population growth is generally slowing down and many countries have gone from having a positive growth where a family was on average 2+ kids to negative where for 2 adults in average the family has less than 2 children, so adults aren’t replacing themselves. As such population growth over the next decade should be slower than the past 50 years or so giving them a smaller pool.

I’d say he’s wrong in terms of numbers unless he’s including people doing crosswords every four months, but the timeframe to streaming may not be completely unrealistic given companies are already dabbling in it. Data cost and network speeds will also drastically reduce over a similar period and it’ll need to if more and more people are streaming TV and we want to have 4K as a standard for TVs.

Fixed networks is one thing but also look at the advancements in wireless. Ten years ago to the week the iPhone was launched as a 2G device. We’re now looking at 5G deployments and magnitudes faster speeds and data use. Wireless networks can be deployed and upgraded pretty rapidly and we could be at 7 or 8G by then. Satellite is getter better too rapidly and due to private investment and commercialisation of space transport getting satellites up is becoming much more affordable.

Definitely the infrastructure isn’t there today for everyone to go streaming, but in ten years it may be possibly, but doubtful whether half the world will be gaming.

@mozzy1 They did state previously pre release they were looking at and wanted to do a physical release once everything else was sorted.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/05/feature_hollow_knight_on_switch_at_the_finish_line_says_developer_team_cherry

What’s the point in using the joycon? Why not just build in the controls, I doubt it’d cost any more and it’d be more ergonomic and allow for a proper dpad better suited to old games.

Is it really likely to be a huge issue? Pirates first instinct won’t be to buy a game, rip it, then sell it. Surely they’ll go online and see if a rip exists and if so, they’ll use that. There’s likely no advantage in re-ripping the same game multiple times if the intent is to use an emulator that won’t look to ban a specific ID anyway.

With that being the case, the pool of compromised keys would likely be incredibly small and your odds of hitting such a cart surely has to be similar to winning the lotto. I think you’ll find the same ROM rip simply spreads broadly. Look at other pirated content and the number of unique copies is drawfed by the number of downloads per a copy, possibly hundreds of thousands to millions per single rip. What’s the chance you’ll hit that original source copy, assuming it even goes back into the retain chain. Even then many retailers will have protections in place. You’re probably just as or more likely to get a damaged cart I’d suggest.

You’re probably more at risk if Nintendo starts to block carts that were used on a console that had home brew or was associated with an online account that did something against the EULA, but that seems unlikely to me.

It's honestly impossible to draw a real conclusion without having Epics side of the story, which is probably more important than anything Sony could say on the matter. It is an Epic account after all. Perhaps they are fine with this restriction.

If Epic isn't happy and is being forced into it then the laws probably do open up well beyond what constitues ownership of content under an EULA (which this article focuses on) and into the real of abuse of market dominence which many regions do have laws about, and in many cases they wouldn't require Sony to be found to be in a Monopoly situation either as some may suggest. If anything this is where I think SOny would face a legal uphill battle, not for the case of restricting digital sales (which I think may be seen as reasonable), but also restricting non sales based data that Sony doesn't own such as game progress, stats etc.

I'd be super interested in seeing an EU vs US take too. GDRP has certainly placed some power back on the user in relation to ownership of their own data. Sony restricting flows for a third party service through persuasion as a result of market dominance would make for an interesting discussion.

@OorWullie whoosh. Went right over my head. Haha

@OorWullie it seems like a no brainer to me to do it all in game and in system, unless the games intended to only ever be played with known friends and even then I’d suggest in game is more flexible and will accomodate more users.

Headsets with a line in are readily available where a lot of Nintendo’s market won’t own a smartphone. For anything with a public lobby it’s also much more convinient. I’m shocked the Switch supported line in actually after Nintendo didn’t use it with their own implementation.

People can use other mobile apps anyway if they want to chat over a seperate mobile device.

Edit: if you read the following, amusingly enough it seems as though Turtle Beach was caught off guard by the recent developments. https://www.turtlebeach.com/pages/nintendo-switch

@hirokun Yeah TBH this isn't a great reward in my opinion. Fan made covers would have popped up anyway if they haven't already and they'd be free. Other companies would make things such as wallpapers free on the games web site as a promotional tool. I'd save the coins for something that won't be readily available elsewhere.

I like the cover, but not the fact its costing coins and the user has to go print it themselves anyway. On the plus side its a good way to get an absolutely exact template for DIY covers for NTSC region games (others may need to center the spine text).

Not sure why you'd put an ESRB stamp on it either given the covers a self print job. May as well have left that off and had a cleaner box.

Edit: For those inclined see below for a link to two alternative SKyrim covers. I'm sure many know but a fair few Switch titles already ship with reversable covers too. Tropical Freeze is a recent one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/7khd67/the_prints_for_skyrims_alternate_box_art_from/

@finalstan “Switch isn't a direct competitor”

If you’re a household that can only afford one system then they are competitors, even if they have different features. Also we don’t know if Sony will gamble on a third PSP which no doubt would target the Switch. I’m not sure that’s hugely likely, but PSPs do seem to find a crowd, especially in Asian regions.

2% drop? It's not that significant a movement

Just look at how it's jumped around over the past few months. There's probably been 2% movements more days than not. https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/stock/stockprice.html

I do agree with the view that E3 was a let down. The focus on a single game worked in 2016 as the Wii U was on the way out anyway, I think in year two of the Switch's life focusing on a single title is limiting. I mean even if Smash is hugely popular, it's still in a genre that many aren't all that interested in.

To be fair I think Nintendo's line up is solid overall. What I found lacking was any big surprise releases from 3rd parties that we hadn't seen already. Those Mario vs Rabbid sort of unveils.

"players who already had Fortnite on PS4 found that they couldn't carry their progress or purchases over to the Switch version because Sony won't allow it.

Speaking at E3, Nintendo of America's president Reggie Fils-Aime addressed this issue, stating that Nintendo - unlike Sony - has no problem with cross-platform play because it's "fan-forward" and in the "best interest" of the game"

There's two issues being muddied here. One is that people can't use purchases and progress on one platform on another. Thats not cross play which is a different thing and arguably a 'nice to have' but not why people are upset. The issue is it is so restrictive now that anyone thats used the game on the PS4 gets error messages logging into an Xbox or Switch and have to create a brand new Epic account.

For what its worth I fail to believe that Epic couldn't have implemented something to allow the same account to be used cross platform, but to not transfer DLC if thats Sony's requirement.

Now before Nintendo throws stones in glass houses, if we're talking about not being able to use the same account because of DLC being locked to a platform, lets not overlook the YEARS of frustration Nintendo customers have had with content being locked to a single hardware system or the fact that customers have been forced to repurchase the same games over and over again as they move from generation to generation since Nintendo wouldn't let purchases on one system translate over for the exact same titles.

I mean, thats their choice but Nintendo even today can't be overly critical of Sony for seeking to lock down content to a platform when Nintendo's has perhaps the worst reputation of all three console players of not even allowing content to move between systems for a common user account in its OWN ecosystem. Thats before we get into other related issues like the Switch taking 18 months to get the ability to export save data from a system etc.

I'd love to see this all sorted out but as above, I refuse to believe Epic isn't partially responsible and rather than develop a solution that would allow an account for a single system, they've just blocked access as its easier and are expecting people to sign up multiple times. Other services like Ubisofts allow connection to multiple gaming services and a shared account across all after all.

@WaveBoy Yooka Laylee May be worth paying but I don’t think it’s worth the $30 or $40 I imagine LRG will be selling the physical for. The fact it’s dated isn’t so much the issue (although it is), but the game lacks polish. Cameras feel bad, controls don’t feel terrific and there’s entire maps that are aweful which is an issue when there’s only five of them.

I’d suggest if you love 3D platformer you get it on sale digitally for a fraction of the price, unless you must have physical.

I love 3D platformer but I’d rather play Banjo Kazooie again than finish this game (I got 3/4 of the way in and went into something else).

@GumbyX84 yeah I read it. This statement does not sound like they sought Epics help, it sounds like they acknowledge they would need help but didn’t seek it because they didn’t feel they were big enough to be worth Epics time.

“we would need to ask continuos support to Epic (which is not garanteed since we are not Bethesda, for instance)”

If they’d actually spoken to Epic and found that they wouldn’t get anywhere they would have worded that differently. They assumed Epic wouldn’t be responsive so didn’t bother.

That’s fine, they may not want to be dependant in a third party but again this seems to be something that’s doable, they’ve just decided it’s not a priority. The toolset etc seems largely irrelevant to what seems to be the underlying reason if they don’t have the staff or they don’t believe the financial payoff will be worthwhile.

@frogopus I’m definitely not saying developing online is easy, I just think their reasoning is a bit weak and seems to be trying to offhand some of the blame or reasoning to the tools and support than just outright saying they either aren’t resourced for it or failed to design their game for it because they misjudged the market. In particular the bit about where they speculated Epic wouldn’t give them the support they needed without it sounding like they tried to seek it. The fact others games are or aren’t doing online in the Switch should be largely irrelevant as to whether this project implements it unless they can show some actual reason why it wouldn’t work with Unreal 4.

So that makes me ask some questions. Firstly so what if another dev hasn’t done it? It’s not like you’d get access to their code so you’d still need to implement the feature. Secondly did they even attempt to engage Epic? They make it sound like Epic may be uninterested in talking but it doesn’t read as though they actually tried to get the support. Maybe if devs aren’t doing multiplayer on Unreal 4 they’d have found that Epic would be super keen to get a nice small project out there demonstrating its possible.

Seems like weak reasoning although their earlier failures to identify that the customer would want multiplayer to me shows they’re lacking a bit in the leadership department.

@pullmyfinger “And emulator is designed to take ROMS of video games and play them for free. Stop trying to pretend it has another purpose that is bigger that persons stealing copywritten roms”

Along with what the others have said, you do realise Nintendo has a history of using emulation for their own commercial products? The NES Classic and SNES Classic both are using emulation. Neither are free and there’s no copyright infringement, the same as in this case.

Yes, emulation very often is used for piracy but that’s not a universal rule as per this article and as per what Microsoft has been doing with the Xbox One.

Not another Wii U port!

I’ll consider grabbing it if it’s on sale for $2 or $3 at some point. I have it on a few platforms at this point, probably PC and Xbox, so not sure I’d pay much to own it on the Switch but I could part with a few dollars to own it there too. Given it can easily be won in a sitting I wouldn’t want to pay more though.

Worth a visit for those that have never played it though. I think it holds up well.

@Markiemania95 here in AU we’re quite lucky. Still readily available for a good half the lineup. Last week my local EB had about half a dozen guardians for sale and most of the champions plus a few others. Seemed like they secured a restock recently.

Seems like a massive oversight or more likely a very poor decision regarding the undocked mode. That said MS/Mojang initially had issues with Minecraft and dealing with the dynamic resolution changes due to how the engine was built so perhaps that’s a similar issue here given the game was ported from the Wii U rather than developed for the Switch. It’s still sloppy, especially when unlike other ports nothing really new has been added this time around, just existing DLC bundled.

Also the same game that had major issues on the non ‘new’ 3DS systems.

Mind you I’ll likely still grab it, but maybe I’ll get Bayonetta first given I mostly play undocked.

@B-Locks yeah that’s correct. He uses an arrow multiple times to steer the direction of objects with stasis applied.

Wish I’d thought of using arrows when I was doing some of the temples that required directing objects with stasis. I imagine it’d be far easier to direct than a sword or Bomb like I used.

“your options are limited to the likes of Pikachu, Charmander, and Squirtle”

Poor bulbasaur...

As someone that’s only lightly gotten into the Pokémon games in the past, I can say I’m quite happy to see random encounters go in favour of having the Pokémon on the map. I’ll need to wait and see in relation to the other mechanics.

@Octane You may be able to get any Pokemon missing from your edition using Pokémon Go too to transfer in if you’ve played that. It’ll depend on the roster I guess.

I think it’s doable but not convinced it’ll happen. Part of me would prefer a Gameboy Advance Classic anyway.

The controller doesn’t seem to be too big an issue to me though. Supply was an issue but the NES Classic did sell the controller standalone so they could revert to that model. Ship one, maybe two and then offer additional as extras.

I also assume that any virtualisation used on these consoles is being developed with the Switch in mind too, so even if we aren’t seeing SNES or N64 titles at launch that effort to develop virtualisation for these systems isn’t being wasted.

@BigKing Personally I agree with there being a potential for more variety to really liven it up. Hell, they could probably do a campaign that had a story, missions or whatever while still having linear puzzle bits.

A co-op campaign would be awesome too similar to what Portal 2 had or even some sort of team based co-op where 4-8 players had to achieve something which couldn’t be necessarily solo’d.

I think they could do heaps with it still feeling like Splatoon. The campaigns aren’t a complete write off, but it didn’t feel like there was a massive progression from Splatoon 1 to 2 in that department either.

Technically limitations aside I don’t think it fits into either Sony or MSs strategy.

Sony has gone for a very straight, pure gaming angle based around offering as much power as they can at an affordable cost. They would need to compromise on their home strategy to deliver mobile.

Microsoft on the other hand is looking to streamline PC and console ecosystems and given PC is all about x86 that’s not going to lend itself to mobile. That and they too have an interest in UHD gaming etc.

@Agent721 SMB already has 2 player where you take turns, so possibly no surprises there. Zelda will be interesting.

@zip Nintendo has created a mess no doubt, but Nyko could have still built the dock to the same specifications of Nintendo’s and I assume the case will allege that it was reasonable for a consumer buying a product marketed as a Switch dock specifically for this piece of hardware had been developed to the same standards as Nintendo’s.

The issue with basing a defence around the fact it’s Nintendo deviating from the standard is that this product was explicitly sold as being a Switch accessory. If it was some form of universal cable and not sold explicitly as supporting the Switch that’d be a different matter as the manufacturer wouldn’t have advertised support for the system which had adopted a non standard implementation.

Sucks and Nintendo has created a problem here for third parties, but I think the responsibility for anyone selling something as a “Switch” accessory is to ensure it complies with the Switch specifications, not necessarily the USB-C standards.

Grabbing the standard hard cover. The gold one looks nice but given it's a set of 3 it's a bummer the expensive editions don't match. Prefer the lower end one for that consistency.

"It's quite possible that Breath of the Wild - which is still selling - will add more to its haul over the next 12 months. It might not top 12.74 million"

Seems possible still. 18 million console sales to date and they're forecasted a further 20 million for the year. In the long run it may pick up those extra sales, especially when 13 months out the game still shows up in top ten sales charts. If the Switch goes on to be a 100+ million unit console then I don't see why they can't grab another 4 million sales of Zelda over the lifetime. Mario Kart and Odyssey's lifetime sales will be bonkers.

“There are skins, but plenty of them have left damaging marks on your hardware”

Has there been any verified cases of decals causing issues other then dBrands own ones that they pulled themselves? People keep saying decals are unsafe and linking to this one product that didn’t ship...did it impact any other company? The fact they are shipping decals now would suggest there is safe solutions and the assertions therefore that decals are not safe were not applicable across the market as some made out.

Some Zelda decals for example shipped when the Switch was release and a few months later I certainly couldn’t find examples of those having damaged controllers.

To me the “Virtual Console” was always a set of software emulators for Nintendo systems, so having Sega games fall outside of that doesn’t have me particularly concerned at all. Not sure if other systems have been there in the past, but if they were they were never the draw cards.

I think it’s coming. They obviously did development in the emulators for the mini consoles and I’d be at a complete loss if we don’t see that work reused down the line.

@Nintendoforlife it be interesting to get Wiebes thoughts in the matter. Billy Mitchell’s original 1 million+ score was before MAME existed. It’s been invalidated due to the issues with later scores, but they didn’t prove the one set much much earlier was also faked. That and Wiebe was never out to be the first to a million given there was decades between the scores.

Would love to hear his take, whether he considers himself the first or still considers himself number 2 regardless of what the record book may say.

Happy to see DLC but I kind of hope they ditch the game after that and redesign from scratch rather than doing anything more with the IP. I can’t say I found the characters in this game particularly memorable at all, largely across the board and the titular characters especially just didn’t click.

Gameplay wise hopefully they’ve learnt their lessons in terms of map design. The scale relative to what was in the map for the entire game just felt so off and being a platformer, everything else basically suffered.

I’d love to see Doom but to date id Softwares seemed to be a one game at a time type studio and they already have Quake Champions due this year (in early access now). Dunno if I like the chances of a Doom right now as a result, but fingers crossed.

@Nintendoforlife first to a million and former number one. Neither him nor Billy’s scores are currently even in the top 10 so Steve’s not the current number 1 by a wide margin. This fixes up the history but doesn’t have a big impact on the current ladder.

Let’s hope the partnership coincides with them adding Bluetooth audio or doing something to allow wireless audio, ideally including voice without a phone app.

@Nintendofan83 It's not particularly odd. The PS4 is more established and those top selling games are exceeding the sales of the Switch. The Switch game purchases are probably being spread amongst the back log with Kirby being the latest release seeing the bunt of that. 8 of the top 20 are Switch games, so there's a strong showing over a spread of titles, some year+ old titles at this point.

@Piersen “Universal Serial Bus. You'd think that it would work universally, wouldn't you... I still think it's the device's fault that it just bricks.”

There’s been a long history of dodgy USB-C cables causing issues and Benson or whatever his name is (Google engineer) has a well regarded list of cables that are recommended or advised to avoid. USB may be “universal” but only so far as the manufacturers are building the hardware to the same approved specification.

I don’t think this is really a Nintendo issue. Your pumping power into a socket and the device can do so much to protect against cables that aren’t meeting the specification.

@Flowerlark I believe they should be compatible and there’s no “transfer” process. As long as the system doesn’t see the two releases as different products the system should use the save data either way.

Probably Half Life: Raising the Bar. Offered terrific insights into the game at a time where art books and other extras were rarely sold alongside games (except maybe Prima guides). The fact it shows content we’re yet to see but has been alluded to over the years, due to the inexplicable delays with the franchise, only adds to the books wealth for fans.

Seems like wishful thinking. The most recent comments in context were around Banjo+Kazooie being in Smash as characters, a far cry from getting an entire game on the system. While Phil may have made comments to that effect in the past the only real example we have of it happening is Minecraft and that game was on those platforms before MS bought it. At the same time MS continues to release and invest in exclusives for its own platforms. The sum of that is the actions so far don’t match the words.

On that point the market has been incredibly critical of MS and it’s lack of exclusive titles (even if we ignore the PC). As such I further can’t see them developing something that wouldn’t be kept as a first party title as they look to resolve their lineup issues.

As for Banjo+Kazooie, that’s been a largely neglected IP by MS. I think it’s realitively unlikely we’ll see a game on the Switch, assuming we see a new Banjo title at all in the near future. I’d love one but Rare’s just created some fresh IP and along with Banjo has a relatively large backlist of franchises they could explore so there’s no guarantee Banjo is at the top of the list.

Nice idea and I’d love more Banjo, but I don’t see it happening. Also not sure I’d want Playtonic handling a third party developed title...I think they should go with someone guaranteed to give the franchise a fesh paint of coat and who will produce something more refined. While Yooka Laylee was intentionally a call back to older games, it still had many clunky elements that shouldn’t have been there not to mention relatively dull design overall. Give it to someone with the resources to produce something of a higher quality.

@Spoony_Tech Yeah it is played out. How quick will people be to [removed] and moan if an update that isn’t stable arises too. Perhaps they’ll rethink the position that stability fixes are somehow insignificant.

For what its worth, the Steam listing has the same bars. This isn't just Nintendo.

Now we just need MS to update the Elite controller with Bluetooth like they have the other models.

Shovel knight physical release and the triple Amiibo pack please!