larryisaman

@Gorlock Yeah, I have a 256GB card along with whatever is usable of the internal 64GB of my Steam Deck (which after all proton updates etc. isn’t much). Couple of larger games like Cyberpunk and Epic Mickey installed, plus a decent selection of smaller games (including stuff like Persona 4). Would be nice to have everything on tap but realistically I swap between a handful of games and if I need to make space for something new there’s always enough stuff I don’t play or intend to anytime soon so it’s no bother to delete them. Not as big of an issue as it’s being made out to be.

@MSaturn You’ll need to buy a new card either way because Switch 2 only supports MicroSD Express cards

All sounds amazing but wish there was more to that trailer. Still don’t feel like we’ve got a proper look at the game and as mentioned in the interview, this will be competing against both MKW and F-Zero GX at launch. Need to be doing more to get it to stand out in people’s minds before launch as I’m sure it deserves it!

@stuie1234 Yeah, I’m still all in on physical games and will continue to buy them mainly physical on Switch 2 but even I can’t justify paying that much extra for Mario Kart.

@Slideaway1983 To be fair to Valve and Steam Deck sales though there’s been next to no marketing for it- at least nothing anywhere close to what Nintendo have done with Switch and will do with Switch 2. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a Steam Deck ad on TV. Not to say that it would sell exponentially better if it had more marketing but for a niche product that Valve are keeping niche those sales aren’t too bad.

Worth mentioning you can get docks for the Steam Deck for less than £30. I got a JSAUX one and it works great.

But yeah, comparing both really isn’t comparing apples to apples. Switch 2 is no fuss, plug in and go. If you buy a game for it in a Switch 2 box or from the eShop it’s going to work, and of course there’s the exclusives that you’re not getting anywhere else. Plus it’ll be more portable despite the size increase…I don’t even bother taking my Steam Deck on trips because the size of the case itself takes up most of my bag space.

Steam Deck is at the point where even new verified games aren’t necessarily going to play well so you often have to research the best settings to play a game (if you can at all). Docked experience isn’t great either as you can’t wake the machine with a controller and you often have to set the TV resolution in a games properties menu before you boot the game to play it in the best way. On the other hand games are cheap (especially with sites like CDkeys and Humble Bundle), it plays most PS3 and PS4 era stuff with no issues and it’s an emulation powerhouse if you’re willing to set it up.

Ultimately they both serve different markets, and ideally I’d say it’s worth owning both but if you can only afford/want one system then it should be obvious which one fits your needs best.

@Greatluigi There’s also Quest for Camelot on the Game Boy NSO…anything’s possible if publishers are up for the task of making it happen

It’s baffling that Killer7 never got a proper Switch port while the PC did in 2018.

Anyway I want to see Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. Brilliant hidden gem from that era

@Thirteen1355 BotW/TotK will definitely stand the test of time especially with the upgraded versions. Even the Switch 1 versions still look amazing though.

It’s natural that people want something different though considering they’ve always changed styles with their 3D Zeldas (OoT/MM and BotW/TotK being the outliers). I love how the last games looked but I’d definitely like to see a new style for the next game.

@dil_power First party studios have more than likely had a lot more time with the hardware than third parties have so I’m not really worried about that

The people want NHL!!!!

Sucks that StreetPass was completely ditched for Switch. Was hoping for a return on Switch 2

@killercerial I think it will too, probably not to the same level of success as Switch 1 but outside of controversial pricing they’re doing everything right. Capable hardware that isn’t confusing, good name, strong first party lineup and third parties are on board with solid releases already.

I think their biggest challenge will be getting families to buy multiple consoles as many did with Switch 1. It is expensive and the inevitable lite model will likely still be a lot of money for most people. Honestly I think an entry level TV only Switch 2 within the first few years would be a great move and a great option for families, especially with game sharing working with Switch 1.

@killercerial Nintendo consoles will always sell well at launch/for a short while after launch…even Wii U sold decently out of the gate. It’s the months that follow that will give us a sign of how things are going to go, but yeah I don’t think this is going to fail. The system itself isn’t extortionately priced all things considered and I think people will generally accept $70 as the new standard just as everybody has on other platforms.

@Ironcore How? The screens at the bottom in the ad were running at low FPS. The bits where they weren’t playing Mario Kart were smoother but maybe it is smoother when it’s not a running a game which would be expected anyway

Europe/NA. That CG is a product of its time for sure but I love it for it

Really surprised this wasn’t announced in the Direct. Ubisoft usually support Nintendo consoles out of the gate more than any other publisher so it was surprising to only see one game from them- and Star Wars Outlaws at that. Of course they’re going through a rough patch right now so I wonder if a lot of their planned announcements are being withheld for now while things get figured out with them.

Hopefully they’ll include a performance mode

@Spider-Kev I would want everything available with random people too but I can see why they wouldn’t allow video. As anyone who played Uno on Xbox 360 with the Vision cameras back in the day will tell you…maybe it’s for the best 🥴

“Chat with online randoms?“

I would hope so. I wouldn’t expect the camera to be allowed with randoms but voice chat shouldn’t be restricted at least. Even MK8D allows it with random people, it’s just you have to use the app which nobody ever bothers with.

If it’s a paid feature you should get extra mileage out of it and not be restricted to just talking to friends who you can just as easily group chat with on Discord or Whatsapp or whatever for free. If parents are concerned they can be responsible and disable it in the parental controls.

@JaxonH I got Cyberpunk on sale for £22.49 and the bundle with Phantom Liberty was £36 a few weeks ago.

Also Steam games often get very cheap through sites like CDKeys; usually even cheaper than they go on sale through Steam itself

They publish some great stuff. Pepper Grinder was one of the most underrated/underappreciated games of last year

@SBandy1 It’s pretty much just an extension of what publishers have been doing since 2017 on Switch with “Download Required” games. Sure you’d get something on the cart be it part of the game or one game if it was part of a collection (Bioshock etc.) but they’ve never been ideal and this is basically the same thing in my eyes. Those Download Required games might as well have been blank because I want the whole thing not just part of it.

But yeah if there’s a choice between download codes or these cartridges I’d rather have these. At least there’s some semblance of ownership and you can sell it on as you say.

@the_beaver Incredible price for two phenomenal games. Timeless classics

I really hope third parties will more heavily support the console with new releases going forwards. Split Fiction day one and Borderlands 4 (hopefully day in date with the other versions?) is a good sign but I was hoping to see more confirmation of upcoming games in the Direct.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have games like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk, but as someone who owns a Steam Deck there’s not much appeal there considering I can already play them portably and for much cheaper too. Of course this is an issue specific to me and a minority of others who have handheld PCs, so it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. People who primarily play on Switch will be happy to get those older games and rightfully so, it would just be nice to see Switch 2 get more big games alongside other versions day one than the Switch got.

Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair is robbery at £2.50. Easily my favourite Switch era 2D platformer.

@Cakefish Ah good, cross platform for this version is what I was looking for! Was planning on getting this for Steam Deck to play with a friend on PS5 but I might as well get it on Switch 2 for the physical (assuming it’s not a key card 🙄)

It’s always been about the games for Nintendo. When you look back at past consoles are you mainly thinking of them fondly for whatever new hardware gimmick they came up with or are you rattling off all the great games you played on them?

Right now on the software end I have no worries, they’re still doing new and interesting things with their marquee titles and still putting out their weird experimental stuff. Third parties prioritizing ports of older games for launch isn’t surprising either. Hardware wise they’re just coming off of one of the most successful consoles of all time so why would they try something radically different?

I’m really enjoying Xenoblade X but I still think BotW is the pinnacle of open world design (and by extension TotK). Throws you right into it with no preamble (yes there’s the Great Plateau but that still allows you a ton of freedom), it gives you all the tools you’ll need to navigate the world early on and above all it doesn’t let the gameplay get in the way of the star of the show which is simply exploring the world they created. People often say it’s empty but I never felt that at all.

Elden Ring and Xenoblade X are great if you want a deeper experience but BotW is masterful in how it can be a serious challenge for those who want it, a more relaxed experience for others and everything else in between.

@splinters Speculation but it’s definitely how it’ll work. They’re not changing the base game…just think of it like a PC game with different graphic settings. They’ll just lock you to the lower settings if you don’t pay for the upgrade/subscribe to NSO

@Manguy888A I’m betting it’ll be an August game. For some reason Nintendo has a long history of releasing Metroid games in August…the original game, Metroid 2, Other M, Prime 3, Prime Trilogy and Federation Force all launched in the US in August.

Would probably be best for Prime 4 anyway because August is generally a quiet month for game releases so there’ll be more attention on it, plus it would be in keeping with the strategy they had for Switch’s first year where there was a big game released every other month after launch. Mario Kart at launch, DK in July, Metroid in August and Hyrule Warriors/Kirby Air Riders/Pokemon Legends ZA along with some potentially unannounced games filling out the rest of the year sounds like a winner to me.

With Silksong confirmed for this year (and hopefully not slipping) I’m playing through the first game again. Just a stunning game on all fronts. Hopefully I finish it before the sequel releases (which given it’s development time so far I should probably be fine 🥴)

@splinters You can buy the upgrade outright, you don’t need NSO. It’s just included with the Expansion Pass as a bonus.

Just think of it more like DLC than a patch. Once your subscription ends the game will just tell you that you have to buy the upgrade or resubscribe to keep playing with the enhancements otherwise it’ll boot into Switch 1 mode.

@splinters I haven’t checked but I’m 100% confident that you’ll lose the upgrades once your NSO membership ends. Subscribe again/pay the upgrade fee or it’s back to the Switch 1 version

@sanderev “Or do you call MarioKart 8 Deluxe a "re-release" of MarioKart 8? Because it's not, it's a new game.”

Why? Because it runs better and has a few new features? Sounds familiar.

Anyway, this is all semantics. They’re selling BotW in a Switch 2 box as the best way to play that game. There’s really no reason they couldn’t include the expansion as well other than to squeeze an extra £18 out of new players. Kirby is getting DLC as part of the upgrade, yes it’s more expensive but they could have bundled the Zelda DLC with the BotW pack at the price they’re already charging on account of it being almost a decade old.

@sanderev They’ve included DLC in re-releases before. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for one.

@chardir I don’t think it was unfair to assume that the physical release of this would be a definitive edition that includes everything. Even if everybody realized this already it’s still worth pointing it out for how garbage it is.

I get it, Nintendo are a business and they’re out to make as much money as possible but I don’t think including 7 year old DLC in their £65 re-release of their 7 year old game that already sold 30+ million
copies would have really hurt them.

I don’t really care since at least it means full compatibility with old joy cons/pro controllers.

Plus I can’t really think of a game I’ve played on Steam Deck in the 3 years since I bought it that used the analogue feature of the triggers and if anything they don’t feel as good as a click for most games even if you don’t need to fully press them to activate. Not big into racing games which is where they’re used mostly so whatever

@Patendo Amazon France for Donkey Kong! Around £52…it’ll be a French case but beats paying more.

Best tip is to check HotUKDeals Gaming every day!

Price for the hardware is fine for what you’re getting and I’ve been finding deals for DK Bananza for less than £55 which isn’t that much of a hike from the £40-45 average for Nintendo games at the moment, plus you can get MK for £35 on top of the console if you’re happy to forgo a physical version so on the software front I’m not nearly as annoyed as I was a week ago. The news that old accessories will work with new games is great too and lessens the sting of how much new controllers etc. are costing.

Game Key cards and upgrade fees for Switch 1 games are my biggest grievances with the platform at this point but they’re not killing my excitement for the console as a whole.

@Mario500 To be fair there was PC software back in the day to trick the GameCube into thinking it was playing over a LAN when actually they were connecting to other consoles over the internet. I don’t really know how possible that would be with NSO though or if Nintendo would bother getting it to work in the first place.

I feel like the only message this will send to third parties is that Switch 2 owners don’t want these games at all, and if we just buy them digitally straight from the eShop instead they will just take it that people don’t want physical any more. Our hands are really tied on this.

Sadly the writing for physical games has been on the wall for a while now. Third parties would rather sell digitally since they don’t have to deal with the logistics of manufacturing and shipping and platform holders would prefer an all digital future because they make tons more through their own storefronts. In all likelihood Switch 2 will bring the last dying gasp of physical games; at best we’ll have companies like Limited Run become even more prominent as they step into publish games that third parties don’t want to print and see them get even more expensive as the demand for physical dwindles.

@nocdaes SMB is phenomenal and still holds up so well today, easily the best of the line up. Praying it gets a release on NSO; the remake was OK but not the same and crucially didn’t include the hot seat multiplayer mode.

Seriously doubt we’re getting Mario this year though. DK Bananza is the new 3D Mario

@IronMan30 I think it was just unremarkable considering that if you wanted those kinds of games you likely already bought a 360 or PS3 and had access to most of those launch games for a while. Great line up on paper but they were mostly old hat by the time Wii U launched.

Will always maintain though that Black Ops 2 on Wii U was the best version purely because of the Wiimote controls and split screen online was perfect with the GamePad. Unsung hero of the launch lineup and very underrated as a Wii U game.

For quality across the board Switch 2 probably is the best assuming all the ports are decent.

Hard to beat GameCube though when it comes to launch games that were brand new at the time. Luigi’s Mansion, Waverace Blue Storm, Super Monkey Ball and Rogue Leader make a killer combo. Crazy Taxi and Pro Skater 3 are icing on the cake.

@Ellie-Moo Very close- Doncaster! But yeah Sheffield is pretty much the same way now Even Meadowhall only has GAME in its Sports Direct which will probably go soon at this rate!

@progx They didn’t dislike working for NoA; their office was closed. They still had their jobs but would have had to upend their lives by moving to Redmond so they left.

Not similar in the slightest. Mattrick’s comment was out of touch and amounted to “if you don’t like the anti-consumer practices we’re implementing going forward then you can stick with the old thing that inevitably won’t be supported by us for much longer.”

Bowser is simply recognizing that Switch 2 is an expensive investment but that the Switch will continue to be offered as a more affordable alternative that will continue to get new games (as they showed in their Direct a few weeks ago). Now, the game prices being anti-consumer is debatable but what they were trying to do with Xbox One at the time wasn’t really up for discussion.

@jwfurness That’s what I want to know. Do we need to wait for patches or will games with uncapped frame rates/dynamic resolutions max out at their optimal performance automatically (at least more frequently anyway)

@RocketGruntChris Same here. We also had Playtime Multimedia which was great for carrying import DS games so you didn’t have to wait for months for their Europe release, plus Grainger which usually couldn’t be beaten for prices.

My town is a sad state for game shops now though. A Smyths on the outskirts, a CeX (which is still nice to have) and a small independent shop that’s been going for decades. Awesome that he’s still going but I question how long he can keep it up, especially when his prices aren’t cheap but I don’t think there’s anyway he can get around that. As much as I’d like to support that shop more it’s often just much cheaper to buy online and when things are as expensive as they are nowadays you take the savings where you can get them. It’s sad.