Looking forward to "NX"? (aka The Switch Thread)

[Xyga]

So if you think Zelda will launch Nintendo back into gaming heaven

I never went as far saying that, quite the opposite since I think the Switch is another 'problem' console from Nintendo.

it will have to do it without quite a big chunk of the console owning public in the first weeks.

What I think is that from the launch sale to Xmas, Zelda will consistently remain a best seller on the console even if obviously it'll slow-down in-between. So by the end of the exercise in January 2018 a considrable % of Switch owners will have it in their library. You clearly undrestimate that game and the franchise's popularity.
Maybe it'll be a different story if DQ11 is available for Xmas, but I doubt it will.

[bigbadboaz]

I would wager money that this launch is going to be disappointing for Nintendo in sales. But will definitely be boosted by MK8 in April.

Look, you're just out of touch on this particular issue. It's already documented that preorder demand has been higher than projected. Nintendo had targeted 2 million units at launch and had to up production almost as soon as preorders opened.

Nintendo has enough diehard fans/fanboys that sales in the launch window are never generally an issue, particularly in the quantities that can be made available right away. It's whether or not there's a mass audience for this thing to sell to in the later months/years and whether or not they can give it legs with a real, sustained library of games that will be in question.

I can't stand the way Nintendo conducts itself as a company, nor the irritating way they insist on designing their goofy-ass consoles, so no bias here. But the launch success of the Switch really isn't in much doubt at this point.

[neorichieb1971]

I concede that I am probably out of touch. But it would be the first time that a console has launched successfully without a single one of my friends interested in it. Perhaps the people I hang out with "are" the extended audience that Nintendo should be trying to capture.

I can't remember the names of the games, but some big hitters for the Xbox/PS4 are coming out around that period of Easter. So thats likely where most peoples smart money is going.

As for me, i'm getting pretty tired of buying consoles and only interested in a handful of games for it. Nintendo are quite happy to sell a $300+ console to folks only for them to be interested in 5-8 games in its whole lifespan. Imagine buying a DVD player and only watching 8 movies on it.

[niall]

Has anyone heard any rumours of NERD's (Nintendo European R&D, formerly Mobiclip) NES/Famicom Classic emulation engine making its way to Switch as its Virtual Console?

[BryanM]

But it would be the first time that a console has launched successfully without a single one of my friends interested in it... As for me, i'm getting pretty tired of buying consoles and only interested in a handful of games for it.

Welcome to getting old and burnout. You can only buy the same stuff so many times before you're tired of it.

The last console I bought for myself was a Playstation 2. I get tired of things far more quickly than you humans.

[ZellSF]

https://twitter.com/nicalis/status/831357617603620864
Nicalis wants everything on the Switch. I'm guessing they want to just make more money from their old games everyone already has 10 copies of by appealing to collectors. If that means physical handheld versions of Cave Story+, Redout and The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth+ I really don't mind and hope other publishers will have the same idea.

I am concerned I will have to buy them at launch despite not getting a Switch at launch because I can't imagine them having that large print runs. Speaking of limited print runs, if you want a physical version of Sonic Mania for the Switch it might already be too late... I was going to say until I realized the collector's edition is just a digital code.

[Udderdude]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbbZslUchyA

Zelda DLC is happening. The one thing about this that pisses me off is they're making hard mode DLC. That's kinda BS.

Edit: Apparently hard mode and "hero mode", which is actually more like hard mode, are completely different things. Why you gotta make this so confusing, Nintendo?

[TransatlanticFoe]

Oh fuck off Nintendo. I liked that they hadn't bought into this season pass bullshit for single player games but extra douche kudos for doing it with a console that has limited onboard storage.

Just ship a complete game. People will replay it if it's awesome, they don't need a drip-feed of extra bits and bobs. Of course it's $20 they hold a monopoly on so it's revenue resistent to the pre-owned market, which is literally the only reason anyone does this shit.

[Udderdude]

People bought the DLC for every one of their Wii U games, so I don't see why they'd put the brakes down on the DLC train while it's rolling. Even the DLC for Hyrule Warriors was a big seller. (Who doesn't want to stomp around Hyrule as Ganon?)

[Strider77]

Me... I Have zero desire to do that, much less pay more for it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Nintendo had me with the presentation, lost me with the price and losing me further without Mario being a launch title.

How long did you really think they'd have a Zelda and Mario game at launch?

I wasn't paying any attention to Zelda so never knew it a launch title. I don't think story based games work as launch titles. What you need is something to showcase the console with a faster pace.

If you look at all successful console launches, not one of them had an action RPG as its best seller.

SNES - Mario
Genesis - Altered Beast, Space Harrier 2, Thunderblade
Jaguar - Tempest X2
Saturn - Virtua Fighter
Playstation - Ridge Racer
Dreamcast - Virtua Fighter (Soul calibur, Crazy Taxi etc in the west)
Playstation 2 - RR5
Playstation 3 - RR6 or 7
Playstation 4 - Destiny
Xbox - Halo.

So I am surprised Nintendo think Zelda will sell them consoles. The console sales boost will more likely come from Mariokart a month later.

Tempest 2000 didn't officially launch in the USA until March of 1994 for the Atari Jaguar (it was the CyberMorph pack-in cart that came with a brand-new spanking Jag console during it's official November of 1993 launch stateside). I think if Atari Corp. had released T2K as a killer-app included with a purchase of a new Jag console during it's initial launch, it would've done quite well. Tis a shame that Atari Corp. never utilized it's Atari Games arcade division to better promote the Jag as a viable gaming platform at the American arcades back in late 1993 and into 1994 (like NEC did with it's experimental arcade TurboGrafx-16 arcade Jamma PCB kit that was made by United Games back in 1989-1990 & sold/distributed in limited numbers stateside -- it had both JPN & USA Hu-Card playability from the get-go without the need to use a Hu-Card convertor or Kisado convertor whatsoever -- how cool was that?).

On a side note, NEC of Japan was thinking of releasing the TG-16 Jamma PCB kit at game centers across Japan back in 1989-1990 but that never materialized anyways (definitely a grand & very ambitious arcade experiment/project that went nowhere/downhill quite fast). I had the rare opportunity to play Blazing Lazers on an upright Dynamo cab with a TG-16 Jamma PCB kit setup and it was quite impressive for it's time back in March of 1990 (I've never seen or played it since then).

Ridge Racer 6 was released for the Xbox console whereas Ridge Racer 7 was indeed a launch title for the PS3 (Namco went as far to release 3D TV support as a paid d/l patch for RR7 as well back in 2011-2012 to breathe some new life into it).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BryanM]

It's rather difficult to call the Jaguar "successful" anyway, considering its ~120,000 sales and the end of Atari.



Throw some pokémon on this shit and it'll go gangbusters. It's a cheat code for $billions.

[soprano1]

https://vid.me/oQkO
leaked?

[ZellSF]

https://vid.me/oQkO
leaked?

Oh so that wait until after discontinuing the Wii U to figure out what RGB range means.

Maybe when they release the next console after the NX they'll figure out what the internet is.

[TheNeck]

im hoping the nx gets some good shmups on it as well.

[HydrogLox]

As long as they don't forget to support tate mode for verticals, at least in handheld mode.

[HydrogLox]

...There's a reason there's the whole "console peasants" meme...

More fuel on the fire for #pcmasterrace for ~US$ 350 (US$ 500 MSRP). Handheld Skyrim! EASY… Who needs A Nintendo Switch? ;) - GPD WIN REVIEW

[Strikers1945guy]

I don't know. I don't want to be excited about the switch, and I'll never buy a console at launch. If super Mario odyssey turns out to be super Mario Sunshine 2.0 it will seriously tempt me to buy a switch.

[ZellSF]

There's apparently a controversy with the joycons losing signal in console mode. I plan to use it almost exclusively in handheld mode, so don't care too much, but something to think about if you're considering getting in on the first revision of the hardware. Which is always a bad idea.

[Udderdude]

Seems to be a Bluetooth signal strength issue that can be fixed with a firmware patch. At the expensive of battery life, of course.

[ZellSF]

Seems to be a Bluetooth signal strength issue that can be fixed with a firmware patch.

That can maybe be fixed with a firmware patch.

And I would never buy a product with issues hoping for a firmware patch to fix them. It might happen, it might not and you could end up with a partially defect product because you didn't wait for the new version that was needed to fix it, or maybe it could've been fixed with a firmware patch and they just didn't because it would help them sell their new version.

The smart thing to do is wait and see what happens. Though obviously, people aren't going to.

[Xyga]

Also the first results that really hurt: Zelda's framerate is smoother in handheld mode (is it because the internal resolutions falls to 720p?) and the battery really only holds for about 3 hours with that game.

Just wait for the Switch Pro.

[ZellSF]

I wonder if you can get better framerates by setting it to output 720p to the TV.

[tomwhite2004]

The game renders at 900p regardless of selected resolution in docked mode.

Apparently the framerate only dips in a couple of places in the opening area but is completely normal beyond that.

[Xyga]

Well I don't know if it's only in one place but the difference is obvious: http://youtu.be/Z9t2uY91kyg

[BryanM]

Remember the old days when the framerate would crawl just for having more than 8 sprites on the same horizontal pane?

Those were the days.

[tomwhite2004]

That section going down the hill is the place that I have seen referenced in a couple of places so I can live with it if its only there, but yeah it is pretty obvious and disappointing if it persists elsewhere.

I wonder if its a case of pushing too many extra effects or draw distance in docked mode or something more fundamental with the hardware like a memory bandwidth issue. I saw Splatoon is in 720p in both docked and portable mode currently so could be an imbalance in the specs between the two modes.

[bigbadboaz]

I am just so very glad I can buy the Wii U version, hang on to my existing Mario and Zelda games (and FAST Racing Neo!!! ), and ignore this damn thing.

[Udderdude]

Remember the old days when the framerate would crawl just for having more than 8 sprites on the same horizontal pane? Those were the days.

Ah yeah, I can almost see the flickering when I close my eyes.

So apparently some bad boys with hacked Wii Us are playing Zelda before launch. The videos are out there. I won't even link them though lol

[ZellSF]

The Bomberman game is 30 FPS. I don't get the appeal of this, there are better Bomberman games, available for less than 50$ I'm sure.

Apparently there's a Japanese rhythm game, VOEZ, that is touch only. Now I personally don't mind, but why does it feel strangely like Wii U games that didn't allow off screen gameplay?

The main purpose of the Switch is that people can play handheld or console mode depending on their need, Nintendo really should strictly enforce that with policy rather than letting handheld only or console only games be a thing.

I'm not actually trying to be negative. It's just really hard to find good news about the Switch.

Hollow Knight actually launched recently, a fairly interesting Metroidvania, it will eventually be getting a Switch release. No longer coming to the Wii U though.

I wonder if the Wii U will get more cancellations of vaporware than the Vita