Switch 2 General Chat Thread (Aka, the final video game console)

[Sumez]

You really think Nintendo intentionally made controllers that suffer from drift within months from purchase just so they could sell new ones?

Nintendo do some odd things, but that's really far outside their M.O.

[ZellSF]

You really think Nintendo intentionally made controllers that suffer from drift within months from purchase just so they could sell new ones?

Nintendo do some odd things, but that's really far outside their M.O.

They cheaped out on the controller internals and are refusing to implement an easy fix.

They didn't directly design controllers to make them break, but their intentions are pretty clear.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I haven't looked at Nintendo's books, but I would be really surprised if the money brought in from new joy-cons sales > money lost from fixing broken joy-cons for free (which they do, and even pay for shipping)

[Sumez]

They cheaped out on the controller internals and are refusing to implement an easy fix.

They didn't directly design controllers to make them break, but their intentions are pretty clear.

Their intention was to create their intended product at as cheap as cost as possible to maximize the profit margin of course.
I think that's completely different from making a product poor with the intention of selling replacements. That is something that *does* happen in the electronics industry, but Nintendo are hardly much of a culprit on that account.

[ZellSF]

I haven't looked at Nintendo's books, but I would be really surprised if the money brought in from new joy-cons sales > money lost from fixing broken joy-cons for free (which they do, and even pay for shipping)

Why would that surprise you that much? Do a quick Google search and you'll be finding plenty of people buying replacement joy-cons and not doing returns with Nintendo.

Their replacement policy is like a "lifetime warranty" policy; a policy written that looks great on paper with the hopes no one will use it.

They cheaped out on the controller internals and are refusing to implement an easy fix.

They didn't directly design controllers to make them break, but their intentions are pretty clear.

Their intention was to create their intended product at as cheap as cost as possible to maximize the profit margin of course.
I think that's completely different from making a product poor with the intention of selling replacements. That is something that *does* happen in the electronics industry, but Nintendo are hardly much of a culprit on that account.

I only said their intention for not implementing deadzone controls was 100% selling replacements.

I'm sure the reason for the terrible hardware in the first place was more of a mix of cheapness and "replacement sales will be good for us anyway".

[Sumez]

Deadzone controls would be in the hands of the game developers, though, not Nintendo. Since they already have their own configured deadzone they designed their controls around, and it can differ greatly from one game to another.

I mean sure, it might be possible to intercept it on an OS level, but that might also require another layer of controller interfacing that the system might not be able to enforce on the games. I don't have enough hands-on experience with Switch dev (read: none at all) to confirm one way or another.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Why would that surprise you that much? Do a quick Google search and you'll be finding plenty of people buying replacement joy-cons and not doing returns with Nintendo.

For the same reason automobile recall repairs are undesirable, they cut into the profits one made initially. You don't have to have Harvard business degree to know that simultaneously making and losing money leaves one with less money than making without losing (which is usually the goal).

Suggesting they'd purposefully impose another recall (and if these new sticks start drifting, they won't have a choice) on the gamble that most people won't bother getting them fixed would be enormously bold or downright stupid depending on how diplomatic one is being. For every "bro, I just bought a new one" reddit post one could find on google, you can find at least one "bro, I sent that in. I'm not giving them $80 for more broken shit" (not that it's a real metric for anything. And not even counting "bro, I bought a third party"). If such practices actually increased profits, every airbag in every car rolling off the line would be faulty, and every laptop battery would blow up like a balloon in six months.

Plus there's those pesky intangible things like reputation and whatnot. I don't think conde nast ran a headline on the subject because it's readership has no concern whatsoever.

[ZellSF]

Deadzone controls would be in the hands of the game developers, though, not Nintendo. Since they already have their own configured deadzone they designed their controls around, and it can differ greatly from one game to another.

I mean sure, it might be possible to intercept it on an OS level, but that might also require another layer of controller interfacing that the system might not be able to enforce on the games. I don't have enough hands-on experience with Switch dev (read: none at all) to confirm one way or another.

I mean all that is a choice by Nintendo.

It is possible to implement device level deadzone controls. It is possible to implement OS level deadzone controls.

It might not be possible on Nintendo's controllers, or in Nintendo's OS, but that would be by their own design.

Why would that surprise you that much? Do a quick Google search and you'll be finding plenty of people buying replacement joy-cons and not doing returns with Nintendo.

For the same reason automobile recall repairs are undesirable, they cut into the profits one made initially. You don't have to have Harvard business degree to know that simultaneously making and losing money leaves one with less money than making without losing (which is usually the goal).

Suggesting they'd purposefully impose another recall (and if these new sticks start drifting, they won't have a choice) on the gamble that most people won't bother getting them fixed would be enormously bold or downright stupid depending on how diplomatic one is being. For every "bro, I just bought a new one" reddit post one could find on google, you can find at least one "bro, I sent that in. I'm not giving them $80 for more broken shit" (not that it's a real metric for anything. And not even counting "bro, I bought a third party"). If such practices actually increased profits, every airbag in every car rolling off the line would be faulty, and every laptop battery would blow up like a balloon in six months.

Plus there's those pesky intangible things like reputation and whatnot. I don't think conde nast ran a headline on the subject because it's readership has no concern whatsoever.

Nintendo hasn't done a recall. A recall is actively reaching out to your customers, telling them to return their device and replacing the device without the flaw of the recalled device.

And there's quite a difference between 80$ controllers and a PC or, you know, a fricking car. How willing people are to go with the return process over buying new is very correlated with the value of the item

That said it's obviously just guesswork by me or you on whether Nintendo is making or losing money on this. But if they really were losing money, wouldn't they do more drastic changes for the Switch 2? If they were losing reputation wouldn't they loudly state the improvements they were making and not hiding them?

[m.sniffles.esq]

That said it's obviously just guesswork by me or you on whether Nintendo is making or losing money on this. But if they really were losing money, wouldn't they do more drastic changes for the Switch 2? If they were losing reputation wouldn't they loudly state the improvements they were making and not hiding them?

As I said, if they were making money, EVERYONE would be putting out a product they knew was going to break. Last I checked, when a company puts out a faulty product, it breaks (i.e. airbag that deploys unprovoked, laptop battery that blows up), and the manufacturer admits faults and repairs it for free even though you could pay them for a new one, is still universally regarded as a bad thing, bad business, something that loses money, something that nobody does on purpose because of the former.

The day this changes will be the day you have a point. Until then, it doesn't make any sense.

t;dr "That doesn't make sense. If it doesn't make sense, it isn't true" -The Honorable Judith Sheindlin

[ZellSF]

That said it's obviously just guesswork by me or you on whether Nintendo is making or losing money on this. But if they really were losing money, wouldn't they do more drastic changes for the Switch 2? If they were losing reputation wouldn't they loudly state the improvements they were making and not hiding them?

As I said, if they were making money, EVERYONE would be putting out a product they knew was going to break. Last I checked, when a company puts out a faulty product, it breaks (i.e. airbag that deploys unprovoked, laptop battery that blows up), and the manufacturer admits faults and repairs it for free even though you could pay them for a new one, is still universally regarded as a bad thing, bad business, something that loses money, something that nobody does on purpose because of the former.

The day this changes will be the day you have a point. Until then, it doesn't make any sense.

t;dr "That doesn't make sense. If it doesn't make sense, it isn't true" -The Honorable Judith Sheindlin

I'm saying they are making money on this, and you've not really refuted that much beyond saying "no they aren't".

Why aren't everyone doing it? There's a lot of factors going into if this works or not. Price of the item being a big one. If you can convince most of the user base it's just "wear", that's another one. Lack of competition being one more (you buying a third party joy-con? buying a PS5 for your kids that want to play Pokemon?). There are quite a few others.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It is possible to implement device level deadzone controls. It is possible to implement OS level deadzone controls.

Yeah, there's absolutely no reason it can't be done at the OS level in a configuration screen in a relatively easy fashion as an accessibility feature. And there's no reason for it to impact games; all you do is shift how the controller registers inputs. The new input detection area's outer edge is 100% as always, and the border where the inner input detection area meets the new deadzone is 0%, and the controller value is set linearly between those.

I can see why PS1 and PS2 era games didn't bother doing it since they didn't really have a proper OS or config screen to handle this (though I still think they should have made it a standard configuration option). But nowadays consoles offer far more robust accessibility features like OS level remapping. A deadzone adjustment tool is hardly a big ask.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I had both of my joycon sets start to drift following a system update a few years back, that's one hell of a coincidence for it to be hardwear wearing out. I'm sure it could be fixed with a less sensitive deadzone setting, the calibration tool clearly shows it doesn't fully centre but otherwise behaves normally. Not all games appear to be impacted by it either.

Never had it happen with any other analogue stick, going all the way back to Dreamcast. Swapped to an xbox controller using a Mayflash adapter shortly after the drift started, no issues with that.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I'm saying they are making money on this, and you've not really refuted that much beyond saying "no they aren't".

Less refuting, than saying it was doubtful due to it being pretty moronic. But yeah, it's using the point when people start saying the same things over and over and over that I bow out, but I was being polite, or at least trying to be. If you need to have a last word or whatever, you got it, it was perfect, and I'm absolutely speechless in the face of it's perfection. Moving on.

[ZellSF]

I didn't call your ideas moronic, they're just based on different assumptions of what the numbers are.

[Lemnear]

I've now seen the whole live instead of the individual announcements...and the summary I can give is:
"by Nintendo, with Love and Greed"

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Will the upcoming Switch 2 support TOSlink/digital optical output the second time around, audio-wise?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[ZellSF]

The game key card thing makes me think cartridge space is really at a premium and Switch 2 firmware updates are probably much larger than Switch 1 ones. Maybe Nintendo's going to start omitting firmware updates from cartridges? Possible Nintendo's joining Microsoft and Sony and demanding an online check-in before you can use your console to play games?

Will the upcoming Switch 2 support TOSlink/digital optical output the second time around, audio-wise?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

That seems very unlikely. Just get a cheap HDMI audio extractor from China.

[Steven]

Possible Nintendo's joining Microsoft and Sony and demanding an online check-in before you can use your console to play games?

No PS4 or PS5 game that I have requires this. I have unplugged my PS5's ethernet cable just to test this with multiple new games and every one has worked fine with only the disc and without an internet connection.

[ZellSF]

Possible Nintendo's joining Microsoft and Sony and demanding an online check-in before you can use your console to play games?

No PS4 or PS5 game that I have requires this. I have unplugged my PS5's ethernet cable just to test this with multiple new games and every one has worked fine with only the disc and without an internet connection.

The latest Sony console, the PS5 Pro, requires online activation.

[Steven]

That piece of shit is digital-only by default, so that's understandable.

[BryanM]

Boycott is going just as well as the Left Four Dead Two boycott went. Addicts have no other hobbies in life, truly.

At least I'm doing my part, unlike these scabs. Been giving Double Dash a try, and I still think it's my least favorite in the series behind the SNES original...

(As an aside, it blows my mind people are willing to spend $500 on something so fragile. And they'd hand it over to a six year old... Things are really different from the GameCube days, eh.)

The game key card thing makes me think cartridge space is really at a premium

It really makes me wonder what the christ is in the key-cards that makes them so much cheaper than a slice of the internals of a $2 8 GB thumbdrive... Are they like a tiny little patch of 5.25" floppies they had interns dig out of a garbage heap, to store the couple of numbers these scam pieces of shit have inside?

The latest Sony console, the PS5 Pro, requires online activation.

This really is the last generation, in a lot of ways...

Well, if we all end up as Elon Musk's and Bill Gate's broodcows, it was nice knowing ya'all o7


.... You guys know that the budgets of $0 games are now into the millions and above now, right? I mean yeah you won't get the authentic Pokemon experience with these knockoffs, and it is indeed subpar that you won't have genuine Nintendo 64 trees, spazzing-out slender-men animations, and a wobbly 13 frames per second.... but this is the present I guess??? Free games on every device, and a steady 60 fps?

It's weird I know. *shrug*

[Sumez]

It really makes me wonder what the christ is in the key-cards that makes them so much cheaper than a slice of the internals of a $2 8 GB thumbdrive... Are they like a tiny little patch of 5.25" floppies they had interns dig out of a garbage heap, to store the couple of numbers these scam pieces of shit have inside?

If I were to make a guess I'd assume it's less about production costs, and more about convenience (which for a software dev still shows on the bottom line regardless). This way they can have the game cards ready to ship before the game is even done!

Hell, Nintendo could have a massive production line of cards with different IDs/codes on them which can potentially be used for any game. The only thing that determines what game they let you play is which SKU they point to on Nintendo's servers! That means publishers don't even have to send a master version of the game to production, they just order a number of cards and slap their artwork on it!

That's theory of course, though. The downside to that method is that until your console is online, a card is essentially anonymous. While the Switch 2 could sync with a title database every time you are online (just like the Switch 1 does to know if updates are available even while offline), you wouldn't even be able to get any fancy graphics when you insert the card.
So realistically, there's probably still a "master" to print on the key cards, but if all it has on it is an ID code, a title and some artwork, publishers could still put them into production way before the game is close to being done.

[BryanM]

If I were to make a guess I'd assume it's less about production costs, and more about convenience (which for a software dev still shows on the bottom line regardless). This way they can have the game cards ready to ship before the game is even done!

Hell, Nintendo could have a massive production line of cards with different IDs/codes on them which can potentially be used for any game. The only thing that determines what game they let you play is which SKU they point to on Nintendo's servers! That means publishers don't even have to send a master version of the game to production, they just order a number of cards and slap their artwork on it!

That's a great observation and makes a hella lotta more sense than the material hardware cost side of things being a consideration...

As great as it is for publishers (we all know a major reason they're doing this is for control and DRM. They'd contrive any excuse to do so..) (srsly why the fck is the $0 Wizardry PC game client only on Steam..), it's tough to see these being popular with consumers.

Besides the absolute annoyance of storage (fun of them to bring in one of the eternal pains in the ass of PC gaming)... Can you see a four year old figuring these out? Their grandma?

[Steven]

Been giving Double Dash a try, and I still think it's my least favorite in the series behind the SNES original...

I absolutely hated Double Dash when it came out. I no longer remember why, but I did not like it. For about two or three years now I have been considering illegally downloading it to play it on my hacked Wii to see how it is. Maybe my opinion will change now that I'm an adult and not a child... which means maybe my opinion won't change now that I'm an adult and not a child. We'll see, but because I am super lazy I'll probably not get around to actually doing it before 2040. Hopefully my Wii still works then.

[spmbx]

I cancelled my pre-order, i guess i'm just not feeling it right now. I'll probably get it eventually but i just feel a bit meh about the whole thing right now.

[Lemnear]

I have a PS5 Slim Digital and I don't have to have online to use games but only to download them (obviously), is PS5 Pro different? I thought it used the same operating system.

I guess the hype for Switch 2 will gradually wane, nobody likes blank cartridges at 80/90 euro-dollars, I didn't expect so many mistakes from Nintendo (higher price, blank cartridges, paid tutorials and recording of online Chat/Video sessions for "security reasons"?).
Also the lack of GTA6 will surely be felt.

[spmbx]

I have a PS5 Slim Digital and I don't have to have online to use games but only to download them (obviously), is PS5 Pro different? I thought it used the same operating system.

If you add a disc drive you still need to go online to activate/pair the drive. Physical-people don't like that because obviously when Sony's servers go down you will not be able to pair a new drive or set up a new system for use with discs.
I'm not exactly into physical games either, but i still think the need to go online to activate/pair the drive is lame

[Sumez]

If you buy a PS5 slim or pro with a disc drive already installed, it's already activated though, and you don't need to go online.
I think it's a stupid BluRay licensing thing.

[Steven]

Oh hey I remembered that this thing has HDR, and that I recently learned that HDR can add input lag. Given the Switch's notoriety for input lag, this may turn out to be interesting. I only have about 2 games that have HDR, and one of them has really bad HDR that makes it look worse than it does with SDR, so that's something.

Is anyone here getting this thing? The launch games seem to be... a deluge of ports of old games that have been on PC/PS4/PS5/Switch for a long time, a new Mario Kart, and a bootleg idolm@ster that actually looks like it might be pretty good? Huh. That's not much of a launch library, but it could be worse *glances at his SuperGrafx and laughs internally*

At this point, I am rather interested in seeing what this system can do to improve the performance of various Switch games that run poorly on the Switch. Some games are going to be stuck with whatever their framerate caps are, but games with uncapped framerates should see some improvement. Still, it's a Nintendo system, which means it will eventually get some cool non-Nintendo exclusives... the last time I said that, I ended up with Shin Megami Tensei V, and that didn't turn out so great.

If you buy a PS5 slim or pro with a disc drive already installed, it's already activated though, and you don't need to go online.

Do they officially sell Pros with the disc drive attached or do you have to get them that way used from someone who installed the drive? I thought that there is no SKU that includes the disc drive. For that price, that thing honestly should absolutely come with the damn drive anyway. The fucking thing costs more than my PC did and my PC has an internal BD drive.

[Sumez]

Oh hey I remembered that this thing has HDR, and that I recently learned that HDR can add input lag. Given the Switch's notoriety for input lag, this may turn out to be interesting. I only have about 2 games that have HDR, and one of them has really bad HDR that makes it look worse than it does with SDR, so that's something.

I think the only potential "lag" added by HDR is on the monitor side, not the console. And from my quick Google research, it usually amounts to just 1 milisecond or so. It's there, but it's a tiny fraction of a frame.

Do they officially sell Pros with the disc drive attached or do you have to get them that way used from someone who installed the drive? I thought that there is no SKU that includes the disc drive. For that price, that thing honestly should absolutely come with the damn drive anyway. The fucking thing costs more than my PC did and my PC has an internal BD drive.

To be honest, I had no idea the Pro was already out. I don't understand why you'd want that. You can get a Slim SKU with the drive