Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@nessisonett Part of the problem is that people keep buying them. Look at the support for a Metroid Prime Trilogy port. That's the fourth consecutive time 1 and 2 will be released. Same for Windwaker and TP HD, those games have been released for nearly every console since the GameCube.

Look, I don't mind a good remake once in a while, like Link's Awakening or SOTC, but all those Wii U ports are just too much. At least they're almost all ported over, there's barely anything left.

They should figure out something like PS Now that allows you to play all their past games. Or monthly games with their sub that aren't NES games. Something like that. But I guess there's too much money to be made to keep releasing them individually.

I'll admit there was nothing in the Direct that had me jumping out of my seat in excitement, but I thought it was okay overall.

There's still nothing for me between SM3DW & New Pokemon Snap (I'm not keen on MHR or BDII*), but Pyra/Mythra & the Mario update will have me dipping back into Smash & AC during that time, and I'm sure I'll go back & pick something up I've skipped to fill in the gap (Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101, Hyrule Warriors: AoC, etc).

Things pick up a bit after that though, with Famicom Detective Club, Ninja Gaiden trilogy, Mario Golf Speed Rush, & Skyward Sword HD (would have rather had Wind Waker &/or Twilight Princess, but whatever) all being titles I'll probably pick up.

I will say Splatoon 3 seems to be an odd choice for a "one more thing" (it's certainly a big enough franchise, but as multiplayer focused as it is I figured it'd be once a generation type franchise as to not split the user base, and it's still at least a year out as well), and there was a lot of forgettable filler (mostly from western devs).

Interestingly enough, the Direct was one of the top 10 trending items on the Yahoo front page when I got into work this morning, which is something I've never seen before.

Pricing aside, reminder that a similar situation happened with the Vita and PS4. The Vita failed, so Sony ported a bunch of its games to its more popular system.

The big difference being that Nintendo actually tried to save the floundering Wii U, whereas Sony went full Heihachi Mishima at the first sign of trouble with the Vita.

@nessisonett Telling people they "should have" bought a console they didn't want because it had a handful of games they're willing to buy on the Switch is a supremely weird position to adopt.

I own a Wii U. I don't regret having bought one back in the day. But most people hadn't heard of it, and most of the ones that had didn't want one, and that's perfectly fine.

I'm just glad the small number of great games it had on it were salvaged by 3DS/Switch ports.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy We didn't get Nocturne news, which is supposed to release earlier in the year, but they're teasing us about late 2021/mid 2022 games with angels and demons, and inklings wandering around what looks like the vortex world, and strategy RPGs with SMT-esque alignment systems. As an SMT fan, I feel supremely trolled right now.

@Kidfried The "limited availability" tactic of the 3D All-Stars collection/Fire Emblem NES is scummy, but there's nothing different in principle between Nintendo porting over their Wii U games and Sony porting The Last of Us Remastered/God of War 3 Remastered/etc. People love having the opportunity to replay older classics on newer hardware when BC isn't an option. Although, as I said, the Wii U --> Switch ports are a unique situation, and one they won't be able to repeat next-gen. Both because the Switch is popular, and because they'd be insane to switch away from the hybrid format. Treating upgraded Wii U ports like big releases works because almost nobody bought the Wii U, so it's a non-issue for the vast majority of their customers.

I don't disagree that Nintendo should bring back and expand the VC service, btw. I also think Sony should bring back the Playstation Classics line for PS5, which I own a number of licenses for on older systems. And both should honor purchases of licenses for classic games made on older consoles. Only Microsoft is showing their oldest games the sort of respect they deserve.

@RR529 Splatoon 3 needed to show off something cool, like an ambitious single-player mode or something. We already have Splatoon on Switch, so the announcement barely made an impact on me.

@Ralizah I do think pricing matters though.

How many games did they actually port over from the Vita though? Gravity Rush? That's the only one I can think of. Tearaway Unfolded is more of a remake/reimagining than a straight up port.

I honestly don't mind a couple of them. The Last of Us was fairly new at the time, and it easily could've been a cross-gen game, but they decided to keep it PS3 only, which I can only respect. The PS4 remaster did include the $20 DLC for a total of $50, so it was a pretty decent deal all things considered. Most will also agree that the God of War 3 remaster was completely unnecessary. I believe it kinda flopped as well. At least it wasn't full price..!

If they only ported like 3D World and MK8 the situation would be different. But we're four years in and Wii U ports are still making headlines. Something tells me that they just aren't prepared for modern game development anymore. Which is saying a lot, considering they now only have to focus on one system instead of two. But with the lack of big new games, there must be something going on. But thinking about it, they haven't really expanded their studios much beyond what they already had 20 years ago. Their big HQ in Kyoto, a smaller studio in Tokyo, and Retro & Monolith. Maybe I'm forgetting some, but even a game like Smash is outsourced to Namco Bandai.

@Kidfried Calling a corporation a "villain" for being efficient at making money on legacy content makes me feel like you're humanizing them too much. Corporations are machines designed to generate as much profit as they can, and their pricing strategies are intended to charge as much as the market will bear, and not a cent more. In the case of Nintendo, they seem to have figured out that, since almost nobody bought the Wii U or its games, they could re-release those games for full price and make a killing on them. And they have. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold... what, 30 million copies now? Probably more.

Frankly, if Sony thought God of War could keep selling insane numbers at full price, they'd adopt the same strategy. They're about as bad as Nintendo on legacy content in other ways: the PS4 wasn't backwards-compatible with any of their previous systems and they completely abandoned their equivalent to the Virtual Console, and the licenses associated with them didn't carry over to the PS4 as a result.

I could also point out that they seem to keep jacking up the price of PS+ without really adding to the value of it (subtracting, in fact: we used to get Vita, PS3, and PS4 games every month). Additionally, they tether online mp to this service, meaning the basic cost of being able to play online with other people keeps going up and up. Does this make them a "villain?" Or can we just admit that corporations are going to bleed us dry when they feel they can get away with it, and there's no moral quality associated with this one way or the other?

Microsoft is far and away better than Nintendo and Sony in terms of making their legacy content available for a reasonable price, but I'd argue that, like with Game Pass, the reason they need to go this approach is because their current gen offerings aren't really up to snuff, and they have to do something to maintain an edge in the current market, where Nintendo and Sony are currently eating their lunch.

To be honest we are somewhat "part of the problem" because we end up buying the games. Nintnedo fooled me in buying Pokemon Let's Go Eevee (used and resold it) and Sword (that I did not like that much) but I refuse to buy anything else, especially the Mario 3d All Stars (maybe used but I am not a huge fan, I have only played Mario Land and Mario 64) or the NES Fire Emblem game. In fact the only other Nintendo first or second party games I have are Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the Fire Emblem / SMT Crossover. I will buy XC1 only if it is offered in huge discount, which will not. Seriously why Nintnedo does not discount the games even years after they are released?

As for Sony they are somewhat better but not that much. The PS4 ports of Vita games were 40 euros which is resonable pricing and give away PS5 ports for free in some cases but not for Spider-Man for some reason.

@Kidfried I agree, seems that Nintendo somehow struggles to develop hd games in some cases.

@belmont I've seen XCDE go as low as $30 in sales fairly recently in the States, so definitely keep an eye on sales. Not sure why that game dropped in price so quickly, considering XC2's price has remained sky high since launch.

@Octane Wipeout 2048. Gravity Rush. Tearaway, although, having not played the PS4 version, I'll grant you the bit about it being more of a remake.

Looking over a list of Sony published games on the system, it's shocking how few original projects there actually were. Almost everything from them is either a port of an old game from an outside developer, a collection of older games, or a cross-release with a PS3 game.

Almost every other major Vita release I was thinking of was actually a third party release.

The remaining ones of any note seem to be:

• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Freedom Wars
• Killzone: Mercenary
• Oresheika: Tainted Bloodlines

So, fair point, I guess. The Vita's worthwhile exclusives were almost all ported to PS4, but almost none of them came from Sony itself.

Gee, I wonder why nobody bought it.

@Ralizah There's a bunch more like Sly Cooper, Resistance, LBP, Golf, I guess MLB counts..! But I agree, a bit lacklustre overall.

Wipeout Omega Collection is more than just a port of 2048 though, as the name implies. It also includes Wipeout Pure, Pulse, and Fury. And it was VR compatible. For only €40. If anything, this is a great example of how to release older content!

@Kidfried Oh, I don't mean to make it seem like I'm trying to make this a contest about whose preferred multinational corporation is more or less anti-consumer. The reason I brought stuff like PS+ prices into the equation was because I was trying to demonstrate a more general point: that all corporations will try to bleed you dry if they think it's an area of strength for them and they can get away with it. A unique area of strength for Nintendo this generation is Wii U ports, because almost nobody played them when they first released. Skyward Sword is also a full-priced port, but that's pretty much the norm for Zelda games. Nintendo knows they can get away with it because of the branding. It doesn't look upgraded enough for me, personally.

So, same here: no offense meant. If it seems like I get a little heated in my posts, it's just because I'm getting involved in the discussion.

I guess, in general, I've never fully understood people being bothered by ports of games they already own. I've only purchased a few this generation: the ones I feel like are worth the money.

Admittedly, I'm a little irritated that the Captain Toad port didn't come with the new DLC content included by default, but, in that case, I just voted with my wallet by not buying the game. If I do buy it, it'll likely be used. Nintendo gets none of my money then.

@Octane Well, none of the Sly Cooper games were exclusive to Vita (one was a cross-release with PS3, and the other was a collection of PS2 games). Resistance... I've not played it, but the reaction wasn't what you would call positive. Can't speak to baseball or golf games either way.

Did forget about LBP, though. That was well-received, at least.

@Octane Sly Cooper isn't strictly a Vita game. I believe Thieves in Time was a crossplay title that also came out for PS3. I think the same happened with MLB as well

@Kidfried At the moment, I have a couple of Switch docks connected in different parts of the house (I'm not the only one who owns a Switch here, so yeah), a PS4, Wii U, and Xbox 360 connected to our HDTV in the game room, a GameCube connected to one old CTR set in the game room, a PS2 connected to an old flat screen panel in another room, and just a ton of controllers and handhelds everywhere. And a gaming capable PC, of course.

Nobody could ever visit this home and not be able to guess that it was a gamer household.

The problem for me with the SNES Mini for me is that, apart from one or two games, I could play all those games portably via my Nintendo Switch SNES app. Although, if I ever find one for cheaps, I might get it just so I can hack it and add Jp-only and otherwise obscure ROMs.

The Genesis Mini is far more tempting, though. It really does have a great selection of software. I wouldn't even have to hack it to be broadly satisfied with its selection.

Definitely. Besides, the fun of discussions is people bouncing alternative viewpoints off each-other. The only way we grow is by listening to divergent viewpoints and considering them.

@Ralizah Yo man I think it's so dope that the whole house games! That setup sounds like something to be proud of haha

@Ralizah I’ve been looking around for a decent CRT, I only have a rubbish tiny one that I use for GameCube and PS2. There’s something strangely better about playing those consoles on a tiny curved screen as opposed to a 4K TV.

@nessisonett Yeah, I imagine playing 240p games on an 4KTV probably doesn't end well.

My CRT is actually huge for one of those TVs, which blows up the image a bit more than I like, but eh. The curvature of the screen is nice. Unfortunately, the thing is massive, so lifting it is an ordeal.

@Ralizah It’s got to the point that I’d be better off using Dolphin to upscale GameCube games to make them legible if I’m going to play them on the TV. Even with a texture pack and upscaled, Metroid Prime looks way worse than a game like Mario Party 4 for some reason. I also might as well make the use of my original GameCube component cables, they seem to be like gold dust these days, going for over £250 on eBay!

@nessisonett I've actually got a flat CRT for the Cube at the moment (just the screen, still as bulky as any other). They were one of the latest models before everything switched over to proper flat screens. The best of both worlds, or maybe the worst, I don't know lol.

Aww, if I had the room it'd be brilliant to have a CRT. It's the very best way to play pre-HD consoles, especially with an RGB Scart cable. GameCube and PS2 games look absolutely lovely on one. It's irritating that modern TVs don't even have the inputs for classic consoles.

I've had the game for nearly a year & I've only now discovered you can loose items within flowers in Animal Crossing. A couple days ago both a balloon present & a bag of bells (from a money tree) vanished after landing on a ground "tile" with flowers growing on it. That has never happened to me before, so at least now I know to look out for that.

Almost finished up with World 5 in SM3DW (just have it's castle level left). Lovely game. It may not be as expansive in scope & grandeur as the sandbox titles, but it knows what it sets out to do, does it wonderfully, and is simply a snappy & fun game to play. On the tightness of the experience alone I think I'll end up placing it above 64 & probably Sunshine (and of course 3D Land, which comes across as a much more vanilla version of what this game is doing), though I think Galaxy is still the best at marrying the two gameplay philosophies.

@RR529 When items and bells drop, they may 'hop' to another square if the current one is already occupied by a flower. If there are no 'empty' spaces within two squares, they will disappear.

@Octane, that's what I figured since the first item dropped in a field of flowers I'd planted, but I could swear the second item had a spot or two it could have bounced too, which is what confused me.

Anyhow, in SM3DW I'm in World 6 & some of those stamps are starting to be hidden pretty well now. I must have replayed 6-1 (the one with all the clear pipes) like 5 times before I figured out where it's was located (and a similar number of times for 6-3, the Japanese castle level).