Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@mookysam Well I mean, I do understand where you're coming from because Nintendo keeps releasing Wii U/3DS ports on Switch that I've already played and I'd rather see them put these resources into making new games entirely. So I totally understand your point of view. At this point I'm hoping that they'll eventually put Gamecube games on the Switch because man are there titles on that system that I've been dying to play but can't due to scarce availability. For example, Paper Mario The Thousand Year-Door isn't available digitally on any Nintendo system, nor has it ever been re-released. I also don't have a Wii anymore that can play Gamecube games and even if I did, a physical copy costs €150. So that's one thing I seriously hope Nintendo will eventually add on the Switch in the future.

Out of curiosity, you say that you want Nintendo to bring back more quirky titles and as we've seen for the past year or so, they've kept releasing games on the NES/SNES Switch apps that most people haven't heard of or don't care about. Have these games appealed to you?

@LtSarge I wish I’d taken better care of my Cube games. I have loads of those expensive ones like Skies of Arcadia Legends, 2 copies of The Thousand Year Door etc. I just didn’t really take good care of them so the discs are scratched and stuff. Still better than the PS1 discs I ate.

@LtSarge The irony is that those ports hardly require any resources. The Apple vs Epic case revealed all sorts of documents, even detailing things like how many people it takes to port a game, and it was like 2 people for six months or something like that (I'll have to look it up again).

Which is great, because it doesn't take away resources from other games, the problem is that they still ask full price, as if a 100-person team worked on it for 5 years. And they treat them like brand new games to fill in the release schedule.

@nessisonett That sucks man. So the games don't work at all then?

This topic is kinda interesting though because I've for the most part taken good care of my games, even when growing up. The only time that I didn't is when I was buying GBA games as a kid. Because of the cardboard boxes, they've become all roughed up now and are definitely not in a pristine condition. I guess it's better than all those people who threw away their boxes at least. I'm so glad that I started to take good care of my games after that point, not to mention buying games that have now become rare and high in value. For example, I never thought Pikmin 2 on Wii would increase that much in value but now I could sell my copy for €80 after having bought it on sale for like €20. Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver on the DS are also pretty expensive, especially if you have the complete package with the PokéWalker and in good condition, which I do. I think a copy like that goes for €130-140 or something like that.

Nowadays though I honestly don't care about collecting games that could become rare in the future. Like sure the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection could become like €100 in the future but I don't have a reason to buy these games again so I just can't be bothered.

@LtSarge They do work most of the time, they just look like crap and obviously have lost most of their value. I don’t mind in that sense though because I probably wouldn’t sell them. Although Wind Waker (also two copies for some reason), I lost one of the discs and the other crashes if I try to sail to Dragon Roost Island. I can go all around Windfell Island for hours but it crashes if I try to go to continue the story. Must be a scratch on a specific part of the disc which is interesting. I was just very very young when I had my Cube, I was 6 when I got my Wii the Christmas of release to put it into context. I used to leave the discs out the box for convenience which obviously isn’t good for them. Basically I was an idiot. It never did my DS games any harm though, those things are proper hard-wearing.

@Octane That's interesting to hear. But even so, I think my issue is that I'm just tired of seeing so many ports even if they don't require that much resources. Like I get it that the Wii U didn't sell well and Nintendo is trying to recuperate the development costs of those games by selling them again on hardware that a lot of people now actually own. But these are still games that aren't that old and I'd rather see them bring back other games like Paper Mario TTYD.

At the very least there should be some balance. I'd totally be fine with the Wii U/3DS ports if they were also releasing more original titles or much older games at the same time. But they aren't. So to have these games be the only ones people can look forward to in a given period is not good at all.

@nessisonett Ah I see, well that's really unfortunate. It does make you think though how long our physical games will be able to survive before they don't work anymore. I remember reading this article on NL a couple of months ago: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/05/psa_yes_your_ds_and...

And while I'm not that worried about my games, I do make sure to store them in places where they can't be easily affected by the environment. For example, I have a drawer specifically for all my backlog games. I've heard that sunlight could damage the games, as well as the dust in the air. So storing them like that is a good solution I think. It does worry me that one day I'll put in a game and it doesn't work at all because everything will obviously stop working eventually. I think that's what has made me transition more to digital games because all physical media will stop working eventually and the best way to preserve games in my opinion is by making them digital and available online at all times. The best example of this would be Steam as that storefront still offers games that are decades old. It's also kinda why I prefer Microsoft's approach to things compared to Sony and Nintendo, even if there are still a lot of games missing from their BC library.

@LtSarge Most games are profitable after a million or two, and Wii U games sold very well despite the low userbase. And Nintendo is notorious for developing games on a small budget. I don't think they lost anything on Wii U software in the first place.

@Octane Oh, they lost money all right.

2012 and 2016 are notable periods where they lost money. The primary factor though was stuff likely just wasn't selling.

@Haruki_NLI They took a big loss on 3DS sales in 2012 due to that price cut. Obviously those annual numbers also include R&D, and more importantly, acquisitions, which they they also did a LOT during that era. That doesn't mean the games themselves weren't profitable, just Nintendo as a whole wasn't.

2016 was also the year they stopped supporting the Wii U, so it's no surprise if interest also fell. They announced the NX in 2015, I don't blame people for not investing in a Wii U. During the years before 2016, they seemingly managed just fine. The proper lifespan of the Wii U was from 2013 till 2015 (2012 barely saw the Wii U launch, so I wouldn't really count that, and they didn't have any good software ready for launch day).

@Octane What acquisitions did they make in that era? Monolith Soft in the late 2000s, a small part of DeNA in 2015, Next Level Games in 2021.

@LtSarge I haven't been on my Switch in quite a while so haven't had the opportunity to check out the new NES/SNES games, but will have a look. Is there anything that particularly caught your eye that you'd recommend? It's not quirky, but most recently I played Donkey Kong Country 2, which was nice because it's not on the SNES mini.

As for GameCube, it really has a special place in my heart. I'm lucky enough to still have quite a few games that are now very rare, and am in the process of copying my discs to play in an emulator. I wonder how much Nintendo would charge to add GameCube games to Switch Online, plus they are much bigger files than the previous consoles' games.

@nessisonett Oof, at least you were a small child. It seems that some adults like to use their discs as coasters when they should know better!. Are the discs too deeply scratched to polish?

I regret throwing away the boxes for my N64 games as I didn't see the need to keep them. I'm glad that Nintendo abandoned those flimsy cardboard monstrosities!

@mookysam I think I had one of those disc sanding things back in the day but it didn’t really do much. One of these days I really should methodically go through them and give them a buff! I’ll need to dig out my original Wii though to test them, or perhaps buy new cables for my Cube, which seem to have been lost between moving houses.

@Haruki_NLI Mobiclip, DeNA, Jesnet, they set up that whole QOL division that didn't come to fruition.

I guess it isn't that much, but for Nintendo's standards it was. I could've sworn there were more, but I can't find it anywhere, maybe they were just stakes.

@Octane I FORGOT ABOUT ALL THOSE QOL RUMOUR ARTICLES

@Octane They were just stakes.

The only acquisition in the past decade outright is Next Level Games.

@Haruki_NLI They definitely bought Mobiclip and Jesnet.

@Ralizah @Octane ah fair enough, I literally had no idea either game had a campaign, especially the first one. I remember looking them both up and not being able to find anything about it. Maybe people just don't talk about the Splatoon campaigns online as much as they do the multiplayer!

@nessisonett I got my GC copy of Sunshine working by having it resurfaced at a CD shop years back. Although it won't help if the scratches are too deep

@ralphdibny Well, campaign talk will die down after launch since most people will be finished with it by then and fully focusing on the multiplayer.

I don't know if they're worth buying purely for the sp content, but they're still pretty decent on that front compared to something like Call of Duty. Octo Expansion is 100% worth the money it costs on its own.

@Ralizah hmm, well it's certainly something for me to consider down the line! It would be nice to try a new Nintendo franchise, it's just one I had avoided up until now because I had no interest in the multiplayer. I'm sure it's fun n that but I normally prefer to play with friends if I am going to do any sort of online gaming and I don't think any of mine have Splatoon