Nintendo Switch

[The Damned]

Dead on, you do give kids devices, or dead on, you don't give kids devices?

[Bleck]

On 1/19/2017 at 2:44 PM, avaris said:

Looks like a good game, but not my bag.  Don't think that game alone is worth the $300+ required to play it.

"I don't think that [one game] is worth the whole console" is a surprisingly common sentence in discussions about a video game console that will, in fact, have multiple video games

like have you people just been buying one game for one console and then putting it away forever

[The Damned]

Yes. Haven't you?

You buy the console, usually at launch, and then pick up only one game for it.

As the console gets more games for it, you stick to that one launch title and use it strictly as a metric for the quality of games, even ones that come out years later. This provides you an unalterable opinion about the entire industry based upon said one game on said one system, giving you the right you to comment on everything video game discussion, including stuff you have never even so much as looked at, let alone played.

That's how it works, bleck. You should know this by now.

[Native Jovian]

I don't have kids either, but I'm skeptical of the idea that there's a large group of people saying "giving a $200 3DS to my child is no problem, but a $300 Switch, now that's a bridge too far".  Yeah, the 3DS is cheaper and (possibly?) somewhat more durable thanks to being able to close it when it's not in use, but it's not like it's cheap enough that running out and buying a new one is no big deal.  Either your kid is responsible enough to carry around a multiple-hundreds-of-dollars piece of electronics, or they aren't.  The difference between a 3DS and a Switch on that scale seems like splitting hairs.

[zircon]

I think Nintendo made a big mistake on slotting Breath of the Wild for WiiU as well as Switch. There are definitely people (myself included!) that have a WiiU and would prefer to just wait on the Switch for more games to come out. But it's better for the Switch and Nintendo if people adopt it early, which fuels 3rd party developer interest, which fuels more games... etc. By releasing BotW for WiiU, some % of people will just get it for that, and wait on the Switch, when really that should have been the awesome new launch title.

The other thing is that Nintendo has not only been shooting themselves in the foot with the virtual console and new proposed online service, but blowing the entire leg off. Plenty of commentators have said this but it bears repeating: Nintendo has one of the greatest game catalogs of any developer/publisher. Just look at all the hype for the NES classic. Now imagine if they said hey, for $10/mo you get access to all VC NES and SNES games, Netflix style. For $15/mo, you get N64 too. They would be printing money. I'd sign up for it without a second thought. To see them propose $10/mo for online play and a single game is ludicrous. 

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Netflix but video games, be it streamed or subscription style, is a terrible idea that I'm fairly certain didn't work out like Sony hoped.

People only ran out to buy the NES classic because of nostalgia and then realized they could've played these 30 year old games on their tablet or phone for free via emulators that can run in a browser instead of paying Nintendo again for their old ideas.

For 15 dollars, you could buy several NES or SNES games on the shop and own them forever - screw subscriptions. 

 

[jnWake]

2 hours ago, zircon said:

I think Nintendo made a big mistake on slotting Breath of the Wild for WiiU as well as Switch. There are definitely people (myself included!) that have a WiiU and would prefer to just wait on the Switch for more games to come out. But it's better for the Switch and Nintendo if people adopt it early, which fuels 3rd party developer interest, which fuels more games... etc. By releasing BotW for WiiU, some % of people will just get it for that, and wait on the Switch, when really that should have been the awesome new launch title.

I imagine if Nintendo had cancelled BotW for Wii U the backlash would've been massive. Remember the game was announced at 2014!

They could've went with a small delay for the Wii U version but I guess they didn't want to be dicks haha.

[Mirby]

Yeah at that point it was a safer bet for them to do a dual release than cancel it on Wii U. That type of bad press would probably result in turning people off of the Switch entirely (or anything from Nintendo) for a while.

[zircon]

10 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Netflix but video games, be it streamed or subscription style, is a terrible idea that I'm fairly certain didn't work out like Sony hoped.

People only ran out to buy the NES classic because of nostalgia and then realized they could've played these 30 year old games on their tablet or phone for free via emulators that can run in a browser instead of paying Nintendo again for their old ideas.

For 15 dollars, you could buy several NES or SNES games on the shop and own them forever - screw subscriptions. 

 

The NES Classic hype hasn't stopped so I'm not sure where you're getting the "and then realized..." bit. Clearly people have a a huge soft spot for nostalgia, especially people who don't want to deal with emulators or don't know what they are. There's a reason why plug-and-play systems have endured for years and why people flock to stuff like the Retro Duo, Trio, RetroN-5 etc. They want to play retro games and don't want to deal with emulators, carts and hardware limitations.

Sony's PSN service has been extraordinarily successful. But Nintendo's back catalog is even better, IMO. Throw a dart at a "Top 50 Games of All Time" list and you're likely to hit a classic Nintendo game (NES, SNES, GB, N64). They can and should still offer individual titles for purchase on the VC. However a streaming subscription service is something consumers will eat up and makes for the best value proposition.

Imagine if that was part of the Switch launch! Instead of getting 1 game, for 1 month only, you get access to hundreds of games - "Only on Switch with Online Premium" (or whatever they want to call it). I guarantee people would go for it just like they went for those other things I mentioned.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

1 hour ago, zircon said:

The NES Classic hype hasn't stopped so I'm not sure where you're getting the "and then realized..." bit. Clearly people have a a huge soft spot for nostalgia, especially people who don't want to deal with emulators or don't know what they are. There's a reason why plug-and-play systems have endured for years and why people flock to stuff like the Retro Duo, Trio, RetroN-5 etc. They want to play retro games and don't want to deal with emulators, carts and hardware limitations.

Sony's PSN service has been extraordinarily successful. But Nintendo's back catalog is even better, IMO. Throw a dart at a "Top 50 Games of All Time" list and you're likely to hit a classic Nintendo game (NES, SNES, GB, N64). They can and should still offer individual titles for purchase on the VC. However a streaming subscription service is something consumers will eat up and makes for the best value proposition.

Imagine if that was part of the Switch launch! Instead of getting 1 game, for 1 month only, you get access to hundreds of games - "Only on Switch with Online Premium" (or whatever they want to call it). I guarantee people would go for it just like they went for those other things I mentioned.

I was referring to Playstation Now, I think is called.

I think we're talking about different things. 

 

[Bleck]

you're not talking about different things, you're just wrong

[OceansAndrew]

On 1/20/2017 at 5:00 PM, The Damned said:

Dead on, you do give kids devices, or dead on, you don't give kids devices?

no devices of this caliber. A 2ds with an extra case around it is good. 

[Neifion]

Growing up with the ol' gray brick Game Boy, my mom's philosophy was pretty effective: "You break it or lose it, you're not getting another one." Had that thing forever.

[Bleck]

I'm not sure that it's actually possible to break a Game Boy

[TheChargingRhino]

1 hour ago, Bleck said:

I'm not sure that it's actually possible to break a Game Boy

You guys hear about that GB that got blown up by...a grenade?

Apparently still works great. 

[Anorax]

On 1/22/2017 at 0:25 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

I was referring to Playstation Now, I think is called.

I think we're talking about different things. 

 

On 1/22/2017 at 10:52 AM, zircon said:

Sony's PSN service has been extraordinarily successful.

 

On 1/22/2017 at 10:52 AM, zircon said:

Sony's PSN service

 

On 1/22/2017 at 10:52 AM, zircon said:

PSN

 

[The Damned]

Personal GameBoy story time!

I had a GBA-SP (AGS-001, not the far superior 101 with the better screen) and it had a semi-permanent residence in my pants pocket. If I went somewhere and I suspected even a slight wait for any reason, the GBA-SP went with me.

One day, I was leaving an office and took the fire stairs (I think the elevator was too slow or it was only a few floors? I don't recall). I pulled the SP out of my pocket, opened it and turned it on, and then dropped it.

The stairs were fire-proof concrete, with big metal handrails that were mounted into the steps. Pretty sturdy stuff. And these stairs were the kind that had that little gap between each flight, so you could look down the middle and see all the way up to the top, and all the way down to the bottom.

My GBA decided that stair-surfing was the way to go, and it not only fell and slid down the first flight of stairs, but then bounced off the wall at the bottom, slid towards the next flight of stairs, tumbled down those steps, and then came to a rest only a few inches away from the gap on the next floor.

I rushed down, expecting to find it in at lest three pieces, screen ripped off or smashed or something. Nope. It was closed, had a little bit of scuffing on the bottom and one corner (I assume when it hit the wall) and was still on. The game was loaded and running.

I had that GBA-SP until about 2010, when I gave it to my nephew. He still has it, it still works, and will likely end up being some sort of family heirloom at this rate.

1 hour ago, Bleck said:

I'm not sure that it's actually possible to break a Game Boy

There is... but it requires time. Years and years of neglect. Poor storage. Leave the batteries in all the time, never removing or replacing them. Let them fester and leak, corroding the interior casing and circuit board. Keep it in the sun, let the case yellow and weaken. Keep it near a humid, hot radiator or vent.

But you have merely weakened it. It endures.

Bury it in the forest. Cover it in rocks and dirt, such that no light or air can reach it. Leave it there for a decade, and uncover it to realize that only now has the screen started to finally give way.

But it endures.

Fire will only anger it. Ice will only steel its resolve. Light and darkness will only slow it.

But it endures.

Only years of torture and abuse will harm it, and even then, it will only be weak, brittle. But it will still sit there... mocking your efforts. Time is not a weapon, it is merely a tool to slowly chip away at the rock that is the GameBoy.

Unless you fuck up installing a bivert screen. Then it's ruined.

[The Nikanoru]

On ‎17‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 8:15 AM, DarkeSword said:

would you buy your younger kid a Switch and trust them to take it around everywhere with them?

No. I remember from personal experience what happens when you mix small children with expensive electronic devices. It rarely ends well for the device.

However, my reason for not is not my cynicism regarding the Switch, rather my belief that we, as a culture, spend way to much time investing in extra screens for ourselves and our families. I've got lots of consoles at home - I don't need another screen, much less one that can be taken anywhere, for my young children. Once they're ready for gaming, I'll start them on the NES and SNES and teach them how games have developed, so they get an appreciation for it and value what they have (my hope and goal, anyway). They can go outside if they're bored.

Same with phones - they're going to start with a 'dumb' phone before they can get a smart one.

 

[DarkeSword]

On 1/22/2017 at 10:52 AM, zircon said:

Sony's PSN service has been extraordinarily successful. But Nintendo's back catalog is even better, IMO. Throw a dart at a "Top 50 Games of All Time" list and you're likely to hit a classic Nintendo game (NES, SNES, GB, N64). They can and should still offer individual titles for purchase on the VC. However a streaming subscription service is something consumers will eat up and makes for the best value proposition.

 

On 1/22/2017 at 0:25 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

I was referring to Playstation Now, I think is called.

I think we're talking about different things.

 

On 1/22/2017 at 3:03 PM, Bleck said:

you're not talking about different things, you're just wrong

No he's not, they are different things, actually. PSN refers to "PlayStation Network" which is Sony's online ecosystem/service for PlayStation products. The premium version of this is PS+ (PlayStation Plus) which offers "free" games to download every month for subscribers (that you only own while you are a paying "Plus" subscriber). This service is "extraordinarily successful," and Sony's offering of "free" games every month is something that MS also decided to do with Games for Gold on XBox Live. It's also something that Nintendo should do with their online service.

PlayStation Now, which is never referred to as "PSN," is Sony's game streaming service, similar to the old OnLive service. You pay a monthly fee and get streaming access to a library of games. These aren't downloaded or locally stored in anyway; you get an audio and video feed of the game and your controls are sent to the server that's running the game. The service has been live for a little while but there's nothing to suggest that it's "extraordinarily successful."

Now I do think Andy is right; Nintendo's first-party library is first-rate and is well suited towards a subscription based game streaming service. People love Nintendo games. But ACO is also not too far off the mark: game-streaming as a business isn't really proven yet. OnLive, the pioneer of this kind of service, isn't in business anymore, and Gaikai, one of OnLive's competitors, essentially turned into PlayStation Now; and we don't really know how well PlayStation Now is doing as a service.

There are a lot of things Nintendo could/should be doing with their back catalog; goodness knows their online "infrastructure" has been a total joke for over a decade. But Nintendo is a stubborn company that doesn't like being a follower; this leads to good things, like controller innovations and portable systems, but it also leads to bad things, like friend codes and game purchases locked to hardware rather than user accounts. We're finally seeing Nintendo make some concessions with their mobile games; Fire Emblem Heroes is a bog standard F2P gacha game, which is actually a great business decision on their part, because those kinds of games are moneymakers, but slightly disappointing artistically, because gacha games are fairly shallow experiences.

What Nintendo needs to do is find that balance between leading the industry in hardware and software innovation and catching up to what the industry has already accomplished with things like online services.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I was working in video game retail back when the Playstation Now service launched. The consensus about it was that the problem with streaming video games is the problem of time; same problem I had with it.

Movies and TV are linear experiences that are watched from start to finish in one sitting and you can watch many of them in the span of a month. The amount of time it takes to watch a season of Daredevil would not even see you beyond the first couple chapters in an RPG and you might just be getting the hang of many hard-as-nails retro games at this point.

Not all games are story-driven or difficult; some are party games like Mario Kart. Yeah, but if I want to play Mario Kart or Smash Bros with my friends every once in a while, it makes no sense to pay say...9.99 monthly, forever, when I would likely be charged around that price to buy both individually and have them until the end of time without bleeding money each month I don't play it.

Most people also only have the time to focus on one game at a time. You get your money's worth and then move on.

Adults with regular jobs, young families, other hobbies and interests; I've yet to personally meet one of them that felt video-game streaming is worth the expense. A stronger back catalog of games than the competition might see higher subscriber numbers for Nintendo, but I don't see that overcoming the issue of time investment. If you have limited time to play a game, an old one no less, you really are just better off buying it and getting your money's worth out of it at your own pace, without a looming subscription fee giving you access to a ton of games you aren't even playing.

Game streaming could be a good option for parents whose kids like to play a lot of video games in their spare time but rather than fork out 70-90 bucks per game (in Canada) that they'll probably get bored with soon anyway, you could pay 15 a month and give them access to a wide range of games they can get bored of quickly.

They should def do PS+, but Nintendo, though.

[zircon]

Wellll so to be clear, I meant a Netflix / Spotify pricing model but not *streaming*. I don't think streaming makes sense. NES and SNES games are so tiny that imo Nintendo could get away with something like Spotify's offline functionality. You pick the game you want, it downloads (basically instantaneously) and you can play immediately. You must connect to the internet every X days to keep your purchase authorized. Simple.

I don't see how this model could possibly fail them. I think that when it comes to retro gaming, consumers are far more interested in a smorgasbord-style model as opposed to picking one game and playing only that game for a month. That's why all those plug-and-play systems come with lots of games. 

Keep in mind I'm also not suggesting paying $10 for just the retro game library and nothing else. That functionality would be the added value proposition on top of online play, which again, Nintendo is charging for. Keep in mind that Sony and Microsoft already do this, except their extra titles are far more limited for what you pay every month. Nintendo can (and should) offer up their entire library as long as you are subscribed to the service. It's a great way to encourage people to subscribe even if they don't plan on doing a ton of online play.

Imagine! Switch - Not just the best way to play great new games, but also enjoy a massive catalog of classic NES and SNES titles... at home OR portable. Only on Switch.

Done.

[DarkeSword]

I can see that, definitely.

[The Damned]

I get the feeling that Nintendo honestly thinks they know what they're doing with the whole Switch network thing. They don't, but they think they do.

The whole "one free NES or SNES game a month, but then it's gone unless you buy it" thing is an outdated system. And you know those games aren't going to be the top tier game, too. Everyone is going to expect it to be games like Super Mario World or something, but in all likelihood, it's going to be stuff like Alleyway or Duck Hunt.

You know they're going to put all the good games up for sale, because they can make more money that way. Or, at least, they think they can.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at all the stuff you get on PS4 and XB1 for free, and thinking that's a far better deal.

[MindWanderer]

Yeah, they're probably looking at how XBox Live was at launch, where you pay a fee to get basic online features.  They're forgetting that 1) the market has moved on since then, and 2) Nintendo games aren't really about online so much, and paying a fee so you can play just a couple of games online doesn't make much sense.

[zircon]

Right, exactly. I also kinda doubt that their VC sales are going to be very good, given that they have a bad habit of not porting over your previous purchases (at all, or without a fee). Consumers are not going to be interested in paying for the 3rd or 4th time for the same VC game.