Nintendo Switch Topic; #byebyenx

[Sengir]

im glad nintendo has been enlightened as to the joys and pleasures of being a switch


er

i mean

im really excited about this and all but how is portable switch gonna interact with the 3ds? will it interact with the 3ds? i mean obv the 3ds has touchscreen/3d screen (wow 3ds ur mom let u have 2 screens???) and we dont know how shit/great the switch's battery is gonna be but i mean switch + nintendo smartphones could cannibalise 3ds sales. 3ds games library is good but the switch already has wii u + vc (which includes n64, wii, gba, and nds games)

if i was in the market for a 3ds id be seriously reconsidering. afaik there arent any big hitter 3ds games planned for a while, save pokemon

[Goemar]

Even though Nintendo says this isn't a successor to the 3DS... it's the successor to the 3DS...

[Kriven]

Man, I really hope the Switch doesn't end the DS-lineage... that's a whole family of systems with some really great games that the Switch just isn't equipped to emulate.

[Phantom Killah]

I think the Switch isn't the successor to the 3DS the same way the DS wasn't the successor to the GBA

[Koh]

I'm not sure, some of those games worked really well on a dual screen system (forget touch mechanics) where both the screens are right in front of you (Wii U Pad and having to look down...). Like keeping the HUD and interface stuff on the bottom screen, to both keep them out of the play area and also allow you to select menu things in one go, instead of cycling through the options one at a time. If you tried to do this on a single screen, you effectively get half the screen space for the play area.

[Goemar]

I mean... the 3DS has kinda been slowing massively down lately... Game release-wise and sales.
Pokemon seems like it's swan song.

Also half the screen space when the screen is massive, isn't a big issue. Will be a shame to loose the touch-screen (which I'm assuming we are).

[Zero Kirby]

I'm not sure, some of those games worked really well on a dual screen system (forget touch mechanics) where both the screens are right in front of you (Wii U Pad and having to look down...).  Like keeping the HUD and interface stuff on the bottom screen, to both keep them out of the play area and also allow you to select menu things in one go, instead of cycling through the options one at a time.  If you tried to do this on a single screen, you effectively get half the screen space for the play area.

I agree with Goemar in that it's not that big a deal on a big TV screen, and I definitely like it on the teeny-tiny 3DS resolution, but I feel like it was done there more out of necessity than anything. Imagine the whole OoT or Majora HUD crammed into the top screen, I can't see it being anything but pretty cluttered. Xenoblade Chronicles would just be unplayable.

[Koopaul]

@Geomar

About voice chat. Only T for teen games should have voice chat and there rest should be just Friends Only voice chat. Like it or not, a lot of kids play Nintendo games. Splatoon should not have voice chat. Imagine an 8 year old hearing all kinds of abusive language directed at him. Being bullied to the point of tears.

[BullockDS]

Few things to report:

First: First Nintendo Switch Direct Airing on January 12th, 2017. This really seems like they're running down the clock more than necessary for getting relevant info out (this Direct seems to cover launch date, price[s], software, and perhaps specs).

Second: Nintendo Switch has a 6.2" 720p multi-touch screen. This isn't confirmed, but this is Eurogamer and apparently the source of this rumor is the same that provided EG with their on-the-money rumors about the base nature of the Switch, so I'm hopeful.

Finally: Investors Aren't Fans of the Switch. (If you can't read this article, as WSJ is notorious for, I've copied it into the spoiler at the end of this post.) I can understand where they're coming from in terms of the stock success Pokemon GO brought, but it's still disappointing that they're so dead set on Nintendo giving up consoles to go full-force on mobile. PokeGO was a flash in the pan success; I doubt something like Mario Run will come close to emulating that success; one of PokeGO's huge hooks was involving real-life interaction and travel in the proceedings; Mario Run doesn't seem to avail itself to that angle.

I do think that Nintendo is partially to blame for the negative investor reception to the Switch, though, in pushing the reveal off so long (and crucial details even longer). Having info ready earlier would've allowed them to smooth out this exact sort of scenario.

WSJ Article

Nintendo needs to make a switch—and quick.

The Japanese game giant reported dismal results for the six months ending in September, with sales falling by a third while it reported an operating loss. It has also incurred 39.9 billion yen ($383 million) of foreign exchange losses as a stronger yen reduced its overseas sales, which accounted for 71% of the total.

The company only managed to churn out a net profit thanks to a sale of its majority stake in Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners, which netted 62.7 billion yen. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have any more baseball teams to sell.

The good news: Mobile-gaming bets are paying off. Nintendo recorded 12 billion yen of profit from associate companies, mostly attributed to the hugely popular mobile game Pokémon Go, which has only been around for three months. That is equal to three-quarters of Nintendo’s net income for the previous fiscal year. The company owns a 32% stake in Pokémon Company, which co-developed the game with Niantic, a spinoff from Google.

To the annoyance of investors, Nintendo remains focused on consoles—and in a bad way. It revealed its new Switch console last week, which investors hated. The stock has fallen nearly 10% since the announcement. Going against two established console giants, Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox, seems a more foolhardy proposition.

Meanwhile, as the Pokémon Go craze has showed, mobile games are clearly the way forward for the Japanese firm to revive its iconic status in the gaming world. Yet Nintendo has moved slowly. Super Mario, however, will make his highly anticipated arrival on iPhones in December.

Investors keep hoping such disastrous quarterly results will eventually get management to see that Nintendo’s future is more in mobile than consoles. So far, Nintendo is only halfway there.

[Zero Kirby]

Like it or not, a lot of kids play Nintendo games. Imagine an 8 year old hearing all kinds of abusive language directed at him. Being bullied to the point of tears.

Saying this like it's not the eight-year-olds that are hurling said abusive language at their peers

And a lot of kids play T or M-rated games because their parents are dumb. And go on the Internet and trade friend codes on forums and also with "friends of friends who are totally cool man"

I'm not saying it's okay, because I agree with the idea of Friends Only voice chat as long as the friends system isn't too complicated (which was something the Wii U got right, to be fair), I'm just saying that eight-year-old kids could be themselves capable of said bullying and that the Friends Only voice chat isn't a perfect system. Kids will find a way around it, and parents should be watching kids that young whenever they're interacting with other people over the Internet and educating them on the risks of doing so. While Nintendo should have a moderation system I don't think they should be held personally responsible for voice chat abuse in their games, especially considering how common it is in modern games and applications. That'd be like saying it's the VG Resource's fault somebody insulted me in a topic or something.

(As I recall, the popular and online-community-friendly Animal Crossing: City Folk was one of the rare Nintendo games that had voice chat... as was Metroid Prime: Hunters, and it was very easy for me to trade friend codes in that game with absolute strangers when I was younger. I actually got in trouble for it, too.)

[Goemar]

@Geomar

About voice chat. Only T for teen games should have voice chat and there rest should be just Friends Only voice chat. Like it or not, a lot of kids play Nintendo games. Splatoon should not have voice chat. Imagine an 8 year old hearing all kinds of abusive language directed at him. Being bullied to the point of tears.

That's why I said system-based voice chat, not game voice chat. Meaning it would be a separate app where you would have to invite people into the room.

You know, like every other console has...

[Jermungandr]

First: First Nintendo Switch Direct Airing on January 12th, 2017. This really seems like they're running down the clock more than necessary for getting relevant info out (this Direct seems to cover launch date, price[s], software, and perhaps specs).

I think the timing makes sense. If they were to advertise the games now or any time up through December, not only would it distract people from buying their Christmas season games (which appears to be only Paper Mario and Pokemon), but stupid people would assume these titles will be available for Christmas and throw tantrums when they can't find the games. The last thing Nintendo needs is people bitching about their games.

And yes, these types of people do exist, believe it or not, and there are a LOT of them. Working retail around the holidays is not a very fun experience.

[Koh]

I'm not saying it's okay, because I agree with the idea of Friends Only voice chat as long as the friends system isn't too complicated (which was something the Wii U got right, to be fair), I'm just saying that eight-year-old kids could be themselves capable of said bullying and that the Friends Only voice chat isn't a perfect system. Kids will find a way around it, and parents should be watching kids that young whenever they're interacting with other people over the Internet and educating them on the risks of doing so. While Nintendo should have a moderation system I don't think they should be held personally responsible for voice chat abuse in their games, especially considering how common it is in modern games and applications. That'd be like saying it's the VG Resource's fault somebody insulted me in a topic or something.

You'd be surprised how many people actually have that mindset.  Like for example, if a Youtuber who has a fair amount of subscribers decides to do a debunking reply video to whomever, to refute the claims made by someone else in another video, some people actually think that the heavy backlash against the second person is the fault of the first person, and that they incited harassment.  Even if all the first person does is just simply debunk the second person's talking points.

As for voice chat itself, I'm honestly not sure of the need for it at this point.  Don't people just use middleware by this point?  Skype, Discord, and so on, it's really not that hard to make a group wherever and start a voice chat these days.

[Zero Kirby]

You'd be surprised how many people actually have that mindset.  Like for example, if a Youtuber who has a fair amount of subscribers decides to do a debunking reply video to whomever, to refute the claims made by someone else in another video, some people actually think that the heavy backlash against the second person is the fault of the first person, and that they incited harassment.  Even if all the first person does is just simply debunk the second person's talking points.

Nah, I know there's a lot of people out there like that. It just so happens a lot of them will probably happen to be neglectful parents of young children who happen to hear naughty words for the five seconds they care to peek in on their precious little bundle of joy they let Nintendo babysit for them.

[Jermungandr]

You know something that I couldn't help but notice with the Switch reveal? It's not something that bothers me per se, but ... something about it struck me as kind of odd.

You remember when the Wii was just coming on the market? Nintendo's mantra for the device, according the the late Iwata, was to "create a device even mothers would want to play". Their advertisements would show everyone from young children to parents to even the elderly playing the console. It was clearly being marketed as a device for everybody ... which was a marketing plan that really worked out for them.

So I find it a bit interesting that this new device seems to be specifically being marketed to young adults. Everyone shown playing the device in the video appears to be between the age of 18-25. There's no kids, no teens, no parents.

I find this particularly odd because ... this device seems perfect for today's children specifically. I don't know how much you guys pay attention to the little kids around you, but portable tablet style gaming is all the rage amongst that demographic. I always see kids constantly distracted by them while out and about shopping with their parents or going to fast food restaurants or whatever. Even at home kids these days tend to choose using tablets over playing games on TVs or PCs. So why aren't they targeting them at all with the portable aspect of this device?

I'm not trying to complain or anything ... it just struck me as weird strategically.