*** Nintendo Switch ***

[fez]

People said that with the NES, SNES and Wii too. For a company that is run on luck (your words) they sure do have a lot of it.
They are releasing as many games as their competitors, if not more id say, you may not like those games but you can't turn around and say they don't have a vast catalogue.

Did they? The NES and SNES were pretty vanilla consoles for the time. The Wii was absolutely massive and sold a tonne and was successful from the start. I didn't say they have always been run on luck but they cocked up with the Wii U and didn't seem to have any real faith in the Switch. This is pretty clear from their desire to show off games that they thought would give the console some momentum. Games that they hadn't even begun to actually develop in any capacity. Where is MP4 and Bayonetta 3?

They basically put the console out and hoped it would do better than the Wii U which it did. When that happened they scrambled to get some new games out and put everything that didn't sell that well on the Wii U on the Switch. They have then rested on their laurels. They put out an online service that was (and still is crap). We didn't even have cloud saves for a few years. The OS is still fantastically basic and not as good as the Wii. They finished the last proper Zelda game over 4 and a half years ago now and the new one which is going to lean very heavily on the old engine, assets and game world is still ~1.5 years away. The last main Mario game was over 4 years ago now and no word on a new one. MK8 is a 7 year old game and there is no suggestion that they will release 9 on this generation or any time soon.

Nothing about Nintendos actions smacks of a company that wants to deliver the best experience for their customers. Outside of a few first part titles, all my favourite games on the Switch have been indie games and ports. What does that say about Nintendos output for the Switch. They are perfectly happy to let the system sell in its millions each year and do as little as possible to achieve that. You might be happy with that but I would prefer them to put more effort in and give us more AAA games from their main franchises.

What other consoles have been relying on lazy ports of their old games to fill gaps in the calendar. "Wow, have one of the weakest Zelda games in the series that we have already sold you twice and we have done almost nothing to make it any better". "Here, have 3 Mario games spanning 25 years with almost 0 QoL updates or improvements for full price". At least with Links awakening they redid the whole game in a new art style.

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Did they? The NES and SNES were pretty vanilla consoles for the time. Where is MP4 and Bayonetta 3?

How quickly people forget.
If you think the NES and SNES were vanilla consoles for the time, you either a) weren't around in that era, or b) have no idea about the history of those machines. The NES came out during the huge gaming crash for a start!

You know Bayonetta 3 is still in production right? This has been confirmed by Nate Bihldorff a mere two days ago.

What other consoles have been relying on lazy ports of their old games to fill gaps in the calendar.

all of them!

 

[fez]

You know Bayonetta 3 is still in production right? This has been confirmed by Nate Bihldorff a mere two days ago.

So is MP4...

We still haven't heard anything about them beyond "yes they are still a thing" in just over 4 years. They ain't coming out any time soon.

all of them!

What, for the past 3+ years? Most other consoles have a load of yearly staples that people can rely on and then usually quite a lot of other games that come around every 3-4 years and then some other new IP.

Either way, its clear we disagree that Nintendo have been lazy and have put in the bare minimum.

 

[Simmz]

Will keep an eye on this.

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

That last part us silly. I've swapped from a Switch to a lite so the hours played data resets. So doesn't really mean anything.

I didn't realise that the play data reset. Were you able to transfer your save data? Was that via the Nintendo account or via SD card?

 

[steve5424]

I didn't realise that the play data reset. Were you able to transfer your save data? Was that via the Nintendo account or via SD card?

I transferred my save data using the account cloud saves. But Pokemon is one that doesn't cloud save so had to start again.

 

[petridish]

On the topic of Nintendo being lazy vs people enjoying Wii U ports, I'm firmly on the positive side. Call me a fan boy (or worse if you like) but I'm a sucker for first party Nintendo games no matter if they're ports from a console I never owned or not. I'd take them over another iteration of FIFA/COD/whatever the other consoles do so well any day.

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

^^ I agree on first party Nintendo. I've been enjoying the Mario ports (Galaxy and 3D World + Bowser's Fury) and now I'm collecting the moons on Mario Odyssey which was a fresh title I think. I haven't 100% any Mario game yet, so that's where the real challenge begins.

I quite enjoyed Super Mario Party as well. People said it was lazy because it only contained 4 boards, but I liked that it went back to the oldskool format as opposed to Mario Party 10 etc.

I'm looking forwards to the new Mario Party Superstars (due 29.Oct.2021) even though I know it will only be a "best of" compilation game. It will just be good to be able to play it as a Switch game.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

I am somewhere in the middle. I think that Nintendo have been a bit lazy, and also possibly very, very, caught out by the pandemic given how much Dev for them is done in Japan still. Western companies have adapted to work from home much better than Japan and that has slowed Dev work considerably. It wouldn't surprise me if there were multiple titles planned for this year that just haven't arrived and are another 6-12 months plus out due to that hit.

In a way this highlights why it is so important Nintendo diversifies and partners or even buys overseas developer third parties in Europe, America etc as it will stop a hit like this happening again. Maybe they have already taken that onboard but it's too late to resolve the hit they've taken now.

I can't really blame them for the ports though considering how few people actually bought Wii U (I did but I am very much a minority). I do think those ports should be a little cheaper though unless they bring considerable new content.

This said much as I love Switch, Nintendo are still very behind on online (as highlighted by the poor wireless chip in the Switch, they seemingly didn't realise how important this would be overseas), and they charge a hefty premium at times. Now I understand there is a higher cost of manufacture for the cartridges but that cost is definately being passed to the customer.

I am really hoping for a Switch Pro though as the Switch genuinely brings opportunities and options the other consoles don't have, it's just looking decidedly hardware performance limited now which is definately impacting which third party titles can come to the system, no matter whether Devs want to do it, and as has been proven before, they console will hurt badly if it doesn't have a steady release window that appeals to a wide demographic. It's no good if a user only has a few games a year he is interested in release.

 

[Kenai]

I'm in the 'happy with what's being delivered' camp - I haven't had a (home) Nintendo console since the Gamecube and so picking up a raft of Wii / Wii U ports is actually quite nice to catch up on a few games I may have missed out on. Skyward Sword for example, quite looking forward to giving that a play through.

For nostalgic purposes i'd also actually be quite happy to see some more older classics - i'd be straight in for a purchase of a Zelda collection if they threw in stuff like Ocarina, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker etc. a bit like the recent Mario compilation.

I can certainly see the perspective of laziness though, it's not been a rollercoaster ride of smashing out new decent first party games. However thinking back to my Gamecube - were they really outputting all that much more first party quality back then? You had your standard issue of Mario/Zelda, Mario spin offs, Pikmin, Metroid and Star Fox but what else directly from Nintendo? I can't think of much. The approach they've taken with the Switch seems par for the course I think, maybe with a bit more reliance on ports than new development?

 

[Kreeeee]

I'm in the 'happy with what's being delivered' camp - I haven't had a (home) Nintendo console since the Gamecube and so picking up a raft of Wii / Wii U ports is actually quite nice to catch up on a few games I may have missed out on. Skyward Sword for example, quite looking forward to giving that a play through.

For nostalgic purposes i'd also actually be quite happy to see some more older classics - i'd be straight in for a purchase of a Zelda collection if they threw in stuff like Ocarina, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker etc. a bit like the recent Mario compilation.

I can certainly see the perspective of laziness though, it's not been a rollercoaster ride of smashing out new decent first party games. However thinking back to my Gamecube - were they really outputting all that much more first party quality back then? You had your standard issue of Mario/Zelda, Mario spin offs, Pikmin, Metroid and Star Fox but what else directly from Nintendo? I can't think of much. The approach they've taken with the Switch seems par for the course I think, maybe with a bit more reliance on ports than new development?

They have simultaneously merged their handheld and console teams and significantly dropped output so something is amiss.

 

[dragonslayer]

Everyone's moaning about the lack of games coming from Nintendo then there's me sat over here wishing they'd make more than just Zelda/ Mario games since they have such s huge catalogue of characters they could choose from yet they only focus on a handful at best and just constantly release games based on them

 

[Kreeeee]

Everyone's moaning about the lack of games coming from Nintendo then there's me sat over here wishing they'd make more than just Zelda/ Mario games since they have such s huge catalogue of characters they could choose from yet they only focus on a handful at best and just constantly release games based on them

Both groups want the same thing, a wide variety of new games.

For example, why is there a remake of Advance Wars when they could have made a new entry? Why push out a buggier version of Pikmin 3 with flawed controls instead of Pikmin 4? Where is F-Zero?

 

[steve5424]

I wish they'd make a new F-Zero game.

 

[petridish]

I wish they'd make a new F-Zero game.

I agree. I'm surprised they haven't, the time is right surely? With MK getting long in the tooth it would fill that racer gap whilst also being open to motion controls (as they love to do). Just a remake of GX would go down well with me.

 

[malachi]

Look how Starfox Zero turned out. They dont want to make the same mistake with F-Zero.

I still play F-Zero GX now with the AX mod. Only way I can get my fix.

 

[petridish]

Look how Starfox Zero turned out. They dont want to make the same mistake with F-Zero.

I still play F-Zero GX now with the AX mod. Only way I can get my fix.

What's that mod? AX was the arcade machine version was it not?

 

[malachi]

What's that mod? AX was the arcade machine version was it not?

Yep, I do it a different way but you unlock it using the Action Replay or Gameshark.

 

[Gengar]

Look how Starfox Zero turned out. They dont want to make the same mistake with F-Zero.

I still play F-Zero GX now with the AX mod. Only way I can get my fix.

What was wrong with Starfox Zero? I thought it was alright - not amazing but still decent. There have been worse Zelda's for example but that franchise has always bounced back!
There are many games in Nintendo's library due an update. It is frightening really what they could release VS what they actually release. I mean, where is a Pilotwings? (not including Pilotwings resort on the 3DS)

 

[malachi]

What was wrong with Starfox Zero? I thought it was alright - not amazing but still decent. There have been worse Zelda's for example but that franchise has always bounced back!

The awkward controls.