Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Nintendo: General Discussion
Comments
-
There are deals on Switch lite's now and again. About 170 for one delivered from Amazon DE a couple of weeks ago for example. But I think the regular Switch is a better bet. Anyway ... apart from that ... there are hardly ever any deals on Nintendo first party anything, especially since they are doing so well right now. There are no stock shortages, so don't jump to buying one because of FOMO. Maybe last year, now and again. But not now. I'd say there will be a hardware revision or a new model announced by the end of this year. BOTW2 release date will probably be announced with new hardware to go with that. Sounds like you're not a big Nintendo fan, since you've held out this long
... But you are missing some brilliant first party Nintendo exclusive games. I'd say something big will be announced for virtual E3 this year. Nintendo/MS/Sony will all be having a big pissing contest round about then. So you could wait until end of June and see what happens ... 0 -
-
-
-
Join Date:Posts: 10328
Not really. The Tegra X1 at the heart of the Switch is seriously starting to show its age. It's a six year old SOC that's been downclocked for battery and thermal reasons. New release games are bringing it to its knees, and devs are having to turn off/down many details just to hit 30fps (and lower in some cases).
An up to date Tegra would boost graphical ability (nvidia are doing wonderful things with tensor cores and dlss), reduce thermal output helping a new switch keep cooler, increase power efficiency thus improving battery life significantly, and sell continued appeal to devs and publishers that the Switch is a great place to represent their games.
The fact the Switch has been pushed this far is very impressive, and it doesn't need to compete with ps5 and xsx....but sub HD resolutions and at 30fps or less in the year 2021, I think a hardware refresh would be a great idea.
It might be a great idea from certain perspectives, but I don't think it's needed:
a) the Switch is outselling every Nintendo console so far except the Wii, at 4 years into its lifespan.
b) the Switch was rushed out by Nintendo as a response to the Wii U's failure, 4 years after its release.
c) the Wii had a lifespan of ~7 years and is the nearest equivalently successful Nintendo console.
d) the last 4 Nintendo home consoles have been underpowered compared to the equivalent MS or Sony offerings.
I bet Nintendo are working out what the Switch's successor will be, but I don't think they'll want to put a halt to Switch sales at a bumper time by announcing new hardware, unless that's how they plan to mitigate the whole joycon drift issue.
Of course, this is all one random internet guy's opinion, so I might be totally wrong 0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
It might be a great idea from certain perspectives, but I don't think it's needed:
a) the Switch is outselling every Nintendo console so far except the Wii, at 4 years into its lifespan.
b) the Switch was rushed out by Nintendo as a response to the Wii U's failure, 4 years after its release.
c) the Wii had a lifespan of ~7 years and is the nearest equivalently successful Nintendo console.
d) the last 4 Nintendo home consoles have been underpowered compared to the equivalent MS or Sony offerings.
I bet Nintendo are working out what the Switch's successor will be, but I don't think they'll want to put a halt to Switch sales at a bumper time by announcing new hardware, unless that's how they plan to mitigate the whole joycon drift issue.
Of course, this is all one random internet guy's opinion, so I might be totally wrong
I feel they absolutely do need to, 2021 is going to be a big sales year for PlayStation and Xbox. I totally get Nintendo aren't competing in tech specs, but they do need to stay relevant for buyers, and they also need to be able to provide a platform where publishers will want to bring their games (note the Wii U 3rd party disaster). Up to now, the Switch has enjoyed a lot of well earned success, but as developers are now shifting to mainstream development for consoles with 8 cores and 16GB ram, Ray tracing, 4k resolutions, etc etc all as a baseline....the Switch is a total dead duck in comparison. As I say its been OK up until now, but another year or 18 months won't be kind to 6 year old tablet hardware.
There are also two elephants in the room that haven't been mentioned yet: piracy and emulation. Brand new releases are being emulated before they even hit store shelves....the Tegra X1 is so well documented that it is a coders dream. This, is bad for business, especially if a publisher is paying through the nose for publish on the Switch.
Secondly, the piracy problems remains. Yes the Lite and Mariko units have hardware patched the current exploit, but if I'm a publisher, I'm not going to bet on the protection lasting.
It's definitely time for a hardware refresh, preferably one compatible with existing software.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 10328
Piracy and emulation will always be a problem, and requiring backward compatibility on a system with incrementally increased performance is the sort of thing that often leads to exploits that enable emulation and/or piracy. The question is, will enough otherwise-lost business be gained/retained by pursuing this specific approach to justify the investment? Only Nintendo can answer that as only they know the business plan and roadmap. It's not just a Nintendo problem either - look how fast Denuvo gets cracked on PC releases. (Side note: I have mixed feelings re emulation in part because on the one hand it can enable piracy but on the other hand it can also enable preservation efforts).
As for the AAA shinies...yes, Nintendo is being better about 3rd party support than they have in the past. But if you're buying a Nintendo game just for 3rd party titles, you're kind of missing a trick and Nintendo aren't going to care if your experience is less good than with those titles on other platforms. They want to sell you their hardware and as many premium price 1st party games as they possibly can. I imagine that whatever infra has been put in place to support streaming in the likes of Control or Hitman is the Nintendo answer to "but our game is straining the hardware, give us more power".
Again, i might be completely wrong, this is just my speculation etc 0 -
As for the AAA shinies...yes, Nintendo is being better about 3rd party support than they have in the past. But if you're buying a Nintendo game just for 3rd party titles, you're kind of missing a trick and Nintendo aren't going to care if your experience is less good than with those titles on other platforms. They want to sell you their hardware and as many premium price 1st party games as they possibly can. I imagine that whatever infra has been put in place to support streaming in the likes of Control or Hitman is the Nintendo answer to "but our game is straining the hardware, give us more power".
I would have completely agreed with this before but I'm not so sure anymore. I think the wiiU (and the wii tbh - wasn't that the most owned console, with the least owned games or something like that? Makes it easier for people outside the core buyers to break away then I think) has badly scarred Nintendo in regards to not having the 3rd party support in addition to their own library.
That BOTW came out at the end of its life probably skewers the perception a bit - if it was a launch game maybe history would have been very different - but really the libraries from wiiU to Switch are almost identical, admittedly with Odyssey and Animal Crossing which are big pulls. I think the major difference does seem to be the handheld draw obviously but that definitely links in to being able to play 3rd party games - Witcher, Dead Souls, Doom etc - on the go. And equally if 3rd party games are being ported at a good rate and good quality, and again offering a portable mode which nobody else is - it takes a lot of pressure off ninty to keep bringing out their own releases. Like atm I'm feeling Nintendo don't have much to show, but I'm thinking now this is also cos they're running low on ports. Can't think of the last big one tbh, Doom Eternal I guess?
I think there's been a good few people who've bought a Switch to play their favourite 3rd party game handheld honestly. If Nintendo kind of ignore that I think they're mad tbh. If a more powerful Switch came out and it ran Death Stranding, I'd be in like Flynn Nintendo games are great but there are some very, very good 3rd party ones out there also imo. If ninty have the market to themselves for people to play these on the go...*ker-ching* 0 -
Advertisement
-
Join Date:Posts: 10328
I might be wrong but IIRC Nintendo have made a point of always making a profit on the hardware they sell, which is part of why they had a fractious relationship with 3rd party devs in the past. I got the impression that the underperformance of the GC drove an improvement of this relationship for the Wii, but if Nintendo's making money on the hardware and 1st party games there's less pressure to license devs to release on their platform as a revenue source for them, which means less pressure to accede to demands from those devs around design & performance.
The wii u's failure is down to a bunch of things, I think - a dumb name that suggested it was an iteration of the Wii rather than a new system, plus a marketing pitch that was muddied, and then the sky-high expectation of following Nintendo's all time best selling console. But a console geared around asymmetric multiplayer with a massive controller that's also kind of the console is a weird offering, and the lack of a clear offering that could only be played on the Wii U's hardware setup made it difficult. I only got to play one once at a games night, but I thought it worked really well for asymmetric multiplayer on games like Luigi's Mansion or Mario Kart - just not enough for me to want one for myself. A great console for one of your pals to own, though
0 -
The Switch is what the Wii U should have been but maybe the hardware wasn't capable of at the time.I might be wrong but IIRC Nintendo have made a point of always making a profit on the hardware they sell, which is part of why they had a fractious relationship with 3rd party devs in the past. I got the impression that the underperformance of the GC drove an improvement of this relationship for the Wii, but if Nintendo's making money on the hardware and 1st party games there's less pressure to license devs to release on their platform as a revenue source for them, which means less pressure to accede to demands from those devs around design & performance.
The wii u's failure is down to a bunch of things, I think - a dumb name that suggested it was an iteration of the Wii rather than a new system, plus a marketing pitch that was muddied, and then the sky-high expectation of following Nintendo's all time best selling console. But a console geared around asymmetric multiplayer with a massive controller that's also kind of the console is a weird offering, and the lack of a clear offering that could only be played on the Wii U's hardware setup made it difficult. I only got to play one once at a games night, but I thought it worked really well for asymmetric multiplayer on games like Luigi's Mansion or Mario Kart - just not enough for me to want one for myself. A great console for one of your pals to own, though0 -
Piracy and emulation will always be a problem, and requiring backward compatibility on a system with incrementally increased performance is the sort of thing that often leads to exploits that enable emulation and/or piracy.
Things have long since moved on since that was correct. Piracy is not a problem on the Xbox One nor PS4, both 8 years old at this stage. There have been a handful of PS4 exploits, but they're patched extremely quickly, and Sony are very much on top of things with their bug bounty program. Similarly, there have been no mainstream exploits whatsoever of Xbox One hardware/software. It's not a problem because both Sony & MS have GREATLY stepped up their game in terms of console security. Further, there are no public emulators of the PS4 (there is a private PS4 emulator in early development, but again, we're talking about 8 year old architecture here), and as far as I know, there are no Xbox One emulators whatsoever. Microsoft have played a genuine ace card with their GamePass model, in conjunction with a sandboxed developer mode.....this kills outright the "lets hack it to be able to do things with it" mindeset - you're ALLOWED to do things with it from the get-go, in a safe, controlled environment. No motivation, no hacks.
Backwards compatibility leading to vulnerabilities, hmm, yeah, maybe in the past, but not anymore really. Both Sony and MS have a backwards compatibility approach which ensures any previous-gen content that's running, is running very far away from root level. It's all heavily sandboxed, and when done properly, stands the test of time as we've seen with the previous gen (and indeed is also in operation now with the modern/current gen machines). It's not a concern with modern console security, and even if it is, an overnight patch/update resolves it.It's not just a Nintendo problem either - look how fast Denuvo gets cracked on PC releases.
Denuvo is a completely different kettle of fish. It's an invasive, borderline malicious piece of code that not only is forced upon legitimate paying customers, but objectively harms performance of the games it is infected with. It's seen now almost as a 'white hat' service to defeat it, and comes with some acclaim in doing so.
Piracy on the PC side of things was by and large heavily impacted by independent ecosystems in direct competition with each other. Steam, GoG, Epic, and so on....whatever a persons thoughts on cheaper games, it has one huge benefit in discouraging piracy. I haven't pirated a PC game in what must seems like the guts of 15 years....there's really no need to these days.As for the AAA shinies...yes, Nintendo is being better about 3rd party support than they have in the past. But if you're buying a Nintendo game just for 3rd party titles, you're kind of missing a trick and Nintendo aren't going to care if your experience is less good than with those titles on other platforms. They want to sell you their hardware and as many premium price 1st party games as they possibly can. I imagine that whatever infra has been put in place to support streaming in the likes of Control or Hitman is the Nintendo answer to "but our game is straining the hardware, give us more power".
Again, i might be completely wrong, this is just my speculation etc
I wouldn't deride the progression of video game tech is 'shinies'. Of course, great grpahics does not equate to a great game (far from it), but the industry is moving towards 4k resolutions, super fast NVME based storage, minimum frame rates of 60 (thanks be to jesus, it's 2021 ffs), and so forth. They're not just marketing gimmicks, they're going to be the baseline.....and I mean that, I'll say it again, these are going to be the baseline - not for e-peens, but for developers and publishers. This isn't years away either, the current gen consoles have that very hardware inside of them....and the games, starting now, are going to reflect that.
Nintendo don't need to compete with those specs, not in the handheld space they're in....but they still need to remain relevant in the wider discussion. I couldn't care less whether the next Switch variant can offer 4k resolution, what I DO care about though, are frame rates chugging to N64 levels of slideshows/security camera footage. That's unacceptable, and we're not even talking about third party devs unfamiliar with the hardware....some of Nintendo's OWN games are doing this, and it's a simple matter of horsepower (as we've seen mildly overclocked Switch's being much more capable).
Nintendo's own software has always been the big seller on their hardware (well not always, but in modern times it has), and yes, you don't buy a Switch to play modern AAA multi-plat games (there's evidence this COULD change though)....but Nintendo still need to sell hardware in order to sell software. The Switch is currently on parity with roughly 7th gen hardware, and we're now seeing 9th gen machines out there. I'd say late this year would be a nice time to drop the Switch Plus0 -
Join Date:Posts: 10328
I think at this point we're reaching "agree to disagree" territory
Interesting points re emulation and vulnerabilities on the PS4 & XB1, I wasn't aware they had improved so much in recent years. Will be intrigued to see what path Nintendo pursue.0 -
I think at this point we're reaching "agree to disagree" territory
Lol, agreed....this came to mind actually
Interesting points re emulation and vulnerabilities on the PS4 & XB1, I wasn't aware they had improved so much in recent years. Will be intrigued to see what path Nintendo pursue.
They've been burned on the Wii, Wii U, and Switch....all relatively shortly into their respective lifespans (the Switch ridiculously so). I sincerely hope they get their act together in this regard. I'm a huge proponent of emulation, but when you're emulating games that aren't on shelves yet, there's something seriously wrong. I tend to stick to much older generations when emulating, it dangerously blurs the line between enthusiast and pirate when discussing current gen emulation.0 -
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
Advertisement