Nintendo Switch - March 3 2017 - $US299 - $AU469.95 RRP

This pretty much.

My full gripe with Nintendo is the shitty launch titles as I have mentioned. The only reason I am getting it at launch, is because Zelda in terms of immersion and nostaglia would rank well within my top 5 games of all time (especially the Ocarina of time, wow.)

I can already forsee than their lineup of games for 2017 is looking very flaccid. Honestly, if it wasn't for Zelda in this launch, the console would be dead before it launched, without a doubt.

 

Nope. Not me. 3ds is the last Nintendo we have here. This switch, it's whole "thing" is what I do not want. Just make a damn console Nintendo. A tablet with dongle controllers is hardly portable. I'm also not a Zelda fan at all, never played any of them.

There has to be a reason the mini nes sold out. Nintendo is probably still trying to figure that one out as there is no gimmick to it. They've become quite a laughable company to me now, Nin-Gimmick.

 

would be interesting if they released a "switch home" that was more like a shield tv, make it a bit cheaper by ditching the battery and screen.

Then up sell people with the option of flexibility.

 

I'd be up for this. The likelihood of me actually traveling and gaming is quite low. I would much prefer to play Zelda on a big screen than a handheld, but that's just me.

Having said that, I've not ever really tried a 3DS and it might be a good experience. I've just never been comfortable playing a game other than tetris on such a small screen.

 

Ocarina of Time is excellent on 3ds, mario maker and super smash have 3DS versions too

 

Ten year old game with some mods looks better than new nintendo console.. Sad!

I was really worried for Nintendo as I knew the wiiu would flop, and felt they really needed to come out with a powerful console, the fact xbox and ps4 are basically PC hardware now (cheap) means no excuse as far as I'm concerned.. they should have been able to release a console which can run ALL third party game, but they choose to go a gimmicky route. But even if you only play nintendo (first party) games, it's really slim pickings... The only thing worth looking at is Zelda, and even that looks bland. Terrible pop in and fog and just a real lack of life int he world. It looks boring and desolate in the open world.

I could forgive the gimmicky nature of the console if it had the games to back it up but it seems like they've gone full kid zone. Nintendo was always geared to games for younger people so I really shouldn't be surprised I guess. Although I suppose the thing that DOES surprise me is how many adults are seemingly hyped by this thing? I don't have kids so maybe that's why they're excited? Because they can get it for their kids? I don't get it.

The inevitable future is nintendo becomes a 3rd party developer for Sony. Switch just sped it up even further.

 

Okay Donald

 

You seem to know more than Nintendo and their advisors, you should send in your resume for a job, they probably would have loved to know the Wii U would flop before investing in the R & D.

On a serious note, Nintendo don't want or need to compete with Sony/MS, why do you think we need another box identical to the other two?

Nintendo, as they always do, try different things, they gave up on the power wars years ago and wont be going that way any time soon.

Also, Mario looks fine, not everything needs to be super realistic with state of the art graphics, as long as it looks nice (which Nintendo's style always does) and the game is good it will be fine.

 

This has been my opinion on gaming since forever. I'm no graphics whore, and never have been. I don't play games for realism - they're games. I'll take stylised art any day over hyper-realistic graphics.

I've been playing games a long time - longer than most folks on these forums have been alive. I'd rather a smooth game that lets me enjoy the limits of the game engine and story that is put forward any day over and above hyped up graphics.

There's always whining about consoles and their limited resolution (constant complaints that some game only renders internally at a given resolution and upscales). I genuinely don't care. If the input is smooth and I can enjoy the title, the rest is a total moot point to me.

I think the problem is the vocal minority. You've got a handful of rich kids spending their parent's money on ridiculously specced gaming rigs that are totally unaffordable to 99% of the general public, bitching that they've got nothing to demonstrate the upper bounds of their 4K 144FPS gaming monster. And while I'd love for that to be the visual standard for all, the fact remains that graphics have never in the entire history of gaming been the only reason you'd want to play a game. We've all played stuff that's pretty but boring, and stuff that's ugly but fun. (Resisting the urge to talk about some of my ex girlfriends here too).

But anyway, that will never change. Not for all my ranting here, nor for common sense videos like the ones linked. There'll always be the petulant brats of every generation who want it all, and disregard the reality of achieving that commercially. They're welcome to their fantasy land.

 

You didn't have to be a genius to know it was going to fail hard.

The reality is, yes, of course they are competing! They are competing for consumers money. If what you said were true, why is Skyrim being promoted so heavily for the switch?

Take RDR2 for example. It's going to mean I have to buy a console because I don't want to wait for a possible PC release to play such an awesome game. So now I have to choose between xbox or PS4. I'd much rather buy the Nintendo if it was capable of playing the game, because I could then access all of their first party content (even if the launch titles are lackluster), but of course it won't be powerful enough. As I mentioned above, they are all now x86 hardware.. no excuse not to produce a powerful cost effective console. They've tried to combine the DS with the console and it's just a hot mess.

They haven't 'always' tried different things. The SNES was a standard iteration on the NES, so was the was N64 and even the gamecube. The wii was the first time they tried something different with it's motion controls, but even then it was still a pretty standard console. It was vastly under powered compared to it's rivals, but was hugely successful because of it's gimmicky controls which worked well at parties. The Wiiu failed because they kept the under powered console and failed to distinguish it from the Wii to all of the casual gamers who originally bought the wii, so they lost that market.

If you took away those impulse casual gamers who bought the wii, it would not have done anywhere near as well as it did, which is evident with the wiiu. A severe lack of high quality games and an inability to play cross platform 3rd party titles kept the older nintendo fans away.

And it's sad to see nothings changed. They are pegging their hopes on the kids market but for the same amount of money a parent could buy an ipad.. what do yo think most kids would go for?

 

I totally agree, it was destined to fail from the day it was announced.

Nintendo have a real issue with messaging and differentiating product they do almost the exact same thing with the 3DS line, frankly I'm amazed it hasn't hurt them more there too.

At least the Switch has people talking about Nintendo again - WiiU had 0 buzz.

 

The second Nintendo get their shit together with an online store, unified Nintendo account, allowing me to log in, see my shit I bought over 10 years ago & play it... basically, STEAMTENDO is what I'm after... that's when they'll get a dollar out of me next.

 

Hindsight is great like that, it may not have been to your taste or even my own, but I sure didn't see it failing as bad as it did, as I would guess none of you saw the original Wii being so successful.

They compete in the same way as all gaming systems (3DS, Vita, Phones, Xbox, PS, etc) all compete but Nintendo aren't trying to be PC's in a black box, nor should they imo.

You basically said what I was saying, Nintendo haven't gone after the traditional console market (bigger, better, faster, etc) since the GCN, that was the last system that was a high powered traditional console. It failed, they moved the sights to becoming different and finding new market grounds.

They are pegging their hopes on kids, casuals and the mobile gaming market. You have to remember, they are Japanese company and handhelds are king there. Not to mention, the amount of interest in the system is high, who wouldn't want a hand held Nintendo system that can plug into the TV at home.

The concept is sound, their paid online service and app is stupid, the poor launch lineup is stupid and the marketing team is a bit stupid.

The thing will sell well though, all I want from Nintendo is the Wii U with their awesome games that I can take with me, looks like they listened to the majority of their market.

 

I have sympathy for Nintendo. They've done a good job to date of making products for younger players, which despite OCAU's venom is still a valid market. The challenge they face is making tools available that adult gamers expect as default (online, stores, chat, etc) and not putting younger gamers at risk.

There's video floating around of Nintendo's parental controls, which demonstrates some of what they're doing.

But, again, consider that Steam, XBox Live, PSN, and even goddamn Facebook and the Apple Appstore are all "13 years or older" by policy. What exactly is left for the sub-13 year old market?

This isn't an easy problem to solve. I know a lot of households that avoid any sort of gaming because they have young children. As a parent with two kids at home under 10, my life is a constant battle of online monitoring and watching over what they do as gamers. I'm not complaining about that per se (I chose to have kids, so that's my duty which I accepted as part of the deal), but when I was a kid my parent's responsibility was far less "permanently hands on", as they could control what games I bought at that age, and no longer had to watch my every move when all I had was a Sega Master System and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog.

At some point, I would like to be able to let my kids play games without having to watch them do it for the hours that they do, in the concern that they'll be exposed to some douche via in-game chat. It's less about the games, and more about the dickheads on the other end of the Internet connection (and I dunno if you've checked, but there's a lot of dickheads on the Internet).

Likewise when the NES Mini / NES Classic came out, everyone complained about no online, no e-Store. But hell, I totally get why Nintendo just didn't bother, for something that was really destined to replicate the original NES experience, right down to the lack of any Internet connectivity or concern for what goes along with that (and in the process, made something in very high demand for parents to give their kids, and not worry about them playing unsupervised for 10 minutes).

So sure, I want a Nintendo account with online battles and an e-Store, but I also want there to be at least one option in the gaming market that doesn't have a self-imposed age restriction of 13 for *ALL* services. Does that mean Nintendo need to give up on gamers 13 and over? I dunno. But clearly it's not an easy problem to solve. I'm sure the armchair experts here all disagree, but I don't see any of them running their own multi-million dollar gaming company either.

Yes, and often forgotten fact. Japan still sees a huge chunk of their population commuting by train for several hours every day. Many gamers there quite literally only play while commuting (they don't have consoles or gaming PCs at home, as often they don't even have the space). That's still a huge market, even in just one country.

Like it or not, Nintendo is still *very* Japanese.

 

I think the big issue with Nintendo is that they are a hardcore Japanese company. Nintendo of America does what it can with what it gets, but I always got the impression Nintendo couldn't give a shit about the western markets as long as they are popular in Japan, and Japan is a VERY different market. It will probably sell well there.

 

Some people even play 3DS whilst riding their bicycles.

 

Hahaha lawds, and I thought headphone wearing millennials with their noses stuck in their phones crossing the road without looking were enough of a drama.

 

I'd have liked to have seen the price point in the $350-$380 region but I'm a sucker and I always purchase consoles on release day so this won't be any different.

I assume we'll start seeing bundles getting sold pretty quick, like a Mario Kart bundle etc for just the price of the console since they'll want to boost sales numbers before Q2 reports.

Paid online isn't great but my hope is that with money coming in for the service, hopefully the features become more robust and it gets more support from the company and finally move in line with Sony and Microsoft's offerings.

 

I know it's not official nor has anyone hinted at it, but I'd be genuinely surprised if we didn't see "1-2-Switch" get bundled (either officially or unofficially) after the preorder/day-one batch of stuff is done.

 

Nintendo have a loooooooong track record of selling their games to you again every single generation, would net them millions. Best thing they ever did was actually back compat to GC on the Wii - and I don't think a lot of people used the feature.