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Post by sunofdarkchild on Oct 26, 2017 11:00:58 GMT -5
I’m totally fed up with Nintendo and their artificial scarcity crap. The Switch, NES Classic and SNES Classic should be readily available to anyone who wants one. They seem more concerned with having the “hot product” instead of maximizing their profits. Which is just an ass-backwards business model in my eyes. They’re still the king of first party exclusives (and it isn’t even close IMO) but stuff like this is always going to ensure that they play 3rd fiddle behind Sony and Microsoft. You're right about the classic systems, but the Switch shortage isn't artificial. Nintendo was genuinely caught off guard by just how high demand has been and has been scrambling to increase production. They've had issues with getting enough parts because apparently Apple uses some of the same components in some of its products and there aren't enough to go around for both companies. They really are making them as fast as they can. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Oct 26, 2017 12:26:30 GMT -5
I bought The Witcher two years ago on GOG during a sale, finally decided to play it and I'm currently finished with Chapter 1. After playing through the Chapter and starting over (and consulting the wiki for some strategy help) I think I've pretty much mastered the gameplay. I missed A LOT in Chapt 1 by rushing through the first time and took my time the second go-round.
On a whim I bought The Witcher 2 for XBOX 360 around 2014 (I never buy a sequel without having played the first game. I still don't know what came over me. It was probably because of how much I loved Skyrim which ignited my love for fantasy games again) but couldn't bring myself to play it until I'd played the original. After modding it slightly (mainly just a graphics/sound overhaul and larger text) the game looks much better.
I decided to dive into the world of the Witcher even further and bought the audiobook "The Last Wish" on Audible, which is the first chronological Witcher collection. (Loved the audiobook and I highly recommend it. The voice actor was outstanding.)
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Post by impulse on Oct 26, 2017 13:18:30 GMT -5
I’m totally fed up with Nintendo and their artificial scarcity crap. The Switch, NES Classic and SNES Classic should be readily available to anyone who wants one. They seem more concerned with having the “hot product” instead of maximizing their profits. Which is just an ass-backwards business model in my eyes. They’re still the king of first party exclusives (and it isn’t even close IMO) but stuff like this is always going to ensure that they play 3rd fiddle behind Sony and Microsoft. I get what you mean, and I have shared much of your frustration. They do seem to be making strides to improve their availability. At least I see Switches in stock every time I go to the store, and I check every time I go out of curiosity. I'd have bought a SNES Classic by now if i could find one, though, and refuse to pay a person reselling one on principle. They've said they are making more and even will be making more NES Classics next year, I believe. I do wish they were better able to anticipate demand and supply accordingly. |
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Oct 26, 2017 13:44:05 GMT -5
As good as their games are, Nintendo does do some really terrible things. Thier anti-Youtube policy is not only terrible PR, but they're denying themselves free advertising for the sake of nickel and diming video uploaders. And they deserved to lose to Sony in the PS1-N64 generation for their arrogant 'making games for our platform is a privilege we don't have to give anyone' attitude towards third parties in that era.
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Oct 27, 2017 7:31:05 GMT -5
Spoiler alert: Mario Odyssey is amazing.
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Post by impulse on Oct 27, 2017 11:05:57 GMT -5
Spoiler alert: Mario Odyssey is amazing. I'm not surprised. I'm going to have to get a Switch eventually, I think. |
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Post by BigPapaJoe on Oct 27, 2017 11:35:12 GMT -5
Spoiler alert: Mario Odyssey is amazing. Damn you. I want to play. Alas, I am team Sony. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Oct 28, 2017 9:40:32 GMT -5
As good as their games are, Nintendo does do some really terrible things. Thier anti-Youtube policy is not only terrible PR, but they're denying themselves free advertising for the sake of nickel and diming video uploaders. And they deserved to lose to Sony in the PS1-N64 generation for their arrogant 'making games for our platform is a privilege we don't have to give anyone' attitude towards third parties in that era. I'm so out of the loop when it comes to Nintendo. I haven't owned one of their consoles since the SNES. Playstation 1 and 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and now Xbox One has been my progression. I've never really understood their seeming lack of interest in competing with Sony and Microsoft. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Oct 28, 2017 11:53:22 GMT -5
As good as their games are, Nintendo does do some really terrible things. Thier anti-Youtube policy is not only terrible PR, but they're denying themselves free advertising for the sake of nickel and diming video uploaders. And they deserved to lose to Sony in the PS1-N64 generation for their arrogant 'making games for our platform is a privilege we don't have to give anyone' attitude towards third parties in that era. Theres enough room for competition with the rise of Sony and Microsoft. Even in the Nintendo vs Sega days they endured. Nintendo seems fine with their place in the competition, and if they're satisfied with their present level of success who are we to argue? But I realize for some more than me there's a fine line between what the customer wants and the company puts out. |
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Oct 28, 2017 12:38:10 GMT -5
As good as their games are, Nintendo does do some really terrible things. Thier anti-Youtube policy is not only terrible PR, but they're denying themselves free advertising for the sake of nickel and diming video uploaders. And they deserved to lose to Sony in the PS1-N64 generation for their arrogant 'making games for our platform is a privilege we don't have to give anyone' attitude towards third parties in that era. I'm so out of the loop when it comes to Nintendo. I haven't owned one of their consoles since the SNES. Playstation 1 and 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and now Xbox One has been my progression. I've never really understood their seeming lack of interest in competing with Sony and Microsoft. Their lack of interest in competing with Sony and Microsoft comes from having tried it already. The N64 was more powerful than the PS1, but the PS1 outsold it almost 3:1 because third parties jumped ship to Sony because they preferred working with CDs to cartridges. The Gamecube was a real powerhouse in the 6th gen, adopted a cd-format, was easy for third parties to develop for, and was much more powerful than the PS2, and the PS2 still outsold it by over 7:1. Nintendo learned that power alone wasn't selling systems, that repairing broken relationships with third parties wasn't as easy as finally making a system that was easy to develop for, and that Sony's brand loyalty made putting out a similar product to them a losing proposition. So they went and did something different, and it has worked 2 out of 3 times. If Nintendo had simply made an HD dual analog system instead of the Wii it would not have sold close to what the PS3 and 360 sold, let alone outsold them for so long like the Wii did. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Oct 28, 2017 15:46:21 GMT -5
Wow so Elites fall like Grunts to the Spartans in Halo 5. Really? You have nerf and dumb down one of the most versatile and enduring warriors in the Covenant to make this story work? I'm not even sure I want to play the next chapter. And lol the Spartans have magnetic boots and blow the airlock and all the Elites get sucked out like greenhorns on their first day in battle. Jfc 343!
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Post by impulse on Nov 1, 2017 16:45:10 GMT -5
The N64 was more powerful than the PS1, but the PS1 outsold it almost 3:1 because third parties jumped ship to Sony because they preferred working with CDs to cartridges. If Nintendo had simply made an HD dual analog system instead of the Wii it would not have sold close to what the PS3 and 360 sold, let alone outsold them for so long like the Wii did. You're not wrong, but it's important to add that it wasn't just a format thing that caused third parties to bail. Nintendo was notorious for being shockingly stubborn and arrogant at that time, and they ran third parties off and burned the bridges for a long time, having still not fully recovered. Nintendo did find a good niche that mostly worked for them by not trying to compete on power and multi-platform games, and worked more than not, but they still leave A LOT of room for improvement. Their focus on quality games over raw power is fine, and I get graphics alone aren't enough for greatness, but I wish their systems weren't so completely lopsided on power compared to the others. They don't rely on third parties or multi-platform franchise, but the power deficit basically assures those options aren't even on the table. Besides, Zelda and Mario Kart are great, but they would be even better with crisp shining graphics, smooth fluid frames, and more going on. This is to say nothing the baffling and frankly indefensible lack of streaming Apps on the Switch. Also not having retro games on there yet is baffling to me. Their back catalogue and their IPs are by far their biggest asset, and they don't have it on Switch yet?? I know they are known for being VERY insular and stubborn and very Japanese. I'm no expert on Japanese companies and don't know all the details, but it seems like they succeed despite themselves as much as because of themselves sometimes, and they seem to be a whole lot of unpicked low hanging fruit on the tree. |
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Nov 2, 2017 3:45:35 GMT -5
The N64 was more powerful than the PS1, but the PS1 outsold it almost 3:1 because third parties jumped ship to Sony because they preferred working with CDs to cartridges. If Nintendo had simply made an HD dual analog system instead of the Wii it would not have sold close to what the PS3 and 360 sold, let alone outsold them for so long like the Wii did. You're not wrong, but it's important to add that it wasn't just a format thing that caused third parties to bail. Nintendo was notorious for being shockingly stubborn and arrogant at that time, and they ran third parties off and burned the bridges for a long time, having still not fully recovered. Nintendo did find a good niche that mostly worked for them by not trying to compete on power and multi-platform games, and worked more than not, but they still leave A LOT of room for improvement. Their focus on quality games over raw power is fine, and I get graphics alone aren't enough for greatness, but I wish their systems weren't so completely lopsided on power compared to the others. They don't rely on third parties or multi-platform franchise, but the power deficit basically assures those options aren't even on the table. Besides, Zelda and Mario Kart are great, but they would be even better with crisp shining graphics, smooth fluid frames, and more going on. This is to say nothing the baffling and frankly indefensible lack of streaming Apps on the Switch. Also not having retro games on there yet is baffling to me. Their back catalogue and their IPs are by far their biggest asset, and they don't have it on Switch yet?? I know they are known for being VERY insular and stubborn and very Japanese. I'm no expert on Japanese companies and don't know all the details, but it seems like they succeed despite themselves as much as because of themselves sometimes, and they seem to be a whole lot of unpicked low hanging fruit on the tree. When it comes to the N64 you're 100% right. Having quality control in the 80s made sense given what happened to Atari just a few years earlier, but the way Nintendo went about it angered third parties and limited the number of units of games they could sell. Nintendo actually told Square to leave and not come back when Square begged them to use CDs in the N64. Nintendo games are known for having great framerates. The only first party Switch game that didn't reach a smooth 60 FPS this year was Breath of the Wild. Nintendo games have more consistent framerates than pretty much any other developer or publisher. And the Switch now possibly has too much 3rd party support, with Doom, Skyrim, Rocket League. Resident Evil, LA Noire, Sonic Forces, and Telltale's Batman series all launching this month. They may mostly be older games, but most are current gen, and some are from developers and publishers that have never supported a Nintendo system at all before. Once the likes of Doom and Wolfenstein the New Colossus are on the Switch, it's really a matter of whether 3rd parties want to put in the effort to bring their multiplats over, rather than a question of feasibility. There were a lot of ports of 3rd party games to the Wii because the system was so successful, like most of the gen's Call of Duty games. A number of them were actually better on the Wii than on the PS3 and 360, like 2009's Ghostbusters or the first Force Unleashed. There was a big problem in that the chasm in technology was so wide that the games had to be rebuilt from scratch to run on the Wii instead of scaled down. The Switch doesn't have that problem. It may only be somewhere between 1/3-1/2 as powerful as an XBox 1, but it's close enough that some of the most graphically impressive games this gen can run on it without needing to be rebuilt from the ground up. Like I said, it's up to 3rd parties to decide. This time Nintendo even adjusted the hardware to meet 3rd party requests, like agreeing to double the amount of ram. |
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Post by impulse on Nov 2, 2017 8:48:54 GMT -5
I hear you, but I will be impressed when new games appear on the Switch along with the others. Porting older third party games is nice, but it's not quite the same as being a viable third option for the mainstream games..not that Nintendo necessarily needs that. Just would be nice. Also, while not rebuilding from the ground up, many of those third party games are having to have a lot of compromises, though they will appear. Also, yeah, while there were lots of good third party games on Wii, there was also a glut of absolute garbage, too.
I will definitely agree that Nintendo is doing a lot more this time than the last several generations to work with third parties, and I am cautiously optimistic. Zelda is specifically the game I had in mind when talking about graphics and frames. Zelda couldn't even hit 30 FPS consistently, let alone 60, and as good as it looked, it scaled resolution down a lot, they had to limit effects, etc. And at least personally, I'd love to see a modern Nintendo game with some anti-aliasing.
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Nov 2, 2017 11:37:55 GMT -5
Unfortunately, compromises were necessitated by the Switch's form factor. Maybe Nintendo should have used the Tegra X2 instead of the X1, but then the system might still not have released. Simply making a third version of the PS4 or XBox 1 with comparable or greater power would have failed to attract anyone but the same hardcore Nintendo fans who supported the Wii U and maybe those who supported the Gamecube, especially with the mid-gen launch. But with the form factor they wanted, the time of release, and the consideration of battery life, it's as powerful as it could possibly be. Maybe we'll see a revision with the X2 chip, but the bigger improvement would be to battery life, not the graphics.
Zelda is an interesting example. It was designed around the PowerPC architecture used in the WiiU, and wasn't finished when they started bringing it over to the Switch. It still managed to render all those individual blades of grass with polygons (something I noticed even Witcher 3 didn't do, I've really started to notice when grass and foliage aren't 'there'), used a very complex physics engine, and also used a number of advanced effects. Digital Foundry observed that it was using reflection effects which the PS4 and XBox 1 versions of Watch Dogs didn't use. After the patches it stays at 30 fps pretty consistently, and it oddly almost always kept a solid 30 fps in handheld mode even though the system underclocks there. All things considered, it's a very impressive looking game. I still can't believe it runs at all on the Wii U with only 1 gig of usable outdated ram and such a bottleneck of a cpu.
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