Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Too bad I already played Dark Souls for PS3. But for all who haven't played it, you won't be disappointed when we get the Switch version.

@skywake Thanks for the graph. It really says a lot. For this generation of consoles and previous ones too.
It does show that brute force (or relatively unlimited amount of power) easily allows the PS4 and Xbox One to achieve better looking graphics than the Switch. But it is still pretty amazing that Nintendo is able to makes games that play and look as good as they do with a fraction of the power consumption as the competition.
It just goes to show that more power seems like the easy way to generate better graphics. But taking a look a the PS3 and Xbox 360 that used nearly the same about of power as the current generation of consoles and the Switch uses significantly less and yet the Switch achieves so much more than the PS3/Xbox360 ever could.
I know technology moves on, but with what the Switch is able to do makes me wonder what could potentially happen if companies took power consumption seriously and designed as such. I am no tree hugger, but What Nintendo has achieved is pretty interesting.

@Cia Welcome to the Switch club ^^ I would grab Xenoblade2 for sure. It's lush. Some of my otherhighlights have been Wonderboy, Rive, Forma8, Thimbleweed Park and PuyopuyoTetris.

@OorWullie That always seems to happen when I start making up silly game ideas too. I'm still waiting for someone to announce that Postman Pat: Greendale Under Siege has started development. When Pencaster Revenge DLC drops, I'm quitting my job and going into game dev full time

CoD coming to Switch in 2017 was just not feasible, mostly because there was no way a third-party would be working on a game that big for a Nintendo home platform after the great disappointment that was the Wii U.

But 2018 is definitely in the realm of possibility. Third parties have had time to observe this thing and commit resources to it, and I think a CoD on-the-go could sell moderately well. And I'll go a little further to invite criticism: I wouldn't mind if it didn't have single-player. I've owned most CoD games, and the single-player is usually about 5 hours of my playtime before I spend hundreds in the multiplayer. I would wager most people are the same, even if they won't admit it. If that's what needs to happen to get the game on Switch, let it be! Especially if they'd bump the price down to 40ish bucks instead of 60, I'd definitely go for it.

If you like Zelda games, try Portal Knights.
If you like Party games, try Super Bomberman R, Overcooked Special Edition.
Also, try Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, ARMS, LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER, Pokken Tournament DX, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

This might seem like a strange question but how long do you think the current console generation will last? The way I see it, there's little reason for any of the big three to make a new console any time soon. The main reason that they would normally make a new one is either to make a more powerful system or because their current console is selling badly.

However, Sony is in a very good position right now, with well over 70 million PS4s sold. As for power, I think the PS4 Pro is about as powerful as you're likely to get. There is some room for improvement of course, but I think anyone who wants to play games at a significantly higher resolution than the PS4 Pro has will probably just play them on a high-end PC, so there's little point in making a more powerful iteration of the PlayStation.

I think the Xbox One is struggling slightly though. Its sales are far from disastrous but it can't keep up with the PS4 and doesn't really fill any niche that the PS4 doesn't. However, making a new console won't really help there because, as with the PS4 Pro, the Xbox One X is almost as powerful as you can get as far as I can tell, so there isn't much room for them to improve with a new console. As Microsoft have started releasing most (all?) of their first-party games on PC as well, and expressed interest in releasing games on other consoles, it seems like there's a chance they might 'do a Sega' and go third-party. Xbox One's sales are nowhere near as bad as the Dreamcast's were, but I can't see them making a follow-up to it any time soon, especially as the X only came out last year.

That just leaves Nintendo, always the most unpredictable company. Obviously it's too early to think about a replacement for the Switch; it's only been out less than a year and it's selling brilliantly. But even in five or six years' time, why would Nintendo make a new console if the Switch continues to sell well (and I see no reason why it wouldn't)? It's not as powerful as its rivals, of course, but Nintendo don't seem to care about making a hugely powerful system, and that mindset is paying off at the moment. Panic Button have shown that the Switch is powerful enough to port most games to it to a pretty good standard too.

It seems strange that we could all be playing the same consoles in ten years' time, but the current systems are about as powerful as they need to be and Sony and Nintendo are both doing well (Microsoft less so, but the Xbox One is selling well enough to keep itself afloat at least). But what does everyone else think? How long will the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch be around for?

It really is difficult to say with that. If I was being honest, I'd say the next generation of consoles had already began when the PS4 Pro released. Yes, I'm being serious. After all, the slight improvements in graphical capability doesn't seem worth it when you can keep an install base and get those current games running as great as possible on the system. Obviously Nintendo went a different route, but that was because they had to.

I think Nintendo will treat the Switch like they treated the 3DS, New Nintendo Switch releasing around 2021 which is slightly more powerful but that power isn't really used until around 2024.

As for the other 2, I think 2020 for PS5 (no backwards compatibility) and 2021 for XB1 successor (full backward compatibility with everything you can play on XB1).

Also at some point, Sony buys the Monster Hunter franchise from Capcom to prevent Switch from getting any future games.

@Grumblevolcano I fully expect the PS5 to be backwards compatible. Same with the Xbox successor. Though I'm not sure Microsoft will do another 'traditional' console. I think they may call it Xbox, but it'll be Windows 10 in a box, they're practically halfway there already.

@Grumblevolcano What would be the selling point of the PS5 and Xbox successor though? Wouldn't it make more sense to keep supporting their existing consoles as they already have huge install bases?

@Dogorilla More power probably. If you think about it, wouldn't you have been wondering the same thing about the PS3's existence? What is the point of a PS2 successor when Sony could instead just stick with the PS2 for even longer?

@Grumblevolcano Next gen needs to be a big meaningful leap that is also not super expensive. At the moment, anything that could blow the XBoxX out of the water for less than 400 quid is many years away. We could even get yet another iteration of current gen where in storage becomes cheap enough for hybrid versions of PS4 and XBox1. They are cheeky enough to milk this generation. Especially as the PC master race is currently held to erm...crypto-ransom (if that is a thing!)

@Grumblevolcano True, but PS2 was in standard definition, so making a new console in HD was a pretty big deal, and it allowed developers to make more impressive games. The PS4 Pro is already so graphically advanced that a new console wouldn't be able to add a significant amount of power. Also, not everyone has a 4K TV, so people who don't have one wouldn't even benefit much from an increase in power.

As far as consoles are concerned, we are not going to see any meaningful jump for some time, especially now that PS4 Pro and X1X are on the market. The portable space is a different story though. Mobile tech is advancing at a rapid pace. And 5-6 years from now, they'll have the ability to offer current gen graphics on portable hardware. So Nintendo will still be able to make a significant leap for their next console. Sony and MS will not.

@Grumblevolcano
That's not gonna happen. Capcom isn't gonna sell that franchise to anyone. The only way anyone would get it is if they bought the entire company outright, and I'd say that window of opportunity has already passed. When Capcom was down in the trenches and near bankruptcy, that would've been the time to make a move.

I don't doubt they would want to do such a thing, but Capcom would never go for it. The best they could hope for is sign an exclusivity deal for X number of games, but I'm gonna be honest here, I don't see Capcom signing exclusivity for that franchise with any platform holder going forward, especially if it meant not releasing on Nintendo. World has done well, but even World with a AAA budget and multiple platforms combined is only matching sales on Nintendo from a single platform. They sell 4-5 million physically on Nintendo, on one platform, versus 4-5 million on all other platforms combined. And that number is only going to be higher post-World, and especially higher if the next Nintendo entry had a similar budget. And unlike when Tri released on Wii due to not approving of Sony's handling of the series, and unlike when World released without Nintendo due to no viable platform as an option at the time, there are now popular, viable platforms for all the above with guaranteed substantial sales on every single one of them.

So if anyone were to approach Capcom for an exclusivity deal, they would demand to be paid for the lost revenue they'll be missing out on. The lost revenue from 5 million in sales is going to demand a very, very steep price. And even, then that would just help them break even which offers them no advantage or reason to take the deal. So they would have to pay for the lost revenue and then a hefty fee on top of it.

Likewise, they won't sign an exclusivity deal with Nintendo for the same reason. They have now established a very profitable market across all platforms. Imagine how much Microsoft had to pay Square Enix just for 1 single year exclusivity of a multi-million seller. And that was just a temporary exclusivity deal. It would be a different story if there was a small market on the other platform (which can happen from time to time, be it the start of a new generation, a console not selling well as they hoped, etc), but as of today, that's just not the case. The smallest market would likely be Xbox One or PC. But there's much less reason to prevent the series from releasing on one of those platforms, specifically because of the smaller demand.

But those were just the first three days, there will be more sales

And the PC version isn't out until later this year.

@GrailUK I am not so sure the next generation will be really about graphical and raw power. I think Sony and Microsoft really need to think about what their consoles are going to mean going forward. Right now all three companies, Sony Microsoft and Nintendo, have different ideas as to the future direction of consoles and it is perhaps this that will define the next generation of systems.

@Octane
Right, but that was shipped and digital included. The physical copies actually sold was probably more around the range of 3 to 3.5 million. Will definitely sell more and will likely land around the 5 million physical sold mark when everything is said and done. Maybe it ends up at 5.5, hell maybe even 6, who knows, but it's a reasonable estimate. And even if it ends up a million higher, it changes nothing. If you can sell between 4-5 million on a single platform with the smallest possible budget, versus 5-6 on multiple platforms with an immense budget... The point stands regardless. There's too many sales to give up by signing exclusivity unless somebody wrote an extremely large paycheck.

And PC will add to it, it's also one additional platform developed for. You could reach infinite number of sales by just tacking on infinite numbers of platforms. What's more important is average sales per platform. And with PC factored in, it's probably going to average somewhere around 1.75 to 2 million per platform (just a guess?). Which is fantastic of course. But the point being they get over twice that on Nintendo platforms alone. Probably 3x that if they put the same budget into the next entry. So the payout per dollar invested is much, much higher.

@FragRed One thing I expect is the VR box built into the PS5, and PSVR2 without cables.

@Octane I totally agree with that. I think the PS5 will be heavily designed with the VR experience as a more core experience than it currently is on the PS4. That is where Sony I think sees the future of gaming, at least to a much larger degree than the other two. Nintendo sees the future as hybrid and Microsoft sees it as a Netflix service where the lines of console and PC gaming becomes more blurred.