Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Novamii Considering what happened for Super Mario Party, Superstars support isn't odd. For context, Super Mario Party released in October 2018 and its first and only major update released in late April 2021.

@Grumblevolcano I'm not saying support for Superstars is impossible, but Nintendo usually update a game for a certain period of time, then have the developers move on to something else. It happened with Animal Crossing, Mario Golf: Super Rush, etc. You could also make a similar argument for Nintendo Switch Sports. People bashed that game for how shallow it was, especially for it's price tag and potential. Yet despite that, Nintendo gave the game 2 more notable updates, then just sort of left it. If I had to make a rough guess, I'd say that Super Mario Party getting online support may have had something to do with the events of 2020 still leaving their impact. Quarantine didn't fully lift for quite a while, I feel like Nintendo used it as another sort of "Get together while at home" sort of deal, especially since the initial hype of New Horizons was pretty dialed down by that point. (Despite it having some more content down the pipeline. They probably were also pretty far along with Superstars' online component, and figured it wouldn't take too much to implement it in Super as well.)

And yet, the Lite, which seemed overpriced to me on Day 1 at £200, has never seen a price cut, which really surprises me.

@gcunit
The Switch era is different one.
No price cut, No Nintendo Select $20, No fancy U/I, No Lounge eshop music, frequent of Partial Download / Code in Box, etc.

@gcunit Yeah it's a bit weird. Nintendo is certainly better at price matching other regions, a £50 game is $60 for instance, than other companies (Looking at you Sony $70 is not £70) and I think they did say the cut to the base model was to bring it in line with other regions.

I imagine the Switch Lite is just gonna ride it out. No one's really buying it anyway and opting to spend less than the price of a game on just the base model or an OLED at £100 more.

@Anti-Matter I wonder if we'll see a 'Selects' range if/when the next console drops and it's has backwards compatibility? Would be a good way to build up a decent library of games if there aren't a ton of new games available at launch.

@dmcc0 I doubt they will bring back selects; if anything they will keep selling for $60 and say the games have improved performance on Switch 2 or something... Or they will just insert a 2 on the cover with no change and brand them both as Switch 1 and Switch 2 games.

Perhaps half off sales will get more common for older games though. Or 2-for-1 sales.

Anyone see the magnetic joyconnand pro controller support for switch 2?

@dmcc0
And please No Red frame of Nintendo Select games again like during Wii, 3DS, Wii U era.
It ruined the whole cover.

@dmcc0 I think the NSO voucher program was Nintendo's replacement to heavier discounts like Selects.

@Grumblevolcano The voucher program is a worse price than their common 33% off sales though. Plus they apply to new games. I think the question is if we can expect any reduced prices for Switch 1 branded games after Switch 2 eventually takes over.

@FishyS Actually, I quite like the vouchers. Typically the games on sale are usually a few years old, so I can pre-order a game or get a new game with the vouchers to get them cheaper, rather than waiting a few years or so for a sale.

@FishyS Yeah, maybe just wishful thinking on my part, although in truth there's not much I'd actually pick up if it were in a Selects range at this point. I haven't bought a first party game in ages and I can't think of any I've still got on the Wishlist

@Anti-Matter Those budget ranges always spoil the cover art regardless of who makes them - PlayStation Platinum/Greatest Hits etc has been the same over the years too. The artwork is awful - the yellow and silver of the PS2 Platinum probably the worst IMO though.

@Grumblevolcano If so, that's a pretty poor replacement. The voucher discount isn't really much of a saving in my opinion and you can by most games for similar discounts at regular retail without having to commit to buying a second game. The discount on Selects (and the PS equivalents) was/is closer to 50% in most cases.

Edit: I realise that it wasn't just 1st party games in the Selects range, but the way 3rd Party studios discount their games now there would be little point in including them in any Selects series as you can usually pick them up heavily discounted a few months after launch anyway.

I do like vouchers also (even though I bought a voucher this year and don't know what to do with the second half 😆 ), but the question was more if sales or prices on older Switch 1 games will get better once Switch 2 is out.

@FishyS Doubt it when it comes to 1st party titles. Nintendo won't drop them in price or do deeper discounts, they'll just end production runs for the physical copies. You might see retailers do deeper discounts to clear inventory however.

3rd party on the other hand, I think we're starting to see deeper discounts already. I think that will continue as we get into the Switch 2's lifespan.

@FishyS @dmcc0 The way I looking it at was the whole point of the Selects line was having older games at a deep permanent price cut. Meanwhile the voucher program was about being able to get a pair of any Nintendo published games that are at a certain price or higher (for UK it's £39.99 or higher). You could even pair BotW (a Switch launch title) with LM2 HD (the newest release that currently supports vouchers).

The 2 models collide if active at the same time considering a load of games would be too cheap to be eligible for the voucher program. Taking that into account, I think it would be more likely that Selects just don't exist for Switch.

The voucher program is smart.

When other publishers release games, I think: "How long before the game is patched up and being sold at a 50% discount?" Usually doesn't take too long. Literally feels like you're punishing your most loyal and avid customers by saddling them with a more expensive and inferior product to what people who wait are buying.

Whereas, with Nintendo, it feels like, as much as possible, they try to put out heavily polished games, and the voucher program feels more like a "thank you" for being a loyal fan. Instead of cratering the price months after launch, they'll give you a discount on DAY ONE. And maintaining the integrity of their prices means they don't even devalue your games down the road (by too much, at least).

With a few exceptions, I respond to these sort of incentive structures as a consumer. A pre-order or day one purchase is a no-brainer for me with a Nintendo-published title.

When it comes to everyone else? I'm probably not going to buy in at launch to see how much money I'll save in post-launch sales, and, inevitably, once I skip launch day, I'm just going to let the devaluation of the game in various sales stabilize before buying in.

I think I only did the voucher program once. It was luigis mansion 3 and Mario maker if I recall correctly. It makes more sense now since Walmart hasn't been doing $10 off for new titles like they used to. Now, I'm not even sure I'd want to use it on 2 digital titles unless there's some big news dropped in June.

I only used vouchers once (Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition and 3D All Stars), they were used as a backup in case online delivery messed up physical version. Didn't really know how things were doing to turn out considering this was 2020. Physical versions turned out fine, wish I got Bioshock back then considering it's really hard to find nowadays.

It was a difficult call back then, rebuy my Xbox library fully on Switch or just accept there'd be a split between the 2 systems where some games I'd need to just load up my Xbox even though a version exists on Switch. I chose the latter and it was the wrong choice. Granted if I had the info I know now back then I wouldn't have bought a Series X at all and on the Xbox side of things just continue using my XB1 until it died.

Last year I bought 2 pairs of vouchers since last year was such an insanely packed year. Even with Nintendo games I try to wait for a sale but there are usually at least a couple a year I 'need' day 1. And I buy mainly digital so vouchers are nice.

One thing that annoys me about the voucher program is that it sticks in the $50 games even though the vouchers are themselves $50. If there were vouchers to get $10 off of e.g. Mario vs DK also I would have been much more interested, but using a current voucher on it seems a bit like an insult.