I personally am excited for the Switch and will get one at launch. And for me personally, the Wii U is the best console of this generation. But I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about the Switch in general as you are from this presentation.
So far it feels like "the Wii part 3". Yes the Wii sold well, but it didn't sell very many games. Most Wii owners were perfectly content with Wii Sports. The Wii U has pretty much been a flop. Nothing about this presentation suggests to me the Switch will finally do what Nintendo has tried three times now: make a gimmicky, low powered console that appeals in non traditional ways and is successful. So far (and sure, a 1 hour video 3 months before launch isn't much), this very much feels like the Wii and Wii U, and not in the good ways.
I love Nintendo and am a huge fan. But part of me can't help but wish Nintendo would just straight up compete with Sony and Microsoft.
I don't know why there is the perception that the Wii didn't sell many games. That's definitely not true, it had incredible first party game sales beyond Wii Sports, and it actually had good third party sales as well. Here is a list of 5 million+ sellers, including mega hits like Mario Kart which sold 36.8 million and New Super Mario Brothers which sold 29.9 million copies.
Nintendo and arguably Microsoft simply can't compete with Sony right now.
Sony is dominating the high end, exclusive game market. The Last of Us, Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid and coming up in 2017: Horizon Zero Dawn, Death Stranding etc. All of these push the console to the limits and show just how superior the PS4 hardware is over its competitors.
Nintendo isn't really suited anyway. Their games are arguably better cel-shaded and cartoon-like. And so why not appeal to the less hardcore, graphics obsessed gamers. There's far more of them after all.
As years go by the less I'm convinced that the platform with the fastest hardware is the best. With consoles, on the technical front, I want constant fluid framerates and predictability. For instance, I fail to see how PS4 Witcher 3 could be better than Witcher 3 on XBox one by any standard I care about when gaming (and I'm a professional graphics programmer).
That said, yes, it seems Sony is winning this generation in consoles. But I would claim it's due to other factors than PS4 as a piece of hardware and OS.
No PS4 is winning because of their exclusives. When you have Uncharted 4 for example as GOTY it makes it very hard for people not to choose your console.
The reason the hardware is important is because games like Uncharted, Last of Us etc (which are system sellers) stand apart from the likes of Witcher 3 because of the ability to use the superior hardware to product superior graphics. I would argue this is just as important as the game play. But again not for all games just these specific type of games.
Yes, we agree that PS4 as a platform is more succesfull than the xbox. I disagree it has much to do with hardware specs.
Yes, PS4 has a slightly better GPU but even if PS4 and Xbox one shipped with hardware where xbox one was slightly better it would not affect the current market share that much.
Up to a point superior graphics are created by superior artists and animators. Using engine and art assets by superior programmers.
Uncharted is so good because of Naughty Dog, not because their platform happens to be PS4.
Sony has played their part well, whereas Micrsoft fumbled the Xbox one launch and positioning.
The Witcher 3 is much more open world than Uncharted 4. I don't think this is a matter of optimising for the specific hardware, it is mainly the trade-offs inherent in a large open world game vs a linear game with small well defined levels. They each optimise for different values.
The PS4 has more powerful hardware than the XBox One. If they are running the same game (The Witcher 3), logic tells us that it will be easier to get fluid framerates with the more powerful console. And that is what you care about, no?
Now I don't know about The Witcher per-se but there have been a good number of multi-platform releases where performance and fluidity were compromised on XBox One.
And it doesn't just seem to be Sony, the numbers say it's Sony (especially in Europe). General consensus is that Microsoft severely botched the launch of the One and has been left to play catch-up since.
As I said; I don't know specifically about The Witcher. I used the name as an example. There will always be additional factors beside hardware power, but in general; more powerful hardware is easier to get good results with.
> As years go by the less I'm convinced that the platform with the fastest hardware is the best.
It's never been the case.
The GC was the most powerful console of its generation, the PS2 was by far the least powerful one (with the possible exception of the Dreamcast, not quite sure where that one was).
Gamecube was quite memory-limited both in main and video RAM compared to XBox and PS2. My team was not the only one that had to play tricks to fit on that thing, swapping in and out parts of main memory (to/from the overly spacious audio memory area IIRC).
> Gamecube was quite memory-limited both in main and video RAM
I'm not saying it was a supreme machine without limitation, I'm saying it was the most powerful one. It had by a fairly large margin the most powerful CPU and GPU subsystems.
That doesn't mean there were no tradeoffs, it was all strength and it was necessarily trivial to make use of that power. Think PS3.
XBox was comfortably more powerful than the GC, GC was ahead but more similar to PS2 in practice, both were well ahead of the Dreamcast (Dreamcast launched first, PS2 next, XBox and GC last, so kinda to be expected). GC was hamstrung by memory issues (PS2 had better bandwidth, fill rate, media capacity, iirc), so was a bugger to use its power, but that's by the by.
So, I disagree with the first claim in your second paragraph, but my pedantry only supports your main point: PS2 won, selling 3 times the others put together. But PS2 was a long way from being the most powerful.
But, both as a developer and player, and purely subjectively, I do think XBox was the 'best' of that generation.
> The GC was the most powerful console of its generation,
That's not true. The Xbox was far more powerful CPU/GPU-wise, and had far more storage (the 8 GB HD was pretty amazing) so games could install themselves to HD and use virtual memory to increase their performance.
I mostly agree, but I'm worried about what it means for third-party support.
If the Switch is significantly underpowered compared to the competition, it means that developers won't be able to easily port XBone/PS4 games to the Switch which will hurt the Switch's lineup. In that case, Nintendo's best hope for success is that their Blue Ocean Strategy will take off and people will treat the Switch as not just another console but as a supremely versatile handheld.
The reason the Wii got away with it was a) Blue Ocean Strategy gave it genuinely unique games and b) the PS2 was still kicking around so the Wii version can easily be ported to PS2 and sell on twice the number of consoles (i.e. they'd make a 360/PS3 version and a Wii/PS2 version).
The Wii U had beautiful games with beautiful art direction (Yoshi's Woolly World, anyone?), but it still flopped largely because third parties ignored it and Nintendo didn't have a good enough Blue Ocean Strategy.
With that combination, you need something like the art direction of a Studio Ghibli in order to successfully manage the complexity (excited for the new Ni no Kuni, BTW). Most, maybe all, game studios in the west are not up to the challenge. Many indie games are much more artistically successful precisely because they have to think around the constraints and can work with a more concentrated vision.
>But part of me can't help but wish Nintendo would just straight up compete with Sony and Microsoft. //
Surely though if you want that experience you can buy a PS4/Xbone/PC. Personally I'm really happy that Nintendo continues to give a different twist to their consoles and provide some texture to the market.
But will you still be happy if Nintendo bows out of the market altogether? It's no coincidence they are exploring mobile games. They aren't exactly killing it these days. If the Switch doesn't do well, I wouldn't be surprised to see Nintendo go completely 3rd party.
That would be a big shame IMO. I think, the Wii and WiiU have both brought interesting developments and that the Switch looks like it will develop things to - bring tighter integration between mobile and home gaming.
Surely the next step would be VR, though it's probably right to enter that arena partnered with an established player.
If smart-watches/wearables push on then people may move away from using a smart-phone form factor and instead have a paired device trailer more towards gaming and media.
I wonder if Switch can (in theory) run Android, whether it'll have Skype or other video calling (I didn't notice a camera?).
> I love Nintendo and am a huge fan. But part of me can't help but wish Nintendo would just straight up compete with Sony and Microsoft.
Well I don't love Nintendo, I think their consoles are pretty gimmicky and sales are fueled mostly by nostalgia and rehashing the same game titles over and over again (the Switch is getting a Zelda title and a Mario title? What a shocker!)
I honestly don't believe Nintendo is capable of competing with Sony or Microsoft. Maybe they could create hardware on-par with a PS4, but they can't get the publisher relations down, nor have they been able to get their online service to feature-parity with Xbox Live circa 2007 after a decade of trying. They also have this awful customer-hostile attitude that simply will not go away.
(Why should anybody have to buy a game title more than once, just because they bought a new game console? That's pure scam, Nintendo. On Xbox, you buy it once and you own it forever. On Nintendo, people re-buy Super Mario Bros 3 like clockwork every 3 years.)
Which is fine. There's already lots of competition in the "high powered console gaming" arena, and Nintendo would run the risk of becoming another SteamBox. And if their strength is nostalgia, maybe embracing that is a good business decision, even if the constant rehashing of the same titles over and over personally makes me gag.
> rehashing the same game titles over and over again (the Switch is getting a Zelda title and a Mario title? What a shocker!)
You say that like this is a bad thing. Nintendo isn't just making the same games over and over again. Every new Mario game, and every new Zelda game, brings something new to the genre. For example, Super Mario Galaxy was a very innovative and award-winning game that had a very unique and well-thought-out core mechanic. And this new Super Mario Odyssey game they announced looks like it has a ton of stuff that hasn't been done in a Mario game before.
And ultimately, the first-party games Nintendo puts out, your Marios and Zeldas and whatnot, are always very polished, excellently-designed, and downright fun games. Typically the best games on the whole platform. So it's no surprise that they keep coming back to the same franchises, since they've demonstrated that they can execute extremely well with this IP and that fans absolutely love it. It's not unreasonable to say that Mario and Zelda by themselves sell a large portion of Nintendo's consoles.
The innovations they've been doing lately have mostly had diminishing returns. Super Mario Galaxy, for example, was an alright game, but it was nowhere near as innovative as Super Mario 64 was. I don't even remember if I finished it or not, but I remember that SM64 Bowser boss fight to this day.
I don't know if anyone ever argues that Nintento's first party games aren't the best games on their consoles. It just for many, myself included, the 5 or 6 excellent games that come out don't really justify the price of the console and the HDMI slot it occupies. I know I've never been able to justify a WII U (though Bayonetta 2 came close).
I hope they do better with the Switch—I'd love to justify the purchase :-). But I'm certainly not getting one at launch.
The Fire Emblem and Bravely Default series on 3ds are both as good as any series on other platforms. Wii and Wii U are difficult cases but the DS line has in general been an incredibly good console platform. I actually think it was the best of the last generation. Maybe the switch can carry that on but I'm not sure.
The 3DS has some excellent third party exclusive games, mainly RPGs. I really can't think of anything comparable on the Wii or Wii U that I feel I'm missing out on, except for the first party titles.
A lot of people consider Bayonetta 2 to be a console-seller (though personally, I've only tried it for a few minutes and the intro to that game is super confusing). There's also some other great games that, while aren't exclusive, do have unique features on Wii U (e.g. leveraging the gamepad), such as Rayman Legends. As for RPGs, there's Xenoblade Chronicles X.
> Nintendo isn't just making the same games over and over again.
Let's say I haven't owned a Nintendo console in a long time (which is true-- the last one I bought was a GameCube, which was a piece of crap so I sold it to my step-sister), how would I be able to tell that 2017's Mario is any different than 2014's Mario is any different than 2011's Mario?
If Nintendo genuinely has new game play ideas, maybe they should actually put those ideas in new games. They're not incapable of this-- for example, Splatoon looks genuinely innovative-- but they're more interested in keeping the nostalgia factor than marketing new game concepts. There's one Splatoon for every 10 Mario X or Zelda X or Metroid X.
> And ultimately, the first-party games Nintendo puts out, your Marios and Zeldas and whatnot, are always very polished, excellently-designed, and downright fun games.
Possibly; that doesn't make me interested in buying them. The 1998 Psycho color remake was very polished, excellently designed, etc. But it was just an identical remake of a movie that'd already been made, and if you've seen the original there's no point to seeing the remake.
> Typically the best games on the whole platform.
Because Nintendo's great at games, or because they can't convince anybody else to develop games for their wonky-ass platforms? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Just to drop a note here from the Xbox universe, the Xbox perennial first-party title is Halo. Halo 4 and Halo 5 kind of suck. Kind of suck a lot, really. But the strength of Xbox is that if Halo sucks, you can play Titanfall or Evolve or Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare or Battlefield 4 or... you get the point. And that's just in that one genre.
Unlike Nintendo, Microsoft (and Sony) isn't crippled by bad first-party games. If they were they'd probably put a heck of a lot more effort into ensuring their first-party games didn't kind of suck. So it's kind of an apples-to-orange comparison. Nintendo first-party titles are good because Nintendo has far more incentive to make them good.
> It's not unreasonable to say that Mario and Zelda by themselves sell a large portion of Nintendo's consoles.
Of course not; that's exactly what I've been saying. The company relies almost exclusively on nostalgia to sell its products. Mario and Zelda are nostalgic titles.
They're not remakes. There's a difference between using the same characters in brand new games, and remaking old games. Your entire comment reads as though you consider them to be literal remakes, and that's completely wrong. People aren't also just buying them for nostalgia. After all, they're new games, it's hard to be nostalgic about new stuff. People are buying them because they're really really fun. And you'll note that kids, who definitely don't have nostalgia for the old games, also consider them to be really really fun, so it's really not just because people liked the previous games.
You're kind of missing my point. That's great for the person who is already a Nintendo fan and already plays every Mario game like clockwork.
As a person who hasn't own a Nintendo console in a decade, what would be my incentive to buy one to play Mario? How the heck would I be able to tell that the Nintendo Switch Mario is any different than the ones that came before? If it is in fact different, why the heck isn't it in a different series?
(Of course the answer to that last one is: Nintendo's sales are fueled entirely by nostalgia, so of course they want the Mario or Zelda game on it because it's basically "free sales". People will buy it just because it says Mario on the cover. Which, going back to my first post, I find disgusting.)
So Nintendo is doing a great job (presumably) marketing to people who already love their products, but what reason are they giving a person who doesn't to try out the product?
You keep missing the most important point, which is that these games are very fun. That's the reason for someone who hasn't played a Mario before to pick it up.
> As a person who hasn't own a Nintendo console in a decade, what would be my incentive to buy one to play Mario?
Because it's a lot of fun.
> How the heck would I be able to tell that the Nintendo Switch Mario is any different than the ones that came before?
If you haven't played the ones before, then you don't really have a point for comparison. But in that case, the question doesn't seem meaningful at all. Why does it matter that it's different than the previous games, as long as it's fun? You certainly don't have to buy the latest console just to play Mario, you could buy an older console in order to play the older games. Or you could buy the latest console and then pick up older games on the Virtual Console. That said, if you're going to start with Mario (or Zelda or any other Nintendo IP), it's never a bad idea to go with the latest, then if you like it you can pick up the older games. Of course, if you're playing games from older platforms, the visuals won't be as good as the more recent ones. And you may also find that they're not quite as polished as the later ones, because they learn from their older games so that way each new one is better. Most notably, the current level design philosophy they have with Mario started with Super Mario Galaxy 1 (and refined in 2 and then Super Mario 3D Land), so the older games will feel a little different (info about this level design philosophy can be found in this interview - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/168460/the_structure_o...). And of course there's an obvious important difference between the 2D Mario games and the 3D Mario games.
> If it is in fact different, why the heck isn't it in a different series?
Why? It's not radically different, every Mario game has a lot of commonalities (though each new game tends to introduce something new to the formula). And just in general, why throw away an IP that millions of people love? There's literally no upside to doing that.
Also, if we consider Zelda instead of Mario, even though each Zelda game is a brand new story, they're all connected to each other (a timeline of all games through Skyward Sword can be found from the book Hyrule Historia, or at https://zeldawiki.org/images/7/7c/Timeline_Hyrule_Historia.j...). But there are also really big differences between the games. As one example, The Wind Waker takes place on a series of islands scattered across a large sea, and you have a boat (that talks) that you literally sail from island to island, and with a lot of related mechanics around that. Compare that with the other Zelda games, where every other game takes place mostly on land without any sailing (except for Phantom Hourglass, which was a direct sequel to Wind Waker). Similarly, almost every game follows an entirely different character, but each character is basically a reincarnation of the Hero Of Time (Link).
Nintendo has had the 'not many games' story for decades. Third party titles have rarely been a big part of the story for Nintendo. They still have in excess of $1mm in revenue per employee last time I checked.
And, if you subtract minecraft on Xbox, my kids spend 95% of their non-mobile gaming time on Wii U. No third party title time.
At any rate, I'm guessing it's when not if Switch will hit our house. Maybe I can hide it in my bag for a while before they find it. :)
Try looking at it the other way, this isn't the next wiiU trying to compete with sony and MS. This is the next 3DS which also supports big screen gaming. Nintendo is bringing their strengths (mobile and third party mobile support) into the arena they've been struggling with on and off since the SNES era.
So far it feels like "the Wii part 3". Yes the Wii sold well, but it didn't sell very many games. Most Wii owners were perfectly content with Wii Sports. The Wii U has pretty much been a flop. Nothing about this presentation suggests to me the Switch will finally do what Nintendo has tried three times now: make a gimmicky, low powered console that appeals in non traditional ways and is successful. So far (and sure, a 1 hour video 3 months before launch isn't much), this very much feels like the Wii and Wii U, and not in the good ways.
I love Nintendo and am a huge fan. But part of me can't help but wish Nintendo would just straight up compete with Sony and Microsoft.