Nintendo Switch

[Smitty]

21 hours ago, Jon said:

You what mate?

 

That's the thing with this: it's either really gimmicky* or it's really brilliant. 

 

But the thing at least the gimmick is being made very, very clear. And the gimmick is central to the whole concept. Which means it might not be a gimmick. 

 

The WiiU's USP was so weirdly advertised and used, seemed so non-essential, that it was truly a gimmick. This looks like the USP is at the heart of the design.

 

*by which I mean in practice it will eventually be shown to be gimmicky. It doesn't gimmicky at the moment, although there's a vague whiff of it from the worrying side of my brain.

[Guest]

Just now, Punished Smitty said:

 

That's the thing with this: it's either really gimmicky or brilliant. 

 

But the thing at least the gimmick is being made very, very clear. And the gimmick is central to the whole concept. Which means it might not be a gimmick. 

 

The WiiU's USP was so weirdly advertised and used, seemed so non-essential, that was truly a gimmick. This looks like the USP is at the heart of the design.

Making a gimmick apparent doesn't mean it isn't a gimmick though, dude. They've just advertised this is a really cool way, which glosses over those gimmicks brilliantly. Unlike they did with the WiiU, as you say.

 

Good luck to them, and I honestly mean that. I hope that they've learnt some staunch lessons from the WiiU and give us what we want this time.

 

I just fear, looking at it all without the PR spin, that it could as easily be Nintendo's last console as it could be their next Wii.

 

And fuck, I really hope they've learnt the lessons in the right areas and it's more SNES, N64 or GC than the Wii ever was.

[Guest]

Oh, and even though the gimmick was Nintendo's great saviour with the Wii, ultimately it ended up becoming the home of the worst shovelware and pushed them down this path of trying to continually capture lightning in a bottle, ad infinitum.

 

A very sorry state for the best game devs we've ever had.

[Guest]

Ah, hello Smitty, didn't realise it was you.

 

And yeah, I'm coming across massively negative in here, which I didn't really mean. I just have concerns based on that I think it's a convoluted Ask in this day and age.

 

Apologies, I didn't mean to drag it off-topic. About your business people.

[Clipper]

if it had a trackball on it you'd be all over it

 

[Not Thread Owner]

13 hours ago, Napole0n said:

Oh boy, Tabletennis is finally coming home!

 

I've already got Rockstar Table Tennis on my Wii though.

[Sarlaccfood]

While you're at it you should ask if people think the lack of voice communication is a good or bad thing too. 

 

Should keep us going until the announcement in Jan.

[bear]

I just want to know if they are porting Spelunky to the Switch. It's the most important game.

[BitterToad]

2 hours ago, deKay said:

 

I've already got Rockstar Table Tennis on my Wii though.

It's the game of a generation, you can buy it on more than one Nintendo console. 

[Made of Ghosts]

I'm kinda disappointed there's no gimmick that really affects the games themselves, but at the same time it's probably a sensible idea. With the Wii the question was always "will developers take full advantage of the controller and use it well" and that was a going concern throughout the console's life really. Whenever a good game came out that didn't really bother with motion control it felt a bit "wrong", like an implicit admission that the console had failed. That's not a problem here. Most games probably won't use the mini controllers or the motion controls but that's fine. The console will still do what it's supposed to do.

[Not Thread Owner]

45 minutes ago, BitterToad said:

It's the game of a generation, you can buy it on more than one Nintendo console. 

 

I don't play Wii games on my Wii U like some kind of savage.

[Cyhwuhx]

29 minutes ago, deKay said:

 

I don't play Wii games on my Wii U like some kind of savage.

[Not Thread Owner]

Is that Teresa May? Does she have a Wii?

 

My Wii is right next to my Wii U. There's no need to impregnate the Wii U with Wii discs.

[Girth Certificate]

They need to get FIFA this time, my nephew loves all the Wii U games we play at my house but he still asked for an Xbone cos football is a big fucking deal to the kidz.

 

I've been replaying the Galaxy games to get hyped up for playing another mario with arms wide open, arms wide open, arms wide open

 

Spoiler

 

 

[mushashi]

19 hours ago, scottcr said:

 

You're not going to get PS4 in a handheld device like that... you'll get WiiU+

 

which means we'll be getting an amazing looking Monster Hunter and it's certainly powerful enough to run a Souls game

 

If they were planning to port either Dark Souls 1 or 2 maybe, but post-3, I wouldn't say that was necessarily an accurate statement. They dropped last gen support already and Dark Souls 3 was designed from the ground up to be a current gen only home console game, they'd have to chop till you drop it or do any awful lot of work on any port, certainly not an easy or cheap effort. The engine already only runs at 900p on the Xbox One with sub-30fps performance.

[kensei]

Since no one knows the power of the device, the targeted internal frame rate, any secret sauce nVidia has put in, the toolset or basically much beyond what's been put in the video, it's somewhat too early to say, well, anything.

 

I'd be surprised if it can't run something that approximates DS3, given the minimum PC requirements.

[mushashi]

Well yes, I have seen some valiant attempts to run the PC version at shoddy performance levels/low rendering resolution and worse graphics on weak PCs, if prospective Switch version buyers were happy with that level of port, then you can claim it'll handle pretty much any current gen game as-is.

 

We already know the parameters of the underlying chip it is based on, Nvidia have ported a bunch of existing games to the SHIELD TV which runs the most potent high clocked variant of mobile Maxwell, the Switch has to be able to run its games portably so it'll be ballpark with that system in its base operating mode and Nvidia haven't attempted any current gen level games on their own Tegra hardware. I suppose you can always blame the Android OS overhead, but I think it improbable to obtain near current console level performance and graphics in a mobile form factor. Porting is going to require sacrifice and work.

[scottcr]

I'll probably have about 3 or 4 bases around the house - each plugged into various tellies. 

 

As someone who's been humpfing the PS4 around different rooms lately, this will be a godsend.

[rgraves]

 

[Not Thread Owner]

21 minutes ago, rgraves said:

 

 

Those two guys are so hot.

[Cyhwuhx]

5 hours ago, deKay said:

Is that Teresa May? Does she have a Wii?

You know, I think Mallory Archer would currently be an upgrade for parliament. That's including the notion that Sterling would probably become a secretary of state.

I don't think she has a Wii. Lots of Scotch though.

[neoELITE]

Oh my

It will feature this game. Even the shade of green they've used for the grass looks lovely.

 

 

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

It's heartwarming to see that the same people who defended Nintendo's stubbornness to base their consoles on wacky controllers that nobody wanted but that offered unique gameplay experiences to the death now embrace traditional controls as the Switch's strongest Unique Selling Point and most exciting feature.

[joe bazooka]

1 hour ago, Napole0n said:

It's heartwarming to see that the same people who defended Nintendo's stubbornness to base their consoles on wacky controllers that nobody wanted but that offered unique gameplay experiences to the death now embrace traditional controls as the Switch's strongest Unique Selling Point and most exciting feature.

What?

 

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I'm seeing things again, aren't I?

[DarhkFox]

Well, there is apparently a gimmick that still has yet to be revealed (unless that is the wiimote style jcon but i doubt it) so you never know.

[kensei]

19 hours ago, mushashi said:

Well yes, I have seen some valiant attempts to run the PC version at shoddy performance levels/low rendering resolution and worse graphics on weak PCs, if prospective Switch version buyers were happy with that level of port, then you can claim it'll handle pretty much any current gen game as-is.

 

We already know the parameters of the underlying chip it is based on, Nvidia have ported a bunch of existing games to the SHIELD TV which runs the most potent high clocked variant of mobile Maxwell, the Switch has to be able to run its games portably so it'll be ballpark with that system in its base operating mode and Nvidia haven't attempted any current gen level games on their own Tegra hardware. I suppose you can always blame the Android OS overhead, but I think it improbable to obtain near current console level performance and graphics in a mobile form factor. Porting is going to require sacrifice and work.

 

Do we? The Switch chip is probably a custom Pascal chip, not Maxwell. We don't know the architecture either, or the OS, or the tooling, or much of much.

 

I'd say some sacrifices have to be made, but it might be simply targeting a 720p internal resolution rather than 1080. There is a big difference between 50% of a XB1, 75% of an XB1 and 90% of an XB1 in terms of sacrifices and ease of porting.

 

You might be right. But until there is hard numbers and running software, no one has a clue. Given FROM is in the announced developers, I don't think a DS3 port is unthinkable. 

[Professor Puzzles]

My turn! It's amusing to see how many people who were complaining about standing up and waving their arms about to play Wii games are now happily standing up and waving their arms about and wearing a funny hat to play VR games.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

It is, although we see many of the same problems; a lot of (glorified) tech demoes / party games rather than fully fleshed out experiences and once the novelty wears off you notice that in most cases traditional controls are better except in the case of point and shoot games like Rush of Blood or London Heist. The only exception in this case being Batman Arkham VR maybe, which might be a bit of a blueprint for a new kind of point 'n click like adventures.

[pelago]

17 hours ago, scottcr said:

I'll probably have about 3 or 4 bases around the house - each plugged into various tellies. 

 

As someone who's been humpfing the PS4 around different rooms lately, this will be a godsend.

You're assuming you can buy the bases separately.