re: Nintendo Switch: Official Thread

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Could you imagine playing Mario 64 or Goldeneye on the Playstation controller

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Couldn't you map aiming to L1 or just use the face buttons? I don't remember the controls for GoldenEye all that well.

Mario would work via camera control mapped to L2 and R2 I think. Either way, Sony just copied the SNES gamepad. Nintendo should've improved upon that design like Sony eventually did rather than swinging so far in the other direction.

There is no way though that the GameCube controller was a better fit for the majority of third party titles. I loved the way it felt in my hands but to suggest it was better for most games not made by Nintendo is objectively false.

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Nintendo should've improved upon that design like Sony eventually did rather than swinging so far in the other direction.

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Nintendo did by introducing the analog stick on consoles for movement within a 3d environment. Sony followed Nintendo after the fact. People seem to forget that the dual stick Playstation controller didn't exist for the first 2 years of that console's life.

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I loved the way it felt in my hands but to suggest it was better for most games not made by Nintendo is objectively false.

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Fair enough but I primarily buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games and my enjoyment of those games is often tied to their hardware design choices. I'm aware that's the challenge Nintendo faces now, though. People love their games but they probably need the latest 3rd party titles to survive.

However, if Nintendo simply announced a console on par with the current Sony and MS offerings today, I don't think anyone would care that much. We'd just be wondering why they didn't go third party. This system sounds powerful enough and the controller looks fairly standard in it's default configuration. The portability of this is really appealing to me also and I'm not even talking about taking it out of my house. The Switch is essentially what I wanted with the Wii U but never got because the range on the Wii U is so awful.

I rather the sticks in the lower section. So I hope they never do.

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People keep saying that but when was the last time they tried? The N64 and GameCube were close but Nintendo went out of there way to make most multiplats undesirable on those consoles. I couldn't imagine playing Mortal Kombat with that N64 controller or Tony Hawk on the GameCube.

Gimmicks like the Wii and Wii U aren't necessarily bad, but just don't sacrifice hardware power.

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Here's what I think on this topic, or at least how I read Nintendo's often off-kilter approach.

Nintendo is still a smart company. They are also a cautious company. They make dumb marketing decisions and sometimes dumb isolated decisions, but you have to remember their place in the market. They are a laser focused gaming company. They don't have other branches or other arms to make up for any major losses or gambles. If their gaming fails, they fail.

The "current gen" industry often operates at a massive loss. The PS4 nor the X1 are profitable yet. Gaming budgets have ballooned exponentially. And it takes tons of capital to do anything. The problem with the "all in approach is huge for tons of reasons:

1. Taking Losses for years on hardware
2. Company Loyalty - Sony vs. MS
3. Development Timelines
4. Rediscovered battles over 3rd Party Exclusivity, which just takes cold hard cash
5. Keeping up with the Joneses - Could Nintendo, if they matched this gen, been in this ridiculous business of a mid-gen hardware upgrade? I hate this trend if it becomes the thing, and although I really do like my Xbox, I have no interest in the Scorpio. Just wait a couple of years on the 1 and make a new console.

And on and on.

Not only that, one of the biggest reasons in any "Should I get an X1 or PS4?" thread that someone answers is "Get what your friends have."

So you'd have to ask Nintendo, as a singularly focused company, take huge losses, pay tons of money of exclusivity of some kind, start spending more money on game design to keep up, all the while making the bet that not just one person buys a system, but that that person can convince his group of friends to buy the system. All the while understanding that your games are not "cool," and don't have enough "explosions," to match up to some epic Battlefield or Halo trailer, so you're marketing has to be absolutely perfect for it to work.

I mean they COULD do it. It is possible and there's a chance that it COULD work, but that risk is huge. You can fail on the Wii U and still keep chugging, try to find the next N64 or Wii. Or you could go all in on the current gen race, maybe win, but if you lose, that would most likely be a killshot for Nintendo. The scope, budget and investment, regardless of their resources, is probably just way too much. It doesn't make good business sense, honestly.

And I still don't believe anyone who doesn't currently own Nintendo hardware that they would suddenly switch to a "current gen" Nintendo machine just because Nintendo would make it. No way. And I think the whole "where your friends are" is now a huge part of that. You'd have to be sure everyone made that switch before you did it.

ETA: And I don't really get the hype at all for the Pro and Scorpio. It makes no sense. We still haven't mastered 1080p 60fps gaming. We're buying even more expensive hardware, probably while they gear up for the next consoles in 2-3 years. MS and Sony are basically Wii-ing themselves. I have my X1 but you're going to put a big focus on VR and 4K gaming. WHat's that mean for the 1? And Microsoft is fading out all of the media features that I find super useful as a home media device. If the Switch can do 1080p streaming to TV and has the media apps, that probably makes me sell off the X1 early next year. I mean, the X1 would just be the "less powered" system getting less focus on games and experience. Sound familiar?

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Wii did. I don't see why it's that bizarre considering how awesome the console looks.

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Because you can't expect wii success and every one of their other consoles has sold worse than the time before. At this point the sales point to the wii being nothing but a fluke.

Also in order for them to overtake sony and micrsoft like I said slow down to, they would have to play catch up by a lot. PS4 currently sitting at 52 million and Switch at 0.

But we've never seen anything like this. It's why I've been telling you for years that Nintendo can't stop with their hardware and go 3rd party. They opened a massive can of worms that Sony and Microsoft I don't think can compete with.

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I still don't know why Nintendo doesn't release a console in the same vein as Microsoft and Sony.

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They tried that. It was called the GameCube.

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The "current gen" industry often operates at a massive loss. The PS4 nor the X1 are profitable yet. Gaming budgets have ballooned exponentially. And it takes tons of capital to do anything. The problem with the "all in approach is huge for tons of reasons:

1. Taking Losses for years on hardware

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Um I don't think this is true. PS4 has been profitable since at least 2014 and is only getting more profitable. This is not the PS3 strategy they used.

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Um I don't think this is true. PS4 has been profitable since at least 2014 and is only getting more profitable. This is not the PS3 strategy they used.

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True, should rephrase, the balance of profitability is much harder. Either losses or high costs.

Nintendo isn't going to make a $400-500 dollar non-bundle console which was the PS4 price on release. It was profitable faster than the 3, but it still took a year and it was expensive.

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I'm really interested in Cartridge Size and App/Store Capabilities

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They showed the cart size and it looked little bigger than a DS cartridge