Nintendo Switch Discussion

[Sephiroth81]

I don't lap it up though. I haven't bought any of the Wii U ports, yet. But just because I don't think it's worth me re-buying the ports at this point, doesn't mean I think it's unethical to charge full price for some refined ports of quality Wii U games that are still fairly comparable to new Switch games, and are still percieved to be in sufficient demand.

I don't think the passing of an arbitrary amount of time is in itself something that devalues a game. That would be like expecting a new Ferrarri to be half price X number of years after the model's intiail release, regardless of the refinements made over the years.

They can get away with it so do it. The fact is though that its easy money for them, and a distraction for the lack of new ideas and software on the system. I, and I am sure I'm not alone with this thought, am not deeply excited to see barely touched Wii U ports coming to Switch at full price and find it a bit of a cynical move. Some might get excited over it and disagree, and thats fair enough, but I'm sure what WOULD unite everyone is if Nintendo actually decided to focus on new release first party games. Or even do proper re-mastering of older games, like with the Zelda games that came before.

Who on here wouldn't want Sunshine or Galaxy on Switch in 1080p and fully remastered the same way as Zelda TP and WW was? I'm sure there may be some who might argue against them being full priced, but certainly less than the minor Wii U ports.

[Matt_B]

They can get away with it so do it. The fact is though that its easy money for them, and a distraction for the lack of new ideas and software on the system. I, and I am sure I'm not alone with this thought, am not deeply excited to see barely touched Wii U ports coming to Switch at full price and find it a bit of a cynical move. Some might get excited over it and disagree, and thats fair enough, but I'm sure what WOULD unite everyone is if Nintendo actually decided to focus on new release first party games. Or even do proper re-mastering of older games, like with the Zelda games that came before.

Who on here wouldn't want Sunshine or Galaxy on Switch in 1080p and fully remastered the same way as Zelda TP and WW was? I'm sure there may be some who might argue against them being full priced, but certainly less than the minor Wii U ports.

I don't think they are impacting the release of new games much though. We've had Kirby, Mario Tennis and the two Labo kits so far this year, with another Labo kit, the Xenoblade 2 DLC, Smash, Party and the two Pokemon games to come. That's more or less as much as they managed during the Wii U era, and the ports are mainly there to fill the gaps that would otherwise be in the schedule.

Personally, I'd think that I'm in for a lean year of first party games mainly because Labo is a colossal waste of time and effort, Party should have died a natural death in the Cube era, and I don't like Pokemon. However, ports that wouldn't have taken anything like the same resources as those probably aren't contributing to the problem. Ah well, at least there's a metric ton of third party games that are right up my alley at the moment.

As to whether they should be porting Cube/Wii era games rather than Wii U ones, that's a reasonable question. There'd probably be more effort involved to get the games up to modern standards, and the Wii in particular doesn't have the benefit of having had a lot of good games that flew under the radar, but it would broaden the selection considerably to include some top-level classics from that period. Also, I'd think that future Wii U ports will probably be a bit thin on the ground just because they're nearly down the the barrel scrapes now, and that necessity may force them to dig a bit further into the back catalogue going forwards.

[pratty]

They can get away with it so do it. The fact is though that its easy money for them, and a distraction for the lack of new ideas and software on the system.

All you've taken away from my points is "they do because they can"? You've still not explained why a game should cost less because of the passing of an arbitray period of time, and the crossing from one platform to another.

Say Nintendo released a game on the Wii U and it sold 1,000,000 copies at full price , you wouldn't have a problem with that. But if they sell 500,000 copies at full price on the Wii U and 500,000 improved copies at full price on the Switch, then that's greedy and cynical?

There are plenty of new games released on the Switch under the Nintendo umbrella, and lots of new ideas in the games like Mario Oddysey, 1-2 Switch, Arms, Labo and so on.

[Sephiroth81]

They can get away with it so do it. The fact is though that its easy money for them, and a distraction for the lack of new ideas and software on the system.

All you've taken away from my points is "they do because they can"? You've still not explained why a game should cost less because of the passing of an arbitray period of time, and the crossing from one platform to another.

Say Nintendo released a game on the Wii U and it sold 1,000,000 copies at full price , you wouldn't have a problem with that. But if they sell 500,000 copies at full price on the Wii U and 500,000 improved copies at full price on the Switch, then that's greedy and cynical?

There are plenty of new games released on the Switch under the Nintendo umbrella, and lots of new ideas in the games like Mario Oddysey, 1-2 Switch, Arms, Labo and so on.

Its lazy and cynical because its literally an unchanged port of an older game on an outdated system thats been superseded, and rightly or wrongly, some customers demand more than this.

[Matt_B]

Its lazy and cynical because its literally an unchanged port of an older game on an outdated system thats been superseded, and rightly or wrongly, some customers demand more than this.

They're not "unchanged" though. All the Wii U to Switch ports have received enhancements to their graphics and gameplay.

Just because it's not as eye-poppingly obvious as an SD to HD remake shouldn't detract from that, and I'd like to see you make such a port before using a word like "lazy" to describe it.

[Sephiroth81]

Its lazy and cynical because its literally an unchanged port of an older game on an outdated system thats been superseded, and rightly or wrongly, some customers demand more than this.

They're not "unchanged" though. All the Wii U to Switch ports have received enhancements to their graphics and gameplay.

Just because it's not as eye-poppingly obvious as an SD to HD remake shouldn't detract from that, and I'd like to see you make such a port before using a word like "lazy" to describe it.

I'd call them "modified" rather than enhanced (in terms of gameplay) to obviously account for the fairly different control systems of the two consoles. As for the graphics.....they've been upscaled to 1080p from 720p in undocked mode in some cases. Not unwelcome, but no giant leap (and literally no leap at all in portable mode, but hey, I'm not oblivious to the appeal of HD Mario Kart 8 style graphics in handheld form).

I would call it pretty lazy in the grand scheme of things though, comparing to many other examples of "ports". Yes, I'm fully aware that the Wii U specs aren't hugely different to the Switch in terms of raw horsepower (especially when in docked mode), so I'm not expecting miracles technically, which is why I would suggest that Gamecube or Wii ports would make MUCH more sense (or much more overdue at least), and my perception of value for money (and I've never claimed my opinion here as a fact, just my perception) would be different. As it stands, I think these are pretty straightforward ports with little in the way of notable enhancements. I totally accept that you don't see it that way, and neither does Pratty, but I'm sure we're grown up enough to understand that we're not dealing in hard facts here, but opinions, without resorting to "i'd like to see you do better!" remarks .

Galaxy 1 and 2 enhanced from 480p to 1080p would require more effort, I've no doubt about it, but it would also be a more visible and desirable enhancement, in my opinion. Although there might be some headaches involved in porting the control system across, but i guess it could work with the two control sections separated with the left replicating what the Wiimote did, and the right serving as the "nunchuck".

[Matt_B]

Yes, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but facts are facts and it's certainly not true that the games are unchanged or, in the vast majority of cases, the only difference to the gameplay is adaptation to the Switch's controls. Here's a brief rundown:

Bayonetta 2 - Includes Bayonetta 1 (no new content in either game though, so I'll give you that one)
Captain Toad - New multiplayer mode, extra levels based on SMO
Hyrule Warriors - Includes extra content from 3DS version and all DLC from both
Pokken - Extra characters, new DLC available
Mario Kart - New battle modes, plus original DLC
NSMBU - New characters, plus Luigi DLC
Tropical Freeze - New Funky Kong game mode

Oh, and you can also have Breath of the Wild if you insist, but seeing as that came out at the same time I'd think it fair enough that there were no extras.

I'd also argue that 720p when undocked is a significant improvement, because the Wii U pad only manages 480p, plus you've got to use it within a few metres of the base unit. There's probably not a huge amount of dev work that goes into achieving that, but it's certainly a valuable addition.

So far as ports of older games go, SMG is such an obvious pick as the graphics would require very little work; we know from running the game on emulators that they scale very nicely right up to 4K, and the game had no trouble hitting 60fps even on the Wii hardware. Quite what machinations go on at Nintendo's HQ as to what games are selected for the re-make treatment remain a mystery though.

[Sephiroth81]

Yes, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but facts are facts and it's certainly not true that the games are unchanged or, in the vast majority of cases, the only difference to the gameplay is adaptation to the Switch's controls. Here's a brief rundown:

Bayonetta 2 - Includes Bayonetta 1 (no new content in either game though, so I'll give you that one)
Captain Toad - New multiplayer mode, extra levels based on SMO
Hyrule Warriors - Includes extra content from 3DS version and all DLC from both
Pokken - Extra characters, new DLC available
Mario Kart - New battle modes, plus original DLC
NSMBU - New characters, plus Luigi DLC
Tropical Freeze - New Funky Kong game mode

Oh, and you can also have Breath of the Wild if you insist, but seeing as that came out at the same time I'd think it fair enough that there were no extras.

I'd also argue that 720p when undocked is a significant improvement, because the Wii U pad only manages 480p, plus you've got to use it within a few metres of the base unit. There's probably not a huge amount of dev work that goes into achieving that, but it's certainly a valuable addition.

So far as ports of older games go, SMG is such an obvious pick as the graphics would require very little work; we know from running the game on emulators that they scale very nicely right up to 4K, and the game had no trouble hitting 60fps even on the Wii hardware. Quite what machinations go on at Nintendo's HQ as to what games are selected for the re-make treatment remain a mystery though.

Sounds like budget GOTY editions to me.

I'm fine about Breath of the Wild being full price. It was released on both platforms at the same time. Its a new game, not an old port.

I'll share some agreement with you on 720p undocked - I like the Switch and think its a fine idea, and while not a powerful home console, its a mighty powerful handheld.

I hear that in China, on the Nvidia Shield (which is very similar to the Switch), Nintendo have actually produced their own emulator for it, that runs a small selection of Wii games, including the Galaxy games, and they are fully upscaled to 1080p, and framerate more or less hits 60fps, few dips aside. I think Galaxy is pretty likely to become available on Switch eventually, and by then they will hopefully iron out the minor framerate hiccups.

[Matt_B]

Sounds like budget GOTY editions to me.

Except that GOTY editions generally come out on the same platforms and aren't ported to new ones at budget prices.

I hear that in China, on the Nvidia Shield (which is very similar to the Switch), Nintendo have actually produced their own emulator for it, that runs a small selection of Wii games, including the Galaxy games, and they are fully upscaled to 1080p, and framerate more or less hits 60fps, few dips aside. I think Galaxy is pretty likely to become available on Switch eventually, and by then they will hopefully iron out the minor framerate hiccups.

Yeah, here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMQWcl_99fs

On the whole, I'm not that envious of the Chinese market. The graphics certainly scale well for the most part, but the pre-rendered cut scenes don't and there are all those little niggles with the framerate and controls that you wouldn't get if you just played the original game on the Wii U, even if you only get naive upscaling. If Nintendo were to re-visit the original code and make a proper port rather than just emulating it, they could probably sort all that out, but that'd probably entail a full price release rather than budget offering.

Also, I'm wondering what sort of deal they've done with Nvidia. If there's a timed exclusivity clause for those games, it might be a while before they make it to the Switch.

[pratty]

I think the relative ease of porting Wii U games instead of Wii games is a factor in choosing them, but getting back to my original point, if you want to offer 'new' games to a Switch audience, many of which didn't own a Wii U, it makes sense to offer the Wii U games, as it's more likely that the average Switch owner will find them to be as good as new than the older and generally more played Wii and Gamecube games. Though I'm sure Wii and Gamecube ports will arrive eventually.

[Sephiroth81]

On the whole, I'm not that envious of the Chinese market. The graphics certainly scale well for the most part, but the pre-rendered cut scenes don't and there are all those little niggles with the framerate and controls that you wouldn't get if you just played the original game on the Wii U, even if you only get naive upscaling. If Nintendo were to re-visit the original code and make a proper port rather than just emulating it, they could probably sort all that out, but that'd probably entail a full price release rather than budget offering.

Also, I'm wondering what sort of deal they've done with Nvidia. If there's a timed exclusivity clause for those games, it might be a while before they make it to the Switch.

I'm sure Nintendo could get it working fine through emulation, given this Nvidia project as a baseline. 1080p, locked 60fps (720p undocked) shouldn't take a painful amount of additional optimisation. I'd even pay full price for it! Port or emulation

Its not far off being exactly what I want (Galaxy is my favourite 3D Mario game by some distance). In true 1080p, it looks absolutely phenomenal, and not far off Odyssey or Mario 3D World. Lets hope Nintendo make it happen (and a "Sunshine" upgrade of similar proportions, although may need more work to change the code up to 60fps, being 30fps originally). I can dream.

[Bluce_Ree]

Into The Breach is greatness.

[Matt_B]

Into The Breach is greatness.

Yeah, I'll second that one. It's somewhat akin to XCom or Mario + Rabbids, but with the rogue-like elements of FTL thrown in, so you get a lot of variations out of what would otherwise be a fairly limited amount of content.

I've already got the PC version, and that runs very nicely on handhelds like the GPD Win, but by all accounts the Switch port is far superior without having to faff around with the settings.

[ALK]

You know, all this talk about Wii U ports and whatnot but i'm now almost certain the New Super Mario Bros U DX port is REALLY going to sell like hotcakes, all thanks to the Peachette power up, and the fan creation that spawned from it, Bowsette.

If you dunno what "Bowsette" is, do a search though you might run into the odd NSFW image so be warned. Japan especially is eating it up like crazy.

[greenberet79]

The Switch is in desperate need of some sports games. And when I say the Switch, I mean I'M in desperate need of some sports games!

The Sociable Soccer team have reiterated that they want it on the Switch but i can't see it happening any time soon. EA don't seem to be interested in giving us NHL.

All very disappointing. I'm still playing NHL 07 on the PSP!