Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

10 million in 9 months, with attach rates of 50%+ for Zelda, Odyssey and Mario Kart, 25% for Splatoon.

Has anyone tried Xenoblade Chronicles 2? Is the portable mode as bad as it is said?

@belmont I own it. It ranges from okay to somewhat rough in portable mode. The biggest drops mostly seem to happen in the game's first open area and town a few hours in. Dungeony sections and other large areas later in the game (so far) tend to fare better, but keep in mind that this game is pretty much always sub-600p on the tablet. Given how long the game runs on the Switch's battery, it seems like Monolith Soft made the decision to not run the game in boost mode when undocked like other Nintendo titles.

It's unacceptably unpolished for a Nintendo-published product, but I've spent the majority of my playtime in portable mode so far and the game is still perfectly enjoyable. Don't let the resolution niggles put you off an otherwise fantastic game.

@Ralizah Thanks, I have played all Xeno games except X so I wanted this to be my first Switch game (I got it ages ago but all the games I wanted were available on other platforms lol) . I may get it either way since I have read good things about the setting and the plot and I am in the mood for a portrable jrpg. It seems that they may patch it.

@belmont
I love XC 2 but it is much better played on the TV. The size of the world is better suited to the bigger screen and it does look a lot cleaner. If you can get past the resolution difference (probably the biggest gulf on teh Switch yet) it's still perfectly playable in portable mode although there are some frame rate issues here and there. Hopefully the patch will fix the frame rate.

Ive only played XC2 on a TV. Its the only game on the system where portable play hasnt even been touched tabletop or otherwise.

Though I think that's more a case of my mindset that a game like that demands a TV to truly appreciate the scale (though you can get that from portable play for a different kind of scale impact).

Or maybe its just because Ive had no reason to plsy portably yet. The situation hasnt presented itself

I never got the "scale suits the TV better" argument. Gorgeous open worlds are arguably more impressive on a handheld than they are on a TV, imo. And the screen is large enough to actually appreciate them, unlike the tiny 3DS screen.

BotW is insanely impressive as a portable game, even as it's merely good for a console game (on a presentation level, I mean).

@YummyHappyPills Did you end up going back to it? Last I heard, you quit in the first hour or two.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is fine, both docked and handheld. It's also an awesome game. Do yourself a favour and get it.

@belmont Unsure about the resolution issues, but other complaints (such as the in-game map) are already being addressed by a patch releasing later this month.

@Ralizah I went back to it. It gets better but the fact my party keeps having members dropped in and out isnt doing combat many favours.

Its better with a party but it still has glaring issues

Thanks for the info friends, I will order XC2 as my first NS game.
Seems that the NS has the same bad digital system as the Wii U though so I have to decide if I will go digital or physical.

@belmont Same bad digital system?

@YummyHappyPills In the Wii U the digital games are tighted to the system. If my Wii U is stolen or breaks and I buy a new one I can't simply login and download the games, you have to call Nintendo and guess what there was no official Nintendo representation here and no Store so I used the UK one. Moreover if I simply buy a second Wii U for the bedroom, even if I login with my account, I can't download the games again. This applies also to 3DS and Switch as well. And I have a ton of digital since I love the Virtual Console and since games on those platforms used to be expensive.

Now there is a Nintendo eshop Store here but if I change my country I can't download my old games.

The system is a mess and the game preservation becomes somewhat hard. So I may have to return to physical media that surely is not always ideal for a portable console.

@belmont Your games arent tied to your system. They are tied to your account in the same way as on PlayStation to prevent piracy.

Your games are locked to your account. Your account can only be linked to one system at a time. Same as on PlayStation (for obvious reasons that if the account wasnt hardware locked one person could buy a game and share it with the world...).

You either unlink from your old system manually, or simply ring the relevant service number. For instance if your account is a UK one, and you therefore access the UK eShop, ring the UK number.

It's no different to other systems now I'm afraid. And the reason they wont say "Hey, youre logging in to a new system, want to unlink your old one and link the account to this new one" is because imagine what happens if your account details are stolen.

Someone could log in on their system with your account and unlink it from your system. Hence you need to manually unlink. Its another security measure.

Is it all ideal? No. But this is the reality of tying purchases to an account. It has to be manually tethered to a system to prevent someone running off with your purchases.

With regards to "changing your country" make a new user profile on your Switch. Link it to a Nintendo account in the country of choice. You now have an additional user on your system that can download games from another region. For instance a lot of people have a Japanese account.

As long as that account remains on your Switch, any user can play the game. So if you bought a Japan exclusive game on your Japan account, as long as that account remains linked, you can play that game with any other linked account.

And in the event the game is localised, it will automatically update to the English release

@YummyHappyPills I don't think that is how PlayStation does it. I have multiple Vitas, PSPs and Vita TVs and I can use any combination I want up to three devices by choosing them on my PC in the psn account website. This makes digital gaming preservation easier. Moreover in PS4 you can use unlimited devices but only on the primary one you can play offline. The other PS4 systems function as "online only".Again this can be done automatically as you log in with the devices or in the website at any time. And there is two step verification to lessen the identity theft danger.

In the end of the day if I buy a second Switch I cannot play my games or transfer saves.

@belmont Enjoy it, I just finished it tonight and it was really excellent. Very engaging battle system - FF15's is laughable in comparison.

@belmont Yes...you can if you buy a second Switch. You do a system transfer for your saves, go into your settings, choose Unlink account, then link said account with your new one.

Your games aren't tied to hardware.

@YummyHappyPills I think what he's trying to say is that you can't access your account on more than one Switch at the same time.

@Octane @KratosMD His original complaint was the games themselves being tied to hardware like on Wii U, which I have explained isn't the case.

I'm sure we all can't wait to just pop our accounts wherever we want and have voice chat through a system and cloud saves and $60 a year online payments and all the other imitations of the other consoles, but one thing at a time.

Nintendo has to make a controller with a terrible battery life for the Switch first. Then charge $60 for new-ish games that you can only play until you stop paying. Then they need a streaming service for backwards compatability too.

Baby steps, one at a time. We still don't have MyNintendo rewards for Switch, been 10 months on that front. Granted, its better than the 9 years it took Sony to make Trophies worth a damn....but I ain't holding my breath.

Oh, and they need to understand the concept of sales too. Oh, and internal storage. And controllers sized for normal hands. And then other companies need to make 2TB Micro SD cards a thing for a decent price so we can finally have storage on par with systems from 6 years ago. Or HDD support for the dock.

I really like how the Switch handles different accounts. It's super simple to create accounts that are able to access the eshop from different regions, and the games you download are available to every account on the system, making the Switch the most import-friendly system I've ever owned.

@KratosMD
RE: only one console being activated at a time... you only have to call Nintendo and have them deactivate the console in question if it was lost/stolen in order to activate your account on another system. Then you just redownload the games and change the password so that nobody else has access to your account. Not sure why you think a person would "lose their games."

Although Nintendo NEEDS a cloud-saving option so that, even if a person loses their Switch and has to deactivate it remotely, they can still redownload their save data.