Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@Octane Lots of games I've never played much of or was hoping would get Switch ports, so I'm pretty happy.

You could always sell your Wii U versions and buy the Switch ports at a discount. That's what I did with MK8.

@Ralizah Not hoping for ports here

Ports are already perfectly playable on my older systems. I want new experiences. Pikmin 4

I'm just not a big fan of how ports are marketed as new games, made a big deal about them and whatnot and sold for full price. Wii ports on the Wii U, for example, were just digital downloads for a budget price. I much prefer something like that if they insist on bringing games over. Just release them as digital downloads.

As someone who's only current gen console is Switch (and as someone who never owned a Wii U), I enjoyed the direct.

I'll be looking forward to Kirby, YS VIII, SNK Heroines, DKC TF, and Hyrule Warriors DX to varying degrees. There's also quite a few 2017 releases I've yet to get as well.

@KratosMD Nah.

Pikmin 3
Wind Waker HD
Wonderful 101
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Super Mario 3D World
Xenoblade Chronicles X

There are still a lot of fantastic first-party games on Wii U.

While I'm not enthused about paying for them again, owning most of these games on a portable system is almost too tempting to pass up. We'll see.

@Octane You've gotta understand, though: for a large chunk of the Switch player base going forward, these will be new games. The Wii U was a disaster sales-wise, so a lot of these games never got the appreciation they deserve.

And for a lot of us Wii U owners, the prospect of playing these games anywhere is also incredibly exciting. It's why I sold MK8 and got the Deluxe Switch release. I don't care too much about the battle mode or the doubled resolution when docked... I just wanted MK8 in handheld mode, and the game provides EXACTLY that experience.

But I can absolutely understand why you'd be underwhelmed by Wii U ports, though, especially if you keep yours in the dock.

@Ralizah True, but that's just from my perspective. A year full of Wii U ports could be excited to someone, but that means no new Switch games for me.

I'll wait and see how Mario Tennis turns out, since this one has a story mode. The one on Wii U was rubbish. I don't think I could ever justify €60 for a tennis game in this day and age, so I'm hoping it has a meaty single player story mode, preferably for something like €40/45. I may get it in that case.

@Octane Let's not get ahead of ourselves: it's January, and this wasn't even a full-fledged Direct, so I don't think you can characterize 2018 as a "year full of Wii U ports."

Unfortunately, I have such a profound distaste for sports and sports games that I wouldn't buy Mario Tennis for any price. It's the exact reason I'll likely never get Golf Story.

@Ralizah It was an example. I couldn't fit an 'if' in that sentence.

I think it's pretty clear year 1 was a fortunate case of good timing for the Switch, with Zelda ready to bring over from Wii U and a Mario game. The system is doing well but rightly developers have been waiting to see how it does before committing to projects.. I do expect this year to be a bit of a lull in comparison supported by remasters of previous software (which I like, because it's mostly all new to me) but from 2019 we'll see some big hitters.

@kyleforrester87 A lot of Japanese devs didn't even bother developing for the system until they saw how well it was selling. I expect we'll see some exciting first-party releases revealed at E3, some key third party support, and if sales keep up, a tsunami of software in 2019.

I'm pretty happy with what's on the immediate horizon for the Switch, though.

@Ralizah Celeste is a day one for me because Towerfall!

@kyleforrester87 I really dislike the low-detail pixel art, but if it's cheap and controls well, I might pick it up.

I'm surprised Towerfall isn't on the system already, considering how perfect the Switch is for local multiplayer.

@Ralizah The developers a cool guy and Towerfall was crammed full of great little animations and flourishes, plus the game handled brilliantly. I hope he had the same guy do the sound track too.

(I expect TF will make it over, probably a resource issue. I believe they are still working on Skytorn, too. Which looks pretty mega)

Edit: http://www.pcgamer.com/2d-post-apocalyptic-adventure-skytorn-...

@kyleforrester87 Procedurally generated, huh? Skytorn looks like Terraria, but without the building parts.

I don't know about anyone else but I was disappointed by the Direct today. Most of the games were remasters that I already played. I understanding them porting Wii U games since they are probably thinking that alot of people didn't play those games on the Wii U especially considering the sales numbers of Switch VS Wii U, but games like Dark Souls?? The World Ends with You?? I don't know.

As much grief as people give the PS4 for being a "remaster machine" it seems the Switch is heading down that path.

@Tasuki It takes time to develop new games for a fresh platform. The fact that the Switch is getting ports like DOOM, Wolfenstein, TWEWY, Dark Souls, LA Noire, etc. is a massively good sign. It means third parties think it'll be profitable to release their games on the platform, which has been a problem for the last decade or so.

It was stupid when people complained about the PS4 getting ports and remasters, and it's still stupid when people complain about the Switch getting ports and remasters, especially when you consider that these will be the first portable versions of most of these games, and a lot of these games are coming from companies that have a limited to non-existent history of releasing games on Nintendo platforms.

@Ralizah I guess remasters are better then suffering through droughts of no games like what happened with the Wii U. Just means that I will probably be playing my PS4 more in the coming months.

@KratosMD Yeah. That was impossible before, considering that there was an enormous gulf between the Wii and everything else, nobody wanted the Wii U, and (until now) their portable consoles were simply much too weak to downgrade home console games for. Switch still has some of the same power gulf issues that kept games off of the Wii, but it's not quite as drastic, and people are excited to play pretty much everything on the Switch. That, combined with its unusually strong sales and a new president who seems to actually understand and aggressively pursue opportunities to grow the Switch's presence in Western markets is creating ideal conditions for Nintendo to build bridges with companies that had previously ignored them.

Of course, continued growth in this regard is entirely dependent on Switch owners actually buying third party games. A lot of third party releases have performed well so far, so I'm optimistic, but we'll see how purchasing trends evolve as the userbase grows.

@Tasuki Avoiding droughts is THE most important thing to accomplish, and Nintendo knows it, which is why the Switch has pretty consistently seen game releases since launch. Every good game that's added to the system strengthens its library and expands its overall appeal, so building a diverse catalogue of games is important. And, you know, remasters of great games often sell well, which is why we see so many of them.

I've been out of the loop with all things Nintendo for a few years. The Switch was my first piece of Nintendo hardware since the Wii (10+ years). How often do directs happen? Is it monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly... ?

I can't really be disappointed, because I wasn't really expecting much in the first place.
Jim Sterling did a video on the direct. I largely agree with him, even though none of the games interest me.

@Fight_Teza_Fight As a Wii U owner, it's a bit weird seeing the entire library getting ported over. With additional content or DLC that I can't access on Wii U. Meaning I have to pay full price to play (mostly) the same game again.

The Wii U got its fair share of Wii ports back in the day. The difference was that they were €20 digital downloads, like the PS2 Classics. Now it's full priced Wii U ports with retail releases to pad out the software line-up. I wish they treated the Wii U ports on the Switch like they treated the Wii ports on the Wii U.

I don't really mind it, but it just means less Switch games for me.

I'm fine with Switch being a port machine right now. Wii U actually had a few good games. Now the people who (probably rightly) didn't buy one can enjoy great games like Mario Kart 8. I'd buy Mario 3D World again probably if they ported it. In fact, I wish they had more ports, HD-style like what PlayStation does, so I could play games like Mario Galaxy again in glorious high definition.

Anyway, it pads out the line-up of games which is, as far as I'm concerned, pretty weak right now on Switch. There's two blockbuster games and little else without the ports. The ports will keep people buying stuff, and if they're selling enough games then more games will get released. This is a necessary evil.