Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

Wow, the new Zelda is selling as fast as Pokemon Scarlet/Violet did.

Except there's only one version of this, so no double-dipping, and the physical is $70. It's also not part of a larger commercial juggernaut franchise that's one of the most valuable in the world.

@themcnoisy I like amiibo, but I'm glad they're starting to slow down on them a bit. They really oversaturated the market. And while I have no necessary complaints about unlocking content with them, I don't think they should have exclusive content hidden behind them. DLC is bad enough; physical, scarce DLC doubly-so.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 got it right: you could use the Shulk amiibo to unlock a Monado sword skin, I believe, but this is also automatically unlocked once you beat the game.

It's pretty baffling to me that Nintendo would delist something Mario related. They're just losing sales from potential purchasers like you who adopted the system late. Especially considering Nintendo games sell well at full price for years after release.

@Pizzamorg Agreed. Eshop credit is also frequently discounted online. Even if Ninty has the worst sales of the bunch, their games are the cheapest for me to buy at launch, which I really appreciate. Really incentivizes me to triple-down on the "buy Nintendo at launch, everything else on sale" strategy I've employed for years now.

@Ralizah some of the content locked behind Amiibo in BOTW was infuriating as it wasn't even its own Amiibo that you needed to unlock the costumes. Thankfully as you say they seem to have largely abandoned exclusive content and those costumes are unlockable in the new game itself as well as through Amiibo.

Speaking of the new Zelda, it is already one of my favourite ever games and convinced me to jump back on the Swith with the OLED. Every little complaint I had about BOTW has been addressed, the world feels more populated and there's a lot more to do pretty much everywhere you go. I'm not often a fan of open worlds these days but I absolutely love this one and it's a miracle of coding how it all just works so seamlessly.

It's just one of those games that comes along and reminds me of why this is my hobby and that whilst nice, more powerful hardware really doesn't matter and it's sales success is fully deserved

@carlos82 It's a little amazing to compare the raw grunt of something like the Xbox Series X to the, frankly, wildly underpowered Nintendo Switch, and then realize which one of them is hosting ambitious games that push the boundaries of what the medium has to offer.

There is never, ever any substitute for big, beautiful, exclusive games to generate interest in a platform.

tbh there might be a little too much to do in TotK. I liked how BotW always kept something interesting on the horizon, but made sure not to overwhelm the player with new elements.

This game is... full to overflowing with content. It's a little overwhelming. I've played this pretty religiously since launch and have barely even begun to scratch the surface of what it has to offer.

I've realised I really like the weapon system in TOTK, perhaps they do break a little too quickly but once you open up a few more slots it's less of a problem. Compared to Elden Ring where I had the same longsword for 100+ hours... Ultimately swinging that same sword around the entire time was a big reason I stopped playing before the very end. I know I could have chosen to mix it up, but I appreciate being forced to in TOTK. So yes, turn a "negative" into a positive!

@Ralizah my big complaint with AAA gaming in general is that it's not really evolved much since the latter PS3 days and are just a bit prettier, then this comes along and makes many look like they're standing still.

I got it at launch and it's taken me until last night to finish the first temple as I was constantly lead away somewhere else. For me they've got the balance just about right with BOTW perhaps a bit too far the other way, though I am glad I played that first as it adds so much to exploring these environments again and seeing how it's evolved.

@kyleforrester87 in BOTW I wasn't so keen on the weapon degradation as it wasn't always clear when you'd get another good weapon and I often ended up just keeping them instead. In TOTK I'm looking forward to them breaking so I can see what else I can stick on the end of something 😄

@carlos82 I was ambivalent towards weapon degradation in the first game but in this one, yeah it's clicked.

Seeing that all you'll seemingly ever get are degraded and dissolved weapons at best, just a basic claymore, sword etc. And what you attach to it is what makes it good, is exciting.

This also makes enemies worth fighting outside of elixirs, as stronger monsters have stronger parts for better weapons.

And this makes stuff like a Talus worth fighting for more than just gems, although even those have weapon use now.

One thing I particularly appreciate in TotK is the continued rejection of RPG mechanics. Elden Ring had a ton of cool weapons, but I didn't experiment almost at all because using them efficiently would require rebuilding the character's stats, which is a pain. No such barrier exists in TotK.

@carlos82 I've had the same thought after a fight when I wanted to try a new fusion combination: "darn, that minecart-sword of mine hasn't broken yet!" Y'know? It reminds me of playing with legos when I was a kid, where I'd constantly break down my old stuff to make room for new creations.

@carlos82 "those costumes are unlockable in the new game itself as well as through Amiibo."

Do this be true? Can I finally explore this version of Hyrule with a proper hero's tunic

@Judal27 well I've unlocked one part from Ocarina and a friend has done so with Twilight Princess both without Amiibo and I know of a few others as well. This game really does reward your exploration

I love how Ultrahand allows you to come up with creative solutions to issues that would have prevented progression in BotW.

Example: needed to get into a tower to unlock it, but the front was covered by vines, and it was raining, so my fire arrows weren't working like desired. Solution? Use Ultrahand to build a make-shift awning around the entrance to the tower so I could shield the vines from the rain long enough to catch on fire.

There were piles of wood nearby, which makes me wonder if this was the intended solution all along. Maybe this area is sort of like the original where it's always raining until you do something in the main plot? The game design is so ingenious that it's often legitimately difficult to tell when you're the one solving a problem and when the game designers are leading you down a path with conceptual breadcrumbs.

@carlos82 holy crap, no more having to pretend with the hylian tunic! Which also means I just ran all the way to hateno village with almost no stamina for nuthin. Very nice 🙃

@Ralizah I was looking for a bit of cover to make a fire to clear those vines too, didn’t think to do that. Just fused a fire arrow in the end. Yours is better!

@kyleforrester87 OK, yeah, I'm guessing it must always be raining there, then.

Whatever works, man! You wouldn't believe how many shrines I've cheesed now by completely ignoring the intended solution and simply gluing stuff to rickety towers of stacked wood!

@Pizzamorg 'In BOTW it felt like you couldn't walk more than a few metres in any direction without Link dying from being too cold or hot or wandering into that miasma stuff. There was a lot of learning through repeated failure though until you realised the right ways to prep to push forwards.'

I'm going through this now with Ori and the blind forest. Once you finish a section it's like yee haa! But knowing the following sections will lead to numerous deaths until the solution presents itself fills me with anxiety. The platforms are tiny too at times which really doesn't help.

Hidden insta kill traps, spikes on awkward as heck angles and being completely underequipped early game - both with health and platforming capabilities. It's weirdly way easier now I've unlocked a load of stuff as I can make the odd mistake. In many ways it's similar to botw.

@Ralizah yeah, it’s a big reason why I enjoy the Divinity games. They give you some cool tools to exploit things.

@Kidfried I don't think they're necessarily OP, but they're quite good for crowd control. I've been missing having unlimited bombs in TotK!

They do seem pretty bloody powerful, but I guess being more limited than BOTW that makes some sense.

I do love Addison - “How’s the president standing?! It fills my heart with joy to see him doing so well on his own”

What a simple man.

@Ralizah As you probably already know from when I've talked about it before, the lack of discounting their own games is a major issue for me and effectively killed a lot of the excitement I had for diving into a whole new ecosystem. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but your reasoning doesn't really fly much at all and is not an excuse. Protecting launch purchasers screws over many more people than who buys at launch, and there should be no reason why waiting should actually be considered a bad thing. There's no reason why a now 6 year old game should cost $60. If anything, that should be considered a positive thing that PlayStation and Xbox games actually drop in price, but yet Sony is considered to be extremely greedy for their $70 price tag on a much more advanced console. Sure, they are, but at the same time at least I can get it cheaper down the road than basically every 1st party Nintendo game.

In no way is that a negative thing, and it's borderline selfish to consider expecting not to have to pay full price for a game when they got a Switch 5 years into it's lifeycycle just to protect the value of something you bought (especially when you buy digital anyways). Sorry, but I did take offense to a portion of your post. We're good obviously, but I do consider a lot of that to be BS.

@KilloWertz I do tend to agree with @Ralizah’s view on how Nintendo tend not to discount games.

@KilloWertz Bit of a puzzling post, Killo, so I'll take it in bits.

So, there's a few things here.

1) Nintendo doesn't need an "excuse" to price their products how they like. We are, after all, not talking about necessities, but entertainment. If Nintendo was selling Epipens, I'd feel differently, of course.

2) With that said, there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with this strategy, or with waiting to buy games, either. Paying as little as possible for your entertainment is in your self-interest as a consumer, so your feelings are perfectly valid and rational, as far as that goes.

3) Pricing decisions are economic calculations. So no, I don't think Nintendo actually cares about prioritizing the preservation of value of the product for launch purchasers, because pricing decisions always come back to profit and sales forecasts. Their strategy does, however, have the added benefit of being more beneficial to people who buy at launch, who also tend to be their most loyal fans

So, to be clear, when you've seen me complain about Sony's $70 games, that wasn't me saying: "shame, shame on Sony!" I don't think there's anything morally condemnable about (successfully) attempting to raise the base MSRP. Is it greedy? Absolutely. So is everything Nintendo does. Ditto with Microsoft. They're corporations. They're machines designed to generate a profit, not your friends. What I was saying is that I dislike the effect they were (successfully) attempting to have on the market, because, as someone who primarily buys games I want at launch, a higher MSRP isn't beneficial to me. But I wouldn't attach any sort of moral element to that. I don't think Playstation execs are terrible people for normalizing the $70 MSRP, if that makes sense.

As I said, pricing decisions are economic calculations. Companies price products according to what they think they can get away with in terms of maximizing profit margins. This does mean I think it is almost self-evidently obvious that if Sony thought they could get away with keeping their prices at Nintendo levels and continue to sell games like God of War like they were brand new, they would in a heartbeat.

Sony doesn't think they can get away with that without a sharper die-off in demand than they'd like, so they've instead chosen to prioritize milking day one purchasers more than they used to. Clearly this gambit has been successful.

So... you do realize I don't work for Nintendo, right? I'm not helping them price their games. So I have no idea why you'd be annoyed at me about this.

I buy some physical games. If I sold Breath of the Wild today, which I do own a physical copy of, I'd make back the majority of the money I spent on it. If I had purchased GoW 2018 at launch and did the same, I'd make back... I dunno, $10?

I don't even see how it's contestable that a person who buys even a few Nintendo games physically at launch is better off than someone who buys games from the majority of other companies at launch when it comes to a value preservation perspective.

Especially when you consider the voucher program and Nintendo gold coins means they're the cheapest of the big three to buy from on day one.