Switch future longevity

Love it or hate it, the switch is a pretty unique console. What do you guys predict about it's longterm success? Here's how I see it
Strengths:
>Nintendo first parties
>uniqueness helps catch people's eye
>portability means that some will sacrifice performance for multiplats in order to have the comfort of playing in bed
>potential for vc
>portability incentivizes more than one per household
>potential Wii U games to dig into
>tentative 3rd party support
Drawbacks
>specs are lacking and it struggles to run xenoblade
>ps5 could come out and eclipse its specs
>shifty dpad
>expensive controller
>shitty online, no cloud save
>shitty storage
>most multiplats are just last gen games, few current gen ones
>since all games now need to look like console games, cheap and niche franchises that could survive by making cheap 3ds games won't be able to survive
>still no Netflix

Personally, I think it could survive off its uniqueness, since unlike previous Nintendo consoles, it gives a definitive benefit to playing multiplats and buying ports on it, but since its a gen-9 competing with gen-8, ps5 could blow it out with superior tech. Will Sony/Microsoft be able to compete in the portable arena?

nintendo has already blown their load
they have NOTHING for next year
and then once they make their shitty online paid
dead console within a year

Nintendo's next logical step, since they want to sell 20-30 million units this next year, is to drive the price of the Switch down with new revisions of the hardware.
My educated guess is that we'll see a new version of the SOC fabbed on a smaller process, getting into a new silent revision of the current system with a price drop to $250, and a newer smaller and more portable variant for under $200 to start into their traditional price range for their handhelds.

Its not likely that we'll see hybrid portable PS5 or NextBox systems until around a similar timeframe for the release of Nintendo's next-gen Switch system.

Animal Crossing?
Pokemon?
Smash?
New Mario Kart?

All capable of over 10 million sales each

>they have NOTHING for next year

Aside from Yoshi, Kirby, Bayonetta 1,2, and 3, Pokémon, SMT V, No More Hero's, and that's just some exclusives.

NOTHING
...
Yoshi
Kirby
Smash Bros
Pokemon
Animal Crossing
Pikmin
No More Hero's
Metroid 4
Bayonetta 3
And who knows what else

>they're dead
>they're not dead, they're going third party
>switch won't succeed
>they already blew their load, its over

Sounds a lot like the elections.

>since all games now need to look like console games, cheap and niche franchises that could survive by making cheap 3ds games won't be able to survive

Have you seen the Indie scene on the Switch?

Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, Paper Yoshi, Kirby Star Allies, Pokemon 8th gen, Fire Emblem, Octopath; nah, Switch is set for a while.

>specs are lacking and it struggles to run xenoblade
It runs it fine, there's a memory leak glitch

I think what Nintendo needs is to have ports that didn't already come out on other platforms years ago. Doom for example looks great, but I think that most people who like Doom already have it for another platform. I think what they need to focus on is getting multiplatform games to come out at more or less the same time as the XBone and PS4 versions. Obviously they'll be downgraded but that's to be expected.

>portability means that some will sacrifice performance for multiplats in order to have the comfort of playing in bed
Yeah, it's too bad you can't do that with literally any other video game platform. When are they finally going to repeal those silly laws that prohibit a TV or monitor being put in the same room as a bed?

I don't think ports matter for the Switch. Occasional remasters seem to do well, but on a whole they seem to be positioning the Switch as it's own niche with a great selection of exclusive games, I guess with the thinking that if you wanted to play multiplats you'd already own another system given we're 4 years in to the gen. Keeping dev and publishing costs down for exclusive projects should really be the priority, I feel.

The switch is getting some multiplats which is a good sign. Then again, the Wii U got the arkham games, cod, and ass creed. Is this just gonna be another instance of third party support dropping after a year or so?

The WiiU got every game you just listed after the PS360 versions. The Switch isn't getting multiplats, it's getting third party support. There's a difference.

I bought that mario vs rabbits game for my nephew for christmas.
I heard it was good. Did I fuck up? I still have time to return and get another.,

The only ports I give a shit about are WiiU ports because fuck hunting one down to play 4 games.

>next year Nintendo announces a Deluxe Dock that adds GPU and 256GB of memory
>2019 Nintendo announces a better tablet without the bezel in favor of a bigger screen and better specs
>this is done to keep up with Sony and Microsoft in terms of system power

Would this be too hard to implement?

At best I'm hoping it'll be like the N64-- a system that lost out, and didn't get a lot of multiplats, but the games it did end up getting were some of the greatest ever made. At worst, it'll be another Wii with strong intitial sales and some interesting games followed by an avalanche of shovelware.

They have plans for a supplemental computing device, I doubt it would come with memory. Best we could hope for is the new dock running an expanded GPU and an on-board fan which would enable 4K output (most likely for streaming), which seems to be the weak points of the system so far.

Well for them to stay competitive they're going to need multiplats with the bonus of playing them anywhere, but actually released in a timely fashion

It'd be possible, but Itd be confusing for consumers. If each level of switch ups the power, then that would mean that there would be some games only compatible with those versions, but since it's still a switch, consumers might get confused. Plus, if only 1/3 of switch users upgrade to new switch, then developers might not make full exclusives for the upgraded version bc there would be a smaller base to sell to

it won't even last a year. it's already dying down. sony forever baby

Games nowadays are extremely scalable, it just depends on how it's implemented. I mean, Doom 2016 runs much better on an Xbone X than in Xbone even before patching. Something like that could do the job for consumers looking for resolution/performance bumps.

The Switch doesn't directly compete with Sony or Microsoft. Nintendo hasn't been in direct competition with them since the GameCube.

it never works

Some people do in fact take their portable devices out of their homes, user.

I want to buy DOOM, but paying $60 for that while also knowing that I can have it for less than $30 on Steam really pushes me away. Gonna wait a little longer for that

I've personally never cared whether or not Nintendo keeps up with other consoles. The N64 was the turning point where they branched off and started doing their own thing and Nintendo's first party games have always been worth owning their consoles for imo. We're never going to see them put out another NES or SNES.

how is it any different from a psp

Bigger screen and more power. No retarded UMDs. I never understood why Sony thought that was a good idea.

>4K output

Literally who the fuck cares. Put the time and technology literally anywhere else.

>he fell for the 4K meme

Really, user?

Source on this?

If you wanna fuck up your sleep schedule and lower your IQ by a lot of points then sure.

Yeah, but can you easily bring your PC, console, TV and/or monitor to the supermarket? Farmer's market? Bakery? Roadtrips? Costco? The barber? Doctor's? Dentist? Restaurants? Cafés? Movies? The mall? Camping? The beach?
Airplanes?

I'm on your side but a good number of those will not be out in 2018

It has games.

This, they've already slipped to 3rd place in NPD.

I grabbed one a couple days ago, I like it so far, it's a neat little system.
Part of me hopes though a year down the line they release a more powerful "pro" unit. I don't know if doubling it's power while still keeping it portable is possible.

Bayonetta's games alone will carry the system for 3 months at least. And those are coming out in 2018 for sure.

We barely know what's coming out next year. They just now revealed that Bayo 1 + 2 comes out in Feb 16, so give them some time to prep a new big Direct by next month before we start saying stuff like that.

2017 isn't even over yet, for fucks sake!

I've literally bought and 100%'d DOOM 4 times.

I hope they'd port The New Order over along with New Colossus.

They need a revision with a Tegra X2. Will solve most or all of it's performance issues.

Have they fixed the audio issues in Doom? Haven't played in weeks, been to busy with Xenoblade and Splatoon to try.

None of that will ever be as important as a solid 60 FPS in games like BOTW. I will accept no less, not even one less frame.

>having a television in your room means you always sleep with it turned on

???

>The Switch is unique
I don't care about it being unique. I want a GOOD console. That means ditching everything bad about consoles and essentially being a PC. Why can't you do that?

>have to pay for online
>have to pay tons in season passes and DLC
>network infrastructure is terrible and Nintendo has no idea how basic software works (aka needing a phone just for voice chat)
>game lineup is sloppy and honestly one of the worst console releases I've seen

Why should I consider this console good? I hate the games, and I hate portability making me sacrifice performance, so it will never appeal to me.

I'm fine with 30 in BOTW, but there are some areas in the game where the framerate takes a nosedive.

Should've supported the GameCube then. It was exactly what you're asking for and Nintendo was rewarded with shitty sales. People also often forget that the N64 was only really popular in North America.

>I'm fine with 30 FPS

The gamecube's failure that Nintendo's own fault. Their stupid gimmicky disks and gimmicky controller were their own design.

>They just now revealed that Bayo 1 + 2 comes out in Feb 16

That's a port. Seeing as we've had no info on Smash yet, I think 2019 is way more likely.

>>game lineup is sloppy and honestly one of the worst console releases I've seen
it got two games with a 97 on metacritic within 8 months

fuck off

Disks, yes, but the controller? Litterally no one was complaining about the Gamecube's controller. What they were complaining about was having no internet connection.

Regardless of whether or not you liked them, the GameCube was still capable of running most popular third party games and it didn't work, nor did the N64 really. Continuing to try to compete with powerful hardware would have been a fool's errand.

>What they were complaining about was having no internet connection.

In the early 2000s? Nah, that wasn't really a factor yet for consoles. Xbox Live only really started to take off on the Xbox about a year before MS discontinued it.

What do you mean? Nintendo made more profit off the gamecube than Sony did with the Ps2. You act like they have to be the most popular to win. They couldn't be content with that?

>it got two games with a 97 on metacritic within 8 months
And why would I care? You act as if metacritic means anything, when they'll let any idiot with a computer (*cfoughJimsterling*) write for them.

Mario vs. Rabbits is good. Much better than it has any right to be, in fact. If the DLC tidies up the ending, it might even elevate it to great.

One intriguing thing about the switch for me is that it comes prepackaged with two controllers for games Mario kart and the inevitable Mario party. Sure, the controllers are kind of tiny, but if I ever buy a switch, it'll be a lot easier to take that with Mario kart downloaded to my gfs house than lug around a Wii U with that big fucking gamepad

The GameCube was still a commercial disappointment overall. Yes, Nintendo was selling the consoles at a profit but like everyone else, they make more money on software sales. Nintendo wants a large install base for the same reason the other guys do.

Game file size is going to seriously hamper it in the coming years.

It's already a problem with third party games on the system.

In that generation, yes it fucking was. That was when Halo took off, when FPSs started to dominate the home console market, and not having an internet connection was something that turned people off.

Wasn't the N64 designed to have obtuse programming so that rookie devs wouldn't shit out bad games on it? Man that strategy played out well

They could just use multiple carts.

The original Halo didn't have online support on the Xbox. It only had LAN support. Xbox Live didn't really become a big thing until Halo 2 came out in 2004, only a year before the 360 launched.

>Animal Crossing
>F-Zero
>Metroid Prime 4
>Smash Bros
>Pokemon
>Bayo 3
>Kirby
Nintendo has far from blown their load, 2018 is looking to offer a great amount of games for the Switch and 2019 could be even better

Long term success depends on their ability to shift over their users from the 3DS and steal weebshit from the Vita.

>F-Zero
Pfft. Keep beating that dead horse, user. I'm sure it'll come back to life eventually.

This might sound contrary to Sup Forums wisdom but you actually need some shit games on your console in order to be successful. Shitflinging console babbies will use "hurr lots of shovelware" as an attack point against popular consoles but the fact is that you need a near indiscriminate open platform in order to increase the per capita count of good games. This is why the PS2 having a shit ton of shovelware isn't really a knock against it because it just had a fuckload of software PERIOD so you basically saw a crazy variety of good games that people can't even keep track of.

Console-based Pokemon

This should be the end of the discussion on whether or not the Switch will be a success. The only Pokemon game I ever owned was Pokemon Stadium. I emulated Gen 1 and 2 games. My interest in Pokemon won't show up on the sales figures. I don't even consider myself a fan of the series or anything, but this is a console-based Pokemon, that already has my attention. I know there's a shit ton of people like me out there. If Pokemon Switch is 85+ on Metacritic, I'm getting a Switch for it, at least one of my sisters will get one, and my nephew will get one. Anyone who doesn't realize how big a deal Pokemon is wasn't paying attention to Pokemon Go.

The cost of flash memory for the cards, and sd cards keeps coming down. I doubt game size will be a real issue any time soon for anyone but people who insist on only buying digital and also only using the built in memory.

Then maybe next time they shouldn't purposely make their hardware confusing and alienating.

>b-but they don't want to compete with the big boys
Then get the hell out of the industry. That excuse means nothing. It's just them being lazy. They don't need the most powerful hardware or gimmicks if their games are good, right?

Besides, as a customer it's not my concern how much money they make. If I don't like it, I'll go against the hundreds of millions who say otherwise. Popularity is not an indicator of quality.

>since all games now need to look like console games, cheap and niche franchises that could survive by making cheap 3ds games won't be able to survive

what is this supposed to mean? In terms of graphics and art style plenty of indie games and upcoming releases for the Switch such as Otcopath look like they could have potentially existed on the 3DS and still are receiving plenty of hype. Graphicswhores can dump their money into 4k if they care about some specific standard of visuals and probably arent going to be into the Switch in the first place

Nintendo could put out something twice as powerful as the Xbone X and it would be useless without a modern online network. That's what they need to focus on more than having powerful hardware.

It's going to be a 3DS pokemon with a higher resolution. Just warning you, Gamefreak is not an ambitious company but that will be enough to secure the Swtich's success.

Not sure what you're talking about regarding the GC. It was a pretty easy console to develop for especially compared to the PS2's weird architecture.

I feel sorry for you, user. Really, really sorry. But Masuda and his gang will teach you how things work in here very soon.

That's not an issue. If the cards work the same way the DS cards have since the start they support standard sizes for an individual memory chip, with room for up to 4.

DS cards for instance were 128MB single chip and could be up to 512MB, though in practice only a small number of 256MB games were ever made.
3DS cards were originally 2GB for a single chip (4/8 for multi-chip cards), but they eventually released 4GB (8/16) cards and they had headroom to go up to 8GB single chip (16/32).
Switch likely started off at 8GB single chip (16/32, if they kept the 4 chip design),
though it wouldn't surprise me if they offered smaller cards for budget titles. They almost certainly also have headroom to go much larger.

It would be cheaper though for games to simply offer optional downloads to improve texture/sound quality, or require a download to the SD card where storage is much cheaper to buy.

It doesn't matter what it is, it matters what the perception of it is, and the perception for all the normies will be "This is the first console-based Pokemon." If it catches even a whiff of the Pokemon Go zeitgeist it will be insane.

You're probably right that it will be like a 3DS game, but if Nintendo/Gamefreak are smart at all they'll take some risks. Again, I'm waiting to see if it's at least pretty good before getting it.

You'll never catch me Yakuza

Again, I never said they needed powerful hardware above all else. Just don't fall back to gimmicks. To this day I will never consider a game of theirs good if it needs gimmicks. Splatoon for example? I consider it worse than Call of Duty for having terrible controls. And you'd have to pay me billions just to say something nice about gyro, when KBM already perfected the genre.

This is why Dolphin is in such good shape compared to the relative mess that is the PS2 and Xbox emulation scene. IBM and ATI at that time had well designed and documented hardware compared to Intel, Nvidia, and Sony's weird custom shit.

I was more referring to the N64. Still, gamecube emulation has a ways to go since it was still terrible hardware. to be honest, all consoles are terrible hardware-wise. They're basically even worse stripped down pre-builts that force you to only use certain hardware.

Fair enough but I still say having a fully featured online network would go a long way in fixing a lot of their problems. The Switch's design is actually pretty good otherwise. Unfortunately NoJ's engineers seem to have no clue how to even make something equivalent to PSN/XBL

>gamecube
>terrible hardware

Maybe if you're talking about in hindsight compared to modern systems.
At the time though it wasn't clear that PPC750 was going to stall out in terms of flops/watt and clockspeed. Plus ATI's R300 architecture was cutting edge in terms of what it could do within a very tight thermal budget.
Nintendo had every reason to think that this platform might allow them to move forward both in the console space, and in the mobile space.

Gamecube was kind of a shock to the rest of the industry and its part of the reason why before it we saw a variety of architectures, MIPs, x86, PPC, but the generation after it every system was using an IBM supplied CPU.
Now of course we see that's been a dead end and we just have ARM systems and AMD64 systems, but that's more from IBM choosing to not pursue the consumer space anymore than any real problem with their chips.

Great post, user. I love reading stuff like this from people with technical knowledge.

>a thread with genuine discussion
Proud of you guys

>That means ditching everything bad about consoles and essentially being a PC. Why can't you do that?
Well why buy it when I already have a PC?

Considering it just sold 700k units to PS4’s 1.5 million in a holiday month, it’s safe to say that sales are declining. As expected, sales were front-loaded to Nintendo’s existing fan base. They are literally stopping on a dime and now the console has entered Wii U status. Watching it pile up at retail and sit unsold is exactly like the Wii U.

We predicted this for months and you Nintendo fans denied that it would ever happen. We told you so

KIRBY, F-ZERO AND POKEMON WILL SAVE 2018.
Also waiting for the inevitable Golden Sun revival...right?

That remains to be seen and you need to keep things in perspective. Sony was offering the PS4 Slim for only $200 during Black Friday week. That's certainly going to cause a big boost in sales.

What game should I buy for my Nintendo Switch if I want to have fun?

I've got Botw, Mario Odyssey, Pokken, Worms WMD, and Morphite. I recommend all of them depending on what your interests are.

none of them, they're all nu-fun garbage

Unlike the WiiU, which was hampered by overly custom hardware, Nintendo has a lot of headroom to drop the price on the Switch aggressively in 2018 thanks to it using largely off the shelf components.

For instance, Nintendo will almost certainly bring out a handheld-centric revision to accompany the launch of Pokemon and that will almost certainly be built down to get it to $199 or below.

Maybe in places where it costs $400+, very poor rural areas, or in Europe.

I work retail at a Best Buy in a very large city, ever since Black Friday weekend I haven't physically seen a Switch box in our store out on the sales floor. Every single unit is taken to the front for a pick up order and every day people ask to buy it but we have to tell them the only way to get it is to order for a later date because of demand.
Meanwhile Sony sold out of their $199 slim, but we still have left over stock of their memeVR bundle and Pro bundles that just sit stacked in the back because no one is buying them. All the spics and niggers got their poverty box and their cawa doody in November.

Nice head canon though, Mr. Blunderfag.

Fun? That's subjective, innit?
Probably Odyssey though

It's doing fine, even in november's NPD where it was third place. selling more than one per household, releasing 2D Mario, Pokémon, Animal Crossing etc. will make sure it keeps selling.

also, xenoblade just needs the memory issue and handheld mode resolution fixed, that's it.

I bought one this morning on a whim. I haven't owned a nintendo console since the n64 - though I've had the ds and 3ds. Those I've only used in bursts and left them dead for years at a time but generally think they've been worth it for the rpgs. This I can't decide whether to keep or return. I got it for Mario now and more SMT V down the line but I'm not sure I feel enough immediate enthusiasm to plop down $400 for system and 1 game then have it sit around waiting for something else. I don't really care for Zelda - blasphemy but yeah.

Is it bad that I Unironically want the Mini-Switch?
I want to buy one for each of my family members and a friend or two cause we all love Pokémon and I really wanna play Stardew Valley multiplayer with a friend on the bus or something, it'd be awesome.

Hopefully it isn't as small as that though, being a bit bigger would be nice.
If it somehow stays as powerful as the Switch currently is, I'd be ecstatic.

>60 FPS in an adventure game.
>Being this much of a pleb.