Nintendo has spent decades building an extremely loyal, multigenerational consumer base. They also release very popular, high quality games. I have no interest in owning a Switch, but I get why so many people do.
Ah yes, the one Nintendo IP that has gone to shit. Not fully by the way, as Legends Arceus was fantastic, and even my mom who hasn’t given a fuck about Pokemon since Yellow loved watching me play it. If Gamefreak would finally make another side game like Mystery Dungeon (or the more forgotten cult classics like Pokepark, Ranger, Conquest, Rumble, etc.) we wouldn’t be trolling them so hard. It’s also more of a Gamefreak problem than anything, as other companies that did Pokemon games (Chunsoft, Genius Sonority, etc.) did fantastic.
Anyway Zelda and Mario are still making bangers, Kirby Air Riders is coming back, Metroid fans are fed, Splatoon is getting a whole new game for Switch 2 (fuck me…), people are still relatively happy with Animal Crossing NH, we’ll see how Donkey Kong’s new game does, and while FE’s newest entry wasn’t so hot you can’t ignore how Three Houses brought in a brand new wave of loyal FE fans.
Literally everyone knows Pokemon mainline has been going to shit (and not the characters, designs, music, etc. imo, just the animations and story writing). Pick another game, even Nintendo (and Pokemon) fans make fun of it.
The vast majority of Steam games can be easily cracked and played offline if they ever go rogue. Modern console games are much more difficult to jailbreak like that.
Honestly compared to other handhelds and current-gen consoles, the price seems OK for what you're getting. The problem for me has always been how expensive Nintendo's games are, $80 seems way too much.
As if, the console’s a scam and the game pricing is just the cherry on top. Half committing to caring about how much things cost is a waste of time, either acknowledge they’re both garbage or stop spreading this half assed attitude.
The steam deck doesn't come with a dock, has a worse screen at 800p/60Hz compared to the S2's 1080p/120Hz, is way larger and thicker, doesn't have detachable controllers so if you do buy the dock you'll have to bring your own controller. It also can't play in a kickstand mode which is a negative if you're wanting to play with friends outside which is something I do often with my Switch 1.
I like the Steam Deck, really, but it's not a 1:1 comparison and I think the average person will still really prefer the Switch 2.
The Switch 2 being a bad deal and Nintendo having a VERY strong history of anti-consumer behavior has nothing to do with console wars. The person you are replying to is equally allowed to have a nuanced take.
What, are you expecting every comment critical of Nintendo to also include criticism of how terribly Xbox has managed it’s game studios just so we can be “fair and balanced”?
The comment I replied to believed that both the console and the game price is a scam, that is their valid opinion.
They criticised OP for “half caring about the rip off pricing”. OP didn’t think the console had ripoff pricing. Why is that a character flaw of op like is suggested by the commenter?
The truth is that literally everything costs too much. $399.99 (switch 1 launch price in 2017 USD) is $524.57 in USD today (source so $499.99 bundle with Mario Kart World is actually cheaper than Switch 1 with no game.
Blame the system that fucked your currency, and refuses to raise your pay appropriately.
It’s that a handful of people virtue signaling about how bad X game/company is on niche social media communities don’t matter if their opinions aren’t aligned with your average person.
Most people just enjoy games as a hobby and treat it the same way they treat picking something to watch on Netflix.
I would wager they many of the same people arguing for a boycott went on to purchase it anyway. Opinions are free, as long as it doesn’t affect your life in any way.
On the plus side, the virtue signalers saved $ and can spend it on something that’ll bring them more joy and is hopefully more aligned with their views. And gives them practice and a mindset of “I’m the kind of person willing to boycott” for any other boycotts that might have a real effect someday.
…I have thought about it and it is interesting that “virtue signal” is such a dirty word now. When I say “please” and “thank you” I’m essentially just virtue signaling that I’m willing to play nice, but nobody calls me the bad word for that. Although I understand that the current use of “virtue signal” is more about people you find to be sanctimonious and obnoxious online who you personally don’t think actually bother with real activism, just online keyboard warrior-ing, and not about any type of “hi, I am not horrible to interact with” social signaling ever.
On the plus side, the virtue signalers saved $ and can spend it on something that’ll bring them more joy and is hopefully more aligned with their views. And gives them practice and a mindset of “I’m the kind of person willing to boycott” for any other boycotts that might have a real effect someday.
It’s not really a boycott if you never really planned on buying the product. Otherwise, I’m technically boycotting Apple and Ford. Because I don’t buy Apply products and I don’t buy Ford cars.
When I say “please” and “thank you” I’m essentially just virtue signaling that I’m willing to play nice…
Those are specific actions you are taking in being kind and nice towards another person in reality. However, if you were to make a comment on Lemmy about how kind of a person you are because you claim you say “please” and “thank you” all the time, then that would be virtue signaling, because making claims about what you do or care about on social media is relatively meaningless without the specific actions being taken outside of that context.
So, in this case, talking about how evil Nintendo is for pricing a game at $80, what does that do exactly? Why should anyone else listen or care about someone expressing that opinion? Are you joining activist groups and spending time or money pushing for laws/politicians/etc to enact change to fight back against these actions? If so, then that’s not virtue signaling. But I’m unconvinced most people expressing these opinions and upvoting/downvoting posts and comments are doing anything beyond exactly that.
Most charitable interpretation: social pressure to get others to not buy, thereby hurting Nintendo just that bit more. I can say I was planning on buying a Switch at one point, but all these comments and news posts about anticompetitive practices have turned me away and slotted me in the “not buying” category.
Somewhat charitable interpretation: maybe venting outrage? Frustration at being the little guy in this situation who can’t do much? If you hate homelessness you can go volunteer at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter or donate money to either two, but if you hate these rising prices not much I’m aware of that you can do besides raging online and hoping you turn others away from buying. Although to be fair, you just proposed some things. Promoting other games instead could also help.
I don’t care too much about virtue signaling. What bothers me is people getting nasty and personal, and unfortunately that often happens in Company Does Bad Thing comment sections, so I’ve learned not to click on them. I should probably change that to big company news at all. I say this all because I want to say thanks for kind of disagreeing with me while also not being awful to me in this discussion. But I get how virtue signaling can annoy others.
I have thought about it and it is interesting that “virtue signal” is such a dirty word now. When I say “please” and “thank you” I’m essentially just virtue signaling that I’m willing to play nice
“Virtue signalling” implies a level of hypocrisy. Like, you don’t really care about the underlying issue, and only cares in reality to look like you do.
When you say “please” and “thank you” you are being polite. You may be “virtue signalling” politeness when in truth you are an asshole, but I would be unable to tell, so I give the benefit of doubt.
By the way, I dislike the term “virtue signalling” as I think it was overused to the point of meaninglessness, and I have an issue with that. On top of that, sometimes performative actions do matter to call attention to a given cause. Things are more nuanced sometimes.
An intentional boycott, no. But we don’t know how a console will do by its launch. The Wii U and 3DS sold out at launch too after having very successful predecessors. It wouldn’t be people intentionally boycotting that would humble Nintendo, but the masses just deciding it’s not worth their money for them or their kids. We’ll see what they do.
I don’t think the Xbox One was a disappointment due to a boycott, I think it was just a product people didn’t feel the need to buy.
Sure, there was early controversy about the always-online DRM approach they planned to take, but it didn’t launch with that in the end. What killed its hype was just being US$100 more expensive than the PS4 and having no killer exclusives lined up.
Aside from the analog sticks, the console itself seems like a fine upgrade from the original making it a tempting for anyone looking for “Switch Pro”. But it’ll be intersting to see how the price of games and the digital key aspect will affect the game sales down the line.
Steam Deck and other portable pc:s seem to be also getting a lot of momentum so there’s increasing amount of competition for handheld devices which was not really the chase with Switch 1.
There’s no competition for handhelds dude l. This the switch 2… there was one before it. And it’s a console. Mthe steam deck came out after the switch, you could emulate like 95% of the switch library on the steamd deck plus steam games plus wharever you wanted. I’d imagine in 2-3 years the steam deck 2 will come out. But all this is is just a console vs a PC… Still… Just like before. Nintendo kant shaking anything up except that every company will now sell games at $80. Nintendo fucked everyone
Not yet, but availability of steam decks and other pc handhelds is improving rapidly. Valve also just recently allowed other manufacturers like Lenovo to produce their own devices.
PC gaming is currently overshadowing console gaming and these pc handhelds are just extension of that.
Non-tech people usually don’t care about the ToS and the dirty practices a company does. They’ll gladly pay for the ‘convenience’.
Most Nintendo fans even argued that prices, new ToS (bricking the device) and such were “justifiable”. Same thing about owning games, most argued that “in today’s era you barely own anything anyway”.
It’s very unfortunate and sad to see but it is reality.
Personally though, I’ll wait for either a working emulation or when there’s an actual exploit found to hack the Switch 2.
In the end of the day Nintendo products are for casual gamers who only care about commercial material. It wouldn‘t even cross their minds to read reviews or discuss it outside their neoliberal Discord bubble. Emulating? How scary!
Besides, the Switch is a beloved system and many users waited for an upgrade for years. The Switch 2 is downwards compatible and able to give your older games a considerable performance boost. 90€ for new games just isn‘t enough of an argument to sit out this generation when you‘ve already spent thousands on games in the Nintendo ecosystem. The locked in effect is strong.
I am not very surprised by this but I sure as hell am glad I bought my Switch and and several games second hand for I‘m mostly a PC gamer.
In the end of the day Nintendo products are for casual gamers who only care about commercial material. It wouldn‘t even cross their minds to read reviews or discuss it outside their neoliberal Discord bubble. Emulating? How scary!
This sounds very inaccurate to me. Either that, or I just learned that I am a casual gamer that only cares about commercial material. And it seems that I don’t read reviews or only discuss things on some hypothetical neoliberal Discord bubble.
You derive far too much meaning from people’s preferences for console platform.
The Switch 2 is a fine upgrade to a successful but aging system?
I mean, the price is similar to the cheapest Steam Deck I can find, which has a similar form factor. Beyond that, it is compatible with my switch 1 library, and those games will benefit from the more powerful Switch 2 hardware - some of those had occasional slowdowns on the old hardware. What’s not to like?
First party games are slightly more expensive, but that is to be expected as the industry is inching towards more expensive games. That is understandable considering inflation. As a point of reference, in the early 90s I bought TLoZ: ALttP for around 50 USD. In today’s money it would be considerably more expensive than the price increase.
On the bright side, Nintendo games at least don’t have awful monetization and tend to be released in a complete state. I prefer to pay 80 for this than 60 for a game that will be full of microtransactions anyway (as most AAA tend to be).
Beyond that, it seems the joycons are crap, as the old ones were. Does not matter much to me, I only use the Switch docked and I have much superior 8BitDo controllers to play anyway. I never really touch the joycons.
And to be honest, all first party controllers seem to be crap nowadays. My PS5 controller had horrible drift after a few months of light use. Might be even more fragile than the joycons.
So yeah, I think the idea of a boycott was pointless.
Is this enough og a different perspective? Or am I just some Discord neoliberal?
So that’s what ticket you off? Because we agree on pretty much everything else it seems. I really don’t know what to tell you here. Discord’s entire business model is neoliberal to the core so naturally you find tons of neoliberals on servers there. You know the kind who complained about 90€ for Mariokart and 10€ for Welcome Tour once they were announced but then shared pics of their Switch 2 hauls on release day in the same chat. It is what it is and I think there is no point in having strong feelings about it.
I just think it’s an odd insult. I don’t particularly like Discord, but I use it here and there because that seems to be the current replacement for what would have been private forums back in the day. I didn’t think having that piece of garbage software installed would say much of my political positions.
I use Discord too. This isn‘t about you or every single Discord user specifically but my impression of the average user and consumer. They may complain at first but then they vote with their wallet and often can‘t even help making ironic remarks about having irresponsible spending habits. Why you bought it is up to you and I think there are good reasons for it despite everything. The console is at the beginning of it‘s life cycle so it‘s a bit early to completely judge for me.
I sure as hell am glad I bought my Switch and and several games second hand
I had a Switch but I sold it after realizing that even second hand games sell for 90% of new. I’ve no idea how the economics of that situation works out…
Matt Piscatella pointed out on Bluesky that a launch like this is only a function of how much inventory they made available. The Xbox One had the third most successful US launch of a console.
Every Nintendo console released gets negative press. I remember the articles bashing the original Switch because it was underpowered and that it was another gimmicky console - only for it becoming so successful that the form factor is being copied left and right.
As for boycotts, I only saw people bitching about games being more expensive. I get it, I too would love to get shit for free. But inflation is a thing, games are more expensive to make nowadays, and that cost will be offloaded to consumers. At least Nintendo games are not plagued with monetization and typically are released in a complete state.
You and I remember the press for the Wii very, very differently. Just look at the Wikipedia article listing all the awards it won before or around it’s launch. Game Critics, Spike TV, Golden Joystick, Popular Science, IGN, GameSpot, the Guardian, and much more. including awards and praise for the innovative controls.
Was there negativity? Sure, but it was a miniscule minority. The kind of thing only an extremely defensive Nintendo fan would notice. The Wii sold out instantly and was impossible to find for the first year or two, similar the PS5 except without the excuse of a global pandemic disrupting supply chains.
It’s not some anti-Nintendo bias. The press was pretty mixed on the Xbox One for example, with some outlets pointing out it was a bit overpriced, and of course the whole debacle about being always-online and the Kinect being mandatory caused a lot of backlash. The PS3 was seen as overpriced at launch and got a 6/10 from IGN.
And another important factor is that conditions change after launch. (The 360 probably would have had worse reviews if the press knew about the red ring of death before launch. The PS3 saw price reductions and eventually outsold the 360 despite having a worse launch. The 3DS floundered for its first few months until Nintendo dropped the price.
The press is neither monolithic nor perfect. I guarantee you can find some outlet somewhere with the exact take you are looking for, but to just dismiss the entire industry because you don’t agree with most of them on the Switch 2 seems like coping.
Call it coping all you want. We are talking about an event that happened more than 2 decades ago. I was there, and I clearly remember a lot of negative press for every Nintendo console.
Fun fact by the way, I am not even necessarily a Nintendo fan. I loved the SNES and all their handhelds, but I really hated the N64 and seriously disliked the Wii U, and I was never all that much in love with the Wii. But I recognize that every console iteration the gaming press spells doom for Nintendo. It’s almost a meme at this point.
Also, it’s not only for Nintendo, I do lump the vast majority of gaming press in the “trash” category. I completely ignore professional reviews for a reason. Gaming press is just marketing and PR.
I’m old enough to remember people saying the n64 sucked compared to the PlayStation. Then I remember Mario 64 and GoldenEye being released.
Nintendo consoles are usually underpowered and the games are often overpriced…but there are reasons why people keep going with the company. They make fun shit.
Live service garbage has costed the industry billions in losses and costed tens of thousands of devs their jobs. Fad chasing in general.
Everyone wants to make the fortnite killer or overwatch killer. They set billions of dollars on fire and get nothing for it. And it’s the devs who pay the price. Not the c-suite dipshits who threw all that money in the fire pit.
I mean they also created a ton of jobs and it‘s not like devs working on single player games don‘t face layoffs and bonuses fraud. Besides Overwatch 2 killed Overwatch already.
Way to make a truly bad faith argument or perhaps you are lost or something. To clarify: Are you implying it‘s any different for AAA SP games? Because that’s the discussion here.
Yes, imo live service games are very bad for the people who buy them and the people making it.
They are only there to make cash. And they make this cash through terrible predatory monetization - loot boxes, microtransactions, season passes. These companies actually want to run casinos that target the most vulnerable and children. You can argue that people wouldn’t want to work on this if they had a choice.
There’s almost always very little artistic value.
At least with sp AAA, you can gain a cult following if you have an interesting gameplay, or story. what are you doing with a live service one? Nothing, just offering the same thing that someone else has already created in another flavour, just to chase a trend. What this means is that they’re more likely to fail and not for the fault of the devs for sure.
They’re also bad for preservation of games. All live service games die, you can’t play them once support ends. You paid 60 dollars to rent a game? (Though I suppose that’s true with sp always online games as well and it’s not directly a bad thing for the dev)
Though… you maybe sort of right, the Industry is so bad right now that it doesn’t even matter whether you are working on sp or live service, you are in some sort of hell regardless…
I‘m just going to say that the distinctions between the two you‘re laying out here seem irrelevant to the discussion to me. I am not arguing about a season pass or preservation of games. Again, that is not what this discussion is about. This is about the developing side of games where these things don‘t mean anything. To give an example of what I mean: World of Warcraft employed and paid more people over a longer period of time than most AAA games.
I don’t know of the statistics, so yes, I can’t say for sure sp employs more people than live service. But in my opinion live service games are more risky and harmful to the industry as a hole.
But my original comment was about how it doesn’t matter if they created jobs or not because they are trying to replace everyone with AI. Coders, designers, artists… So it doesn’t matter sp or live service. They want to not employ anyone and run casinos
This one and FairGame$ are both screwed, and they’ll mark the end of an era for Sony and live service. What’s funny too is that Bungie was purchased in large part for being experts in making successful live service games, but it reminds me of something in investing where those who appear to be very smart after a string of successes are compared to being “expert coin flippers” who just got heads a number of times in a row. As we’ve gotten a peak or two behind the curtain after the purchase, it certainly looks like Bungie was only lucky.
Bungie is a lot like Bioware in that regard: Some real bangers on the resume, but none very recently. It should serve as a reminder that companies don’t make games, people do. If the right people aren’t involved, or too many of the wrong people are, past successes are entirely meaningless.
It's not only the people, it's the people at specific timepoints, nobody wants a remake of skyrim and another iteration of assassin's creed is only gonna get a lukewarm reception. Games are lightning in a bottle, their successes are basically impossible to replicate because there's so many variables at play.
That’s what weirds me out when people say things like: i will always pre order the new (insert developer name) game because i trust them. It’s not the shareholders or the suits who make the games, it’s the people, and these people may work somewhere else 10 years later.
It is a little funny that even after Sony backpedaled hard on live service after Concord, the one studio they bought to make live service games instantly started failing too. Destiny hasn’t been doing too great either. Sony have been very unlucky this generation.
Maybe, but their own actions helped. Everybody said that the 12 live games was a terrible idea. They replaced the guy behind the idea, but they're still pushing marathon without any single player nor co-op.
This smells like another Concord, to the point where I will be absolutely surprised if it lasts even 2 months.
I think Bungie still has experience making successful live service games, Destiny 2 has been a massive success for Bungie. The issue with Bungie is that they've forgotten how to release good games. Destiny 1 released kinda meh, but a year after launch started crawled back to being generally well received. Destiny 2 release (followed by the Curse of Osiris expansion) almost killed the studio, a year after launch started crawling back into being great and only in the last years really dropped off (when resources were pulled away from Destiny to Marathon). It feels almost like there are some head up their ass lead designers at Bungie who just won't listen to feedback and release a shitty game. Then the live team takes over the project, listen to actual feedback and fixes the stupid shit that should've been fixed the first time around.
Even with Marathon they had that event where streamers (and some other media people) got to play the game at Bungie and then Bungie asked for their feedback and when they got feedback on some really stupid things (like not being able to take off attachments from guns) they just went "We know, that's intentional". They're deliberately making design decisions that anyone with experience within the genre would instantly say "that's a bad idea". I don't know whose head needs to be pulled out of their ass but if Bungie doesn't want to release Marathon as a flop they need to do it quickly.
On a slightly different topic. I love how some people got to experience Marathon and Arc raiders in close proximity. Prior to the playtest people were cautiously optimistic about Marathon but Arc raiders evoked no emotion in anyone. And now it's more than reversed. People are praising Arc raiders and Marathon is seen as a lost cause.
I can name plenty of shooters that don’t let you take attachments off of guns. That might not be your best example of ignoring feedback, because the presence or omission of that feature can be for any number of very good reasons.
I was talking in the context of extraction shooters. I can't think of a single extraction shooter where you could add attachments but not remove them. I've also yet to see anyone familiar with the extraction shooter genre think it's a good idea. If you think it's a good idea you're free to defend it.
Better than every year or so no one can play the games they supposedly “bought” due to some technical hiccup for a random yet lengthy amount of time than some percentage of people be able to more easily play our games without paying us. -some Sony/gaming industry stooge probably
In all seriousness, people need to stop being so willing to put up with this sort of easily foreseeable failing with the current way of doing digital goods. If I can’t use it without the blessing of someone else it is not buying, it is borrowing, and that severely impacts the value proposition for me personally.
Technical issues WILL happen. It is the nature of the beast, it is just terrible engineering to build what is essentially dead man switches into your customers products.
Damn reading the impact this has is some combination of hilarious and horrifying to see people bought into a service like this. If it was free or simply a monthly sub like Netflix I could kinda understand. But a sub to use things you also had to buy? Fuck that.
Yep, all my GoG games would be installable without internet if I have the installer downloaded, games without DRM bought from the devs directly like Factorio would also work just fine. Loads of games are available outside of steam, some are even on github for free.
Not sure if this is still the case, but with Steam it used to be that if you didn’t put the client into “offline mode” ahead of time the client wouldn’t open, let alone allow you to launch a game once the connection was lost.
At least in 2013 when I started using Steam more seriously if your connection dropped it would prompt you asking if you wanted to switch to offline mode. And I know this because I had Steam on a laptop that I carried in my bag hibernating and I didn’t had internet in some places I went to. So that has been fixed for over a decade.
they fixed that, but if you are connected to WiFi that blocks steam it will refuse to launch your games even after you disconnect from the WiFi. I think this is to prevent piracy I guess??
I needed a software that I bought on steam for schoolwork and I couldn’t use it because steam was having a panic attack over my schools wifi. Inst of preventing piracy I went and pirated the software to not have that issue LOL
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