Unfortunate, but sometimes you need to cut support for 12 year old hardware in order to do more with your game. I come from MMOs, and this sort of thing would regularly happen when a new expansion would be announced. Minimum specs rise, and support for old stuff gets cut.
yeahhhh it makes sense, just kind of wild because live service games THRIVE on old hardware. Stuff like Fortnite and Overwatch has kept the PS4 platform pretty damn lively, and i’m sure it accounts for a significant chunk of sales, so seeing a live service game cut off that revenue stream is interesting. The hardware may be 12 years old, but the new hardware has sat in a pretty steep price point for its entire history so far, so somehow this still feels premature.
Yeah, I’m sure they ran the numbers and a decision like this didn’t come lightly. Also, since this is a multiplatform game, there’s a good chance the displaced ps4 users already have another device they can play the game on. Ultimately though, if the devs want to grow the game, then these decisions have to be made. Back when I played, after every major patch, you were guaranteed to see people lamenting that they could no longer play the game because their device no longer had enough storage.
While I understand it’s not a 1:1 comparison, Final Fantasy 14 dropped support for PS3 in 2017, and the console was only 11 years old at the time.
While I understand it’s not a 1:1 comparison, Final Fantasy 14 dropped support for PS3 in 2017, and the console was only 11 years old at the time.
I don’t want to say too much bc you acknowledged the apples to oranges comparison, but I’ll say the quiet part out loud for others: technology advanced way more in those 11 years than it has in the last 12 since the PS4 launch. The only conceivable limiting factor at this phase is storage speed, and as others have pointed out, Genshin on PS4 is currently MISERABLE with load times. So like, it makes sense, but still feels wrong.
Is there any technical reason you couldn’t save a game with its license, in its entirety, to a SD card? Skip the cartridges, and if people want to resell, they can export their license + game files to a SD card and sell that instead.
None of this seems to be an issue on PC. I can copy game files onto an external drive and load them on another PC. Even for games with DRM, it’s usually not an issue as long as any required software is installed and the game files are copied to the right location.
For Nintendo’s DRM, export the license (unlink it from the account), then the other user can link the license to their account and use the files on the drive.
I’m torn on them, Sure they can be resold but ultimately a waste of materials if they’re just digital downloads.
I’m trying to prioritise physical cards(with actual data on, Like Cyberpunk) this generation where I can. Most games I complete once and never touch so being able to sell is nice.
Competing with their own old games has probably been a nuisance for them and anything that makes playing their old games more difficult is probably welcome.
I thought the problem was that they only offer 64GB for Switch 2 and it has a per unit cost of 16 USD for 3rd party publisher. This seriously eats at the margins per unit especially for cheaper titles and makes them opt for the key cards instead.
Smaller games could fit on smaller and cheaper cartridges and bigger games will fill the whole cartridge and require additional downloads to be playable.
My understanding is that they offer them all, but publishers havent been able to reliably get 8 or 16gb cards. Whether thats Nintendo being shady or some legitimate supply issue, I don’t know.
I'm choosing to interpret this as a sign that they are aware of the controversy and are open to considering alternatives. If they're asking for feedback, that means there's a chance they'll act on it.
The part I find strange about all this is that apparently Switch 2 titles just can't use smaller ROM sizes, and that's why certain third parties don't want to pay increased manufacturing costs to put smaller titles on larger cartridges. But... why are they apparently not able to use smaller carts?
We're seeing cross-gen releases where the Switch 1 version is on the cart and the Switch 2 version is not. They've even got dual-mode carts for games that contain the Switch 1 base game and Switch 2 upgrade DLC. These smaller carts exist and the Switch 2 can read them. So I'm puzzled as to why they can't use these same carts for Switch 2 games.
I find this interesting. Do you take this tack with ALL games? Do you play on anything besides Switch? Personally, I am mostly digital with all of my game purchases these days. I understand the desire to feel like the publisher can’t take the game away from you, but I also feel like it’s a bit pointless these days given how many games need Day 1 patches to run properly. Physical games end up just being a physical license to download the digital game. In this light, I tend to prefer the convenience of digital. I don’t have to swap out cartridges, and I don’t have to worry about storing a physical item.
Yeah, but physical cartridges can be sold or given away to others if you no longer want the game or didn’t like it. You can make eternal backups with tools and help others, as we know that media doesn’t last forever. You OWN the game. I have a couple digital games, but my family has box upon box of physical games. It’s the fact that if you ever get these consoles later in life, you’ll never be able to play the game because support will be cut for your console. So if a game is digital/keycard only, it’s lifespan is only as long as the support. As someone who has been playing several of my mom’s old PS1-3 and GC games, I’d be devastated if I could never play those old games due to bullshit like the keycards.
And if game companies can’t make a game without any major bugs on day 1, then maybe they should take more time to make a quality game. Minor bugs are fine, but something game breaking shouldn’t be brushed off and treated like a standard.
I’m already upset thinking about games we bought in the past that we might’ve not realized won’t work without Internet. This shouldn’t become a norm.
Old PlayStation and Nintendo consoles specifically taught me to not care about physical games though, because it is incredibly easy to softmod them and still play anything you like, even after you can’t buy the games anymore…
Ignoring the price change itself. The original switch launched March 3, 2017. The only excuse for this thing costing more than about 90 usd pre-tarrifs is due to the outdated hardware being so old and hard to get (though knowing nintendo they have tooling in-house for “reasons”).
Do people just seriously not give a fuck and buy this ancient thing because of the exclusive games? I mean, I get it, nintendo are royal pieces of shit for locking all their games down inside of a captive platform. But that’s a great reason not to buy this shit.
I know our house got it bc we wanted to play Animal Crossing. A lot of homes get a Switch 1 because it makes the most sense for kids, especially after the durable Switch Lite came out. It’s just cheaper and easier-to-use than competing devices. The only real competition is phones and iPads, and smart parents know that games on those devices can be predatory in a way that Switch games usually aren’t. I know it’s not exactly as black-and-white as that, but I think a lot of parents see it that way.
Do people just seriously not give a fuck and buy this ancient thing because of the exclusive games?
This is pretty much true of all consoles. People play games, not consoles, and they’ll use whatever hardware they need to.
I mean, I get it, nintendo are royal pieces of shit for locking all their games down inside of a captive platform. But that’s a great reason not to buy this shit.
Again, universally true of consoles, though unlike Xbox where games have become more and more crossplatform, or PS where some games are getting licensed for PC ports, Nintendo’s head is so far up its own ass that it won’t even let you record gameplay without worrying about a DMCA.
Fuck Nintendo, but for the same reason as Oracle: because they spend more on lawyers than the people who actually do the work creating something. Also, they could use some modern hardware for a change instead of always being multiple generations behind.
Fucking thing is 8 years old. That is now going to cost more than 8 years ago. Sure blame tarrifs, but it should be at least $100 cheaper now than launch.
I think it’s Nintendo being Nintendo and in general, a company being a company. The tariffs will be used as an excuse to raise the prices but even if they’d go away, the prices won’t come down. Because why would they? They got away with it. Might as well continue.
We see this trick over and over again. Usually it’s inflation. Oh, we need to raise our prices because of inflation and then inflation goes down but the prices don’t.
Oh, we need to raise our prices because of inflation and then inflation goes down but the prices don’t.
I mean, this is literally how inflation works. Inflation rates go down, but things don’t magically become cheaper again. It just doesn’t get more expensive as quickly. If they raise prices over what you’re willing to pay, then don’t buy it. That’s how prices drop.
Is it bullshit? Absolutely, no argument there. That’s just how things work unfortunately.
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