The depressing reality of some Nintendo fans (a rant)

[BanjoPickles]

Okay, so I was genuinely impressed by the Mini Direct this morning. I like seeing that third parties are now giving Switch some decent support. Though the news of Dark Souls Remaster was generally met with praise, there has been a quite a bit of—-well, here are some examples of what I’ve read:

-imagine my disappointment when the trailer for that stupid Dark Souls game wasn’t a new Smash Bros.!
-Dark Souls? Meh.
-yay. Another port.
-where are the first party announcements?
-nobody buys Nintendo systems for this crap!

....I don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, gamers of all stripes have the tendency to whine for the sake of whining, but sometimes it seems like only Nintendo fans gripe about actually getting games, if they’re not made by Nintendo themselves! I figured that a game like Dark Souls would be widely accepted by the Nintendo faithful!

Am I missing something?

[Retro STrife]

I always love a chance to rag on the group of over-obsessed Nintendo fans out there; they're unbearable to listen to. But unfortunately, I can't say that I blame them this time. "Good third party support" does not entail a bunch of ports and remasters of old games that Sony and Microsoft owners got to play 5-10 years ago. Instead, "good third party support" should mean either exclusive 3rd party games and/or at least receiving the same 3rd party games as Xbox One and PS4- and at the same exact time as those systems. The last time Nintendo had that support was on the SNES. It happened a little bit on the Wii, but even that system was losing out on the top 3rd party games to Microsoft and Sony (despite having way more sales than those systems). And the Switch is doing great, but it's unlikely to sell near as much as the historic sales that the Wii had, so if the Wii couldn't do it then don't expect the Switch to suddenly change things for Nintendo. Nintendo fans partly bring that on themselves though - their disinterest in 3rd party games means that developers can get better sales on the other systems. The rest is on Nintendo - they don't do as well as Sony/Microsoft at developing 3rd party relationships, and their underpowered systems make it difficult to put a XB1/PS4 game on the Switch.

If anything is a problem, it's that Nintendo fans were expecting more than what today's announcement gave them. The Switch had an awesome year last year. But by putting your two biggest titles (Mario and Zelda) forward in year 1, it's inevitably going to have a slower year in year 2.

[ESauce]

Retro Strife, the issue with your assessment of 3rd party support on the Switch is that you’re looking at it as just a home console. The Switch is a hybrid home console/handheld and Nintendo’s handhelds have traditionally gotten very good third party support.

Games like Golf Story, Bomberman R and Ultra Street Fighter 2 may not be the heavy hitters that we’re accustomed to seeing on other systems, but they are exclusive third party games. I expect we’ll continue to see exclusive third party games for the Switch that are good pickup and play games like these.

If you want exclusive epics you can get that on a PS4. The Switch exclusives will likely be catered to the handheld aspect of the console.

[pacman000]

The Switch is basically a handheld with a TV docking station, so older ports are to be expected.

[BanjoPickles]

I always love a chance to rag on the group of over-obsessed Nintendo fans out there; they're unbearable to listen to. But unfortunately, I can't say that I blame them this time. "Good third party support" does not entail a bunch of ports and remasters of old games that Sony and Microsoft owners got to play 5-10 years ago. Instead, "good third party support" should mean either exclusive 3rd party games and/or at least receiving the same 3rd party games as Xbox One and PS4- and at the same exact time as those systems. The last time Nintendo had that support was on the SNES. It happened a little bit on the Wii, but even that system was losing out on the top 3rd party games to Microsoft and Sony (despite having way more sales than those systems). And the Switch is doing great, but it's unlikely to sell near as much as the historic sales that the Wii had, so if the Wii couldn't do it then don't expect the Switch to suddenly change things for Nintendo. Nintendo fans partly bring that on themselves though - their disinterest in 3rd party games means that developers can get better sales on the other systems. The rest is on Nintendo - they don't do as well as Sony/Microsoft at developing 3rd party relationships, and their underpowered systems make it difficult to put a XB1/PS4 game on the Switch.

If anything is a problem, it's that Nintendo fans were expecting more than what today's announcement gave them. The Switch had an awesome year last year. But by putting your two biggest titles (Mario and Zelda) forward in year 1, it's inevitably going to have a slower year in year 2.

The thing is, though, that we're simply not going to see day-one games alongside Xbox 1 and PS4, due to the gap in system performance and also the different architecture of the Switch. Major developers will either farm things out to a different developer (as was the case with Doom and the upcoming Wolfenstein). I don't think that developers have the resources to develop the same game across the board, at the same time (I could be wrong).

Really, though, are PS3.5 level ports on a handheld such a bad thing? I look at it like this: it is a true hybrid console! It offers the handheld experience with smaller scale games, the Nintendo experience, the modern console experience (Skyrim, Doom, Dark Souls, etc.), the Wii experience, and the retro gaming experience. I guess that I look at it like a great game will remain a great game, and these ports are especially exciting for me because they have never been released on a Nintendo platform before and they are now untethered.

[bluenote]

I think some fans' expectations can be a little unrealistic. I mean, the Switch hasn't even been out a year yet! And, there's been already been a Zelda and Mario game released.

Yes, this Direct was a bit underwhelming for 1st party stuff, but it was just a "mini" Direct. Wait until future directs and especially E3.

I am very impressed with the amount and quality of games that's been released so far. There's been great 1st party games, a ton of indies and quite a bit of 3rd party stuff. Again, the Switch has only been out for 10 months!

[Retro STrife]

Good point, ESauce, Nintendo has always had a very strong handheld library and it's kept them afloat during the tougher times in their history. (I remember during the Gamecube years, there was concern about Nintendo going out of hardware production like Sega, but the GBA and DS had a lot to do with getting them through that rough patch.) But the Switch is a home console first and foremost, albeit with nice portable capabilities. (Think about it - even people who use the tablet feature of the Switch are not usually leave home with it.) I feel like most developers are treating it as a home console first, and that's probably a good thing for the Switch.

But in my last post, I was more summing up what I see as the media and public perception of the Switch's 3rd party support. It doesn't matter what I think. To sell systems, it helps to convince the public that you have a great 3rd party lineup (and you have to convince the gaming media of that too, since they help deliver your message). To do that, you usually need big titles. Golf Story and Bomberman R might please people like me and you, but they're not moving systems off store shelves. Thankfully Mario and Zelda have done that, for now at least. Hopefully, as the number of Switch owners increases, 3rd party developers become more willing to invest their resources toward the console, beyond rehashes and ports of older games. But for now, I'm not seeing much out there beyond what Nintendo is doing on their own. There's reason for optimism though, as the Switch's current lineup is better than most systems at this stage in its life. But the past is the best indicator of the future, so personally I have to rely on Nintendo's past history with 3rd party support until shown otherwise.

[BanjoPickles]

I think some fans' expectations can be a little unrealistic. I mean, the Switch hasn't even been out a year yet! And, there's been already been a Zelda and Mario game released.

Yes, this Direct was a bit underwhelming for 1st party stuff, but it was just a "mini" Direct. Wait until future directs and especially E3.

I am very impressed with the amount and quality of games that's been released so far. There's been great 1st party games, a ton of indies and quite a bit of 3rd party stuff. Again, the Switch has only been out for 10 months!

This! Yes, it has received a fair amount of ports, but they are QUALITY ports of great games! The Wii U received ports for it's first few months, and then significant third-party support died altogether. Thankfully, that hasn't been the case this time around. I mean, in ten months alone we have received:

-The two most critically acclaimed games of 2017 (Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey)
-The definitive edition of Mario Kart 8
-Splatoon 2
-Arms (finally got around to playing this. It's a lot of fun with two players!)
-Xenoblade 2
-Snipperclips
-Rabbids and Mario
-Quality third party ports in the form of Skyrim and Doom (more to come)
-An uptick in quality eshop releases

If anything, the Switch is a major rebound from Wii U.

[eneuman96]

This was a Direct Mini, and the announcements in those generally aren't as potentially groundbreaking as the ones in a regular Direct. NintendoLife has noted that it usually doesn't take too long for Nintendo to follow up a Direct Mini with a full Direct, so I wouldn't make any snap judgments until then.

[Atarifever]

Some Nintendo fans will also act this way about 1st party releases. If it's not Mario, Zelda, or Metroid, get it out of there. I remember watching the E3 four or so years ago where Splatoon was announced and explained. The media guys and Nintendo fans on Twitter were like "enough of this new paintball junk; where's more 'open world Zelda' stuff." I was like "yeah, forget the family-friendly-team-deathmatch-squid-based-online-centric new IP. Let's have more of that Zelda Nintendo never makes a big deal about.

For my part, I thought Dark Souls was a huge announcement for them. They now have 2 games from Bethesda on there, 1 from Rockstar, and now one of FromSoftware's. On a Nintendo console. In the first 10 months. With more coming and developers somewhat happy with the sales. Yes. This is truly a time to be upset as Nintendo fans.