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Nintendo Switch

nintendo.co.jp

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Re: Nintendo Switch

#111

Post by threeseed »

thinkloop wrote: post #102

How come Nintendo keeps having to completely reinvent itself every couple of years? They go from being on the verge of bankruptcy to a hit then back again. It seems like one tiny misstep and they're done. Microsoft is still spending accrued value from the 90's after tons of mistakes, why doesn't Nintendo have an easier life?

Well obviously Sony and Microsoft have other resource streams so they can weather any storm.

And for both companies gaming is important but so is providing media and services into the living room. Nintendo seriously has missed the opportunity every generation to expand beyond gaming and so they are more susceptible to the strength of the games themselves.

Re: Nintendo Switch

#112

Post by flukus »

ekianjo wrote: post #87
jzwinck wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power doesn't matter. Phones get slower with each passing year as more bloat is added OTA. Consoles get faster as new games exploit more and more of the power available at launch. The experience has almost always been better on consoles, and not the most powerful ones. If it were about power we would wax nostalgic about the NeoGeo, TurboGrafx 16, and Atari Jaguar.

The Neo Geo is still popular for all famous arcade games like King of Fighters. And people still play them for competition. You can't really say the same thing for the Super Famicom and the like. Plus "power does not matter" does not make sense. It worked for Nintendo before. The SUper Famicom was the most powerful console at the time and it sold better than the Megadrive. The N64 did not beat the playstation but it…

Xbox and PS2 were also sold at a loss for a long time, I don't think the xbox was breaking even on it's investment until late into the 360 lifetime. Nintendo can't compete on those terms, they aren't a wing of a huge multinational company (merely a small multi national company) that can take losses like that.

Re: Nintendo Switch

#113

Post by snorremd »

kibwen wrote: post #43
LargeCompanies wrote: post #28

The Nintendo Wii was innovative and fun .. even the Wii U was a bit innovative and fun (ever play Mario Chase with friends .. worth buying Wii U for). Though... Switch does anyone see anything innovative besides a GameCube like system that is also portable?

The Wii U gets deserved flak for its paucity of titles, but there were some unbelievable gems sprinkled in there. The Nintendo Land pack-in game is an utter blast as a party game. And Mario Maker is probably the first "players build the levels" game whose interface doesn't feel arcane and esoteric, it really is a triumph of friendly UX.

Aaah yes. Nintendo Land is the ultimate party game. As far as my Nintendo Wii U purchase goes, I think all the hours of fun me and my friends had with Nintendo Land was worth the asking price alone. Then of course Mario Kart and Super Smash added some extra competitive and skill based fun for when we tired of Nintendo Land. And for some co-operative fun we had a blast with Rayman Legend, perhaps the best Rayman game to date!

I really have no regrets from buying the Wii U. It was such a good couch console!

Re: Nintendo Switch

#114

Post by JimmyAustin »

thinkloop wrote: post #102

How come Nintendo keeps having to completely reinvent itself every couple of years? They go from being on the verge of bankruptcy to a hit then back again. It seems like one tiny misstep and they're done. Microsoft is still spending accrued value from the 90's after tons of mistakes, why doesn't Nintendo have an easier life?

Microsoft has Office/Windows/Windows Server as a dependable money making, which leaves billions in capital ready for spending outragous amounts of money on pushing into new markets, like Windows Phone and Xbox. The first gen never actually made a profit.

Nintendo doesn't have that. They live and die by their console.

Re: Nintendo Switch

#115

Post by codesushi42 »

derefr wrote: post #63
pvg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the biggest leap in power be the N64?

The SNES lasted a while in the market, and—almost uniquely among consoles—it ramped up in power over its lifetime by putting coprocessors like the SuperFX into game carts. By the end of its lifetime, the "system" of the SNES + a cart like Starfox, was much closer to the N64 than the base SNES, making the N64 much less of a shift than it seemed. Interestingly, if you think of the PSX as descending from the SNES archit…

You're absolutely wrong. The PS1 was nothing like an SNES + SuperFX chip spec wise.

PS1 has nothing in common hardware wise with the "Nintendo Playstation" add-on other than in name alone.

Re: Nintendo Switch

#116

Post by glandium »

Bahamut wrote: post #19
hackerews wrote: post #14

What are some of the reasons why Nintendo Switch isn't just phone + app + chromecast-like device + bluetooth controllers?

Who would buy that? Screen is too small to be of great utility for gaming, cellphones have awful battery life for gaming, controllers wouldn't be as nice to bind to such a device while sticking it in a pocket, and it directly brings it into competition with Apple and Android phone vendors. I love gaming as much as anyone else, but that makes a lot less sense than what Nintendo is currently doing. The Switch isn't a p…

> cellphones have awful battery life for gaming

The video says the switch, depending on conditions has a battery life between 2.5 and 6.5 hours. That doesn't sound particularly better than a cellphone.

Re: Nintendo Switch

#117

Post by [deleted] »

pvg wrote: post #66
derefr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SNES lasted a while in the market, and—almost uniquely among consoles—it ramped up in power over its lifetime by putting coprocessors like the SuperFX into game carts. By the end of its lifetime, the "system" of the SNES + a cart like Starfox, was much closer to the N64 than the base SNES, making the N64 much less of a shift than it seemed. Interestingly, if you think of the PSX as descending from the SNES archit…

Maybe 'closer' but still 'ridiculously far'. You weren't going to coprocessor your way to a Mario 64.

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo Switch

#118

Post by aikinai »

thinkloop wrote: post #102

How come Nintendo keeps having to completely reinvent itself every couple of years? They go from being on the verge of bankruptcy to a hit then back again. It seems like one tiny misstep and they're done. Microsoft is still spending accrued value from the 90's after tons of mistakes, why doesn't Nintendo have an easier life?

Nintendo's never been on the verge of bankruptcy. That's a ridiculous myth that's always tossed around by news sites to get more clicks. Nintendo is a surprisingly tiny company with billions in cash in the bank.

As others have mentioned, they don't have backup cash cows like the other conglomerates so their short-term profits do vary wildly depending on the success of each platform, but the premise of one generation being a matter of life or death is a false.

Re: Nintendo Switch

#119

Post by [deleted] »

derefr wrote: post #98
pvg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe 'closer' but still 'ridiculously far'. You weren't going to coprocessor your way to a Mario 64.

I wouldn't call that 'ridiculously far'—it's "only" a 3x difference ;) The SuperFX GSU-1 clocked at 21MHz; the N64's RCP is 62.5MHz. (There's also an order-of-magnitude CPU power differential, but Mario 64 didn't use the CPU for much anyway.) Now, given that the SuperFX's lifetime was short and its capabilities were likely never fully explored/exploited in that lifetime; and given that the SNES's on-cart coprocessors…

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo Switch

#120

Post by hkmurakami »

ericzawo wrote: post #42

That[1] was masterful marketing of an upcoming videogame console on all fronts. From the beginning it emphasises mobility with a (hopefully good!) smartphone app to manage online/local wifi matches, as well as multiple levels of play while on the go. It's reasonably priced (matches current generation in total at the register) and has an incredibly diverse range of titles to be excited about this calendar year. It man…

It's basically everything i wanted my PSP to do. It could be great.
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