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Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

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Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#121

As the article alludes to this is in large part due to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Which has a higher than 100% attach rate on the Switch, which is simply amazing.

The new Zelda is amazing. Not only the best Zelda game ever made, I think it's just one of the best 3rd person open-world adventure games ever made, for any system, period. Definitely a system seller. I'm interested in nothing else right now though - the rest of the available games seem like Indie shovel-ware or re-releases. Shovel Knight. Come on, that's like 2 years old by now. I'll still buy every Nintendo game th…

What is the potential for getting stuck in BoTW?

The last Zelda game I bought was Skyward Sword for my Wii. Fairly early on I ran into something in one of the dungeons that I simply could not get past. I just could not get the timing right for the necessary move. I think my reflexes have slowed down a little as I've moved firmly past "not a kid anymore" into "middle aged enough to occasionally have some stupid kid at the drive through actually try to give me a senior discount", and that was enough to get me in Skyward Sword.

Since Zelda games before BoTW have generally a linear progression where you must complete various things in order to advance, getting stuck pretty much is game over.

The reviews I've read say BoTW tosses that out and is very "open world", and there is almost no need to finish any particular thing in order to progress.

Is that actually accurate?

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#122
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Zelda is amazing. Not only the best Zelda game ever made, I think it's just one of the best 3rd person open-world adventure games ever made, for any system, period. Definitely a system seller. I'm interested in nothing else right now though - the rest of the available games seem like Indie shovel-ware or re-releases. Shovel Knight. Come on, that's like 2 years old by now. I'll still buy every Nintendo game th…

What is the potential for getting stuck in BoTW? The last Zelda game I bought was Skyward Sword for my Wii. Fairly early on I ran into something in one of the dungeons that I simply could not get past. I just could not get the timing right for the necessary move. I think my reflexes have slowed down a little as I've moved firmly past "not a kid anymore" into "middle aged enough to occasionally have some stupid kid at…

You must complete the first 4 trials in the opening area - after that you can go directly to Ganon, explore the world, complete one of the 4 main dungeons, do more temples, or whatever you want in basically whatever order you want.

Some things may be easier with prerequisites met but are still 100% possible if they aren't.

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#123
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDMI out is a thing.

HDMI out is a thing that most people can't realistically use to connect their PC to their TV because they're in different places.

A laptop will work fine. Even a Android / Win10 tablet with HDMI out will emulate N64/PS1 decently.

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#124

As the article alludes to this is in large part due to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Which has a higher than 100% attach rate on the Switch, which is simply amazing.

If you are not interested in Zelda though, there is almost zero reason to spend the money on a Switch right now.

This version of Zelda is astonishingly great - very different to others in the franchise.

It's a completely free and open world, no grinding required, with simple gameplay yet with challenging layers that appeal to the folks with wanting more, a beautiful environment with amazing weather and climate differences and so on. Above all there is no in-app purchases required. It's a reminder of what games on the iPad could have been.

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#125
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Zelda is amazing. Not only the best Zelda game ever made, I think it's just one of the best 3rd person open-world adventure games ever made, for any system, period. Definitely a system seller. I'm interested in nothing else right now though - the rest of the available games seem like Indie shovel-ware or re-releases. Shovel Knight. Come on, that's like 2 years old by now. I'll still buy every Nintendo game th…

What is the potential for getting stuck in BoTW? The last Zelda game I bought was Skyward Sword for my Wii. Fairly early on I ran into something in one of the dungeons that I simply could not get past. I just could not get the timing right for the necessary move. I think my reflexes have slowed down a little as I've moved firmly past "not a kid anymore" into "middle aged enough to occasionally have some stupid kid at…

None - you cannot get stuck in this game. And besides - we have Google these days of the really tough stuff.

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#126
post #48
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a weapon durability system, but it's actually a super well-designed thing to keep the pace of the game active and frantic. Basically, it's the game's way of making sure you experiment and play around with new weapon types, give you more of an interplay during combat by picking up enemy weapons and using it against them, and giving you overpowered weapons without letting you just find "the best weapon" and ke…

>There is a weapon durability system, but it's actually a super well-designed thing to keep the pace of the game active and frantic I actually disagree with it being well designed. The weapons are too common and break so frequently I feel like I'm playing a weapon changing simulator. They have never been a limitation and I have never worried about finding a new weapon to use. However I do find myself constantly havin…

As you get through the game the weapons become more durable. And the Master Sword regenerates in 10 minutes, so most of the time you can use that.

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#127
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 95 hours into BoTW and still going very strong. For me that is unheard of, as I typically get board of adventure/rpg type games (I'm more into arcade style games). My concern with the Switch though is it's the same problem the Wii U had: Nintendo is likely the only company that will really make AAA games for it, and they can only make so many games. The next game I'm looking forward to comes in December (Mario),…

You're likely to get over 100 hours out of BoTW. Even if that were the only game you ever got, you are only looking at around $3.50 per hour of fun. That's not terrible.

Gaming is generally one of the cheapest hobbies to have. Even on the hardcore PC side with monster rigs, it still can typically come out way cheaper over a multi-year period than, say, skiing. But $3.50/hr is a lot for gaming, and a lot for BotW when it's on the Wii U too... BotW is probably worth it but I'll wait. :)

(One example, I got Dark Souls for $5 and have 100 hours on it, that's 5 cents per hour. Sure I didn't get it when it first came out (otherwise it would have been more, though not that much more -- but at the same time I may also have put more time into it with more active PvP) but I didn't need to, I had other stuff to play. I've got quite a backlog, or things to buy to add to the backlog when they're on sale, of amazing games to play that I don't need to play the latest thing at full price. Or a more recent example, I spent $15 helping back Yooka-Laylee two years ago, and it took me 23 hours to 100% it, so 65 cents per hour. Suppose it was $60, though, that's still only $2.60/hr.)

But bringing it back to the main point of the thread, which isn't cost, what's Nintendo going to do next? They have a ton of unused/underutilized IP, they can't make AAA content on a similar schedule to the rest of the industry, and it's not because their offerings are just that much better. Additionally when people can have 100+ hours of fun with the launch title, why are they going to buy other games when they come out? The Wii was notorious for having a very low bought-games-per-console figure, even though there were several great games for it. I can't imagine many third parties looking at the Switch as anything but a dumping ground (when the added dev cost is low) for stuff they already put on other platforms. In a few years everyone will have a mobile phone more powerful anyway so maybe it won't be much work at all.

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#128
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a weapon durability system, but it's actually a super well-designed thing to keep the pace of the game active and frantic I actually disagree with it being well designed. The weapons are too common and break so frequently I feel like I'm playing a weapon changing simulator. They have never been a limitation and I have never worried about finding a new weapon to use. However I do find myself constantly havin…

As you get through the game the weapons become more durable. And the Master Sword regenerates in 10 minutes, so most of the time you can use that.

Wow, the Master Sword even 'breaks' (if only for 10 minutes)? Is there a BigGoron Sword or something that actually is "the best weapon" and doesn't ever 'break'?

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#129
post #70

Great news! Can I have my Nintendo Classic now?

Sadly I gave up and went back to RetroPie.. I'm not paying those crazy scalper prices either.

Try Lakka. Better performance (especially on menus) and generally better UX than RetroPie or any other emulation frontend I've seen. Several common controllers, including (what I use) bluetooth PS3 controllers supported out of the box, with sane auto-mapping for all supported emulators (no more manually mapping controls unless you just like that kind of thing).

Only tricky bit is that you have to have blessedly-pure ROMsets for automatic per-system playlist generation to work (it's hash-based), but that's a minor hurdle (and going through it will encourage you to clean up any "messy" sets you have, which isn't really a bad thing). There's a stickied post on their forum that'll give you the names of what you need. And you can always manually create playlists or launch individual ROMs, regardless.

Not affiliated with it, just a big fan of what Retroarch/Lakka and related projects are doing for emulation.

Re: Switch Is Nintendo's 'Fastest Selling' System in History

#130
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Zelda is amazing. Not only the best Zelda game ever made, I think it's just one of the best 3rd person open-world adventure games ever made, for any system, period. Definitely a system seller. I'm interested in nothing else right now though - the rest of the available games seem like Indie shovel-ware or re-releases. Shovel Knight. Come on, that's like 2 years old by now. I'll still buy every Nintendo game th…

I'm 95 hours into BoTW and still going very strong. For me that is unheard of, as I typically get board of adventure/rpg type games (I'm more into arcade style games). My concern with the Switch though is it's the same problem the Wii U had: Nintendo is likely the only company that will really make AAA games for it, and they can only make so many games. The next game I'm looking forward to comes in December (Mario),…

I'd be happy with Mario, Zelda, METROID (cough cough) and a few other Nintendo big-hitters, honestly. For me, the Switch is just the "Nintendo tax" in order to get to the games.

Sony has a lot of developers making exclusives, which is why I own a PS4. But virtually anything else is cross-platform already, except for the MS exclusives. And chances are, I'd get a 3rd-party cross-platform for the PS4 Pro before the Switch.

I don't know how Nintendo can dig themselves out of this predicament.

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