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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#471
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2 - In 1996, when the N64 was released into the market, ALL game consoles had hardware limitations of some sort. This includes Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar, 3DO, and Playstation 1. So, N64 wasn't an exception since it's a console with hardware limitation ?

In the product line of Nintendo consoles ever produced, the N64 by being an SGI Onyx in a box, was the EXCEPTION in regards to IP before technical specifications.

Oh, so it's about IP, not technical specifications or hardware limitations ? edit: Quite frankly, comments like With exception of N64. throw me off in the long run.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#472
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they mean wake from sleep time? Since in my experience that is unparalleled. By the time my xbox has even registered the on button press I could already be playing a game on switch. The steam deck is also pretty good in this regard, but not quite as fast. Furthermore, the switch rarely if ever forces you to update a game or the OS before play. So if you have 5 minutes spare, you can be sure you can get s…

One of the primary reasons I bought Steam Deck was because it can suspend and resume a game mid-action. Ever since life kicked in low gear after 30s I can't really find time anymore to sit at TV and power on/load game anymore as it feels like a chore. What I figured is that I will just play in short bursts whenever I have free time, which means suspending game in a must feature. So far I haven't seen deck updating a…

Xbox Series X has that feature, you can even suspend multiple games at once

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#473

I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. That in itself wasn't surprising, but the interesting point they talked about is that the game is much more enjoyable when played on PC with an emulated copy because modern gaming PC hardware is much smoother and higher resolution than the stock Switch. It really ma…

Or sell a Nintendo "emulator" of their own for PC. Just for Nintendo releases like Zelda, MarioKart, etc. They wouldn't even need to produce any hardware in that case. I'd be first in line to purchase such a piece of software. I tried one of the popular Switch emulators, and they work great. But, I'd rather just pay Nintendo, and not have to fiddle with it. Really does seem like an opportunity for them.

A great example of this is Sony with Playstation exclusives.

In the past few years, they have broken their longstanding rule and made PC ports of many of their previously exclusive Playstation titles to play on PC. This includes Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, and The Last of Us.

In the most recent earnings call, Sony said that these titles sales on PC have dramatically outperformed expectations and that they will be putting additional effort towards PC ports in the future as a way to supplement Playstation sales.

Microsoft has figured out the same thing, by not really making Xbox exclusives anymore. Granted, they were always much more closely tied between PC and Xbox than companies like Sony were, but they quickly embraced this "play everywhere" mentality many years ago, and released a Ultimate Gamepass which basically lets you play the same games (with some exceptions) on PC or Xbox and even switch between the two with cloud saves.

Point being, other publishers have discovered that locking yourself down to a single hardware device is not good. PCs are the most universally owned and flexible hardware devices out there and have the biggest market. I'd love for Nintendo to do the same thing. But knowing Nintendo, they will never do such a thing. They are a very stubborn company. They often do not act in their own self-interest (market share, revenue) in order to control things like hardware or create false scarcity.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#474
post #100
post #77

Has Nintendo ever talked about how they do software development? Can we all drop the thousands of books that have been written about software engineering in general and just figure out what they do? Game aside, the reviews have been pointing out how the game performs well (after day 1 patch) and is not pestered with bugs, which is an impressive feat for such an open world game where most things are able to interact w…

I would put a lot of it down to Japanese craftsmanship coupled with relatively experienced engineers (average age in their Kyoto office is 40 IIRC). Their selection process is notoriously rigorous too and goes far beyond the usual LeetCode questions you'd get at a FAANG company.

> coupled with relatively experienced engineers

I disagree. Nintendo has good engineers but so does many of the other studios. For me what sets Nintendo apart is not their code or technology, but their game design and game direction. The way they seem to craft their game-play and game mechanics to have everything it needs but nothing more, and then couple it with the perfect match for game aesthetics with unmatched consistency.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow I just checked wikipedia, and I knew it did poorly, but did not know the Switch has outsold it by 10x (!!) What a turnaround! (My Wii U is collecting dust, though I did enjoy it)

Switch has sold 120 million units, it has to date outsold the ps5 and then lapped it 3 more times. Oddly, BOTW has only sold 30 million copies. Like, what did the other 90 million people buy a Switch for? There's nothing else on the console that's worth the trouble, at least up until a few hours ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_...

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#477
post #61

I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. That in itself wasn't surprising, but the interesting point they talked about is that the game is much more enjoyable when played on PC with an emulated copy because modern gaming PC hardware is much smoother and higher resolution than the stock Switch. It really ma…

How can they compare with something that hasn’t been released? It might be true, but at the same time it feels disingenuous to compare unreleased games on switch to a pirated PC. “Much more enjoyable” can’t be a thing until you compare, right?

You were downvoted but you are right. The podcast was released last week, but the game came with a day-1 patch to improve the performance on Switch which they would not have been able to try.

Obviously it will never compete with emulation on a PC, but it runs just fine on Switch. 99.9% of players are not going to think "wow, this would be much more enjoyable on a PC!" The gaming podcast crowd is not exactly representative.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#478

I cannot describe in words how impactful Ocarina of Time was to me as a kid, how intensely I got sucked into that world to the point that I even wrote some (bad) fanfic set in that universe back in the days. When Majora's Mask came out I was almost bursting with excitement until I was actually able to play it and was again totally blown away by a unique experience. When I played Breath of the Wild, I felt ... nothing…

I think "as a kid" is the operative phrase here. Nothing will ever live up to that nostalgia. That's not to discount the criticisms or "feel" you get from the game, but it's worth noting that nothing lives up to our childhood favorites.

I don’t know. If we’re strictly speaking of nostalgia, I can still feel a very strong sense of nostalgia from things I’ve experienced as an adult, even experiences from just a few years ago — or even the previous year!

This can apply to a trip we went on, or a TV series we watched, or music I listened to, or a video game I played (e.g. I really experience this when playing Factorio again after it’s been a while).

So maybe YMMV, but I can still have things that (at least almost) live up to “feels” I had from childhood.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#479
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would instantly buy this Why? Will it make the games more fun to play? Does it enable more fun games? I don't see it. Nintendo has always thrived on underpowered hardware.

Always is a bit strong isn't it? Prior to the Wii their consoles tended to be similar to their contemporaries in processing power. I certainly experienced areas in BOTW which took a heavy FPS hit and it sounds like TOTK is similar. Such an FPS drop does take me out of the game so if the console was powerful enough to avoid that then you could argue it would allow more fun games

[dead]

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#480
post #242
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about long load times on a PS5? Isn't it supposed to revolutionize gaming by dropping load times altogether because of it's ridiculously ( for a consoles anyways ) fast SSDs? That's what I have heard anyways, don't have PS5 myself.

It is. I don't know what OP is on about, but load-times on the PS5 are practically non-existent for me. Played the latest Horizon game, and on loading screens I can't even read the first few words of the game-tip. It's never longer than a second, if it's not instant.

I've seen some longer load times on PS5, but mostly with PS4 games. Not sure why.
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