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The journey to Nintendo Switch

factorio.com

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Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#161

Post by philistine »

hbn wrote: post #130
amalcon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly the N64 (immediately prior to Gamecube) was supposed to be super high tech. They actually stressed the partnership with SGI in the marketing, and literally named the console after the word size of its CPU. In retrospect the former was pretty weird, since the public would not have known that name or anything. Folks can quibble about the Gamecube if they like, but step back one generation and they were defini…

The 90s console wars were all about bits, even though no one knew what it meant other than "more bits = better". It was really Sega that started the bit-wars, releasing the Genesis while Nintendo was still selling the NES. They were very successful with getting kids to compare how powerful their console was to Nintendo's by slapping a giant "16-BIT" front-and-center on the top of the console and mentioning it in all…

It was NEC that started the bit wars with the PC Engine in Japan. They heavily marketed its graphics as 16-bits, to have a quick way to explain the quality improvements over the Famicom.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#162

Post by misterprime »

hubblesticks wrote: post #149
gibspaulding wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just wondering today why the BR format has taken over in recent years and I can't really come up with a technical reason for it. Red orchestra had 64 player pvp matches back in 2006 and I think Arma had similar sized game modes in that era too. I could see a BR mod for either of those, but it didn't happen (or at least take off). Maybe there's something I'm missing, but it seems feasible. I think the gaming wor…

From personal observation and experience, I believe the BR game mode got some traction after the first Hunger Games movie released. After that movie released, I remember all sorts of "Hunger Games" Minecraft maps appearing online. I downloaded, played and hosted a handful of these Hunger Games "last man standing" maps for family and friends to play. After a few weeks of that, the game format grew stale, and I stopped…

Interesting! I remember playing DotA as a custom map on Warcraft 3, then being amazed to see the League of Legends and DotA2 communities grow so large. I had no idea that the battle royal games started in Minecraft. That's fun to know.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#163

Post by misterprime »

bobthepanda wrote: post #154
misterprime wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: It's amazing that the popularity of XP to "level up" and HP to bring to zero has become. This was a new concept to me way back when Final Fantasy 3 (3 in the US, I think 6 in Japan) came out. It felt very niche and reserved for a specific type of game. Now those ideas are everywhere. What's a common new game trend since then? I can think of these: randomized microtransaction packs, online multiplayer PvP and…

Procedural generation was supposed to be big and exciting. If done incorrectly, though, procedurally generated quests or dungeons feel boring and soulless.

Oh yeah, and terrain deformation! Cool concepts. I'm not sure which ones do it well. The Diablo series seemed cool, but now it just kinda seems like "yeah, it's more and more and more of the same", even though some of it is procedurally generated.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#164

Post by MisterSandman »

naranha wrote: post #56

If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does not mean that you'll be able to play any good games.

Switch software is incredibly expensive. if anything, PC Gaming proves that much more easily. My $300 laptop can run Factorial better than a Switch can.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#165

Post by fennecfoxy »

gbasp wrote: post #114
naranha wrote: post #56

If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does not mean that you'll be able to play any good games.

I think the technical limitations of the Nintendo Switch makes for more interesting games in general. Most of the games on my Xbox and PC tend to be FPS/Action games with very boring, brown and green "realistic" environments whereas games on my Switch tend to be bright and colorful with lots of 2D and pixel graphics and games in the vein of simulators, adventures, roguelikes etc.

Play different games, Ori, Tunic etc are both bright & colourful and yet somehow manage to be heart-wrenching at the same time.

Yes you don't need PC hardware to play those but non-console gaming environments are also about no lock-in, customisability etc as well.

You're right though - you don't need a fancy GPU to have a fun game, but what you DO need is permission from Nintendo to publish on their platform.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#166

Post by fennecfoxy »

afterburner wrote: post #58
naranha wrote: post #56

If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does not mean that you'll be able to play any good games.

I mean that's always been Nintendo's thing, hasn't it? Cheaper, less powerful consoles, but focus on iconic gameplay

Iconic meaning no new IP, just nostalgia hacking.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#167

Post by pvillano »

rjh29 wrote: post #29
hbn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That jumped out to me too. I was hoping "let's not get ahead of ourselves" meant he'd explain why the startup time is so long but it's never mentioned again. I just timed Breath of the Wild (cartridge version), and from the time I launched the game from the Switch menu to seeing the game menu was about 16 seconds, and the time from selecting a save file to loading the game world was about 18 seconds. What exactly abo…

BotW got some after-launch patches that significantly reduced the launch time. They did this by overclocking the Switch during load. I didn't see any mention of boost/overclock in the Factorio writeup, though.

Why manual and not a dynamic allocation of power budget like gaming laptops use? The driver decides which of the CPU or GPU is "starved" and gives the other more power.

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#168

Post by pvillano »

pvillano wrote: post #167
rjh29 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BotW got some after-launch patches that significantly reduced the launch time. They did this by overclocking the Switch during load. I didn't see any mention of boost/overclock in the Factorio writeup, though.

Why manual and not a dynamic allocation of power budget like gaming laptops use? The driver decides which of the CPU or GPU is "starved" and gives the other more power.

One theory: If a game is GPU limited, which most are, it will be at 100% utilization no matter how much power it steals. However the CPU can't be power limited too much. Games have a physics loop that has to runs at a constant rate, independent of rendering. If the CPU is at 100% any disturbance might cause the physics step to not finish in time, and the game crashes...

Re: The journey to Nintendo Switch

#169

Post by wishfish »

kergonath wrote: post #64
wishfish wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone who wants a Factorio-like on iOS, there's a great game called Builderment. It's not as complex as Factorio but it does get rather involved. Works well with touch and even works well on the smaller screens of iPhones.

I was going to check it out, but IAPs are full of gem packs, which is not very encouraging. How is the freemium aspect?

Sorry for the late reply. It works fine for free. There's no impediments to the actual gameplay. Gems aren't mandatory for anything. It's been a while since I last played, but when I did, gems weren't needed for anything other than random decorative items.
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