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Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

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Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#301

Post by deelowe »

agumonkey wrote: post #140
GuiA wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mostly credited to Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy: "Yokoi articulated his philosophy of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology". [...] "Withered technology" in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. "Lateral thinking" refers to finding radical new ways of using such technology. Yokoi held that toys and games do not necessarily require cutting edge technology; novel and fun g…

The SNES CPU was underpowered compared to the Genesis. But the overall system yielded better gaming experience. It's similar to Apple lesser RAM numbers compared to the market, yet iPhone are still smoother globally.

Define underpowered. It had a slower clock, but supported much more feature wise. You can't just compare clock speed when comparing different architectures. It's more appropriate to compare the entire system. By that account, the SNES was the most advanced console out. Same for the NES. Same for the 64 (which was a joint development with SGI of all things). Even the gamecube had some grunt but was hampered by it's silly disc format and poor development environment.

No, Nintendo didn't decide to go with underpowered hardware until the Wii. Prior to that they were certainly competing with the top tier systems.

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#303

Post by slantyyz »

OD_ wrote: post #270
slantyyz wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more I learn, the more I want this as a 3DS replacement. I don't know if that's even possible. The 3DS has pretty good third party developer support and a huge back library. The true worth of any system is how many high quality games are on the system and whether they're the games you want play. Outside of the obvious "must have" first party titles, I can't see a whole lot of system-selling "must have" third pa…

Some of the niches that the 3DS owned up until now might be disrupted by the Switch though. I'm one of these old school (as in, thoughtful turn based combat, whether tactical ala FE or FFT, or more about party building and dungeon exploration like SMT and Etrian) RPG gamers who bought the 3ds solely games like the Fire Emblem, Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei, Devil Survivor series, and of these, Atlus has already…

It really depends on the game genres you like.

For example, I like fighting games, and that's why I bought the 3DS (even though you can count them all on both hands). Street Fighter IV was one of the early launch games for the 3DS and holds up surprisingly well.

Meanwhile in the Switch announcement, Capcom announced a rehash of the older 2D Street Fighter II, which is a less than impressive announcement. At least the Wii U got Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

If I didn't just buy a GPD Win recently (which plays the Windows Steam versions of SFIV and Street Fighter x Tekken among others at close to 60fps @ 720p in a 3DSXL-like form factor), I would still choose my 3DS for fighting games over the Switch for the foreseeable future. I still play my 3DS a lot because I somehow started playing Pokemon for the first time (Sun/Moon) and got hooked on it.

I actually pulled the trigger on the my GPD Win a couple of weeks after being disappointed with the Switch webcast. It basically killed any remaining desire I had to get a Switch, but as I mentioned earlier, it all comes down to the genres you play and which platforms serve them the best.

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#304

Post by Volt »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #70

If someone can answer that question for me: Why has Nintendo shifted towards producing underpowered consoles? I used to play the Super Nes when I was a kid, and it was the most powerful console of its generation. The N64, the GameCube, the Wii and subsequent offerings were all underpowered in terms of graphical abilities and raw power after that. I hear people say "But the gameplay is what matters", which I agree wit…

I'd highly suggest reading this discussion from 2000 between Miyamoto, Itoi, and Iwata. It pertains to the cancellation of MOTHER 3 on the N64, which was probably their most ambitious project at the time. It's an enlightening read. (https://yomuka.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/earthbound-64-cancel...)

It's long, so I'll throw in a few quotes.

>Miyamoto: Game quality was at a point when it caught up with top-tier entertainment, with visuals that had come so far that all we had left was coming up with new ideas for us to express. It was like we gained incredible calvarymen to make an unstoppable army. […] We came in right during that time period. I think we got distracted by the prospect of building up that powerful army and lost sight of how we were going to form our battle strategies.

The following snippet is the highlight. Note that Iwata became the president of Nintendo shortly after, in 2002.

>Iwata: There’s this really strange common sense now that says it takes a huge team of people working with a large scale and a lot of time to create a good game. A good game is supposed to be based on a good idea that’s very fun, even if it’s small. That notion disappeared somewhere along the way, and it’s turned into a battle of who can spend the most time and utilize the most manpower. You could even say that Nintendo needs to take a stand against this.

The result: the adoption of the Blue Ocean strategy.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-10-10-nintendos-i...

I'm reminded of a Twitter thread in 2013 by CliffyB, where he talks about the game industry's obsession with inflated budgets (http://www.igameresponsibly.com/2013/06/13/cliff-bleszinski-...). This is what Nintendo sought to avoid with a slower adoption of raw power and instead making more focused games.

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#305

Post by autoreleasepool »

brotoss wrote: post #215
hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you. Last console I bought was an XB360. I don't play games as much any more, but anything I do play is a Steam game. I don't have any games on my phone right now, but I do enjoy playing them when I am traveling. I'd love to play a REAL Mario game on my phone with a REAL gamepad.

Nintendo Switch + Higher End PC will be the optimal gaming package

There's an observable soft spot for Nintendo consoles in a lot of "PC master race" types. I'm definitely not a part of that community, but I agree a higher powered PC plus whatever Nintendo's newest console is brings something very special to the table. It also helps when my little cousins come over and I have games like Overwatch on the PC and Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U for them to enjoy

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#306

Post by Volt »

Xixi wrote: post #204
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SNES, N64, and the GameCube were not really behind technologically (they were different from their competitors, but not behind ). The Wii was the first Nintendo console that was clearly just flat out technically inferior to all of its competitors.

I think the GameCube was actually ahead of the PlayStation 2 and behind the XBox in terms of raw power. But it might have had other limitations that I'm unaware of.

It was very close to the Xbox in terms of its graphical capabilities. The major advantage the Xbox had was its hardware shaders.

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#307

Post by pryelluw »

slantyyz wrote: post #157
jdcarter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's precisely why I'll be buying one: my daughter wants a 3DS, but I said let's wait for the Switch instead. Then we'll get to use it on our main TV (replacing our Wii U, which we rarely use) and have games that work in both settings. Win-win.

If your daughter wants a 3DS to play portable games (with nothing specific in mind) then waiting for a Switch instead of getting a 3DS is probably worthwhile. If, however, your daughter wants a 3DS for specific titles, you're still better off getting her the 3DS. For example, if all of her friends are currently playing and trading on Pokemon Sun/Moon, getting a Switch will basically have her feeling left out.

I think the pokemon games will eventually get ported to thw switch. Which is great.

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#308

Post by Volt »

cwyers wrote: post #190
elsonrodriguez wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gamecube was actually more powerful than the PS2. An easy comparison here is to look at Resident Evil 4 on both consoles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkKX-nU9fX4 If anything, the fact that the Gamecube's graphical superiority didn't help it much in the market is what made Nintendo make their shift towards innovations instead of clock cycles. You can't have both because the market has told Nintendo specificall…

Well, then Nintendo really learned the wrong lesson from the Gamecube versus the PS2, because the lesson should have been "people want to be able to play DVDs on something that costs that much and hooks up to your TV, and they don't like switching discs to play a game."

Nintendo was considering changing its strategy before the GameCube even came out. See my other post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13769605.

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#309

Post by Volt »

scott_s wrote: post #125
coldpie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. The N64 outperformed the PSX, but it was far harder to program for and cartridges were far more expensive than discs. That's where Nintendo's lack of 3rd party support began. The Gamecube and Xbox were about on par with each other, and both outperformed the PS2. But the PS2 had a huge lead time and strong 3rd party momentum from the PSX. The Wii was the shift where Nintendo began to fall behind on hor…

I think there's more to it than that. Matt Leone wrote an amazing Oral History of Final Fantasy 7, published over at Polygon: http://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7 The switch from N64 to PS is talked about a lot - Square definitely started development for FF7 on the N64 prototype systems before switching over. Hiroshi Kawai, a character programmer for Square, has what I think are the most telling comments: "I kind…

At the time, this is true. One of the N64's primary limitations was its suboptimal microcode. It wasn't until too late in the console's lifecycle that studios like Factor 5 and Rare really showed its potential with their own custom microcode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_programming_charac...

Re: Nintendo Switch review: pure potential

#310

Post by Volt »

chadgeidel wrote: post #181
bedhead wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They know they can't win a spec arms race.

Anyone can win a spec arms race. Whoever wants to spend the most money will win. Nintendo doesn't want to participate in a spec arms race.

And I'll note that Nintendo definitely has the money to spend.
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