Switch Discussion Thread

[Reprise]

Meanwhile, I'm just like 'Cool, I have £3.34 worth of points. Better than a kick in the teeth.'

[BogusMeatFactory]

Meanwhile, I'm just like 'Cool, I have £3.34 worth of points. Better than a kick in the teeth.'

This right here... but in dollars.

[ESauced]

Well, but if Nintendo is really bad at setting concrete expectations, and people lately have been sort of disappointed in some of their decisions, why would there be any reasonable expectation that Nintendo would extend some valuable Gold-tinted olive branch to folks who already bought stuff before the new rewards program is put in place? When my grocery store implements a rewards program, they don't retroactively give me credit for the years of groceries I bought before the program. So I guess, with Nintendo's track record, why would anyone be expecting Nintendo to heap riches upon them retroactively? So far, solid game design is the only thing Nintendo seems to regularly deliver.

Haha. That's exactly why I'm irritated with them. I would like it if they were consumer friendly and not just a developer that made great games. I love the Switch but I bought it solely for Mario Odyssey (and future first party releases) and the other stuff has just been gravy. If it weren't for their first party games I'd have no real reason to get a Nintendo console because every aspect of their business is worse for the consumer than Sony and Microsoft. You're right that I shouldn't expect any better of them, but that doesn't mean I don't want better and shouldn't be disappointed when they don't deliver. Their rewards system being like this wouldn't really bother me if their first party offerings weren't consistently more expensive, or if they had let us transfer virtual console purchases, but all these things add up.

I don't really understand why it is that people don't want more out of the companies they do business with. If I got a good sandwich at a restaurant but had lousy service I wouldn't rate it 5 stars. I'd dock it a star and say, "well they make a good sandwich but the waiter was a jerk." It seems like people's attitudes towards game companies are often one of two extremes, either, "I hate them!" or "they can do whatever they want, I enjoy their games." Sometimes, a company you like can do something you don't. I'll leave it at that.

[marurun]

I'm going to go contrary on this and say I think, in general, Nintendo is more consumer-friendly in their operations, at least in many ways. Sure, their on-line act is lacking compared to the competition, but Nintendo tends to give their systems long-term support even when sales dip low. Look how long the Wii Shop channel has been on-line before finally they're closing it down. Nintendo's repair services also cover their hardware a ridiculous number of years after they're out of production. New Nintendo titles aren't more expensive these days than 3rd party offerings, unless you include indie and smaller 3rd party releases. They don't drop in price quickly because demand remains for their stuff long after other titles would have reduced demand.

There are lots of things to dislike about the way Nintendo does business, and some of their decisions are indeed not particularly consumer friendly, especially when it comes to embracing advanced tech (like on-line services), but I think on the whole the company actually has a really good reputation with consumers. It's more in their dealings with other businesses that their reputation takes a lot of black marks. Things like not sharing good dev tools and documentation, not working well with 3rd party developers, their early anti-competitive behavior in the NES days, stuff like that is what produces a much more pronounced stain on their legacy.

Companies like Apple and Nintendo are still in business and profitable today, despite some real missteps and market misses, for good reason. And that's also with a much tighter market focus than scattered behemoths like Sony and Microsoft. Sony and MS have to juggle so many more competing interests, though it does mean they tend to be easier to work with from the corporate collaboration side. Meanwhile Nintendo is focused on systems and games and that's pretty much it. When stuff like the Virtual Boy and WiiU come along they weather the storm and somehow still come out smelling like a rose.

To bring it around to the Switch, Nintendo has created a portable hardware package quite unlike anything that has come before, and the thing just works. Despite some performance compromises and a high price (for a portable game system, anyway), the thing has sold gangbusters, and Nintendo's initial software slate has been rather high quality. I feel like Nintendo actually listened to consumer complaints and expectations with the creation of the Switch and tried very carefully to balance their priorities against consumer priorities. Even though the Switch sounded cool, it wasn't until I got one that I realized just how much this device is what I've always wanted in a video game console. Is that a weird thing to type? Now all it needs is a high-quality, Hudson PC Engine-heavy Virtual Console.

[Ack]

Also the love hotels, but hey, it was the '70s. It was a wild time.

[marurun]

They probably still provide hanafuda cards to the yakuza.

[ESauced]

I still think that @dsheinem you can be pretty disrespectful when you disagree with someone. If you enjoy frustrating people keep at it but you already chased someone away from this thread and I’m now hesitant to post if I see you active in a thread.

Seriously, dude, chill the fuck out. Your initial posts (and most subsequent ones) have been full of self-righteous groans and moans about all kinds of extremely petty frustrations you seem to have with Nintendo's choices about how to inform you about how they will be delivering their free rewards to you, the quality of those free rewards, and the idea that you may have to pay for things that you were hoping to get cheaper or for free. OMG NINTENDO WTF ?!?!?!?!!!!!!1!!!

It is all inane, and while I don't mean to drive anyone away...if they have left because I pointed this out to them or because I was having a laugh at their internet rage, well then good riddance.

I think you need to look up self righteous. I expressed an opinion and nothing more. And as far as internet rage goes; I’m not raging. I’m just trying to ask you to be more polite. As far as my opinions of Nintendo, I already mentioned I was in a bad mood and that news irked me more than usual. I’m a level-headed person with plenty of other things to spend my frustration on than a Nintendo policy; I was just coming here to rant about a nerd thing. My friends and family hear about my big problems; if a game forum isn’t a place for petty complaints about a game company than what is?

I agree these forums are a lot better than the flame wars of the 90s but I also thought they were better than the immature forums of today. I started coming here because people here seemed friendly and civil. You didn’t do anything that mean but I was trying to respectfully tell you that your posts were coming off rude. If your reaction to that is to tell me to calm the f down, well I’m just going to ignore you from now on.

[dsheinem]

I’m just level-heatedly trying to ask you to be more polite.

If I misread the tone of your remarks, it was probably because you were using phrases like "kicked in the balls by Nintendo" or "screwed over" etc. which seemed, given the subject matter, extremely hyperbolic.

[Reprise]

Nintendo Direct tomorrow.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Direct was pretty straightforward, mostly stuff we knew, or was heavily rumored. And, yknow, Smash Bros. No subtitle, so I'm thinking it might be a brand new one rather than port.

Big announcements for me:
Octopath news
Toad treasure Tracker Switch
Crash nsane
Okami switch (no physical apparently... damn it all Capcom, quit doing this)
Smash

The bits of Travis Strikes Back looks bit disappointing... like an overhead beat em up/shooter. Rumors have suggested it would be different from the main series, but still.