23 ms·
Nintendo to Double Production of Switch Console
- Stimpek 10y agoZero multiplied by zero is still zero.
- czechdeveloper 10y agoThey have produced zero consoles? What am I missing?
- chc 10y agoI think what that comment was alluding to is the fact that basically no new Switch units seem to have been shipped since the console's release two weeks ago. So the current rate at which they are shipping product is 0. (Obviously they are actually producing something, but it's not arriving anywhere yet, so there's no evidence of consoles being produced.)
- aweb 10y agoIt might be more than zero, since I know several people who preordered and got it on the release date, myself included
- flukus 10y agoNumbers are in the headline: > Company plans to manufacture 16 million or more in year starting April 1, up from an initial plan for eight million
- Kiro 10y agoWhat are you implying?
- nicky0 10y agoDon't you mean multiplied by 2?
- unlikelymordant 10y agoIts paywalled
- learc83 10y agoBreath of the Wild is the best game I've ever played. I'd recommend getting a switch just for Zelda alone.
- j_s 10y agoI'm giving serious consideration to a PS4 just to catch up with Street Fighter, even though it has its pros and cons, just because I like the game. How big a Zelda fan were you before playing Breath of the Wild?
- GotAnyMegadeth 10y agoThere's quite a lot of SF games including the newest one, SFV, on Steam too! http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_614_615_street-fighter_12&term=street+fighter http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_614_615_street-f...
- learc83 10y agoI loved A Link to the Past, but I switched to PC gaming after the SNES/Genesis era, so I didn't really play another Zelda game until Twilight Princess (until much later on an emulator). I didn't like Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword very much at all.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- HeavenBanned 10y agoIt's good, but not perfect. The weapon fragility is driving me mad, and I'm 10+ hours into the game. It shouldn't take this long for the game to get good.
- TulliusCicero 10y agoThe weapon fragility becomes easier to deal with if you start thinking of the weapon drops as ammo.
- ghostDancer 10y agoThis did work for me: https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/nintendo-to-double-production-of-switch-console-1489728545 https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/...
- namikaze 10y agoThank you. Is there a browser extension that does it automatically for all WSJ articles at HN?
- themacguffinman 10y agoThere is a Chrome extension that bypasses the paywalls of many major news outlets: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bypass-paywalls/gfbabigadapckiaabchaolgjfbgickop https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bypass-paywalls/gf...
- namikaze 10y agoThanks. Anything for Firefox? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/paywall-pass/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/paywall-pass/ used to work but stopped working.
- Beltiras 10y agojavascript:window.location.href='https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href); https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.l... Put this on your bookmarks bar.
- dcw303 10y agoGood. I'm getting sick of walking into Bic Camera and asking the same question when I already know what the (disappointing) answer is going to be. I get that they're a typical conservative Japanese company, they don't want to screw up inventory, blah blah blah, but it's getting annoying. And slightly off topic, does anyone know what is up with the NES classic / Famicom mini? As far as I can tell that thing never restocked after launch. You can see how it looks like Nintendo is majorly shooting themselves in the foot with these slow launches.
- grawlinson 10y agoThere's plenty of stock in smaller countries. I live in New Zealand and if I walk into any electronics retailer, I'm guaranteed to see a bunch of these in the gaming section. I've heard similar stories from people that live outside of the US.
- dcw303 10y agoThanks, that's an interesting data point. But it kinda does justify the view that they are bungling this release if they have stock left on shelves in those countries while those in US / Japan (where I am) can only resort to buying in secondary markets.
- koffiezet 10y agoNot here in Belgium... I had to hunt one down a week after release - everywhere out of stock, and it doesn't seem like the stores were restocked sufficiently and all new consoles went to pre-orders. Even phyisical copies of Zelda are very hard to find, and with Nintendo's crazy download pricing - I wanted a physical copy (70 eur for the downloadable version of the game vs 60 for the physical - really?).
- qz_ 10y agoCould someone with a subscription copy the text behind the paywall?
- hrrsn 10y agohttps://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/nintendo-to-double-production-of-switch-console-1489728545 https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/... Not quite what you're after, but I'm unsure about how cool it is to copy & paste the entire article here. FAQ is unclear. Any guidance?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- oculusthrift 10y agowhat about the nes classic which came out a long time ago and they're clearly trying NOT to sell??
- NTripleOne 10y agoI don't really see what the NES classic has going for it, personally - the interface is basically the only thing it has over any pi-based solution, and even that's debatable, depending on how much of a retroarch loyalist you are.
- dagw 10y agoI don't really see what the NES classic has going for it Legality and the fact that anybody can have it up and running in less than 3 minutes from opening the box.
- NTripleOne 10y agoEmulation is not inherently illegal, and even if it was I'd imagine that the people who just want to play some NES games probably don't give half a shit.
- dagw 10y agoEmulation is not inherently illegal No, but downloading the game ROMs almost always is.
- drdaeman 10y agoNot really. This heavily depends on jurisdiction. Downloading isn't universally illegal (especially if you have the license for the material you're downloading), sharing is.
- rhino369 10y agoI'm not sure about other countries but in the USA it's indirect copyright infringement. It's an urban myth that owning a copy makes it okay. Morally sure, but not legally.
- sillysaurus3 10y agoOff-topic: I notice you've been banned for quite awhile. Some of your comments are pretty good. Some are not-so-great, mostly the outrage/political comments. It's none of my business, but have you considered emailing hn@ycombinator.com, apologize for whatever got you banned, and promise not to do it again? The mods are more than fair and in my experience that will earn you a second chance. More than that, though, your account is named HeavenBanned, so presumably you created it after your previous account was banned. It's also an amusing name since you may have been fully aware that new accounts which are created to circumvent bans are quickly banned, so HeavenBanned would quickly become a self-fulfilling name. Therefore it seems like you're fully aware of your status, but you still comment on HN knowing that almost nobody will see your writing, except the few that have showdead turned on. While your comments are certainly welcome, I am moved by curiosity to ask: What compels you to keep commenting even though you know you're banned? Anything in particular? The phenomenon is pretty common. There are a lot of banned accounts with dozens of pages of dead comments. Sometimes the comments are meticulously written or otherwise took a lot of effort to write. But the most curious aspect is that the authors know they're banned, yet they continue to write. I've seen at least a dozen accounts like that over the years, and I've always wondered why. Why waste time writing something no one will see? Is it therapeutic, like writing in a private journal? Again, it's not unwelcome -- the dead/vouch system works quite well, so it's perfectly fine for someone to write as many autokilled comments as they want. But I love a good mystery, and so I have to ask: what drives you to do it? What drives dozens of people to do it? (It would be ironic if you had no idea you were banned and this was how you found out.)
- arijun 10y agoI have showdead set to "no" yet I see that comment--why do you think the poster is banned?
- sillysaurus3 10y agoI vouched it, which flipped the comment from dead to alive. (Vouching is one of the coolest HN features, but I worry that if too many people know about it, they'll start using it injudiciously.)
- naringas 10y agoI'm betting on the fact the nintendo switch will be able to browse the web and reproduce music and video (youtube, netflix). I understand that they didn't officially support this at launch probably because of time constraints and priorities but it just doesn't make any sense for the switch not to support this in the longer term. It's form factor is perfect for it.
- ianai 10y agoWhy do you care about that from this?
- nestlequ1k 10y agoHow many devices do you actually want to carry around?
- hrrsn 10y agoThe consumer value proposition is greater if people can watch media on the same device.
- bpicolo 10y agoI'm not convinced that's true at all. At this point most people have a plethora of devices that will get the exact same Netflix content on their TV. My TV has like 4 things connected to it right now that will (TV itself, ps4, chromecast, fire stick).
- kk_cz 10y agoYeah, but one of the main appeals of Switch is how portable it is. And when I carry around a device I expect it to not only provide games, but content consumption as well. Otherwise I can carry an ordinary tablet - it might be not ideal for games, but as a multipurpose device it would be superior.
- bpicolo 10y ago
- DaveSapien 10y agoWSJ? It's a wonder they're not linking Nintendo to the Nazi party...
- mrmondo 10y agoI'm a sucker for getting lots of gadgets and then shelving them, the switch is the first game console / handheld I actually genuinely appreciate both for its quality and for its marvellous simplicity since the game boy advanced, it's truly wonderfull. It's has its flaws in that there aren't many release titles but Zelda is amazing and it's just a joy to use. Mad rep out to Nintendo for pulling one out of the hat.
- lobotryas 10y agoAnd here I am still waiting to buy a NES Classic. Maybe next year... Looking forward to getting the Switch because I always liked Nintendo's handhelds and this qualifies. Just hope they work out the design/quality issues by the time stock catches up to demand.
- nawtacawp 10y agoSame here. No way I am paying those ridiculous resale prices. This was something I really wanted, it is baffling they released it -- then didn't produce a ton more when they realized the demand. A friend of mine built a pi based emulator, I played around with it the other day -- it was actually very nice. The controllers he used in the setup were bluetooth (8bit brand?). https://retropie.org.uk/ https://retropie.org.uk/
- shuntress 10y agoBased on what (admittedly little) I know about at-scale production of consumer electronics, it isn't exactly easy to just "produce a ton more" when they realize the demand. It is also difficult to tell what the cap on demand is. If they think they satisfied maybe 70% of the total demand for that product with the N-Number of units they produced, they may consider that "good enough" and not worth launching another production run.
- derrickdirge 10y agoI'm still not convinced the Classic has ever actually been on a store shelf.
- mrfusion 10y agoDoes this production come at the expense of the nes classic though? For some reason I'm really mad I can't buy that stupid thing.
- pmorici 10y agoI wish they would double production of the Nintendo Classic. I can't find it anywhere except places that are charging 3x the list price.
- louhike 10y agoThey won't do it, they stopped the production. But they are working on a SNES version.
- vlunkr 10y agoSource?
- manarth 10y agoFUD in last month's rumour-mill. - http://www.gamezone.com/news/rumor-nes-classic-mini-reportedly-ceasing-production-3450632 http://www.gamezone.com/news/rumor-nes-classic-mini-reported... - http://www.techradar.com/news/dont-panic-nintendo-nes-mini-production-will-continue http://www.techradar.com/news/dont-panic-nintendo-nes-mini-p... - http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/gaming/767007/Nintendo-Classic-Mini-NES-production-ended http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/gaming/767007/Nintend...
- louhike 10y agoOh, thanks for correcting me.
- icefox 10y ago[citation needed] There was a rumor last month which Nintendo refuted.
- hodder 10y agoAgreed. Can't find it. Too bad, I would have dropped the cash for nostalgia. I think they also missed an easy gravy train with expansion packs.
- 10y ago
- mpg33 10y agoI don't think launch sales are a good indicator to go by... There is enough of a hardcore Nintendo fanbase to buy up initial launch supply. Let me know of the sales in July.
- jerf 10y agoI decided to check that claim, and I'd say it holds up reasonably well: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Biggest_game_system_launches http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Biggest_game_system_launches I admit I'm eyeballing it there, but there isn't a great correlation between launch day/week sales and ultimate success. Even the WiiU seems to have been at least a modest success upon launch: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/11/how-successful-was-the-wii-u-launch http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/11/how-successful-was-th... Still, I would definitely take a strong launch over a weak one if I had a choice. :)
- mpg33 10y agoZelda at launch was a strong boost...and I suspect they will get another boost at holiday season when Super Mario Odyssey comes out. But there are a lot of months in between that are not filled in with much... Since the console is not likely to get any 3rd party AAA games Nintendo is going to have to court nearly every indie dev + churn out as many first party titles as possible. Also I'm hoping for a $50 price drop after Christmas...
- mattnewton 10y agoIf they fix up the browser and ship a YouTube and Netflix app I think they will also be a killer low-cost tablet. An Amazon fire hd + mario and Zelda is definitely worth $300 + cost of games. People forget that the ps2 was many familie's DVD player. That kind of extra utility goes a long way into driving purchases imo.
- mpg33 10y agoyeah...it's just that a lot of people already have at least a 5" smartphone and/or tablet (tablet sales have been shrinking due to this) so I don't know how much of the tablet aspect is appealing nowadays...3 years ago it would have been a bigger deal
- knodi123 10y agoGood, because I absolutely refuse to pay scalper prices. Now if someone could figure out the left-joy radio issues, I'd buy one ASAP.
- Karunamon 10y agoLate again. Nintendo is comically bad at meeting demand. Every time they have a highly anticipated product release, there are many multiples fewer products on the shelves than there is demand, for months at a time, and meanwhile, eBay prices spike to 200%+ retail. Meanwhile, consumers are disappointed/annoyed, scalpers profit, and Nintendo leaves money on the table. I wonder how many Switches haven't been sold since people got tired of waiting and just picked up Breath of the Wild for the Wii U, which is now going for fire sale prices?
- deelowe 10y agoNintendo refuses to take a loss, so they are extremely conservative with their inventory. I'm sure they have their reasons for doing this, but man I wonder if it's going to seriously hurt them long term.
- jayflux 10y agoYeah I agree, I know some who stopped bothering to ring up stores and ask if they had switches in stock and just bought something else. They've under-stocked by a large margin and I wonder how much they've lost doing that.
- phyushin 10y agoLogin to see the rest of the story :-/
- DaveWalk 10y agoWas it true that Nintendo held back some of its production of earlier consoles to spike demand? I remember it specifically with the Wii[0], but I seem to recall that their production was always playing catch up. Do you think it's an industry tactic? [0]http://www.cio.com/article/2434123/supply-chain-management/nintendo-wii-shortage--shrewd-marketing-or-flawed-supply-chain-.html http://www.cio.com/article/2434123/supply-chain-management/n...
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoI'm not sure how 'spiking demand' when you have no product to sell, profits Nintendo.
- ajmurmann 10y agoI repeatedly hear that something being limited in some way gets Japanese customers really excited. Supposedly that why you even see themed cafes that only pop up for a limited time.
- Kurtz79 10y agoWhat better advertising than having a narrative where your product is "sold out" and in high demand, with media running stories about it ? Especially when the "scarcity" problem can be addressed easily.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoIt can't be addressed quickly. Takes months to make more. Seems like having enough when folks are buying makes more sense, than a little free press and then maybe they'll still be interested in buying in a few months.
- dandr01d 10y agoForget about the Wii already?
- Donzo 10y agoThe retro NES console that Nintendo released in November still cannot be bought in stores. Around the holidays, it was impossible to buy the DS, a system that is around 7 years old. Nintendo is a billion dollar company. They've been around a long time. They could produce adequate supply if they wanted. It's seems pretty clear that they are not interested in satiating demand.
- shmerl 10y agoThat will help Vulkan adoption.
- baby 10y agoI love this console, haven't been able to sit down and play for long hours in decades and here I am. I love that it's handheld, I travel a lot and so far I've played that in the plane and in various airbnbs, splitting the controller in two and playing snipperclips or bomberman with my girlfriend. It's probably the best console I bought since the N64. I see a lot of skepticism here, but I assume it is mostly from non-buyers. I predict that this is going to be the biggest christmas for Nintendo this December.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- aaron-lebo 10y agoTo the deleted comment asking about battery life: As for general battery life, based on these figures you'll get somewhere between 2 hours and 45 minutes to 3 hours and 15 minutes playing Breath of the Wild, depending on the settings you use. http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/nintendo-switch-battery-life#jBDJLMgoSqAPsbWf.99 http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/nintendo-switch-battery-l... To the GP, Nintendo products have this effect on people. They're different enough that people don't know what to expect. You'll find similar sentiments about the Wii U (especially from Nintendo fans - the next Mario/Zelda/SSB is gonna put it over the top!). I'm interested in wait and see. The hardware is mediocre even though the form factor is great. They really have to get more games out before the holiday season, though, and where they are at they're competing with both mobile devices and consoles. Parents have to justify spending $300 on this + full priced games against more games and better experiences on other consoles (MS IS launching a 4k console, too) and cheaper (much cheaper) games on mobile devices that aren't restricted to gaming. They're in a no man's land of markets where they compete with everyone (for good and bad). ....though it'll probably sell like hotcakes.
- quanticle 10y ago>... though it'll probably sell like hotcakes For a while. Then the novelty/fad factor will wear off and people will realize that it's mediocre hardware, the screen scratches if you put it in the dock too forcefully, the battery life is abysmal compared to an iPad, and the game selection is arguably worse. Then sales will fall off a cliff, just like they did with the original Wii.
- Tiktaalik 10y agoThe great news here for Switch owners is that it means that Nintendo sees the platform size trending to point that will be large enough to start to attract attention of 3rd parties. The Wii U never got to this point and really suffered by essentially being a system of only Nintendo games.
- Fej 10y agoI sure hope that they come out with a hardware revision, fast. I expect there to be a class-action suit regarding the left Joy-Con issues and the screen scratching issue, barring a recall.
- aeturnum 10y agoI find your post difficult to take seriously. Nintendo was aware of the hardness of their screen throughout the design and when they shipped. The joy-con problems are unfortunate, but seem like the kind of glitches discovered on wide release. I'm not sure how fixable they are either (no amount of technical rejiggering will make bluetooth transmit through the human body better). I don't know that I would have made the same trade-offs, but Nintendo was clearly aware of the trade-offs they were making. A recall seems really unlikely and a class action seems very difficult (how much can you get in damages for an occasional technical glitch in some configurations?).
- Fej 10y agoThe Joy-Con issue affects all units and has nothing to do with the human body, although that obviously makes the problem worse. After five or so feet away from the console, the Joy-Cons begin to respond intermittently, making proper gameplay impossible. (This is with nothing between the console and controllers.) The issue lies partially in the design of the antenna. The right Joy-Con has a better antenna, which alleviates the problem to a degree. I don't know how this could not be caught before release. A hardware mod can fix the antenna issue; a courageous user can solder a bit of wire onto the antenna to significantly extend the range. The point is that the left Joy-Con is poorly designed. They may be able to solve this issue by raising the gain on the antennae, at the expense of a significant amount of battery life. I don't know if they'd have to go through the FCC for this. The screen issue isn't that the screen is plastic, it is that the dock itself damages the console. It takes a day or two with heavy use.
- Fej 10y agoDespite my comments here - I am still a Nintendo fanboy, and I like the Switch. But before I buy one, they have to fix the design flaws.
- lcfcjs 10y agoIf you travel a lot, then this is for you. If not, then PS4 Pro with a 4k TV cannot be beaten. Unfortunately, many "gamer" critics (like Colin Moriarty) are always flying all over the US. So all these reviews are heavily biased on being able to travel easily with this.