6 ms·

> Brand exclusives and a low console price are all it's got A lower price and better games is quite a lot actually.

hombre_fatal 5y ago
Switch has an e-shop with expensive games that will eventually get offlined within a couple generations like the ones before it vs. Steam, an e-shop with every game, for cheaper, including all the games people bought over the last two decades. I can imagine how disruptive a successful Steam entry into the console space could be once people realize they are tired of "renting" $60 games from ad-hoc console e-shops.
- ascar 5y ago
  I have to disagree hard on this. Nintendo was on the forefront of making old games playable on the new hardware. On the switch you can play many old SNES and N64 classics included in the Nintendo online subscription at ~2-4€ a month. They re-released childhood favorites like Zelda Ocarina of Times and Super Mario 64 on the 3DS and I actually bought the 3DS (in a special Zelda variant no less) just for that and Majora's Mask. I had a blast. In comparison Steam and PC in general was late to the party of remastering old games or even just keeping them playable. Getting old Win 98 or even some XP titles running is often a challenge and sometimes borderline impossible.
  - monksy 5y ago
    If you have to pay a subscription and that's the only way to play the classics there.. that's not free
    - ascar 5y ago
      Well that's why I said "or". I'm honestly not sure, I never tried to play them while not having a subscription. The subscription at 20€/year is much cheaper than what Microsoft or Playstation are offering though. Edit: I looked it up, it requires the subscription and updated my comment accordingly.
      - monksy 5y ago
        :thumbsup: No worries.. I just get tired of the arguement that "well you get these things for free if you put yourself through a subscription" (That same arguement exists on the PSN and their "free games")
  - kipchak 5y ago
    GoG (2008, the wii was 2006) is probably at the forefront of old games that just work on modern hardware, though there is some occasional hiccups. I think the oldest title is from 1980. For nintendo NES/SNES is if you have the basic subscription, n64 and genesis is an upcharge. https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/2021/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-nintendo-switch-online-expansion-pack-membership-plan/ https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/2021/what-you-need-...
  - wowokay 5y ago
    They sell the old games, they are not free. All of there games are overpriced and never go on sale, probably because it seems like they only have a handful of games. I don’t think it’s fair to say valve is late to the party, if anything they are first. There is a distinct difference between consoles games and pc games, the steam deck focuses on bringing pc games to a portable format, that opens the door to an almost endless supply of cheap indie games, as well as the potential for large AAA titles like Assassins Creed. The best part? Unlike Nintendo or PlayStation you don’t have to buy the game again if it’s already in your steam library, outside of Xbox play anywhere it’s the first time players don’t have to repurchase a game in order to play it on a portable device.
    - ascar 5y ago
      > outside of Xbox play anywhere it’s the first time players don’t have to repurchase a game in order to play it on a portable device. I agree that's a nice perk and I also regularly pay more to have my games in Steam rather than somewhere else, because it usually just works and keeps on working with Steam era games. My issues were mostly with pre-online era games where I still owned the actual CD. It would've been nice if I could just play my old N64 games for free, but I also didn't feel cheated that I had to pay for the ported versions again.
    - dudeman13 5y ago
      >All of there games are overpriced and never go on sale If whole generations of gamers will buy them regardless, why should they change it? Even after shitting hard on their customers, gamers are still voting Nintendo with their wallets.
  - chungy 5y ago
    "Was" in an operative word. Nintendo was selling N64 games virtually on the Wii in 2007. They have yet to improve on that offering. The closest they got was Super Mario 3D All-Stars that included emulation of a GameCube (Mario Sunshine) and a Wii (Mario Galaxy) game, but Nintendo being Nintendo, it was on the e-shop for a limited time and a limited manufacturing run for physical release. Two console generations after the Wii, the most Nintendo can muster is bringing back Nintendo 64 games to their current console, 5 years after the console's release. It's pathetic.
  - gundamdoubleO 5y ago
    You have to pay extra for the N64 titles. And just a reminder that they've yet to have their retro game collection on the Switch reach half of the games that were available on their Wii Virtual Console service, which ended with approx. 400 games, including some from Sega and SNK consoles. Most of the titles also ran better and had lower input latency than what's available on the Switch. The service was completely discontinued in 2019 with no way of transferring the titles over to the Switch or having the proof of purchase even linked to your account. In terms of preserving their old titles Nintendo is awful, they'd rather continually rerelease the popular ones and have you pay yet again for the (temporary) access.
  - sjmulder 5y ago
    I love the Switch and I'm a big fan of many Nintendo franchises but Nintendo has a habit of screwing over honest customers, especially early adopters, and their retro efforts are a good example of that: People who purchased games on the original Wii Virtual Console had to pay per-game fees to upgrade to native Wii U versions. As if that wasn't cheeky enough the Wii U NES emulation was terrible. Bad colors and serious input lag. Instead of fixing it for those customers who already paid (sometimes twice) for those games, Nintendo released the NES Classic which had a much better emulator… but only if you paid again. (There also wasn't cross-buy/play between Virtual Console 3DS and Wii U, as opposed to e.g. Sony's PS3 and Vita's PS1 support.) Then came the Switch with Nintendo Switch Online. Putting aside subscription vs. purchasing, the experience is great. But all those Virtual Console games you have? Can't play them. Pay again. Remaster are cool but the way Nintendo approaches them is another example of how early adopters get the short end, with Wii U games getting re-releases on Switch (great) with additional content like Bowser's Fury (also great) but without making that content available as DLC to people who already paid full price for the original versions. (By the way, those NSO N64 games aren't part of the basic subscription)
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      > People who purchased games on the original Wii Virtual Console had to pay per-game fees to upgrade to native Wii U versions. As if that wasn't cheeky enough the Wii U NES emulation was terrible. Bad colors and serious input lag. Instead of fixing it for those customers who already paid (sometimes twice) for those games, Nintendo released the NES Classic which had a much better emulator… but only if you paid again. I'm definitely not going to defend how bad the Wii U emulators were, but asking users to pay for a new emulator doesn't seem so unreasonable to me. Developing an emulator takes work. If you don't want to use the new emulator, play the game in Wii mode. Yes, paying for the emulator on a per-game basis is weird, but any other model would be prohibitively difficult for consumers to understand. > Remaster are cool but the way Nintendo approaches them is another example of how early adopters get the short end, with Wii U games getting re-releases on Switch (great) with additional content like Bowser's Fury (also great) but without making that content available as DLC to people who already paid full price for the original versions. But again, Nintendo had to port the game to the Switch, so I think it's reasonable to charge for that. And while they certainly could have instituted some sort of upgrade pricing model, it would have quickly become prohibitively complicated, particularly when you start considering retail versions of the game. My feeling is, I paid $60 for Mario 3D World in 2013 because it was worth (more than) $60. I already played it and got my money's worth. The Switch version doesn't have enough new content for me to justify paying another $60, but for anyone who never owned a Wii U, it's a great deal and I'm happy for them. Games (particularly non-Nintendo games) often become much cheaper if you don't mind waiting a few years, if not less.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - stuu99 5y ago
  - tarsinge 5y ago
    Forefront? It's nice but I'm glad I didn't wait 15-20 years for Nintendo to play SNES games officially.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  The steam deck exists and seems like pretty much this! I have been very impressed with what I have seen about it. But I am probably still going to buy breath of the wild 2, so I still need a switch...
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    Given how well the original BotW emulates, probably not
- caddemon 5y ago
  Anything downloaded from the Switch e-shop will continue to work locally on that Switch, and all the mainstream games can be bought as a cartridge if desired. It's not fundamentally different than dragging out my old N64 to play my old games from the 90s. I don't consider that "renting", and I can't remember the last time I had the desire to play one of my decade+ old games anyway. Very few of them aged well compared to their modern versions. I'm sure there are some people out there that are passionate about this but I can't imagine it being anything more than a small minority of video game buyers. There are certainly other ways the Steam Deck could be disruptive though.
  - initplus 5y ago
    Not being fundamentally different to the N64 purchase model from 1996 is the problem! And in fact it’s actually worse given that many titles are available digital only.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
jeroenhd 5y ago
It sure is, but the cost of ownership if the Switch is higher than that of the Steam deck. Games on Steam are cheap and plentiful. The quality requirements of the Nintendo's storefront are ridiculously low. I've seen footage of the Switch WWE game and frankly it should never have been allowed into any store front, let alone the one people expect to be better. There are plenty of platformers out there, but only one company can use Mario. The games on the Switch are pricey, but the console is affordable, making it excellent for multiplayer gaming. I don't think it has a lower price and better games in practice. They did manage to corner the portable gaming space with their 3DS and Switch, which all major competitors abandoned. Now they're at risk of losing that too.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  > The quality requirements of the Nintendo's storefront are ridiculously low. I've seen footage of the Switch WWE game and frankly it should never have been allowed into any store front Doesn't even look that bad to me compared to what Sony accepts, ranging from "life of black tiger" to Cyberpunk 2077's PS4 release.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  I think you're comparing Apples with Oranges when you mention the price of Switch games. Sure, a three year-old Pokemon game might still cost $40, but you have a cartridge you can resell and get almost all of that money back (or even more, if you're happy to wait a few years). With Steam, every dollar you spend is gone forever.
  - saltminer 5y ago
    For the games that have cartridges, sure. When I bought a "physical copy" of Puyo Puyo Tetris, I thought it would be a cartridge but it was just a code to redeem inside a case. Waste of plastic if you ask me.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      Respectfully, if you read the box it's pretty clear what you're getting. What annoys me more are cartridges that (literally) require an additional online download. But even then, game covers are pretty clear about the requirement. I avoid those games.
user_7832 5y ago
> A lower price and better games is quite a lot actually. Lower price, yes, but better games? Different games, sure but I wouldn't call them better given that it can run almost everything a windows PC can.
- user_7832 5y ago
  By the way why was the comment downvoted? I (probably mistakenly) believed that hackernews was more mature than reddit (or other similar sites). Good faith questions... should be treated as such, I thought?
- cassac 5y ago
  Yes, better games. Nintendo first party titles from their Zelda, Mario and Mario Kart franchises are consistently among the best games for their time period with some of the biggest appeal across the gamer spectrums. If I could choose only one system it would be the switch easily. If only it had Valheim on it I would never put it down.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    It depends on what part of those franchises you're focused on. The most recent entry of each favors switch, everything older mostly favors the steam deck.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    This really depends upon what you enjoy. I prefer strategy games and I would take exclusively Paradox games over all the games on the switch combined, nevermind everything else I can find on steam.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  You get Nintendo first party games, considered by millions to be among the best video games. I have a switch mainly for Nintendo titles.
marcofiset 5y ago
Who's saying better games? Exclusivity != quality.

Switch has an e-shop with expensive games that will eventually get offlined within a couple generations like the ones before it vs. Steam, an e-shop with every game, for cheaper, including all the games people bought over the last two decades. I can imagine how disruptive a successful Steam entry into the console space could be once people realize they are tired of "renting" $60 games from ad-hoc console e-shops.

ascar 5y ago
I have to disagree hard on this. Nintendo was on the forefront of making old games playable on the new hardware. On the switch you can play many old SNES and N64 classics included in the Nintendo online subscription at ~2-4€ a month. They re-released childhood favorites like Zelda Ocarina of Times and Super Mario 64 on the 3DS and I actually bought the 3DS (in a special Zelda variant no less) just for that and Majora's Mask. I had a blast. In comparison Steam and PC in general was late to the party of remastering old games or even just keeping them playable. Getting old Win 98 or even some XP titles running is often a challenge and sometimes borderline impossible.
- monksy 5y ago
  If you have to pay a subscription and that's the only way to play the classics there.. that's not free
  - ascar 5y ago
    Well that's why I said "or". I'm honestly not sure, I never tried to play them while not having a subscription. The subscription at 20€/year is much cheaper than what Microsoft or Playstation are offering though. Edit: I looked it up, it requires the subscription and updated my comment accordingly.
    - monksy 5y ago
      :thumbsup: No worries.. I just get tired of the arguement that "well you get these things for free if you put yourself through a subscription" (That same arguement exists on the PSN and their "free games")
- kipchak 5y ago
  GoG (2008, the wii was 2006) is probably at the forefront of old games that just work on modern hardware, though there is some occasional hiccups. I think the oldest title is from 1980. For nintendo NES/SNES is if you have the basic subscription, n64 and genesis is an upcharge. https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/2021/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-nintendo-switch-online-expansion-pack-membership-plan/ https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/2021/what-you-need-...
- wowokay 5y ago
  They sell the old games, they are not free. All of there games are overpriced and never go on sale, probably because it seems like they only have a handful of games. I don’t think it’s fair to say valve is late to the party, if anything they are first. There is a distinct difference between consoles games and pc games, the steam deck focuses on bringing pc games to a portable format, that opens the door to an almost endless supply of cheap indie games, as well as the potential for large AAA titles like Assassins Creed. The best part? Unlike Nintendo or PlayStation you don’t have to buy the game again if it’s already in your steam library, outside of Xbox play anywhere it’s the first time players don’t have to repurchase a game in order to play it on a portable device.
  - ascar 5y ago
    > outside of Xbox play anywhere it’s the first time players don’t have to repurchase a game in order to play it on a portable device. I agree that's a nice perk and I also regularly pay more to have my games in Steam rather than somewhere else, because it usually just works and keeps on working with Steam era games. My issues were mostly with pre-online era games where I still owned the actual CD. It would've been nice if I could just play my old N64 games for free, but I also didn't feel cheated that I had to pay for the ported versions again.
  - dudeman13 5y ago
    >All of there games are overpriced and never go on sale If whole generations of gamers will buy them regardless, why should they change it? Even after shitting hard on their customers, gamers are still voting Nintendo with their wallets.
- chungy 5y ago
  "Was" in an operative word. Nintendo was selling N64 games virtually on the Wii in 2007. They have yet to improve on that offering. The closest they got was Super Mario 3D All-Stars that included emulation of a GameCube (Mario Sunshine) and a Wii (Mario Galaxy) game, but Nintendo being Nintendo, it was on the e-shop for a limited time and a limited manufacturing run for physical release. Two console generations after the Wii, the most Nintendo can muster is bringing back Nintendo 64 games to their current console, 5 years after the console's release. It's pathetic.
- gundamdoubleO 5y ago
  You have to pay extra for the N64 titles. And just a reminder that they've yet to have their retro game collection on the Switch reach half of the games that were available on their Wii Virtual Console service, which ended with approx. 400 games, including some from Sega and SNK consoles. Most of the titles also ran better and had lower input latency than what's available on the Switch. The service was completely discontinued in 2019 with no way of transferring the titles over to the Switch or having the proof of purchase even linked to your account. In terms of preserving their old titles Nintendo is awful, they'd rather continually rerelease the popular ones and have you pay yet again for the (temporary) access.
- sjmulder 5y ago
  I love the Switch and I'm a big fan of many Nintendo franchises but Nintendo has a habit of screwing over honest customers, especially early adopters, and their retro efforts are a good example of that: People who purchased games on the original Wii Virtual Console had to pay per-game fees to upgrade to native Wii U versions. As if that wasn't cheeky enough the Wii U NES emulation was terrible. Bad colors and serious input lag. Instead of fixing it for those customers who already paid (sometimes twice) for those games, Nintendo released the NES Classic which had a much better emulator… but only if you paid again. (There also wasn't cross-buy/play between Virtual Console 3DS and Wii U, as opposed to e.g. Sony's PS3 and Vita's PS1 support.) Then came the Switch with Nintendo Switch Online. Putting aside subscription vs. purchasing, the experience is great. But all those Virtual Console games you have? Can't play them. Pay again. Remaster are cool but the way Nintendo approaches them is another example of how early adopters get the short end, with Wii U games getting re-releases on Switch (great) with additional content like Bowser's Fury (also great) but without making that content available as DLC to people who already paid full price for the original versions. (By the way, those NSO N64 games aren't part of the basic subscription)
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    > People who purchased games on the original Wii Virtual Console had to pay per-game fees to upgrade to native Wii U versions. As if that wasn't cheeky enough the Wii U NES emulation was terrible. Bad colors and serious input lag. Instead of fixing it for those customers who already paid (sometimes twice) for those games, Nintendo released the NES Classic which had a much better emulator… but only if you paid again. I'm definitely not going to defend how bad the Wii U emulators were, but asking users to pay for a new emulator doesn't seem so unreasonable to me. Developing an emulator takes work. If you don't want to use the new emulator, play the game in Wii mode. Yes, paying for the emulator on a per-game basis is weird, but any other model would be prohibitively difficult for consumers to understand. > Remaster are cool but the way Nintendo approaches them is another example of how early adopters get the short end, with Wii U games getting re-releases on Switch (great) with additional content like Bowser's Fury (also great) but without making that content available as DLC to people who already paid full price for the original versions. But again, Nintendo had to port the game to the Switch, so I think it's reasonable to charge for that. And while they certainly could have instituted some sort of upgrade pricing model, it would have quickly become prohibitively complicated, particularly when you start considering retail versions of the game. My feeling is, I paid $60 for Mario 3D World in 2013 because it was worth (more than) $60. I already played it and got my money's worth. The Switch version doesn't have enough new content for me to justify paying another $60, but for anyone who never owned a Wii U, it's a great deal and I'm happy for them. Games (particularly non-Nintendo games) often become much cheaper if you don't mind waiting a few years, if not less.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- stuu99 5y ago
- tarsinge 5y ago
  Forefront? It's nice but I'm glad I didn't wait 15-20 years for Nintendo to play SNES games officially.
mattnewton 5y ago
The steam deck exists and seems like pretty much this! I have been very impressed with what I have seen about it. But I am probably still going to buy breath of the wild 2, so I still need a switch...
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  Given how well the original BotW emulates, probably not
caddemon 5y ago
Anything downloaded from the Switch e-shop will continue to work locally on that Switch, and all the mainstream games can be bought as a cartridge if desired. It's not fundamentally different than dragging out my old N64 to play my old games from the 90s. I don't consider that "renting", and I can't remember the last time I had the desire to play one of my decade+ old games anyway. Very few of them aged well compared to their modern versions. I'm sure there are some people out there that are passionate about this but I can't imagine it being anything more than a small minority of video game buyers. There are certainly other ways the Steam Deck could be disruptive though.
- initplus 5y ago
  Not being fundamentally different to the N64 purchase model from 1996 is the problem! And in fact it’s actually worse given that many titles are available digital only.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jeroenhd 5y ago

It sure is, but the cost of ownership if the Switch is higher than that of the Steam deck. Games on Steam are cheap and plentiful. The quality requirements of the Nintendo's storefront are ridiculously low. I've seen footage of the Switch WWE game and frankly it should never have been allowed into any store front, let alone the one people expect to be better. There are plenty of platformers out there, but only one company can use Mario. The games on the Switch are pricey, but the console is affordable, making it excellent for multiplayer gaming. I don't think it has a lower price and better games in practice. They did manage to corner the portable gaming space with their 3DS and Switch, which all major competitors abandoned. Now they're at risk of losing that too.

alpaca128 5y ago
> The quality requirements of the Nintendo's storefront are ridiculously low. I've seen footage of the Switch WWE game and frankly it should never have been allowed into any store front Doesn't even look that bad to me compared to what Sony accepts, ranging from "life of black tiger" to Cyberpunk 2077's PS4 release.
AussieWog93 5y ago
I think you're comparing Apples with Oranges when you mention the price of Switch games. Sure, a three year-old Pokemon game might still cost $40, but you have a cartridge you can resell and get almost all of that money back (or even more, if you're happy to wait a few years). With Steam, every dollar you spend is gone forever.
- saltminer 5y ago
  For the games that have cartridges, sure. When I bought a "physical copy" of Puyo Puyo Tetris, I thought it would be a cartridge but it was just a code to redeem inside a case. Waste of plastic if you ask me.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Respectfully, if you read the box it's pretty clear what you're getting. What annoys me more are cartridges that (literally) require an additional online download. But even then, game covers are pretty clear about the requirement. I avoid those games.

user_7832 5y ago

> A lower price and better games is quite a lot actually. Lower price, yes, but better games? Different games, sure but I wouldn't call them better given that it can run almost everything a windows PC can.

user_7832 5y ago
By the way why was the comment downvoted? I (probably mistakenly) believed that hackernews was more mature than reddit (or other similar sites). Good faith questions... should be treated as such, I thought?
cassac 5y ago
Yes, better games. Nintendo first party titles from their Zelda, Mario and Mario Kart franchises are consistently among the best games for their time period with some of the biggest appeal across the gamer spectrums. If I could choose only one system it would be the switch easily. If only it had Valheim on it I would never put it down.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  It depends on what part of those franchises you're focused on. The most recent entry of each favors switch, everything older mostly favors the steam deck.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  This really depends upon what you enjoy. I prefer strategy games and I would take exclusively Paradox games over all the games on the switch combined, nevermind everything else I can find on steam.
nemo44x 5y ago
You get Nintendo first party games, considered by millions to be among the best video games. I have a switch mainly for Nintendo titles.

marcofiset 5y ago

Who's saying better games? Exclusivity != quality.