bigtakilla said:
I agree whole heartedly. It is going to be price that makes this sink or swim. I also believe it will have a lot to do with third parties. Can the Switch even get half the support as the PS4 and Xbone? I remain skeptical, but hopefully it will. Because if people can play GTA V on a lunch break, that's awesome, but if it doesn't play GTA VI it isn't gonna take long for people to jump ship. Also, I'm concerned with development issues not only in power, but architecture. Not entirely sure what the Switches architecture is, or how easy it will be to port games, but will devs even bother with how many PS4s and Xbones will be in houses by the time NS makes it to the scene. We already know that Mass Effect will not be coming to NS, and Square-Enix said they have no plans of bringing Final Fantasy to NS.
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Again, that all comes down to how Nintendo markets the Switch. I am 100% sure there will be a lot of developers taking a wait and see approach to the Switch, and like I said in the VGChat article, I think they have about a year to prove that game will sell on it. In that time, they need to do specific things.
1. Associative marketing deals. I already mentioned this, but this is literally the most important thing. It's more important than even third party exclusives. Nintendo needs to run adds that make people associate popular third party games with the Switch. I was only using Mass Effect as an example. The specific games don't matter as long as they are important and multi-platform. Let's say Destiny 2 comes out next Holiday and it's on PS4, XBO, and Switch. Nintendo needs to do everything in their power to nab exclusive marketing rights for that game, because that's what's going to make people take the thing seriously. That "unprecidented partnership" with EA has to actually come into play, with Nintendo nabbing a deal to exclusively market games like FIFA and Madden. People need to see ads for games they want being played on the Switch, because that's what will make them buy a Switch expecting to buy those games. Third party games didn't sell on the Wii or Wii U because most people didn't buy those systems to play those games. Most people didn't buy those platforms to buy those games because most people didn't associate those games with those platforms. Most people didn't associate those games with those platforms because those games were rarely ever marketed with those platforms. This is literally the most important thing Nintendo needs to do. The two most important games on that Switch teaser trailer were Skyrim and NBA 2K. That needs to be what people need to think of when they think of the Switch. The system where multiplats have mobility. They do this, and multiplats will sell phenominally on the Switch. When that happens, the devs who were waiting will be convinced, and they will come.
2. Actually persue third party companies at all. By the list of partners, we already know that they've done that. That preliminary list is important because it gives them something to work with starting out. They can't do anything in the first point without actually having partners in that first year.
3. Exclusive mainstream/western-style games. Both in house and third party. As important as the third party games are, exclusives are important, but Nintendo has a real audience problem. Exclusives are a great way to get sales via ultimatum, but there's a catch. If all of your exclusives are vibrant, colorful, japanese, E-Rated games, you're only going to attract people who like those kinds of games. That's a real problem when most the of the mainstream market prefers sports games, shooters, open world action games, and narrative-driven experiences that are developed in the west. Nintendo needs to cultivate an audience for the games the third parties are producing. PS4 has GT. XBO has Forza. No suprise racing sims sell well on them. The closest exclusive Nintendo has to that is Mario Kart. It's no wonder those games don't sell on Nintendo systems. PS4 has Killzone. XBO has Halo. Shooters sell well. PS4 has Uncharted/TLoU. XBO has GoW and Quantum Break. No wonder third person action games sell well on them. Nintendo has none of those kinds of games exclusive to their platforms, but then wonder why those games sell well on them. If Beyond Good and Evil is a true exclusive and it's really good, that's a really good sign. Nintendo has to market it on the Switch as hard as Sony marketed Infamous: Second Son. What's Retro working on? I really should be something along those lines. Something that would appeal to that audience. They should be buying studios like Slightly Mad Studios and have them make a brand new racing sim exclusive racing sim for the Switch, or at least have them make one via an exclusive deal.
Power will have nothing to do with why 90% of third party games don't come to the system. Money will be the deciding factor. The problem wasn't that they couldn't get the game to run on weaker hardware for most companies - it's that porting games took too much time and costed to much money to be worth the effort when the end result was always that no one would buy the game. The Wii U port of Splinter Cell: Blacklist was awesome, and nobody bought it because nobody bought a Wii U to buy games like Splinter Cell: Blacklist. The three things I outlined are very easily doable and if they do it, they'll have amazing long-term third party support for most games. If they do that, the Switch will be an absolutely monumental runaway success, and it won't stop running once it starts.
As for architecture, I'm not really sure on that, but Nvidia chips are pretty popular on PC, so I don't personally think this will be much of an issue if everything I outlines above is done right.
