RolStoppable said:
freebs2 said:
As a fan of the series, I waited the game long enough, so I'm sure I would be more than happy with what Retro could be capable to pull off with the current Switch. The problem is Nintendo can't only cater to current fans to justify the investment, they need to expand the audience. And, unless they plan to pull off some sort of Windwaker/BOTW art style change (which seems unlikely), I'm sorry to say but graphics has been one of the selling point of the series and in this sense it's quite an outlier for Nintendo games. 'Very good for Switch' is not good enough to inpress an average player after 8 years of PS4 and 1 year of PS5. |
This post is one of those examples where someone tries to inject business sense to rationalize the conventional wisdom of internet gaming communities. But it's nothing more than an illogical mess. For one, if the game is supposed to be a graphical powerhouse for next gen hardware, then it will be much harder to justify the investment than it would be on Switch. And two, if the audience needs to be expanded, then the series needs to be watered down to appeal to that kind of average player that is referenced in the post. That sort of thing rarely works, because the typical result is that the current fans will be lost while the supposed target audience doesn't bite either. Aside from Metroid Prime 1 and 2, graphics have never been a selling point for Metroid games. Metroid Dread did not have graphics to sell itself (2D games are written off as having lackluster graphics by default, that's just how it is nowadays), and that game sold just fine. Dulfite said:
People always talk about lifetime sales as if that is an indicator of software sales. The reality is, as consoles get older, software sales decline once you're past the peak (which in this case was 2020). If there are 120 mil Switch's out this year, that isn't 120 mil active players buying games still. Many will have moved on, or grown bored of Switch's capabilities, or got an Xbox/PC/PS5. MP4 on Switch 1 wouldn't push much hardware that wasn't already going to be pushed by other software that late in the consoles life. Switch 2 would get a massive benefit from having a groundbreaking, best looking game Nintendo ever made right out of the gate. This would lead to a lot more profit through hardware and other game sales from the increased sold hardware than Nintendo would get releasing it on a dying system in 2024. |
The reality is that software sales don't decline right after the hardware peak. Software shipments for calendar year 2020 through the first three quarters were 145.84m; the same timeframe in 2021 managed 148.66m. We'll get the full figures for 2021 soon, but it's already safe to say that software sales will be roughly flat year over year. 2022 is looking better in terms of first party blockbusters than 2021 did, so another year with 200m+ units of software being sold is a reasonable expectation. For comparison, a new successful Nintendo console can be expected to sell 50-60m units of software during its first year. Metroid as a whole has no track record of pushing a lot of hardware regardless of its release timing, so that's a moot point of yours. The logical expectation is that Switch's successor will be another hybrid console which in turn means that "best-looking Nintendo game ever made" will be a hollow achievement for the people who are all about graphics, because both the PS5 and Xbox Series have much better looking games. |
Fair enough on the first point. I guess I should have focused more on when would be a reasonable timeframe for MP4 to come out, which would be no earlier than late 2022 and probably 2023 or later, if a Switch 1 game. What do software sales typically look like for a console once it's hit 5.5 years (late 2022) or 6 years (2023)? I honestly don't know, but I suspect they will decrease? Obviously Wii U was such an oddball we can't really look at that, but what did Wii software do in year 5-6?
Switch 1 had more normal limitations for the kind of device it is. Switch 2 could have DLSS which greatly enhances the possibilities greatly. I used to just use my graphics card the normal way with games on my PC (I have a RTX 2080 Supermax). My computer would get so hot it I'd have to stop doing things sometimes for a while to let it cool down. I just played gow 2018 and am playing Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC, both using DLSS. I now play with quality visuals/frame rate, my computer is cool, and the fans are basically not even on much whereas in the past they'd get super loud. DLSS = Improved quality of games, wider range of more demanding games, and leads to non-overheating devices. Basically Nintendo's dream innovation, and just in time for Switch 2. Despite it being a hybrid, DLSS is going to make us all surprised by how powerful the little device is going to seem.
