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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Gaming Habit Changes Since the Switch

 

Cats vs Dogs

Cats 17 45.95%
 
Dogs 9 24.32%
 
You Can't Make Me Choose 6 16.22%
 
I prefer reptiles, birds, etc. 4 10.81%
 
Don't Like Animals Much 1 2.70%
 
Total:37

I have less time to play and have only taken the Switch out of it's dock a handful of times. I tried using it shortly after I got it to be able to play while I stood in line one cold Black Friday morning in front of the Best Buy. But it was too damn cold and I only ended up watching Hulu which I could have done on my phone. Unlike many of the respondents here from WiiU to Switch I have bought Dramatically less games. I probably have very close to 1 switch game for every 50 WiiU games That I bought for myself (lots of other games bought for the kids though). With less time I only find myself playing the bigger titles:
Odyssey (despite not being the largest Mario fan because at the time there wasn't too much else).
BOtW - a great game and the reason I bought the Switch day 1, I dumped lots of time into that one.
Dread - because Metroid has always been my second favorite series next to Zelda
Some other spin off titles: Mario vs Rabbids, Hyrule Warriors, ect. I quit buying digital like I did with the WiiU due to the tiny onboard memory. Bought the kids cards for theirs just not for mine.

Splatoon2 and soon to be 3 - really fell for this game on the WiiU and racked up 1000+ hours on the switch with it. If their policies don't change though this is the type of game that, despite liking it, may cause me to abandon Nintendo with a Switch2. Outside of the 2 year old every person in the house played Splatoon. We had just 2 working Switches at the time of that games launch and if we wanted to play together after spending $600 on the consoles I had to plop down $120 for two copies of the game. Now that we have 3 switches (900 spent) I will have to pay $180 for one of the kids to be able to play with my wife and I during a Splatfest. It's hard to swallow when I can spend one time on PS4 and at least 2 of us can play on separate PS4's. Nintendo's always spouted being family friendly but their policies concerning digital just aren't.

Sorry that rant went on longer then expected...
TLDR I play less, never personally in handheld, and I have a solid but numerically anemic software collection for the Switch.
PS the Pro controllers are junk for the price, they have not held up well at all compared to the WiiU's Pro Controllers. I have repeatedly replaced them.



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I have been a portable player since 1990. Have GB, game gear, GBA, Tiger, DS, 3DS, PSP, and Psvita.

And a PC player since 1991.

Switch unified these two lines for me.

PC is only for AAA output not on switch ( and with Steam deck only now).



I've barely played Switch in 2022. PS4 has probably been about 70% of my gaming this year. I've played more PS3 this year than the Switch, I think.

I'll probably get a PS5 in 2023, and that will really kill most of my usage of the Switch.



Lifetime Sales Predictions 

Switch: 151 million (was 73, then 96, then 113 million, then 125 million, then 144 million)

PS5: 115 million (was 105 million) Xbox Series S/X: 57 million (was 60 million, then 67 million)

PS4: 120 mil (was 100 then 130 million, then 122 million) Xbox One: 51 mil (was 50 then 55 mil)

3DS: 75.5 mil (was 73, then 77 million)

"Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind." - Guru Laghima

Jumpin said:

I used to play a lot of past generation systems until the Switch. Probably between 25 and 85% of my total play time was an earlier console than the current gen. In fact, I played SNES more than N64 and Gamecube during those two generations, and PSX more than PS2 and PS3. During the Wii U generation I played significantly more Wii (including Virtual console). That was home consoles, with handhelds I dropped the previous generations except for my very favourite games after 3 years.


The Switch is different, this generation, ~95% of the time I play is the Switch. The only game on previous gen hardware I played in the last couple of years (not counting classic mini consoles) is Chrono Trigger. Granted, I still play a lot of classic games, but they’re mostly on the Switch hardware.

One more addition: I’ve played significantly less PC and iOS this generation. Mostly because those two platforms used to be the two major destinations for really creative indie games, with Wiiware being a distant third (although, there were several major gems on it) and DSi not really taking off too much. The Wii U and 3DS saw a boost in this type of software with the EShop… which were more like prototypes. The Switch EShop has thousands of these games, and a higher quality control than other platforms—so instead of looking through 400 games and maybe finding something I think I’d like, I’ll look through the 25-50 new games a week, and find usually between 3-8 games that interest me, then I add them to my wish list for future consideration - I usually don’t buy games until I want to play them, or they have some kind of crazy deal and I feel like playing it soon. It’s to the point that I no longer browse Steam or iOS anymore, I only go to those places if there are specific games or software I want.

I’ll usually spend small prices on games that I know I’ll only play 1-2 times, I think of the discount section as a bit of an arcade. I used to do that on Steam and iOS, but now only on Switch.

EDIT - Gaming Playtimes have changed.

Prior to this generation, it was a rarity that I’d play a game for over 100 hours. Some examples include specific RPGsw Dragon Quest 9 and Xenoblade Chronicles games, strategy games like Victoria 2, Crusader Kings 2, and Stellaris. I replayed a few RPGs enough to get into the hundreds of hours (Xenogears, FF1, 4, 6-8, Tactics, and X, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest 3-5, Earthbound, etc…) but Switch has been something else, I have around a dozen games over 100 hours, games like Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild are over 400 hours—granted, that’s on multiple playthroughs. Switch isn’t the first platform I’ve owned Witcher 3 on, but it’s the only one I’ve played the game a substantial amount of time on.

Last edited by Jumpin - on 28 August 2022

I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

I play far less Nintendo games nowadays, I haven't touched the Switch in forever. I'm not a fan of mobile gaming, nor the tiny joy cons and a system that just doesn't look all that great on modern TVs. I hang on to it for BotW2, that's it. I would buy a dedicated full 1080p console version in a heartbeat, yet Nintendo only seems interested in mobile variations.

I play more on my gaming laptop nowadays. Series X is collecting dust until Starfield or Forza 8 drop. PS5 is being used by my oldest, I'm not interested in it atm after the huge disappointment GT7 was and still is. I'll be playing GT Sport again on ps4 pro next week since my favorite track is back for September. In the mean time I've been playing Atlantis Factory Simulator on Roblox lol. Cool thing is, I can run two instances at the same time (web and windows store version), helping myself out in co-op.