Sheikah

This looks more like a LittleBigPlanet deal which I think did ok numbers, Tearaway was probably always going to be a bit more niche.

This was the deal with the Vita version but they never did that with the boxart. How unnecessary!

David Cameron has a twat?

@Ronnie you might want to give the demo a whirl because the issues go far beyond quality of life, it is genuinely one of the most shockingly bad beta tests I have ever played. Worse was that when I actually managed to play the game it just was not fun. We will see how the game reviews but my opinion of it after playing the demo could not be lower.

So I played this for a little while and I have to say, I honestly can't understand why anyone will be preordering this or buying at day 1. It is going to have a very rocky start and will clearly take time to fix the problems that are there right now.

I think I'm thinking of Breath of the Wild which was sort of planned for Wii U and then repurposed. Oh well. Have to say I agree this game is going to a better developer all in all, just don't expect to see this for a loooong time.

Ouhh. Excuse me. I think I mean...something else. Was there another game that spanned generations? Maybe not. But still..yeah. Massive install base of Switch 1.0. Would seem a bit out there to alienate all us current Switch owners.

Congrats! Absolutely incredible game.

Yep, I suspect this will be a Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword dealio, especially because of the Switch 1.0 install base. Have to say, this got off way more lightly in terms of customer perception than the FF7 remake!

Out of interest, have you checked out the new Dragon Quest on PS4?

But that hybrid benefit has no cost to the developer. The fact you are getting a portable version does itself not cost the developer money, so why charge more? Devs have to make it run well in docked and handheld mode, sure. But then they also have to make games run on base/Pro hardware. And they have to develop games to a higher resolution on the other systems, so it's not like Switch games cost more to make (they will almost certainly be cheaper). Like I say, it's purely because they can get away with charging more on Switch that they do. And because I can get away with buying from foreign eShips, I do.

And what about the extra expense of programming/testing games to run well on both base PS4/X1 consoles and the Pro/X1X? The cost of developing games/textures to much higher graphical fidelity? You can easily use the same argument that there should be an additional surcharge for PS4/X1 games that does not apply to Switch. The extra expense is just because they can get away with it. The Switch is lucrative shit right now.

@Ronnie In my case it is quite simple - the cheaper price is the difference between me buying and not buying the game. I would never have picked up Mario + Rabbids if it stayed at something like 40 quid; I picked it up when it went to 15 quid. There's no ethical conundrum for me because the developer is now better off for me buying their game - the same can be said for any game I've got on sale via a foreign eShop. If it wasn't an iPad...say it was a game you were interested in (but not at full price) that you saw for half price abroad...it'd be a no brainer to buy it, surely? Otherwise you are literally spiting yourself! I see it as no different with the eShop - not ethically, not legally. I'd be more inclined to buy if I was in the US purely down to how UK prices tend to do the old "pound and dollar sign switcharoo". And the argument about the efforts in making it portable...ca'maan. That's no different to saying they program the game to react to each button on a dualshock 4. Or make the touch pad do something. What point are you making, dude? If you're going to say that there's effort porting games to Switch (e.g. reducing graphic fidelity) then there is certainly money spent doing that, but then there are games like Skyrim that are ancient and have no right to be anywhere near 50 quid.

I don't deny that there are some games that aren't priced that differently, but there are certainly more big multiplatform retail games more expensive on Switch, and particularly so when they release. One of the most extortionate examples is Doom - 50 quid on Switch and 6.49 on PSN. Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil version (all DLC on PS4) is 35 quid, eternal collection (all DLC on Switch) is 50 quid. Disgaea 5; 35 quid on PSN, 50 on eShop. And Skyrim as mentioned before.There are quite a few more examples actually. These games have been out long enough now on Switch but still these prices stay at the very maximum. It's worth remembering that there are also numerous sales that happen on big titles on PS4 - and that's generally when you buy your games anyway, so these RRP prices aren't actually very reflective of reality. You very rarely see decent sales on big games on the eShop. In fact, when Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle went on sale for 15 quid on the eShop it was so unheard of that it jumped to one of the most upvoted deals on HotUKDeals - such was the rarity of a reasonable discount on a big retail game on the eShop! When they do go on sale in some region, people jump on the chance to buy it because games on Nintendo's store are very often expensive. I don't have a problem buying these games cheaper in other eShops, no - after all they are on sale in that region anyway. The developer decided to reduce their game to up sales so the cheap price is a result of their decision. Out of interest Ronnie, if you were in America and saw an iPad for what worked out to be 100 quid less than UK and you had been wanting to buy one, would you pass up on it? I suspect not... Paying for portability should not even be a point in the case of multiplatform games since those devs had no hand in making the portable console. As I say, the devs that do it do it because they can.

I feel like you can't hold the points in you long enough to understand the discussion going on here, Ronnie. Either that or you are being deliberately obtuse and getting a kick out of this. Skyrim is ten quid more on the Nintendo eShop than the PSN Store. This is a pretty common pricing difference between platforms, especially on bigger games. There are no cartridges involved to blame for this price difference. This is the aforementioned Switch tax. The devs/Nintendo (depending on how much Nintendo take from the top) charge more because they can get away with it. So as I said before, the ability to go to stores of other regions was a nice way of mitigating the Switch tax. Can I understand why Nintendo/devs have done this? Yes. Did they need to do this? No. Still, I am disappointed.

Not just cartridges, you look at many multiplatform games on their eShop and they're often more expensive than other digital stores; especially at release. And there's no way the cartridges cost, say, £5-10 more (or more!) than a Blu Day disc. Also look at ancient games like Skyrim going for £50. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me and I'd have no qualms getting it for less if I saw it going for that on another region eShop. And you're right, they didn't need to do this, so we agree on that point. I made this point in response to Dcubed who said: "They're not going to just leave an obvious pricing loophole wide open for abuse". Based on that response, it makes it sound like this is the only thing they could do in retaliation, which as we know is simply not true. My mentioning of PS4 was purely proof of concept - to show they didn't have to go the way they did. Obviously the prices are not the same across the board at any one time but the extraordinarily cheap prices you are mentioning are the result of regional sales. I know because I look out for these on HotUKDeals and have jumped on several. So yeah, it's a case of Nintendo or the developer in question applying a sale to a specific region. If they applied the sale globally then it wouldn't be anywhere near such a problem.

Doesn't matter about the motive, my above point still stands - the eShop prices are very often a ripoff, above "full whack" (considerably more than retail in many cases - go look at retail games, which make up the majority of sales on Switch). This workaround was a good way to avoid the all-too-common "Switch tax". There are many games for instance that are multiplatform yet inexplicably cost more on Switch. Their eShop pricing is generally indefensible in this regard. They've also shafted Russians and Mexicans with this move - people who generally earn less money than us now have to pay more for games? Yeah, great move... The only times when people were getting insane deals is when Nintendo applied a sale to specific regions (because Stardew Valley is not normally priced $4 in Mexico, as I'm sure you know). So, that's on the developer/Nintendo for only applying sales to specific regions rather than globally. And as said, another company still allows you take advantage of other region's shops, so my original response was that Nintendo didn't exactly need to do this.

Sorry but that is poor reasoning; people were doing this because the games were prohibitively expensive (costing more than physical copies in many cases). It wasn't about paying full whack, it was because the games were priced at more than full whack. As stated above, the eShop prices in these countries are now more expensive than the UK shop. Which makes no sense. And if Sony are doing it, doing so well as they are, at the very least we can say it mustn't have been hurting their bottom line too much or they'd have patched it back in the PS3 days.

Why not? It's what Sony does. You can still buy games from any region's shop you want on PS4. IMO it was extremely useful for Switch as a way to mitigate some of the "Switch tax" common to much of the pricing.

Ah, so the cheap eShop prices workaround might be coming to an end then. A pity.

I think he meant the publishers/shareholders rather than the developers, because he quoted "the real customers are the investors".

Perfectly valid criticism, but I must confess I'm a little surprised about the RDR2 comment - I also came from RDR2 and man, I don't think I've played a game recently that controlled as badly as RDR2. It felt like the game actually hated me at times and didn't want me to do things like easily get behind cover, walk where I wanted to or aim weapons consistently. AC: Origins is far less realistic in the animations/controls/horse controls but I was really grateful for it, as it meant I could pelt across a landscape without dying, even if it sometimes looks goofy. I really do think this is one of the most stealthy games in the series yet just because as soon as enemies spot you in a reasonably populated place, you get fuuuckked. Brazier lit, mercenaries on your back, and enemies with lots of health that take time to whittle down outside of assassinations. Upping your assassination abilities and equipping assassin damage+ gear I have found while playing stealthily is the most efficient way to play, and running away if you're spotted to try again. Not sure why they added bows as it never seems worth it - regular arrow shots don't seem to kill and you have to waste adrenaline on arrow abilities to actually kill. I have had some glitches in forts though - my game dropped to like 1 FPS with periodic freezing on a couple of occasions and required a save reload. And I do find there's a lot of stuff, but I've come to learn what's worth bothering with. Most of the small camps and such aren't worth dealing with.

Odyssey is far more weighted towards stealthy assassinations - it can take a while to take elite enemies down unless you assassinate them and when there's lots of enemies surrounding you it's a real pain (complete contrast to say AC Brotherhood - remember how killing an enemy started a chain and you could then one shot every enemy around you, one after another?). I really like it. There's a lot of ways to level up and the main character is much more fun to control. They've got some really good side quests too like the cult and mercenaries, and naval warfare, all rolled into one game.

I've been playing this a fair bit over the weekend and absolutely love it. It feels like Black Flag again in terms of the exploration, I really do like having the proper ship back. It's amazing how making your character into more a superhero has made the game much more fun to play, like taking no fall damage at level 20 and being able to launch your spear (and chain) to assassinate at range. Really like the Witcher-lite take on branching decisions too, makes the story feel more meaningful.

Have to agree with this. The common factor in all of your recruitment woes, EEVIL, is you. When reading your recent post I don’t see why you waste time typing these responses when arguing with certain people like recruiters will achieve nothing good. Obviously they will put you forward for nothing now. It also wouldn't surprise me if your name became semi-blacklisted somewhere now due to the way you are talking to these people - it's often a small world in these circles. Always think "What am I going to get out of this?" when you're tempted to say things like this in a work setting.