DazzeL

It is good and it also makes a lot of sense. Nintendo have great 1st party games but a lack of 3rd party support in a world where having a console far less powerful makes porting difficult so indies help fill the gaps. Microsoft have great 3rd party games (arguably the best console for them in the X) but have large voids in 1st party releases.

I’m just hoping for a Wargroove date but the noises over on their forums make it sound likely to be late 2018. In fact, just more strategy games in general would be great.

Gutted I missed this week and will also be missing next week. Too many work events at the moment and everything seems to fall on a Thursday!

That Planet Alpha look gorgeous. I much prefer indy games going with interesting graphics styles rather than yet more pixel art. I hope the game is decent too.

The actual playing part works great in Splatoon 2 and MK. It’s the rest of the service that needs sorting. Parking voice chat for one moment but not even being able to send text based messages to friends is just so annoying.

I totally agree on Shifty Station. The locking down parts of the stage mechanic really freshens up Turf War.

I am so hyped for this. I can’t wait, this was the only Wii U game which had me close to buying one on several occasions. I’ve missed Smash a lot. Really hope the online works and is fully featured then we have close to the perfect competitive multiplayer game.

It’s looking good that I can make it this week. Looking forward to the theme!

I really like the game but I’m absolutely terrible at it. I am planning to start playing this a bit more but waiting for the Spring update - it just looks so horrible in TV mode at the moment that it puts me off a bit.

Is 500k good enough to keep EA interested though? I imagine they made a good profit but that’s still a very small share of overall FIFA sales.

For me, it’s all about the games. I don’t really play handheld so that feature (at the moment) is irrelevant. That said life changes and it’s great how flexible the system is. As someone who has owned every Nintendo Home console apart from a Wii U, I’ve just loved the games. Zelda and Mario are great but it’s also stuff like Arms and Splatoon where the online multiplayer (my main passion) is basic but incredibly fun and different to the other consoles. I do do wish the machine was a bit more powerful. It wouldn’t need too much more grunt and we could genuinely have some lower-res ports of next gen games but as it stands only certain ones will work and it’s very limited. I’m also really hoping for a modern online service when it launches but sceptical about it. Looking to this year I’m already playing my Switch a lot less. I still play some Splatoon but the Xbox is taking my time back again. It’s all about the games - fingers crossed for some announcements soon and please Smash!!

I disconnected before the end of the 3rd GP which was really annoying. I need some serious practice though, was awful tonight!

The post doesn’t mention it but I assume gyro also works with the Pro controller? I might pick this up when it’s cheap, I do like the motion aiming in Splatoon but that’s deliberately not a very vertical game, would be curious to see how it works in an FPS. Old Wii style pointer aiming was pretty shite though so pleased it’s not a return to that.

There are some balanced posts in here - overall the Switch is a great console but Nintendo still deserve criticism in several areas. I think the link between sales of the console and charging for online is too early to tell. The system undoubtably currently loses sales because of the lack of voice chat, cloud saves and general online features. If the online service includes those things then at the likely price point of around £20 per year I think it will boost console sales. If it’s just a few NES games and continued access to barebones online then, yes, I agree we could see some deterioration in the sales curve as casual gamers are put off and the sceptical core gamers fears are confirmed. I think there were some stats a while ago about the 20-30 male being the main buyers - suggests current success is really down to core gamers so I think momentum in this space is probably more important than any ‘blue ocean’ Wii type play in an age of iPads and smart phones that mostly fill that gap.

I think it will be difficult to pick and choose what they charge for so I expect it will be everything. For me, I’m not bothered about the cost but I just hope they add some value as currently it’s very barebones.