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Comment by 6stringmerc | Hacker News Reader

Very clever. Anchor for home, and again trying for the mobile area where their creativity really worked (3DS). I'll be curious in the system specs and the decisions they made - such as having that apparent card slot. Hooray for the headphone jack.

I'll never understand the marketing motivation to show a bunch of people getting together for a social gathering and togetherness, then cram together to watch / play on something with a screen the size of a hardback novel.

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We usually all bring our own. ;-D.

But I'm glad Nintendo doesn't seem to be giving up local MP: It's the best part of having a console, and dropping it is a REALLY BAD IDEA.

I still have fond memories when we gathered together after school with friends to play some Mario Kart or Smash Bros. It's still damn fun!

Oh yeah. Dropping LMP isn't just dumb from a "fun" perspective, it's also a stupid business decision: LMP is the one place where Consoles are inarguably superior to PCs. By tossing it out, you're tossing away a major selling point for your system.

I think the gap that makes Consoles 'inarguably superior' in local multiplayer is going to close rapidly as the steam link's issues get worked out.

But I do agree, Consoles (Specifically Nintendo's) are currently inarguably superior by a wide margin for local multiplayer. And local multiplayer games provide distinct enjoyment that remote multiplayer games cannot replicate effectively.

Steam link is effectively just a way of turning your PC into a more console-like device. But most of us don't have Steam Link or an HTPC, so consoles are more convenient, which has always been the console tradeoff: loss of control for added convenience.

The Steam Link's primary issue for local multiplayer is the speed of light. It's kind of intractable.

Only because multiple controllers are practically standard when it comes to consoles. Grab a few gamepads that easily fit in a laptop bag and there's a plethora of great options for local multiplayer. Spelunky (the remake) is a personal favorite.

> Dropping LMP isn't just dumb from a "fun" perspective, it's also a stupid business decision [...] By tossing it out, you're tossing away a major selling point for your system.

It seems to have worked out pretty well for Sony and Microsoft—and the manufacturer that does still focus on LMP (Nintendo) is struggling. So I don't think it's actually a major selling point.

I mean, I wish it were; that's one of the things that I love best about Nintendo hardware. But it really doesn't seem like it is.

Microsoft never dropped local multiplayer. Just as many kids younger than you have those same nostalgic memories about going over to a friend's house and playing 4-player Halo 2 or Rock Band.

They might not "focus" on it (whatever that means-- it has the feature, it works, what more "focus" do you need?), I suppose.

It's the focus that I'm talking about: LMP is an increasingly rare feature in games, save indies (which usually don't have online MP), and a few genres (Fighting Games, Rhythm Games). For example, AFAIK the new Halos don't have LMP. I know several other shooters have dropped it.

> They might not "focus" on it (whatever that means-- it has the feature, it works, what more "focus" do you need?), I suppose.

To me, it means many first party titles are designed around using it. For instance on Nintendo consoles: the main Mario series games, Mario Kart series, Smash Bros series, Mario Party series, Mario Sports series, Nintendo Land, Splatoon, etc, etc, are all designed with multiplayer in mind.

I guess the difference is, it's not just a couple of titles, or "it works", but instead it's a major company focus for their titles. That's a pretty big difference.

Indeed it is: Games like Halo heavily de-emphasize it, and games like Titanfall and Overwatch and such don't even have it anymore: Once upon a time, if an MP-only game didn't have Local Multiplayer on console, it would have been laughed out of the room.

One possible benefit of the hybrid handheld/docked model is that each player maintains their own system and screen, independent of whether or not they have control of the television or are even in the same room as their opponent.

I don't know how much Nintendo is going to implement with regards to their online services, but if they do this right, they would have the killer family gaming machine ecosystem.

They could: * Implement sensible parental controls. Each user potentially having their own handheld system would make this significantly easier and more robust. * Implement a friendly family content sharing model. I'm not necessarily begging for free family sharing a-la-Steam, but a discounted license per additional family user would be a smart move, compared to their current 3DS strategy. * Implement something along the lines of PS4's amazing SharePlay feature, where you can invite a friend to watch you play, voice chat, and even hand the controller virtually over to them so they can help you through tricky sections. Here again, the hybrid model would make it so cool to cheer on my kid from a hotel room across the country on a business trip.

I don't know if the NS will live up to its teaser video, but everything I've seen makes me excited to imagine possibilities, rather than the raw polygon-pushing and logic-crunching. This in stark contrast to the comparatively gimmicky Wii and Wii U.

It's implied that the Switch will have the standard multiple controller setup when you plug it into the TV.

Some of that stuff might get implemented, but no, each player needn't necessarily have their own console.

FWIW, games like Black Ops 3 technically have LMP, but it's a subpar experience compared to prior generations (particularly limiting in features/settings, like being able to choose basic things like vertical/horizontal screen splitting). Often, the feature's riddled with bugs and other glaring flaws that make it a notably worse experience than forming online parties on two consoles, on two TVs, even when you're sitting next to each other on the same couch.

Halo 5 drops local multiplayer altogether

At least several Xbox one titles seem to have local multiplayer. Skylanders is a good example.

How many of them are Microsoft published, and how many of them are cross-platform?

Sorry, no idea. I don't really see what the difference is from user perspective either way (as long as the feature is compatible with the underlying hardware).

My experience is that of a bystander with fairly high standards none the less. My kids seem to love Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Plants vs Zombies Garden warfare local multiplayer on Xbox one and what I observe works great.

Those ones do, but the games for which this is true are increasingly rare. It's no longer an assumption with multiplayer games.

Mario Kart (after Warlords on the Atari 2600 or MULE on the Atari 8-bits with 4 players) is my favorite group game. It just has the fun feel, and hearing the various characters screaming or victory yells is hilarious.

Other than Mario Kart my go-to would be N64's Goldeneye. That thing was a masterpiece in so many ways.

I also played a ton of goldeneye when I was around 10 years old, so I get where you are coming from and it pains me to be the bearer of bad news but that game is ... so bad.

That doesn't mean it wasn't fun. It doesn't invalidate the good times we had. But there is so much about that game (from the controller itself, to the control layout, to the gameplay) that just does not hold up. N64 Goldeneye is a clunky, hard to play, unbalanced mess.

It was a ton of fun, and I wouldn't trade the experience of playing it for anything; but it is not a 'masterpiece'.

Mario Kart 64 is, even by modern standards, a good game, but calling that a masterpiece would mean we need to come up with a classification higher than masterpiece for Mario Kart 8.

Please don't forget that Goldeneye had several controller layouts. Personally, I thought the default one was terrible, and I always used "1.2 Solitaire" which was copied from another N64 Title, Turok. In 1.2, the stick is used to look, which felt much more natural for an FPS. And while in "aim mode", it allowed finetuning the aim very quickly too.

I also played a lot of Goldeneye multiplayer as a kid. My memories of it are far fonder than more recent plays on emulators! That said, I learned through a comment a couple years ago on HN that Goldeneye's multiplayer mode was a total afterthought, not really supported by the publisher and more or less done by one guy (or at least a very small team) in a month or two. Pretty incredible, considering its kind of the grandfather of local multiplayer first person shooters. I don't think its fair to hold it up against many other games that jumped off its shoulders.

If you haven't, I recommend checking out the story on Goldeneye!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldenEye_007_(1997_video_game...

It's not bad, it's actually got some of the best game design and multiplayer options that the steep learning curve (or clunky / hard to play factor as you call it) for a console FPS shooter. A couple major faults (Oddjob) but great level design I think redeems it a whole bunch.

I'll stand by it, because later I went on to be a Half-Life and Adrenaline Gamer hardcore player, and HLDM's complexity with the long jump and tau cannon required a lot of study and practice for most. Goldeneye was a good trainer for that.

So was Quake.

I maintain that HLDM stands amongst the best of Multiplayer shooters: Up there with Quake, Q3A, CPMA, and UT.

Yeah I knew a lot of the Quake and Q2 guys in our circle, definitely quite a high-tier game. We had fun with Q3 but it was definitely a less brutal take on FPS skill than Q2 in my opinion. I swear HLDM was the absolute best because at first when the Tau Cannon could splash damage through walls and arc around corners, there was no other weapon like it in any game. Later Valve patched it down and whatnot, which made it easier on (1)Player population but was frustrating as it mandated a playing style change somewhat.

Q3 was arguably less brutal, although its rockets actually moved, which was nice. This lack of brutality is why CPMA was devised, which brought back the brutality and advanced movement tactics in full force.

I really don't swear by Q3 or HLDM: Although I do swear at them a lot. My preference is either Quake 1 or Xonotic, which is like Quake meets UT, and lowers the floor on advanced movement so plebs like me don't get totally stomped the first time they log on (we still get stomped, just not impossibly fast).

I love them all, which probably means I'm a masochist or something.

Whereas Quake and Quake 3 actually are masterpieces: to this day, they are the multiplayer shooters against which all others are judged.

Another masterpiece would be the Megaman 2: It's one of the best platformers out there, and there's been nothing like it before or since.

The controls are the only way I'd play a console shooter. It does come with same game play and level design restrictions though.

Goldeneye is an amazing game which I hope is ported. Perfect Dark was pretty good when played in multi-player. It pretty much was a Goldeneye sequel at that point.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of licensing issues. It was pretty much ported to the 360, but legal reasons kept it from being released.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRRuhviJGMQ

It really doesn't hold up these days. Perfect Dark is still playable though.

> Perfect Dark is still playable though.

Especially the version on the Xbox360, or, as I call it, "that big white box I own solely to play Perfect Dark on". A straight port with upgraded graphics, better framerate, modern controls, and (or perhaps this one I'm imagining) subtly rebalanced difficulty to account for those other changes. Nothing like that garbage trying-to-be-Call-of-Duty-and-failing-miserably Goldeneye reimagining a few years back.

Still unmatched in terms of gameplay options. Coop single player, versus(!) single player, the great multiplayer of course. The way the difficulty settings changed objectives and even starting location(!) in addition to damage values and AI. The fun "cheats" you unlock with speedruns. Brilliant game.

Yeah, it's mine too, followed by Xonotic/Quake. It's semi-luck based, which just makes it more fun for MP.

Doom is also a good one.

Thinking about it the Warcraft series when they were RTS was a pretty amazing LAN party game. Marathon on the Mac also.

Goldeneye for me. It would be amazing if this new console could play 'retro' games.

> Warlords on the Atari 2600

Wow, now that is a great multiplayer game. One of the few video games that my whole family played together (the other being 'Where in Time is Carmen San Diego' for the NES).

Very nice to see it mentioned here! It is a huge classic.

Man, with reccomendations like that, I might just have to grab a copy and give it a go.

We played it when it was long past its prime in the dorms at college in 88-89. A 4 player game that was addictive, short and generated a lot of trash talk and claims of the one true technique. I think if you can design games so easily accessible you are doing well.

Functionally, it filled the niche that would be occupied by Mario Karts, Goldeneye, M.U.L.E., and Perfect Dark. 4 player head-to-head games that were simple to understand and fun to play repeatedly.

Ba-Bomb Blast on the GameCube was my favorite, i never got that setup for the Wii, as i had the GameCube controllers for a while, but couldn't find the GameCube Game... if i remember correctly, they were compatible.

Yeah, they were compatible: The Wii was very similar to the Gamecube, technically.

Smash Bros defined my college experience. Large chunks of the best years of my life involved playing Melee almost every day.

I recently watched a long video for a Kirby game for DS and not only was it like 8 games in one, it was setup so that one person could have a physical copy, but four people could play on their own DS'. Amazing in the age of micro transactions.

Yep. Download Play, the name of that feature IIRC, means that for some MP games on DS, only one person needs a copy. It makes finding games to play with your friends a lot easier, I tell you.

Also if a game does not have local multiplayer, people who want to play together will buy more than one game. At least I think it's the rationale behind this decision.

Also local split-screen multiplayer is harder to do since you have to do two (or more) graphic rendering at the same time, so dropping it allow the dev to spend more time on the rest of the game.

Yeah, the two people playing Mario Kart split screen on that thing was laughable.

It's brilliant. I have kids, and I could definitely see it coming places like the car where the kids are able to play together, or where I am able to play with the kids.

Growing up, my family would do a 24 hour drive to visit family in Pennsylvania, and my dad would get the Sega/N64 working in the van with an inverter for my sisters and me to play on this tiny 10in screen. I looked forward to the 24 hour drive because we'd play games like Mario Kart the whole time.

Not an easy drive to make with triplets, but we loved it. Didn't make a peep.

Similarly, we hooked up the N64 in the motorhome on a tiny CRT TV and played split-screen (Tony Hawk, mostly). Great times, terrible hardware.

I'm a parent - I think it's brilliant and probably the #1 usage the console is going to get!

I've used the Wii U Gamepad to play multiplayer games in the car with my son (you don't need a monitor at all). Yeah it's a bit of a tight squeeze, but still fun.

with half a controller each, too.

I can't imagine how complicated it must be to develop a decent game that works with a full controller, half a controller, 2 full controllers, 4x1/2 controllers, etc

Wii U devs are already doing that kind of thing. Mario Kart 8 supports a ridiculous variety of controllers from both the Wii and the Wii U, which actually is great if you're me because you can suddenly do four-player Mario Kart thanks to those old Wiimotes lying around!

I hope the Switch can still talk to Wiimotes. Even if they drop sensor bar and the ability to point (which will prevent most Wii games coming to Virtual Console without substantial modifications), being able to pair with one and use the nunchuck or the classic controller would be great for someone like me who has a Wii gathering dust and a Wii U on active service.

Given that the sensor bar is just two IR diodes spaced apart, it's not unimaginable that they could just integrate it into the body of the console itself. There exists a youtube video of someone using two Zippo lighters to emulate it.

I'm sure there's an abstraction over all of it. The game just has to support N controllers. The number of inputs necessary to drive mariokart are pretty small (turning, acceleration, menus, items). Other than maybe displaying some specific images for each controller type, I doubt the game actually cares deeply about the full vs half controller.

Which struck me as a brilliant idea.

As the years go on and my fingers get more wear and tear, my first question seeing the tiny controller option was "I wonder how bad my hand will cramp using this" but it looks absolutely perfect for kids.

I dunno. I'll grant that it's a clever idea but those half-controllers aren't going to have all the buttons that a full controller does, so games using that mode will be restricted in what controls they have. Plus, the ergonomics is not going to be as good as a full controller as well.

But they don't need to have all the buttons or even be ergonomic; they just need to be convenient enough that there's nothing else that provides the same functionality or better. Everything else just affects the quality of the experience, but that determines whether anyone even buys it.

It looks like they've kept the D-Pad in so it can double as the A/B/X/Y buttons in that situation, which I think is a really clever way to alleviate some of that issue. I think the type of games where this use case makes sense probably don't need a large number of buttons anyways, though.

> those half-controllers aren't going to have all the buttons that a full controller does

What are you talking about? https://i.imgur.com/zhz5wHh.jpg

They looked like they're basically small Wii controllers.

The "half" controller is basically a full super nintendo controller

If each half of the controller is similar to a Wii Remote (+-pad and two or three buttons and an accelerometer/gyroscope) then it'll be plenty to play a lot of Wii U games.

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