The Nintendo Switch has now outsold the Wii | Hacker News Reader

The Nintendo Switch has now outsold the Wii

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And well deserved, too! I was pretty much done with console gaming after the Wii. That was the most excited I ever was for a console (since I was 13), but after the launch, I never played it nearly as much as my GameCube.

I played about 5 games on my Wii U, and didn't even plan on getting a Switch, but my oh my could I have not been more wrong! I think the portability and the power to run pretty much any modern game (albeit with worse graphics) was a true winning combo.

Also, I was just thinking today how it's crazy that Nintendo has been the dominant portable console maker basically since the Gameboy in 1989. There were some competitors, but nothing ever took the throne, just 33 years of being the King. Really impressive!

Atari lynx was possibly the best handheld game system, followed by the game gear, but their cost meant it most out to the more affordable Gameboy.

I think though, what won it was not the hardware but the software. The switch is a great handheld console and a good console in dock mode. But Breath of the Wild was worth the cost of the console alone. I liken it to GTA IV or GTA V, but for my kids. It is a beautiful open world that really knocks out of the park every aspect, music, graphics, gameplay, puzzles. It is a beautiful game and I believe it is a major reason the switch is so successful, or at least it's launch period was.

I also think that the portability is a huge factor, I know many households where they have a PS5 or and XBOX and a switch. Few people will buy all consoles but the switch being portable means it has the extra edge when deciding on a second system.

Not just it's portability. I've seen kids in coffeeshops. Their mom is reading a magazine and the kids have put the Switch on a table using its stand and then use the controllers to play 2+ player games. No other handheld I know of has ever done that.

I've done the same waiting for the dryer to finish in the laundromat while traveling! Mariocart for two is a great travel companion.

Before i started work i would sit in the car while my partner was getting treatment and play switch. When she came back to the car between appointments we could play mario kart. Such a good system

This is why se bought it for family gatherings or the likes where kids gets bored, we just bring the switch and the kids can 4 player with the other kids in Mario kart

Absolutely agree on Breath of the Wild. I think every successful console has The Game that really differentiates it (speaking as someone who never had a console growing up, just Sierra games).

Having got a Switch for my son - Breath of the Wild is that game for Switch, but is also possibly the best game made so far. If you haven't played it, don't argue - just play it.

My fiancé got me an OLED Switch and BOTW this past Christmas. When I first started BOTW, I was like...umm...what do I do in this game? Then I realized: ANYTHING I WANT. Already have over 150 hours in the game. You can literally just wander around and enjoy. Find new and clever ways to kill enemies -- or befriend them if that's your style. You can play the game the way you want and at your own pace.

Yeah, the game has some flaws, but I'd say it's the most rewarding game experience I've had in my 30+ years of gaming. You know a game is good when you don't even want to finish it!

Defeat Ganon. Load saved game. Keep exploring. It is amazing that I still keep coming back to it after ‘finishing’ so many times. Wanting to complete all the shrines not just so I have that satisfaction, but because they are fun and interesting and the journey is too.

Then there is master mode, which is mainly just harder, but when you’re getting good at fighting it ensures you are challenged to get /really/ good and not rely on power / armour / buffs, especially in the challenges where you start with nothing.

For me the Switch was solely a Zelda rectangle. I didn’t explore beyond that game at all for over a year. The store seems bad for discovery, but the online community is awesome. I’ve discovered new (to me) genres of game that I love and have gone back to older consoles to find similar games. The switch reset me back into gaming. If that makes any sense!

I remember the glory days with a N64, GoldenEye and 3 mates. That was definitely a peak gaming fun time for me back in the day.

If you have a powerful PC, playing the Wii U version of BoTW at high resolutions and frame rates with Cemu is an absolute joy. I haven't gone back to playing the Switch version since the experience is so much inferior.

Botw at 4K and 75hz is amazing

I much preferred the GB to the GG. The former took 3 batteries and lasted months. The latter took something like 6 batteries and only lasted 3 hours. While the GG was undoubtedly a better machine hardware wise, that counted for nothing when your batteries ran out mid road tip.

I think the most impressive hardware-wise was the Turbo Express. It was released in 1990, just a year after the Game Boy and Lynx and same year as the Game Gear.

It had a 400x270 screen vs 160x144 in the Game Boy and Game Gear and 160x102 in the Lynx.

It was basically a portable TurboGrafx and could run Street Fighter II (which was also released for the Game Boy but it was miles behind).

It was released in Dec 1990 for $250, a few months later the price was raised to $300. The sound in it failed frequently, and the display had a high rate of pixel defects. It burned through 6 AA batteries in 3 hours. I don’t know what the original price for the AC adapter was but it was big so probably not cheap either.

The TurboExpress is a classic example of the “any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands” saying.

I don’t know about reliability but battery life seems about the same or little worse than a Game Gear or Lynx, which also used 6 AA batteries.

And price is an entirely different matter, but surely a factor in its commercial failure.

Breath of the Wild released on the Wii U as well, as did the pre-deluxe version of Mario Kart 8 and what was at the time arguably the best Super Smash Bros game yet (some people prefer Melee, but Brawl was notoriously not great, and Ultimate obviously had not come out in the Wii U's heyday). I'm not sure good first-party games alone can completely carry a console; people need to be hooked in first before they start considering the platform, and the Switch had the most intriguing hook there's been so far.

Honestly the Wii U had an amazing library of games. Nintendo squeezed a bunch of extra juice out of Switch using nothing more than straight ports of Wii U games onto the more popular Switch.

But like you say, the Wii U hardware just didn't fly off the shelves like Nintendo had hoped. Though there is a big difference between Nintendoland as a launch title and Breath of the Wild.

The Wii U had some really fantastic games.

It really suffered, however, from having such wonky hardware and bad marketing. I own a Wii U, I own all the games you mentioned on it (other than BotW because I don't usually buy games at launch - I bought BotW on switch though) and I, personally, still found the hardware confusing.

It's really great that almost all Nintendo published games have had switch releases, because more people can experience them.

Nintendo has sold more than twice as many copies of the latest animal crossing game than they did Wii U consoles. Which is just crazy to think about.

I had a Game Gear, and that battery life was pretty rough. The Switch definitely wins in that regard

The funny thing is the Game Gear and Switch battery life are actually very similar at 3-5 hours.

It varies a little with the Switch as with lighter games and low screen brightness you can get 6 or so hours but playing something like Zelda BOTW you get around 3 hours max before needing to recharge.

I find it interesting we’re still in that 3-4 hour battery life space thirties years later. I guess it makes sense as most people will want/need a small break after 3 hours with a handheld so gives you some time to charge it so I expect Nintendo aim for that 3 hour minimum.

> The funny thing is the Game Gear and Switch battery life are actually very similar at 3-5 hours.

The switch has much better battery life than that in the models released after the initial launch. You're spot on with the release model, though.

Indeed the newer Switch OLED model does have better battery life albeit still around the max 5 hour mark for most games apparently edging up to 7 hours for less demanding games (according to a brief search anyway).

I had a Game Gear growing up and 3 hours is way more battery life than I ever got out of that thing. 1 hour is more in-line with my experience.

My Switch went unused for a couple months, and now the battery is completely dead. :(

... it won't power on even when plugged in, and apparently replacing the battery is my only recourse. This feels like it should be a solved problem, some kind of tiny spare / buffer to prevent a drained battery from effectively bricking the device.

The Sonic game was rough. You could barely see what was going on and coming up next on the little screen.

Yeah, that screen refresh was harsh. Plays much better on TFT modded game gears though

> I think though, what won it was not the hardware but the software.

Not even just new stuff: I had Grandia II on the Dreamcast as a kid, and thought I'd never play it again. Then I found out it was ported to the Switch, and that was the tipping point that got me to buy it a few years ago.

> Atari lynx was possibly the best handheld game system, followed by the game gear, but their cost meant it most out to the more affordable Gameboy.

It doesn't matter how powerful a handheld system is if the batteries only last an hour or two.

In the era when the lynx and game gear were released, NiMH batteries were not mainstream yet, and NiCd were not as suitable for the application. I knew a few kids who had the Lynx and they realistically could not use it unless it was plugged into the wall.

I got a Game Gear when I was a kid. It was a thrift store find, otherwise my parents would never spend that kind of money on a toy.

I played it for literally a half hour before the batteries ran out. It didn't come with a power cord and batteries were very strictly rationed in my house growing up, so I was never able to play it again. I was heartbroken.

Again, I got only a half hour of play out of a video game console. Parents sold it several months later when they realized how useless it was.

I don't know how a product like that could even be released on the market - it's basically false advertisement. It's been nearly three decades and I'm still heartbroken by it.

> Atari lynx was possibly the best handheld game system

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The best handled game system was undisputably the Nec PC-engine GT (was called Nec GT turbo in my country) -> https://www.google.com/search?q=nec+gt+turbo

I owned a Lynx and it was incredible to have something with colors when the competition was the original B/W Gameboy.

But I was the only one I ever met to own that, which meant I could never trade games or share the excitement. The lower cost Gameboy had "network effects", and so ended up being a much better buy for a random kid.

It wasn’t just the cost. The difference in battery life was night and day. The reason I bought a GB back as a teen despite better consoles being around was precisely because I wanted something that would last for several hours on the long drive to Grandmas house. Neither the Lynx nor the Game Gear had that longevity.

Tbh I think the full colour portable systems were just released a few years too early.

> I also think that the portability is a huge factor

At least out here, I’ll often go to the park and see little clusters of 10 year olds, either all wrapped around one Switch, or all playing together on their respective Switch. I’ve never seen that before, even with Gameboys.

I don’t know exactly why, but they did something right.

If you want GTA for kids, get Lego City Undercover. It’s an absolute blast.

The Atari lynx was burning through battery like nothing, was it 4 or 8AA for like 1 or 2 hours of gameplay?

Same boat. After the Wii I was done. If I wanted to put money into gaming it was going to be on PC. The Switch isn't the most powerful, or has the best library (Nintendo first party games notwithstanding), or the most portable, but it's "good enough" at everything in the way VHS and MP3s were/are. It also helps that it's relatively inexpensive to get into, and has a huge indie game scene. So while you may not get the best version of "Soldiers on a Battlefield 2022" or whatever, there are hundreds of semi-exclusives.

Getting a console and a portable in one unit was also brilliant and something that neither Sony or Microsoft can do with their "most powerful hardware first". Nintendo cares about things that affect the gameplay experience, and Microsoft and Sony care more about how cool the software is. Orthogonal purposes but it lets Nintendo, a relatively small company, compete globally and effectively against two 9 million pound mega giants.

Without detracting anything from your other statements (the comparison to MP3 is excellent), "notwithstanding" is doing a lot of work in the line, "Nintendo first party games notwithstanding." Nintendo's games are the reason folks buy a Switch.[1] It's pretty unbelievable the record they (and especially EPD) have:

1. Breath of the Wild was game of the year for most publications, is considered by some the greatest game of all time[2], and single-handedly sold the console for many people I know

2. Super Mario Odyssey is generally heralded as one of the best Mario games ever made and shipped 22 million copies

2. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the best selling fighting game of all time

3. Mario Kart 8 is the best selling racing game of all time, and the 7th highest selling video game of all time

4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the 13th highest selling video game of all time (2nd highest in Japan)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_... (and apropos of nothing, compare to PS4's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStati... - Switch's top 6 best sellers all moved more than PS4's #1)

[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/the-best-100-video-games-of-all...

Every single Nintendo console I've owned has basically been a very expensive Zelda machine. In a hypothetical world where Sony/Microsoft/someone else acquired the rights to Zelda, I'd expect Switch sales to be at least 50% lower. The incredible strength of their first-party titles is why Nintendo can get away with underpowered hardware, shoddy controllers, crappy software and a big whopping Nintendo tax.

I always wonder why hardware matters. Look at the retro game market. I’ve spent more money lately re-buying old games than new ones. BOTW looks spectacular simply because of artistic choices. And I quickly racked up far more hours on my Switch than my XBOne simply because I could play on the TV, pull it out of the dock and play on the go and never had to turn it off. It just slept. Booting up a console is so archaic. And for what? Graphics that I tuned out eventually?

Which is not to say good graphics are bad. But there’s certainly diminishing returns. After a point it sure as hell isn’t giving me more entertainment value running a space heater.

There's been over 100 million switches sold and 26 million copies of Zelda. Even if every single person that bought Zelda would have not bought a Switch, that would still put over 75 million switches sold.

Even the best selling game - Mariocart - is on fewer than half of the consoles.

Momentum has a lot to do with whether third parties invest in your console. The fact that BoTW pushed console sales early on gave third parties incentive to develop content for it, which then allowed the buy rate to be sustained past the boost BoTW gave it. So the fact that only a quarter of the consoles are bought with/for BoTW, its importance to the consoles success is much greater than the buy ratio would suggest.

I don't know if this holds true for BOTW, but historically Zelda has not sold well in Japan despite its success in Western markets.

A surprisingly large number of first party Switch titles were on the Wii U first and didn't drive sales. It's amazing how much marketing and even the product name help. I think Nintendo made the right call to delay BotW on Wii U for a dual platform release. In the end, I'm surprised they bothered with the older console at all, but it probably engendered good will amongst its die hard fans.

It did this one. I bought the WiiU and waited 4 years for breath of the wild. If they had moved it to be a switch only title I would have cried and bought a switch :p

Ms did it with flight simulator. They said it would be on XBox One. But it never came :(

Not really surprised, the new flight simulator is super ambitious and requires crazy resources. I doubt the Xbox One could have done it justice.

> were on the Wii U first and didn't drive sales

Have you seen that thing? No matter how great the software. That ugly lump was never going to sell.

I've got one and my family still has a blast playing it. Aesthetics are obviously personal. I won't say it's the nicest looking fixture in my living room, but I also think the PS5 looks ridiculous. Its name was probably Nintendo's biggest misstep.

That said, my point was that the Switch's success isn't due to the library alone. Due to Nintendo's decision to port most of its Wii U exclusives to the Switch, we have the rare ability to compare the sales performance of the two.

The Wii U is both the most underrated console ever, and most poorly named console ever.

That's a really good point. In fact I did buy the Switch to play both BotW and SMO. I keep forgetting that Nintendo first party titles are so dominant in sales vs. other large franchises. I keep thinking they're just large on the one platform.

Yeah I own like 100 games on the Switch at this point (most first party, several good third party, and some cheaper retro or indie games), and those two games are still the best games to me on the Switch, by far. I kind of doubt they're going to be topped, even by their sequels.

BOTW, SMO, Baba is You, Persona 5 Royal, Outer Wilds, Subnautica, The Witness, God of War (2018 version), Nier Automata, Slay the Spire are all masterpieces of design in the past 5 years, for my tastes.

BOTW was a huge factor in the switch's early success IMO. Not just because it was a Nintendo exclusive but because it was such an amazing game. For me GTA IV AND GTA V are the pinnacles of their time for great games. BOTW was the equivalent but for a wider audience.

Unfortunately for my kids it was one of the first games they really played, so they have been spoilt, very few games will ever get close to that, especially in a world of Fortnite.

...And not to detract from your point as well but I absolutely didn't buy the Switch for Nintendo games. The only one I actually like is Mario Kart 8 and even that I play like once every 3 months for a few hours.

I bought the Switch for Diablo III and a good number of bullet hell / beat-em-up games. Bought plenty of those and I am thoroughly enjoying them.

I recognize I am an outlier but the Switch is very capable of giving you a lot of enjoyment if you hand-curate your picks from the indie scene well.

(As a personal opinion, the Mario franchise being milked to eternity is exhausting to watch sometimes.)

> (As a personal opinion, the Mario franchise being milked to eternity is exhausting to watch sometimes.)

It's not a traditional game franchise, though -- there's no overarching Great Mario Plot that's being advanced through a series of games. It's more of a set of familiar characters and a barebones setting that Nintendo can apply to a wide variety of games, ranging from the traditional platformers to RPGs (Paper Mario), minigame collections (Mario Party), sports games (Mario Tennis), puzzles (Mario's Picross), dancing (DDR: Mario Mix), pinball machines...

An aside: are you using an arcade stick? I’ve been thinking of getting back into STGs after a 10ish year break and can’t figure out which of the (pricy!) Switch sticks are any good.

No but I'm just about to order the HORI mini-stick. I have the Pro controller and it's definitely an improvement over the joycons but the arcade stick is something else entirely when playing games that don't require the right mini-stick on the controller.

To help the thread, this is the Nintendo way of "lateral thinking with withered technology.[0]" They for example choice lack of color for the Gameboy for the sake of battery life, that is, using cheap technology that can be replicated and mass produced well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_... From the venerable Gunpei Yokoi, who helped develop the original Metroid and the Gameboy

Nintendo figured out when the xBox came out that if you weren't Sony and or Microsoft you would have a really hard time competing in the space so they tried just to focus on making consoles that had some kind of gimmick and optimizing on having fun and they had a clear domination over the mobile space.

I would say that the Switch is their response to Apple as being off balance on the mobile space and they were easily defeated by just focusing on a fun and portable console that also can be plugged into a TV. Really the Switch has a NVIDIA Tegra 1 and the rest of the console is Nintendo's design.

Way before xbox, this has been their strategy since before they were making video games. Gunpei Yokoi, who came up with the idea (and practically nintendo's entire electronics division), called it "lateral thinking with withered technology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_...).

Classic example of this:

Sega Game Gear: full-color screen, $150, 4hr battery life

Nintendo Game Boy: monochromatic screen, $90, 30hr battery life

Yup the game gear was technically better but the cost difference meant the Gameboy was more ubiquitous and so that's what sold.

Also for the switch, a lot of kids who had Gameboy's when they came out are now working and can afford a souped up handheld alongside their main console.

I think my favorite summation is that Nintendo laughs about being second-rate all the way to the bank.

To Apple's disadvantage, only touch is a pretty terrible interface for a lot of video game genres, and also mobile pretty quickly became pay to win crapware.

> To Apple's disadvantage, only touch is a pretty terrible interface for a lot of video game genres, and also mobile pretty quickly became pay to win crapware.

The latter is why I hate gaming on my iPhone. And battery life after a year or two as the apps update to handle the newest and best specs, leaving older phones behind. I do enjoy some of the ports, but I can also buy a lot of those on my Switch anymore, so there's no need.

I think the switch just runs a modified freebsd for an OS too.

>Getting a console and a portable in one unit was also brilliant and something that neither Sony or Microsoft can do

Actually the PSP had video out. Really just a marketing thing.

Did it have a dock and come with removable controllers like it was always intended to be used with a big screen? Nope, it did not.

It’s not ‘just a marketing thing’ when a product is designed in a completely different way, with different goals.

I mean, it was the controller in an era of wired controllers.

What if you needed to recharge your PSP battery while playing? It had video out, but it was never designed for a couch experience. It was the typical Sony let's do all the things at once mentality. No one bought it for that reason alone, but it, and all the other weird features of the PSP, probably helped it become the only viable portable competitor to Nintendo in 30 years.

The (affordable) technology of the time didn't allow for easy dock/undock experience like the Switch does. That doesn't mean it was "just a marketing difference," the product experience was worse and wasn't designed to easily be used as both a portable console and a dedicated living room device.

> If I wanted to put money into gaming it was going to be on PC.

I think people that are otherwise PC gamers make for a great audience for Nintendo. They don’t need any power, they already have that on the PC. What they want is to be able to carry the thing around and play anywhere they want.

I bought the Switch in part because of portability, but almost never ended up using this way. I used to game a lot as a child and teenager but almost stopped entirely once my job involved sitting in front of a screen all day. But I still like playing some games I can pick up to kill half an hour here and there, completely casual. The game selection, is perfect for this. Or a couple rounds of couch co-op. I have zero interest to play hyper competitive games with random people over the internet. The Switch really brought back the fond memories I had when first being exposed to gaming, when I kept going to my neighbors home to play Super Nintendo games against each other

I do love the portability of my Switch, but eve more I do love how casual it is. And how a lot of their games, while they can be played multiplayer, are focused on single player stuff. They've great single player titles, and that keeps me coming back to Nintendo regularly (especially their mobile stuff, I'm pretty sure I've owned at least one iteration of everything since the Gameboy Pocket).

I'm always impressed with how much risk they take from generation to generation.

N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, and Switch.

GB, GBA, DS, 3DS, and Switch.

All of them feel like a generational leap instead of the incremental improvement model of other companies.

Interestingly the Wii is more or less the same hardware as the GC but with upgraded specs. In fact the Wii even has GC ports on it (for GC controllers and memory cards) and plays GC discs. Additionally the Wiimote was originally designed to be an add on for the GC before Nintendo decided to release it as the primary controller for their next console.

I mostly lost interest in AAA games when I was 14 or so, but the Switch has been great for going back and playing some of the games that came out around then that I never got a chance to play. The idea of closing out of all my work stuff and rebooting into another operating system is just a complete non-starter, but the Switch is perfect just to grab whenever I'm backing up my hard drive, upgrading my OS, the Internet is down, etc.

I was around the same age. A bunch of things all factor into that, that 14-16 age

Yeah for me it was just the beginning of high school. It was pretty obvious that if I kept playing Ultima Online or whatever for 10 hours a day then it was going to destroy my life, so I gave it up before freshman year started.

Every couple years I'll get into a game and spend a few weeks playing it, e.g. with Breath of the Wild a couple year ago, but I purposely don't let myself play games that just go on indefinitely like WoW. Whereas that's not an issue with indie games that only last five or ten hours.

And similarly, it's been fun going back and playing Baldur's Gate, which I never got to play when it came out.

> the power to run pretty much any modern game (albeit with worse graphics)

To be specific: 720p and severely degraded effects, textures, models, anti-aliasing, etc - and you'll be lucky to get 60fps.

The Switch has about as much horsepower as a ~6 year old mid-tier Android phone.

The nice thing is that most games don’t _feel_ underpowered on Switch. Sure the graphics don’t look as good but it’s not laggy in the games I’ve tried.

For example: Immortals Fenyx Rising is cross platform, but it feels smooth. I would rather play on Switch than other consoles so I can occasionally play while traveling. It’s really nice to have the same game, same save point, with same controller on the TV or on the go.

My job these last few years has mainly been focused on trying to get games running smoothly across all platforms and finding workarounds or optimizations for switch has been the biggest part of it. It's so incredibly weak in comparison to any other modern console. It's literally a mobile SoC from 2015.

As a user, however, the switch is by far my favorite console. It might not look as flashy but I can play almost any game I want anywhere I want.

Nah. It got the power of a really high end 6 year old Android phone. And with the fan it can provide more power than the same soc in a phone form factor.

Theoretical power and actual power in phones are quite different. Phones throttle their chips down to nothing very quickly.

> Also, I was just thinking today how it's crazy that Nintendo has been the dominant portable console maker basically since the Gameboy in 1989

Imagine how many they would have sold if the iPhone didnt exist!

I really enjoyed the PSP or PlayStation portable. It was the first thing I ever hacked and played games for free. Set me on a path. But I do love my switch greatly. It appeals to me with the kid friendly games. Watching my 5 year old develop his hand eye coordination makes my heart melt.

I must be about your age and damn, I played so much Wii. I must have >200h on several games: both Mario Galaxy's (one of my favourite games), Wii Sports Resort, Smash, etc.

On the contrary my Switch is almost exclusively a BotW machine x) bar a few indie games here and there. I must be getting old

I literally didn't even notice the WiiU release :) I heard the rumours and forgot about it. The next time I saw anything WiiU related it had already been in stores for a while.

I don't know a single person who got one even near the release. _Everyone_ had a Wii though.

This.

But the Wii failed pretty hard in terms of games.

After the 5th mini games collection it became pretty boring...

> the power to run pretty much any modern game (albeit with worse graphics)

Huh? Any modern game?? I'm pretty sure just a small fraction of modern AAA titles is available on the Switch.

That used to be the case, but modern game engines like Unity make it easy to plop out an switch-capable version. The hardware is similar enough to a normal PC that it’s a matter of just turning the graphics down (way, way down). It certainly wasn’t a majority at the start but now more than half of new AAA releases have a Switch version.

That said, buying a switch to play AAA games is not ideal. I find the graphics compromises too great, myself. Indie games (only certain genres like platforming), visual novels and Nintendo-first-party games are what I find the switch excels at.

Nintendo has finally sued too many smart people, and shut down too many fan projects. I can no longer support their bad behaviour so I can't support the Switch. I know they've been bad actors in that space for a long time but I guess I've just gotten old enough to see past my nostalgia.

Also the quality of the switch is below my expectations. My NES controller still works, but my joycons are dead.

> Nintendo has finally sued too many smart people, and shut down too many fan projects. I can no longer support their bad behaviour so I can't support the Switch. I know they've been bad actors in that space for a long time but I guess I've just gotten old enough to see past my nostalgia.

For reference, Nintendo stalked Neimod and compiled a dossier on him[1][2], tried to get him to incriminate himself online[2], and then dangled a job opportunity in front of him in exchange for information about his 3DS exploits[3].

From here[4]:

> Nintendo had run background checks on the hacker, knew where he lived, where he worked, and where he graduated from. To make the story even more creepy, the gaming company was allegedly spying on the man, knew everything about his typical day, his usual activities, friendships, times he left his residence, restaurants he liked to visit, and more.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580861

[2] https://twitter.com/forestillusion/status/134123063191354163...

[3] https://twitter.com/orcastraw/status/1341178144708059136

[4] https://www.technadu.com/nintendo-spying-3ds-hacker-neimod-t...

Is it known how they got this info? Typically this would've required hiring some private investigator for a few weeks to follow them and gather intelligence, but now it seems they could have simply ran his name to get all this information from a background check agency (in my experience these background checks are typically very detailed including employment and income information).

[2] has a Nintendo document with a bullet point starting with "Surveillance didn't reveal...". The other stuff mentioned in this section also required surveillance, not just a background check.

They stalked the guy as part of their operation they named "Belgian Waffle".

The leaked slides include these bullet points:

- "Surveillance didn't reveal any friends or visitors entering or leaving the residence"

- "Only additional activity included a trip to the bank and a restaurant (alone)"

This reenforces my decision to jailbreak my Switch Lite. It's been sitting unused for 2 years, I don't like it, gives me cramps, and the store prices are ridiculous when used to the convenience and sales offered by Steam. And I have to pay for the Nintendo Online subscription to install a NES and SNES emulator. Yeah, no.

Any good Switch jailbreak resources? I'm comfortable doing it, I don't know what's the latest and most effective hack these days.

For the lite, you will have to install a modchip. These are currently hard to find or very expensive. But if you still want to do it, there are many tutorials online. A few keywords you can use are "Mariko" (Codename for newer switch models like the lite), "CFW" (custom firmware) and atmosphere (the most popular CFW)

https://nh-server.github.io/switch-guide/ is the recommended guide for Switch. However, there’s currently no way to run a custom firmware on the Switch Lite.

It's surprising that no one in the community takes retaliation, in one form or another. If you don't have the ability to harm others you are sheep in the jungle.

>Nintendo has finally sued too many smart people, and shut down too many fan projects.

I've always wondered, with Nintendo's history of being rather litigious and forcing fans to take down gameplay videos, etc, how have they not sued Roblox out of existence yet? Practically every game I see my kids play on Roblox makes heavy use of unlicensed Nintendo IP: models/images of Mario, Yoshi, Pikachu, well known music and sound effects from various Nintendo games, and so on. Robolox is not some obscure app, AFAIK it has over 150 million users and rakes in money from these games that are making extensive use of Nintendo's IP. IANAL but this seems like a slam dunk, what gives?

> IANAL but this seems like a slam dunk, what gives?

Roblox is protected by the DMCA from liability for copyright infringement based on user submitted content. All that Nintendo can do is file DMCA claims and then wait. Nintendo could not sue unless Roblox fails to take down the material.

Suing the users who submitted the material would be a waste of time in most cases, because most users don't have any money to pay damages.

Because lawyers don't pick fights to lose them. Arguing to what extent a platform has to moderate content, in a foreign court, against a warchest in the billions, is a much different ballgame to just binning a beloved fan game community once in a while to send a message.

Can they even sue roblox? They are only the platform, the content after all comes from the creators. And the question is whether this amounts as fair use. Fanart and stuff is not getting sued either for reasons.

But then again, people can make money with Roblox, so i'm curious whether Nintendo does sue people who make Money with their content on Roblox.

Isn't all that stuff fan made?

>I can't support the switch >Bought a switch

Bro, what?

People change their mind.

They also illegally refuse refunds in the EU for games you've bought but never downloaded or launched

I don't understand people getting upset about fan projects being shut down. What do you expect to happen? You can create an earthbound-like game without calling it earthbound.

I personally expect it to be left to exist.

Agreed, if we lived in a different world than our current one, it would be nice and i wouldn't bat an eyelid at seeing that.

Want to play the old Star Wars Battlefront 2 with fan made leader servers? Go ahead, there's a project out there for the hundreds to thousands of nostalgic people.

Want to play Battlefield Bad Company 2 in a similar manner with fan made projects to support the game after the company behind it has given up? You're more than welcome.

Want to play fan made mods/expansions for KOTOR2 or maybe the Jedi Outcast games, or maybe Battlefield 1942 or Battlefield 2? Sure!

Perhaps play a newly created fan game for the Duke Nukem series, which really took a nosedive a few years back? Go ahead, enjoy that person's art.

Of course, one can argue that it would become way more problematic if the developers of any such project tried charging money for them, though as long as they're freely available and any donations are entirely optional, i don't see any problems.

And yet, in our current world, things are not that simple - whenever there's a threat of cease & desist for any project like that. Games like STALKER have a rich modding scene that keeps the games alive years after the developers finished them and introduce everything from new mods to total conversations, something that might as well not be possible with a different company behind the game, which would pursue legal action.

> And yet, in our current world, things are not that simple - whenever there's a threat of cease & desist for any project like that.

That is exactly the point, though. It's only complicated due to artificial problems created by misguided people and overreaching companies like Nintendo. I deeply wish that we could collectively just become a bit more relaxed about things and stop trying to control everything.

I'm not sure that that's realistic though. What about if the fan project contained inappropriate/sexual content? What if it's a buggy mess that people start to associate with your brand?

This discussion reminds me of the fan made power rangers short video with Katee Sackoff in that got removed from pretty much everywhere. As an adult who watched power rangers as a child I loved it. However, power rangers is ultimately a children's TV show, having violent R-rated content flies totally against the image the company is trying to portray.

Nintendo certainly take it to an extreme but I totally get why.

> What about if the fan project contained inappropriate/sexual content? What if it's a buggy mess that people start to associate with your brand?

Tough shit. Japan has a huge fan-made media community[1] and the original creators still somehow manage to exist in the same market. I really dislike the modern idea that because you created something, you get exclusive control of every component of it for the rest of eternity. I think it's really harmful to try to lock down our shared culture in that way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doujinshi

> What about if the fan project contained inappropriate/sexual content?

I don't want to be flippant, but so what? Problems with this are entirely artificial and a product of the mind.

> What if it's a buggy mess that people start to associate with your brand?

It's always possible to think of excuses to exercise stifling control over other people and their creativity. The degree to which this is a real problem is debatable.

In the end, I consider brands less important than people, freedom and creativity. Perhaps it's worthwhile trying to rethink the world in this manner?

> joycons are dead Did you try cleaning out the connector?

I am now really looking forward to see Steam Deck launch

apparently switch emulators run well on it :)

>My NES controller still works, but my joycons are dead.

Do you have to blow in your switch to get the games to work?

Why did you buy a Switch?

Among my children's friends, I don't know of _any_ who own a console that isn't a Switch. The PS5 is basically impossible to procure, and the XBox just doesn't seem to appeal to the child-age market.

So I'm a little surprised that it has taken it this long to outsell the Wii; but then again, more children appear to play on a hand-me-down phone than play on a Switch.

I dunno, if you look at [0], it seems to put the sales in perspective. I'm curious when these lifetime sales figures stop being updated? I'm assuming it's as long as the product is sold by the parent company. I'm amazed the DS did that well? Then again, I do remember everyone except me seeming to have one when I was a teen :)

Seems crazy it took Nintendo that long to come up with a 'worthy successor', in some ways.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...

> I'm amazed the DS did that well?

Features of the NDS that may have been forgotten, that all could have contributed to the popularity:

* Two game slots, one for NDS games and one for GBA games, making it almost a straight upgrade (it dropped support for pre-GBA games) so you could have two games in your pocket instead of just one.

* PictoChat, an ad-hoc network chatroom that wasn't just text but also drawing with the stylus. I remember bringing it to school and finding several others were also online, we chatted instead of paying attention to the assembly.

* Download Play, for games that supported it you could do multiplayer on multiple systems with only one game cartridge.

* For that matter, it was their first handheld with built-in wireless multiplayer.

Also in terms of games, I think it was their first handheld that really appealed to the more casual/relaxed players: For example it was the first portable Animal Crossing and introduced Nintendogs.

Download play was absolutely brilliant. I remember being on a school trip and playing Mario Kart on the bus with 7 other people, with only one person having the game.

It had to be good for sales too - I bought the game after that. The download play version of the game only let you play as a single character, and I wanted to be Bowser.

It’s sad that they don’t do it any more, but I suppose the games are too large to transfer in a reasonable amount of time nowadays

Yes. The success of the DS is basically that it was a smartphone (wrt games) before smartphones (and without a phone ;)). The brain games (Brain Age, Big Brain Academy - 3 of those games are in the top20 best selling ds games[1]) were a big reason why it was so succesful. Also tamagotchi with dogs/cats (nintendogs). But 150 million could only have been reached with a) longevity, b) weak competition (PSP, sold enough to be seen as a threat, but didn't hinder the DS) and great software support (once a hardware is successful the third party support basically reinforces itself due to good sales). Also, quite a few hardware revisions helped also (the first DS was clunky).

[1]https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Ninten...

I'm surprised by the PSP sales numbers. I don't think I've seen one outside of Japan.

Every time I'm tempted to get a PS5, I realize that what I probably actually want is a newer Switch with better graphics.

I thought that Switch should be already outsold Wii, because it's combined Wii+DS, and PS/Xbox aren't direct rival. Maybe due to birth rate declining in developed world?

I've got complicated feelings for Nintendo.

As a kid, I was a big outdoors person until I got my SNES as a Christmas gift. It set me on a path to becoming a night owl software engineer.

I fell in love with Zelda, Donkey Kong Country, Mario RPG, and never worked harder to earn enough money to buy an N64. The web was just starting to take off, and it was at that point I started using the internet to look up cheat codes and make friends to talk about games with.

Because of Nintendo I found out there was incredible depth to Japanese culture. I learned Japanese, discovered anime and manga. Dragon Ball, Cowboy Bebop, Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke, tokusatsu, that whole lot. I also learned to build websites to share cheat codes (strategywiki.org), and started to engineer chat, matchmaking (dsmeet.com), character designer tools, and more. I eventually wound up in Japan teaching English for a bit, working on code on the side.

Eventually video games lost the magical spell and I preferred to spend my time with building and creation. But I don't think any of it would have happened, at least not quite the way it did, without Nintendo.

But it hurts to see that Nintendo can be real jerks to their fans. They force take downs for indie games, ROM hacks, and even music. For a long time they vehemently tried to destroy the vibrant Smash Melee scene. Contrast this behavior with Sega, which actively leans into their fans' excitement and issues artistic license for their creations.

Nintendo also doesn't get the broader picture. They consistently fail at online gaming and paint themselves into boxes.

Switch was a success, but Wii U was not. Wii was a success, but Gamecube and Nintendo 64 undersold. I don't know what they're going to do against the juggernaut power of Microsoft and all of the studio consolidation. Or how they'll fare with Steam entering their lucrative market. They're going to need more successes in this crowded market. I hope they continue to innovate. They're the Studio Ghibli of the gaming world, and it'd be sad to see them go.

I also hope they learn to treat fans better.

The thing is, these "fans" are not their target demographic, so they really don't care.

Nintendo tends to focus on people that play their games for fun, and less on people that turn it into a serious hobby or try to build it into their personal identity.

>and less on people that turn it into a serious hobby or try to build it into their personal identity.

Sadly this is almost true for all products out there, just a small percentage of exceptions. In software it's more tolerant and occasionally encouraged (ID Software's open source policy). We are on our own.

Getting back up to speed on this stuff…How are they not treating fans as well as they should?

Not the person you're responding to, but a recent example that caused outrage was Nintendo sending C&Ds to online Melee tournament organizers during the pandemic (using emulators with mods). I'm sure there's some way in which Nintendo is within their legal right to do this though, even if I think this behavior is a plague to art and technology.

I'd also be mad if Nintendo had turned me into a weeb.

As much as I like the console, I hate the hardware issue with the joycons. It feels almost pernicious. It really has put me off playing the thing.

I despise the Switch joycons, and not just for the drift issues.

“Is my controller in single horizontal mode or paired vertical mode?”, “I want to be player 1”, “stop hitting buttons!”, “The pairing failed.”

When the kids play together it’s always a shit show. Contrast this with the PS4, we pick up the controllers and play. I’ve never had to even think about the controllers with the PlayStation, they just work.

I finally caved and picked up a couple of Pro controllers. No looking back.

I just use the pro controller. Other than its lousy dpad it's a solid controller. Granted I always play docked.

One of my pro controllers also now has drift. It’s pretty disappointing compared to other console controllers …

I got a https://www.8bitdo.com/wireless-usb-adapter/ and play with a PS3 controller.

Their hardware quality is definitely sub-par. I got the Pro Controller because the joycons are The Worst [1], and it's definitely the worst quality controller compared to Xbox and PS4. For example, its D-Pad will occasionally mis-press up or down when pressing right or left, which is failing the basic purpose of a D-Pad.

That said, the concept of the Switch remains fantastic, and I take it with me whenever I travel. I'm definitely in line for getting the Steam Deck.

[1] especially as someone with big hands https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/08/29/you-know-what-...

You can send them in to be repaired for free.

Which is good, but they've been selling broken hardware for 5 years now. They'll fix them for you, but they'll sell you them in a state where they'll need to be fixed. I love Nintendo games. Grew up with them, and still play them (playing the new Pokemon at the moment), but man do I hate the corporation. Their development teams are incredible and the big ones never miss, but the corporate has so many knocks against them, from YouTube demonetization to the still broken joy cons.

I can't think of another first party wireless controller (since they became standard in 2005-2006ish) that has ever had issues this bad.

I went through three Xbox 360s.

I can handle sending in some controllers while I can still play.

Yeah, I went through 4 or 5 PS3's. Fortunately my PS4 stood the test of time, and we'll see how my PS5 does.

As much as I enjoyed gaming during the PS3 era, it really had some almost impossible to ignore challenges.

> As much as I enjoyed gaming during the PS3 era, it really had some almost impossible to ignore challenges.

The switch to non-leaded solder means any electronics from the mid-2000s are prone to failing.I'm pretty sure my oven is glad that it will never have to have a graphics card or PS3 mobo in it ever again

I’ve done that with two different ones already. And bought a brand new one recently that now has problems. It’s pretty ridiculous.

How many times?

The reliability of the joycons is absolutely unacceptable.

The repair isn't too tricky and a set of replacements can be had for pretty cheap. I'd recommend people look at getting them repaired, rather than buying a set of (highly overprices) replacements.

I swear my joycons miss something like 1% of my button presses.

for me too - I finally figured out they just have a very weak connection to the Switch. basically needs a clear line-of-sight to the console. Try putting your joycons behind your back and you'll see what I mean! Hope this helps

That was my conclusion as well! Sadly, I can't get much closer to the Switch due to living room geometry. I've also noticed the Switch has a very weak Wifi radio.

It does support 3rd party USB Ethernet adapters plugged into the dock.

I thought the dock and such was silly.

Now I don’t think I’ll ever buy a non portable dedicated console again.

Oddly enough, my experience was the opposite. After enjoying the Switch for 3+ years (purchased late 2018), the same price point bought me an XBOX Series S earlier this year (Series X were/(are?) hard to find and this was an impromptu purchase. Not entirely happy about that tradeoff).

Suffice to say, been having a blast catching up with old favorites and new games. The backward compatibility enhancements (higher FPS and upres'ing) really put into perspective just how little gaming has progressed generationally, which makes these games that much more enjoyable.

The Switch is an amazing device (own two - one modded and one non). While the availability of games increases daily, its performance will always remain the weak point.

That^ and its horrible controllers. The XBX controller is sublime.

> While the availability of games increases daily, its performance will always remain the weak point.

Honestly I don't care that much about performance any longer, graphics were mostly good enough 10 years ago. Modern graphics looks better when you put them side by side, but the graphics 10 years ago was good enough that you easily get used to it. The current switch has problems running 10 year old high end graphics, yeah that is a problem, but the switch is 5 year old hardware, if they made a new switch with modern hardware it should be able to run all those games smoothly.

I think increasingly the dominant factor in a game's graphics is the style, not the power of the engine. Give me Mario Odyssey-level graphics and good color and texture artists over a bland grey shooterfest with 100x the graphics power used any day.

Not that everything modern falls into the latter category. Some are both 100x the graphics power and also beautiful. But I would submit, not more beautiful in proportion to the additional effort put in. We're well into diminishing returns on the graphics front at this point. Great games can run on the Nintendo Switch. Heck, great games can run on the XBox 360.

> Give me Mario Odyssey-level graphics and good color and texture artists over a bland grey shooterfest with 100x the graphics power used any day.

Kinda like PC's back in the day with Max Payne 1 against Unreal 2 engine games. MP looked far more realistic due to a vastly better artwork on textures.

30 fps v. 60 fps is a large enough difference to affect gameplay enjoyment. The resolution and texture clarity is not nearly as important as fluidity and responsiveness in controls.

There are a handful of Switch games that reach 60 fps, so it has a ton of promise, but a 2.0 release would certainly be great.

People say that and yet most of the PS1 and PS2 games were 30fps or lower. One of the top games on the PS2, GTA3 (and Vice City, and San Andreas) were all 30fps or less. N64 games as well.

Basically if the game is fun, no one cares. If the game is not fun then they look for random excuses as to why.

Note: I'm not saying they wouldn't be better at 60. Rather Im saying they were multi-million unit sellers and made lots of people happy playing them and yet they were 30. So being 60 is not a requirement for being good.

> 30 fps v. 60 fps is a large enough difference to affect gameplay enjoyment.

That’s very dependent on the game.

Playing a racing game at 30fps is horrible. Playing Mario games 30fps. Is fine.

> Modern graphics looks better when you put them side by side, but the graphics 10 years ago was good enough that you easily get used to it.

Can you get used to it? Yes. Eg. Skyrim is still atmospheric, but graphically it is nowhere near what today's games offer. I'd say that one don't even have to look at games that are 10 years old and modern games side by side to see the difference. Someone getting used to older graphics is that person adjusting themselves to what they're presented, and not an objective observation and games today objectively look better even when they aren't compared side by side in my opinion.

Yes of course you can get used to it. Your brain is the same brain as it was in the year 2000. People still watch old TV shows in 480p and play old games all the time without complaining.

It's not like we couldn't tell back then that Final Fantasy 7 didn't look like real life, we just didn't care because it was so much fun.

People still play chess. Realism isn't everything.

Honestly, you probably haven't seen top-notch modern game graphics.

I remember being wowed a couple years ago by each successive release of Mass Effect that I worked my way through. ME:Andromeda may have been a bit of a dumpster fire, but the graphics were pretty as hell.

Then I played Control, and it blew my socks off.

The recent Alien game was also stunning.

Or it could be the opposite. I have a high-end gaming PC. I have a Switch. They feel pretty much interchangeable to me when it comes to graphics. The difference is nights and day...and I don't care one bit.

Frame rate is another story and definitely an issue with the Switch, mostly BECAUSE they try to push the graphics too far. Mario Odyssey runs at 60fps. It's not as good as what my PC and monitor can display, but it's...okay. Too many games can't keep 30fps because they just had to put more shadows and polygons for no good reason. Still, for the most part I have just as much fun with it as I do with PC games. I have both just for variety. I use an Nvidia Shield TV when I want to play the PC games on the couch.

Looking forward to the Steam Deck though. Being able to play Monster Hunter Rise's PC version in a form factor similar to the Switch will be quite nice.

Control was the first game I played on series x after upgrading from a 360 which was collecting dust. Also have a quite decent pc with entry level gpu but control on series x blew my mind. In all honesty xsx graphics fidelity can't be compared to my sons Nintendo switch when you play the games on TV, I assume the same goes for ps5.

Games did improve a lot and maybe all someone needs is to stay off gaming for a bit to notice the difference because the changes are less ground breaking and more gradual.

If you look at Nintendo first party titles they are not even trying to compete in graphics. Nintendo is just always spot on when trying to make games for the age group they target.

Strongly disagree on the controllers. No other controller allows me to sit in the middle of my couch and stretch my arms out to both sides and still play a game.

Definitely! The handcuffs are finally off!

Peoples complaints about the joy cons are because of their physical build quality, not the actual design

Uhm, actually… I get horrible hand cramps with the switch and lite models. Bulky grip add-ons are a must for me.

Understood, but it's just the way it is, right? I get horrible wrist pain when I use a regular keyboard so 'had' to buy an Advantage2. That doesn't mean regular keyboards are badly designed for the majority of people.

Split keyboard and mouse on PC!

I've always had the opinion that Nintendo consoles were best when paired with something else. For me, I have a powerful gaming PC for all my gaming needs, and the switch is for portable/Nintendo titles.

I usually game at 3440x1440 @ 120hz and I don't find it jarring playing the Switch. I love it for what it is :)

I agree with the PC + Switch combo. I generally buy Nintendo first party + (puzzle, platformer, strategy) games on the switch and leave (open world, shooter) games for my PC, basically games that I likely wouldn’t play in portable mode.

Before, I had just a PC, and I found myself never playing the graphically simpler games (if I’m sitting at my PC, I might as well be playing an intensive game), but now I can play the mechanically simpler games in bed with the switch!

> really put into perspective just how little gaming has progressed generationally,

Maybe on console, friend. Not on PC.

> The XBX controller is sublime.

As long as it's not the Xbox Elite, which fails like clockwork.

As a mainly #pcmasterrace fiend here, I disagree. The XBX, even at its low end, is an amazingly performant little (x) box. PC gaming has not advanced anywhere to a generational gap, unfortunately.

As for the controller - no one should be paying 150 USD for what amounts to a couple of plastic addons on an already overpriced controller. Compared to the Switch's controllers, they are sublime. Compared to PS4/5's, they are superior but relatively comparable.

I was referring to the significant jump in visual quality in games on PC in the last 5-6 years, not even including RTX (but especially with it.)

> pcmasterrace

nazi things aren't cutesy

>The XBX controller is sublime.

Except if you use it on the PC. My Xbox Series controller keeps randomly dropping connection and it reports two different battery levels to Windows 10 ("50%" and "Critical"), which are both wrong, so you'll have to replace the batteries without being prompted unless you want it to die at random during a game. This is a widely-known issue, but Microsoft has done nothing to fix it: https://github.com/NiyaShy/XB1ControllerBatteryIndicator/iss...

Have been trying out Xcloud gaming lately and it works surprisingly well. Although I won't be able to play on a train or plane, it will definitely fill my travel/hotel gaming use case.

Yeah, it goes so far that I don't quite understand those that say that they use their Switch exclusively docked, or exclusively handheld. I definitely use both, and love the Switch for it (not just for that).

Even the motion controls add value: In games like DOOM, it's pretty cool to effectively have the portable Switch display as a "window" into the virtual world, and move the Switch around for aiming. I'm usually not a fan of motion controls, but that "aiming with the window" thing feels natural, and like something I might do anyway even if it didn't have an effect (like leaning your body into curves when playing a racing game).

The Wii U and Virtual Boy aside, how do they do it? Even the 3DS people came around on. Really wild how much weird shit ('innovation'?) this company can get away with.

>The Wii U and Virtual Boy aside, how do they do it?

Nintendo's top-tier exclusives, and a constant focus on end-to-end user experience.

The PS4/Xbone (and even, to an extent, the 360/PS3) have so much jank when it comes to playing a game on them.

My experience with The Last of Us Part II basically consisted of inserting the game, waiting nearly 25 minutes for it to install, going through that entire process again, twice, because there was a smudge on the disc, then waiting another 20 mins to download a 10GB patch, only to load up the game and sit through hours upon hours of boring-as-fuck intro content before I saw a single zombie.

With Super Mario Odyssey, I put the game in, downloaded some optional 50MB patch in about 20 seconds, then started jumping around collecting coins and throwing my hat at everything.

They just "get it" in ways that Sony and Microsoft don't (or at least, haven't "got" since the original PS2/Xbox era).

> They just "get it" in ways that Sony and Microsoft don't (or at least, haven't "got" since the original PS2/Xbox era).

I fundamentally disagree. There are some great games for the switch out there but they are absolutely hampered by Nintendo's outright refusal to provide modern features. Animal crossing was a lovely game except for the fact that it didn't support more than one island meaning either me or my girlfriend had to skip it. the "visit your friends island" experience is reminiscent of the late 90s in online gaming. Their support for peripherals has lead to this [0] being considered a reasonable solution to voice chat.

That's before you get into the whole ninetendo switch online + expansion pack.

[0] https://www.gamesradar.com/reactions-to-nintendo-switchs-ter...

Oh, of course.

Nintendo don't "get" online gaming in the way that the other two seem to. The ROM hack of Melee made by one guy famously has better online than Smash Ultimate does.

They are the only company still serving up the classic experience, though.

>They are the only company still serving up the classic experience, though.

Heh, I actually disagree again here, but not quite as strongly. PlayStation have absolutely hit it out of the park on "classic experience" over the past few years. their remakes/remasters have been absolutely stellar (Tony hawk's Pro skater/spyro/crash bandicoot) and really hold up well in modern terms. Their single player games in the last few years (god of war, uncharted, sekiro) are nothing short of outstanding. They may not all be your cup of tea but I think it's fair you can say that about some of the Nintendo family of games too.

Xbox has a few home runs in the same category. The Ori games are absolutely incredible, and having recently come away from Metroid Dread _very_ disappointed (really poor story pacing, overly predictable plot, and horrific instadeath mechanics) I would choose ori and the blind forest/will of the wisps over the more recent Metroid games.

It's called Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology. It was Gunpei Yokoi's credo. Other console makers start off with, okay, we are going to design a system around the latest and best technology and really wow people with our graphics. Nintendo starts off with, what can we build using old technology that we can pick up for a song and second-source easily if need be? So it becomes a question of, how do you combine these old technologies in new ways that would have a fun gameplay story in them? When you do LTwWT, you really have to focus on gameplay and fun, because you don't have much to fall back on. And then on the software side the question becomes, what kinds of games can we write for this system that a) play to the system's strengths; b) look, sound, and feel great, even with the hardware's more limited capabilities?

Developing for a Nintendo system is not for everybody. It's like being a Mac developer only more so: you have to write software that integrates smoothly with the hardware and contributes to the grand narrative of the vendor.

Pokémon, Legend of Zelda, and Smash Bros all sell consoles and their innovation is child-targeted so they innovate in weird ways cuz kids don’t care really about processor speed or graphics cores.

I think you wildly underestimate who purchases these consoles. There is certainly an element of catering to a younger audience, but young adults are the real money maker.

In my experience, at Pokemon release events in Japan and in the United States, the majority of attendees lining up are adults, most under 30.

What you’re describing is Nintendo reaping the rewards of having previously targeted kids. If you play a modern Pokémon game with a non-nostalgic eye (as it is easy for me to do, since I am too old to have grown up with them) you can see that however fun these games can be for an adult, they are definitely made to appeal to children.

Those 30 year olds likely fell in love with those franchises when they were kids. i suspect Nintendo know this and see catering to kids as an investment.

Aren't release events usually a midnight thing? I think they may skew far heavier to the adult market than the actual game audience.

It's unlike anything else- with Xbox and PlayStation you can get mostly the same experience on the "opposite" console, or even on a PC. All of nintendo's consoles have followed a similar thread where it adds something that you just don't have on other consoles.

Nintendo exclusives don't hurt, either. But Xbox and PS have exclusives, too.

It's interesting that for a lot of more hardcore gamers these innovations are often seem as a deterrent.

Realizing that specs are orthogonal to enjoyment, and putting out good games you can't get anywhere else.

This. Nintendo understands FUN. That's what it comes down to.

Every single other big developer seems to focus on high end graphics and extensive scripted stories, not sure how Nintendo managed to keep the focus on FUN instead. Graphics and stories are much easier to produce than FUN, Nintendo somehow managed to avoid that. I wonder if this is the culture barrier? Making a game people want to buy without a story or graphics is really hard, but Nintendo chooses that hard path anyway. Very different from the Hollywood games we see from USA where most of the money is spent on motion capture, graphics, effects, storytelling etc.

Game Maker’s s Toolkit had a great take on this,

Nintendo - Putting Play First

https://youtu.be/2u6HTG8LuXQ

I have to imagine the changes have to have been somewhat more driven by developers coming up with fun gameplay ideas while messing with new hardware. Super Mario 64 DS for example includes a collection of minigames with varying gameplay mechanics that explore different ways to use the dual screens along with the pack-in metroid demo, the Wii U had Nintendo Land, and the 3ds faceraiders, Mii Plaza and some AR demos, which all seem like polished proof of concepts for how to take advantage of the new hardware.

And fostering a culture at the upper echelons of management that enables, encourages, and embraces that mentality - that's the magic. Decades of fun goofy shit, and it hasn't yet been eaten by the business turds.

Nintendo also has a culture of sharing institutional knowledge regarding game design. Shigeru Miyamoto is not very involved in the day to day of Mario and Zelda development anymore. Other designers and producers who have worked with and learned from him have taken the reins of those franchises and taken them to new heights.

Contrast that with, say, Sega, who never found their footing with the Sonic franchise ever since the late 90s. Sonic games were developed by whatever developers happened to be available -- sometimes American or mixed Japanese-American teams; and the design ideas from the first few games that made them so great were lost once new hardware generations came along that couldn't use the original engine code. Sonic went a whole console generation (fifth generation, Saturn era) without a new full game in the main series, and the games featuring him after that have been a real mixed bag. (No, Adventure 2 is a mess. The controls are some of the most slippery imprecise shit in the 6th generation.)

3DS was pretty long in the tooth when Switch came out.

I was really hoping for some sort of backwards compatibility. Nintendo had been doing that with their handheld for the past couple of generations. The dual screen would have had to have dealt with, naturally. But the 3DS has an amazing library.

I have both systems now, and enjoy my Switch, but I still prefer the 3DS. I hope whatever the Switch successor is goes back to adding a backwards compatibility mode.

Considering the Switch hardware is just incredibly boring — ARM, capacitive touchscreen, standard gamepad — I’m hoping it will have good backwards compatibility for a while yet. Just like the DS and GameCube.

It's not even new - I know at least the GBC was intended to be hooked up and played on the TV from the very start.

If you travel at all and want to plug your switch into the TV still (say your hotel room TV), I 100% recommend the Covert Dock[1] by Genki. A total game-changer for me. Really allows me to use the Switch to its fullest wherever I am.

[1] https://www.genkithings.com/products/covert-dock

Just finished manually eye-balling every single on the Switch some hours ago today -- took me about 10 weeks on and off doing it casually when I was in the mood. Used an external website of course because Nintendo's is a disaster.

Out of ~6900 games in total (and about 600 more that are upcoming and/or unavailable to me in my country) I liked about 200, wouldn't mind buying other 50, so that's 250 games that I either like or don't hate. And I have about 40 in my collection, some of which I uninstalled.

So realistically I can still buy 250 games out of 7500 in the next few years and get a lot of value for my money.

That's 3.3% of all the games. I count that as a big win and I don't regret my investment in the Switch one bit. Even considering the OLED variant for the bigger and better display -- though I have to say I was very disappointed that Nintendo didn't bump up its specs even a little bit.

It’s a bit surprising, sure.

It’s basically a tablet - in 2022, an underpowered one. It was underpowered as a console 6 years ago. It has very few third party games (ok, you can play Skyrim and Witcher 3, but most of the games just are not there).

But it’s still so fun. And the first party games are all amazing. Even when stuff like Mario Kart and Super Mario 3D World is a port from even older generation.

> It has very few third party games

The library of games on the switch is enormous…

If your interests don’t involve any of the top latest AAA games

I wonder how much gaming time actually involves AAA games?

Just looking at those games I think is a very narrow view.

I disagree with you, they’re top games because they have lots of players playing them. Not because they’re made by a big studio. For ex: COD, Battlefield, NFS, Forza, GTA 5, RDR2, MSFS, Valorant, CS GO. These attract a lot of players and people spend a lot of time ranking up in those games and also money. PC gamers love to call themselves master race and ridicule console players as peasants. Also PS and Xbox also have lot of exclusives that attract a lot of players. For me Switch games feel like something I would play when Im bored, not really an immersive kind of experience.

You’re disagreeing with my question?

I don’t doubt people play these games, but I wonder how much compared to gaming overall?

At this point we have the article about switch sales without those games…

I think it depends on your interests. Lots of new AAA games can't run on the switch, but most indies do.

not as big as other consoles.

I don’t think you’re right about that. Source?

Type top 50 games on google, and just compare how many are available on Switch.

To rally in defence of the Wii, I'm a PC gamer through and through. I could never get on with consoles, particularly for first person shooters, although I had good times playing some casual games on friend's machines back in the day.

The Wii was fantastic though, I loved playing shooters on it, and the fun factor of things like tennis, golf and such made it a regular feature of family evenings.

That's over with the Switch. We occasionally play Mario Kart together but that's it. My eldest got addicted to CotW, Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing but now she's into LoL on her laptop the Switch is dead to her as well.

I'm not saying it's a bad console or machine, far from it, it's fantastic. But it's a fantastic console, whereas the Wii was something special. I wonder how many people bought Switch due to a halo effect from Wii. We certainly did. If they brought out Wii game controllers and games for it I'd be all over it.

Nintendo is my favorite tech company because of their willingness to make massive, fearless bets on revolutionary new products. How they are able to constantly and consistently innovate at such a high level, decade after decade, is absolutely amazing to me.

Even their flops are amazing! I will always remember the first week after the Wii U launched in 2012 during Thanksgiving break. My 10yo son had a bunch of friends over and we played Nintendoland all week - four Wiimotes and the tablet. So much fun and such great memories.

Actually, this post has just inspired me to read up on Nintendo. There must be a decent business book or two about them. Any recommendations? The video game industry is the odd duck out in the tech world in my opinion - their production and sales cycles alone are so long (how many years did BotW take to make?), but I bet there'd still be a lot to learn from a product design perspective.

Not sure this is the exact kind of books you are looking for but here are some recommendations:

-For a whole picture of the Nintendo business since the beginning (1889), I would recommend the books "L'Histoire de Nintendo" from Florent Gorges. The books are in french but there are English translations of the first two.

-For product design I like the "Reverse Design" books from Patrick Holleman. As the title imply it's not from the creator of the analyzed game but I think the books contains good analyzed of how different gameplay elements works together.

It's not really a serious history book by any means, but I have a copy Before Mario which covers all their products and company history prior to gaming. It's really interesting to see. https://omakebooks.com/en/livres-jeux-video/48-before-mario-...

Does anyone know a solution against input lag? I have a pro controller, but even having it 20cm from the Switch it still has noticeable delays with inputs in games. It's my biggest gripe with the console. Plugging in the controller doesn't seem to fix it.

Otherwise, pre-pandemic the Switch has been a godsend on 20 hour flights.

Are you playing on the Switch's screen or a TV? Input lag on some TVs can be bad and they usually have a game mode to minimize this. I primarily use a pro controller and couldn't time certain wall jumps on Mario 64 until I put my TV into game mode. It was maddening for a while.

See data here: https://displaylag.com/display-database/

I'm pretty sure I have seen it on both. As in both in docked and handheld mode. It's odd because I make sure the controllers are fully charged as well. It's not in all games either which makes me think it could be a games thing. But then I have seen it in Nintendo games which somewhat rules it out again.

It's odd. Not a dealbreaker but very noticeable when it happens.

Never heard of that before so looked up. Sure enough there was a giant motion-to-photon latency table compiled by someone using gutted controllers and a camera, which in the end seems to all fall within 5.7-7.5 frames(95-125ms). This is almost ten times the typical input latency in a PC, and also roughly coincides with equatorial circumference of Earth(134 light-milliseconds). hmm.

1: https://w.atwiki.jp/smashsp_kensyou/pages/40.html

They link some comparisons [0], including the PS4 controller which has a 13ms input delay. Switch controller really is 10x slower, oof.

[0] https://imgur.com/6rVNjSU

Oof, 125ms is pretty shocking.

One fix for input lag I have seen is to have the console in flight mode and just enable bluetooth for the controller's connection. The switch needs to undocked to enable flight mode. The WiFi connection seems to be causing interference. If you need internet access, use an ethernet connection (older switch docks require USB to ethernet adapter, OLED docks have an ethernet port built in).

Ooo, thanks for the tip! I'll try that next time. I don't ever really care about the wifi once in a game.

I have the older version so it would have to be through an adapter. The OLED model sounds nice but I can't justify the price for an upgrade.

> Plugging in the controller doesn't seem to fix it.

There's an option in system settings to use wired communications; if you don't enable that, plugging it in just does charge and play. (OTOH, apparently if you use it in wired mode, amiibo scanning is disabled, if that's relevant to you)

You are a legend! Thank you for mentioning it because I was not aware of it. I have enabled it now and will give it a try next time.

I was wondering about because there is no indication whether wired mode is even used.

All device firmware updated? I haven’t noticed any controller latency. Maybe display lag?

Yup, everything up to date. I'm reasonable certain I have seen both docked and in handheld mode. Though the latest I remember is Super Mario in docked mode. Two people coop and there is a noticeable delay before inputs are applied.

It's odd but no dealbreaker. I'm just always curious whether anyone else is experiencing it.

I'm happy to see this. The Switch is one of the most perfectly engineered consoles I've ever used. The UX design is fantastic, the controller design is fantastic, and it's just a lovely device to use both docked and handheld.

Great pandemic purchase. Portability is overlooked until you need it for traveling, on-the-go, etc.

What? How are you travelling more during the pandemic?

I bring my switch down to the beach or park to play if I'm starting to feel a bit cooped up but also want to continue playing video games.

That's a feature I didn't know I "needed" until I had the option. Since I can now take my "home" activities outside the home, you can consider that "traveling (outside the house) more."

Travelling doesn't just mean globe trottling, it could also mean just getting out of the house more often.

Many years in they added the audio Bluetooth option

The switch has longer support than many phones

That was basically the only major update the console ever got.

That really should have been available at launch.

> The switch has longer support than many phones

That’s not a very high bar :P

They brought back Advance Wars.

That's what introduced me to strategy games, nothing comes close.

Wargrove and Tiny Metal are both close, but ultimately less charming.

I really can’t express how much joy the Switch has given me and my family. I loved it when I first got it all those years ago, but in the last year I’ve been replaying lots of games with my 4yr old.

Mario Odyssey, Mario 3D world, Yoshi’s crafted world, New Super Mario Bros., Pac-Man competition edition and recently we blasted through Unpacking over a rainy Sunday. We’ve easily logged hundreds of hours together in the last 6 months alone.

Meanwhile the PS4 and Xbox have been sat gathering dust.

There’s a few reasons for this IMHO.

1. There’s no bullshit on the Switch. It switches on instantly, it sleeps instantly. It rarely wants updates for anything. It’s so easy to dock and undock for playing in the car on journeys. It’s totally unobtrusive under the TV. It just fits into our family life seamlessly with zero frustrations. Even the grandparents enjoy playing it when they come over.

2. Nintendo games are totally family friendly. We all sit around playing together, passing the joypad between us or playing coop together. I never have any worries about the games we are playing being unsuitable for a 4yr old in anyway. There are no loot boxes, unsavoury material, etc. it’s just pure fun and entertainment. I find my kid has a much greater understanding of cause, effect and 3d space than he would do if that time was spent tapping away on an iPad screen on some ad ridden, loot box infested shovelware. I’m actually amazed how quickly he has learnt using the camera stick, but it’s probably because Nintendo finesse their products to the nth degree.

3. Nintendo finally opened it up to adult games, so if I do want to blast through gore on Doom or Wolfenstein late at night on my own, I can. When I do, I just find myself reaching for the Switch over the PlayStation or Xbox, which I know will try and demand all sorts of updates and downloads before I can play.

Prior Nintendo consoles have some pretty adult stuff on them. MadWorld, No More Heroes, House of the Dead: Overkill, Manhunt 2, Bayonetta, etc. The Switch is just the first Nintendo console in a while that's had great third party support.

Just dropping by to express joy at this fact - Nintendo Switch is such a nice console! I got the Lite version and while the risk of eventual stick drift has been weighing heavily on my mind, it's amazing that it runs as well as it does in such a small form factor!

It's perhaps like the PSP of our time, but even better - numerous games have been ported to it and optimized so that you can enjoy a lovely gaming experience wherever you are. To me, that shows that you don't always need a 400$ GPU in your gaming PC if you just want to experience a lovely story like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or even just play something like Doom.

Not only is the console adequately made, feels reasonably comfortable, has a good selection of games and a good UI, but it also indirectly fights back against Wirth's law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law) and proves that gameplay should sometimes be placed above graphics first and foremost and make artists think about the materials that they use, their texture resolutions, the LODs in their models, how efficient their shaders are, as well as how much resources the game code uses.

I just wish that Switch development was a bit more open, for example, there are no publicly available releases with packaging functionality for game engines like Godot, but i guess that's just the status quo that we're stuck with.

Regardless, i actually sold a PS4 that i won for getting the first place in a programming competition years ago (an acquaintance of mine wanted one and i had some dental fees, so figured that i might as well sell it to him for like 40% of MSRP since i basically got it for free), i probably wouldn't do that with my Switch. Not needing a dedicated monitor is also really nice!

I wish that we'll see similarly performant games in the future and that we won't have the platform be sunset anytime soon, maybe instead get something like a Switch Pro or even have different graphics settings/modes in games, which would support the older releases and their thermal envelopes, while also letting the newer hardware also be successfully leveraged for that additional graphic fidelity, for those who care. Hey, i can dream~

I bought a PS Vita just to play Risk of Rain on the go, I've considered buying a Switch to play Risk of Rain 2, but I've torn waiting for a hardware refresh or just getting the OLED-version.

Knowing Nintendo it will be at least a year, maybe longer, before a theoretical Switch 2.

The original is still selling great. And they wouldn’t want people who bought the OLED to feel ripped off.

Unless you’re willing to wait quite a while I’d go for it.

Tough to play risk of rain with thumbsticks

I guess people really do like barely reworked 20 year old games for $75

Yep, they do. I’ve been replaying Paper Mario via the Switch, and that game is as fun as it was the day it came out. Just fantastic.

I’m a bit put out at paying £50 for Skyward Sword. I did get 50 hours of gameplay out of it, but it felt steep for how little effort they’d put into the port (it would have been great to have no loading as you fly between locations)

for me, a Switch was worth it for Breath of the Wild alone

What games fit this description?

well its not $75 but come on....

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/advance-wars-1-plus-2-... Advance Wars is $60 dollars

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/space-invaders-invinci... Space Invaders is $60 !!!

Diablo 2 is 60 bux.. I just browsed for a min

Both joysticks on my Lite (the one where you can't just buy new JoyCons) developed severe drift after three and five months after purchase. After replacing the second one I realized I hate the thing for multiple reasons (low FPS in AAA ports, expensive games, bad ergonomy) and tossed it into a drawer.

I wouldn't recommend the Switch to anyone, especially because Nintendo is very well aware of the stick drift and they keep using that same part.

I wouldn’t really recommend the Switch (even non-Lite) for AAA games. The tradeoffs for portability don’t work with the graphical intensity of AAA.

The Switch is great as a second console for playing more casual games (especially paired with a PC for everything demanding), but if you want to have a single console (and also play AAA), then it’s not good.

It’s a pretty good system but some of the ports are really poor. I played Outer Worlds on it and it was just unacceptably bad quality. I get that the hardware can’t run it but then don’t sell it. Looking forward to switching up to the Steam deck and selling my lite

Time to release a more powerful version.

In between there was a bit of worry as NVIDIA had there ARM+GPU chips refocused on only Robot/Cart/Etc. ML, but they seem to be going back to shipping consumer focused ARM+GPU ships so I guess the necessary requirements for a backward compatible updated more powerful switch are finally about to be meet again.

I feel like the fact Nintendo didn’t release a new console recently is part of their success. Supply issues have plagued the Xbox and PlayStation so by the time most people get their hands on it, it’s already not winning any graphics competitions. But Nintendo has proven time and time again that having the fastest hardware doesn’t matter. Providing a unique experience at a high quality does. Which can be done on relatively weak hardware.

No doubt they will release a new one eventually, but I wouldn’t imagine there is a huge rush.

There might be a bit more of an rush then it seems, as for many causal players the Steam Deck (and alternatives to it) are quite a viable alternative for playing many of the games on the Switch which are not exclusives.

In the end we will need to see how the Steam Deck plays out.

But for 2022 the power of the Switch is just very very low. It was still acceptable when the switch came out but by now it's starting to hurt.

This won't matter for targeting children.

But children don't buy consoles their parents do.

And a lot of young adults and adults did buy it too without it involving children.

So if they take to long, they may permanently lose marked share due to the Switch less being an option for (successfully) Indy games in the future.

Due to switching the Games I causally play I'm now kinda regretting not to have per-ordered a Steam Deck. The Switch has the games I wanna play and they run, but not always fully fluent.

Rumor has it that the OLED Switch was supposed to be something like a Switch Pro. However, chip shortage hitting again. Metroid Dread supposedly would have been the big game to take advantage of it. Thus the occasional frame rate drops on the current Switch.

Nintendo has been my sole choice for a very long time now, since I'm almost exclusively interested in local multiplayer. Switch's popularity has been nice, smaller studios in particular have really stepped up their game, in contrast to Wii's long list of shovelware.

A communication error has occured :). I wish they would fix their online offering. I'm not a serious gamer, but my collegues get kicked out during a Mario Kart online session all the time.

There's also over a billion more people in the world now... does that matter? Maybe not, but I always wonder when raw counts are compared across decades

Has the number of people who are able to meaningfully afford a Nintendo console increased?

Hasn't the middle class in China for example grown dramatically?

Absolutely. Eastern Europe and China are a lot more wealthy today than they were in 2006.

The Wii continues to outplay the Switch in my house. It's great how solid the Switch's hardware is, but the games are a bit meh -- though I'll admit that's probably a product of the times and competition, might as well just repackage old games.

But I can't imagine there will ever be a console as revolutionary (no pun intended for those who remember) as the Wii. To take such a huge gamble on motion gaming and have it work so well is so applause-worthy. To compare, imagine Zuckerberg announces a headset today, and it's actually good? See how wild that sounds?

Oculus Quest is amazing to me. I found the Wii to be gimmicky.

Just my personal opinion

With cloud gaming Nintendo might have delayed the giants that are Microsoft and Sony long enough to finally make the gaming hardware power debate moot.

Would love to see AAA games streaming from a cloud and playable on Nintendo devices.

Maybe something like, if you’re playing on portable mode, since the screen is so much smaller, the on board processor is good enough but when plugged in it seamlessly switches to a cloud instance.

Or just have more firepower in the dock, that would work too.

This is happening on a per-title basis. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is streaming in Japan. The Kingdom Hearts collection is also streaming.

I compared the Control “cloud” demo on Switch and a disc copy on the PS4.

The Switch version looked superior, where the PS4 version had obvious texture downgrading and popin. I still played it on PS4 though because the input lag was less and I preferred to have a physical copy.

Though I wonder how much the video game market has grown since the Wii had reached end-of-life

I've just bought one to play with my wife! What single or 2player games does HN recommend?

It entirely depends on what you like!

Starting out it's hard to go wrong with the mega-popular Switch first party games in your preferred genre.

Untitled goose game

Cadence of Hyrule!

It's a terrific console so long as you stick to games that only use the D-pad :)

I bought it for metroid prime 4 and it still isn't out

Too bad. The Wii U is my all time favorite console.

Same here. Still appreciate mine. I have no need for a portable console, so for me Wii U was end of the line.

Just got my second Switch today.

Can you still install Linux on the new switches? If so, I might have an interest in one. If not, it's just more walled garden garbage.

You can get a more powerful tablet for cheaper than a switch.

The entire value of the switch is in its ability to play nintendo's software: something that can't be done on linux.

>The entire value of the switch is in its ability to play nintendo's software: something that can't be done on linux.

Yuzu disagrees.

You're suggesting emulating a switch on a switch?

If you thought botw's frame rate was bad natively...

They're suggesting emulating a Switch on Linux

Nintendo targeted markets are mainly kids, retro and casual gamers. Due to pandemic the take up by casual gamers has been increasing rapidly and I'm not surprised if the majority of Switch recent sales are bought by this group. Add to the fact that Nintendo always has killer casual gaming accessories for examples Wii board for Wii and Wii U, and Ring Fit for Switch is the testament to their commitment to this group[1]. I hope they will re-introduce Wii board for the Switch, and a new Wii board and Ring Fit combo will be a blast for inside the house/indoor physical fitness and exercises.

[1]Why I’m using Nintendo Ring Fit to achieve my New Year’s resolution:

https://www.techradar.com/news/why-im-using-nintendo-ring-fi...

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