Nope. That’ll be a pass from me Nintendo.
Oh you’re going to subscribe to Nintendo Pass for $12.99 a month?
I am not in the market for a console (my last one was the Sega Mega Drive which was abandoned after we got a Pentium 1 PC and dialup), but I got to say, I love Nintendo’s pricing policy.
It’s almost as if they are taking the piss and want to see to what extent their fans are gluttons for punishment.
One possible complicating factor for those games? While they’re physical releases, they use Nintendo’s new Game-Key Card format, which attempts to split the difference between true physical copies of a game and download codes. Each cartridge includes a key for the game, but no actual game content—the game itself is downloaded to your system at first launch. But despite holding no game content, the key card must be inserted each time you launch the game, just like any other physical cartridge.
This is full on corporate regressiveness.
Nintendo will also use some Switch 2 Edition upgrades as a carrot to entice people to the more expensive $50-per-year tier of the Nintendo Switch Online service. The company has already announced that the upgrade packs for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will be offered for free to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers. The list of extra benefits for that service now includes additional emulated consoles (Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, and now Gamecube) and paid DLC for both Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8.
Wait so you have to subscribe to get access to emulators (which are all open source I am assuming)? And you can’t just buy a retro game (ala GOG) and play it to your heart’s content? You need a sub to Nintendo online?
Their emulators have always been proprietary. The waters were a little muddied by the NES/SNES Classic consoles using a Linux OS but the emulators were their own code.
Their FOSS code is made available when required and is published here:
I see. I am surprised they didn’t simply take existing open source code and go with that.
So when Nintendo servers shut down, that’s it.
Oh wow, that cartridge thing is actually just the worst of both worlds. I’m similar to you, my last console was a Mega Drive but I did get a Switch for my wife and played a couple of games on it which was fun. Not really keen on giving Nintendo more money though.
So does this kill used game sales?
I think it kills game leaks before the street date. Even if the data isn’t in the cartridge (which is stupid), you would still be able to sell the cartage assuming the online service is still active.
Sucks for game preservation though. I’m personally hoping there’s some flaw in the gen 1 hardware that can be exploited for archive purchases.
(edit: fixed autocorrect)
I am assuming you can re-sell the “Game Key”.
The key card thing is seriously infuriating, both from a consumer standpoint and from a media conservation standpoint.
Basically you own a game cartridge, but as soon as Nintendo shuts down their servers for whatever reason it becomes a useless piece of plastic. They really don’t want us to own anything anymore.
I’m not sure that’s how that works. The Switch already had both physical boxes with digital codes in them and cartridges that required mandatory downloads to run. This seems like a physical unlock key for a digital download, which depending on how it’s implemented is actually easier to both resell and use offline than the Switch 1 solution to the same problem.
I don’t recommend purchasing either, and I avoided both of those options on Switch 1, but I’m pretty sure this at least does not make things any worse.
I have major gripes with a number of pricing choices in this thing, but to the best of my current understanding this one is based on a misunderstanding.
You cannot use the unlock key, or even redownload the game, when, not if, the Switch store goes offline.
This is true.
It’s also true of the partial download carts for Switch 1 that don’t include a full playable version of the game in the cart.
Presumably the digital back-compat on the Switch 2 means the Switch will live a lot longer usual for Nintendo platforms, and we don’t know if there will be a backwards compatible Switch 3.
But in practice, this is just an iteration of the Switch 1 version of the same thing. It’s not great. I avoided both the mandatory download carts and will likely avoid these ones, but it’s not a bigger deal than it has been for the past five years or so.
I pray it faces record-breaking piracy.
It probably will. Given the modest spec bump and the high even for Nintendo hostility to switch emulation, it’s probably trivial to support switch 2 as well.
Ah yes, let me pay $450 for a console that I have to pay an additional $80 for every game I want to play. What a sound financial decision.
I love having my decision not to buy a Nintendo Switch and stick to PC games validated.
Feel bad for all the Nintendo fans though, I get how you can fall in love with a franchise they make and want their stuff only to have “except it costs a ton” stuck on, so you’ll have to skip for financial reasons and feel unhappy. It’s a lot harder to abstain from something you actually care about and want, than something you are maybe mildly interested in.
No Zelda or Mario will hurt. But Nintendo’s decided I’m just too poor to be worthy of playing their games any more.
There’s a hundred different versions of amazing Mario and Zelda games that you can play already with emulators and on an old switch/computer/steamdeck. Wait till the new one is emulated, don’t enable Nintendo to do this shit.
There are also plenty of decent Zelda-likes out there from small indie studios all the way to triple-a studios. Sony should really make one of their own looking at how well the managed to but pretty much everything Nintendo all at once to Astro bot.
Seriously. It’s tried and true.
Yes, and I’ve played them all multiple times. I was referring to NEW Marios and Zeldas. Metroid, too, but Prime 4 will at least be on Switch 1 and who knows when or if the next one will happen.
Try some ROM hacks. Super Mario Logic is pretty sweet
It’s most difficult for me since I want to play metroid prime 4, especially after hearing the music. But I don’t want to pay 90 euro for base game. That’s incredibly ridiculous
I’m just going to get the Switch version and be perfectly happy with the visuals being slightly less good and using gyro joycon aim over joycon mouse.
I hope they still have tank controls, and designed the game with those in mind. I’ve been playing the Prime games like that for so long.
Failing that, at least a twin stick control scheme would be nice.
Always loved Nintendo, but this will be a hard pass from me.
SteamDeck it is.
Can’t wait to wait 2 years and then pirate it.
But besides that; are there any good PC kart racers?
(Emphasis on “good”, because I already know about Super Tux Kart, used to play it a lot more than 10 years ago, but today it feels very… Clunky and dated).
I hear very good things about Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed, and there’s a new one coming.
Hmm… I’ve heard a few things about Sonic All-Stars too. Guess I should give it a shot.
Would be cool if Crash Nitro Kart isn’t still a PlayStation exclusive…
super tux cart on linux is free and open source
You probably want a dedicated game, but I have a lot of fun with Dragon Kart in Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
Sonic and Sega All Stars Transformed is top
The only game I want to play is that new Donkey Kong game. Paying €520 for playing just one game is ridiculous. I’m gonna wait till Nintendo releases more games. I’m not gonna spend €450 for it to collect dust like my PS5.
I’m the dude in that meme looking at the other girl, and she is my icon collections in Steam, GOG, even Epic, etc. Icons with native Linux versions get slight preference.
Gaming market as a whole seems to be going through a correction of sort and this is the time when Nintendo decides to raise the price? Good luck with that Nintendo.
I along with just about everyone here probably has a massive back catalogue of games on Steam to ride out whatever is currently happening in the gaming industry. Maybe I’ll just chill over by the corner and watch the gaming market craters itself into the ground.
Just like their prices, Nintendo will never change.
Arrrr!
Ubisoft’s The Crew 3: Super Mario Horizon
I buy pretty much every console there is, but I’ll pass here. Maybe there will be a price-cut OLED model and a new “Best of Switch 2” Series of games with cut prices (like on GameCube or Wii). Also I want to wait and see if the Joy-Cons 2 get drifting issues.
