Vita 2 / PS4 Go?

[DuckThor Evil]

I agree that people will keep buying a Switch as long as it stays the only decent portable gaming device in the market.
I just don't think it'll stay as the only decent portable gaming device for long.

I hope you are not referring to products such as the Smach Z... Which will not make any sort of dent on the Switch sales. I'm not trying to sound like a douche, but you were predicting Switch lifetime sales to finish at 30M units at a point when it had already sold about 20M units and selling great at that moment as well. ( or was it even past 20M already?)
You seem to have been on a little crusade against the Switch ever since we found out the disappointing specs of the system and are constantly way off with your analysis of it. In reality everything points to a direction that the Switch is going to continue being a very successful system, the game lineup is becoming great and it has some surprising additions like the Witcher 3 and Divinity 2. Lite brings the price point to a much lower level and it is very tough to compete against.

I of course want a more powerful version of it as well and a high performance dock and all that, but the current versions are doing very well out there.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What about the viability of a real hardware dock that provides a better experience? Is that technically feasible? Some port connection using Infinity Fabric Yada Yada to transparently amp up a handheld not just by clocking it faster and running a tiny internal fan full pelt, but do something special. What areas of diversification are there from the existing Switch which did quite a good job of aping my Grand Vision for PlayStation 4 (tablet console with camera that could be docked and played as a console)?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well the hypothetical high performance dock I was talking about would have additional hardware inside it. At some point I was hoping something like a nVidia 1060 based GPU in it. I think there were some rumours/speculation about something like that, but nothing concrete. I guess it would need quite a bit of extra hardware in it to be actually viable at which point it's more of a stand alone console?

Originally I was thinking of it being somewhat like those Thunderbolt external GPU boxes for laptops or something like that, but with better integration.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I suppose the limiting factor for what a dock can bring is what parts can be usefully shared between dock and handheld? If the dock needs CPU, GPU, RAM...you've got a whole console and the handheld is just a store of games. The more exotic ideas are things like a liquid cooling loop that can connect to the portable SOC and cool it at much higher clock speeds, so no more tech than the handheld and just ancillary support mechanics.

 

[Mihailjones]

Just like for laptops with external gpu.

= have high bandwith connector(switch doesnt have it, because Nintendo cheaps out in everything they can) and have external gpu + psu for it in thedock

Combined with faster cpu + enough mem in the handheld (again, not in the switch) = it could work.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I hope you are not referring to products such as the Smach Z... Which will not make any sort of dent on the Switch sales.

Nah, I love the concept of the smach z but it's too expensive to be anything other than a niche.

I'm thinking about the original topic of this thread, of course.

I'm not trying to sound like a douche, but you were predicting Switch lifetime sales to finish at 30M units at a point when it had already sold about 20M units and selling great at that moment as well. ( or was it even past 20M already?)
You seem to have been on a little crusade against the Switch ever since we found out the disappointing specs of the system and are constantly way off with your analysis of it.

Are you sure you're trying?
I simply present my opinion based on the fact that the switch"s lackluster hardware is incapable of running all the giant 3rd party titles (cod, battlefield, GTA, numbered assassin's creed, etc.).


Unlike my expectations, the Switch continues to power through its sales records, along with its 1st party exclusives.

I'm not wrong about the Switch being pretty bad for 3rd parties though. From the list of 22 best selling titles for the Switch, only the bottom one is not published by Nintendo.

So Nintendo keeps being an almost exclusively self-serving gaming company. They do very little to foment healthy competition among 3rd party publishers, and honestly their hardware hasn't really pushed any technical or interaction boundaries since the 3DS with the autostereoscopic screen.

Which is why I honestly think it'd be better for the public if they became a software company.

Call it a "crusade" if you want. I call it just "sharing my completely inconsequential opinion in an internet forum". Bad or good, hit or miss, these are my predictions and my opinion, which I'm entitled to share AFAIK.

I suppose the limiting factor for what a dock can bring is what parts can be usefully shared between dock and handheld? If the dock needs CPU, GPU, RAM...you've got a whole console and the handheld is just a store of games. The more exotic ideas are things like a liquid cooling loop that can connect to the portable SOC and cool it at much higher clock speeds, so no more tech than the handheld and just ancillary support mechanics.

If you power down the iGPU then there's plenty of heat dissipation for the CPU cores alone.
For example, see anandtech's review of the Xiaomi blackshark 2 from today. The heat dissipation in the smartphone is terrible and the 3D tests hurt a lot as consequence, but the CPU tests are the same as every other S855 device.

Of course, the quad A57 module would be anemic even if they clock it at 2GHz at this point, so a GTX1060 eGPU would be severely bottlenecked.

 

[MrFox]

Isn't the switch lite dedicated, it's not a hybrid.

The platform is not. Any game that is made on switch have to support both modes, so the switch lite is not requiring any specific testing target. (hypothetically a ps4 portable would be similar)

Someone who had a wii, or wiiu, and wants to continue to play upcoming nintendo franchise games have no other choice other than the switch. Regardless of whether it's used for the portable advantage or not. The Vita and 3DS were dedicated portable targets for developers. They needed a clear portable console market to exploit.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The platform is not. Any game that is made on switch have to support both modes, so the switch lite is not requiring any specific testing target. (hypothetically a ps4 portable would be similar)

Someone who had a wii, or wiiu, and wants to continue to play upcoming nintendo franchise games have no other choice other than the switch. Regardless of whether it's used for the portable advantage or not. The Vita and 3DS were dedicated portable targets for developers. They needed a clear portable console market to exploit.

Is there much difference, however, if a purely mobile device natively (versus streamed) plays all the games released for the platform?

If the platform suddenly loses the ability to be played in a non-mobile fashion, the games won't suddenly stop playing or be worse when played on the mobile device. In fact, it appears that most games run better in mobile mode versus docked mode as the graphics fidelity is generally decreased due to battery life concerns.

I'd say it all comes down to who is buying and how they are using it.

• If someone buys it and only uses it as a mobile device, then those are basically mobile device sales, yes?
• If someone uses it as a hybrid, then those are hybrid sales, yes?
• If someone uses it as a traditional home console and never undocks it, that's basically a home console market sale, yes?

Hence, I'm curious to see how sales of the Switch Lite go. Is it just going to be a small fraction of overall Switch sales? Or is it going to expand the user base of the NSW for people that don't care about the hybrid functionality and want something that is more mobile friendly?

Regards,
SB

 

[orangpelupa]

if PS4 able to play PS5 games, but in much lower quality, PS4 Go will be in a pretty nice place. It has tons of PS4 backlog and can play PS5 games at the lowest quality.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I'm not wrong about the Switch being pretty bad for 3rd parties though. From the list of 22 best selling titles for the Switch, only the bottom one is not published by Nintendo.

So Nintendo keeps being an almost exclusively self-serving gaming company. They do very little to foment healthy competition among 3rd party publishers, and honestly their hardware hasn't really pushed any technical or interaction boundaries since the 3DS with the autostereoscopic screen.

Which is why I honestly think it'd be better for the public if they became a software company.

Call it a "crusade" if you want. I call it just "sharing my completely inconsequential opinion in an internet forum". Bad or good, hit or miss, these are my predictions and my opinion, which I'm entitled to share AFAIK.

On the top of the page it says:

"As Nintendo shares the sales of their games in every quarter while most other publishers don't share sales numbers per console, this list consists mostly of Nintendo-published titles."

Also some of those titles are developed outside of Nintendo and published by Nintendo only in certain region(s). Of course I agree that Nintendo has always been about their first party software, but they have been doing alright on that path.

Perhaps crusade was a poor choice of words, but I do feel like you are letting your disappointment of the system cloud your judgement a bit.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not wrong about the Switch being pretty bad for 3rd parties though. From the list of 22 best selling titles for the Switch, only the bottom one is not published by Nintendo.

Though you may be correct, a relative list like that doesn't prove your point. It shows Nintendo titles outsell 3rd party on Nintendo's platform, but doesn't show how third party sales compare to other platforms. So, for example, you could have a game sell 3 million on Console A and 4 million on Console B, and be top ten for Console A but not on the list for Console B where there are a load of better selling games.

To compare the value of the platform for third parties, you need look at third party sales data and game library. Have 3rd parties abandoned releasing on NSW because they never get sales? Or do they still release to it, at which point you can trust it's a healthy platform for them. AFAICS NSW is getting plenty of third party ports, like Witcher and D3, Fortnite and Overwatch. It seems if you aren't into Nintendo's own games, there's lots on the platform for you. Nintendo are just very good at making very good games that sell a lot, topping charts for their own system.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

hough you may be correct, a relative list like that doesn't prove your point. It shows Nintendo titles outsell 3rd party on Nintendo's platform, but doesn't show how third party sales compare to other platforms.

How much do we trust vgchartz?

Switch: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/203408/wolfenstein-ii-the-new-colossus/sales
XBox One: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/181686/wolfenstein-ii-the-new-colossus/sales

Wolfenstein II, a game that was considered a technical miracle on the Switch, has 110k sales on Nintendo's platform and 700k on the Xbox One.
The Switch has 35 million consoles sold and the Xbox One has 43 million.
So for a 23% larger userbase, the Xbox One got 636% more sales. After adjusting the userbase numbers, each xbox is selling over 5x more copies of the same game than each Switch.


But let's assume that despite the technical prowess of Wolfenstein II on the Switch, most people just want to avoid playing a FPS on the Switch.
Probably a game like FIFA 19 is much more platform agnostic, I'd say.

Switch: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/222167/fifa-19/sales
XBox One: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/222163/fifa-19/sales

750k on the Switch, 2.22M on the Xbox One. It's a little better, but again after adjustment ( [2220/750] / [43/35] ) each Xbox is selling 2.4x more copies than each Switch.

I think a game like FIFA may present the best case scenario for the Switch, because the graphics don't matter all that much and you gain a lot more from being able to play on the go or do local multiplayer on the portable console.



I believe this might also be due to the fact that piracy is super easy and super convenient on the Switch, so it's probably rampant too.
A friend of mine (I promise it's not me!) got the hacked firmware on his switch and the piracy is so advanced and developed it's ridiculous. He just accesses an online "store" where he can see the full library of games and download them at will, for free.
And you apparently can do this with any of the Switch models that use the old SoC, it's not even limited to the firmware version!

Of course I agree that Nintendo has always been about their first party software, but they have been doing alright on that path.

See above.

Perhaps crusade was a poor choice of words, but I do feel like you are letting your disappointment of the system cloud your judgement a bit.

Well, isn't this ultimately inevitable for everyone? How can you ever make 100% sure that your disappointment over something isn't affecting your opinion?

The platform is not. Any game that is made on switch have to support both modes, so the switch lite is not requiring any specific testing target. (hypothetically a ps4 portable would be similar)

There many games that don't work on the Switch Lite. Every game that makes gameplay use the IR camera, accelerometers and HD Rumble won't work unless you purchase additional joycons. E.g. the Just Dance series, 1-2-Switch or Snipperclips.
Then there's the Labo games / peripherals, which obviously won't work on the Lite.

A hypothetical PS4 Go would probably have the same problem in some games, e.g. with Playroom.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How much do we trust vgchartz?

I believe this might also be due to the fact that piracy is super easy and super convenient on the Switch, so it's probably rampant too.

I'm not sure what the argument regards Switch and 3rd parties is, as to whether any of this is relevant. Everyone has finite gaming hours. If they are busy playing Nintendo's games, they won't be buying other games. That would be true on a Vita2 with loads of Sony exclusives if Sony's titles were as attractive to its core fanbase as Nintendo's are to theirs.

If the argument is there's room for a new handheld that can play third parties...it already exists in NSW. If you want to play FIFA and Wolfenstein and Diablo 3 etc, you can buy a NSW now. The fact people who own a Switch aren't playing those games as much as console gamers are doesn't stop the NSW being a viable platform for 3rd party titles. Let's say Sony release a Vita 2 that plays PS4's library. Why would people want to buy that to play Wolfenstein and FIFA, but not want to buy an NSW? (Let's assume the games have to be bought again because otherwise you have a clear cost reason)

 

[Deleted member 13524]

If the argument is there's room for a new handheld that can play third parties...it already exists in NSW. If you want to play FIFA and Wolfenstein and Diablo 3 etc, you can buy a NSW now.

My point has been the same since the beginning. The Switch can play 3rd parties, but can't play the big AAA 3rd parties that bring the most money to publishers because it's not powerful enough to do so.
There's no GTA / RDR, no Call of Duty, no Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, etc.

A portable PS4 would be powerful enough to play those titles. And I believe it would be technically feasible at Smach-Z's form factor with a 7nm SoC.


idTech games and Witcher 3 are just glitches in the matrix, and honestly Witcher 3 looks like ass IMHO.

Let's say Sony release a Vita 2 that plays PS4's library. Why would people want to buy that to play Wolfenstein and FIFA, but not want to buy an NSW? (Let's assume the games have to be bought again because otherwise you have a clear cost reason)

Weeell even if you take away approximately 65% of the compelling reasons to get a PS4 Go, you still get to play the big 3rd party games and do so at a much higher graphics fidelity.
Not to mention playing Horizon Zero Dawn at the palm of your hands, or Death Stranding.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The argument there though is does the mobile audience want AAA big budget titles on the go? Historically, Nintendo's lame-arse visual handhelds have eclipsed sales of all the fancier graphics rivals because of compromises elsewhere in the experience that outweighed better visuals. Only PSP has done well head-to-head with Nintendo, and that was when there weren't many other portable options. It'd be quite the gamble to invest in a hard-core portable machine without proof positive that enough people will choose to stop playing mobile games and use a portable. Some people like those who travel a lot and would like one that's dockable would be all over it, but I'm not sure the market will ever be the many tens of millions worth the hardware investment.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

The argument there though is does the mobile audience want AAA big budget titles on the go?

Yes!
Just look at the global best selling games for the PSP. It's GTA, Gran Turismo, Monster Hunter, God of War, FF7 Crisis Core, etc.
And on the DOA'd Vita, all big budget games got into the top 10: Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty and Killzone Mercenary.

The announcement of a GTA IV/V spinoff would have pumped the sales immensely, I have no doubts about that.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm not sure what the argument regards Switch and 3rd parties is, as to whether any of this is relevant. Everyone has finite gaming hours. If they are busy playing Nintendo's games, they won't be buying other games. That would be true on a Vita2 with loads of Sony exclusives if Sony's titles were as attractive to its core fanbase as Nintendo's are to theirs.

It certainly isn't something easy to deduce, especially since titles on NSW don't divulge digital sales except for Nintendo in their earnings reports, very noticeable in NPD as titles on NSW never include digital sales information. So it's difficult to compare sales impact to either PS4 or XBO where digital sales are generally included but PC sales are sometimes not included.

We can look at relative sales rankings to kind of get an idea...maybe. But even this is rough and possibly not even in the ballpark.

So for example. FIFA 19.

• 32nd in sales on NSW
• 35th in sales on PS4
• 13th in sales on XBO

Er?

What about Minecraft?

• 18th on NSW
• 5th on PS4
• 20th on XBO

Again, er? So, looking at online sales rankings is imperfect at best as noone is divulging actual and/or accurate sales numbers, especially once a title is a year or more old. VGChartz, for example, rarely have updated numbers for 1+ years. As an example, Mario + Rabbids release date Aug. 29th, 2017 with the last sales update being Jan. 24th, 2018.

How about 1st party publisher influence on the top 100?

• Nintendo published 31 titles. But many of those were developed by a 3rd party studio.
  • Some examples being Mario + Rabbids, Octopath Traveller, Xenoblade Chronicles, Bayonetta 2, Fire Emblem Warriors, etc.
• Sony published 16 titles. Only 4 of them were by 3rd party studios (one of which is now a 1st party studio, Insomniac).
• Microsoft published 18 titles. I wasn't expecting Microsoft to publish more top 100 titles than Sony. Again a few of them were 3rd party titles.

So, while Nintendo 1st party titles do significantly better than Sony 1st party titles or Microsoft 1st party titles, 3rd party developers are still doing well on their platform.

Basically just like Nintendo 1st party titles overshadow Sony and Microsoft 1st party titles, they also overshadow 3rd party titles on their platform.

To put that another way, if you were to throw Sony (PS4) and Microsoft's (XBO) first party titles into the NSW sales chart, it probably wouldn't change the top 10 NSW sales rankings much, if at all.

However, it's encouraging that western studios that haven't really published games on Nintendo platforms recently are starting to release titles on NSW. The question is whether they'll continue doing so.

• Bethesda
• Rockstar Games
• CD Projeckt Red
• etc.

Even if they are sometimes older titles, it shows that those publishers are interested in the platform and testing to see if they wish to invest more. At least WRT to iD Software, they're now doing day and date releases on NSW which would have been unthinkable on the past 3+ Nintendo consoles.

TL: DR - Comparisons can't really be made because

• Digital sales data is generally not released for NSW titles.
• Accurate sales data even disregarding that, are impossible to find over the internet.
• Nintendo 1st party titles overshadow EVERYONE'S titles including other console maker 1st party titles.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes!
Just look at the global best selling games for the PSP. It's GTA, Gran Turismo, Monster Hunter, God of War, FF7 Crisis Core, etc.

That was an era without good mobile phone games though. Now there's plenty of quality time-killers on mobile, would the same AAA market exist?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

That was an era without good mobile phone games though. Now there's plenty of quality time-killers on mobile, would the same AAA market exist?

Isn't that a bit like saying why would people want the steak restaurant back now that we have this great hotdog stand in the neighborhood?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No. It's like saying now we have a hotdog stand, is the steak restaurant going to see the same numbers of lunch-time visitors? Before the hotdog stand, they had no choice but to go to the steak restaurant even if they just wanted something quick and simple. Now consumers have the choice of both, how often are they going to choose the steak restaurant?

And in this case, there's already a number of fast-food outlets in a busy business park that serve the work-force at lunch time, and the contemplation is whether opening a steak restaurant in this business park is a profitable idea. Some people will like the idea, but the majority? Enough to make it worthwhile?

The idea 'if you build it, they will come' doesn't work. Just making a portable AAA platform won't ensure success with AAA gamers all desiring such a product.