Goldberg74

This.

Bacon

You don't think Switch U would be better?

Goldberg74

🤣🤣🤣… 😬 Nope.

tonyc3742

I recently got a Switch for my birthday. I haven't had a Nintendo anything since the Wii, and before that, NES. So I'm out of date.
I did sign up for the Online free trial - looks like a good deal for 20 bucks a year.
I have browsed this thread, but it's a long one, so here come the questions.

- How often are games added to or removed from Online?
- Do they give notice before removing?
- In general, physical or digital, or is it just personal preference and pricing?
- Anything else I should know or look into?
- And the big one - Recommendations for games (not just on Online) to check out, for a new-to-handheld gamer? Anything that is on Xbox I'd probably get there, so I'm mostly looking for exclusives, or things that may be on Switch/PC/PS5 but not XSX/XSS. Single player, not traditional sports.

fujishig

Keep in mind that the games that are on the "normal" sub are basically only NES, SNES, and gameboy games. There are the occasional online party games like Tetris 99 or whatever and they do remove them but they will give notice. But it's not like Gamepass or anything where you'll get actual switch games.

The upgraded online pass (they call it an expansion pack) additionally has a selection of N64, Genesis, and Gameboy Advance Games, plus access to the Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, and Splatoon 2 expansion passes if you have those games.

The main benefits of the pass are playing online (which is actually not that common a feature on the switch), cloud saves and special offers, including a voucher system that allows you to buy two digital games from a selection for 99.98. That may not seem like much of a deal but Nintendo games in particular rarely go on sale, so if you want a super recent game it's often a decent deal:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/pr...game-vouchers/

Unlike the other consoles that use discs and mandate that you copy everything onto the console hard drive anyway (the disc is basically just an initial loading mechanism and license check), the switch uses cartridges, so for the most part there isn't as much internal space used. That, I think, is the main advantage of physical. The switch uses micro SD cards but that storage space still pales in comparison with regular hard drives, so even though the games are smaller than other consoles, it can fill up fast... if you're buying digital always take a look at how much space it is expected to take up (especially if you want to buy something like NBA 2k).

Digital games do allow you to use them on more than one switch at the same time but the process is convoluted and locked down, so unless you have two switches I won't get into it here.

As far as library goes, the strength of the switch are the games exclusive to it, particularly first party games. It really depends on what kinds of games you like. If you like traditional mario platforming, Super Mario Wonder just came out. If you want an open world RPG, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a steal if you use a voucher, but you can start with the first game, Breath of the Wild. If you just want a chill experience, there's Animal Crossing. If you want a not too intense first person shooter game, Splatoon 2 or 3. JRPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles (like Final Fantasy, they are just loosely connected), Metroid Dread is a fantastic 2d Metroid, etc. etc.

tanman

Definitely first party games.

The Switch has been one of the best Nintendo consoles in a long time with some of the absolute best entries into their franchises. I'm sure you're familiar with their franchises so pretty much any of the series you've enjoyed get the Switch entries and you won't go wrong.

Zelda Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom
Mario Odyssey
Mario Wonder
Mario Kart
Metroid Prime Remastered
Metroid Dread
Animal Crossing

The first four especially are games that every Switch owner should play. Zelda and Odyssey are absolute masterpieces of 3D Nintendo gaming. IMO right up there with Mario 64 and OOT.

Jay G.

Considering Switch exclusives, this article lists some of the best ones:
https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/...tch-exclusives

Wikipedia has a page listing all the exclusive games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...tch-only_games

As for digital vs physical, it's largely personal preference. fujishig noted some advantages of the physical cartridges, but many like the convenience of quickly being able to select and play games without physically swapping out a cartridge. If you're using the Switch on the go, you have to figure out what physical games to bring along, and if you're on the couch, you'll have to get up and swap out the physical games if you want to play one, along with remember that you have them, because they don't show on your Switch menu unless the cart is in the system.

Also, I use Deku Deals to look for the best deals on Switch games, both physical and digital. If you create an account, you can make a watchlist where the site will notify you when a game goes under a certain price:
https://www.dekudeals.com/

Noonan

That's not correct, is it? I see physical games in the home screen list, it just has a little symbol of the cart in the top left corner so you know it's a physical game, not downloaded.

fujishig

Yeah, the physical games still have an icon on the switch if they are not inserted, you just can't play them without the cartridge.

And yes, dekudeals is a godsend considering the switch shop takes forever to load and there are constantly like hundreds of games on sale which are a pain to browse through.

Jay G.

I guess that shows how often I switch physical carts, i.e. basically never. I assumed that since there's nothing downloaded, they just go away.

BTW, looking up how the screen selector works brought me to this video about a 4 game cart selector one can add to a docked Switch:

fujishig

Looking on amazon there's an upgraded version of that with a small remote control to switch (but then where do you store that remote?). Cool concept but I think it's got limited use especially if you want to easily undock.

Perfect for kids that you don't want fiddling with the cartridge slot, though. Thanks for the video!

tonyc3742

Thanks for the input all. A lot to think about, and some great games to look into!
The DekuDeals looks like a great resource.
Yeah, I've gotten used to digital on Steam and Xbox - I think 3 of the last 15 Xbox games I've gotten were physical.
From the suggestions, I'm looking at Zeldas, Xenoblade, and Mario exploration games.

Question on the vouchers - so basically I spend $99 and get two vouchers to use within a year on digital games? In effect saving 10 bucks a game at regular price?

Goldberg74

Yes, but you have to have an Nintendo Online Switch Membership to purchase the vouchers.

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/pr...game-vouchers/

tanman

I'll tell you the reasons why I prefer physical. In general I'm still a big physical media person. I like that control over the product it gives me. I feel like there is still intrinsic value in the physical game. Especially Nintendo games where they actually run off of the cartridge. But I also don't trust Nintendo. Every console that has past they eventually get to a point where they shut down the eshop. Your purchases are then not accessible and are stuck on the system itself. I also really don't like how they changed currency going from the Wii to the WiiU. So to me at least, I don't really trust Nintendo with digital games. Of course that up to you if that matters or not. But most of the time, for first party games, I buy physical. There were some games like Animal Crossing, and Advance Wars that I wanted to take them with me wherever I went so I got those digitally and actually Mario Kart I have both physical and digital. And Splatoon3 will basically be almost unplayable without the servers so I'm not worried about preservation for that game.

tonyc3742

Those are good points and I think with streaming video we are starting to see a greater awareness of that. Definitely seems like Nintendo is worse about digital preservation than others. I bought one digital game (some 2.00 casual thing, so I'm not too worried about it) but I think I'll lean toward physical where possible. They don't take up a lot of physical room. Plus they seem to hold their value a little more (maybe for these exact reasons).
Of course the flip side to physical is my wife asking me, "Do you need to keep all this closet full of old video games?" (multiple Sega generations, PS1, PS2, even some old PC games) and my acknowledging I'll never replay 99.5% of them, but I don't want to just throw them away or donate them in mass.
Anyway so far I'm enjoying it. I am exploring some of the older gen games I missed on previous consoles via Online, and it seems to have a lot of power and games look good, even considering it's a handheld. Looks good on TV too. I may eventually need to get bigger controllers, I feel like a giant when using these in detached mode, and my "main" gaming will still be traditional console, but this is pretty cool.

Music

Usable physical media (for the majority of games on discs) is all but dead.

Goldberg74

All of the video game YouTubers are chatting about the demise of physical video games and the threat of subscriptions taking over and becoming the only option for playing video games so that there is no individual ownership, no ability to collect games, nor resell them. If they wanted to pull a game, they could and you would have no say in the matter other than to unsubscribe from their service.

It's a slippery slope to go down.

It's hard to listen to them talk about it too because it's all speculation and emotional.

I'm fully in the physical media camp but do have a soft spot for sub $15 indie games that I do buy digitally.

lwhy?

I'll buy a game digitally if it's under $10. Otherwise, I'm buying the physical version. I like being able to sell it or trade it if I don't like it or get tired of playing it.

Decker

I used to feel the same way. But now between 10% off PSN and eShop credit at Costco and the lack of sales tax on digital purchases in my state (and also the Nintendo Online vouchers), I save at least 20% buying things digitally. It just makes more sense for me, unless there's a Steelbook or some physical collectable.

lwhy?

I don't like paying more than $20 and being stuck with a digital game forever. I'd rather pay 20% more and still have some resale value in a physical game. You can even loan physical games to friends. You can't do that with digital games.

GatorDeb

Ah, you console players who still get a choice.

Decker

It's in a console discussion threat that YOU started!

GatorDeb

I know I was just wistfully sighing

tanman

tanman

I have no problems at all buying digital games. Especially indy games that pretty much only come out on digital. It's mainly first party Nintendo games that I want physically.

But as music said, are physical games even a thing anyways? Especially on disc? Could you really put a disc in our PS5's 20 years from now and expect it to play? Even Nintendo has day one updates. But I still feel like Nintendo games have a much higher chance of just working 20 years from now. The other two I'm not really sure about.