Many Switch 2 ports announced today including FF VII Rebirth, Fallout 4 Anniversary, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Oblivion Remastered.

Hollow Knight has a free S2 update out today.

Also, Constance, a new indie metroidvania was announced to launch on Switch in May. Currently just on Steam, I believe.

Hopefully the Dread series will be alive and well. As much as I love the Prime series I really love 2D Metroid. I really want to see more of why Mercury studios can do.

Fallout 4, Elders Scrolls 4, Witcher 3, how many people have played GTA 1&2? I get your point. And speaking to that I would have loved a MP2&3 remaster release and wonder how that would have pumped up hype for MP4. But I really don’t think it being called Metroid Prime 4 had anything to do with poor sales.

Honestly I think the time may have past for the FPS single player game. Every other FPS that comes out has a huge multiplayer component to it. MP came out at a very different time and was revolutionary when it did. It’s a vastly different environment now. Many FPS are F2P. And the popular single player games have evolved to incorporate a lot of other play mechanics. Like Fallout 4. Or offer an incredibly immersive experience and world like RDR2. You can’t come out with a huge hyped up game in development for years and have your new play mechanic be that every special weapon just has psychic in front of the name. Or a giant empty desert. I mean I loved MP4. I thought it was a good game. But it didn’t bring anything new to the table for fans. Let alone some thing new to garner new fans.

I got my first physical game for the S2, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, and found that even though the game is only 6GB in size, it's not on the cartridge, it has to be downloaded. WTF? That is so weird.
I guess I didn't understand how these download cartridges work. It's different than a code right, you can still lend it to a friend and sell it? It's more like a PS5 version of a PS4 disc based game -- the physical media is the license to play the download? So weird to do that for such a small game size.

That's correct. It's cheaper for the manufacturer and lets you still loan it out or resell the game.

But yeah, it's also a trend I hope goes away. If I buy a physical release it's because I want the contents on the cartridge, not a permissions file.

Especially at full price.

I won't buy a S2 game that isn't on the cart unless it's at some crazy price lower than digital. Only physical games I've purchased have been on-cart.

Yeah it's been a big controversy since it started and I'd honestly rather have a download code so I don't need the cartridge as a "license check." But I guess it allows you to resell your game/let people borrow it. I too have yet to buy a Game-Key Card though if it gets a ton cheaper than digital I'll be tempted.

Actually now I'm curious, for those that have bought them, does it still do an online check to see if you can play it? I'd assume the cartridge is the check so you wouldn't need that but wasn't sure.

Yeah, works like any other cartridge game once it's been downloaded. Insert the cart and play. I sort of get it if it were a huge game like Hogwarts or Star Wars Outlaws that require a lot of streaming data for environments. Here in a tiny,pretty but very simple, game like DQ7 Reimagined it doesn't make any sense.

It's because of cost, like RichC2 said. For whatever reason, in the beginning the only physical cartridge available to 3rd party developers was a bigger one that was expensive to manufacture... so even if your game was tiny you'd have to put up the cost for those cartridges (akin to the early Nintendo days, I guess because NES, N64, etc cartridges were all costly). A source said it was 64GB cartridges only and they were 16 bucks in cost each to the developers which is ridiculous (though apparently N64 cartridges were 10 bucks which is 20 with inflation, not that we want to go back to those days). Game Key cards are presumably much, much cheaper. I think they've since introduced smaller and cheaper cartridges but again it'll take a LOT of user pushback to get developers to go with the more expensive options (I think it already happened with titles like R-type)

Yeah, Nintendo just started their move to create 16 - 32gb cartridges for the Switch 2 after requiring 64gb since launch. No idea when those will finally be available though.

On the storage front, I bought a 512gb P9 Samsung Express card yesterday for $80 to replace my 256gb and can already feel like I fucked up by not getting the Lexar 1TB for $179.

Looking up the r-type thing:
So they got backlash because they were releasing a collectors edition that was a game key card. They went back and said they were going to make it a regular game card because Nintendo was offering smaller storage sizes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwi...ly_oncard_two/

Then they apparently removed that statement and revised it saying it would be on cartridge but be more expensive (but they would honor previous preorders which is a great thing for them to do). So apparently that info wasn't supposed to be released yet and you're right, no timeline on that at all:
https://iningames.com/blogs/news/upd...dimensions-iii

In my case it doesn't really matter to me because it's a small file and didn't take long to DL or take up much storage. Like I said, I thought it was was an issue of file size, not cost savings.

1 TB Lexar is $150 at Costco
https://www.costco.com/p/-/lexar-pla...9472?langId=-1

It's the worst of both worlds that's why everyone is so up in arms about it. It only benefits Nintendo to be able to upcharge on selling the cart.

The biggest controversy now is the upcoming Pokopia game, a first party game, is on one of those stupid things.

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/pr...ersion-switch/

Did I miss an announcement?
$20?! For each version? Why isn’t this going to be included on NSO Expansion??

This is why Nintendo’s reputation has been in the trash lately.

To drive sales when it's on sale for $6.99 in a month ?

Online discourse about Nintendo:
They release a game and put it on NSO - the internet complains that it is locked behind a subscription and they just want to buy and own the games.

They release a game and put it up for sale - the internet complains that it is not part of the subscription and they have to pay for it.

I won't disagree that to a segment of the internet Nintendo can't do anything right and are always too greedy. That said I never heard much complaining about the games that they put up on NSO, Most people think that service is a pretty good value though many wish there were more games on the service.

There was plenty of complaining when the Nintendo Classics line for NSO was first announced. At the time, plenty of people preferred the old Virtual Console method of buying and owning per-game, and some wanted their Wii/Wii U VC titles transferred over. The complaining has since died down a lot, but it's not nonexistant.

Some more info on the Pokémon Firered and Leafgreen versions for Switch:
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/20...-switch-online

A big wrinkle is that the Pokémon games are owned by The Pokémon Company, which Nintendo owns part of (32%), but not entirely owns. That's enough to make Pokémon a Nintendo exclusive video game line, but not enough where licensing can't occasionally be tricky. Nintendo can't just unilaterally put the Pokémon games onto NSO, they have to negotiate licensing and fees. Some of the spin-off Pokémon games are on NSO, but none of the "mainline" games, and that seems to be by choice. Either The Pokémon Company is asking insane licensing fees for inclusion in the subscription service, or they prefer to keep the mainline games a purchase-only product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pok%C3%A9mon_Company

That’s true and a good point about “owning” the game if you’re not an expansion pass customer.

But either way to charge $20 for straight up GBA ports is egregious.

I wonder what the Pokémon fans think? This is the fandom that has a $600 Lego model and seemingly bottomless income for cards.

Do people really subscribe to NSO just for the retro service and not because they play Splatoon or want cloud saves or whatever?

My family does. My sons enjoy poking around with the older games and I will revisit classics from time to time. I don't think any of us have played any online games on the platform.

Expansion Pass, yes.

I never use the NES or SNES retro services. Have the basic NSO FWIW.

Pretty interesting article about the most likely reason these 2 games aren't part of the subscription service. Since all the subscription Nintendo classics have rewind capabilities and save states if they added these Pokemon titles to them it could mess with the Pokemon Home ecosystem since you can transfer monsters from every old game into the most recent game. And if you were save scumming with the rewind capabilities and save states it would be much easier to get the best version of monsters and add them to Pokemon Home which would flood the online community with these rare Pokemon.

https://www.polygon.com/pokemon-fire...transfer-home/