Latest news with #Nintendo
The Verge
6 hours ago
- Business
- The Verge
The Nintendo Switch was an indie game haven, until it was overrun with slop
The first several months after Nintendo released the Switch in 2017 have been described as a 'gold rush' for independent game developers. The Switch's eShop wasn't exactly barren, but early on there was a lot of room for new releases. To put it into perspective, Nintendo announced in 2018 that around 1,000 games were added to the platform in its first year or so. The number of games released each year just adds to the number of games available on the eShop; in 2024, GameDiscoverCo reported that 50 games were added per week, leading to more than 2,300 new games in 2024 by November. What started as a gold rush for indie developers slowly spoiled, and eventually the eShop became overrun with slop. This pushed some developers to the margins, while platform degradation soured the experience as a whole. Coming out of the so-called indiepocalypse, the period after the indie golden age from 2008 to 2015 — think Fez, Braid, and Super Meat Boy — developers were reeling from the massive influx of competition and a decline in discoverability. The eShop, for some time, was a reprieve to that. Nintendo itself seemed poised to support that period of growth; days ahead of the Switch's launch date, the company announced that it had already locked in more than 60 'quality indie games' for 2017. PC Gamer reported in October 2017 that 'almost every indie release on Switch' had sold better on Switch than on other platforms. Enter the Gungeon sold more than 75,000 copies in just two weeks, developer Dodge Roll Games said, while Team Meat posted in January 2018 that Super Meat Boy 's first day on Switch had 'shockingly close' numbers to its Xbox 360 debut. SteamWorld Dig 2, one of the titles Nintendo was boasting about, sold between five to 10 times more copies on Switch than it did on Steam, per a PC Gamer report. Rodrigue Duperron of Spiritfarer developer Thunder Lotus says that the studio 'missed the gold rush' when it published Jotun on the Switch in April 2018, but was still 'quite pleased' with its performance. (It was published on Wii U in 2016.) 'I don't believe it's a coincidence that monthly releases to the eShop still numbered in 'mere' dozens in early 2018,' he says. Thunder Lotus expected its next game, Sundered, to sell better, but Duperron said the team was 'mildly disappointed' — and pointed to the massive increase of games released monthly. 'It didn't feel at the time that shovelware or bargain basement titles were yet flooding the platform, but this was more of a low simmer which would come to a boil over the next few years,' he says. 2020's Spiritfarer saw increased success outside of the 'indie boom' for several reasons, one of which was that Nintendo included it in its featured section. 'More visibility led to more sales, led to being included in the Best Sellers section,' Duperron says. Abhi Swaminathan, founder of Venba developer Visai Games, echoes this sentiment. The game, which was released in 2023, was featured in two Nintendo Indie Directs, which he partly attributes to success on the platform. (Sales remain 'almost neck-to-neck with Steam sales,' he says.) Over the eight years since the Switch launched, the platform became crowded. It began looking a lot more like Steam, which is blasted daily with new games. The Switch, clearly, is not immune from the low-effort games that muck up the market. In recent years, they've gotten a name: eShop slop. As IGN put it in February, slop games are distinct from the otherwise 'unremarkable games' that get released every day. They're rarely what they're advertised as, are based on popular or trending concepts, and are rife with technical issues. It's not really that the eShop has started to rust, just that it wasn't 'particularly sophisticated from a discovery point of view to start with,' GameDiscoverCo author and industry analyst Simon Carless tells The Verge. 'I don't know if any store is free from the eventual onslaught of 'slop games.'' Among Us studio Innersloth CEO Forest Willard tells The Verge that the process of getting games onto the eShop is more specific and time-consuming than with other platforms, like Steam. 'Many games on the eShop are ones that have gamed the system and streamlined their processes to churn out content (slop), while developers who go through the process with care and intent aren't necessarily rewarded by the algorithm,' he says. But it's not an easy fix — nor is it a problem unique to Nintendo. 'I don't know if any store is free from the eventual onslaught of 'slop games' unless they're highly curated or gatekeep-y, which would present its own problems,' Innersloth communications director Victoria Tran adds. Nintendo has made tweaks to its system over the years, but its biggest one happened recently, likely in anticipation of the Switch 2. Nintendo updated how it ranks games in its top-sellers category, changing the ranking from number of sales to highest sales. Carless said this is a shift from three-day revenue to 14-day downloads, a way of pushing out highly discounted games that sell a lot. (Nintendo declined to comment.) James Barnard of Let's Build a Zoo developer Springloaded says this system 'could help to reduce certain titles climbing the charts solely through continued deep discounts.' But he warns that it's not a total fix. 'The new system still isn't perfect, as it seems that the charts instead favor games with higher price points,' he says. 'This means we would potentially need to sell three times as many copies as a AAA game to feature as highly in the listings.' Game developers The Verge spoke to agree that there are improvements Nintendo can make to help indies shine on its new eShop. Duperron suggests user reviews, while Barnard and Willard would both like to see better performance overall — load times, curation, and search functionality can be an issue. 'It's fine to know exactly what you want to play, but there's no 'You might like' that would get me from Hollow Knight (easily found on the best seller lists) to Unsighted or Iconoclasts (incredible and similar games, but not evergreen sellers),' Willard says. Nintendo is trying something like this with its 'Game finds for you' feature so that players don't have to 'search every nook and cranny' of the eShop, Switch 2 producer Kouichi Kawamoto said in an Ask the Developer interview from April. In that interview, Nintendo senior director Takuhiro Dohta addressed performance on the eShop, too, stating that it will run more smoothly even with a huge amount of games. He added that the act of finding a game to play is an important part of the Nintendo Switch 2 experience. Nintendo is clearly thinking about the problems of the past, and has implemented some fixes to support the eShop on its new hardware. The key detail, however, will be how it continues to tweak the platform — developers and analysts hope Nintendo won't simply set the shop then forget it. 'Nintendo has made some much-needed changes to both Switch and Switch 2 eShop ahead of launching the Switch 2, but we'd like to see iterations more often than 'once per platform cycle,'' Carless said.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Switch 2 Is Shaping Up To Be The Port Machine The Original Never Was
I hope all of you are ready for a lot of PS4, PS5, and Xbox ports arriving on Switch 2 over the next few months, because that seems to be our future. For folks who primarily play on Switch and soon Switch 2, it will be a chance to play a lot of great games that were too much for the OG console to handle, or which arrived via less-than-stellar ports. For everyone else, well, that new Donkey Kong game looks cool... The $450 Nintendo Switch 2 is nearly here, though some people already have their hands on the console ahead of its June 5 launch. Its launch lineup isn't horrible, but it's nothing too impressive either. It mainly features a handful of new, exclusive games, like Mario Kart World, and some upgraded versions of OG Switch games. But the majority of the Switch 2's launch lineup is ports like Cyberpunk 2077. And that's because, unlike the old Switch, Nintendo's new machine is actually going to be able to run these games without compromising visuals and features. Looking at the launch lineup for June 5, of the 25 or so games arriving on day one, about 10 of them are ports of old games that didn't arrive on the original Switch. Stuff like the previously mentioned Cyberpunk 2077, Street Fighter 6, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and Split Fiction. Then there are some Switch 2 ports that are replacing or upgrading older Switch ports, including Civilization 7, Fortnite, Hogwarts Legacy, and Hitman: World of Assassination, which was only available as a cloud-powered streaming game on the old machine. There are also ports that are coming after launch, like Star Wars Outlaws in September. It's not surprising that a big chunk of games announced for Switch 2 so far are ports of older titles. The original Switch got plenty of ports during its run, but most AAA games were chopped up and squished onto the aging hardware, resulting in some really ugly conversions. Sure, some of these games, like Doom (2016), ran mostly fine and looked okay on Nintendo's hybrid console, but there was always this feeling when playing these ports that the Switch hardware was being pushed to its limits. And then, when the PS5 and Xbox Series X arrived on the scene in 2020, games started targeting the more powerful hardware, and Switch ports became harder to pull off. As a result, we got some truly gnarly versions of great-looking games. Remember Mortal Kombat 1 on Switch? Yikes. In the last few years, fewer and fewer big games have been making the leap to Switch, primarily because the hardware is so old and outdated that they would be impossible to pull it off, or you'd have to compromise the visuals and performance so much that it wouldn't be worth it. So the Switch 2 is a big deal for a lot of publishers who have been unable to bring some of their recent games to Nintendo's audience, which is often cited as a group of people hungry for new content. And for players, it means they'll receive some fantastic-looking ports. As recently pointed out by Digital Foundry, Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 looks as good (and sometimes better) than the open-world game running on an Xbox Series S or PS4. That's thanks in large part to DLSS, but also the guts of the Switch 2 are just significantly better than those of the Switch. There is more power inside this new console, and that's going to be good news for devs, publishers, and players. All of this does mean that the Switch 2 will likely end up being something of a port machine as publishers race to get their big games running on the new console. That might be annoying for people who buy Nintendo consoles for exclusives and unique experiences, but with Mario Kart World, Metroid Prime 4, and Donkey Kong Bananza on the way, we can feel pretty confident that we'll get plenty of those games, too. They'll just be the outliers among a ton of nice-looking PS5 and Xbox ports. . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Fox News
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Nintendo's Big Year, Fortnite's iOS Return, and Veteran Support with Regiment.gg
Dive into the latest gaming news with Nintendo's eventful year, Roblox's new parental advocacy role, and Fortnite's return to iOS. Discover which games are getting TV or movie adaptations. Plus, join CEO Chris Earl, a Marine veteran, as he shares how their group supports military members and veterans. Stay updated on game subscription services and what you can play this month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit Jeffrey Petz
Digital Trends
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
All confirmed tracks in Mario Kart World
The big attraction for Mario Kart World is the fact that all the courses exist in the same open world. For the first time ever, we will be able to roam around between tracks in one seamless world to practice driving, find secrets, or just hang out with our friends. This will easily be the biggest Switch 2 launch game, but exactly how big is the world in Mario Kart World? Or more specifically, how many tracks are there? Nintendo hasn't revealed all the courses we can look forward to racing on, but we combed through all the footage to pick out every new and returning track revealed so far. Every new track in Mario Kart World Based on the screenshots and trailers for Mario Kart World, we have spotted nine new courses among the new circuits. Since there are seven circuits, each one having four tracks, that would mean the total number of courses should be 28 (or 29 if Rainbow Road is in the game but not included in these track lists). We do still see a few courses that haven't been named yet, so we know this isn't the full list. Here's each one we know in alphabetical order: Acorn Heights Boo Cinema Cheep Cheep Falls Crown City Dandelion Depths DK Spaceport Faraway Oisis Great Block Ruins Mario Bros. Circuit Peach Stadium Salty Salty Speedway Starview Peak Whistlestop Summit Recommended Videos Every returning track in Mario Kart World It wouldn't be a true Mario Kart game without at least a few returning classic tracks. By our count, Mario Kart World has 14 returning courses from across the franchise's history. We are almost sure that number will actually be 15 since Rainbow Road isn't technically confirmed, but was heavily hinted at in the Direct. For now, these are all the returning courses: Airship Fortress Choco Mountain Desert Hills Dino Dino Jungle DK Pass Koopa Troopa Beach Mario Circuit Moo Moo Meadows Peach Beach Shy Guy Bazaar Sky-High Sundae Toad's Factory Wario Shipyard Wario Stadium
The Verge
8 hours ago
- Business
- The Verge
These new Switch 2 accessories are already discounted
If you, like me, have begun to pick out accessories for your Switch 2 before it arrives on June 5th, here's a money-saving tip: a handful of Hori's upcoming accessories are at least 30 percent off at Amazon. My favorite (and arguably the most stylish) among the bunch is the Puff Pouch carrying case. Its design evokes the look of a puffy jacket, if not quite to the level of premium puffiness of Apple's zip-up case for the Vision Pro headset. The Puff Pouch zips open and shut, with a handle on one of its long sides. It boasts room for the console, up to six game cartridges, and extra accessories, like a small battery, the power brick, or a webcam. Even though there's a Switch 2 logo patch embroidered into the pouch's fabric, there's nothing stopping you from using it with an original Switch instead. That'll be our little secret. Originally priced at $44.99, this case is $29.99 at Amazon and comes out June 16th. For an extra $5 (totaling to $34.99 at Amazon), you might prefer Hori's Switch 2 cross-body shoulder bag. It offers a similar amount of storage capacity to the Puff Pouch, and can also be used to tote the Switch 2, or any of the original Switch models. As an alternative to wearing the bag, you can also carry it by hand with its strap. This one comes out June 30th. The last (for now) discounted Hori product is its Dual USB PlayStand, a small USB hub that gives your console more ports for accessories, much like the TV dock does. It has two USB-A ports for controllers, plus a USB-C port in case you want to keep your Switch 2 charged as you play. Normally $69.99 (whew, that's costly), it's selling at a more reasonable (but still pretty steep) $39.99 at Amazon. This product also releases on June 30th.
