Nintendo Switch: Thread 10

[Neon Ignition]

Nintendo should use some of the money to work on their security, their systems are always fast to fall. A healthy dose of Day 1 Switch 2 buyers will probably get one just to shove in a cupboard for six months until someone cracks it

[Tobal]

Nintendo won't win anything much like Sony with Bleem back in the day, this is just to frustrate them for a bit.

[Asura]

Who says they'll ever invalidate those purchases?

Have digital Wii, WiiU, DSi and 3DS software purchases been invalidated??

I mean... You can still play those games on those platforms. But you can't download them anymore if you don't presently have them on those machines, right? It's not like I could buy a Wii now, connect it to the internet and download my digital content. And I can't download and play it on the Switch.

But more-over... Digital purchases are a bit weird because despite being a thing for ages now (I mean Steam is over 20 years old), I would argue that, on console, they weren't normalised until relatively recently. Sure, some people bought full-price digital games on the Xbox 360 but I would be willing to assert that was a relatively small number.

I think, if Nintendo announced a new console and you couldn't bring your purchases over to it, while that's effectively what happened with the WiiU>Switch, it would be a very different ballgame because I think the number of what I would, hesitantly, call "normal people" who have bought full-price Zeldas and Marios on the Switch absolutely crushes any number who did so on prior consoles.

Like... I think the number of people who are expecting to transfer their bought-full-price digital games to the Switch 2 is of a magnitude that it makes prior discussions about, say, the jump from PS3 to PS4 irrelevant.

[Neon Ignition]

I'd hope those games carry over if for no other reason that it ruling out them being rereleased for Switch 2. Hopefully for Switch 2 that will lead to the remaining, less widely available omissions finally making the jump and finally some new entries now that the port options are almost exhausted.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I mean... You can still play those games on those platforms. But you can't download them anymore if you don't presently have them on those machines, right?

That's literally how it's supposed to work as things currently stand on those machines.

You download a game, you play it. If you delete it, you can redownload. So my point stands, they haven't been invalidated because you can clearly still access and play the games that you purchase digitally on those machines.

Buying older consoles long after Nintendo announced that they were being discontinued along with their online services - online services that they kept alive for a decade-plus and then gave everybody ample advance warning that they were shutting them down - is a different argument altogether.

Cross-platforming for that content is also a different argument altogether.

[Nu-Eclipse]

...all of that said, I'll reiterate what I've always said on here: Nintendo ditching BC for Switch 2 would be a surefire way to destroy consumer goodwill for those who have invested considerable sums on digital and physical Switch software purchases.

[Neon Ignition]

It worked for Sony with PSV...oh

[wakka]

I mean... You can still play those games on those platforms. But you can't download them anymore if you don't presently have them on those machines, right? It's not like I could buy a Wii now, connect it to the internet and download my digital content. And I can't download and play it on the Switch.

But more-over... Digital purchases are a bit weird because despite being a thing for ages now (I mean Steam is over 20 years old), I would argue that, on console, they weren't normalised until relatively recently. Sure, some people bought full-price digital games on the Xbox 360 but I would be willing to assert that was a relatively small number.

I think, if Nintendo announced a new console and you couldn't bring your purchases over to it, while that's effectively what happened with the WiiU>Switch, it would be a very different ballgame because I think the number of what I would, hesitantly, call "normal people" who have bought full-price Zeldas and Marios on the Switch absolutely crushes any number who did so on prior consoles.

Like... I think the number of people who are expecting to transfer their bought-full-price digital games to the Switch 2 is of a magnitude that it makes prior discussions about, say, the jump from PS3 to PS4 irrelevant.

It's an interesting question.

You're right, it mattered so much less in the past because people had small minorities of their collections in digital format.

But as we progress to basically post-ownership for media, how is it fair that everything we buy has a use-by date on it?

It's honestly where legislation needs to step in to mandate the ongoing maintenance of digital media availability. Because how ****ed up is it as a culture if we just continually delete stuff, like how movie studios used to burn old films to make room in their warehouses back in the early 20th century?

[huxley]

Citra has gone now as well. Didnt the 3DS store close last year?
Digital ownership is not worth the paper it’s written on

[Nu-Eclipse]

Citra has gone now as well. Didnt the 3DS store close last year?

Yup. It closed in so far as being able to purchase new titles but a skeleton service is still in place for you to redownload anything you already purchased.

The preservation scene for 3DS digital software is extremely well covered, though. Easy to hack your 3DS and get ahold of eShop titles you might have missed first time around.

[Dogg Thang]

But as we progress to basically post-ownership for media, how is it fair that everything we buy has a use-by date on it?

It's honestly where legislation needs to step in to mandate the ongoing maintenance of digital media availability. Because how ****ed up is it as a culture if we just continually delete stuff, like how movie studios used to burn old films to make room in their warehouses back in the early 20th century?

It's a messy and far-reaching topic because it covers too much and often things that get lumped in together that aren't the same. For example, preservation should be essential. We've seen films vanish, TV shows vanish and so on and some are literally gone forever and no longer exist. But preservation does not mean it's a given that everything should be available to everyone. And nobody can honestly say that most people pirating Switch games are doing it in the name of preservation. That would be a lie, and companies have a duty to protect their product and IP. Similarly, the value and protection of digital ownership needs to be a given. It should not be the case that you can buy a movie or game and it can later be deleted from existence, which has happened. But the other side of that is that anyone buying a Switch game has no reason and should have no reason to believe it will work on another system - that's not what was being sold. These and other things seem to get lumped into the same conversation but they're all different things.

One of the biggest problems in all this in my view isn't even one of these issues specifically - it's a somewhat successful shift in business model across all sorts of media and business from single ownership to a transient subscription system where we pay forever and own nothing and have no guarantee that what we want will still be there. To me, it's kind of mad that we have not just accepted this but largely embraced it. That comes with all sorts of problems and makes the discussion of protection even harder.

[Nu-Eclipse]

And so the Yuzu/Citra fallout begins.

DS emulator Drastic made free on Google Play before impending delisting, popular Steam Deck emulation Discord channel shut down, invites for Ryujinx emulator Discord channel paused and EmuDeck forced to change up its offerings for Switch & 3DS emulation.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/5/24091561/nintendo-lawsuit-fallout-yuzu

[huxley]

In the end most of these emulators are open source anyway, years down the road there will be options to play games from this generation long after the hardware is done.
As long as you have means to dump the games, which posses other problems as a fair few aren't fully on the cartridges in the first place.

[Lebowski]

And so the Yuzu/Citra fallout begins.

DS emulator Drastic made free on Google Play before impending delisting, popular Steam Deck emulation Discord channel shut down, invites for Ryujinx emulator Discord channel paused and EmuDeck forced to change up its offerings for Switch & 3DS emulation.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/5/24...t-fallout-yuzu

Kind of as it should be, the only reason to have a switch emulator is so you can pirate games that you can still go out and buy in a shop. dead platforms that has all the best software in the hands of collectors and that you can't buy any more than fill your boots.

[Asura]

Kind of as it should be, the only reason to have a switch emulator is so you can pirate games that you can still go out and buy in a shop. dead platforms that has all the best software in the hands of collectors and that you can't buy any more than fill your boots.

Yeaaaaaah... It sets my teeth on edge when I see people on Reddit doing these videos showing how well x contemporary Switch game runs on a Steam Deck. It just seems to be courting controversy.