The Nintendo Switch Has Too Many Ports

[Nz17]

So I posted this on a Facebook group:

I am part of an exclusive group that gets discounted Nintendo Switch games. However you can join for free! All you need to do is to make sure that when you buy your Switch games that you mention the discount code, "Wii U." This applies for the following games marked with the Switch icon and is good for a 33% discount or more in some cases! (Note: Games require a Wii U or 3DS to work.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwi...ds_transition/

Switch is 2Port4You!  (This post was only meant in good fun. I hope you enjoyed it!)

But sadly, people can't take a joke, even if it is based on the truth. (Or perhaps I should write, "Especially if it is based on the truth.")

I got only one comment, and it was a damned animated GIF. I hate those goddamned things being used as replies! "I can't be bothered to use words or I don't know how to use them. Have some animated thing instead! Let someone else speak for me." Not only that, but these damned things are labeled as "GIF's" when they aren't even GIF's on these social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter - they are MP4's! (I've got animated GIF's and other images disabled on this forum, so even if you post them, I won't see them.)

So what did the GIF say with its images and words?

Hook + fish. This is bait.

No, it wasn't. It was meant exactly as the words in it say: to be in good fun. That's it, just a reflection of real life with some humor. But no, he couldn't believe someone was being benign and honest, and he couldn't enjoy a little laugh for what it is, instead warning people against my non-existent malicious intent. Thanks for ruining my day, guy.

How many games on the Switch are just ports from another platform? A ton. And a lot of those are by Nintendo itself! As a matter of fact, at least 25 major games are on both Wii U and Switch. And that's not counting the little games and the indie games!

Furthermore, how many games which are identical or nearly identical can be obtained on the Wii U or 3DS for far less than on the Switch? We're talking $60 (Switch, new condition) versus $20 - $40 (3DS and Wii U, new or used condition). You literally can save a lot of money buying for 3DS and/or Wii U instead of Switch. And the savings are even greater when buying the PC version of a game, especially during one of the big holiday sales.

Be a "retro" gamer! Save big bucks! Use that money to buy more games or other nice things!

But how dare I utter such words? Truly they are an affront against the new master! The master is the newness, therefore it is good and only good. Away with you and your old platforms! Speak not against our master with your heresy!

...or something. /shrugs.

[Spartacus]

Late console entry's get ports. Some ports get bonus features not present in the original release. Those are the 3rd party Switch games I'm interested in most. E.g.
God Wars: The Complete Legend has 100+ hours of new content, new mechanics and all DLC from God Wars Future Past.
Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory has all new art, Exemplars, monsters, bosses and challenges not found in the original releases.
I just purchased Strictly Limited Games Switch port of Velocity 2X for the 16 additional DLC levels.

But to be fair, I've also read reviews of Switch ports that complain of missing features, bad graphics and stuttering frame rates.

Porting Wii U 1st party games to the Switch seems like an obvious cash grab and cheapens the value of my owning a Wii U in the first place. But I do seem to recall that some Wii U ports on the Switch also have additional features and/or game play improvements. I think Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was one of those.

I think a discussion of Switch ports, those that are better and those that are worse, would be an interesting read.

[Aussie2B]

Nintendo is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation with the Wii U ports. A lot of Wii U owners are bitter about investing in a poorly supported system to begin with, and it's like adding insult to injury to strip away its exclusives (even more so for people who own a Switch as well, rendering their Wii U redundant). But if they leave those games exclusive to Wii U, they're going to get complaints from people who don't own Wii Us and don't want to have to buy a failed system to have access to those games.

Personally, as someone who doesn't have a Wii U (nor a Switch, but I have multiple family members who do), I'm happy to have the opportunity to play games like Mario Kart 8 on Switch.

There's also the added bonus that, on top of extra content, a lot of Switch ports run better than the games do on Wii U and certainly much better than any versions on 3DS, which is frankly an extremely weak piece of hardware compared to anything else on the market right now. I mean, the 3DS is significantly weaker than even the Vita, which people often criticize for not being able to run games well compared to their PS3 and PS4 counterparts. The 3DS is perfectly fine for its own exclusives and ports of games that came out prior to the 3DS, but practically no one wants to play a 3DS version of a game they could play on Switch.

[kupomogli]

Now, my opinion has slightly changed, but it's always been mostly towards the Nintendo hardcore than the console itself.

As a colllector, I don't like ports because if my main console is the PS4, that leaves the Switch with just as few games as the Wii U had for me to purchase, and like Aussie2B stated, as someone who was already burned by the Wii U in the first place with about 10 games to its name, every single Switch port is a slap in the face. The Switch has very few games both indie and AAA that are exclusive to the Switch and even fewer that are at retail. You also have to consider that I don't just buy everything, some of these exclusives might not interest me or are pretty mediocre games, so I'm not going to bother.

For those die hard Nintendo fans, the ones that refuse to purchase anything that isn't Nintendo, the Switch is a great console, because the indie devs or these smaller budget releases are often better than many of the games released by major publishers. Aside from Mega Man 11(which is also on the Switch,) when is the last time you've played a game released by a AAA publisher that was even in the same genre as N++, Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero, Dead Cells, etc. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne is amazing, but Salt and Sanctuary takes that game design and releases an absolutely amazing mixture of action RPG and platforming. It's not like Salt and Sanctuary is a tiny game either, the game is pretty massive in size. Hyper Light Drifter is like Zelda without all the power ups but faster and more skill based, allowing the player to tackle the four areas in any order to progress through the game. Furi has you going through an incredibly well designed series of bosses with a quality of game that's imo better than Shadow of the Colossus.

For any Switch owner that doesn't own another console and is never planning on owning another console it doesn't matter, it's got an incredible library where it really matters. For anyone who is interested in one day owning a Switch, especially if you've owned a Wii U before, what's the point? Theres less than 10 games that I can't already get on the PS4.

[Tupin]

Nintendo consoles sadly only really end up having good games from Nintendo themselves. All of the indie stuff is better on PC, and there are very few indie exclusive games anyway. But Nintendo is doing this really crappy thing where nearly every game they make is either a port or had the bare minimum of effort put into it. I think in the 22 months that the Switch has been out, there have been more months where ports were featured than anything else. The games that aren't ports? Well, they're mostly underwhelming (save Zelda/Mario) because they have this super annoying new way of releasing a game. It goes like this: they release a game that has the absolute bare minimum of content in it, then slowly drip feed the content that should have been in there to start with over the course of a year. Why? Well, one, they probably haven't finished everything and two, because of social media "hype." However, I think this doesn't really work. Who is going to go back to Kirby Star Allies after six months just because "ooh, new character?" Same goes for Splatoon 2/ARMS/Mario Tennis Aces. ARMS completely leaving the public consciousness kind of shows that this doesn't really work.

Nintendo is getting super greedy these days, but they know people will keep buying it. The NSMBU port, a port of a game that isn't even that great, sold amazingly well so they're going to be encouraged. As an aside, (taking this from a Youtuber who talked about this), how does Nintendo/Miyamoto justify keeping the F-Zero/Pilotwings/Wave Race etc franchises dead for so long because "we can't do anything new with them" but have been milking the mediocre at best New Super Mario Bros series for 13+ years?

[Gameguy]

Nintendo consoles sadly only really end up having good games from Nintendo themselves.

Except for the NES and SNES consoles, back then there were still exclusive 3rd party games that were well made and not part of an existing franchise from a previous console generation. Plenty of great games from Konami, Capcom, and others from back then.