*** Nintendo Switch ***

Zelda and bomberman will be more than enough to keep me occupied until mk8 drops the month after tbh.

The launch line up is fine. After all, it's more of a complimentary console to the PS4/xbone.
 
Haha yeah, was reading about that last night. Least that guy who done the unboxing video gave it back. By this weekend quite a few more should be out. Not long now!!
 
Interesting video about Nintendo's strategy with the Switch release


Kobi said:
Haha yeah, was reading about that last night. Least that guy who done the unboxing video gave it back. By this weekend quite a few more should be out. Not long now!!
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The guy actually tried to sell it on at one point :o.

I knew there was something dodgy when he originally said 'I got lucky, a retailer sent it me early by accident' lol.
 
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The idea of a soft launch is that you DON'T waste money marketing it, you just open, you get a TINY amount of customers and you do it just to check things are working, to let you get into the swing of waking up to open a store every morning, to get the timing of deliveries spot on, to get staff interviewed, employed and trained and then you do the big marketing launch.

It basically only works in stores, I don't know why they are trying to make excuses. They are describing the launch of every console. A big stock sold at launch to pre-orders, March or November, makes no difference, 9 months or 13 months later you're then looking at the second big sales time, 2nd xmas for say PS4 or 1st Xmas for Switch, there are more games, it's been out longer, the price might come down... that is how every games console launch has ever gone that I can remember. It's not some magical or clever marketing strategy, that is the bog standard strategy. As was the 3DS, which was, not enough games at launch, too expensive, 6 months later price drops and more software is available.

You can't soft launch hardware in a worldwide market while spending a **** load of money on marketing, because that is just a normal launch and in no way a soft launch.
 
I'd agree. I think it's safe to say that Mario kart, arms and splatoon 2 are probably all basically ready to release but they're Intentionally staggering the launches to avoid having no major releases for months at a time.
 
drunkenmaster, it's obviously not a soft launch in the traditional sense.

If you had watched the video, you would know that he's not calling it a 'soft launch' explicitly.
 
Not sure I agree with that video. Nearly every console ever launched goes through a price drop after launch that stimulates sales. Also I'm not sure there have been many launches with 10 incredible titles at launch.

I can't see much different with this launch than any other console!
 
megalomanic said:
The biggest difference and the basis around the point in the video is that it's not launching during the Christmas period.
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Yes, but he's attempting to imply this is somehow something like a soft launch... it's just launching at a different time, nothing more or less.

he also seems to think that they could definitely have launched four months earlier with the reasoning being, just because.

They launched in March rather than for last November/December..... because with 3 years of time in development(supposedly) the first point a single AAA game was ready to launch was March. Which is pretty much when every console launches, when they've got at least one big game ready. Had they launched in November it would literally have launched without games, so his reasoning of it could have launched several months ago is ludicrous.

The March launch is likely due to bad planning, they built the launch around Zelda and it's a game that has been delayed over and over and over again. they likely wanted to launch last year but didn't have the game ready and if anything it's worked in their favour because Zelda ready in November would mean Zelda then almost nothing for months then MK8 in April and a year till a new Mario. The delay means the follow up games are less far away.

The explanation also would mean that they would start production sometime mid last year and finalise the hardware significantly before that, which would explain how they are launching effectively older tech when in this time frame they should have been able to go with the newer version of X1, delays.
 
drunkenmaster said:
he also seems to think that they could definitely have launched four months earlier with the reasoning being, just because.
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Yeah I don't agree with this assumption either, but we don't know for sure either way.

It's just 1 person's opinion on the internet so fair enough if you don't agree there's something to take away here. I'm not sure what I think about it, which is why I found it an interesting subject; as he makes some good points.

Even if it wasn't originally planned, I definitely think releasing early to build momentum and awareness for it's first Christmas could be a good idea with the right approach.
 
Begbie said:
Meh, last post I got toke 6 weeks. If I get it in April, I'll be happy.

Not ordered one yet?
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I am itching to do it. But my wedding is in June, and I have to pay/setup a home office as well...so the Switch just isn't a priority right now unfortunately, despite having the money in the bank. It's for other things.

However, I start my new job in 2 weeks. I've doubled my income. So I'm hoping to pick one up at the end of April or May :)
 
megalomanic said:
The biggest difference and the basis around the point in the video is that it's not launching during the Christmas period.
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Agree but that is almost the only difference. Every console launches high, hardly any decent titles etc. As said above it's probably better to launch now and by Christmas having a better than an average launch's line up.

On another note all my ancillary stuff just arrived from Amazon...memory card, chargers, USB C cables!
 
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