Poll: Nintendo Switch and No Blu-Ray Drive... Make or Break?

[Supernova1138]

Blu-Ray proved in the long run to be a stopgap at best. Optical media has unfortunately hit a wall that going to take years to get over. Meanwhile flash memory has grown by leaps and bounds and doesn't show any signs of slowing down with how much capacity keeps increasing on a yearly basis while costs also keep decreasing.

And that's before we get into the other elephant in the room: the film market never really embraced Blu-ray fully. The sudden rise of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll etc destroyed any chance it had at a market position. It's really a medium only for cinephiles. If anything Nintendo might be getting ahead of the curve with this.

I never got over the feeling that Blu Ray is not completely superior. Sure it has better audio and video capabilities but it also has an initial loading time, BD-LIVE (which was really just a way to serve up ads) and resume is hit and miss.

Now I still have a 1080p TV and I still get DVD's through Netflix because it's cheaper. I play those DVD's through the PS3 and I have no problem with the quality. Resume always works too.

When I went from VHS to DVD, it was a complete upgrade and I never went back to VHS, not so with DVD to Blu Ray.

I find Blu-Ray is best when you're viewing it on a screen that is close to you like a computer monitor, at that close a viewing distance DVD looks pretty bad on a 1080p display and Blu-Ray is a big improvement. If you're watching on a big TV sitting 10+ feet away from it, the quality difference isn't quite as noticeable. I also wouldn't be surprised if DVD looks extremely poor on a 4K TV and Blu-Ray would be a more noticeable improvement on that even if you were sitting pretty far away, though I have no personal experience with that.

 

[Saelune]

Though I am curious about what you mean for controllers. I can agree with Nintendo being not the best with controllers, but how are current controllers still like PS1? I presumed you meant having a single analog stick, but apparently that isnt what you mean?

Have you tried the Elite contoller or even the Steam controller? Namely the bumper/paddles on the under side. I want those to be standard, and games to use them for things like hold to run buttons and jumping, cause "The claw" is something to be avoided.

The same buttons. Four on the top, a diamond of four face buttons, a D-pad and two clickable control sticks. The basics never change, to the detriment of games. I haven't used the Steam and Elite controllers, but yes, I like the idea of bumpers on the bottom, utilizing more than two digits on each hand.

Aside from the bumpers which I had thought of long before they were a thing, I dont see how much they can really improve on the design, button wise. I mean, I think the PS4 controller, with the touch-pad thats actually usable is pretty neat, but the basic design that has persisted I think has done so by being so great, not due to a lack of innovation. There is such a thing as too many buttons too, which is one of many issues I have with keyboards.

I would change the whole design. I don't want to aim with a stick anymore. The radius is too small and it wastes the one digit that should be free to control the face buttons. I would move away form the conception that a controller has to be a one-piece device that you have to grip and hold up in your hands.

I honestly cannot imagine what you are suggesting. Im trying but I dunno. Maybe you are right and I just dont get it, I wont bother arguing against it for that reason.

Though I must now ask you about your views on the Wii, cause if there was anything that seems to lead to your controller desires, its Nintendo and the Wii. Nintendo is the only one who ever tries to make the controller different. They tried it the hardest with the Wii, but then pulled back and with the Wii U and Switch are trying a different route. Its fine if you dont like the specific route, but I think they deserve more credit for trying than they are usually given.

 

[Saelune]

Though I am curious about what you mean for controllers. I can agree with Nintendo being not the best with controllers, but how are current controllers still like PS1? I presumed you meant having a single analog stick, but apparently that isnt what you mean?

Have you tried the Elite contoller or even the Steam controller? Namely the bumper/paddles on the under side. I want those to be standard, and games to use them for things like hold to run buttons and jumping, cause "The claw" is something to be avoided.

The same buttons. Four on the top, a diamond of four face buttons, a D-pad and two clickable control sticks. The basics never change, to the detriment of games. I haven't used the Steam and Elite controllers, but yes, I like the idea of bumpers on the bottom, utilizing more than two digits on each hand.

Aside from the bumpers which I had thought of long before they were a thing, I dont see how much they can really improve on the design, button wise. I mean, I think the PS4 controller, with the touch-pad thats actually usable is pretty neat, but the basic design that has persisted I think has done so by being so great, not due to a lack of innovation. There is such a thing as too many buttons too, which is one of many issues I have with keyboards.

I would change the whole design. I don't want to aim with a stick anymore. The radius is too small and it wastes the one digit that should be free to control the face buttons. I would move away form the conception that a controller has to be a one-piece device that you have to grip and hold up in your hands.

I honestly cannot imagine what you are suggesting. Im trying but I dunno. Maybe you are right and I just dont get it, I wont bother arguing against it for that reason.

Though I must now ask you about your views on the Wii, cause if there was anything that seems to lead to your controller desires, its Nintendo and the Wii. Nintendo is the only one who ever tries to make the controller different. They tried it the hardest with the Wii, but then pulled back and with the Wii U and Switch are trying a different route. Its fine if you dont like the specific route, but I think they deserve more credit for trying than they are usually given.

Motion controls aren't the answer. They just lead to more error and imprecision.

I don't know exactly. In the past, I thought about making a thread asking people what they want in a controller, in an effort to combine the ideas into something ideal for modern games, but I didn't have high hopes for the responses.

I really like the controller as is. If there is something better to me made, Id have to hold it to believe it. But I mean, somethings seem so obvious only after its been made sometimes. Before the NES gaming controllers were insanely awful. Even the PS1 controller seems so silly after PS2 came out.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Motion controls aren't the answer. They just lead to more error and imprecision.

I don't know exactly. In the past, I thought about making a thread asking people what they want in a controller, in an effort to combine the ideas into something ideal for modern games, but I didn't have high hopes for the responses.

I dunno motion controls and gyro controls intersect, but top rank as Splatoon players go for the gyro controls for aiming over the stick because it's more precise.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I dunno motion controls and gyro controls intersect, but top rank as Splatoon players go for the gyro controls for aiming over the stick because it's more precise.

And let's not forget how eerily accurate the Wii-mote was in anything involving shooting. I mean, holy crap, in the Wii Edition of RE4 I could use a pistol as a sniper rifle it was so on point.

 

[ultrabiome]

In terms of cartridge cost, I think the wholesale cost will actually be quite low. If I could get a 64GB micro SD card for $15 at a retailer, then wholesale, it must be cheaper than that. From the few stills from the reveal video, the cartridges look very similar to DS/3DS cartridges, something Nintendo has been having produced for quite some time now. I don't think Nintendo will try to push up game cost, at least due to physical media costs.

Although not mentioned at all in the preview, there is nothing indicating that the Switch's controllers don't have motion control capabilities. Although I do like that Nintendo historically actually tries to innovate controllers (for better or worse), for mainstream popularity and port-friendliness they went essentially with what is familiar.

 

[Silvanus]

Most people already have a device to play movies on, and don't buy next-generation consoles for that. This isn't supposed to be a hub for everything, as the PS4 and Xbox One were, and that's fine.

 

[Yoshi178]

Why the hell does the Switch need a Blu-Ray drive? just about every other piece of shit out there these days has one. why does switch need one too?

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Why the hell does the Switch need a Blu-Ray drive? just about every other piece of shit out there these days has one. why does switch need one too?

It doesn't. But my roommate brought up the idea of Nintendo thinking like the other companies and including one so their system can act as a bit of a media center, instead of letting Blu-Ray customers wander off to other gaming consoles that have one. It was a good question, so I wanted to know what everyone else though

 

[Wakey87]

I have three devices under my TV that play Blu-rays, and I'm pretty sure those cartridges will blow disks out of the water when it comes to read speed.

 

[Pseudonym]

Quicker loading is good, no backwards compatibility is not good. The most important thing though, is whether these things are easy to work with for developers and have enough space to store larger games. That'll make the differnce in how many good games there can be on the switch. The new Zelda looks great but there needs to be more than just that.

 

[gsilver]

I'm OK with the move to single-screen, and I hope that the better Wii U and 3DS titles get good ports (and cross buy... please?)

No need whatsoever for blu-ray playback. I've got a player already.
Plus, I'm moving away from physical media, anyway.

I'll probably get the largest SD card I can get and buy most of my games digitally.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Oh yeah, because I totally buy a games console to watch movies. /sarcasm

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Oh yeah, because I totally buy a games console to watch movies. /sarcasm

That sort of happened in Australia, the 40GB PS3 was around 300-400 bucks cheaper than Blu-Ray players at time of release so even factoring in say $80 for the remote, quite a few people ended up buying a PS3 solely as a blu ray player in Aus. It helps that since it was a game console they were ahead of the curve with stuff like connectivity for updates to the decryption databases and new audio/video codecs.


I mean it's a moot point now since even a PS4 costs the same as about three individual blu ray players, but there was a brief time that idea had merit.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Oh yeah, because I totally buy a games console to watch movies. /sarcasm

That sort of happened in Australia, the 40GB PS3 was around 300-400 bucks cheaper than Blu-Ray players at time of release so even factoring in say $80 for the remote, quite a few people ended up buying a PS3 solely as a blu ray player in Aus. It helps that since it was a game console they were ahead of the curve with stuff like connectivity for updates to the decryption databases and new audio/video codecs.


I mean it's a moot point now since even a PS4 costs the same as about three individual blu ray players, but there was a brief time that idea had merit.

Yeah, I also heard that the PS3 was actually a better quality Blu-ray player than most stand alone Blu-ray players on the market. However I've never owned a PS3 or a Blu-ray player so it means nothing to me.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Oh yeah, because I totally buy a games console to watch movies. /sarcasm

That sort of happened in Australia, the 40GB PS3 was around 300-400 bucks cheaper than Blu-Ray players at time of release so even factoring in say $80 for the remote, quite a few people ended up buying a PS3 solely as a blu ray player in Aus. It helps that since it was a game console they were ahead of the curve with stuff like connectivity for updates to the decryption databases and new audio/video codecs.


I mean it's a moot point now since even a PS4 costs the same as about three individual blu ray players, but there was a brief time that idea had merit.

Yeah, I also heard that the PS3 was actually a better quality Blu-ray player than most stand alone Blu-ray players on the market. However I've never owned a PS3 or a Blu-ray player so it means nothing to me.

That was also a common theme in many early reviews, whether it's still true now I couldn't tell you. I mean I've never had a problem playing a disc in mine that didn't have some kind of physical defect and it has all the right outputs to go into just about any amp you choose so the cinephiles aren't going to feel left out. Technically we have Sony to blame for this being a thing since but if you're going to use a common media like DVDs for your games it makes logical sense that it should be able to play the movies. And lest we forget that blu-ray's early foothold and eventual supremacy as the HD media of choice is basically because of the PS3.