While it has only been several days since Nintendo officially unveiled the NX as the Switch, and likewise revealed a list of development partners, as seen below…
I am in the boat that has to make the obvious joke, as in which publisher/developer will drop the Switch in it’s first year of life? After all, we saw what happened to both the WiiU and 3DS, with the 3DS getting marginally better support. Do I think Switch will get better third party support? The answer, in short from me, is a flat ‘no’, but my blame doesn’t center squarely on Nintendo “not being with the times”. It is mostly due in part to the fact that the publishers are run by the stupidest idiots on the planet and they are largely responsible for making the game industry a toxic cesspool.
This is the same industry that allowed the PS4 Pro and Scorpio to be a thing. That allowed games that basically are worthless unless they are connected online to a publisher’s server. That allowed false advertising on a incompetent scale. They rejected the 3DS, they rejected the WiiU, they will reject the Switch and will find an excuse not to support it. I can already tell which ones they will use; “It’s not powerful enough,” “It doesn’t have the audience we want,” “It hasn’t sold fast enough,” “Nintendo isn’t doing enough to support us.”
Another thing, that picture? How many of those publishers are damaged goods at this point? Considering how much a shit-show has been pulled on PS4 and Xbone, what can we expect for quality anyway? I mean, fuck, even the remasters had screw ups and most of those games were barely five years old.
I know I am being a downer, but how often does it have to be stressed that a majority of these third party publishers are really scummy and incompetent when it comes to recent Nintendo systems? I cannot see them giving the Switch jack-squat unless Nintendo is directly involved with the product (like the rumored Beyond Good and Evil 2), and having seen as a consumer the output quality on non-Nintendo products, how can I say “this is what the system needs” with a straight face?
I am not doubting third party support will once again be another hot topic for another Nintendo platform. But this time, the industry is more hilariously damaged than before. Right now we’re just wondering how confused the consumers and EA are.
Pietriots 
I’m also approaching this 3rd party situation with cautious optimism. They’ve screwed us over before. They can do it again. Like you said, Nintendo is going to have to be proactive with getting 3rd party support. They can’t just sit back and assume 3rd parties are going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
Also, Nintendo needs to market the f*#k out of this system.
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Third partys matter because people are to damn stupid to know any better. They not only have screwed over Xbox and Playstation owners with shoddy work, PC downright is treated like a second class citizens very much like Nintendo consoles.
As someone thats taken to mostly PC gaming this gen, i can’t in good faith say third party support is worth anything at all anymore and it is very frustrating to see so many console owners put so much stock into these companies.
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Exactly. I do wonder if it will get any “team-up” games, like Hyrule Warriors, TMS, and Puzzle and Dragons X Mario. Those third-party games turned out well.
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Now, remember my quote about 3rd parties: “3rd parties love money, not hardware. REPEAT: 3rd parties love MONEY, not HARDWARE. If that is not understood, 3rd parties are not understood.”
The only development partners in that list that I see sticking around to support the Switch are Atlus (because they’re not stupid and realize that supporting Nintendo is actually not a bad thing), Platinum Games, and maybe Capcom and Sega to a certain extent. The rest will just give Nintendo the middle finger because Nintendo won’t moneyhat them like Sony and Microsoft do.
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The thing that always worries me, and has been working since Iwata’s passing is: What if these 3rd parties DO STAY?
What if the problems found common and are now expected in other consoles begin to appear on the Switch?
I have no doubt the Switch will be an amazing console in its own right and have the lovable Nintendo games that the fans expect from it… But what I worry over is if it’ll continue the usual Nintendo standards that has made sticking to Nintendo consoles (or gaming as a whole… Outside of unique PC titles) worth it.
What happens if this transition, made from an entirely business perspective that “gets with the times, just with a Nintendo flavor”, just makes Nintendo philosophy “work with” modern expectations rather than prevent it?
We were fine with how Nintendo dealt with DLC (mostly, many still despise amiibo – but many still find them more worth their value than digital DLC), we were fine with how they dealt with Season Passes (Fire Emblem, Mario Kart, Hyrule Warriors), and we’re certainly fine with how they translated out of friend codes (still not as intuitive as other systems yet, but that’s due to the attempt of still being parental friendly – which I feel as if people are okay with)…
But many are still skeptical over how Nintendo handled “free to start”, how they’re entering the mobile market, and their first steps back into one-screen gaming.
Who’s to say they won’t attempt to further incorporate the “newer standards” of gaming. What if always-online is tested beyond the Wii24 standard? What if more DLC haggling comes into play just to get the 3rd parties to play ball? What if non-stop patching to fix early releases extend beyond Smash4?
The silence during the last year of the Wii U didn’t just turn away the half-fans from Nintendo – it also made many like me worry if that transition point into the Switch wasn’t just prep time, but also a philosophical transition to do “better business”?
Who knows. I certainly don’t.
But if the typical 3rd parties stick around longer than a year: I’m going to worry as all hell.
That said… If those third parties only decided to support the Switch with year-late “complete editions”, I wouldn’t mind that at all.
It sure beats getting Mass Effect 3 right before Mass Effect 1-3 release on other consoles – without the completing DLC, and certainly beats being Injustice WITHOUT Martian Manhunter DLC FOR NO GIVEN REASON WHATSOEVER (as if putting up their DLC would have made them lose money).
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Oh man I love this site. You guys are the only people on the internet still making sense to my ears. Non-nintendo video games are almost a joke. I have a gaming pc with 2 GTX 980Ti cards in SLI, and DOOM 2016 is cool in 4K and all, but I was playing Pokemon Sun today and noticed something: the way the graphics in that game are rendered to look like 2D sprite art is amazing and innovative. Like $1000 of graphics hardware is great, but if you’re not able to innovate with your graphics and art style then what’s the point? Nintendo was able to take 3DS graphics and impress me more than a supercomputer, so what gives?
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I’ve seen you on…NintendoLife, I think? If you think those looks are impressive, you should see Paper Mario: Color Splash. THAT’S impressive (heck, Sticker Star was, too).
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