Is it just me, or does it seem like there is more hype for the new Mario game than almost anything else in the last few years? It doesn’t seem like even the new Zelda had that much hype when it was released.
That said, I totally pre-loaded the game this afternoon too.
Yeah, I have spent years living that sort of thing. Last year an Xbox One sat there from like June til December when they started doing big discounts before they shipped the S model. I waited two months to play the Wii the first Christmas it was available. Lots of games have been purchased and stashed in the same way. Hell, one time I found a PS2 game I picked up cheaply for the kids that I totally forgot about stuffed up above the fine china. LOL!
Anyway, I’ve got three days to decide. There’s also football on Friday, and poker, so I won’t have time that day either way.
I think it’s because the design seems closer to Super Mario 64 which has long been celebrated as the best of the 3D Marios (I don’t think I agree with that myself…) and the fact that we really didn’t know anything about it til E3 and then BAM! There it is, almost done, coming out Christmas 2017. For Nintendo especially, about six months from announce to release really seems to build huge excitement. Zelda had similar hype though. People bought a system just to play it, man.
Maybe, though I have a feeling that people used it more as a justification to buy the brand new system (especially those of us who already have Wii Us!).
I’m struggling whether or not to go for the physical copy or the eShop version. I’m leaning toward physical because, as with all Nintendo first party games, the resale value will be very high. The convenience of not having to swap cartridges is the main factor in the eShop version. Pretty lazy of me, I guess? I also think preloading is a great thing, and not wondering if the Amazon delivery will make it here on Friday is another, more minor, concern.
So far I’ve only gone physical, with cards for Mario Kart and Zelda. Decisions, decisions.
Haha. Good luck. (You’ll be playing Friday night.)
Crack it open, and put Xenoblade 2 under the tree instead! And then face the dilemma again on December 1…
I’m all physical for the big Nintendo stuff. I do it for resale value I think, and just because I always feel like my Steam Library of 439 games is a big enough risk for losing it somehow. I also like having the box art to look at which is silly, but still fun.
I’ve got the Xenoblade 2 Collector’s Edition pre-ordered already. :)
Not sure I get the surprise here. It’s normal for Mario games to outsell Zelda games by a big margin.
Not sure if it’s too late, but for me, the 20% off preorder from Amazon makes this an easy decision for something I want day 1. If I intend to pick it up later, I will probably buy used.
Anybody who hasn’t already pre-ordered SMO and has GCU at Best Buy would probably want to take advantage of this offer.
The Switch sounds like it’s doing better than I expected—I don’t have financial or sales data to back up this impression, but the non-AAA and indie scene sounds solid. I’m genuinely glad for that.
But oh boy are we ever in like, maximum-honeymoon-phase, or something. Mario Odyssey sounds fantastic, which is also good news, but like, duh. Maybe I just need to step outside of my corner of twitter, but I’m rolling my eyes at the narrative that Link + Mario = all concern for Nintendo was always foolish, because that sentiment is popping up a lot in.
I’m just talking to myself, no one around here is bothering me, just needed to rant a little bit.
Don’t forget about Samus. She’s coming back next year.
The King is back, baby. Sony and Microsoft should quit now.
I don’t remember a stronger launch year than the Switch is having and we are only 8 months in. Couple that with a console form factor that makes a lot of sense in this day and age and it makes a very strong case that the strong Switch sales so far is more than just a flash in the pan.
I might be extrapolating my use case to others, but my TV monopoly has been over for a few years with a wife and kid. The Switch (and a lesser extent the Wii U) allow me to play a console game on a small screen while Disney Junior is on in the background or whatever. Again, personal experience here, but I have clocked in more hours in my Switch in 8 months than I have on my Xbone and PS4 combined since their launches. I think there are a lot of people in my situation, kids who grew up on the NES and SNES and are now in their late 20s to mid 30s with a family and less TV monopoly time.
They still are decades behind on a lot of things like online and digital ownership but they seem to have struck a chord with me and my demographic I think and unlike the Wii fad, they have a much stronger base that isn’t interested in some sort of Wii Sports Machine this time around.
Yeah, I agree to some degree with pretty much all of this, it’s why the Switch’s future (and therefore Nintendo’s) seems better than I would’ve guessed 18 months ago.
But elsewhere I’ve seen what amounts to sound byte gloating about how Mario and Zelda are so good how could anyone ever have doubted Nintendo.
Personally, I’m trying hard not to buy a Switch right now because I’ve got Destiny to keep me more than busy, and I really shouldn’t spend the money on myself going into the holiday season with some other expenses around the corner too. But I want Mario Odyssey, and I want the Switch as my platform for Stardew Valley, and Steamworld Dig 2, and I want Splatoon, and so on.
The Metroid franchise is rocky enough I’m nervous about that. Excited that they’re working on it, but I’ll need to know more before the hype starts to build for it. Plus, 2018 still feels a little unlikely.
The console just has so much flexibility. It’s crazy – when I’m at home by myself, I can play Golf Story on the TV. When my wife comes home and wants to catch up on Hulu shows, we switch the TV over to the PS4, and I take the console out of the dock and resume playing on the couch, without missing a beat. Then I put it in a case and take it over to my mom’s house, where I set it up on a table and play co-op Lego games with my niece. It’s a video game system that lets me play it anytime I want but respects the multitude of circumstances I might be in when I want to play.
Like, I’m the guy who rolls his eyes every time someone says something is “groundbreaking” or “revolutionary.” But I’ve never seen anything like the Switch, and I think it’s the best console I’ve ever owned. It just needs to keep the pressure up on the firehouse of games it’s spraying at us.
To Wholly’s point, I think it’d be silly to give all of the credit for the Switch’s success to Mario and Zelda alone. They definitely helped (compare to system launches where they didn’t have a first-party title to showcase), but Nintendo gets credit in my eyes for the strength of the entire catalog, including their courting of indie developers and the spacing of their big titles through the entire launch year.
If Sony and Microsoft aren’t learning something from the Switch’s success, they are doing it wrong.
Arms and Mario Kart are also good games that have sold well on the Switch. This is the first time in at least a decade that I’ve been truly impressed with what Nintendo is doing. I just got my Switch yesterday and I haven’t been so in love with a console since Xbox 360. It just feels great how seamless it goes from television to portable, the touch screen, the dual controllers.
What they’re learning is “more lootboxes!”