I’m revising my opinion a bit now that I’ve also had a chance to play in mobile mode.
Pinball arcade runs no better or worse than before, but Zen sees a lot of frame rate chugging in mobile due to the extra effects and lighting on the tables running at the slower clock speed.
Your preference may vary depending on whether you play mostly docked or mobile and how you feel about the tables on one vs the other (nothing new there).
Diego
Can the effects be lowered undocked and does that help?
No. The options are very sparse. Gamma adjust and ball trails are it.
Diego
That’s disappointing. Vertical mode is the major draw of this version, and obviously that’s undocked only.
Steamworld Dig is basically a prototype, almost more of a flash game. It does get more interesting as you go on but for the most part it’s a pretty easy romp that takes 2-4 hours to complete.
Steamworld Dig 2 is a fully-fledged Metroidvania / Platformer which happens to also have some digging elements like the first game. Everything is bespoke - no more procedural generation of any terrain or challenges - all of the new abilities are tons of fun, and the progression curve behind finding those abilities is immensely satisfying. It’ll take around 10 hours to complete, and maybe as many as 15 to find everything.
Yes, exactly! The lighting in the iOS version isn’t as good, but an iPad in vertical mode looks like it’s still the best mobile platform.
Diego
In a interview with Variety, Reggie revealed the Switch has sold over 10 million copies since launching nine months ago.
The lineup of Nintendo-published games also has fueled fueling Switch sales, Fils-Aime said. Three titles have been purchased by more than 50% of Switch owners: “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” — which won game of the year at the 2017 Game Awards — “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” and “Super Mario Odyssey.” Another title, third-person shooter “Splatoon 2,” has been purchased by one in four Switch owners, he said.
Great info, thanks. I might just buy and play the second without finishing the first. I’ve been looking forward to trying it on Switch.
More perspective on that number from the same article…
In October, Nintendo raised projections for Switch shipments for its fiscal year ending March 2018 from 10 million to 14 million units. That would put the Nintendo Switch at 16.7 million units sold in its first year of release, on pace to exceed lifetime sales of the Nintendo Wii U (which shipped 13.6 million units over a five-year period).
From this article at Forbes to give you some launch aligned numbers…
With a March 3rd, 2017 launch, the data on December 10th, 2017 says that it took the Switch 9 months and 7 days to sell 10 million units.
In contrast, the PS4, launched on November 15th, 2013, took about 8 months and 29 days to sell 10 million units, almost identical. The difference being that Sony had a full holiday sales window while Nintendo hasn’t had that with the Switch yet.
The Wii also took about nine months to sell 10 million units, and that was when it was a worldwide, non-gamer craze unlike anything the industry had seen.
The Xbox One took about a full year to ship 10 million units, not sell-through, and we don’t have the data for those exact figures.
The Wii U, Nintendo’s last console, took 2 years and 7 months to sell 10 million units, and it ended its run at 13.5 million units. It is entirely possible, if not likely, that the Switch could outsell the Wii U in totality in its very first year on the market.
Kyle Orland gives even more comparison numbers here…
I need bigger Joy-cons, these are just absurdly small for me in dual-wield mode. Has anybody found better/larger alternatives, or custom grips/wrap-around things I can use with them?
One thing I’m impressed by is that it’s been available everywhere since Black Friday. Every time I go to Walmart or Target for baby food, I also check Electronics, and they all have Switch units available for sale now.
Maybe people can finally lay the ‘artificial scarcity’ conspiracy to rest!
I can at least understand why they were conservative now given what a flop the WiiU was. It’s probably tough in a business meeting to say you need to produce more in a year than your last console sold in its lifetime.
I was gonna say the same thing, I’m very impressed that it’s such a hit and they’ve kept up with supply.
Now if I could just find one more SNES before Christmas…
There have been loads of them at the Target near me every time I’ve been there over the past few weeks.
I got one at launch, got another randomly which I resold, so that’s two more than I was expecting to find already! Now I’m just keeping a look out on behalf of one more friend who’s trying to get one for Christmas. Fingers crossed.
Check Best Buy. They keep the SNES in the same cage as the Switch systems near me.
Which is a real shame, because their Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection for 360 was so damn good. They have never really been able to hit the same stride with Pinball Arcade. Last I heard, people are still waiting for decent DirectX 11 performance on PC. I still buy the tables, but I always wait for a sale. I would be buying season packs on their release dates if they could solve their QC issues.
And their UI, oh god the UI. The old one was bad and the new one is horrific. Wish they’d fix it.
The PC UI doesn’t make me go ballistic. It gets the job done. DirectX 11 performance is good for me too, but I do feel like every update they make causes the game to have different odd issues. Don’t get me started on Stern Arcade. I tried that and it’s a complete nightmare.