Can someone remind me how Nintendo handles digital game ownership these days? Is it tied to an account or to a machine? If they’re putting out an upscaled Switch, I’d seriously consider getting one and giving my old one to a relative. I’d be much less inclined to do so if I have to repurchase all my digital games though.
It’s pretty standard, and mostly account based.
- Purchases are tied to a Nintendo account, you can redownload from the shop at any time.
- A Nintendo account has 1 primary Switch, and any number of other secondary Switches.
- On the primary device, any profile can play your downloaded games.
- On non-primary devices, the primary account holder’s profile can play the games that account purchased. No other profile can play those games. When using that profile, the Switch will occasionally phone home (every hour or so), making it basically an always on-line DRM solution.
- You can switch your “primary device” at pretty much any time using the Switch menus, or if you lose the switch somehow, through the Nintendo.com website. (You deregister your device, the new device is designated the primary the next time you visit the eShop)
- Save games can only be transferred via a paid Nintendo online account’s cloud save sync.
Buying a new switch would be easy. You deregister the old one, restore your profile on the new account, and you can redownload everything.
How about: Plot Twist! The new Switch has a slot for and plays 3DS games. I would buy that in a hot minute.
That’d be insane, and probably amazing.
Especially if that allowed for playing those games on the TV in docked mode. Wait… Didn’t they do something like that for the GameCube or am I just crossing some wires in my head?
Edit - Not crazy! I believe I was thinking of the Gameboy player thing they had.
It would need to have a tate mode though, so that you could stylus on the bottom half and and top-screen on the top half.
That’s a shame because Splatoon is the only shooter I’m happy to play with a controller because of the gyro/motion aiming. It’s fantastic and so fluid and accurate once you’ve got used to it. In fact, it’s so good I wonder why every console shooter hasn’t followed suit because thumbsticks are sooo bad in comparison.
Well, for starters, most consoles don’t have gyroscopes or motion input. (Or, don’t out of the box anyway.)
Mostly Xbox. Pretty much every other recent system has had it built in as far as I’m aware. Wii U, Switch, 3DS, Vita, PS3 and PS4, as well as the Steam Controller.
To be honest, I wasn’t aware that any of those systems except PS3 (and Switch, I presumed from your post) had it.
Either way, it’s my favourite online shooter alongside Titanfall 2. The various modes and maps are fantastic but it’s the mechanics that make it unique.
Your ink tanks are refilled when you transform into a squid and submerge yourself in your team’s ink which in turn acts as a place to hide, swim quickly (including up walls) and keep the enemy back. This totally transforms the way you play, move around and push for territory.
The single-player in Splatoon was great but I’ve yet to play it in the sequel. I should really get on that.
Thank you. That all sounds fairly painless.
I never got comfortable with the gyro controls in Splatoon 2, mainly because they inexplicably disable the Y-axis on the thumbstick. No other gyro controlled game does this.
Another issue for me was that there is a significant amount of in-game progression, but none of it is eligible for cloud save. So if you ever lose or upgrade your Switch, your Splatoon progress will reset.
But the nail in the coffin for me was the unskippable fifteen minute intro. It probably isn’t actually fifteen minutes, but that’s how it feels. And that’s why Splatoon 2 is the first Switch game I ever sold.
Splatoon 2 is fantastic (15 minute intro notwithstanding). The decision to not have cloud save of your progress is baffling, though.
I’m pretty sure the lack of cloud save is because your online ratings are stored locally and they don’t want people to be able to trivially cheat them (restore from cloud to negate losses)
That’s the reason I’ve heard as well, which is kind of insane. I suppose when they were making Splatoon 2 cloud saves weren’t even planned for. But c’mon, Nintendo. Anyone playing Splatoon 2 online has Nintendo Online, you’re telling me there’s not room in the database for a ranking that’s tied to their account? You’re already tracking all of those other statistics that show up on the phone app.
“Hey guys, I have a great idea, let’s store their rank client side with no backup.” Jesus if I tried something like that at work the data security guys would explode.
It’s Nintendo. You’re lucky it even has online multiplayer.
Select stages from Mario Odyssey and the entirety of Breath of the Wild are playable with Labo VR. Who else is ready to hold a Switch up to their face for another 100 or so hours of Zelda?
I’ve never really done VR; does it make sense to do third-person games that way?
Astrobot and Moss work really well, so it can be good. I’d love a first person mode for BotW, though.
For Astrobot the headset stays on your face unassisted. I think these Labo VR experiences are probably going to be awful. Very low resolution, limited to 60hz, cheap optics, you literally have to hold the thing to your face with your hands…