beard ひげ @beardalaxy@gameliberty.club

for many people, $80-$90 mkw is actually worth it and they will pay that, albeit a little begrudgingly. you'll find that they'll still sell relatively well, compared to the likes of $70 games on other platforms that we have seen go down in flames alongside their developers several times in the past couple of years. it's also why, even if gta 6 is $100, it'll still likely be one of if not the best selling video game of all time.

other game companies will try to price their games that high, for sure, and it will not work as well for them as it would for nintendo or rock star. there is a damn good reason why they are as expensive as they are and it's because they know that the quality of the game justifies the price point. whereas, you have other developers who have just blown way too much money on a bloated game and need to price it high in an attempt to make back what they spent and we keep seeing that fail.

@Mr_NutterButter nobody knows for sure, but i hear most people say that it would probably be his son.

@Mr_NutterButter i didn't really care about the aliens too much, tbh. i just fantasized about gwen

yeah i've also been pretty disappointed with tlou2 for the past 5 years

@WhitestTemplar i don't think so xD

@WhitestTemplar oh yeah, i'm just sayin that they now have the chance to fix that issue on the switch 2.

@WhitestTemplar you can technically get botw running at 60fps on the switch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWcMsGa9Kjs

@WhitestTemplar the main thing that made totk lag was the building. the major issue with switch's performance often came down to the speed of the ram, which you could overclock to see some pretty radical results actually.

@LukeAlmighty the 8090 Ti XTREME either won't need frame gen to run it at max settings in 4k, or it will be using only frame gen and hallucinating the whole thing lmao.

@LukeAlmighty yeah so that's the part of you that is saying that the steam deck is worth more to you specifically, as someone who is a pc gamer. i 100% get that and it's why nintendo is the only console i'll consider getting, just for their games lol.

what i'm talking about is the raw price of the console manufacturing itself, which i wouldn't be surprised if nintendo is like barely breaking even on at most considering that valve looses money on the deck. they could have cut it back and put it at a price that seemed more palatable, but a major complaint with the original switch is that it just wasn't powerful enough so they pushed more into that territory while also pricing it competitively with similar things (handheld PCs and the other consoles).

@LukeAlmighty i think cyberpunk only looks as good as it does because NVIDIA worked with them very closely on it. i think it's the only game that actually shows off all of the tech well. it's also in REDengine instead of unreal so that helped a lot. rip redengine.

@LukeAlmighty i've seen a lot of people recently talking about how kingdom come deliverance 2 looks heaps and bounds better than any ray-traced modern graphics rendering bullshit. THEY'RE RIGHT. in stills it looks a little bit better, but then you get into motion and there's just no contest.

nintendo knows how to optimize the ever loving fuck out of their games, and a lot of their close partners do too (not you, game freak). i think the best example of it is mario kart 8dx, and the metroid prime remaster is gorgeous as well. it's crazy that you can get something like smash ultimate running at a buttery smooth 60fps with tons of crazy shit happening on screen with 8 players, and at 1080p, but then mortal kombat 10 or whatever it was ends up looking like an early bargain bin ps2 game on the same console.

i fucking hate modern graphics rendering so much dude it's the most distracting shit ever.

@LukeAlmighty i'm not talking about efficient spending at all, i'm more talking about realistic pricing. if you wanted to go about efficient spending, then you'd probably buy a used Deck and a used Switch and have a shit ton of games to play for the rest of your life. the fact is that the switch 2 offers a more compelling package from a performance standpoint than the Deck does, and for a cheaper cost versus its only somewhat comparable model. nintendo COULD have priced it lower if they skimped out on a few things but they didn't, and that's why you get the price it currently is (plus obviously inflation because holy shit the original switch would be $400 if released today).

@LukeAlmighty Steam Deck base model is $400. Switch 2 is $450. You're getting higher performance and a larger screen (size/res) with twice the refresh rate, HDR, and VRR. I was comparing it to the $550 OLED model in that post.

I think it is clear that Valve was pretty aggressive with their pricing. Nintendo is providing more performance than the OLED in every way for a lower cost. If you want to spend $50 less you can get something even less performant but that's not really my point of comparison here.

The difference is that of course you can't just plop whatever shit you want onto a Switch 2 like you can with a Steam Deck. That's always been the difference between a console and a computer and it's what makes PCs such a compelling purchase for a lot of people. It's always going to end up being more expensive right out of the gate but usually ends up paying itself off in the long run with the tremendous back catalog that is always going on sale for really good prices. It's funny because I say that, but then I realize that I have actually spent way more money on PC gaming than I've spent probably on all the consoles I've personally owned, subscription services included (and especially so when you consider stuff like the free PS+ games). I think in terms of overall cost they're about on par with each other but you CAN do a lot more with a PC and that makes it worth it.

However, a PC isn't going to be able to play the Switch 2 exclusives that I really want to play in a manner I would consider playable for another few years at the very least. I wanna' hop on Mario Kart World day one. Same thing with Kirby Air Riders. There is also the likelihood that I'd need to upgrade my PC beyond $450 worth in order to emulate those anyway. The Deck certainly isn't going to be able to. That's what makes its value important to me, and that's why I bought a Wii U and an original Switch as well.

If we're being honest, isn't everything that can play games beyond a certain level of fidelity a luxury item? I don't think a Switch 2 wouldn't be considered one just because it is Nintendo. If you want the luxury, you'll pay $40 for a single shirt instead of $5 for a pack of ten. Nobody NEEDS to play the newest games all the time in the best possible way. Nobody NEEDS the $40 shirt. But dammit, I want to play those Ninty games and I fucking hate how good they are because I would not be buying them otherwise xD

@irie yeah it's kind of ridiculous that we just let other countries put tariffs on us without doing anything to them in return. but trump is absolutely using tariffs as a weapon, just hope it works that way.

oliver from digital foundry says that mario kart world is running at raw 1440p at 60fps. no signs of dlss or dynamic resolution. that's pretty wild actually and it bodes well for the rest of nintendo's games on the system. their style has always leaned towards style rather than fidelity, and i think that's going to work very well for them when it comes to running games at higher resolutions and frame rates.

The price of the Switch 2, at $450, is actually not bad at all. The closest comparison to it is the Steam Deck which is more expensive and not as performant. The Switch 2 has a higher refresh rate screen with VRR that is larger in size and resolution too. It's not an OLED screen, in relation to the comparable model, but it should still be pretty good. Then you've got the actual game performance too which Switch 2 will certainly be better at, I think that's a given.

I think we all would have liked to see it cheaper, but then again I never imagined that it was actually going to be as focused on power. I thought they would MAYBE go with a 90hz screen MAX. I definitely didn't expect them to have Metroid Prime 4 dropping with 1080p 120fps support. With or without any upscaling shenanigans that's still pretty damn impressive for a handheld like that. I think the price is pretty fair.

When it comes to the price of the games, that's getting a bit more on the iffy side. $80 really is too much, I think. It's a big ask. I am still of the opinion that instead of trying to go bigger and bigger with games, causing the jumps in price (alongside the obvious issue of inflation), development teams really should focus on making extremely tight and fun experiences that can be easily replayed. Nobody was asking for Mario Kart World to be an actually open world game with like shitty secrets to find if you veer off course or anything. Keeping it at $60 or even $70 while adding in all of the amazing stuff to the actual races themselves would have been honestly so much better. I am actually curious to see how much Kirby Air Riders is priced at, because I can see that actually being a $60 game with Sakurai at the helm. Dude knows his shit.

Then again, if $80 is going to get me 300+ hours of gameplay like Mario Kart 8 DX did, I don't think it's that bad of an investment on enjoyment. You go to the movies once and pay like $15 for a 2 hour thing that cost about the same as a video game, so it does scale to a pretty astronomical level. Not to mention, the game is one purchase that can be enjoyed by a bunch of people all at once. It sucks that it is priced so high, and that our purchasing power is so low, it really does. Is it still kind of fair though? I guess if you really want the game, yeah. It's going to definitely filter some people out, though, and I think that is partially why they included it in that bundle for essentially $50 instead. People were going to buy the damn game anyway, and now they're going to pay for a $20/year subscription too.

My three most anticipated games for Switch 2 are all racers. Mario Kart World, Kirby Air Riders, and Fast Fusion. I'll be eatin' good this year with those.