The Switch vs the 3DS

Down with this sort of thing!

I mean, more games is always good, but let's have them on Switch aye?

EDIT from friendly neighbourhood Jay: Split from the 2DS announcement chat in the 3DS news thread!

The market will drive what Nintendo does in the future - if people move away from 3DS towards the Switch, they will too. At the moment, it's sensible to try and keep their biggest current-gen console going. In six months, who knows? I'd rather they kept the 3DS alive until some point next year, myself... but then I don't have a Switch yet and that might change my opinion!

This is Balla's Konami, isn't it?

I thought my Konami was Soulsborne games?

I agree with Balla and Zero, just looking at May's game I will buy Echoes but I'm sort like urggh got to use my 3DS.

Why I've not bought DQVII as I don't want to use the 3DS and even though Ever Oasis and MonHan Stories might be top notch, I sooner buy Switch games but like Zero says you can't just ditch the 3DS.

I'm still not convinced about the Switch as a handheld device for handheld games. As much as I've been enjoying Fast RMX whilst I was in Dublin, that was me in a hotel room for hours, not flicking it on during a train journey for 20 mins, so I'm still very happy for the 3DS to be getting more support.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

I'm still not convinced about the Switch as a handheld device for handheld games. As much as I've been enjoying Fast RMX whilst I was in Dublin, that was me in a hotel room for hours, not flicking it on during a train journey for 20 mins, so I'm still very happy for the 3DS to be getting more support.

Yup, for me the Switch is best suited if you are going on long trips & indie games aside most retail games are going for console like experiences so I'm fine with both coexisting for the next year or so.

Thing is a lot of handheld games are now starting to feel almost like console games, anyway.

I'm the opposite, down with the Switch!


Or down with it until Nintendo bothers to have a decent selection of games anyway. I mean sure the third party argument is sort of valid, but that's in a realty where third party's actually support Nintendo home consoles, and unless I jumped Worldlines in the last few hours that ain't this one.

masofdas wrote:

Thing is a lot of handheld games are now starting to feel almost like console games, anyway.

Some are getting close but there's still a clear difference in my opinion.

It might just be the games I'm playing most of the time on 3DS such Echoes soon & Pokemon series all they need is to be is in HD'ed and it be a console game, I would give MonHan a go again if on a console as I can see myself playing it in a longer hunting sessions, Animal Crossing we know can work on a console.

I can't think much of what I've played on a 3DS that wouldn't work / / feel right on a console maybe the Layton, Ace Attorney games but PS4 has a bunch of Visual Novels.

The day main series Pokemon becomes console exclusive is the day I retire as a Pokemon Master permanently tbqh, the series loses so much of what makes it Pokemon by being tied to a big screen in a house.



And on the N2ds, might actually pick one up at some point. I've been thinking of buying a second one for a while with some long trips on the horizon but haven't wanted to go over the $200 mark or the Fisher Price model, this one looks like a good compromise.

You know the Switch can be taken on the go, right? And seems a lot of us on here see the Switch as a 3DS replacement that Pokemon may come a Switch only game.

S&M feel now with the 3D, seem like proper full fledged console JRPGS and all it is missing is the HD graphics of a console JRPG.

HD graphics?  HD is a resolution that something renders and displays at, nothing more. Besides HD only comes in to play in any meaningful way when a games models have the detail to warrant rendering at HD levels, which is frequently not JRPGs, which are by and large a niche genre of games whose developers moved to handhelds for budgetary reasons incurred by HD in the first place (like Fire Emblem for example).  

As for Sun and Moon, they still suit handhelds far more than home consoles (or large portables like the Switch which are still less convenient to carry around than a device that can be slipped in a pocket) because the core gameplay is that of a JRPG.  JRPG's by and large suit handhelds far better than they did home consoles because of the gameplay being less about huge set pieces and more about smaller scale encounters that the player will play over and over and over and over and over again with small variances.  

That type of gameplay suits being able to drop in for short-to-medium bursts with a nice long session set aside for the longer dramatic sequences that happen (and the games usually make obvious are about to happen), which in turn suits handhelds far better than being tied to a screen in one room.  A person can chip away at the minor aspects of a JRPG on a commute to school or work before enjoying a big dramatic segment when they get home for the evening.  

It is that core flexibility that handhelds allow that marries up with the gameplay flow of the average JRPG, including Pokemon, perfectly. Heck sometimes I look at the genres shift to handhelds as a blessing in disguise because of that very reason.



As for the idea that the Switch will "replace" the 3ds, I'm afraid people will likely be disappointed about that. It's portable, true, but it still fails to qualify for the niche handhelds own of easily being taken anywhere at any time. The Switch is more a device you take with you on long trips when you'll still have downtime, just not in your home.

The Switch is what the Wii U wanted to be and should have been, but it doesn't fill those same holes that the 3DS does.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

I'm still not convinced about the Switch as a handheld device for handheld games. As much as I've been enjoying Fast RMX whilst I was in Dublin, that was me in a hotel room for hours, not flicking it on during a train journey for 20 mins, so I'm still very happy for the 3DS to be getting more support.

I reckon that's because you're not using it as one, not because it couldn't be one with the right support (this is also relevant to Athrun's posts). I can, and do, use it on brief tube trips. I guess the main hindering factor at the moment is the lack of 'portable-feeling games' (although I do play Zelda in short bursts thanks to its generous save system). That's not a factor that improving the 3DS library at the expense of the Switch's is going to cure though.

The Switch has always sounded more impressive to me when you can go portable with a game the scale of BotW rather than say take a puzzle game like Puyo Puyo Tetris & play it on your TV. Monster Hunter aside there isn't many 3DS only games (or ones built for portability in mind) I'd want to see on Switch.

Ace Attorney, 'main-series' Pokémon, Layton, Ghost Trick, touch-focussed puzzle games like Zoo Keeper, Hotel Dusk, Kid Icarus, Bravely, 2D Zelda (don't tell me you wouldn't like that Jas), 2D Metroid... and that's with me not liking strategy games!

Well we hopefully find-out soon how Pokemon Stars feels on Switch, that's the thing we've not played a HD (like the HD model of that bird which was leaked or HD textures) core Pokemon before on a TV.

Switch at the moment is a odd one, I'm in the camp that I want it to replace the 3DS and bunch want that as well, after Echoes I honestly can't see me buying another 3DS game and I've seen others be the other way around with it.

Some games I've played on Switch like Binding of Isaac & Mr. Shifty feel like portable games and that's how I've played them and looking what's coming to the Switch a lot suit that mode of play (Why I'm buying Sonic Mania on Switch not PS4) or something like Disgaea 5 sure it's on PS4 and normally would get ported to VITA but the Switch is getting it instead along with a bunch more games from Japan.  

And like NIS (said it about VITA and why Disgaea 5 isn#t coming to it), I see the Switch as my 3DS and VITA replacement and I want more Disgaea 5, Fate/Extella, Nights of Azure 2, I Am Setsuna for Switch along with Nintendo putting all their first-party games on it.  

The thing it will come down to sales of 3DS and Switch to determine all this.

Balladeer wrote:

Crumpy Andy wrote:

I'm still not convinced about the Switch as a handheld device for handheld games. As much as I've been enjoying Fast RMX whilst I was in Dublin, that was me in a hotel room for hours, not flicking it on during a train journey for 20 mins, so I'm still very happy for the 3DS to be getting more support.

I reckon that's because you're not using it as one, not because it couldn't be one with the right support (this is also relevant to Athrun's posts).  I can, and do, use it on brief tube trips.  I guess the main hindering factor at the moment is the lack of 'portable-feeling games' (although I do play Zelda in short bursts thanks to its generous save system).  That's not a factor that improving the 3DS library at the expense of the Switch's is going to cure though.

Except it isn't at the expense of the Switch's library.  There's always a transfer period where devs whose games were designed for one specific system are going to go ahead with their plans before starting new ones.  Launches are always barren once the afterglow wears off and people finish the launch killer app.  Doesn't mean one system is poaching off the other.  


And I remain unconvinced it's a successor to the handhelds. It's not a question of wants and don't wants.  It lacks that compact nature that Nintendo started working on with the GBA SP and have outright perfected with the DS family.  Japan likes their compact handhelds from what I've heard, and that will kill any real chance of the Switch being the successor to the massively popular 3ds as most third party support for Nintendo systems comes from Japan.  

On top of that if Nintendo planned for it to succeed the 3DS I suspect they'd have marketed it as such from the start, instead they've done the exact opposite. granted their marketing is pretty awful, but it isn't quiet that awful.

Now I'm not in Japan but what you hear is that they do see it as handheld there and why Japanese companies seem to be supporting it with what once may have been 3DS or VITA games.

On the marketing it's a odd one as some of the adverts do make it seem like its a handheld then some don't, also what message do you send
A. It's replacing the lacklustre Wii U and hey it's a console you can take on the go or
B. It's replacing the rather successful & still selling 3DS and hey it's a portable that you plug into a TV (this is the truth though)

Both have the positives and negatives as a console it is still under-powered compared to the others but you can play Zelda and Mario Kart 8, Skyrim on the go but you don't get Destiny 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Prey etc or isn't a super-powerful handheld and cool I can play Pokemon, Mr Shifty, Blaster Master Zero on a TV

This was always going to be a issue with a hybrid and how people look at it, to me I've got my PS4 to play the big AAA consoles games and I'm more then happy to put the 6 year old 3DS & 5 year old VITA out to pasture and play Nintendo first party and what would have been games on them (like my list above) and indies that suit being on the go on Switch.

Balladeer wrote:

Ace Attorney, 'main-series' Pokémon, Layton, Ghost Trick, touch-focussed puzzle games like Zoo Keeper, Hotel Dusk, Kid Icarus, Bravely, 2D Zelda (don't tell me you wouldn't like that Jas), 2D Metroid... and that's with me not liking strategy games!

I'd still prefer all those on on 3ds (even Ghost Trick, 2d Zelda & 2d Metroid) in fact if you brought 2d Zelda/metroid to switch you'd probably just get a lot of folk going why aren't these in the same mould of BotW/Prime? That's all it is at the end of the day personal preference & if it did get games like that I wouldn't be that fussed about it.

I think they'd just be better suited to being digital only.

I know it's personal preference but just wondering if Metroid Dread came to Switch and was a similar artstyle as Bloodstained for instance
Would you play it? And how would you as you're not forced to use the Switch docked and you could play the game fully portable on the go, yes Athrun is right isn't as portable as a 3DS though (Switch Mini?).

The other thing is people moan about everything it's the Internet but if A Link Between World's had been a Wii U game due to it being 2D, it should have been digital? But on 3DS is fine as a retail game? What about Tropical Freeze, Kirby and New Super Mario Bros U should have been downloads as they're 2D?

I know myself wanted a Hybrid as I don't want to buy two systems (I would though) just to play Nintendo games and whole point of hybrid seemed to be let's have all our games on this system etc I can't see why Metroid Dread and Prime 4 can't both be on Switch as the 3DS has a 2D and a 3D Zelda, Wii U has a 2D and 3D Mario games.

The_Jaster wrote:

The Switch has always sounded more impressive to me when you can go portable with a game the scale of BotW rather than say take a puzzle game like Puyo Puyo Tetris & play it on your TV. Monster Hunter aside there isn't many 3DS only games (or ones built for portability in mind) I'd want to see on Switch.

That's a fascinating take, Jas. If I've read it right - and please correct me if I haven't; I don't want to be seen to be putting words in your keyboard! - it'll seem like traditional handheld games will be somehow lesser on the Switch, given that it can give you full home console games on the go.

Tempted to spin this whole conversation off into its own thread and put it in General Gaming Discussions. Yay/Nay/Stop interfering, Zero! ?

mas wrote:

I know it's personal preference but just wondering if Metroid Dread came to Switch and was a similar artstyle as Bloodstained for instance
Would you play it?

It'd depend on a lot of different factors tbh with longevity & price being the biggest, like I said I'm not totally against the system having those kind of experiences I'd just prefer the others.

ZeroJones wrote:

The_Jaster wrote:

The Switch has always sounded more impressive to me when you can go portable with a game the scale of BotW rather than say take a puzzle game like Puyo Puyo Tetris & play it on your TV. Monster Hunter aside there isn't many 3DS only games (or ones built for portability in mind) I'd want to see on Switch.

That's a fascinating take, Jas. If I've read it right - and please correct me if I haven't; I don't want to be seen to be putting words in your keyboard! - it'll seem like traditional handheld games will be somehow lesser on the Switch, given that it can give you full home console games on the go.

Tempted to spin this whole conversation off into its own thread and put it in General Gaming Discussions. Yay/Nay/Stop interfering, Zero! ?

Pretty much aye, to use Puyo Puyo Tetris & Bomberman R as examples both of which are retail games for about 30-40 quid, I'd have been more interested in buying these if they were e shop only titles for £20.

I think shuffling this is a good idea Zero. I've still got stuff to say on the topic, but you're right that it probably doesn't belong here.