I remember how people justified Shadows of the Empire costing $80 at release on the back of the opening Battle of Hoth level. It was cool, don't get me wrong, but there still 90% of the game after that!
Lego City Undercover Switch cover mentions 13GB download [Up3: Full game on card]
- Thread starter shiyrley
- Start date
I remember how people justified Shadows of the Empire costing $80 at release on the back of the opening Battle of Hoth level. It was cool, don't get me wrong, but there still 90% of the game after that!
Marty Chinn
Member
I don't want to hold Nintendo responsible; I want to hold them BOTH responsible. This opens a door for every developer to follow in the same footsteps. Objectively looking at the situation, I don't see how anyone can conclude that Nintendo doesn't have any responsibility for being blamed as to this being allowed to happen. It's their gateway; it's their policies; it's their say in the end. How do they get off blame free looking at it objectively? What is the rational reason that they don't have any responsibility or blame in this?
We all know Nintendo wouldn't allow a porn game, so their desperation for third party certainly has limits for them to say no.
Mr. Pointy
Member
A 13GB patch isn't a problem for my internet, but it's still shit because that's a few hours of delay and stuffing about. I'm curious to find out how much the cost difference between a 8GB and 16GB cart is now.
Milly Osworth
Member
Dont bother with this game, its mindnumbingly boring.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Wrong. Lego City Undercover is a great game and one of the best GTA clones. The practice here is wrong, but the game itself is superb, best Lego game easily and the only one I ever enjoyed.
Not going to happen. Get used to fewer third-party games on Switch and some of this situation I suppose.
Marty Chinn
Member
Remember when DLC was just a simple optional horse? Good times....
frankie_baby
Member
plagiarize
Banned
Well I'm not going to buy it then. This is totally stupid and I hope Nintendo put a stop to developers doing this.
Like the hat?
Banned
Waiting for confirmation but I went from buying it day one like I did with the Wii u version to just skipping it completely.
SuperSonic1305
Member
I refuse to believe anyone defending that. 32 GB was low back in 2006.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
It's on the final box, that's confirmation enough.
It generally makes sense for physical purchasers. Buy a micro-SD card instead of asking for the system to cost more for everyone else.
frankie_baby
Member
You want Nintendo to do what Microsoft can't really even get away with? Nintendo is currently in no position to demand anything from 3rd party publishers. Also looking at the game disparity between XBO and PS4 forcing release day parity seems like a bad idea.
It would've required a 32 to fit the entire game.
The WiiU proved none of this. The Wii U was an undesirable product that was hamstrung by Nintendo prioritizeing the 3DS over it and 3rd party publishers bailed after their LATE OVERPRICED PORTS failed to sell.
Nintendo customers wont buy Rime and LCU because of these practices and it will push the Narative that Nintendo customers dont buy 3rd party games. This will mean 3rd partys who have happily abandoned Nintendo platforms wont have any incentive to return as their numbers will suggest that it will be unprofitable.
On time ports (or even Early ports to Price gouge PS4/XB1 consumers to pay twice) would be far more profitable for 3rd parties. Yet Sony or MS would never allow that BS.
Nintendo is in a perfect position to make demands of 3rd parties. 3rd parties badly fucked them over with the WiiU and the whole concept behind the Switch was build behind not needing 3rd parties. The Switch is designed to be a Nintendo + Indy machine that people want.
3rd party publishers are responsible to their shareholders and their bottom lines. You can bet those Shareholders would start asking some serious questions if a 3rd party was ever banned from releasing a multi million dollar costing game on a platform over $2 a cart.
Yeah in past Switch threads when I complained about the tiny amount of on board memory people were saying that if you buy retail it wouldn't be a problem and yet here we are with one of the first non launch retail games requiring a download that's half the size of the built in memory.
I've always felt that the 32 GB of built in memory is ridiculously small, especially considering it's the same amount as the Wii U despite the fact that the Switch has far more RAM and DLC/eshop only games are going to take up a lot more memory.
I've always felt that the 32 GB of built in memory is ridiculously small, especially considering it's the same amount as the Wii U despite the fact that the Switch has far more RAM and DLC/eshop only games are going to take up a lot more memory.
How is not wanting to eat the cost of being forced into carts, "doing mandatory installs for nothing"?
I get that we're consumers, and usually give two fucks about the company's bottom line, but the reason they are doing it does not make them douchebags.
People better get prepared to see more of this.
frankie_baby
Member
Despite this Lego city will still sell best on switch, years of huge patches have proved the average consumer doesnt care about having to download stuff
OrbitalBeard
Member
Pretty much. The worst Wii U game I purchased.
If this actually becomes a trend, I'll be upset.
The Hermit
Member
Well, I am going to buy digital anyway.
The ratio of size/price of the card is new info for me and I think this will be a common if devs want to keep a lower/same price.
The ratio of size/price of the card is new info for me and I think this will be a common if devs want to keep a lower/same price.
SkyMasterson
Member
I just can't support this. I would be ok with a partial mandatory install or whatever(few gigs or less), but this is unacceptable. Was really looking to getting the game too.
Wonder if they'll do a reprinting if the backlash gets to be too much? Doubt it, but I would buy it if they did.
Wonder if they'll do a reprinting if the backlash gets to be too much? Doubt it, but I would buy it if they did.
A patch isn't the same thing, as having a useless cart that doesn't work without downloading more than 50% of the game. How can so many people not see the difference. 🙄
Power to you dude but that is never going to happen. Nintendo doesn't care what they do as long as the game is released on the switch. None of the big three really care about stuff like this. The Evil Within is basically unplayable on the PS4 without the day one patch. Forza 5 is unbeatable without it's day one patch.
stan423321
Member
The way that any sane non-startup customer software development works is that you tailor your product to the hardware you try to leverage, or else you may very well end up with PS3 Last Guardian style limbo. With DS developers knew from the start they were not making their games for an Xbox 360 portable wannabe, and they adjusted their software needs, from RAM through processing ending on storage, accordingly, with some resulting "damage" to their software features.
The Switch change is in general that the developers changed. A lot of top AAA designers simply aren't interested in designing for anything but the top of the hardware, a lot of top mobile developers aren't interesting in developing for anything but the top of the market. Switch instead has way more of indie and ex-AA devs which develop things in a more feature than hardware oriented way more often than not.
This doesn't concern LCU though, what concerns it is that it's a low budget port from hardware that is overall weaker than the Switch but is not completely trumped by it due to, well, a more spacious, if slower, storage option. In the days before common internet connections and standard built-in rewritable storage, WB or whoever would be forced to quickly cut assets' quality, throw out less essential content, this sort of stuff. Some developers take porting things "down" or at least "orthogonally" seriously (first parties and tech gurus, basically) and develop more appropriate solutions to such problems but it's an exception rather than a rule. Nowadays they decided that this download thing would be more cost effective, given it probably takes epsilon time to program the game to do this - or no time at all depending on Nintendo's tools for development of updates - so the potential customer backlash is the only major cost.
frankie_baby
Member
Not saying there isnt a difference but to the average consumer it wont seem much different, you start something up for the first time it downloads shit
kitchenmotors
Banned
Fuck that. This is a Lego game aimed at kids. I would understand if it was Xenoblade X or something.
Again, publishers shooting themselves in the foot on Nintendo systems. I won't support this and won't be buying the game anymore.
Again, publishers shooting themselves in the foot on Nintendo systems. I won't support this and won't be buying the game anymore.
Shadow Broker
Banned
If this keeps up we're just going to say the samething over and over to each other just in different ways. I have my opinions you don't agree with and you said your opinions and I don't fully agree.
There's no point in continuing unless it's for the sake of debating.
Okay, you better explain some points I didn't want to say in detail and made points I disagree with. I don't want to have this conversation so I'm leaving Gaf for a few hours.
Hope you all have a good day.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
If they do so, devs will either raise the price by what looks like $10 USD at the moment....or go digital-only (also bad, even if you're a digital-only consumer), or simply not release on the Switch.
There's no solution, really. That was the concern with moving to game cards from cheap discs.
On what platform? Im pretty sure a major publisher was sued late last gen (cant find it) for advertising that their game could run on an 8GB Xbox 360 when it couldnt and that publisher had to compensate all effected users with appropriately sized flash drives.
Its a shitty buisness practice that has been ruled unacceptable by consumers (and potentially by a court. If anyone could help with links that would be great) Downloads are fine if you have extra storage, what isnt fine is forcing Switch owners to suppliment the cost of storing your game at potentially 50-100 dollars when it will cost publishers who will reduce a $60 game to $20 in a few months $2 for a more expensive cart.
Azure Phoenix
Member
Good god, they need to nip this in the bud ASAP and mandate that all physical releases must contain the full game on cartridge. And that includes stopping scummy Tony Hawk 5 style workarounds like adding half of the game as a "day one patch".
It was bad enough when Sony were pulling this crap with Sly Collection on Vita and such, but publishers at least settled on getting the base game on cart and split options like JP voices off into an optional download.
It was bad enough when Sony were pulling this crap with Sly Collection on Vita and such, but publishers at least settled on getting the base game on cart and split options like JP voices off into an optional download.
pirateluigi
Member
I'm definitely still getting this game because it's one of my favorite games ever, but I'm not happy about this practice. I'd love to make a stand but the appeal of portable Lego City is just too high for me.
"Switch tax" is a fib that publishers are trying to fob off in the hopes gullible consumers accept higher prices.
Remember how DS and 3DS games were the cheapest games on the market despite also being on cards (they're not cartridges btw)?
Marty Chinn
Member
So you can't give a rational and objective reason as to how Nintendo is blame free? You can't seem to defend this stance with a reasonable view point. At what point in your eyes does blame fall on Nintendo?
Possible, yes, but given that this is shipping on a smaller game card to presumably save costs to begin with, not particularly feasible.
The_Endgamer
Member
Their accountants trained them well.
AstroNut325
Member
Difference in the spot price average on DRAMExchange says around $1.10-2.00 dollars between 8 and 16GB capacities. And that's standard SD card stuff at very high volumes. For Nintendo's proprietary stuff and volume, I would imagine it's a lot higher.
Skittzo0413
Member
This would set a very bad precedent if Nintendo doesn't start doing something about it. Like eating some of the extra manufacturing cost.
Very disappointing.
Very disappointing.
this method is the worse outcome though, doesn't have the convenience of digital and preservation is nil because it's tied to the eShop. this is a literal quick cash in taking advantage of the sparse lineup of a just-launched game system, just inexcusable really
KennyLinder
Member
With the lowest profits in the games industry making them not desirable platforms for the majority of publishers. Margins were always super tight, even on DS.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
The ideal solution for publishers really is to avoid Switch and any extra cost they don't know if they can pass to consumers or not, I'm afraid.
Who's going to spend more money on a large Switch game card when the other physical versions are cheaper?
Colonel Mustard
Banned
Same. Easily the best Lego game ever released. I trudged trough the 3DS version because I liked the game so much. Having the real deal in portable form is too much to sleep on.
Definitely waiting on a sale now though. Looks like my April Switch budget is going to Mario Kart and Puyo Puyo Tetris.