Tendo City

SO, in the Nintendo Direct yesterday, Nintendo mostly focused on a lot of Switch stuff, most notably a Splatoon 2 single player DLC campaign addon (looks good) and the announcement of Smash for Switch, but before that they talked some about the 3DS, and announced five 3DS games.

WarioWare - Therre's a new WarioWare game coming, and it's 3DS exclusive! It sounds like it's partially new and partially old, as the game brings back 300 minigames from past WarioWare games and combines them into this new title. There's new content around the old minigames, though, and the idea of combining a lot of minigames from both touch and button-based WarioWare titles (though maybe not stuff from Twisted, unless the 3DS has a gyro sensor I don't know about or the convert them to touch control or something) into one game is a cool idea. I like the WarioWare series and will definitely be picking this one up.

Detective Pikachu - This one is a Western release of a game Japan got last year. It's apparently an adventure game, and looks really weird -- I mean, a Pikachu in a detective outfit who talks, with full words, like an adult man? How strange... but it could be interesting? I'm mildly interested at least. This is the one major 3DS exclusive on the list, and it's a port of an older Japanese title.

Dillon 3 - I forget the subtitle offhand, but this one is another later port of a game Japan got previously. The Dillon series of downloadable 3DS games are decently entertaining stuff and it's nice that we're getting the third one. I assume it'll again be a download title? (However, those animal-ized Miis are kind of weird...)

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - This port of the Wii U game is also coming to Switch. The Wii U game is pretty good, its short length and moderate challenge aside, so if there's much new here I'm interested. If it's mostly the same game though I might pass (until it's cheap), since I do own it for Wii U. I'm sure it'll be really good though.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story & Bowser Jr. sidestory - Okay... so to follow up last year's 3DS remake of the GBA M&L game, Nintendo... is making a remake of the third game, and not the second? And it'll be a 2019 release? That's kind of weird. I've never thought much of the M&L series, but Bowser's Inside Story is the only game in this series that I actually own and it's okay. I don't know that I'd buy a remake though, unless the addon content is good and it's cheap.

Luigi's Mansion - And last, there's a remake of Luigi's Mansion for the Gamecube. I've never exactly loved this game so I'm not too excited for this, but for fans of the game it's nice that it's coming back. The 3d effects in this one could be nice, I will say that.


On that last note though, the absence of stereoscopic 3D support in a lot of major first-party 3DS games from the past year or two has been disappointing -- think of how Mario Maker, Fire Emblem Warriors, Kirby Battle Royale, most of the latest Pokemon title, the latest Style Savvy game, and more all don't have any 3D support, while previous games in those franchises / styles on the same platform did. I know that a lot of people don't care, and 2DSes are surely selling well, but I at least really like the 3d and want to see more games that use it; it is the system's main unique feature after all, if they're going to keep supporting the 3DS tehy should support the one thing that really makes it stand out!

Anyway, regardless of that, I'm happy that the 3DS lives. Given its very good sales recently continued support for the system was likely, and Nintendo is providing that. It's clear that the scale of budget these games are getting is not like the 3DS games of years past, but this late in a system's life that is understandable, so it's mostly just good that it's getting stuff, and that some of it looks interesting...

It is interesting, though it's ok if they kill it off at this point too. 2019 is a little surprising a release date for 3DS games, but I think a lot of NES games were still coming out for a few years after the SNES came along, so maybe not that unusual.

I forgot to mention that before this, pretty much the only not yet released game Nintendo had announced for the 3DS was Sushi Striker, a puzzle game I am definitely interested in. In this Direct Nintendo announced that Sushi Striker will also be getting a Switch port. I wasn't sure if the 3DS was going to be killed off with that game sometime this year or not, but now it's clear that they're going another year, albeit with a thinner and lower-budget software lineup.

I am happy about that, but watching the griping of all of the "all Nintendo games should be on Switch, die 3DS now die" people is... I'm not sure, it's partially amusing and partially sad. Like, the 3DS is a great system which is still selling and has a definite spot in the market -- the Switch is far less portable than the 3DS is, after all! And it doesn't have stereoscopic 3d or good touch control support, either. Both systems have a place, and I at least have no problem at all with Nintendo continuing to have two consoles. It is still entirely possible that in another year the 3DS dies off and they go Switch-only, but it'll be interesting to see what happens... will they do that? Quite possibly. Will they release a more portable version of the Switch? Probably not, how would such a thing work with Labo? Will they release a new handheld? Again unlikely, but you never know.

So yeah, who knows... but for now the 3DS is alive and that's great, it's a system I am still using every day.

Quote:It is interesting, though it's ok if they kill it off at this point too. 2019 is a little surprising a release date for 3DS games, but I think a lot of NES games were still coming out for a few years after the SNES came along, so maybe not that unusual.

Yeah, when a system is still selling Nintendo has been willing to continue supporting an older system for a few years after their next platform releases. But because of how the Switch is both a TV and handheld console, the question is, are they going to go Switch-only or continue to have two platforms because the Switch is not as portable as a dedicated handheld? Or do they, again, make a new Switch model that is more (or less) portable? Which way should they go...

They should definitely embrace the single system future. The switch takes up a lot of room in a coat pocket or purse but it's still plenty portable. However, if they shrank it down and released one that could fit in smaller pockets that would be welcome too.

While it would be kind of nice to have one system that plays all the games, I don't think that I have ever been a single-system-future for several reasons, not least because each platform is different and serves a different purpose. The Switch isn't as portable, has capacitive touch (which is what all phones use and most people prefer, but I would argue is worse for a gaming device because it's so much less precise!), has a screen that must be easier to scratch because it doesn't fold closed, etc. Yeah, it's a portable system for sure, so having a portable and a portable is a little odd, but each one has a different niche.

So yeah, for the future I'm not sure if I'd rather see Nintendo release another handheld, or go Switch-only. I really, really like the DS line of systems, so it would be a shame to end it and replace them with something less portable, and full of games that are often not as designed for short-time portable play. But if they release multiple Switch models or something they could fix many of those issues, and that could well happen, though again Labo makes that difficult.

Yes, I would guess that the most likely thing is that eventually, sometime in a year or so, Nintendo goes Switch-only... but if they don't and released another dedicated handheld I, at least, would be totally fine with that, particularly if it had all those things I love about the DS and 3DS that you can't get elsewhere -- the dual screens, the precise touchscreen, the combination of buttons and stylus, the stereoscopic 3D graphics of the 3DS (seriously, more things should have this!), the folding design which protects the screen(s), etc. I know that between smartphones and the Switch the space for a dedicated handheld is narrow, but despite that for now the 3DS is still selling well, so there's clearly still a place for it...

I guess I can't just say you should buy a purse or a switch case. In any event, all they really need to do is shrink down the system and I think you'll be fine with it. Capacitive touch is on a technical level the more precise technology, and there are capacitive touch styluses if Nintendo wanted to include one. Further, it allows for multiple simultaneous touches, which is needed for games like the Room trilogy, which involves a lot of pinching, twisting, and so on that only works with two fingers.

I understand the "niche" argument, but I would argue two portables is just too niche.

I've tried capacitive touch styluses on my tablet, and unless there's a kind which have a solid tip instead of the no-good huge mushy tips they always have, they're awful compared to a reactive touch stylus, and by awful I mean "a lot less precise". They are a little bit better than a finger, yes, but are far less accurate than a DS/3DS/Wii U stylus. Plus they seem to randomly stop working for no apparent reason too, or at least the ones I tried do...

I've actually taken to using the internet on the Wii U Gamepad's browser instead of my tablet while I'm wanting to check the net while using the TV over the past month or so, as I like the reactive touch stylus better and that tablet is not great (it was cheap when I got it several years ago...).

Screen protectors, and quality of the screen itself, also play a big factor. It would be very hard for me to sacrifice multi-touch gestures at this point. I will say there's room for improvement though. My gloves have little patches in the finger tips that allow them to work with touch screens, but notably not ALL touch screens work with them, for example. Being able to detect smaller touches would be nice. A fundamental requirement of capacitive touch is that you complete a circuit, so that's been the trouble there. I guess I would say capacitive is more accurate in some ways (multitouch), less accurate in this way in particular. The main feature of any new touch tech would be tactile feedback. Not vibrating the phone, I mean letting me "feel" the objects on the display. That's going to take a lot of work in meta materials, but if they ever reach that point, maybe we really could get rid of buttons altogether.

Remember how the PS3 and later revisions of the XBox 360, as well as the XBox One's first revision, had capacitive buttons? I hated those. I kept accidentally turning the things on and off just by brushing my arm against it when I was trying to reach something else.

What's more accurate about capacitive? With capacitive you get multitouch, but lose precision of the touches, since the area touched is much larger. With reactive you can only touch one point, but can be very precise about where you touch because of the stylus. While it may have some advantages in phones, in a video game system with buttons I see no advantage to using multitouch.

Quote: Remember how the PS3 and later revisions of the XBox 360, as well as the XBox One's first revision, had capacitive buttons? I hated those. I kept accidentally turning the things on and off just by brushing my arm against it when I was trying to reach something else.

Yeah, my 360 (it's a Slim) has those. I think they're fine, you just touch it and it works. I don't have the console in a place that I'm likely to touch the buttons by accident so that isn't a problem for me.