Skyrim Remastered on the Nintendo Switch

[Tingz0r]

The Nintendo Switch was revealed and it has Skyrim.

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/this ... o-nx-37941

1:12 on the video on that page shows it off. You can read through the article to learn more.

[ZeRoc]

I noticed this when I saw the trailer. I was just in awe to the fact that we're getting a Bethesda game on a Nintendo console. And in general the Nintendo Switch looks very interesting. My brother and I had been debating whether the NX would be a console or a handheld... I guess their answer was "yes."

[MetaCthulhu]

Will it have mod support?

[Crawldragon]

This just smacks of desperation, really. Nintendo has spent two console generations alienating its target demographic as much as possible and now they decide to play the "it can run Skyrim!" card and try to lure in a new demographic entirely? I dunno, sounds to me like Nintendo is drowning, and considering that its competitors were already on thin ice that's really saying something. At this point if I were a Nintendo fan I would despair.

[MetaCthulhu]

So apparently Skyrim isn't actually confirmed for the Switch: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/skyrim ... n=homepage

[Crawldragon]

Wait, that confuses me. Does that mean that there's a port of Skyrim for the Switch and they just aren't sure if it will ever be released, or does that mean that the Switch they showed was operating as a tech demo running on Windows or something? Because either would be a peculiar amount of trouble to go through to... deceive potential buyers?

[MetaCthulhu]

I just assume it's the old "screen images are simulated" gag that advertisers like to fall back on. I don't think they're trying to maliciously mislead, but yeah, probably should've been handled better.

And while I'm here: How many controllers is this thing supposed to have? I've seen at least three different controllers in the trailer alone; are they going to be bundled with the console? Are they going to give us options?

[ZeRoc]

This just smacks of desperation, really. Nintendo has spent two console generations alienating its target demographic as much as possible and now they decide to play the "it can run Skyrim!" card and try to lure in a new demographic entirely? I dunno, sounds to me like Nintendo is drowning, and considering that its competitors were already on thin ice that's really saying something. At this point if I were a Nintendo fan I would despair.

Erm... if you think Nintendo has been targeting the same demographic as PlayStation and Xbox for the last two generations, I think you're a little confused.

They've more of been trying to target the casual player audience since the Wii, and that's what's made them stand out compared to the specs war between the PS3/PS4 and XB360/XBone. Wii Sports and Wii Fit weren't meant for the same audience as Halo or CoD, they were for the younger and older sets, games that the whole family could play. (For the sake of it, I'm kind of ignoring the WiiU, since they lost a lot of money as a result of that.) Doing something new was what got them in the lead with the Wii those many moons ago, and I think the Switch will prove to be similar. Just because they want to expand their demographic to include the M-rated Skyrim market, it doesn't mean they're alienating anyone. They have the best 1st party games in the business to back them up, with Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Kirby, Super Smash Bros, and so on, plus all the nostalgia factor they can get by releasing old games for the Virtual Console. (As well as Mario Maker, LoZ Wind Waker HD/OoT 3D/MM 3D/Link to the Past 2, DKC Returns, Star Fox 64 3D/Zero.) I just don't see anything wrong with showcasing that, for the first time since the original Wii, they actually have 3rd parties backing them up as well.

As a hardcore Nintendo fan, I'm doing quite the opposite from despairing, I'm hyped for this. It's what the WiiU should have been. (For reference, I actually liked some parts of the WiiU.)

[Crawldragon]

They've more of been trying to target the casual player audience since the Wii

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. If memory serves me correctly they only ever tried to share a target demographic with the PlayStation and Xbox once, with the GameCube, and that didn't really work out for them. I hold no ill will in my heart for their decision to market to casual gamers, though I take fault with it as a sustainable business practice. What I'm saying is that Nintendo fans are a different demographic than Xbox and PlayStation players, but they are most certainly not casual gamers.

The problem is that Nintendo has spent two console generations now attempting to market to casual gamers while still insisting that their console was viable for hardcore gaming as well, and that has not turned out to be the case for the Wii and from what I understand based on second-hand accounts it isn't working out for the WiiU either. These stirrings at Nintendo that they're trying to get the hardcore gaming market back simply do not align with their focus on lassoing in the casual gaming market, and porting Skyrim to the Switch does absolutely nothing to convince me otherwise. The reason why Skyrim worked for the PlayStation was because PlayStation players and Elder Scrolls players are in the same demographic (depending on what generation of Elder Scrolls games you favor, that is). There's an overlap there. This is not the case with Nintendo's target demographic, and that's why the Wii had such a radically different design from the PlayStation. Ergo, showing off Skyrim on the new console tells me that they're trying to pull in a new demographic. If it didn't work out for them--or their competitors--in the past, I don't see why it would help them now. They have a perfectly fine demographic of gamers that they're continuing to marginalize.

[speculative rant on the fate of console gaming cut for the purposes of staying on-topic]

[The SheoDovah]

It won't be the remastered version. Purely because it is only as powerful as a PS3 and 360. It'll be a straight up port of the PS3 and 360 version. No mod support either as Nintendo barely recongises Online gaming as a thing. If it's closer to the PS3 then 360, Nintendo made a bit of a mistake as well, Bethesda's stuff doesn't really like small amount of RAM and that was the cause of Skyrim's issues on that console.

If it was a tech demo, bad show by Ninty and Bethesda as it'll fuel demand for it and whilst i'm sure Bethesda wouldn't need much time to port over the last gen version of Skyrim, it'll just open them up to stuff like "What the heck!? Why this is the last gen!?" etc..

If it is revealed to have been nothing, this will be backfiring on both parties as well, Skyrim is the most popular entry in the franchise and this will cause a lot of fan backlash. I mean, a portion of the fanbase is already demanding TESVI. This would add fuel to the claims that Bethesda is wasting time. :-/

[OnikaraStar]

Hello, I’m from the future. Skyrim on the Switch is fun and you can get neat stuff from TOYS! (I got a couple from mods already on PC, but hey, it’s fun!)

[Pilaf The Defiler]

I'm from even farther in the future and now you can play the skyrim on Alexa.

[Dark Spark]

More like someone coming fresh out of a mental institution (all because of that one little misunderstanding*) saying just how fun it was playing Skyrim as a Live Action Role Play.

* Threatening that officer's knee was a step too far.

[SeaGtGruff]

I'm from the past. We used to play Skyrim on the Atari 2600 VCS, although the graphics looked like crud and the virtual world was extremely tiny. They (Atari) had to call the game "Adventure" so they wouldn't get into trouble with Bethesda, but everybody knew it was actually Skyrim-- well, those of us who were telepathically linked with our future selves did, anyway. There were no giants and mammoths, but there were dragons and castles, and you could shout at the bat-- although it just ignored your obscenities and flew off with your sword just as you were about to kill a dragon, leaving you with a stupid horseshoe and no horse to shoe.