Switch Online "Expansion Pack" - Nintendo 64 and Sega Mega Drive games to be added

jawa_ wrote:Has any GRcadian purchased the Expansion Pack yet? It'd be good to hear a viewpoint from someone who has used it rather than just relying on the "worst scenario" stories that we've seen today.

I think Chalky has, he posted a screenshot on twitter

I thought this article was interesting, and almost warrants a thread of it's own about how we perceive 'value' of entertainment products.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/is-the ... -worth-it/

...however I don't have the post count to pull this off.


Paging Jawa.....!

jawa_ wrote:Has any GRcadian purchased the Expansion Pack yet? It'd be good to hear a viewpoint from someone who has used it rather than just relying on the "worst scenario" stories that we've seen today.

the games I have played on it so far have all played fine, I haven't noticed anything bad about them yet. a slight delay maybe when rolling with link in ocarina of time but nothing off putting.

Lime wrote:I thought this article was interesting, and almost warrants a thread of it's own about how we perceive 'value' of entertainment products.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/is-the ... -worth-it/

...however I don't have the post count to pull this off.


Paging Jawa.....!

Just took a quick look... very interesting, Lime! Videogame "value" is pretty much all over the place right now. I'm not sure how I feel about the Expansion; on paper, £35 a year for all of the games you get access to isn't bad at all. But, then again, they perform pretty poorly technically - it's not the best way to play the games.

We need a thread to chew over "videogame value" and there are a number of things I'd like to include in it. I'll try and (ahem) get it up tonight!

Ploiper wrote:

jawa_ wrote:Has any GRcadian purchased the Expansion Pack yet? It'd be good to hear a viewpoint from someone who has used it rather than just relying on the "worst scenario" stories that we've seen today.

the games I have played on it so far have all played fine, I haven't noticed anything bad about them yet. a slight delay maybe when rolling with link in ocarina of time but nothing off putting.

It's good to hear different perspectives and it seems that you're finding the games to be fine, Ploiper... great stuff! It's intriguing as to how we are getting such a big variation of opinion on the titles and I suspect it's gonna take a while until we can establish the factors (perspectives, expectations, frame rates and more) that may be driving these viewpoints.

From what I've read it has a lot of issues with input lag and stuttering on some titles,

twitter.com/kirbolotl/status/1452820223845830660

Some titles flag up controller pak errors,


And the controller layout if you don't have an N64 pad is just bizarre (and can't be remapped)

Lime wrote:I thought this article was interesting, and almost warrants a thread of it's own about how we perceive 'value' of entertainment products.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/is-the ... -worth-it/

...however I don't have the post count to pull this off.


Paging Jawa.....!

What a weird article

People think it's not worth it because they're literally charging money for things fans have done for free (and to a higher quality) for years now.

If someone made a marvel adjacent film in their spare time and released it for free that was more technically accomplished than one from a multi billion dollar company then people would (rightly) think paying to see a marvel film wasn't worth the money.

Surely it's not that hard to understand why people feel ripped off? It's not a case of video game value being broken

I grabbed the expansion pass, I don't even know why I have an everdrive for my Megadrive and N64. I haven't played anything on it yet though and I have no idea who to try it it online.

Oh my lord



Still an incredible game and possibly the new best showcase for the OLED, goddamn it's beautiful!

Super happy with Mega Drive emulation on this Safe to call it the best on the system I reckon, it is indeed leagues better than the MD/Gen collection, and even better than M2's ports in terms of no shimmering on 4:3 scrolling. Though stupidly, if you do pixel perfect the gradiant background pretty obviously doesn't line up with it ha, further making the case for us to disable that...

N64 is definitely pretty rough sadly, still had some fun with it but input lag, visual oddities & periodic choppiness are absolutely noticeable. Mileage may vary on how big a bugbear those are, I could still enjoy the games reasonably well but definitely won't be happy if things don't improve. If you can't get the expansion pass on a family plan of eight, it's especially a very tough pill to swallow.

To that; I'm only playing £4.15 for pro rated family sub (on top of £2.81 on a CDKeys regular bought family plan), so I'm happy on that for Mega Drive + Animal Crossing DLC alone personally. Still, it is disappointing N64 launched in the state it did, these aren't uncommon issues to emulating the system but you'd hope they'd be sorted from the official company themselves.

At the very least, thank god we don't have the dark filter from Wii U Virtual Console, and thank god we're not locked to PAL only; seriously, see how long you can last on 50Hz Mario or Zelda before you crumble to lethargy induced skeletal dust :p

Lagamorph wrote:And the controller layout if you don't have an N64 pad is just bizarre (and can't be remapped)

Holding ZR to turn the face buttons into the c-buttons is a pretty elegant solution I think, but the top face button being down c otherwise is confusing me greatly

OrangeMKN wrote:

Lagamorph wrote:And the controller layout if you don't have an N64 pad is just bizarre (and can't be remapped)

Holding ZR to turn the face buttons into the c-buttons is a pretty elegant solution I think, but the top face button being down c otherwise is confusing me greatly

That completely ruined me on Starfox bahaha, having the top button be brake and the one below be boost...I couldn't handle it!

Sorry Falco

Such a shame there are these issues. I've got loads to play at the moment so I'll sit on this for a bit (I won't open my N64 controller either - I can see these being worth a bit, especially if you essentially can't play the games against others online or even offline due to the bizarre controller mapping).

Tomous wrote:

Met wrote:

Fade wrote:

Tomous wrote:

Fade wrote:Hardcore Nintendo fans are the absolute worst

Some guy on Reddit trying to tell me this expansion pass isn't anti consumer because I have the 'option' of not buying it

Imagine Netflix forcing people to buy a 12 month subscription and it being spun as not anti consumer

By this logic anti consumer is only when a company literally forces you to buy something

Exactly

Anti consumer basically = lack of options, and only catering to one demographic

Which is exactly what this expansion pass does.

If I only want to play Mario Kart 64 online for one weekend I have to buy a pass for an entire year.

It's dumb.

Can I, as someone who does not own Animal Crossing, buy the expansion pass on its own without DLC for a game I do not own being bundled in? Because if that's bumping the price up Ninty can strawberry float off on that front, too.

Yeah, it's nuts. If you want the DLC is good value if you don't it's terrible value.

>good value
If you only want that DLC for 1 year

Lagamorph wrote:And the controller layout if you don't have an N64 pad is just bizarre (and can't be remapped)

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since on the actual N64 controller, A and B are laid out more like B and Y respectively on the (SNES) Switch layout of face buttons.

For emulators, I've always mapped it as:
<
B v
A

< being left C and v being down C. Tho I kinda like the ZR approach they've gone for.
Also the Switch buttons can be universally re-mapped for the console per individual joy con, and the re-mapping can be saved to its own profile. So you could make an N64 specific one. It's a pain but you could do it.

Jezo wrote: <
B v
A

Someone stole the serving tray from my robot butler.

Jazzem wrote:Oh my lord



Still an incredible game and possibly the new best showcase for the OLED, goddamn it's beautiful!

Super happy with Mega Drive emulation on this Safe to call it the best on the system I reckon...

I legit put Jazzem's verdict about emulation quality on a par with Digital Foundry 'cos I know what an absolute stickler he is for resolution and frame rates (<3) .

Jazzem wrote:...and thank god we're not locked to PAL only; seriously, see how long you can last on 50Hz Mario or Zelda before you crumble to lethargy induced skeletal dust :p

. I'm pretty much okay with PAL stuff; I know that's it's slower and wonky sometimes but, as it's how I experienced the games originally, I'm fine with it . I do appreciate the ability to choose both options, though - pleasing both audiences!

jawa_ wrote:

Jazzem wrote:Oh my lord

[Ristar Image]

Still an incredible game and possibly the new best showcase for the OLED, goddamn it's beautiful!

Super happy with Mega Drive emulation on this Safe to call it the best on the system I reckon...

I legit put Jazzem's verdict about emulation quality on a par with Digital Foundry 'cos I know what an absolute stickler he is for resolution and frame rates (<3) .

Jazzem wrote:...and thank god we're not locked to PAL only; seriously, see how long you can last on 50Hz Mario or Zelda before you crumble to lethargy induced skeletal dust :p

. I'm pretty much okay with PAL stuff; I know that's it's slower and wonky sometimes but, as it's how I experienced the games originally, I'm fine with it . I do appreciate the ability to choose both options, though - pleasing both audiences!

Bless you fella d'aww

I definitely hope we get Digital Foundry analysis on these, will be super interesting and perhaps help firmly articulate the specific issues. Heck let's get one from our own @Yubellion toom what with his staggering ability to talk fluent DF-ease!

I’ve always mapped the right stick directions to the c buttons on pc emulators. Assumed they would do the same but noooooo

Johnny Ryall wrote:I’ve always mapped the right stick directions to the c buttons on pc emulators. Assumed they would do the same but noooooo

I think they do from that image but I guess they also just had two buttons left over. There's also a ZR toggle to make them the face buttons.

Jezo wrote:

Tomous wrote:

Met wrote:

Fade wrote:

Tomous wrote:

Fade wrote:Hardcore Nintendo fans are the absolute worst

Some guy on Reddit trying to tell me this expansion pass isn't anti consumer because I have the 'option' of not buying it

Imagine Netflix forcing people to buy a 12 month subscription and it being spun as not anti consumer

By this logic anti consumer is only when a company literally forces you to buy something

Exactly

Anti consumer basically = lack of options, and only catering to one demographic

Which is exactly what this expansion pass does.

If I only want to play Mario Kart 64 online for one weekend I have to buy a pass for an entire year.

It's dumb.

Can I, as someone who does not own Animal Crossing, buy the expansion pass on its own without DLC for a game I do not own being bundled in? Because if that's bumping the price up Ninty can strawberry float off on that front, too.

Yeah, it's nuts. If you want the DLC is good value if you don't it's terrible value.

>good value
If you only want that DLC for 1 year

True, I should have caveated it with that