The Nintendo eShop Has A Major Problem

I, like many other gamers in my age range, started my love of gaming with Nintendo’s little Pokémon-playing machine. Sure, I played games before getting my hands on my Game Boy Color with a copy of Pokémon Blue for Christmas that faithful year, but none of them clicked for me as that adventure did. In the years to follow, I stayed a Nintendo faithful, while over the years acquiring everything from the Game Boy Advance to the Wii U, and eventually the Switch. (I also managed to acquire and sell the Persona Grimoire Special Edition 3DS, and I will never live that one down.)

All of that to say, as a long-time fan of this ex-playing card company, it is increasingly disappointing to see the state of the eshop, the broken and buggy ports that come out monthly, and Nintendo’s anti-consumer business practices that make this whole situation a lose-lose for the fans who have supported them their entire lives.

So, let’s start at the beginning of the problem. All pains seem to stem from the eShop. But what is the Nintendo eShop, or rather, what is it supposed to be? I have always settled on digital storefronts being used as a tool to connect consumers with the products they want without having to deal with the middleman. That middleman is, in this instance, being physical storefronts.

Back in the days of the Wii, I always heard that Nintendo had no third-party support and that you only bought Nintendo products if you wanted to play Nintendo games. And sure, there is an element of truth to that, with my best memories of the aforementioned systems being playing Pokémon, Smash Bros, and Mario Kart (never Mario Party), but without support from third parties, your platform tends to die. Look to the Ouya for a perfect example of an unsupported console.

It is speculated that due to the poor performance of the Wii U, Nintendo decided to go all out with its eShop in order to boost sales. And, before it was shut down, the Wii U eShop could be described as wonderful. It was filled to the brim with GameCube, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance games that I had a hard time getting my hands on. Stuff like the Megaman Battle Network games, and Legend of Zelda Windwaker were all there, at reasonable prices no less. So it was easy to assume that when the Switch came out, it would follow this trend. The mobile nature of the console made it the perfect place to play those Game Boy Advance and GameCube games you loved. So, in 2017, when I got my hands on this technological marvel, it was safe to assume I was more than a little disappointed.

“Just you wait”, the fans cried. “Nintendo is just holding off on dropping the good games.” And to their credit, it only took 5 years for Nintendo to give us that GBA support, albeit in the form of a monthly subscription and with far fewer games than what was found on its older brother. And you see, that’s where most of the Nintendo fan base seems to live nowadays. Either we are paying for nostalgia, or we are paying more for the lesser versions of games found cheaper and better elsewhere, all to say that we can play them portably.

And what games are we playing portably? Just the games we have played a million times on other platforms. We should have known when Skyrim was announced in the reveal of the Switch that we were going to be drowning in games of days long past. Nintendo did an amazing job of dangling Breath of the Wild in front of our faces in order to distract us from the bait and switch they were about to pull. So, what games were available? Back when the Switch was released, there was pretty much nothing to play besides Breath of the Wild. In those dark times, I purchased Fast RMX and Has Been Heroes on recommendation. One of these games was fine, the other not so much, but both of them were perfectly working titles for the most part. I didn’t feel cheated by the purchases that I made.

Fast-forward to now, and my Switch is filled with games I will never play. Some of them are just not my cup of tea, others are completely broken with glitchy interfaces and blurry visuals. Every time we get a game from a previous generation, like Dying Light, it shows the console’s hardware limitations yet again.

While the Switch is a powerful handheld device, it is not as capable as its competitors, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, or even the generation before that. This discrepancy in hardware often leads to compromises when developers attempt to bring their games to the Switch. In some cases, this results in blurry graphics, reduced or capped frame rates, and simplified gameplay mechanics. While these compromises are understandable to a certain extent, they become problematic when the overall experience suffers significantly.

If a slightly worse experience was the extent of it, maybe we would have little to complain about, but some of their port is downright busted. Mortal Kombat 1 is just the latest example of the low effort that developers put into the Switch version, with laughable textures and bare-bones animations. And the game doesn’t even run that great to justify the downgrades. Even before that, WWE 2K18 was the hot mess of the season, and Arc Survival Evolved chugs at every turn and has you spend more time loading than actually playing.

The consequences these broken ports cause are twofold. Firstly, players who purchase these games feel cheated and disappointed by their experience. This leads to a loss of trust in both the developers and the console itself.

Secondly, the prevalence of broken ports can tarnish the reputation of the Switch as a platform for quality gaming experiences. This can deter developers from investing time and resources into creating well-optimized ports for the console, ultimately limiting the variety and quality of games available to Switch owners.

Furthermore, the lack of quality control from both Nintendo and the developers themselves exacerbates the problem. While Nintendo does have a certification process for games released on the Switch, it's obvious that several poorly optimized ports slip through the cracks. This lack of oversight can be frustrating for players who expect a certain level of quality when purchasing games for their console. Nintendo is far from the only platform that deals with terrible ports, with Steam being famous for buggy ports like Batman Arkham Knight.

However, with Steam, you are at least allowed to request a refund within 2 hours of playtime. Nintendo has no such policy. Additionally, developers need to take responsibility for ensuring that their ports are properly optimized and meet the standards expected by players.

I would love to live in a world where a game can be released on the Switch, and I know it’s just going to work. Sadly, Nintendo has wasted all the goodwill I had for it growing up. Now with every game released, I assume that it’s going to be a buggy mess, and I am surprised when I learn anything to the contrary. When their first party game, the ones you are supposed to buy a Nintendo for, like Pokémon and Zelda, have frame rate and texture issues, what hope does the rest of the library have? You see, Nintendo has a problem. But until they see it as a problem, we are going to continue on this disappointing path until it meets its eventual end.

The prevalence of broken or poorly optimized ports on the Nintendo Switch is a significant problem that affects the overall gaming experience for Switch owners. The hardware limitations of the console, the rush to capitalize on its success, and the lack of quality control all contribute to this issue. To address this problem, both Nintendo and developers need to prioritize quality control and optimization when bringing games to the Switch.

Nintendo should enforce stricter certification processes to ensure that only well-optimized games make it to the console. Developers, on the other hand, need to take the time to properly optimize their ports for the Switch’s hardware limitations, rather than rushing to release subpar versions. To maintain the Switch’s reputation as a platform for quality gaming experiences, both Nintendo and developers must prioritize optimization and quality control when bringing games to the console. Only then can players truly enjoy the full potential of the Nintendo Switch.