Yeah, I find it particularly weird, because Nintendo already had smaller boxes with the Nintendo DS. Did they decide that the Switch was a big boy console, so it needed to have comically large boxes?
Man you would have had a field day with PC gaming in the 90's!
In fairness though, even though some did skimp out and just launch a CD in, most had a manual and something of lore interest or a physical anti-piracy thing, and a fair few were stuffed full of trinkets or other world building material... just because.
Even my Atari ST edition of Zak McKracken had the floppy, manual, passport anti-piracy card, and a faux-magazine which was both hilarious and acted as a hint book too.
The total footprints of the two cases are virtually identical. The Switch game cases are taller but not as deep, and the DS cases are shorter and deeper. I believe the DS case is basically the same dimension as a cut-down DVD case. It's the same depth, +/- a mm, with 65mm chopped off the top.
The NDS game case is 134x125mm, 167.5 square cm in total. The Switch game case is 105x170mm, 178.5 square cm in total. The Switch case is also thinner, 11mm vs 15mm. The amounts of plastic used in each is pretty similar.
Aluminum cases need to become standard for physical copies. Not plastic with an aluminum veneer, all aluminum.
They can be cool and do aluminum tubes holding a flash drive with the game on it if they want so they can laser engrave the sides and screw on top with the title and art.
I remember getting Prince of Persia 2008 in a steel case for a birthday or maybe Xmas and loved the design of it. I haven't seen my steel case editions recently.
My wife got me a copy of Mass effect Andromeda as a gift once. She bought the physical copy (or so she thought) since that makes a better gift. When I opened the case, there was literally nothing in there but a code for EA Origin on a sticker.
Ea games are awful for this. I bought sims 4 when it first came out and had the same issue. It's so cool that I can't own games even if I try to buy the physical copy. I'm just glad that other companies haven't been doing digital only hard copies.
I mean, do you even have a bluray drive on your PC? That's why they do it, I remember having the option to buy San Andreas on one dvd or 8 cds or something, precisely because people don't often replace their drives.
The height of new game glory for me were the old school huge boxes PC games came in. It wasn't uncommon to get a thick manual with wonderful art, sometimes spiral bound, maps, other neat add-ins. Even console games had nice manuals with useful information you may not otherwise know. I miss that stuff.
I wrote a similar reply to a higher comment without seeing yours, and I completely agree - I miss it.
I was a bit younger in the 90s and half the magic of the ride home was reading the manual so you could hit the ground running when you installed it/put the cartridge in/loaded the tape.
If anyone is old enough to remember Infocom games, they came with "feelies," just random fun stuff related to the game they decided to include. It occasionally was needed to solve a game puzzle, but usually not.
I can still smell that box. They had a certain smell back then.
When people talk about games having heart, this is it. Little unnecessary goodies just because you're excited that people are buying your game and you want them to be into it.
Yeah, as Godort said, some games do come with manuals. The Knights of the Old Republic (the first one) port to the Switch is one example. (Presumably KOTOR II as well.)
Tell me what console or system or even game manufacturer that lets you buy their game, download it to a portable micro SD and then lets you play it from there.
Not even steam lets you do that and you don't even have a direct way of knowing what's on the micro SD card without making a label for it which good luck.
Sadly, yes. Got a switch for Xmas this year. Went and bought a mario game, and was completely taken aback when the inside of the case looked just like this. I sat there totally feeling this exact post.
The map in GTA3. There was a mission towards the end of the game I kept failing; to deliver a corrupt FBI agent to the airport. Eventually I realised, after studying the map, I could bypass all the road blocks by taking the light rail system. I felt like an 11 year old Einstein.
Is that the timed mission where they posted up enemies everywhere with rocket launchers along the normal route? That mission ended my last attempt at a playthrough, still never finished GTA3
conpanies usually either bake it into the game as tutorials or have digital manuals nowadays. it was always about cutting physical sales cost (as the physical media itself has a cost attached to it)
IDK how it works on the current console devices, but on the yhe previous generation, the wiiu for example would give the player the option to open the digital manual when the game is launched by pressing the home button and selecting the manual. one of yhe pros is that the manuals digitally tend to be more complete and not rushed to save on cost. take for example, the Xenoblade Chronicle X manual is 142 pages long, something that would basically never exist physically.
Yes, because who wants to own their shit when they can just perpetually lease it with the unending dread of losing it all at any moment (digital platform of choice) shuts down or just says fuck you, we're taking the games away and you cant do shit about it.