 Hey everyone, welcome back to Nintendo Prime and man we have a really really weird story to talk about today. One that's become all too common on Nintendo Switch. But before we get to that story, I want to announce a special giveaway we have going on for brand new subscribers. So sure, in the month of August we're giving away a $20 eShop gift card to one of our new subscribers in the month of August. But actually from yesterday, so as of August 11th, until we hit 100,000 subscribers, every single new subscriber from then until 100,000 will be automatically entered into a random drawing to win $1,000 cash. Don't worry, if you're a current subscriber, I didn't forget you either. We will have a special giveaway event at 100K for all of our subscribers, not just the new ones, but we are doing a special promotion for our new subscribers, so why not give it a try? Now let's get to the actual news and it's about Hogwarts Legacy. You haven't heard the news yet today, Hogwarts Legacy put out a new tweet and it reads, Hogwarts Legacy will launch on February 10th, so they're giving us that new release date for it 2023 for PlayStation, Xbox and PC. The Nintendo Switch launch date will be revealed soon so I guess we shouldn't have to wait too long for it. The team is excited for you to play, but we need a little more time to deliver the best possible game experience. It is notable, you can actually pre-order a physical edition of Hogwarts Legacy for Nintendo Switch, but we have seen in the past where some companies have offered physical versions that are just the case and it comes with a digital insert inside for you to download either a digital copy of the game or what we're really afraid of, an actual cloud version. A lot of people look at Hogwarts Legacy like you're looking at footage right now and you go, how the hell is that going to run on Switch? And now it's delayed for Switch. Does that mean it is actually coming natively to Switch? Because why would you need to delay a cloud version for Switch? Because it would just be the PC version of the game essentially running on a server on Switch. So I do tend to believe this is probably coming natively to Switch, likely with resolution and FPS drops and everything like we've seen with a lot of other third-party games that come to Switch. I'm still impressed that if this game is coming literally natively to the Switch platform, that is still an impressive feat to me, unless it just comes out and is running at like five frames a second and at like 240p, which could happen. Now, this has been a normal thing to happen on Switch over the years. We've seen a number of third-party games that do come natively to Switch really seem much later than the other versions of the game. Obviously, the Switch version not being prioritized as much as say PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox, etc. And in many ways, it's understandable because the Switch is one, a different type of hardware and two, significantly less powerful than these other platforms. So it does need more specialized development time that isn't really getting the full dedicated time it needs during standard development. It's unfortunate that we do have to deal with stuff like this on Switch, but it's pretty much going to stay this way now that PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X released. They've been out for a couple of years now, so developers are starting to slowly prioritize development towards next generation, or I guess we should say current generation devices, and that's going to leave the Switch version of games if we do get them kind of in the dust. Again, it's extremely unfortunate, but that's just the way it's going to be probably until we get whatever Nintendo is working on next. And we don't know what they're working on. We've got the rumors and the leaks and the reports, and we don't need to go down that rabbit hole again. I know some people get tired of going down that rabbit hole, but yeah, Nintendo is going to release new hardware someday. That is a thing that's going to happen. Nobody knows when. Next year, 2024, 2025, 2027. I mean, I don't think the Switch platform can last that long, but who knows? Is Nintendo going to refresh the platform instead of releasing a brand new one? Nobody really knows. It's all guesswork at this point. I know Charlotte RGT-85, he actually took the conversation back to the Switch pro route. I know just mentioning that makes some people cringe because he was arguing that it actually still makes sense to release a mid-gen refresh more than the next generation. Most of it has to do with the current momentum of Switch and the Switch sales being strong. And hey, Nintendo keeps saying how they want to extend the life cycle of Switch for as long as possible. And well, a mid-gen refresh Switch would do that. And I know we're technically probably out of the middle of the generation, but still, it could make some sense depending on how big of a leap it is. If it's just something super, super minor, it probably doesn't make any sense. But if it's enough, but things can still be made for the old Switch as well, I don't know. I mean, some people worry about splitting up the player base. You know, like on New 3DS, you could play Xenobit Chronicles 3D for that, 3DS for that, which was a port of the Wii game, but you couldn't play it on the original. I think Minecraft was also only playable on the New 3DS. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but I'm pretty sure it was only playable on the New 3DS. So people worry about splitting up player bases, but honestly, it's better than not getting the games at all. Now again, this is just speculation at this point. What we do know is Hogwarts Legacy is supposed to have its Switch release date announced soon. So with February 10th, 2023 being the target date for other platforms, we just kind of hope the Switch isn't too far behind. Although it could be several months behind, it's just something we've grown accustomed to unfortunately. But again, we don't know if it's going to be a cloud version, if it's going to be local, digital only. There is a physical version that you can pre-order, but again, we've seen physical pre-orders in the past that were just boxes with digital codes, and I think that's a really, really crappy and shady thing to do. But companies do that. Oftentimes, it's communicated publicly before you go pick up your copy. But for those that don't pay attention to the entire news line and they just walked into their local GameStop and pre-ordered a physical copy for Switch and all of a sudden the digital code, they might be a little bit upset at that. But hey, I don't know, we're all just guessing at this point. And this is just the latest, like Gollum got delayed and then now the Switch version is extra delayed on top of that. So we've seen this with Gollum. We're going to see this with a lot of games. I mean, I am glad that we're still getting third party games on Nintendo Switch because I did think the deeper we got into the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series generation that we were going to see less and less third party games coming to Switch, so far that hasn't actually been true, but a lot of companies haven't moved on from PlayStation 4 and Xbox One yet. So we might still get another year of getting third party games just because those older platforms are still seeing a lot of support. But when Switch does get proper attention, we do know games perform well. Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga was actually best selling on Switch in a number of territories and came out day in date and ran very well on Switch, at least well for a Switch. Obviously all the other platforms it ran better on, but it was an acceptable experience on Switch enough so that many, many people, including yours truly over here, really enjoyed it. Now that's what we got for you today. The code for our other giveaway we have going on, if you don't know what it is, it is in the down in the description in the pinned comment to get an extra 20 entries, to get an extra 20 entries. That code is Green Bay. Yes, I'm watching a little bit of that Packard game tonight, so Green Bay is the code for today. Alright guys, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll catch each and every one of you in the next video.