The biggest issue, according to a lot of people, has been the discontinuation of sales for a lot of this legacy software. This is a valid concern – there are quite literally almost ten thousand games spread across these three storefronts, spanning the PS1, PS3, PS3, PSP, and PS Vita. A lot of incredible classics were released digitally only (particularly for the Vita, the market failure of which made retail releases untenable very early on). Multiple PS1 and PS2 classics were sold for affordable and cheap prices on these stores, rather than the literally hundreds of dollars physical copies of them command on auction sites such as eBay. There are great PlayStation exclusives, and titles that were defining for the platform and its legacy, such as Metal Gear Solid 4, Suikoden, Xenogears, Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Resistance 3, inFamous 2, Persona 3, and many, many, more, that are now going to be lost in the ether. Your option is either to splurge obscene amounts of money on getting physical copies of these, or just never play these games. They will be lost.

Contrast this approach, for a second, to the competition’s. Xbox’s legacy with games is not even a fraction of PlayStation’s, and yet Microsoft is more respectful of it by literally magnitudes upon magnitudes. Microsoft has made a concerted effort to not only maintain compatibility across now four generations of Xbox consoles, but to honor your purchases across all of them (so the user never has to rebuy their games), and most impressively, give these games enhancements and boosts when played on new systems – free of charge. Where Sony is unwilling to let you even play Persona 3 on your PS5, Microsoft will not just let you play Fallout 3 on your Series X, they will also give it enhanced performance, so that it looks and runs substantially better than it did originally – and this is done without charging the user a dime. Can you imagine Sony, the company that made you buy PS2 classics on PS4 again even after you had already purchased them on PS3, charging a premium for minor “enhancements” such as Trophy support, doing something like that? The contrast in the two approaches is severe and stark, and Sony’s efforts look particularly disdainful of their legacy, and of their users’ investment, in light of how Microsoft has been handling compatibility.

Sony has claimed it approaches video games as a medium for storytelling, a legitimate avenue for human creation and expression. Art like that is not meant to be ephemeral and disposable, it’s not something that is made obsolete because something newer came along, it’s something that is meant to be treated with respect and made accessible to as many people as possible. Can you imagine if Steven Spielberg had never allowed any distribution of Schindler’s List after 1994 because Jurassic Park was here, and it was newer and shinier? Can you imagine J.R.R. Tolkein and his publishers deciding to never give any reprint runs to The Hobbit because The Lord of the Rings was now out, and it was newer and better anyway? If games are actually art, then why are they not being treated as such?

The issue with Sony’s announcement goes even further than just the loss of these games (which is in and of itself an intangible profound loss) too. The PS3 and PSP are extremely old – they are 15 and 17 years old respectively, and honestly, their stores being shut down makes at least some sense. It still hurts, because Sony has made no attempts to ensure compatibility with or access for those games on newer platforms, which is what makes the situation spectacularly terrible – but you can at least understand that decision, even if you don’t like it. But then there’s the Vita.

The Vita is less than ten years old right now from its original release (less than nine for western territories). Shutting down the store for a platform not even ten years old is horrific, and sets an awful precedent for the rest of the industry. Yes, the Vita didn’t do too well in terms of hardware sales, but it has a dedicated community of owners and developers (we’ll get to this one in a bit), and software routinely overperformed on the platform. In spite of Sony’s best efforts to bury the Vita alive, the platform continued to chug along. It continues to get routine releases every month even into 2021 (which makes sense, given that the Vita is less than ten years old). Shutting down the store for a system that isn’t even that old is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for a bunch of reasons.

One part of that is the notice given. The PS3, PSP, and Vita stores are not the first console online stores to be shut down – the DSi and Wii stores were. However, in spite of how legendarily bad Nintendo tends to be with online services, they had the foresight and the consideration to make the announcement quite literally years ahead of time, giving everyone involved plenty of time to get prepared for when it happened. Nintendo also made the process a phased one – they announced the stores would be shutting down a couple of years down the line, but that balance purchases for the stores would be suspended a year down the line. Again, this approach, while not ideal – those games are still lost to time, and they’re not compatible with Nintendo’s newest platform either – at least exhibited a level of consideration for those ecosystems, and the users and developers who may still be invested in them, however few they may be. Sony’s notice period is… four months for the PS3 and PSP, five months for the PS Vita. That’s all we get. And rather than do everything in properly laid out staggered phases, Sony has taken the webstore that users used to make purchases for these systems (because the stores on the consoles themselves are, let’s face it, terrible) down without any notice or warning at all. This reveals how little they care for not just the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita, and the legacy associated with those systems and the games they had, but also for the users who may still be invested in those platforms, and the developers who may still be invested in those platforms.

Yes, developers. As it turns out, Sony’s spectacularly bad communication and lack of transparency isn’t just for their users, it’s also for their developers. Multiple developers who were still working on Vita games that were due to release this year did not know that Sony would be pulling support for that platform’s store (because, I remind you, the Vita is less than a decade old). In fact, Sony was selling dev kits – presumably worth thousands of dollars, judging by how much dev kits are typically known to cost – to developers as recently as a few months ago with no warning associated. Meaning Sony was willing to take developers’ money for games that they were just going to be starting development on for the Vita, without letting them know that they would soon have no way whatsoever  of actually selling those Vita games, because the Store was about to close soon, and Sony had stopped manufacturing cartridges for the Vita years ago anyway (plus as mentioned already, physical Vita releases haven’t been tenable for a long time).

This basically throws these developers – and these developers are typically smaller indie outfits, not the big developers (whom, reportedly, Sony did give notice to) – under the bus. They are out of the money they used on the dev kits, and they have no way to recoup those games they spent time, money, and resources on unless they can get them out in the next five months and hope to recoup all costs in that truncated period. How will they get the games out by then? They may have to crunch, they may have to enlist help they can’t afford, or they’re just going to be losing a lot of money.

PlayStation became as huge as it did on the back of amazing developer relations. Before the PlayStation came along, the market was dominated by Nintendo and Sega, and both platform holders were known to be, to put it bluntly, bullies to third party developers for their consoles. Sony managed to make the PlayStation such a rousing success because developers of all kinds – the big blockbuster publishing houses, and western ones, yes, but also smaller ones with few credentials, and Japanese ones working on niche titles not guaranteed to be blockbusters – felt welcome in the fold. Sony took decades to build this reputation for developer relations, and it’s why, for so long, the PlayStation was almost a default platform for console developers. 

In the last few years, Sony has done its best to destroy this confidence and longstanding relationship with developers. Sony still rolls out the red carpet for you if you’re a western publisher, or if you’re a Japanese one who puts out huge blockbuster hits like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil – but otherwise, as we have seen, Japanese developers are increasingly being marginalized and alienated by PlayStation, and smaller indie developers from across the world have felt jilted by the console too – no wonder, by the way, if Sony will do things like take their money and then discontinue the store they could have sold their games on without warning or notice just weeks later.

This slow erosion of developer relations is not something they should expect to get away with forever. PlayStation is doing great right now, off the back of well earned and deserved goodwill from audiences and developers alike accrued over decades. But if Sony continues to be hostile to smaller pockets of developers it deems as being so small that they won’t have a choice but to support PlayStation, then it may soon start losing out on their support (among indie developers, PlayStation is already now taking a backseat to Steam and Switch, and several huge indie hits either come to PlayStation late (such as Hollow Knight), or don’t come to PlayStation at all (such as, as of right now, the award winning Hades). Among Japanese developers, we are already seeing multiple smaller developers and games going to the Switch exclusively (such as Shin Megami Tensei V), or coming to PlayStation later, or not at all.

And that kind of loss of support from smaller developers will matter. None of those games may sell millions of software copies or hardware units by themselves, but collectively, they add depth and dimension to the console’s library, which has helped PlayStation stand out and have a more exhaustive and comprehensive library than the competition for 20 years now. Losing those games, and only getting the big Japanese blockbusters and western multiplats, gives the PlayStation the kind of library that Xbox consoles were known to have until very recently – and that kind of library is sorely lacking in the character and texture that helps consoles appeal to all demographics.

This only exacerbates the broader problems that Sony’s discontinuation of these stores, and utter lack of compatibility and continuity efforts, will have. Yes, PS5 is selling great right now, and it’s well deserved – but customers who are burned repeatedly on their purchases by Sony will eventually learn not to trust the company. The fact that probably hundreds of dollars’ worth of digital purchases will now be lost to the ether will probably give a lot of pause to many before they spend money on Sony’s digital stores again (and this company has the audacity to sell a digital only console right now). This kind of loss of confidence is already something Nintendo struggled with with the Switch for years, and digital adoption for their consoles only started to pick up recently, after almost a decade of Nintendo trying. 

Yes, one might make the argument that the broader public doesn’t care – which in and of itself is a stupid and unfalsifiable statement, since there is no way to actually prove that – but the enthusiasts and engaged fans of PlayStation do, and they’re the ones who will be most jilted by this move, and will be the loudest in expressing their displeasure. And as we have seen previously, the enthusiasts making noise about something does leak into the broader public and color perception, affecting sales. The enthusiasts were the ones most opposed to the Xbox One when it was revealed – and that ended up influencing that console’s fortunes for the rest of its life cycle, as well as the brand’s up to now. If Sony continues to burn bridges with its development partners, and its most engaged fans, then the goodwill and success PlayStation enjoys right now could find itself be punctured severely – and they would do well to remember that. It feels like they take their success for granted right now.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

The demo for Capcom’s Monster Hunter Rise is currently available for Nintendo Switch, free for all who download it via the Nintendo eShop. Unfortunately, due to the demand for the same, the eShop faced severe slowdowns. As noted by Nintendo Japan’s official Twitter, downloads were not starting immediately due to “concentrated” access.

It also advised players not to spam the “Download Demo” button, since this could delay the download by several minutes. However, earlier today servers went down for emergency maintenance. No time frame has been provided for when they’ll be back up.

If you managed to download the demo already, then it’s still very much playable so don’t worry. The demo includes two hunts – Great Tsuchi and Mizutsune – along with training quests for the Wirebug and Wyvern Riding. It will be available until February 1st but has a limited number of quest departures for the hunts.

Monster Hunter Rise will launch on March 26th for the Switch.

現在、Nintendo Switchのニンテンドーeショップにアクセスが集中しているため、ソフトのダウンロードがすぐに開始されない状態が発生しています。お手数ですが、ダウンロード開始までしばらくお待ちください。 https://t.co/alXwzyNtzy

— 任天堂サポート (@nintendo_cs) January 8, 2021

ニンテンドーeショップの「体験版ダウンロード」ボタンを複数回押すと、ダウンロード開始が遅くなる場合があります。ダウンロードが始まらない場合はしばらくお待ちください。

※現在、ダウンロードの開始が数十分程度遅延しています。

— 任天堂サポート (@nintendo_cs) January 8, 2021

ニンテンドーeショップにつきまして、緊急メンテナンスのためご利用いただけない状態が続いており、お詫び申し上げます。誠に申し訳ございませんが、しばらくお待ちいただきますようお願いいたします。 https://t.co/alXwzyNtzy

— 任天堂サポート (@nintendo_cs) January 8, 2021

Nintendo themselves may not have launched any big name Switch exclusive or game in April (other than the Labo VR kit), but there wasn’t any shortage of new games to play on their hybrid system last month. In a new video that the company has just put out, they showcase games that launched on the Switch over the last 30 days.

These include the big names like Mortal Kombat 11, Final Fantasy 10, Final Fantasy 12, and Dragon’s Dogma, as well as eShop only releases such as Cuphead, Katana Zero, Steamworld Quest, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Ace Attorney Trilogy, Boxboy + Boxgirl, and My Time In Portia.

There was a lot on the Switch last month, representing one of the most packed and diverse lineups the system has had since its launch two years ago—it properly sets the Switch up for the second half of this year, when there will be a flurry of blockbusters coming out on it on a consistent basis, starting with Super Mario Maker 2 on June 28, 2019.

Nintendo has shared the top downloaded games list on the Nintendo eShop for North America via the News app on the Nintendo Switch, and as is always the case, Fortnite is at the very top. We won’t even talk about that part, because everyone knows that. It’s what comes after that’s more interesting.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate took second place in March, more than three months after release. Final Fantasy 7, which launched on a Nintendo platform more than 20 years after its departure from the Nintendo 64 caused the collapse of Nintendo’s dominance, took third place.

Elsewhere, Cuphead charted incredibly high, based on nothing but pre-orders, while indie game sensation Baba Is You seems to be doing very well for itself, charting at ninth place. Wargroove, which did so well in February, is nowhere on the charts—though other Switch indie mainstays, such as Stardew Valley and Hollow Knight, continue to do great.

You can check out the full charts for yourself below.

1. Fortnite
2. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
3. Final Fantasy VII
4. Minecraft
5. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
6. Stardew Valley
7. Just Dance 2019
8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
9. Baba Is You
10.  New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
11.  Yoshi’s Crafted World
12.  Cuphead
13.  Rocket League
14.  The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
15.  Hollow Knight
16.  World of Final Fantasy Maxima
17.  Overcooked! Special Edition
18.  Super Mario Party
19.  Timberman VS
20.  Final Fantasy IX
21.  Warframe
22.  Overcooked! 2
23.  NBA 2K19
24.  Undertale
25.  Trials Rising Standard Edition
26.  Splatoon 2
27.  Super Mario Odyssey
28.  FIFA 19
29.  Child of Light Ultimate Edition
30. UNO

Nintendo has, as it usually does, shared on the Nintendo Switch news app, the charts for the most downloaded games on the Nintendo eShop for the month of February, and there’s a fair few surprises here, alongside some games doing as you might expect.

First off—yes, Fortnite was the most downloaded game for the month of February. As it always is. However, from here, things get interesting. Wargroove was second place, with the shadow-dropped Final Fantasy 9 coming in third, and starting the regime of PlayStation Final Fantasy games on Nintendo consoles in style. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate surged to fourth place, ahead of even New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which launched in January, and is now in sixth place.

Usual indie darlings Hollow Knight, Undertale, and Stardew Valley continued to perform strongly, as did third party games such as Diablo 3 and Civilization 6. You can check out the full charts for yourself below.

1. Fortnite
2. Wargroove
3. Final Fantasy IX
4. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
5. Minecraft
6. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
7. Undertale
8. Stardew Valley
9. Overcooked 2
10. Diablo III: Eternal Collection
11. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
12. Hollow Knight
13. Rocket League
14. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
15. Super Mario Party
16. NBA 2K19
17. FIFA 19
18. Warframe
19. Super Mario Odyssey
20. Human: Fall Flat
21. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!
22. Just Dance 2019
23. Downwell
24. Arcade Archives Vs. Super Mario Bros.
25. Moonlighter
26. Robonauts
27. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!
28. Civilization VI
29. Nine Parchments
30. Fitness Boxing

With January behind us now, Nintendo has revealed the most downloaded games on the Nintendo eShop for the month in North America via the Nintendo Switch News app. Some of the results won’t surprise anyone here—such as Fortnite topping charts—while others are more pleasantly unexpected.

Fortnite, as I mentioned, was the most downloaded game in North America in January. It was followed by New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, the port of the Wii U game which launched last month. Elsewhere on the charts, Nintendo evergreens such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Pokemon Let’s Go, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, and Splatoon 2 continued to do well. Indie sensations such as Stardew Valley and Hollow Knight continue to remain fixtures on the charts, as does Rocket League. Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition seems to have had a solid debut on the charts, coming in at 12th place. Previously released third party games such as Octopath Traveler, Civilization 6, and Diablo 3: Eternal Edition all seem to have done great, too.

You can check out the full charts for yourself below.

1. Fortnite
2. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
5. Minecraft
6. Stardew Valley
7. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
8. Hollow Knight
9. Super Mario Party
10. Rocket League
11. Splatoon 2
12. Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Editiobn
13. Overcooked! 2
14. Warframe
15. Diablo 3: Eternal Collection
16. Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu
17. Super Mario Odyssey
18. The Way Remastered
19. Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
20. Octopath Traveler
21. Jumping Joe and Friends
22. Undertale
23. Fitness Boxing
24. Arcade Archives VS. Super Mario Bros.
25. Wargroove
26. Bouncy Bob
27. Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee
28. The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+
29. Civilization VI
30. Katamari Damacy REROLL

In case there was any doubt whatsoever about how well Smash might be doing in Japan (though given its crazy sales performance in the country at retail, there really shouldn’t have been), the new lists shared by Nintendo for the bestsellers on the Nintendo eShop in 2018 in Japan via the News app on the Switch should allay it. On the list for the digital performance of retail only games, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is far and away the bestseller, coming in ahead of every other game.

Interestingly enough, Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! don’t seem to have done as well—yes, their sales are split across two SKUs, which lowers their potential ranking a bit, but even accounting for that, only one of them appears in the top 10.

Nintendo has also shared a second list comprised of digital-only games. This one sees Human: Fall Flat and Stardew Valley topping charts, with Hollow Knight rounding out the top five, demonstrating that good taste is universal.

You can check out both lists for yourself below.

Download-Only Software – Top 30

1. Human: Fall Flat 
   
2. Stardew Valley
   
3. Puyo Puyo eSports
   
4. Overcooked! Special Edition 
   
5. Hollow Knight 
   
6. Futari de! Nyanko Dai Sensou
   
7. Arcade Archives VS. Super Mario Bros.
   
8. Dragon Quest X All-In-One Package
   
9. Minna de Kuuki Yomi
   
10. Wizard of Legend 
    
11. Dead Cells
    
12. ICEY 
    
13. Resident Evil Revelations 2 
    
14. Snipperclips: Cut it out, together 
    
15. Mom Hid My Game! 
    
16. Golf Story 
    
17. NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 3 Full Burst HD 
    
18. Detention 
    
19. Senran Kagura Reflexions 
    
20. Gorogoa
    
21. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 
    
22. Ultimate Chicken Horse 
    
23. Guns, Gore & Cannoli 
    
24. Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 
    
25. Nine Parchments 
    
26. EARTH WARS
    
27. Valkyria Chronicles 
    
28. The Escapists 2 
    
29. Ikaruga 
    
30. Voxel Shot 

Retail Releases – Digital Sales Top 30

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
   
2. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
   
3. Overcooked! 2
   
4. Splatoon 2
   
5. Super Mario Party
   
6. Octopath Traveler
   
7. Kirby Star Allies
   
8. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!
   
9. Minecraft
   
10. Mario Tennis Aces
    
11. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
    
12. Undertale
    
13. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!
    
14. Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun!
    
15. Super Mario Odyssey
    
16. FIFA 18
    
17. 1-2-Switch
    
18. Bayonetta
    
19. Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2
    
20. Xenoblade Chronicles 2
    
21. Dragon Quest Builders 2
    
22. Dragon Quest Builders
    
23. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
    
24. Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
    
25. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
    
26. Super Bomberman R
    
27. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
    
28. Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle
    
29. DEEMO
    
30. ARMS

While Microsoft and Steam have worked to institute refund policies for their digital stores, Sony and Nintendo have steadfastly refused to do so. And much like Sony, Nintendo is now finding itself in trouble in Europe over said refusal, where it is potentially in circumvention of consumer protection laws.

According to Nordish site PressFire, the Norwegian Consumer Council has reported Nintendo to German authorities (Germany being where Nintendo of Europe is based) over Nintendo’s refunds policy for digital pre-orders—in that there is a no-refunds policy for digital pre-orders.

The NCC feels that this is a violation of the customer’s rights. Nintendo disagrees, and cites article 16 of European Consumer Law Directive 2011/83. Specifically, Nintendo says that a refund is unnecessary if “the performance has begun with the consumer’s prior express consent, and with the acknowledgement that he will lose his right of withdrawal once the contract has been fully performed by the trader”.

The official legal proceedings are expected to start soon, and it remains to be seen how this goes down in court. However, personally, I hope Nintendo is forced to change its refund policies, and come more in line with what Valve and Microsoft already offer.

Nintendo recently launched their paid online service for the Switch with Nintendo Switch Online, which is something they’ve been focusing on quite a bit, with everything from legacy content to planning for how to expand it in the future. Part of those plans might be to bring everything related to online content on Nintendo’s handheld-console hybrid under the Nintendo Switch Online umbrella- including the eShop.

As spotted by an eagle-eyed user on ResetEra, documents arising out of recent legal proceedings might be hinting at the change. The documents pertain to Nintendo suing a man for selling Switch modding tools and NES Classic Mini consoles with pirated games pre-loaded on them. The legal documents contain, as all legal documents do, descriptive text for some of the things related to the case- one of these things is the eShop. What’s interesting is that it is referred to as the “Nintendo Switch Online shop”, with words in parentheses making it very clear that it was “formerly” known as the Nintendo eShop. You can take a look at two such instances in the images below.

Since this doesn’t come in the form of an announcement or statement by Nintendo, it’s hard to figure out the validity of this- but it’s a legal document, binding in the court of law, so there’s that, too. Given Nintendo’s increased focus on pushing Nintendo Switch Online as a service, it makes sense that they would want to push the brand further, but it would also be a pretty significant change. The eShop has, of course, been their digital storefront for all their systems since it launched with the 3DS in 2011.

Either way, stay tuned to GamingBolt- we’ll keep you updated in case we hear anything new on this story.

The Nintendo eShop on the Nintendo Switch is really bare bones. Not in terms of content, of which there is a lot, but rather, in terms of organization and searching options offered to players. The good news is, a new update made to it addresses that latter point to some degree.

The new update for the Nintendo eShop lets users search for games based on a variety of filters and criteria, from game genre and price to whether or not the game has any DLC available, or whether or not there is a demo for the game (an easy way to search for demos if you’re short on funds but still want to see what title you may want to invest in in the future).

The original search options and filters that have been available on the eShop since the Switch’s launch last March through to now are all also available, just in case you liked those more. For whatever reason.

Next up—increase discoverability and maybe offer better organization options on the main store page itself. It’s good to see Nintendo at least following up on its promise to try and improve the eShop, however.