Dear Nintendo, get your act together (digital release related).

[MetalBoi]

Ok I pre-bought My Time at Portia on Switch, and my friend pre-bought it on PS4. At midnight she was able to start playing as the game unlocked for her on PSN. So I checked my icon on Switch, and nope, says it's not available until the 16th, even though it's the 16th.

Is there any legit explanation as to why Nintendo isn't unlocking new games at midnight, while others are? Ridiculous.

 

[TheInfinityGauntlet]

could be midnight specific timezone (like how most albums release on spotify n shit) vs midnight per timezone (which is ideal)

 

[Arthands]

What if this is due to different timezone settings

 

[MetalBoi]

We're both in the same time zone.

 

[wrowa]

Some games unlock at midnight, some around noon. It's weird and non-sensical.

To make matters worse, Portia was even a midnight release in the NoE region.

 

[Disclaimer]

Yeah, it'd be nice if everything unlocked appropriately at midnight.

 

[Sacul64]

Is there any legit explanation as to why Nintendo isn't unlocking new games at midnight, while others are? Ridiculous.

Click to shrink...

And here I am waiting 10 hours for Dreams to unlock. Not just a Nintendo problem.

 

[Olinad]

On the Italian eShop, games unlock at midnight. At least retail games; big indies also release at midnight, while smaller ones vary.

 

[Herb Alpert]

I think publishers set the unlock times

 

[HotHamBoy]

I think publishers set the unlock times

Click to shrink...

Yep.

OP is under the wrong impression. Not much discussion to be had here.

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

Publishers set the unlock times. Games can be set to unlock at midnight on switch, e.g. most (all?) big Nintendo releases

 

[Neptonic]

lmao it's the publisher not Nintendo

 

[GaimeGuy]

Perhaps there is confusion with setting a release date for 12 midnight vs 12 noon?

That or publishers suck

 

[MetalBoi]

It's the same game, only on different systems. Would the game have different publishers on different systems in this case?

 

[Jacobson]

We're both in the same time zone.

Click to shrink...

if you're using US eshop, games usually unlock at 12mn in Nintendo HQ's (Redmond, WA) time zone.

edit: or i could be wrong idk

 

[NateDrake]

It's the same game, only on different systems. Would the game have different publishers on different systems in this case?

Click to shrink...

Team17 likely set the time as 12:01am Pacific for Switch unlock.

 

[Atheerios]

Nintendo has nothing to do with that. The publisher sets the time.

First party games always unlock at the correct time (ET) but may take a few minutes.

 

[Kanhir]

I remember this coming up for Pic-a-Pix on the EU eShop, which didn't unlock till about 3pm CET. The publisher said on Twitter that they were told this was the "usual time that games go live".

 

[¡Hip Hop!]

You should be yelling at Sony for allowing your friend to play the game before you. When you point a finger there's three more fingers pointing back at you.

 

[Fliesen]

While OP's issue is definitely a minor one, it would be interesting if PSN maybe allows publishers to set unlock times relative to the local timezone (or the timezone of your regional PSN Store / eShop), while Nintendo only allows for a single, global, unlock time.

So PSN might allow for "unlock at midnight", and the eShop only for "unlock at midnight Pacific Time".

Because it does sound kind of weird, if the same publisher decided to set the same game to unlock at a different time on two platforms.

 

[Nano-Nandy]

Yeah it varies by publisher. Nintendo's games unlock at midnight EST, other games unlock at PST, Others at 9AM EST. Is the same across all platforms anyway.

 

[wildbite]

I was disappointed the game didn't unlock when they said it would. Oh well. I waited a long time to play this game on the Switch in general. I'm just so happy to finally have a life sim to enjoy until Animal Crossing releases.

 

[@dedmunk]

Of the many regular criticisms of Nintendo this generation I find this to be one of the most valid.

There is no reason why all releases shouldn't be unlocked automatically at midnight in the region you purchased from. It's terrible.

 

[duckroll]

It's the same game, only on different systems. Would the game have different publishers on different systems in this case?

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It's the same publisher, but different platforms don't always have the same unlock timings. Not sure why you think this is specifically a Nintendo thing, when people who buy a lot of digital content and pre-purchase digital content across different platforms all the time will tell you that this is normal. Steam, PSN, XBLM, eShop - same game, same publisher, but different platforms and different regions will have different launch times. Why? It could be a ton of reasons. Paperwork, the individuals handling a certain platform/region, submissions timings, etc. Game publishing is a complex machinery that doesn't have a lot of standardization.

 

[Nano-Nandy]

Of the many regular criticisms of Nintendo this generation I find this to be one of the most valid.

There is no reason why all releases shouldn't be unlocked automatically at midnight in the region you purchased from. It's terrible.

Click to shrink...

It's terrible, but also not unique to Nintendo.

 

[Protome]

Some games unlock at midnight, some around noon. It's weird and non-sensical.

To make matters worse, Portia was even a midnight release in the NoE region.

Click to shrink...

Yeah almost all preorders unlock at Midnight in Europe. In the US it seems to mostly just be first party releases.

 

[Haunted]

Remember when we used to have to wait for months for our version of the game?

12 hours ain't shit.

 

[MetalBoi]

Yay! 3:05 am and it final unlocked. Was starting to think it would be midday.

 

[Laserbeam]

It can be a little annoying, I've had games unlock at 10 PM my time because time zones, and I think I've had some unlock at 12 AM my time, and then some the next morning during the normal store update.

I don't find it to be a huge deal but it would be nice if anything preloadable would be a certain midnight unlock.