5 Reasons Why you should NEVER buy on Launch Date

Words_and_Wisdom

Technology is an amazing thing. However, despite countless testing, errors and issues can still occur. The Nintendo Switch is a prime example of what can go wrong, with reported issues of dead pixels and with the joy-cons. However, you can be a smarter consumer by listening to these 5 reasons why you should never, never buy anything on launch date, as well as notable examples.

5 Reasons Why you should NEVER buy on Launch Date


1. Massive production can lead to massive errors in the beginning.
5 Reasons Why you should NEVER buy on Launch Date

Launch days have a tendency of having a myriad of issues. This certainly has happened with the Xbox 360 infamous "red ring of death." Or how about how the PS4 had many issues with freezes and crashes? Another recent example is For Honor with its lack of dedicated servers causing people to crash out of a game, or worse, cause game-breaking glitches that warps peoples characters about. Naturally a game or a game console will have bugs or glitches throughout the lifespan, but without a massive group of people to test features and limits, those problems could be numerous and hindering.


2. Without any reviews, you won't know what you're getting.

5 Reasons Why you should NEVER buy on Launch Date

No Man's Sky is a text-book example of false advertising. With their hype (and blatant lies) the development and marketing team have brought to the public, it lead to leagues of disappointed fans, following a curtail of demanded refunds. You won't know what you're going to get on launch date, no matter how much press a product may have gotten. With the first point, a game may have many issues and bugs at launch. Go on YouTube and watch some reviews before deciding to purchase a game or a console.

3. Early Access Promotes Faulty and Unfinished Products

5 Reasons Why you should NEVER buy on Launch Date

Early access products promote bad and lazy design decisions. It's like letting chefs get away with serving raw steaks to its customers. Buying into Early Access hype lets future developers know that you're into unfinished games. It's a bad practice, and you should avoid it whenever possible. Sure, not all Early Access games are bad, some could be quite good in fact. But a lot of the time they go unfinished and underdeveloped. Often, games get stuck in Early Access hell and never get an 'official' release.

4. Study the trend and the development process before making a buying decision.

You should see first what updates will be coming and what the developers are planning for the future of a console or a game. A good case would be Warhammer Online. It may have had its performance issues, but it was still fun. If the development team put more resources into developing it, it could've been a big hit! Unfortunately, there was a severe lack of content and performance optimizations to the point where all the servers shut down.
For a console, you may not even know what other games will be coming out in the near future other than the ones presented for launch. The PS Vita certainly didn't provide for anything noticeable to make it a market effective portable device. For games, if you don't know what the developers plans are for future content, who knows how much of a lifespan the game will be.
(Heck, there's speculation that the Nintendo Switch will be a console for Virtual Reality later down the line.)

5. You may not even be able to get a refund if something goes wrong.

Fortunately, many of those who were scammed into buying No Man's Sky have gotten refunds on Steam. But that may not always be the case. You could be stuck with a faulty product until patched, or worse, left to dry.

5 Reasons Why you should NEVER buy on Launch Date
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