@Lizuka I haven’t played KH3 yet, and Ive been waiting for a non-cloud Nintendo port. Hopefully 2026 is the year.

@NorrinRadd Totally agree. Nintendo are the only one of the Big Three who do it right, and keep their games exclusive to their consoles.

@Ridley Nintendo is for me at least the only company with capable portable gaming. Sure you have the SteamDeck or other portable PCs. But those are a lot heavier and clunkier than a Switch 2. No, I would still prefer the games on an actual Switch.

I would get it if it was on the UK store. Seriously how do you screw up a simple release like this?

I believe Sony was being incredibly short sighted when they started porting 1st party games to PC. Short term gain for long term pain. I hope they rescind that internal policy and stop making their 1st party single player games available on PC - or they will eventually become like Xbox - just another publisher. Screw Jim Ryan.

@Anti-Matter Ofcourse you would want Nintendo games on PlayStation. PS5 is a powerful console with little to any actual good games. It's the most underwhelming console released in recent history.

Dragon quest 12 needs to be shown off in some form it's been 4 years and 7 months since it's announcement in May 2021 for all current platforms and unreal engine 5 which switch does not seem to be supporting well

Ah reckon if Nintendo went to other platforms the audience would just drift off to PC or PS depending on their preferred flavour.

Maybe the Xbox strategy is to plant FOMO on rival consoles while making up for expensive acquisitions then slam the shutters back down later but its destiny seems to be as a cloud gaming hub thing for other systems. Then Nintendo chugs along as the family friendly alternative to Sony consoles.

I was guessing a licensed arcade game like Macross II or a late 90s Namco or Taito title, but selecting Space Invaders to commemorate #500 made perfect sense, given it was such a momentous title. I never realized that Hamster hadn’t ported it yet!

I’ve watched the Arcade Archives livestream at least a little bit every Thursday for years now, and this week’s episode was exceptional since they brought Space Invaders director Nishikado-san on as honored guest to talk about the game’s development and success. Did you know he originally wanted to title the game “Space Monsters” and that’s why the cabinets had that black fuzzy humanoid creature on the side panel art? But he went with the “Invaders” title and aliens that look like octopus and crabs instead, as that better fit the times back then.

@Ooyah @Freek
I was only 5 when SI debuted. I think I first played it in 1980 or 1981 - my uncle managed a country club and put an Invaders cabinet in the clubhouse for the members back in the early arcade boom. The bartenders would give me and my cousins a few quarters from the cash register so we could play it when we visited. That machine, or else a random Pac-Man cabinet at a relative’s wedding reception, was the first arcade game I ever played. Atari, Coleco, and Arcade were my holy trinity until the NES came along. Folks our age truly have grown up alongside the games industry!

@Wexter

if NSO virtual boy can happen, anything can. I'm just worried that nintendo might cut corners and ditch the wii sensor bar and instead plunk gyro into the wii remote instead.

A little part of me would die if that happened. Thankfully, I can't see Nintendo doing it.

If Nintendo released their games on other plateforms, they would not bother making consoles in the first place. It does not make them any money to sell consoles (or so little, it's marginal). They want to sell games first and foremost, and all the goodies associated with them. That's why Xbox's decision to keep making consoles is so surprising. It's just a dead weight at this point.

Exclusives can motivate additional hardware investments indeed, but only either among platforms of equal accessibility or for a user with the luxury of spending time with any given platform (the latter being commonly reduced or even denied over the same period when you have the most disposable income to invest in stuff like video games). To this day, I only have a PS4 courtesy of owning a Vita whereas even a whole bunch of PS5 games (either still exclusive or allegedly beyond Deck's capabilities) haven't succeeded in making me a PS5 owner because what's the point in buying a gaming machine you have no confidence in being able to use? Busy work/life schedules including but not limited to a teacher's downtown downtime are harsh masters and, unlike the aforementioned Vita, the Portal with its higher resolution and more restrictive network requirements threatens to be just as useless depending on your local communication services.

Games like BotW and Xenoblade can come to PS5 and XBS tomorrow (no subreddit puns intended) for all I care - I'll still buy and play them on Switch or Switch 2 whose format can feel like peak game accessibility to a busy adult gamer. And same goes for Nintendo's own exclusives like Tokyo Mirage Sessions or Xenoblade Chronicles X which alone could have long driven me to buy a Wii U ASAP... but never did, for contextually evident reasons regarding Wii U itself. Heck, a mere couple indies from a Humble Bundle back in 2016 sped up the introduction of 3DS to my gaming arsenal - but the enclosed Wii U titles from the same bundle gathered dust for years until the respective eShop was scheduled to stop processing purchases and I just gave both codes away on Reddit.

The notion of exclusives tailor-made for the hardware at hand is something to get behind, but context matters here. If the exclusive pushes the machine's unique features and pragmatic strengths, it sounds worthwhile indeed - but if the proverbial lever's "11" means 4K skin pores to peruse at 120 fps, then the "lowest common denominator" has all the odds of overlapping with highest common sense. We're long and well above the technology levels required to create a looker of a game - if your platform and its exclusives flex the excess specs, I would much prefer it to contribute to the more meaningful aspects - as long as we're talking a piece of interactive fiction and not just a glorified audiovisual tech demo.

@Duncanballs Definitely agree when producing hardware, as a good exclusive can really sell systems and generate excitement. Tetris, Mario land, Mario World, Zelda, Sonic, Streets of Rage, Tekken, MGS, FF7, Sega Rally, Virtual Fighter 2, Mario 64, Goldeneye 007, Halo and GTA 3 etc really sold some respective systems when they released.

It was definitely weird seeing sonic on the GBA and GameCube back in the day. To be fair if the new Halo was to come over to Switch 2 I’d probably jump on it day one. Again would be weird tho.

My take on this is twofold: firstly, if you let your exclusives go then it is a one way street; you will never recover that exclusivity again and will lose your brand or console’s identity. Secondly, for Nintendo it would mean the death of their console business; why play games like Breath of the Wild or Metroid Prime 4 on weaker hardware? Imagine Zelda running on Xbox Series X or PS5. Why on Earth at that point would you bother with a Switch? Best to keep it exclusive.

‘So you want the most powerful console on the planet? That’s cool. Oh you want to play Mario Kart? Pity it’s not on your console. Guess you’ll need a Nintendo as well then. We don’t care if you have other systems too; you’ll still need ours for all these exclusives…’

Isn't using AI to make games undermining their own business?

@Misima when Mario 3 came to the GBA it meant people could play that game at an airport while traveling without the need to bring their NES and TV... Same with the likes of Red Dead and Skyrim, the fact those games exist on the PS3 and Xbox doesn't mean the switch library does not grow when they are on that.

Equally the same for games which now have a switch 1 and 2 version, there's tons of original Xbox games which got a HD version on the x360 not many people questioned their existence due to the original 480p versions existing (although I'm sure you would have if you were gaming then)

That's great, now announce Persona 4 Revival for Switch 2. Same with Persona 6, it better be there Day 1 Atlus or I swear to god lol

I am pretty happy with my Xbox it pairs really well with my LG Oled and I just never seem to have any issues (With the exception of quick resume on indie games.) I don’t think MS would ever do a proper exclusive (They would always do a PC version) so the optimisation wouldn’t be the same.

The VRR and just the general system design of MS I think is better. (I.e harder to mess up - playing Capcom Arcade Stadium 1&2 is much nicer on Xbox same with the Megaman collections. Unity games and Unreal games I have had no issues with. Even Freedom Planet 2 (9/10 here supposedly perfect wasn’t right in my opinion on Nintendo.)

I think the hybrid nature of the Switch 2 is leading to too many compromises. (There is no good reason to underclock docked)

@Ooyah thanks man for the info, I know of the evercade and other retro handhelds, I have an odin2, retroid pocket 4 and my fav is a trimui, but I love having all my gaming officially on the switch.

The trimui is awesome though as there's games on that which will never come to legit platforms like the rainbow versions of street fighter 2, those are the ones that bring me back to the chip shop in the 90s, tumble pop was in the bowling alley here so that's where this arcade game takes me when finishing it over and over. I hope your chippy memory includes the smells and sounds as well !!

After P4 remake, it's time for P5 I guess ? Could we get Persona 6 or is it too much to ask ?

@WaveBoy if this happens I guarantee if Wii games get added to Switch Online, Nintendo will release a Wiimote, Nunchuck and sensor bar accessories. They've done a good job porting Wii controls to work with the joycons, but it's not the same.

Does Nintendo Life just not bother reviewing these games or are they mostly on other consoles?

I did a search for "Arcade Archives" here and only found 30-50 results.

@UltimateOtaku91

I don't think Nintendo values customer loyalty as you state it by not chasing extra sales. I believe it's just the best business model for Nintendo and making them the most profit. If they would release their games on PS5 the main draw to buy a Nintendo (Nintendo exclusive games) would be lost. I don't have a problem with it, but I don't believe they do it with us in mind.

@LordFunkalot fellow old gamer. Im torn. I think exclusivity works if you produce hardware. Its largely why I have owned every Nintendo console since the NES. In truth though, I have benefitted from multiplat on many machines ..... C64, Amiga, PC etc

Never say never though. Seeing the gaming wars of the 90s, none of us would have ever imagined Sonic on a Nintendo machine!

As an old man gamer who has been playing since NES and original GB, IMO exclusive games are what makes gaming fun and interesting.

I would hate for companies to no longer have exclusive games, it wouldn’t be the end of the world but I think gaming would definitely loose more of its magic.

I recently finished the original 1+2 trilogy, and while a remake of that would be nice, I would of course prefer Persona 6 before that.

@FernandoMachado Prime 5 will probably be a back to basics kinda game. Prime 4 had a lot of experimentation (honestly felt like a natural progression from Prime 3) and I doubt Retro wants to commit to another 6 year dev cycle. They'll probably want to pull back on the next title especially after criticism.

@Anti-Matter genuinely, why capitalise words??

@Sindayl Tbf Xbox has been just as bad with third party exclusives, in fact they've had more then playstation when you factor in smaller games. I'd go as far as Xbox started the timed exclusive war back in the day when they had GTA 4 DLC, Tomb Raider, Dead Rising, PUBG, Titanfall etc. Playstation retaliated in a big way mainly with Japanese exclusives which basically made them the JRPG machine. Id say Xbox are solely to blame for their downfall, trying to out spend the competition backfired majorly.

If ever they make an official d-pad left joycon 2, I would like it to swap the dpad and the stick and have the d-pad being on the main position.

It would be perfect having a d-pad joycon for 2d games and a c buttons one for 3d games. If they release a d-pad joycon without swapping the d-pad and the stick, as far as I'm concerned the d-pad would still be pretty much unusable as a main imput peripheral because it's positioned too low.

EDIT : the d-pad on the pro con 2 is absolutely fine compared to the first one, I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading here unless they were talking about pro con 1 maybe?

Yeah I'm definitely holding off until things are fixed. I'll hold off on picking the game back up altogether until then.

If anything the recent “Nintendo Switch 2” game updates are a positive sign of the NS2 floodgates opening and I can’t wait for what 2026 will bring.
Factorio, Divinity OS2, Stardew all in the same month (all my faves as well) and…Skyrim (I’m hopeful it will eventually be patched up).
Any other recent NS2 updates I’ve missed? Has Nintendo Life done an updates article yet?

Update: I can see there is an article for updates. Thanks NL 😎

Another year, another hopeful request that we see
Pheonix
Knuckle Joe
Ring King
Main Event

4 games from my childhood still absent

Sony is also partly responsible for Xbox’s current situation, having locked down virtually every third party deal it could on Playstation since the PS4 era. Combined with Xbox’s refusal to properly fight back, this has led to Xbox’s current state.

Xbox’s new strategy is a disaster and feels like a huge slap in the face to its fans. They have the money and the power to compete and make a comeback but they simply don’t seem to care anymore. Exclusives are important. Period.

"If Mario Starts To Show Up On PlayStation, That's The Apocalypse, Right?"

Me: I mean, why not?
I would like to play new Mario games on PS5 with Unreal 5 engine, more dialogues & voice acting, smooth 60 fps performance, the game released on Blu Ray disc with Blue colored box and beautiful white header with PS5 logo.
This is the mock up PS5 version of Super Mario Wonders I found from internet.

I will buy this PS5 version DAY ONE.
You hear it, DAY ONE and I will keep this promise.

I think we'll get FFXVI eventually.
DQXII is a given.

Sony literally saying Nintendo is right (again) without actually saying it lol.

They chased the live service golden egg, caught salmonella and now sitting back down.

Microsoft is far too big a game studio to be shackled to a struggling console. Of course it makes sense for them to sell their games everywhere (it's where the money is lmao!) Buuut, mark my words, the day an XBox console becomes market leader, don't be surprised when their narrative shifts more akin to Sony's...or cry when CoD isn't on Playstation anymore. It's why their messaging is so confusing. Their short term mission drive is totally at odds with their long term one.

To echo some of the thoughts already voiced here - Persona 4 (my favourite game) does not need a remake and is still excellent today. Put those resources into P6. And how about when you release P6, make it the final edition? Or at most make the extra content DLC rather than charging over and over for "new" releases.

And since I'm moaning, why not - Persona 3 now has five versions available and frankly that's too many and none of them have even been a definitive version. I played the demo for Reload and despite the sparkly new graphics walking into the school at the start and seeing the same characters again felt the same as it did in the previous four releases 😵😵‍💫

I always thought it would be pretty cool to use AI on something like Animal Crossing (just on the characters, not the visuals or gameplay) where when I talk to the villagers they would actually understand what I'm saying and respond accordingly, instead of it feeling like I'm talking to a wall.

@Yoshi3 I agree, right now the best combo for a console gamer would be a Switch 2 and PS5 as you're covered for pretty much every game. There's no reason for hardcore gamers to own all three anymore.