Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

We're spoiled with technology. Everyone knows the price of candy bars and shoes and bananas and houses will go up over time but we have come to rely on the trend of computer components going down over time. That is still broadly a trend but it's not universal. In the case of Switch 1 components they were in fact getting cheaper in some sense but inflation was skyrocketing at the same time for the latter half of Switch 1's lifetime. And then the US added tarrifs. So the 'no excuse' has the very legitimate excuse of inflation and (at least in the US) tariffs over-riding the trend of electronics getting cheaper.

But the new potential increase in Switch 2 price? That is purely supply and demand getting temporarily screwed up by the AI bubble. And it's not just gaming that will get expensive - PCs, laptops, mobile ,consoles, etc. Switch 2 is in a better situation than a PC because it uses mobile ram which is not getting expensive as quickly, but the bubble has started to affect prices of basically all types of ram to some extent. I suspect Nintendo will continue to be a (comparably) affordable option, but all electronics may simply be expensive until the ram supply issues is sorted out. It's unfortunate, but it seems to be where we are for awhile. Nintendo has said they won't increase prices immediately (they may have enough components for the time being), but I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens longer term.

Don't know what the temperature is where everyone else is, do stay warm if it's really cold out. It's single digits where I live tonight. Just sitting here with hot cocoa.

@FishyS That's the sad reality to it. I am not looking forward to being priced out of new games, at all. I really want this AI bubble to burst already so we can go back to things the way they should be.

I do have a big backlog between Switch, Wii U, Wii, 3DS, and PC. Maybe I'll have to stick to that and indie games in the future, which aren't bad. I like both Freedom Planet and Frogun. While I don't think it's indie (it is an old PlayStation game), Milano's Odd Job Collection was also good.

Edit, now that I think about it, there's games on my SNES mini I haven't played, that could be useful too.

@Sunsy hardware is expensive and new first party games are expensive, but there are plenty of cheap games. I try to snag most of my non-Nintendo games at 70-90% off. Even a $70 game is quite decent at 80% off. It's surprising how many major 3rd party games are eventually 10-20 dollars. There really is no way to run out of good affordable games if you don't mind older games. And older doesn't even need to be more than a few years.

@FishyS Think I might have to do that more. In the past I have gotten quite a few games at a good discount on the eShop, both Switch and Wii U. I like physical for games I really like, like Sonic for example, but don't mind some games being digital.

I do take advantage of sales on PC between GOG and Steam. I'm not stopping playing systems I have, I still boot up my Wii U from time to time.

@FishyS
At this point, with Switch 2 price will going up, game key card still being main issue, the new 1st party games didn't really feel I have to play right now made me going to Retro route to stay away for a while from Switch 2 situation but I still keep my eyes to see the situation.
If the situation doesn't getting better, then I will going further with my Retro route and PlayStation route.

@Sunsy OK, good to know. I do also remember that games bought from GOG don't have DRM, which is nice. Gotcha, best of luck on getting a new laptop. Hopefully, those pesky game key cards will go away eventually... I did hear Nintendo may be having smaller game card sizes, which would certainly help in having, you know, an actual physical release. I love my Switch 2, but yeah, that game key card practice is... not great. Going back to the playing online thing, maybe we could play a game or two online before I go on vacation?

Me too, I'm glad I got to watch it. Not sure if I should've used the word "underrated," my bad. I guess compared to Disney's movies from the early 90s for example. I do remember seeing quite a bit of merch for that movie.

Oh that's nice for sure. The meetable characters would be quite the experience for me. I do remember you mentioned you met Poppy over there... looks like I'd be meeting that same Poppy as well, haha. If you want, I'll be sure to let you know what I thought of Disney and Universal after my trip.

Brought this up on the subscription thread, but I suppose I might as well ask here too, where you do all see the GameCube section of NSO going? Will it be sticking with mostly first-party Nintendo stuff? Because it seems that the more newer the games get, the more third parties seem like they'd be more interested in having collections on Switch instead of sticking with NSO. I guess this could apply to any system, but with GameCube especially where franchises like Sonic, Resident Evil, and Need for Speed thrived on the system, I somehow can't see more of those titles on NSO these days. Anyone else here feel the same?

Someone a few posts above mentioned something about weather: our area currently has a high of 0 degrees on Saturday. With a low of about -20 🥶. It normally never gets that cold even in winter.

@D-Star92 Yup, they don't. You could download the offline backup installer, and back it up and install it without needing Internet or even a client like Steam (GOG Galaxy is optional). I have most of my GOG games on either a USB stick or backed up to CDs or DVDs. Thanks, the funny thing is my laptop still runs as good as the day it got delivered. I do need one for everyday computer stuff, I don't just play games on it. I hope smaller cart sizes helps, I've always bought third party games on my Nintendo systems, and key cards just make the Switch 2 less appealing. As long as it's not Saturday or I'm busy, I think we could.

Don't worry about it. I'm glad you got to finally watch it. IIRC, I saw Lilo and Stitch sometime after I was done with high school, when I still had cable on Disney Channel.

Indeed, I can only imagine how much fun meeting Nintendo characters at Super Nintendo World could be. Please do, I could imagine how much fun the parks would be.

@Nep-Nep-Freak Wow that's colder than where I live. I checked the weather app and it went down to 4 degrees, it never gets that cold where I live. I didn't even go on my walk, which I usually bundle up during the winter months. Stay warm.

@Sunsy Oh that's cool, I think that would be good for me. I did get a portable solid state drive recently, I could use that for storing GOG games. It is good that you're not required to have internet. Gotcha, good to hear your current laptop is still going strong. I'm sure the smaller game card sizes will help. All righty... my flight will be on April, and I'll be leaving on a Sunday. I may be doing some finishing touches for preparation on the day before anyway, lol.

Oh that's nice, you saw Lilo & Stitch on Disney Channel, huh? Speaking of which, I started watching DuckTales on Disney+ recently, and I've been liking it. This also means I now have the theme song stuck in my head, lol.

Will do. I'll be taking a boat load of pictures as well... as I always do when I go on vacation.

@Nep-Nep-Freak Goodness, that's freezing cold. I hope you're doing well, and please stay warm and cozy.

@Mariotag I’ve had trouble with wordiness, and I don’t really like typing so much anymore. I get so sick of doing it, and I know if I get too passionate and descriptive of a specific game, film, or show to someone else, they’ll probably be extremely bored but I think they don’t care about the media in the first place.

I really don’t think they’ll reach such a high market cap and earning number. I wonder how they’ll feel if it turns out they don’t reach it and if it turns out closing those stores was all for nothing.

I knew my responses in that thread were lengthy, looked at them again, and I’m just wondering, how did I type some of the things I did without cringing and without going, “oh, maybe that’s too lengthy?” I do like that thread, but I typed wayyyyyy too much on there. Though, I am now remembering a pretty cringy response I left in another thread when I was watching an anime at some point, think I kind of ticked off somebody else on there…I’m more embarrassed about that one than nearly all the responses I left in other threads.

@D-Star92 That’s very good! Hopefully the cake is good!

@D-Star92,

"Speaking of which, I started watching DuckTales on Disney+ recently, and I've been liking it."

Which version are you talking about? I only saw about 25-ish episodes of the 1980s one on Disney Plus in 2020, which was back when my family was paying for the service. I also have the opening theme for that version on my phone. Now I have that song in my head again 😅.

"Duck Tales! Ooo-ooo-ooooooooo!"

@D-Star92 Yup, you just go to the games page, choose a game, choose offline backup installer, and you're good to go. A SSD is the best way to store them. Meanwhile, I backed up my GOG copy of XCOM Enemy Unknown to five DVD-Rs the other day. No joke, they break up big games to fit onto multiple DVDs. Sounds good, like I said as long as it's not a Saturday or I'm busy, we should be good to play something.

I remember seeing DuckTales a long time ago on TV, I think they even rebooted it, but I haven't seen the reboot. DuckTales was good, and it's reminding me of two things. A Donald Duck game called QuackShot. It was a Genesis game starring Donald, also featured Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and Scrooge. It was a good game too, I think I played it on Sega Channel or maybe rented it. The other thing I'm reminded of, I have this...

I remember picking this up in 2017 shortly before moving, I should try to play it though. Heard good things about it. It's been sitting in my backlog.

Sounds good, have fun when the time comes.

@Sunsy, I am kind of curious as to how games being on multiple discs even work. Like, how does it know that you played everything on the first disc? Or does it not know? And if it's something like a JRPG, how would you carry over leveling progress if you did something like overleveling?

@Nep-Nep-Freak With GOG, the first thing you need to know is the games are DRM-free, this means once you download the offline installer, you have the game forever as long as you don't delete it. When it comes to big games, the installer files are broken up into 4GB files each (a standard DVD-R is 4.7GB). All I do is backup to multiple discs using a DVD writer. To play the game, I need to copy all the installer files from the discs back to my PC's hard drive, install it, and it works like any other PC game after it's installed.

It's a bit of work, but I can rest easy knowing I pretty much own my game, and I can install it without needing to log into GOG, or having Internet.

Also, there was a time consoles had multiple discs. I have Enter the Matrix on GameCube, I remember when I reached a certain point, the game would ask me to insert disc 2. Then the game just continues. There was a time when some console games had multiple discs. I think my brother had a game like that on his PlayStation, I think one of the Syphon Filter games.

@Nep-Nep-Freak
Harr...!
You might be not familiar with old RPG games with multiple discs.
It was already exist since PS1 era from FF 7 (3 discs), FF 8 & FF 9 (4 discs), FF 13 on XBOX 360 (3 discs).

@Pastellioli I'm sure the cake will be good. We made it so that it would be my favorite flavors, vanilla and strawberry.

@Nep-Nep-Freak It's the 80s original. I remember seeing it on Disney Channel way back in the day, too. You and me both... that theme song is so catchy!

@Sunsy Yeah definitely, SSDs are a lot faster than hard drives... they're simply much better. Ah wow, I knew some PS1 and GameCube games came in multiple discs back in the day, but didn't know some PC games came in multiple discs as well. That XCOM game seems pretty massive, lol. The Saturday before my plane trip would be a bad time for me to play online anyway, haha.

Me too, I remember seeing it on Disney Channel a long time ago, as well as Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and Goof Troop. I remember QuackShot, actually! I remember it being a pretty good game, I'd like to revisit it sometime. I have DuckTales Remastered for the Wii U as well, though I got it from the eShop long ago.

Thanks, I'll have fun for sure!

@D-Star92 Indeed, I have one in my laptop mostly for the OS. They did, in the 2000's, PC games did come on multiple discs. IIRC, Quake 4 is on four CDs. XCOM Enemy Unknown is 18.9GB from GOG, so they broke up the game into five 4GB files. It works out backing it up to a couple of DVD-Rs. Sounds like it will work out.

I remember Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and Goof Troop on local TV, though I did watch Rescue Rangers sometime after getting Disney+. Awesome, I'm not the only one who remembers QuackShot. Cool, also I totally forgot I bought DuckTales Remastered before it got delisted on Steam to have it for PC.

Edit: I just looked it up, looks like DuckTales Remastered is back on Steam. Good to know it's still available.

Rosalina is a bad spacepilot

@Sunsy Aha, gotcha. I'm not exactly a longtime PC player, so thanks for filling me in. I played a fair amount of PC games throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, some of which were edutainment titles, but nothing of that scale like the games you mentioned. Every PC game I played came in one CD-ROM or floppy disk, and that's it, lol.

Oh yeah, I should ask you. Have you ever tried installing and playing an old Windows 95/98 game on a modern PC? Because I have a few of them laying around and I'd like to try that out.

Oh that's cool, I should give those shows a rewatch sometime... I remember seeing bits and pieces of Gargoyles as well. Indeed, QuackShot was one of those games that came with a model 2 Sega Genesis that we got off eBay years ago. I don't think I have it anymore though, which is why I'd like to see it get rereleased somehow. Too bad it didn't come built into the Sega Genesis Mini... it did get Castle of Illusion and World of Illusion, at least. Nice to see DuckTales Remastered back on Steam for sure.