Discostew

I bought $100 in eShop cards for $80 which will go towards 2 vouchers. One voucher will be spent on TotK. So essentially, I'll have spent $40 to get a $70 game.

Isn't that the same guy that complained about the doors he said he spent months working on having been screwed up, messing with the alpha, when in reality, the doors were fully redesigned intentionally? The guy hadn't worked at Retro for a long time, and this is how he spends his time?

It's not a simple alpha issue. Anyone that actually looked at the two can see it was completely redesigned. Even looking at them animated ingame shows they are intentionally different.

As some pointed out, it makes it easier to see from a distance, as before, it was harder to see if it blended in with the surrounding environment.

One other reason, imo, is the inclusion of the Color Assist display option for folks with problems seeing certain colors.

@whitespy12 @ModdedInkling I know I should just take their word for it, but to me, there's just various parts that seem off. For one, if it is based on prior emulation used in RR, then why does this feel like someone screwed up that which was working perfectly fine before? Polygon rendering for instance (that I mentioned earlier). Look back to prior N64 games on Rare Replay, and then look at Goldeneye. The prior releases did not have that polygon/vertex jumping issue. This isn't even a case of being an older N64 game either, as this issue is not present on hardware, NSO or homebrew N64 emulators. It's like they forced the emulator, if that is what it is, to act like this for no good reason.

@ModdedInkling The Xbox version is definitely not emulated. They recompiled from edited source code like they've done with prior N64 games on Xbox.

To note, there are various negatives on the Xbox version besides the lack of online (which on NSO is really part of the emulator, not the game). First is that there seems to be a lack of precision when rendering polygons. The scenery wobbles, almost like a PS1 game. Just load up the game and watch the first level cutscene and when you stand still. You can see how everything kind of jumps a bit. You don't see this on the emulated NSO version where it's smooth.

Another is the fog effect, where it's not uniform. First level again, when you get into the 1st-person view and watch as the truck drive into the tunnel from a distance, the truck is colored in the bluish fog effect while the surrounding area at that same distance is not.

Lastly from my general observation is the audio. It has a rattle-like effect on the instruments, which doesn't sound very good.

I had a thought that perhaps the reason we don't hear it is because it is muted on purpose (for the time being). For anyone that remembers, the start sound for races in Sunshine in the SM3DAS collection was not properly played, and required a patch to fix it. The thing is that happened in very specific instances that you triggered. With the music in Goldeneye, you are hearing it all the time. If for some reason the instrument is handled wrong in the emulator, you wouldn't want to hear that throughout the game, right? Just an assumption on my part, that they knew about it long before, muted it to work on other issues, but couldn't get back to it in time for this release.

Personally, I feel it could still hit this year. If not with TotK, then towards the end of 2023.There are various reasons for this, but the main one has to do with the chip, the T239, having been complete back in September with the publishing of the Linux commits. They even had engineering samples back in April 2022 because that was when there were commits to fix bugs with the PCIe timing, which required actual hardware to test.

People might say that releasing in May is unlikely because if that were the case, they would have done it already, basing their claim on the reveal to release time of the Switch. Problem is if they did that, that would have been right in the middle of the holiday season. No better way to ruin Switch holiday sales than to announce the next platform, especially if that was planned for the last major Switch push.

There's also the leak of the TotK Switch SKU, but when has a special edition SKU ever caused a next-gen platform to get pushed back? If anything, SE SKUs towards the end of a product's life are more to just move the remaining stock.

Folks might claim that Nintendo would be stockpiling the system to have a bigger launch, waiting until 2024, but stockpiling is expensive, and they'd have to stockpile the entire system, not just parts because the assembly lines can only handle so many order at a given time. So stockpiling entire completed systems, but not selling them really kind of goes against the philosophy that Nintendo has gone by lately.

Seems familiar....
https://i.imgur.com/lTeZNU2.png

@WeLiveInASociety Maybe, but I think a lot of it has to do with people altering their perception of what kind of Mario they were expecting. Before, they expected a Mario they've known for decades (including from the Super Show), but as they come to terms that this is not that same Mario that's well known in the Mushroom Kingdom, they started to become a bit more open-minded, and find that Chris's Mario isn't all that bad.

@Kiyata The thing is, there isn't just one Mario in Nintendo's universe. Charles has handled the "video game" Mario, which he originates from the Mushroom Kingdom as an infant (Yoshi's Island, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, etc). The TV/movie adaptations are all based on an adult "Brooklyn" Mario, where Mario is a stranger to the Mushroom Kingdom, with a different voice/accent (which we've heard from/seen Lou Albano and Bob Hoskins).

I could definitely see Jack Black's expressiveness in Bowser.

@KayFiOS It's unlikely to use the same high-quality assets as PS4. Will probably use the PS3 assets or some middle-ground, but Switch's improved technology will allow compression of those assets from their original forms to be reduced even farther. Somewhat better than PS4 if asset quality were the same (which is unlikely), but definitely a lot better than PS3.

@Jey887 Being compressed doesn't necessarily mean it'll take a hit in quality. Remember, this is still at its core a PS3 game, but rather than using technologies from 2006, it's using technologies from 2017 (if we're basing on platform releases). An example is a texture compressed for PS3 could be reduced to 50%, but that same texture compressed for Switch could be reduced to 15%. When both are decompressed, they are exactly the same. Technology improves over time, and for an 11-yr gap, much can change. Recall that a PS3 running games can go up to 200W, whereas a Switch (2017) running games portably only consumes around 9W, and that's while powering a screen too.

I think the title of this article is a bit misleading. It made it seem like the Switch controller had issues, causing the delay, and not the dev concluding that they wanted to improve the feel of using a controller for the game.

More RAM to hold render targets, rendering to said render targets, and having to stream another video signal would limit what devs might want to do on a system that was already pretty limited.

I was lucky enough to get one. Would play Shredder's Revenge why waiting for the "waiting screen" to move on each time.

Emulating Sunshine in the Mario 3D collection is already pushing the Switch's CPU to its limit, and Galaxy had to have its CPU code modified and recompiled into native Switch code because it would not have ran at full speed otherwise. Even if Nintendo wanted to provide more GC/Wii games on Switch, it would require a lot of work and time for modifying/recompiling the games if the games cannot run at full speed under emulation, and Nintendo isn't going to risk hardware problems by allowing the CPU to be clocked faster than what it is set at for the sake of them.

I typically go with fire pokemon to start, but that's usually because I found them to be the cutest. This time however, I'm gonna have to go with Spriggy. Kitties are my second choice after foxes. I'd need to see the evolved versions though.

Still unsure if I would get the game though. For a couple of generations, I limited myself to 1 pokemon game for each, but then Legends came out, and now I'm already overfilled with pokemon this gen. I should stop, but if they happen to bring in my favorite line (Fennekin line), then nuts to restricting myself.

@UglyCasanova Considering their partnership with Panda was only within the last 4 months, I'd say their decision to jump ship was actually recent and not a year-long wait to say "so long".

Wait, why are people assuming it's because Sony acquired it when that acquisition took place last year and Nintendo's withdrawal was announced just recently? One would think if it was because Sony acquired it, Nintendo would have jumped ship ASAP.

Thing is, this is a comparison of two devices from different time periods inside a vacuum, as if nothing else exists. The big reason why Switch does not contain things like a fully development web browser is not because it can't handle them, but that it doesn't need them, not with all the devices currently in the world that offer them.

Let's not forget that in order to utilize these online features on an N64, you had to have made multiple purchases. An N64, the 64DD, an N64 dial-up modem cart, and the Randnet disk. Add on a subscription service to get access to the internet ONLY with that device via dial-up that hogs the phone line while in use.

Again, different times, different circumstances. I doubt anyone would pay to get those features on a Switch nowadays. Let's take a quick look at what the internet was like before 2K.

https://imgur.com/gallery/wiOmcwS

While not my only concern, Nintendo just wouldn't be Nintendo anymore if they were bought by Microsoft, regardless of how much freedom they were granted. Probably the only time where I'd consider such a purchase is if Nintendo couldn't keep up. Of course if it came to that, Nintendo probably wouldn't be Nintendo anymore anyways.

The voice sounds more like Dobby found the ring.

@Pillowpants Identify as a meat popsicle.

@Mountain_Man Just make sure a space is open to your immediate left or right. If there's something in both those spaces, it'll have a chance of landing in a spot above them, which when you're pointing in that direction and try to use your net, you may hit the tree, and won't have enough time to recover from that before they get you.

Lazy.... Entitled.... Gamers

Yeah, I said it.

A lot of dislikes, but less than 10% of all viewers have voted. People who vote are part of the vocal minority, whereas the silent majority (the non-voters) don't care, and will get what they want, and go about their business. They are not fanboys for choosing to pay. They are regular people. This is why even with NSO's launch trailer, it had so many dislikes, yet it goes on to sell millions of subscriptions.

With NES/SNES, it was licensing on an individual game basis where most of the games were from Nintendo that didn't need licensing. With the Genesis, not only is Nintendo paying Sega for licensing of the platform, but the platform itself is technically 3rd-party to Nintendo, so EVERY title coming from it needs licensing.

So SE chooses not to spend a little money to get at least the ones before KH3 ported, yet what will they assume if gamers choose not to spend money on these cloud versions? Nintendo gamers don't want/like the KH series?

String a bunch of those together.

FOR SCIENCE!

@FroZtedFlakerZz That is because of BT's limited bandwidth. And this is also why there isn't BT mic support, as that's a separate stream to the device from audio output that would suck up all remaining bandwidth, leaving none for wireless controllers.

@erikharrison Yes, he was, but we also need to take into account that he hasn't been with the company for the span of a decade, so what he's claiming is based on his understanding prior to his departure. For all we know, Nintendo could have had someone between then and now go over the codebase to get it working, and someone else look into a conversion to traditional controls for MP3.

Not saying the guy wasn't a genius. I'm just saying that a decade is a long time to think nothing has changed.

@erikharrison Considering that Metroid Prime Trilogy released in 2009, 3 years after SGI stopped making hardware....but, why is it that the only information I can gather regarding SGI and Nintendo is with the N64? Where was it said that Retro Studios were using SGI workstations to make the Prime Games on both GC and Wii, including the trilogy?

And seriously? The software development comment? Have you made/ported any games to go calling someone else on that?

@erikharrison I find it hard to believe the codebase/tools don't exist when it's well known that Nintendo archives everything. Hell, Square Enix had to come to Nintendo for a copy of their old stuff when they lost theirs. And while Wilkan can make the claim that his control method wouldn't work with other control schemes, that's from his point of view.

@erikharrison True, but as I mentioned in the comments of that article, that dev left the company back in 2011. He wouldn't know about a port if one was happening.

@Wyatt006 Eh, not so much. When they made the original trilogy, they really didn't have to learn new hardware as the Wii was more or less just a GC with improved specs. An HD port on Switch would require recompilation, not to mention having to convert from the GC/Wii design of using a fixed-pipeline, TEV unit, etc to the Switch design that utilized programmable shaders among other things. Its conversion would probably play out similar to SSHD, which while not as heavy as making a game from scratch, but still had a good amount of development behind it that wasn't so easy.

It's all about money. What exactly would Sony and Nintendo gain from having MS's Gamepass service on their platforms?

I never got around to updating to 12.0.3 (on 12.0.2), so should I hold off on updating? I know they had 12.0.3 up, but then pulled it to "fix" the issue before putting it back up. Would it affect me, or does it only affect those that updated prior to it being pulled?

@Menardi If the description of "a little piece that looks blue which fades to a creme color" is what is shown in this article's image, then it could be anything, because that particular side we are shown is the back, which typically is the grey "caution" label.

@rjejr that's pretty much how I interpreted that line. They speak of "reports", not specifically their own.

If only Nintendo hadn't attempted to incorporate NES backwards compatibility into the SNES in the first place (before they abandoned it too late into development), they could have used a different/better CPU, and not have had to deal with ROM timings and such

@LunarLunatone Lead designer that left the company 10 years ago, who unlikely knows what's going on in the company now. Even if it took the Herculean effort he describes, it could have been started when the Switch launched, giving ample time for the conversion.

Do note, it's a "former" Retro dev who left the company back in 2011.

Don't these games give you the option to try and "physically" restrain your targets, even if it's considered game over results? Fanservice is one thing, but some things just go too far.

Wasn't it rumored almost a decade ago that Nintendo bought Timber the Tiger from Microsoft?

@SM3DASislit In that same mention, his response to why no Netflix on Switch, he basically said "Ask Netflix".

@SM3DASislit That was claimed by MobileSyrup in a Q&A panel a Netflix representative was involved in at Silicon Valley AFTER Switch had Hulu for months prior.

So how exactly are they supposed to obtain legal ISO copies of the game to use? Rip it themselves? Doesn't the ToS or EULA specifically mention that backups are for archival purposes only? We laugh at that because the situation was always in the privacy and comfort of one's own home, where Nintendo cannot logically enforce that rule. This being a public scenario, however, Nintendo can.

Do a cold reboot of your Switch. Sometimes after downloading from the eShop, some titles can drag a little, possibly due to a memory leak.

Also note that a demo is not the final product. DQH1+2 demo had frame rate issues, but the retail version cleared that up for the most part.

@Wexter

Here's the sad thing. There are some who actually think Nintendo stole code from those emulators to make this. Like, Nintendo has been doing N64 emulation at least since the Wii, and Sunshine/Galaxy run at full speed on the limited Switch specs (1Ghz on 3 CPU cores, 4th is OS-reserved), yet the very emulator they think Nintendo stole code from cannot handle these games at full speed within the same limitations. They require OCing the CPU to 1.7Ghz, and try to use all 4 cores. Even then, they still have issues.

Yes, Nintendo understands their own hardware as they have documents that detail how they are designed to require lesser specs, but that very thing is what makes the claim of stolen code even more hilarious. The stolen code would be useless to them.