@Tyranexx I think the most generous interpretation of Sony's PS2 sales bollocks is they may have been setting a trap for Nintendo DS. They revised PS2 to 155m when the DS was nearing 150m.
They may have thought Nintendo would have purposely tried to sell more DSes than PS2s. Thinking Iwata would produce and ship 156m before discontinuing the DS to announce it as the top selling system, at which point Sony would reveal they sold 160m PS2s.
But Nintendo didn't choose to take the bait which left Sony Awkwardly "revealing 160m" over a decade later in response to Switch, which just makes it look like Sony's making their numbers up.
It'll be cathartic to see Switch reach 161m or higher.
I think it's a bit BS to say the Switch is unlikely to outsell the PS2.
The 3DS sold 17million between 2017 and being discontinued. Especially considering there may be half a year til Switch 2 and it will be hard to get for the first year. The Switch may have 18months where its available and Switch 2 is unreleased or very hard to get.
Along with Pokemon Legends ZA. And it may actually get a price-cut. I think the Switch will remain popular this year.
I don't see how the Switch selling another 10 million between now and discontinuation is some long-shot when it's sold almost half of that last quarter.
I think the all-round quality of their internally developed projects points towards there being a wide array of talent that likely goes unnoticed in the credits list of 100s than when a big game could come from a dozen or fewer developers.
Imamura is largely known because he could be the artist on a project. But nowadays there'd have to be multiple artists and an art lead.
@PokeMadness1996 It's kind of both ways. It's tough to get on Switch still, but once you're there ever game after is easy.
Like I've unironically tried to get a game I spent 4 years making that has only positive reviews on Steam onto Switch 5 times and failed. If Nintendo were applying the same scrutiny to every game, the shovelware would not have a chance of being approved
But it's obvious what's happening is shovelware publishers are putting effort into one game and then once they're in the floodgates of crap open up. I think Nintendo's current system puts far too much trust in developers they've approved 1 game for and too little trust in unproven developers.
I'd unironically think a cap on releases per publisher (With exceptions for big names like SEGA, Square, Capcom) would drastically increase quality. The shovelware devs wouldn't be cranking out garbage if they could only release 3 games a year and they all have to be reviewed. And even the best indies often release less than 1 game a year anyway.
@sanderev Wonder if the FIFA --> EAFC branding is finally hitting them.
Maybe customers have just decided that they don't value the new branding quite as much that a heavily discounted EAFC24 is preferred to standard price EAFC25.
I dislike the idea of an endlessly updated game. At some point just piling up content high bloats a game.
A sequel that's free to cut or adjust content to make a better or unique experience. He has the resources to pay someone else to update Stardew Valley.
I don't get why he bottlenecks his game dev by tying himself to an already successful game. As an hobbyist indie dev I'd see a succes in Stardew Valley's level as an opportunity to sustain new projects, and even pay people to create others. It's a bit frustrating to see a lot of the massive indie succeses somehow get slower at making new games.
Imagine if we were still waiting for Super Mario Bros because Miyamoto was too busy updating Donkey Kong?
The Steamdecks OK I bought one from my brother inlaw when he wanted an OLED Steamdeck to replacehis original. Its unreliable random games just don't respond, start up or hafe bad performance. Because it just plays PC games and not specialised Steamdeck releases its an afterthought for developers.
I prefer the Switch and think the Switch is a far better system largely because games are designed for it. So if you buy a game for it you know its going to work. Plus I prefer physical to digital.
@timp29 Yeah, I don't believe for a second that these big companies aren't very carefully tracking these stats.
Comes off more as saving face, and because theres no transparency we dont know what the Steamdeck sold. Did they fix it, or did they "fix" it by weighing sales of Steamdecks stronger so it requires fewer to sales to be higher in the chart?
I've been boycotting EA since 2010's terrible Command & Conquer 4, and in the last 15 years they've done nothing to make me even remotely regret it.
I've read 75% of EA's business is just from "live services" (looboxes, dlc, season passes) and 25% from actually selling games. So hopefully this is a down trend in people buying lootboxes for the nth time in EAFC.
So if EA goes down it'll probably come alongside the hopefully the end of some of the worst practices in gaming history, and open up a gap in the market hopefully to be filled with a company that actually wants to sell games foremost and not squeezing customers with live services.
Personally I can see where Nintendo's approach comes from. Making a character or two invincible a lot simpler and follow more intuitive visual rules for the game. Because you know if Yoshi or Nabbit are on screen they're invincible. You know if you play as Yoshi or Nabbit you don't take damage.
Introducing accessibility options as toggles and option menus introduces its own accessibility challenges. I think it's a bit backwards when the game starts demanding the less skilled player to fiddle around with extra menus before they can play, but the more skilled player can just jump straight in.
Shouldn't the accessibility modes be as easy if not easier to access than the standard play?
Maybe with parental supervision invincibility as option would make sense and could be set for a toddler by the parent. But alone I could see a great deal of frustration of a child not understanding why their character who was invincible in one play session wasn't in another if they choose the wrong option.
Looking forward to it. The Switch is still selling over 12million over 7 years in. So dropping the Switch brand or trying anything out of left field would just be silly.
If people still want Switch to this extent then the best thing to offer is the Switch but better. its not uncharacteristic for Nintendo to make an iteration on succesful hardware. NES -> SNES Gameboy -> Gameboy Advance Nintendo DS -> 3DS
The numeric naming convention is different but I think the WiiU demonstrated the problem of trying to be too clever with a name. It can just lead to confusion.
Tbh I expect the next one to be pretty bad. The last 7 years have shown every single time that SEGA gets some goodwill with Sonic often from a 3rd party. They exploit that good will with an inferior product.
QED: Mania and the 1st and 2nd movie They've followed with Forces, Colors Ultimate and Origins respectively. Greedy cash grabs that planted SEGA back in the position of looking for more good will.
So forgive me if I don't believe their words when their actions never reflect it.
I have very little faith in the series. I used to love it and I still like 1-13.
But it's just turned into action games with an RPG skin. Whole also taking 6-7 years per entry. I'm not waiting til 2030 to see them attempt to pass off an entirely alien game as Final Fantasy 17.
@johnedwin They've tried to be cutting edge but if the sales decline (and they have) then they have less and less room to increase the budget as their profits drop.
It's reached the point where they've hid the sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Meh, I really want to see a 3D animated Sonic movie like the Super Mario Bros Movie.
The live action hybrid Sonic movies are good but I half feel they're actually blocking a proper one set in Sonic's world and not the real world from happening.
@garfreek I wonder if he should have done a Live-a-Live and have had co-directors for each chapter even if he was the overall director.
Probably could have got 3, 4 and 5 done simultaneously in the same time as Chapter 2 with 3 co-directors/teams and him having the final word. Then 6, 7 and 8 afterwards.
I've been saying that since New Super Mario Bros DS and Pokemon RBY got slapped with a 12+ on 3DS/WiiU virtual console. (Which would be 18+ if they had tried to do it now)
Games like Balatro and Pokemon's fake gambling are getting higher ratings only as smokescreen for PEGI too look tough on childhood gambling.
While the actual gambling w/ lootboxes like EAFC being rated 3+ actually get to make money off children.
Obviously there's a conversation to be had if Balatro or Pokemon's slots are appropriate. But its BS while they're letting toddlers potentially wager endless amounts of real money on Lootboxes.
Hard to believe, and I don't really trust IGN either.
Tbh in an environment where games are allowed to be "revealed" without any actual gameplay suspicion is 100% warranted.
I don't think it's wrong to be quick to assume the worst, when the worst is so often allowed to run rampant in gaming nowadays. Often peddled by the biggest sites and influencers.
This is advertised as a hyper realistic, open world pet raising sim MMO that's somehow playable on PC, console and somehow smartwatch. Even without AI accusations this already sounds like a load of nonsense.
Why are they messaging Nintendo and not sending CGI Labs a Cease & Desist?
I agree the clone shouldn't be there and the eShops a nightmare. But really it's not on Nintendo to police other people's copyrights and trademarks for them.
Makes sense, the only dodgy thing is that its Sony and they disproportionately are given awards by TGA's. Like 2022 where God of War walked away with more awards than the actual GOTY.
It's a bit hard to gauge because Odyssey came out in 2017 alongside BOTW. But if the next 3D Mario came out and got the same critical reception as Astrobot or even Odyssey it wouldn't be winning nearly any awards.
And if a Mario game sold less than 2million like Astrobot did. Does anyone believe it even be nominated for GOTY?
This feels like an award that would be out of grasp for Nintendo for making this exact kind of game. Like if Astrobot didn't come out and a new 3D Mario did I could see Elden Ring, FFVII Rebirth taking it.
Name one Pokemon, the Dragon Quest monster and why exactly you think that one Pokemon is infringing on DQ and what parts of the design have been copied.
@Lizuka If it was overreach Pocketpair wouldn't have changed their game.
I like how the rhetoric has switched from Nintendo having no case to them being evil or something now that Pocketpair have practically admitted they originally plagiarised the mechanics.
I hope the injunction gets granted and this creatively bankrupt Palworld gets stamped out.
I'm not interested in Geoff handing rewards to a predetermined set of games by the exact same publishers, just so it can be announced Astrobot or whatever won 5+ awards or Elden Ring won GOTY twice.
Maybe if it was an award show that recognised wide array of games for excellence in different ways rather than set up for a very small number of studios to win a very large number of awards an nominations.
@N00BiSH IMO that's a bit unfair, the Mario Movie it's about establishing key elements of Mario to an audience who hasn't necessarily played the games, and proving to the exusting audience that they get Mario (necessary given the original live action one didn't). Those remember this scenes are "this is what can happen in Mario's world" to a newcomer.
The Switch Mario games had a big boost from it so the movie was successful in attracting new fans.
@ChromaticDracula I think it's more due to the production values. Mario & Luigi was known for intricate pixel art and animation and Alphadream's animators/pixel arts were blown to the four winds.
It was probably very difficult to convert that to 3D while only having a handful of the old developers to work on the new game AND retaining the charm.
@FragRed tbf neither Nintendo or SEGA should have went ahead with Sony's agreement for the disk drive. Sony with their disc drive are pretty much the wicked Queen with her poison apple.
Partnering with Sony for the disc drive relinquished the game licensing process exclusively to Sony. Which would have meant Nintendo, SEGA and all 3rd parties would deal with Sony for licensing and CD Printing.
Had Nintendo or SEGA took them up they'd gave became essentially a 3rd party on their own system. And by the PS2 Sony will not have needed Nintendo or SEGA because Sony would be the one w/ all of Nintendo/SEGA's previous 3rd party deals.
Though both Nintendo and SEGA made a series of mistakes that lead to Sony ending up with almost all of the 3rd party support, it's still better than them just straight up handing Sony them.
@JJtheTexan It's a bit frustrating because it's hard to get a Switch Dev kit.
I suspect what happens is these companies propose 1 legitimate game (this one probably that drone racing game), get approved then there just may not be any stringent standards once you've got the dev kit and are licensed. So the floodgates open.
They unironically had the right idea back in the NES-era where they imposed yearly limits for publishers to prevent a flood of low quality games (Maybe with a whitelist for established trustrd ones this time lol, i think they can trust Ubisoft, Konami, Square, Capcom,etc. to have an unlimited release).
The eShop wouldn't be filled with as much garbage if smaller publishers could only release a limited number of games per year. But I see no good reason a small publisher like this spamming AI garbage shouldn't be limited to publishing 3 games a year.
@nhSnork Yeah I wonder if they just don't notice it from within the piracy communities. I mean they used to pretend they were just emulating their own copies, not pirating.
But the escalation of brazeness of pirates who think they're sticking it to the corporations by doing all this stuff so publicly and for money is staggering.
Modern pirates acting the way they do is the biggest gift Nintendo could get when tackling pirates.
Feels a bit like China leveraging control over their own market. China's started to see big hits such as Genshin Impact and Wukong.. now suddenly for mysterious reasons Tencent decides the system which doesn't host these games isn't going to be allowed to sell any games digitally in the country.
(or maybe Nintendo are allowed to in a legal sense but no company is going to actually host the e-shop in China for them going forward)
I'd wager they'll do it again. If you pay now you'll pay later when there's more packs.
I enjoy the game but personally can never justify paying for microtransactions in any game. Like why would I pay real money for something (open card packs) the game already let's you do?
Yeah it's faster, but the moment you're spending real money to speed up a games process are you really going to go back to waiting?
I'd rather pay for full games or substantial extra content. Not to use a basic game function quicker.
Tbh the Mario & Luigi sales in the UK are almost pointless. If Dragon Quest 3HD is even lower than Brothership's shows how little being an established JRPG series actually means here.
There's just less demand for the genre here compared to Japan, the US and France. Those will be the most important countries in whether it does well or not.
Honestly they should just stop this foolishness. They describe piracy as a hydra. But when sticking your neck out costs you millions why would you choose to be the next head for Nintendo to chop off?
Modern emulation is NOT preservation it's just stupidity and greed, driven by donations to facilitate piracy to access the new hotness.
Note how older emulators continue to fall under the radar?
@FishyS Yeah I suspect Nintendo will win nothing this year. So that it can be reported Astrobot won most of the 7 nominations it has.
I'm not going to bother watching this stuff because it's all about awarding a small handful of studios like Sony and From Software as many awards as possible every year they have a game instead of giving a diverse set of games recognition for diverse set of awards?
I'd bet Astrobot, FFVIIR, Elden Ring and Balatro will manage to collectively win more awards than every other game nominated
@garfreek Yet the Switch is the best selling console since PS2 and even in its 8th year games like Mario Party and Zelda: Echoes have sold better selling than the likes of FFVIIRebirth or Astrobot.
Sales shouldn't be everything but I think there's something weird when like in 2020 Animal Crossing managed to sell like 30million copies to TLOU2's 4million. The latter was apparently the Game of the Year with the most awards ever received by a game despite reviewing worse than its predecessor. Being given awards as if TLOU2 had surpassed its predecessor regardless of the fact it actually fumbled.
While Animal Crossing: New Horizon was the game people were actually playing, and was more popular than its predecessor, and more reflective of what games people were playing in 2020.
The FFVII remake series is floundering and Square is struggling for relevance, but it still has a strong showing at these award shows. Like it seems more like these shows are a manufactured vision of what the popular games should be rather than what they are.
Surely this can't be even be possible. I remember reading that in the 2000s Nintendo was blocked from acquiring Bandai (before the Namco merge) under anti-monopoly laws.
How could Sony be allowed to buy a company that big?
Expansions can be good, sometimes as good as if not better than the base games, but these award shows already have a bad habit of making sure a few games take up many of the nominations. Just look at when GoW : Ragnarok and Horizon 2 came out they both took up like half the slots in the categories and were both from the exact same company.
If two years later Elden Ring is just picking up yet more awards over the new games.
It's just devolving into the FROM software, Sony, Kojima and whatever indie game had the multimillion budget awards
@Lyrania Originality isn't a black and white though. Though there's a wide spectrum between being entirely original and say copy-pasting or tracing a design. I think it's worth pointing out the Palworld mons look far closer like a Pokemon than any Pokemon looks like a Dragon Quest monster.
Having the same theme or animal isn't the same as having a creature with the same shape and proportions as another. Pokemon , Dragon Quest and Digimon often have similar concepts for their monsters but with distinct designs for each. Outside of playground arguments I haven't really seen someone saying that either Agumon or Charmander are a rip off of each other despite both being fire breathing reptiles .
The extent Pocketpair went to copying Pokemon monster designs go so far that people can visibly identify which body parts of a specific Pokemon or multiple Pokemon were Frankensteined together to form a Pal in Palworld.
Like even if it isn't copyright infringement it still is plagiarism and I think it's fair to look down on them for it.
Also your conclusion makes no sense given Nintendo are suing Palworld based on patents for 2022's Pokemon Legends Arceus. If Pokemon hadn't changed and evolved their formula then those patents wouldn't even exist for them to sue with.
Comments 2,087
Re: Nintendo Switch Hardware Sales Pass 150 Million, With PS2's Record Still A Way Off
@Tyranexx I think the most generous interpretation of Sony's PS2 sales bollocks is they may have been setting a trap for Nintendo DS. They revised PS2 to 155m when the DS was nearing 150m.
They may have thought Nintendo would have purposely tried to sell more DSes than PS2s. Thinking Iwata would produce and ship 156m before discontinuing the DS to announce it as the top selling system, at which point Sony would reveal they sold 160m PS2s.
But Nintendo didn't choose to take the bait which left Sony Awkwardly "revealing 160m" over a decade later in response to Switch, which just makes it look like Sony's making their numbers up.
It'll be cathartic to see Switch reach 161m or higher.
Re: Nintendo Switch Hardware Sales Pass 150 Million, With PS2's Record Still A Way Off
I think it's a bit BS to say the Switch is unlikely to outsell the PS2.
The 3DS sold 17million between 2017 and being discontinued. Especially considering there may be half a year til Switch 2 and it will be hard to get for the first year. The Switch may have 18months where its available and Switch 2 is unreleased or very hard to get.
Along with Pokemon Legends ZA. And it may actually get a price-cut. I think the Switch will remain popular this year.
I don't see how the Switch selling another 10 million between now and discontinuation is some long-shot when it's sold almost half of that last quarter.
Re: Takaya Imamura On Nintendo's Future: Talented And Charismatic Devs Are "Crucial"
I think the all-round quality of their internally developed projects points towards there being a wide array of talent that likely goes unnoticed in the credits list of 100s than when a big game could come from a dozen or fewer developers.
Imamura is largely known because he could be the artist on a project. But nowadays there'd have to be multiple artists and an art lead.
Re: "Nintendo Is Probably The Easiest To Scam" - Devs Discuss The Current State Of The eShop
@PokeMadness1996 It's kind of both ways. It's tough to get on Switch still, but once you're there ever game after is easy.
Like I've unironically tried to get a game I spent 4 years making that has only positive reviews on Steam onto Switch 5 times and failed. If Nintendo were applying the same scrutiny to every game, the shovelware would not have a chance of being approved
But it's obvious what's happening is shovelware publishers are putting effort into one game and then once they're in the floodgates of crap open up. I think Nintendo's current system puts far too much trust in developers they've approved 1 game for and too little trust in unproven developers.
I'd unironically think a cap on releases per publisher (With exceptions for big names like SEGA, Square, Capcom) would drastically increase quality. The shovelware devs wouldn't be cranking out garbage if they could only release 3 games a year and they all have to be reviewed. And even the best indies often release less than 1 game a year anyway.
Re: Ex-PlayStation Boss On Switch 2's Name: Nintendo Created So Much "Brand Value"
I suspect anyone who wanted Nintendo to abandon the Switch brand already don't want Nintendo to succeed.
How could a system that is very close to becoming the best selling game console ever not deserve a follow up?
Re: UK Charts: Black Ops 6 Fends Off A Wave Of Nintendo Hits
@sanderev Wonder if the FIFA --> EAFC branding is finally hitting them.
Maybe customers have just decided that they don't value the new branding quite as much that a heavily discounted EAFC24 is preferred to standard price EAFC25.
Re: Stardew Valley Creator Doesn't Want To 'Close The Book' On Its Development
I dislike the idea of an endlessly updated game. At some point just piling up content high bloats a game.
A sequel that's free to cut or adjust content to make a better or unique experience. He has the resources to pay someone else to update Stardew Valley.
I don't get why he bottlenecks his game dev by tying himself to an already successful game. As an hobbyist indie dev I'd see a succes in Stardew Valley's level as an opportunity to sustain new projects, and even pay people to create others. It's a bit frustrating to see a lot of the massive indie succeses somehow get slower at making new games.
Imagine if we were still waiting for Super Mario Bros because Miyamoto was too busy updating Donkey Kong?
Re: Steam Deck Sales Business As Usual For Valve During Week Of Switch 2 Reveal
The Steamdecks OK I bought one from my brother inlaw when he wanted an OLED Steamdeck to replacehis original. Its unreliable random games just don't respond, start up or hafe bad performance. Because it just plays PC games and not specialised Steamdeck releases its an afterthought for developers.
I prefer the Switch and think the Switch is a far better system largely because games are designed for it. So if you buy a game for it you know its going to work. Plus I prefer physical to digital.
@timp29 Yeah, I don't believe for a second that these big companies aren't very carefully tracking these stats.
Comes off more as saving face, and because theres no transparency we dont know what the Steamdeck sold. Did they fix it, or did they "fix" it by weighing sales of Steamdecks stronger so it requires fewer to sales to be higher in the chart?
Re: EA's Share Price Plummets After Reports Of Disappointing Financial Performance
I've been boycotting EA since 2010's terrible Command & Conquer 4, and in the last 15 years they've done nothing to make me even remotely regret it.
I've read 75% of EA's business is just from "live services" (looboxes, dlc, season passes) and 25% from actually selling games. So hopefully this is a down trend in people buying lootboxes for the nth time in EAFC.
So if EA goes down it'll probably come alongside the hopefully the end of some of the worst practices in gaming history, and open up a gap in the market hopefully to be filled with a company that actually wants to sell games foremost and not squeezing customers with live services.
Re: Opinion: My Daughter Made Me Realise That Mario Wonder's Difficulty Options Need Work
Personally I can see where Nintendo's approach comes from. Making a character or two invincible a lot simpler and follow more intuitive visual rules for the game. Because you know if Yoshi or Nabbit are on screen they're invincible. You know if you play as Yoshi or Nabbit you don't take damage.
Introducing accessibility options as toggles and option menus introduces its own accessibility challenges. I think it's a bit backwards when the game starts demanding the less skilled player to fiddle around with extra menus before they can play, but the more skilled player can just jump straight in.
Shouldn't the accessibility modes be as easy if not easier to access than the standard play?
Maybe with parental supervision invincibility as option would make sense and could be set for a toddler by the parent. But alone I could see a great deal of frustration of a child not understanding why their character who was invincible in one play session wasn't in another if they choose the wrong option.
Re: Talking Point: Did All The Switch 2 Leaks 'Damage' Nintendo Or The Console's Reveal?
It's annoying and I wish the leaks didn't happen. But It's not going to change my excitement for a system I want to get.
Re: Reaction: Nintendo Pins Hopes On Familiar Fun With Switch 2
Looking forward to it. The Switch is still selling over 12million over 7 years in. So dropping the Switch brand or trying anything out of left field would just be silly.
If people still want Switch to this extent then the best thing to offer is the Switch but better. its not uncharacteristic for Nintendo to make an iteration on succesful hardware.
NES -> SNES
Gameboy -> Gameboy Advance
Nintendo DS -> 3DS
The numeric naming convention is different but I think the WiiU demonstrated the problem of trying to be too clever with a name. It can just lead to confusion.
Re: Switch 2 Will Be Backwards Compatible With Physical And Digital Games, With Some Exceptions
@Uncle_Franklin I mean they haven't shown anything other than Mario Kart and even the they haven't shown its gimmick.
But if the Switch games are any indication of the Switch 2 software then why wouldn't people be excited?
Re: Talking Point: Everyone Else Is Busy Revealing Switch 2 - What Gives, Nintendo?
Sorry but only the naive listen to these rumours. Wait for the actual announcement instead of being strung along like a puppet by liars.
Re: Tech Fans Have Gone Full 'Layton' In Analysing The 'Switch 2' Motherboard
A bunch of impatient nerds look at a random motherboard to guess what the Switch 2 specs are.
They might as well be divining tea leaves at this point.
Re: Sega President Shuji Utsumi On Sonic The Hedgehog’s Next Major Outing
Tbh I expect the next one to be pretty bad. The last 7 years have shown every single time that SEGA gets some goodwill with Sonic often from a 3rd party. They exploit that good will with an inferior product.
QED: Mania and the 1st and 2nd movie They've followed with Forces, Colors Ultimate and Origins respectively. Greedy cash grabs that planted SEGA back in the position of looking for more good will.
So forgive me if I don't believe their words when their actions never reflect it.
Re: Acquire Almost Called Brothership 'Mario & Luigi Wonder', But Nintendo Got There First
Probably for the best lol. Brothership's bond-focused plot is arguably more down to earth by M&Ls standards that Wonder would be very weird.
Super Mario Bros Wonder makes sense because of all the wild wonder effects in levels
Re: Final Fantasy Team Wants To Hear Your Thoughts About The Series
I have very little faith in the series. I used to love it and I still like 1-13.
But it's just turned into action games with an RPG skin. Whole also taking 6-7 years per entry. I'm not waiting til 2030 to see them attempt to pass off an entirely alien game as Final Fantasy 17.
@johnedwin They've tried to be cutting edge but if the sales decline (and they have) then they have less and less room to increase the budget as their profits drop.
It's reached the point where they've hid the sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Re: Japanese Charts: What Successor? Switch Hardware Sales Top 100,000
@JohnnyMind The top 30 is also all Switch too
Re: Multiple Cartoon Network Games Have Been Removed From The Switch eShop
This largely Valve's fault for Steam rocketing gaming towards this and away from physical.
Re: Sonic The Hedgehog Will Be Back For A Fourth Movie
Meh, I really want to see a 3D animated Sonic movie like the Super Mario Bros Movie.
The live action hybrid Sonic movies are good but I half feel they're actually blocking a proper one set in Sonic's world and not the real world from happening.
Re: Toby Fox Shares Another Development Update On Deltarune Chapter 3, 4 & 5
@garfreek I wonder if he should have done a Live-a-Live and have had co-directors for each chapter even if he was the overall director.
Probably could have got 3, 4 and 5 done simultaneously in the same time as Chapter 2 with 3 co-directors/teams and him having the final word. Then 6, 7 and 8 afterwards.
Re: Nintendo Switch Finally Surpasses PlayStation 2's Lifetime Sales In The US
@-wc- I mean the PS2 was being sold for 13 years vs the Switch's 7.
Who knows how much Switch will sell in the next 6.
Re: Balatro Developer Calls Out 'PEGI' For Its "Weirdo" 18+ Rating
I've been saying that since New Super Mario Bros DS and Pokemon RBY got slapped with a 12+ on 3DS/WiiU virtual console. (Which would be 18+ if they had tried to do it now)
Games like Balatro and Pokemon's fake gambling are getting higher ratings only as smokescreen for PEGI too look tough on childhood gambling.
While the actual gambling w/ lootboxes like EAFC being rated 3+ actually get to make money off children.
Obviously there's a conversation to be had if Balatro or Pokemon's slots are appropriate. But its BS while they're letting toddlers potentially wager endless amounts of real money on Lootboxes.
Re: Catly Developer Says Game Does Not Use Generative AI, Blockchain Tech, Or NFTs
Hard to believe, and I don't really trust IGN either.
Tbh in an environment where games are allowed to be "revealed" without any actual gameplay suspicion is 100% warranted.
I don't think it's wrong to be quick to assume the worst, when the worst is so often allowed to run rampant in gaming nowadays. Often peddled by the biggest sites and influencers.
This is advertised as a hyper realistic, open world pet raising sim MMO that's somehow playable on PC, console and somehow smartwatch. Even without AI accusations this already sounds like a load of nonsense.
Re: Unpacking Dev Says Nintendo "Hasn't Responded" To Reports Of Copycat Games
Why are they messaging Nintendo and not sending CGI Labs a Cease & Desist?
I agree the clone shouldn't be there and the eShops a nightmare. But really it's not on Nintendo to police other people's copyrights and trademarks for them.
Re: UK Charts: The Usual Suspects Make Up The Top Ten As Christmas Approaches
8 Mario games in the UK top 40 must be a record or something that's 1/5th of the chart.
Re: Random: PlayStation's Astro Bot Director Pays Tribute To Mario And Nintendo In GOTY Speech
Makes sense, the only dodgy thing is that its Sony and they disproportionately are given awards by TGA's. Like 2022 where God of War walked away with more awards than the actual GOTY.
It's a bit hard to gauge because Odyssey came out in 2017 alongside BOTW. But if the next 3D Mario came out and got the same critical reception as Astrobot or even Odyssey it wouldn't be winning nearly any awards.
And if a Mario game sold less than 2million like Astrobot did. Does anyone believe it even be nominated for GOTY?
This feels like an award that would be out of grasp for Nintendo for making this exact kind of game. Like if Astrobot didn't come out and a new 3D Mario did I could see Elden Ring, FFVII Rebirth taking it.
Re: Palworld Developer Pocketpair Changes Pokémon-Like Summoning Mechanic
@Glasso Name one, and no not the image.
Name one Pokemon, the Dragon Quest monster and why exactly you think that one Pokemon is infringing on DQ and what parts of the design have been copied.
Re: Palworld Developer Pocketpair Changes Pokémon-Like Summoning Mechanic
@Lizuka If it was overreach Pocketpair wouldn't have changed their game.
I like how the rhetoric has switched from Nintendo having no case to them being evil or something now that Pocketpair have practically admitted they originally plagiarised the mechanics.
I hope the injunction gets granted and this creatively bankrupt Palworld gets stamped out.
Re: The Game Awards 2024: Date, Time - How And When To Watch
I wouldn't watch it even if it wasn't at 1am.
I'm not interested in Geoff handing rewards to a predetermined set of games by the exact same publishers, just so it can be announced Astrobot or whatever won 5+ awards or Elden Ring won GOTY twice.
Maybe if it was an award show that recognised wide array of games for excellence in different ways rather than set up for a very small number of studios to win a very large number of awards an nominations.
Re: Mario Movie's Spike Voice Actor On His Possible Return: "I Haven't Heard Anything"
@N00BiSH IMO that's a bit unfair, the Mario Movie it's about establishing key elements of Mario to an audience who hasn't necessarily played the games, and proving to the exusting audience that they get Mario (necessary given the original live action one didn't). Those remember this scenes are "this is what can happen in Mario's world" to a newcomer.
The Switch Mario games had a big boost from it so the movie was successful in attracting new fans.
Re: Japanese Charts: Mario Party Jamboree Ends Dragon Quest III's Reign
"Elsewhere, Mario & Luigi: Brothership has continued its downward trend"
It literally sold more than last week lol.
Re: New Hand-Drawn 3D Platformer Is Bursting With Nintendo Inventiveness
@Not_Soos Yeah I see what you mean its movement is erratic and like you said before they're a bit too humanoid.
It makes the characters come off as unhinged rather than charming. Even the idle animation is too much lol.
Re: Nintendo Considered Giving Up On 'Mario & Luigi' Before Approaching Acquire
@ChromaticDracula I think it's more due to the production values. Mario & Luigi was known for intricate pixel art and animation and Alphadream's animators/pixel arts were blown to the four winds.
It was probably very difficult to convert that to 3D while only having a handful of the old developers to work on the new game AND retaining the charm.
Re: Nintendo Left Sony "Standing At The Altar" With SNES Disk Add-On, Says Former PlayStation Exec
@FragRed tbf neither Nintendo or SEGA should have went ahead with Sony's agreement for the disk drive. Sony with their disc drive are pretty much the wicked Queen with her poison apple.
Partnering with Sony for the disc drive relinquished the game licensing process exclusively to Sony. Which would have meant Nintendo, SEGA and all 3rd parties would deal with Sony for licensing and CD Printing.
Had Nintendo or SEGA took them up they'd gave became essentially a 3rd party on their own system. And by the PS2 Sony will not have needed Nintendo or SEGA because Sony would be the one w/ all of Nintendo/SEGA's previous 3rd party deals.
Though both Nintendo and SEGA made a series of mistakes that lead to Sony ending up with almost all of the 3rd party support, it's still better than them just straight up handing Sony them.
Re: Random: Now Pokémon Is Getting Its Own 'TCG' Rip-Off On The Switch eShop
@JJtheTexan It's a bit frustrating because it's hard to get a Switch Dev kit.
I suspect what happens is these companies propose 1 legitimate game (this one probably that drone racing game), get approved then there just may not be any stringent standards once you've got the dev kit and are licensed. So the floodgates open.
They unironically had the right idea back in the NES-era where they imposed yearly limits for publishers to prevent a flood of low quality games (Maybe with a whitelist for established trustrd ones this time lol, i think they can trust Ubisoft, Konami, Square, Capcom,etc. to have an unlimited release).
The eShop wouldn't be filled with as much garbage if smaller publishers could only release a limited number of games per year. But I see no good reason a small publisher like this spamming AI garbage shouldn't be limited to publishing 3 games a year.
Re: Random: Now Pokémon Is Getting Its Own 'TCG' Rip-Off On The Switch eShop
AI art is such a blight.
Re: Nintendo Reportedly Seeking "New Targets" In Switch Piracy Investigation
@Darknyht If that's your solution to piracy that's what you always should have been doing in the first place lol.
If you don't want to pay for the games then yeah you shouldn't get to play them.
Re: Nintendo Reportedly Seeking "New Targets" In Switch Piracy Investigation
@nhSnork Yeah I wonder if they just don't notice it from within the piracy communities. I mean they used to pretend they were just emulating their own copies, not pirating.
But the escalation of brazeness of pirates who think they're sticking it to the corporations by doing all this stuff so publicly and for money is staggering.
Modern pirates acting the way they do is the biggest gift Nintendo could get when tackling pirates.
Re: Nintendo Switch Online Services Will End In China In 2026
Feels a bit like China leveraging control over their own market. China's started to see big hits such as Genshin Impact and Wukong.. now suddenly for mysterious reasons Tencent decides the system which doesn't host these games isn't going to be allowed to sell any games digitally in the country.
(or maybe Nintendo are allowed to in a legal sense but no company is going to actually host the e-shop in China for them going forward)
Re: As Switch Closes The Gap, Sony Officially Confirms PS2 Has Sold "Over" 160 Million Units
Sony really are just making up numbers now aren't they? lol
Re: Pokémon TCG Pocket Trainer Drops $1,500 To Collect Every Single Card
I'd wager they'll do it again. If you pay now you'll pay later when there's more packs.
I enjoy the game but personally can never justify paying for microtransactions in any game. Like why would I pay real money for something (open card packs) the game already let's you do?
Yeah it's faster, but the moment you're spending real money to speed up a games process are you really going to go back to waiting?
I'd rather pay for full games or substantial extra content. Not to use a basic game function quicker.
Re: UK Charts: Mario & Luigi: Brothership Drops Anchor Outside The Top Ten
Tbh the Mario & Luigi sales in the UK are almost pointless. If Dragon Quest 3HD is even lower than Brothership's shows how little being an established JRPG series actually means here.
There's just less demand for the genre here compared to Japan, the US and France. Those will be the most important countries in whether it does well or not.
Re: After Almost 30 Years, Japan Finally Has A New Best-Selling Pokémon Game
@somnambulance Yeah its unironically the most ambitious Pokemon game they've made. While it could have ran better.
It delivered the traditional formula along with new ideas in an open world in a way even Legends had to compromise on.
Re: New Switch Emulator Devs Are Jumping Through Hoops To Avoid A Nintendo Takedown
Honestly they should just stop this foolishness. They describe piracy as a hydra. But when sticking your neck out costs you millions why would you choose to be the next head for Nintendo to chop off?
Modern emulation is NOT preservation it's just stupidity and greed, driven by donations to facilitate piracy to access the new hotness.
Note how older emulators continue to fall under the radar?
Re: The Game Awards 2024 Nominees Have Been Revealed - Zelda, Mario And Metroid Nominated
@FishyS Yeah I suspect Nintendo will win nothing this year. So that it can be reported Astrobot won most of the 7 nominations it has.
I'm not going to bother watching this stuff because it's all about awarding a small handful of studios like Sony and From Software as many awards as possible every year they have a game instead of giving a diverse set of games recognition for diverse set of awards?
I'd bet Astrobot, FFVIIR, Elden Ring and Balatro will manage to collectively win more awards than every other game nominated
@garfreek Yet the Switch is the best selling console since PS2 and even in its 8th year games like Mario Party and Zelda: Echoes have sold better selling than the likes of FFVIIRebirth or Astrobot.
Sales shouldn't be everything but I think there's something weird when like in 2020 Animal Crossing managed to sell like 30million copies to TLOU2's 4million. The latter was apparently the Game of the Year with the most awards ever received by a game despite reviewing worse than its predecessor. Being given awards as if TLOU2 had surpassed its predecessor regardless of the fact it actually fumbled.
While Animal Crossing: New Horizon was the game people were actually playing, and was more popular than its predecessor, and more reflective of what games people were playing in 2020.
The FFVII remake series is floundering and Square is struggling for relevance, but it still has a strong showing at these award shows. Like it seems more like these shows are a manufactured vision of what the popular games should be rather than what they are.
Re: Mario & Luigi's Future In Doubt As A Potential Sony Acquisition Emerges
Surely this can't be even be possible. I remember reading that in the 2000s Nintendo was blocked from acquiring Bandai (before the Namco merge) under anti-monopoly laws.
How could Sony be allowed to buy a company that big?
Re: Expansion Packs And DLC Are Now "Eligible In All Categories" At The Game Awards
Expansions can be good, sometimes as good as if not better than the base games, but these award shows already have a bad habit of making sure a few games take up many of the nominations. Just look at when GoW : Ragnarok and Horizon 2 came out they both took up like half the slots in the categories and were both from the exact same company.
If two years later Elden Ring is just picking up yet more awards over the new games.
It's just devolving into the FROM software, Sony, Kojima and whatever indie game had the multimillion budget awards
Re: Nintendo's Lawsuit Against Palworld Is "A Clear Case Of Bullying", Says Analyst
@Lyrania Originality isn't a black and white though. Though there's a wide spectrum between being entirely original and say copy-pasting or tracing a design. I think it's worth pointing out the Palworld mons look far closer like a Pokemon than any Pokemon looks like a Dragon Quest monster.
Having the same theme or animal isn't the same as having a creature with the same shape and proportions as another. Pokemon , Dragon Quest and Digimon often have similar concepts for their monsters but with distinct designs for each. Outside of playground arguments I haven't really seen someone saying that either Agumon or Charmander are a rip off of each other despite both being fire breathing reptiles .
The extent Pocketpair went to copying Pokemon monster designs go so far that people can visibly identify which body parts of a specific Pokemon or multiple Pokemon were Frankensteined together to form a Pal in Palworld.
Like even if it isn't copyright infringement it still is plagiarism and I think it's fair to look down on them for it.
Also your conclusion makes no sense given Nintendo are suing Palworld based on patents for 2022's Pokemon Legends Arceus. If Pokemon hadn't changed and evolved their formula then those patents wouldn't even exist for them to sue with.