Haruki_NLI

The absolute insanity of the timing of this announcement. You just know some intern is fist pumping the air.

@Yellowshi There's 4? I thought it was only ever three because that's all I heard people talk about outside of how the series is cursed by real world events.

@Yellowshi I mean, a 3+4 Reboot Camp wouldn't happen given there was only three games.

But also, y'all commenters need to be patient.

"Nintendo isn't doing anything with the IP"

They released remakes in 2023. This isn't the late 80s where you can slap a game out in 6 months. Good heavens

Wait, it's on Chapter 5 now? I stopped once the aliens showed up a few years back. I also skipped the initial Marvel season back then too.

@Strumpan The last official number is 150m from 2011, discontinued in 2013. That implies people believe Sony produced another 5-10m PS2 systems in 2012.

Somehow.....I doubt it.

@westman98 Is it a toy, or is it a video game? Is the Switch a handheld, or a home console? Is the PSVR2 it's own platform with exclusives, or an accessory? Is the the GameBoy Colour a new platform or a revision?

We can try and pigeon-hole everything into neat little compartments to suit our narratives, but those pigeons are long dead.

My take? It's a video game. It comes with software to be played, on a games console that plays video games, with inputs received by the software on the dedicated hardware platform that are sent by the player. You can say its a toy, but that thing came with a game attached.

@-wc- I read that whole thing, and I meant to say wide appeal, as in casting a wide net, not mass appeal, thats me getting my terms mixed up. Whoopsie.

As for this: "I'm a gamer, not a banker. I miss the days when we thought of Nintendo as a group of brilliant creative minds making mind blowing games, rather than a bunch of uptight rich guys in suits trying not to rock the boat."

See, I'm the opposite. I'm a businessman and economist, not really a gamer anymore, and that's because I spent years studying economics and business analysis, and once you look behind that curtain, your whole worldview changes, and it's not great.

Thing is, you dont care about how a business is doing overall, and that's absolutely fine. Except you do, because under capitalism and our societal conditioning, every decision you make, every job you have, exists to just fuel the machine. You go earn money to spend it to live, and if those businesses drop, our way of life collapses.

It absolutely sucks, like absolutely bites, but sadly, that's the way it is, and so that's how I look at the world.

There's no ethical consumption under capitalism after all, sadly.

And now I'm depressed again. Oh dear.

Anyway, ethical and societal conditioning tangent aside, yeah, Nintendo is a business, they wanna make money. I mean at the end of the day the only way we can impact that is to.....not give them money, en masse. But we could also collectively decide one day that money has no value and just start over again and reset every currency, but we wont, because not everyone thinks the same.

Best you can do is just hope. And that sucks, it really does. I'm not getting the games I like anymore, so I jumped ship a while ago. I also saw the way the industry was going and decided I'd rather watch from the sidelines to see if I can snipe some golden parachutes before they land

@-wc- I'll step in for this.

The Switch has sold so well, so they extended it's life with two additional years of content around the time a new game would have released for the Switch.

This is largely done to maximise banked ROI and pure profit from further sales to not only fund more niche games for the Switch and broaden it's appeal, but also make the next Mario Kart, which is almost assured to launch around the next platform.

As history has shown, Mario Kart is a mass appeal, truly evergreen title on a successful system, and its launch timing is imperative. Therefore, keeping resources back and not releasing a Mario Kart exclusively for Switch means there is no potential delay in the timing of a new title for a new system, and thus springboarding what will hopefully be a successful platform.

Your second point, there is an exclusive Mario Kart game on Switch: Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, which was licensed to Velan Studios by Nintendo. As of December 2022, it had sold less than 2m units. Now sure this is largely down to its higher price, complexity etc. but it also stands in line with sequels to mega popular games on the same platform either flatlining or falling behind. Look at Tears of the Kingdom compared to Breath of the Wild, or 3D World to Odyssey.

Now sure there are exceptions to that rule, Kirby and the Forgotten Land for example, and Pokemon, but those titles also occupy a different space to Mario Kart.

Mario Kart is, by design, a game with infinite longevity.

Much like how many live service games go for a decade or longer, Mario Kart, and to a lesser extent Splatoon, Animal Crossing and Smash Bros., are games that you get on your system, get DLC, and thats your fill until the next platform.

For the mass market, the people driving the profits and the sales, spending some of your money on a sequel to a game that wont hit as high, when that money can be better spent on making more niche titles that draw in people like us on this site, is the play. The mass market gets their fill, we get our niche games.

And that has been the true strength of the Switch brand. All the money from Animal Crossing, Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart, Smash etc. selling so well so consistently hasn't just been funnelled into the next game from that same studio in the way Sony and many other companies do it, it goes to games like a Bayonetta, Advance Wars, Mario & Luigi, Pikmin, Metroid.

In other companies, the profit from God of War goes to the next God of War and thats your lot.

@JohnnyMind Thats true of every business. If the year ends in 2025, its fiscal year 2025, most likely because that would be the final transaction dates for that fiscal year, thus the year overall falls into 2025.

It's weird, because even though most of the year is in 2024, the actual financial year runs through 2025.

Even at my job, we have weekly sales figures for year 2025.

You'd think after the Collections kept doing well, and Megaman 11, the first new game in 8 years at that point became the best selling Megaman game, and that was followed by the BN Collection selling incredibly well, that SOMETHING would have happened by now but no. It's just more Resident Evil and the odd Monster Hunter.

There's only two more possible collections they can do. After that, it has to be new games.

@BANJO It would seem not. The preorder bonus Ultimate Points is lower on Switch....for some reason.

@UltimateOtaku91 Next Level Ganes' next project will most likely land in 2025. Since being acquired by Nintendo they've only grown in size and even before then managed to keep a cadence of one game every three years. Of course, famously, Nintendo didn't tell them when to release the games, Next Level dictated that themselves.

2010 - Punch Out
2013 - Luigi's Mansion 2
2016 - Metroid Prime Federation Force
2019 - Luigi's Mansion 3
2022 - Mario Strikers Battle League

So it stands to reason with every other game they make being Luigi's Mansion and it being nearly 3 years since Strikers, the next game lands in 2025.

Now, will it be Luigi's Mansion? Maybe. Maybe not. But with how the series has only grown in sales and quality under them it's simply a matter of when, or if they want to keep LM4 as a mid life title.

@UltimateOtaku91 I think part of this is my frustration at hearing "Its not worth the cost" over the past few years. Be it a remake, a remaster, a 2D Metroid or Mario game, a Zelda which is built on the previous one, a Pokemon game....it just gets old, and at the end of the day, it doesnt matter what people do.

Annoyingly, humans have free will. But the loudest ones tend to be the ones unhappy with what others do.

@UltimateOtaku91 Look, I get it. I do.

But if I, or any other individual want to spend their money in this free market for a good or service they deem worthwhile for the expense involved, then that's on them. They won't chastise you for how you choose to spend your money. So why try and tell others how to spend theirs?

Remember, lots of people moaned that they didn't want to have to buy the games, rather have a Netflix style model.

Well, here you go. And now you all want to just buy them.

Problem is, if that was the case most publishers wouldn't bother. We already saw that with the move from Wii to Wii U and 3DS. Loads of games and systems on Wii that just weren't elsewhere.

Why? The sales didn't warrant the effort of licensing to Nintendo to sell the games.

@LadyCharlie To be fair, you go from LM2 selling what it did to LM3 selling way more, and that's a lot of people to whom this game is probably new.

About damn time!

Also, releasing on "The Steam"? Thats like me wondering what the hell a TikTok was until my partner explained it to me.

@Samalik The game does have action sensitive inputs, but lets assume for the sake of argument it was a 6 frame window on Gamecube, and it stays a 6 frame window on Switch.

That means your window increases on Switch, from 1/10th to 2/10th of a second.

If they want to keep the timing the same, then it'll go from 6 frames to 3 frames, still 1/10th of a second.

Point is, unless they do something real screwy with the timing, and that seems to be what this whole damn debate is based around, it'll be fine.

Honestly, I'm glad I have Paper Mario muted on social media, after Origami king and now this those Whackos are like Whacka.

Middle Earth Enterprises & Friends
Waitrose & Partners
Mars & Affiliates

Welcome to the new company naming scheme

I'm struggling to see how a 13 year old console sold 5m units in its final year of production after they stopped reporting numbers.

I don't think that's ever even been close to a thing. With consoles usually once you mention the successor 5-7 years in, sales collapse, look what happened to the PS4 at the end after all as the PS5 was talked about.

So I find this very very hard to believe. And the fact Sony themselves never bothered to update it is weird. I'd certainly be willing to show shareholders these alleged 5m units of almost pure profit I just made as the expensive PS4 launches.

@Yosher Being a tester anywhere isn't good. And that's a well documented fact at this point. Your job is purely to fill a spreadsheet at the end of the day that may or may not be ignored while replying parts of games over and over and over.

On another note, this reported seems familiar. Is this the one who talked about pirating Metroid Dread before release that got Kotaku blacklisted?

Isnt this the one with the talking gun or something?

@Desrever Thats what Im curious about. PEGI changed the rating for the game yet its only vanished from the eShop and nowhere else.

Hang on

Why does the age rating change only impact one platform. Is that a Nintendo policy thing if game resubmission or what?

Yeah lets shoot the kid dying of.....NIDS? Was that it?

I wonder if they'll skirt around it given how.....incredibly important it is as a plot point that Shadow watched her get mullered.

But even more importantly, does this mean we get to see Gerald Robotnik chained to a chair in a cell while a video camera records him being executed by firing squad?

@shgamer Remember this is to investors, and as a publicly traded business, there is one simple rule.

Your investors are thicker than a bowl of oatmeal mixed with cement, and never, ever say anything that they can take to the bank. They might be stupid, but they don't forget.

@Scoopz To be fair, Switch has never been their only business. But it has always been the main business for as long as it's been around.

In fact, if a successor launches late this year, then for the year overall it'll still have been the main business.

But Switch has always shared the overall business with mobile, 3DS, theme parks, entertainment ventures, amiibo, merch...

It's actually outdoing Pokémon in terms of players now. Well then.

What baffles me the most about situations like this is it means each move has its effects coded independently, rather than pulling from a list of effects. So moves like Thunder Wave and Stun Spore most likely are coded to inflict different instances of Paralysis rather than just call from one.

It makes a little more sense for Dragon Cheer being the first crit rate boosting move in years and having a unique side effect but still.

It reminds me of XY where one trainers single Pokémon in the whole game would play the wrong cry. Which means every trainer had their Pokémon individually coded to them.

Which is damn insane when you think about how ineffective that is.

I loved watching the video and watching Alex roll his eyes at the mentions and just sit in strained silence.

@Not_Soos @FlyingDunsparce @mereel

As usual, in game purchases is there for the same reason it is for Mario Kart, Splatoon and others.

Because there is an Online mode, if you don't have an NSO sub, it'll redirect you to the eShop from within the game to get the sub.

That's it. There's your controversy. It happened for Mario Wonder too.

I mean, he has a point.

Ocarina of Time comes out. Good.
Majora's Mask - We want it to be like Ocarina.
Wind Waker - Why isnt it like Ocarina.
Twilight Princess - Wind Waker was better
Skyward Sword - Why isnt it more like Twilight Princess

Every time the next Zelda comes out, it's treated unfavourably to the previous one, which then becomes loved and so on so forth.

Which Atari though?

@BANJO The fact its Superstars on Switch at 4K and the other physical releases are nowhere to be seen.....uhoh.

Fair play. They asked that Smash tournament to license for 2023/2024 and to NOT cancel their current cup, but the tournament threw a hissy fit and cancelled it anyway.

Then all the misconduct and illegal stuff came out about some top players, then the other drama happened, then Nintendo tried again with an officially licensed event and that fell through because low and behold it's all abusers baby.

This is them now saying sod it, we aren't letting you lot within 500 miles of our brand without a license that they seem quite happy to give should you be above board. And that's fine.

Ah yes, the incomplete, incoherent mess of XY.

Which also gave us the Mega Evolutions that addressed power creep by.... massively increasing power creep. At least Z-moves etc are usable by everyone.

But hey, at least they gave Megas to long forgotten Pokemon like Garchomp, Metagross, Salamence, Tyranitar, Lucario, Ampharos, Latios and Latias, Rayquaza, Charizard, Charizard again, Blastoise, Venusaur, Mewtwo, Mewtwo again....wait.

@rjejr Yeah I only get a handful of hours per day. Not good really

@burgerkingsauce You say that, but upgraded Switch talk and rumours started in 2017 when the damn thing came out.

Switch 3 rumours will begin before this thing is even revealed

Imagine rocking up to MiHoYo or Pokemon Company and demanding money for Genshin or Pokemon GO.

The fist would be firmly inserted.

@Vyacheslav333 Unreal Engine games either look like Yoshi, Fortnite, Octopath, Pikmin 4 or Hellblade.

Huh....thats quite a spectrum

@Matroska Not as true as you may think, as Nintendo has stated several times in their financials, digital Switch sales now account for over 50% of all software sales. Sure, they're probably inflated relative to the other systems, but not by as much as claimed.

But likewise, Nintendo doesnt share digital data with these sales charts companies, so when the overall monthly sales charts come out, Nintendo is actually massively underrepresented in the charts compared to the competition.

So we never actually get an accurate read on sales until Nintendo provides them with their usual transparency every quarter. Which is more than what the others do.

Really just leapt over Galar there huh. They added what, the mascots, Wooooo, some of the new evolutions and regionals, Wooooo, Falinks....and the two new titans? I think that's it.

@ancientlii I reckon offensively, it gives the user STAB on every type, replicating the boost that a Tera Type gives. So moves of your base and Tera Type get super strong, moves of your Tera Type that aren't your base type get STAB.

I think this'll be Omni-STAB from an offensive side, and just make Tera Blast a mini-nuke that's neutral.

Defensively though....I have no idea.

@RupeeClock 8.5 hours? EIGHT AND A HALF?

Goodness, I'm lucky to get 3-4 hours of sleep a night.

Is that what we are meant to do as a species?

@Half-ShellHero Except they got Frostbite working with PVZ a few years ago.

I'm not sure what the hold up actually was, it could have been money they ended up using to pay FIFA for all we know, or not having much manpower on it due to expecting Switch sales to die off but it looks like FIFA on Switch has done consistently well enough and the console itself refuses to die so they may as well make the investment now for the next one so they don't look like fools twice in a row.

@Fizza Renegade Roundup on Cheese Land. Crikey.

@Chapapa It's a Battle Course in Double Dash I believe. Other games have also had systems as battle courses.

@canaryfarmer It was probably quite far down the list below things such as "Actual Sewer", "Top of a Gamecube", "Pinball Machine", "A Rainbow", "Childs Bedroom" and "Cheese. Just Cheese".

Cant wait to see a Legacy Edition of a title that has just been made. That'll be legendarily impressive. /s

Lets ask Eurogamer, and also about Pokemon Stars while we are at it.

If the Dualsense Edge has the price it does this won't be far off.

Also taking bets on battery life for this Dualsense (5-8 hours) with an 8inch screen and constant wifi.

It seems TOTK may lean just over 50% digital all things considered. Nintendo did say in three days it sold over 2.24m in Japan.