Legendary art design and story telling but for context Fromsoft are not great programmers and their games are almost always better optimised on Xbox (even though they have a longer history of support for Playstation weirdly).
Nightreign on the PS5, for example, is dreadful. Utterly unacceptably optimised. Pop-up all over the place for a game engine (the original Elden Ring) which was built with the previous generation in mind.
Having had time to absorb the announcement two things stand out.
Firstly, the style feels more Vampire Hunter D than Bloodborne. Mythical and fantasy rather than Victorian Science & Gothic Horror.
Charred Thermos has some of the best analysis of Bloodborne's origins on YouTube. The links to Edinburgh and emerging sciences of the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was very much based in Shelley-ian vision of then modern science but wrapped in a Lovecraftian cocoon.
Duskbloods seems to lean far more into the Stoker-esque vampiric lore. More dark fantasy than horror.
The second observation is that as PvPvE (uck) it probably makes more sense that development of this game predates Nightreign. This was the original concept and has taken longer to develop as an original IP.
Maybe BandeiNamco found out, sh*t the bed and demanded that FromSoft make exactly the same PvPvE style game but reusing the same assets from Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3. And they could do it in half the time.
That makes far more sense to me because I just can't see how Nightreign is dreamt up organically with The Nameless King being shoehorned in out of nowhere.
Reduce the price by 24% (which is the tariff announced on Japan) and you get back to where you would expect the price to be.
It takes an $80 game down to $64.51.
There may be some variability, with manufacture in other countries like China and Taiwan, but broadly the price increase is the tariffs for the US market.
The ultimate kick in the b*lls though is the price equalisation across the world so Nintendo doesn't get singled out for charging higher prices in the US vs the rest of the world on a global product.
That's the real extraterritorial damage the Trump administration has done.
My bank moved from VISA to Mastercard so had to update the card number for a preorder on the Bayonetta collector’s edition only to be told that they couldn’t and the order needed to be cancelled and I’d lose my order because it’s now sold out. Wouldn’t reserve me a copy, nothing. P*ss poor customer service.
To now miss out on this is just another disappointing experience.
I don’t mind the design, though the toothpaste comparisons are obvious and Nintendo needed to factor that in.
I notice that Koei aren’t mentioned on the trailer and previously Intelligent Systems had said that without them Three Houses wouldn’t have got made. It was inferred that basically half of everything in that game was done in partnership with Koei Tecmo.
The UK collectors edition is already up and sold out. That’s some weapons grade b***s**t. I don’t check the site for 1/2 a day and it’s gone already? This is after I got stiffed by being 20 mins late for the God of War: Ragnorok Jotnar Edition. Companies need to do better at judging demand for these things. It’s not like they’re not incredibly profitable for them.
That's absolutely standard for Xenoblade and RPGs in general. They drive a massive amount of initial sales and then drop significantly. From memory you're looking at anywhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of total sales happen in the first week.
Firstly that some of the games in the roster are done or mostly done and can be accelerated or are simply awaiting release (obviously not applicable to BOTW2, etc).
Second that Nintendo wants to even out the release slate with Advanced Wars no longer a goer with the Ukraine stuff.
Does make you wonder what other titles they’ve got ready to go.
Reading the other thread there are very few good fits for Nintendo in terms of size and scope.
I also think people aren't factoring in the losses Microsoft (and to a much lesser extent Sony) are taking on buying this companies.
So for Microsoft you've taken one of the biggest publishers on the planet and either get them to do exclusives for Xbox and GamePass and see the value of your $70bn probably half because they've reduced the size of their market massively. They won't be able to sell anywhere near as many games. Sure it ups the Xbox brand, but reduces the value of the brands tied to them.
For example if they made Overwatch Xbox exclusive then that means less Overwatch sales means cash, but also lessens the brand. People see less Tracer. Same for everything else they've just bought.
Alternatively they keep everything cross platform and then it's just a meaningless investment. They may as well have put their money in US Treasury bonds.
Understanding that, and looking at Nintendo's profile they can't reasonable buy anyone of the size of Activision or EA. Of the publishers they can buy they'll face a similar problem to devalue the brands they buy. So for example if they buy SquareEnix, they'd need to repurpose 70%+ of those studios to work exclusively on Switch. That's not just staff, there's still a huge issue of having to bin engines and tools which would now be worthless because you're not going to use them anymore. A hugely challenging task and worst, value is heavily weighted with employees who can say actually we don't want to work on old tech and just leave. Again huge losses in the value of the publisher you've bought.
That applies to all cross platform devs. So on paper Platinium looks a good fit (setting aside their own desire to become self publishing) But if you buy them and 50% of the staff leave because they want to push the graphics envelop then ok you've got some IP and an empty shell.
It's why the Rare sell was such a great deal. They understood where the value was. It was in Nintendo's own designer and tech support and the Stampers. Take that away and they're just another studio so when Microsoft came in with a crazy offer it was a no brainer. Alternatively for MS it's pocket money, they can afford the risk profile, doesn't work out? Doesn't matter.
It shouldn't be a surprise that Dread was so good, MercurySteam got a lot of help from Nintendo in terms of design. That's the model which makes the most sense for Nintendo. Same with the Luigi's Mansion 3 people.
Back to the Activision piece, if Microsoft suddenly made all that IP exclusive then that $70bn is probably worth $30bn in a single day. Sure the Xbox brand goes up but by the amount they lose? With those numbers that's a risk only someone like Microsoft can take.
The stigma of last year's model is quite something else. You should look up houses and how people buy houses, demolish them only to rebuild with relatively similar specs.
Quiet week it seems. Nintendo has got to be pleased with Miitopia though, even with little competition it's been incredibly well to stay in the charts for a title that's so niche.
Just after XC2 released was there not an interview with the developers to say they had to create much of the game engine with only 3 people because most of their staff had been taken off to finish work on BotW?
Arrived yesterday, played through the first level. Impa is more fun than Link and the performance is ..... ok. It's not the framerate as such but more the skipped animation frames which I don't like, but it's not a deal breaker.
With this and the prototype controller pictures that were flying around it shows you they were quite innovative during their day. Shame that they've become just another generic publisher, a poor fate to befall a once worthy adversary.
I wasn't aware that HAL were making mobile games. Given they're effectively a 2nd party developer it does seems a bit odd that it didn't release at the same time on the Switch.
@Sakaixx Totally agree. The first episode an absolute joke. An awful piece of television. However the series gets much better as it goes on. The standalone ep with Batou at the bank for example I really enjoyed and the 1984 stuff I think works, if not quite as well as the SD Salinger stuff from The Laughing Man run.
Netflix have their moments but everything is done on the relative cheap and if you look carefully enough, it shows.
The most obvious example was The Witcher. Now it didn't look bad, not at all. But there were certain moments, especially the scenes around the castle, where it was clearly just pasterboard sets. This didn't have Game of Thrones money thrown at it.
They do the same with movies. The Hitman's Bodyguard was a huge success for them simply by virtue of it only costing them $30m to make.
What I can't understand though is why they've messed around with Leon and Clares' models again. They've got perfectly good CGI skins and skeletons from the RE 2 remake which they could use and would draw a lot more people into the movie. Bizarre production decision.
It does look interesting. It must be running on the BotW engine, there are just too many similarities. Which presumably means they've had to hollow out the BotW gameplay, take the Warriors gameplay and build it into Nintendo's engine.
I always pictured Scarlet Johansson as Samus more than Brie Larson but to each their own. It'd Metroid and Mario would be the most obvious ones to develop.
Did love the DK stuff around the turn of the millennium. That would be another avenue.
I imported this and played it through trial and error. The two sword masters were unreal. Oguma, the captain of the guard, (from the anime) and Nathriel (or some derivative) who was a ronin of sorts. Utterly beasted just about every other unit and topped out at 20 in basically everything.
It's an interesting one. Nintendo's insistence on cartridges was from the designers like Miyamoto who didn't want loading times (they also, rightly, thought anything with moving parts was likely to break down in the longer term). So in that way they've been proven right in terms of gamers' preferences, but I wouldn't necessarily give them credit by saying they forsaw SSDs or even the mass use of HDDs in gaming 30 years out.
Unreal sales considering they're saying the game has underperformed somewhat in the younger demographics and they're expecting more from that group come Christmas/Holidays. Insane.
Huge numbers for XC DE considering it's a third release (second re-release) of a 10 year old game.
If you're Nintendo that's almost pure profit, continues to cement the brand in the public eye and filled a gap in the calendar. I'm sure they'll be very happy with that.
Why would you physically release a free game? Unless it's dirt cheap and only for the cost of the cartridge and packaging. Or maybe it comes with free stuff like skins and items.
Comments 39
Re: First Footage Of Elden Ring Running On Switch 2 Appears Online
@Paulo
It's a fair comment.
Legendary art design and story telling but for context Fromsoft are not great programmers and their games are almost always better optimised on Xbox (even though they have a longer history of support for Playstation weirdly).
Nightreign on the PS5, for example, is dreadful. Utterly unacceptably optimised. Pop-up all over the place for a game engine (the original Elden Ring) which was built with the previous generation in mind.
Re: Elden Ring's Switch 2 Physical Version Seemingly Tarnished By 'Game-Key Card' Release
Tariffs are going to shake up physical media in a big way.
There may be a way to dodge tariffs on digital realises if you sign over the IP to a US-based entity and delivered digitally.
Re: FromSoftware's 'The Duskbloods' Looks Like Bloodborne 2, Coming To Nintendo Switch 2 In 2026
Having had time to absorb the announcement two things stand out.
Firstly, the style feels more Vampire Hunter D than Bloodborne. Mythical and fantasy rather than Victorian Science & Gothic Horror.
Charred Thermos has some of the best analysis of Bloodborne's origins on YouTube. The links to Edinburgh and emerging sciences of the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was very much based in Shelley-ian vision of then modern science but wrapped in a Lovecraftian cocoon.
Duskbloods seems to lean far more into the Stoker-esque vampiric lore. More dark fantasy than horror.
The second observation is that as PvPvE (uck) it probably makes more sense that development of this game predates Nightreign. This was the original concept and has taken longer to develop as an original IP.
Maybe BandeiNamco found out, sh*t the bed and demanded that FromSoft make exactly the same PvPvE style game but reusing the same assets from Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3. And they could do it in half the time.
That makes far more sense to me because I just can't see how Nightreign is dreamt up organically with The Nameless King being shoehorned in out of nowhere.
Re: "Don't Let Nintendo Ruin The Entire Industry" - Is $80 For Mario Kart World A Bridge Too Far?
Reduce the price by 24% (which is the tariff announced on Japan) and you get back to where you would expect the price to be.
It takes an $80 game down to $64.51.
There may be some variability, with manufacture in other countries like China and Taiwan, but broadly the price increase is the tariffs for the US market.
The ultimate kick in the b*lls though is the price equalisation across the world so Nintendo doesn't get singled out for charging higher prices in the US vs the rest of the world on a global product.
That's the real extraterritorial damage the Trump administration has done.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Nominated For Another 'Game Of The Year' Award
Bit confused. So Zelda is up for GotY but isn't in the running for Best World?
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Collector's Edition Pre-Orders Are Available Again (EU)
They’ve disappointed me considerably recently.
My bank moved from VISA to Mastercard so had to update the card number for a preorder on the Bayonetta collector’s edition only to be told that they couldn’t and the order needed to be cancelled and I’d lose my order because it’s now sold out. Wouldn’t reserve me a copy, nothing. P*ss poor customer service.
To now miss out on this is just another disappointing experience.
Re: Feature: With Sales Outpacing Pokémon, Why Is Splatoon So Popular In Japan?
The simple answer is it's the shoot'em up that works for the Japanese market.
Call of Duty and the like don't do especially well there and this plug a gap which doesn't exist elsewhere.
Re: The New Fire Emblem Hero Was Created By A VTuber Designer
Couple of comments,
I don’t mind the design, though the toothpaste comparisons are obvious and Nintendo needed to factor that in.
I notice that Koei aren’t mentioned on the trailer and previously Intelligent Systems had said that without them Three Houses wouldn’t have got made. It was inferred that basically half of everything in that game was done in partnership with Koei Tecmo.
The UK collectors edition is already up and sold out. That’s some weapons grade b***s**t. I don’t check the site for 1/2 a day and it’s gone already? This is after I got stiffed by being 20 mins late for the God of War: Ragnorok Jotnar Edition. Companies need to do better at judging demand for these things. It’s not like they’re not incredibly profitable for them.
Re: UK Charts: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Drops While Switch Sports Climbs Back Up
That's absolutely standard for Xenoblade and RPGs in general. They drive a massive amount of initial sales and then drop significantly. From memory you're looking at anywhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of total sales happen in the first week.
Re: Where To Pre-Order Bayonetta 3 On Switch
Anytime @FargusPelagius
@RupeeClock that's the reason I noticed it. I've sat pressing F5 on that page for months awaiting the Xenoblade Collector's Edition to appear.
Re: Where To Pre-Order Bayonetta 3 On Switch
Trinity Masquerade Edition is up on the Nintendo UK Store for pre-order.
https://store.nintendo.co.uk/en_gb/bayonetta-3-trinity-masquerade-edition-P00093.html
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Gets A Release Date, And It's Sooner Than You Think
This feels like 2 things in combination.
Firstly that some of the games in the roster are done or mostly done and can be accelerated or are simply awaiting release (obviously not applicable to BOTW2, etc).
Second that Nintendo wants to even out the release slate with Advanced Wars no longer a goer with the Ukraine stuff.
Does make you wonder what other titles they’ve got ready to go.
Re: Random: These Sausages Could Imply The Existence Of A Third Mario Brother
I thought everyone knew about regular Guiseppe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMC9PcqHeNU
Re: Nintendo Says It Won't Compete With Microsoft And Sony In An Acquisitions Arms Race
Reading the other thread there are very few good fits for Nintendo in terms of size and scope.
I also think people aren't factoring in the losses Microsoft (and to a much lesser extent Sony) are taking on buying this companies.
So for Microsoft you've taken one of the biggest publishers on the planet and either get them to do exclusives for Xbox and GamePass and see the value of your $70bn probably half because they've reduced the size of their market massively. They won't be able to sell anywhere near as many games. Sure it ups the Xbox brand, but reduces the value of the brands tied to them.
For example if they made Overwatch Xbox exclusive then that means less Overwatch sales means cash, but also lessens the brand. People see less Tracer. Same for everything else they've just bought.
Alternatively they keep everything cross platform and then it's just a meaningless investment. They may as well have put their money in US Treasury bonds.
Understanding that, and looking at Nintendo's profile they can't reasonable buy anyone of the size of Activision or EA. Of the publishers they can buy they'll face a similar problem to devalue the brands they buy. So for example if they buy SquareEnix, they'd need to repurpose 70%+ of those studios to work exclusively on Switch. That's not just staff, there's still a huge issue of having to bin engines and tools which would now be worthless because you're not going to use them anymore. A hugely challenging task and worst, value is heavily weighted with employees who can say actually we don't want to work on old tech and just leave. Again huge losses in the value of the publisher you've bought.
That applies to all cross platform devs. So on paper Platinium looks a good fit (setting aside their own desire to become self publishing) But if you buy them and 50% of the staff leave because they want to push the graphics envelop then ok you've got some IP and an empty shell.
It's why the Rare sell was such a great deal. They understood where the value was. It was in Nintendo's own designer and tech support and the Stampers. Take that away and they're just another studio so when Microsoft came in with a crazy offer it was a no brainer. Alternatively for MS it's pocket money, they can afford the risk profile, doesn't work out? Doesn't matter.
It shouldn't be a surprise that Dread was so good, MercurySteam got a lot of help from Nintendo in terms of design. That's the model which makes the most sense for Nintendo. Same with the Luigi's Mansion 3 people.
Back to the Activision piece, if Microsoft suddenly made all that IP exclusive then that $70bn is probably worth $30bn in a single day. Sure the Xbox brand goes up but by the amount they lose? With those numbers that's a risk only someone like Microsoft can take.
Re: Japanese Charts: Nintendo Switch And Pokémon Diamond And Pearl Remakes Continue To Dominate
1,020 PS5s. I know there are supply chain issues but holy s***.
Re: Shin Megami Tensei V Premium Edition Pre-Orders Go Live Alongside A New Trailer
If anyone is interested the UK site has the special edition up today for pre-order
Re: Video: Retro Gaming Prices Are Much More Reasonable In Japan
It's a fascinating cultural phenomenon.
The stigma of last year's model is quite something else. You should look up houses and how people buy houses, demolish them only to rebuild with relatively similar specs.
It's just what they do.
Re: Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp Reimagines The Classics On Switch
Edge said this was one of the handful of games that they wished they’d given a 10/10 to.
I remember playing it back in the summer of 2003 when I was in London on an internship. Happy times indeed.
Re: UK Charts: FIFA 21 Regains Chart Control But Switch's Biggest Hitters Aren't Far Behind
Quiet week it seems. Nintendo has got to be pleased with Miitopia though, even with little competition it's been incredibly well to stay in the charts for a title that's so niche.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles Developer Monolith Soft Now Has 272 Employees
Just after XC2 released was there not an interview with the developers to say they had to create much of the game engine with only 3 people because most of their staff had been taken off to finish work on BotW?
Re: UK Charts: Animal Crossing: New Horizons Sales Keep Rising, But Cyberpunk 2077 Goes Top
Just Dance 2021 ads have been absolutely pastered across Sky One, Witness, Atlantic over the last few weeks (Nintendo/Smyths).
If World of Warcraft was videogaming crack, then Animal Crossing must be videogaming valium.
Re: Poll: Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity Is Out Today, Are You Getting It?
Arrived yesterday, played through the first level. Impa is more fun than Link and the performance is ..... ok. It's not the framerate as such but more the skipped animation frames which I don't like, but it's not a deal breaker.
Re: Random: Sorry, Mario Kart Live - Sega Beat You To The Punch Over 30 Years Ago
With this and the prototype controller pictures that were flying around it shows you they were quite innovative during their day. Shame that they've become just another generic publisher, a poor fate to befall a once worthy adversary.
Re: Part Time UFO, The Latest Switch Game From HAL Laboratory, Is Available Right Now
I wasn't aware that HAL were making mobile games. Given they're effectively a 2nd party developer it does seems a bit odd that it didn't release at the same time on the Switch.
Re: Review: Transformers: Battlegrounds - Accessible Turn-Based Action That's For Noobs Only
Credit for the caption and reference to the 1986 movie.
Re: First Impressions: Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
This will live or die on the marketing ahead of Christmas.
If they commit to it I think it will fly off the shelves but will need some degree of consumer education to be a success.
Re: Netflix Reveals Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness
@Sakaixx
Totally agree. The first episode an absolute joke. An awful piece of television. However the series gets much better as it goes on. The standalone ep with Batou at the bank for example I really enjoyed and the 1984 stuff I think works, if not quite as well as the SD Salinger stuff from The Laughing Man run.
Re: Netflix Reveals Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness
Netflix have their moments but everything is done on the relative cheap and if you look carefully enough, it shows.
The most obvious example was The Witcher. Now it didn't look bad, not at all. But there were certain moments, especially the scenes around the castle, where it was clearly just pasterboard sets. This didn't have Game of Thrones money thrown at it.
They do the same with movies. The Hitman's Bodyguard was a huge success for them simply by virtue of it only costing them $30m to make.
What I can't understand though is why they've messed around with Leon and Clares' models again. They've got perfectly good CGI skins and skeletons from the RE 2 remake which they could use and would draw a lot more people into the movie. Bizarre production decision.
Re: Video: Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity World Premiere Gameplay Footage
Also the graphics look excellent considering the number of enemies on screen.
Re: Video: Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity World Premiere Gameplay Footage
It does look interesting. It must be running on the BotW engine, there are just too many similarities. Which presumably means they've had to hollow out the BotW gameplay, take the Warriors gameplay and build it into Nintendo's engine.
Re: Nintendo Has More Media Projects In The Works Beyond The Mario Movie
@dojmin
Could you do an entire movie with Link not speaking? Would be pretty art-house.
Re: Nintendo Has More Media Projects In The Works Beyond The Mario Movie
I always pictured Scarlet Johansson as Samus more than Brie Larson but to each their own. It'd Metroid and Mario would be the most obvious ones to develop.
Did love the DK stuff around the turn of the millennium. That would be another avenue.
Re: Fire Emblem: Mystery Of The Emblem Joins Japan's Switch Online Service This Month
Oguma FTW!
I imported this and played it through trial and error. The two sword masters were unreal. Oguma, the captain of the guard, (from the anime) and Nathriel (or some derivative) who was a ronin of sorts. Utterly beasted just about every other unit and topped out at 20 in basically everything.
Great game, they really need to do a translation.
Re: Feature: 1995's Nintendo Was Arrogant And Ahead Of Its Time All At Once
It's an interesting one. Nintendo's insistence on cartridges was from the designers like Miyamoto who didn't want loading times (they also, rightly, thought anything with moving parts was likely to break down in the longer term). So in that way they've been proven right in terms of gamers' preferences, but I wouldn't necessarily give them credit by saying they forsaw SSDs or even the mass use of HDDs in gaming 30 years out.
Re: It's Not Out Yet, But Super Mario 3D All-Stars Is Already 2020's Second Best-Selling Game On Amazon
Does anyone know the proportion of Amazon vs whole industry and if previously it's been representative?
Re: Most Animal Crossing: New Horizons Players Are In Their 20s And 30s
Unreal sales considering they're saying the game has underperformed somewhat in the younger demographics and they're expecting more from that group come Christmas/Holidays. Insane.
Re: Random: Nintendo Posts New Image Of Mario In The Sunshine, Internet Goes Wild Again
Europe of course is also going through a heatwave at the moment. It was 35° yesterday in London.
No doubt there's some substance to the Mario remakes but people are using every post as a self diagnosing Rorschach test.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition And Clubhouse Games Both Surpass 1 Million Sales
Huge numbers for XC DE considering it's a third release (second re-release) of a 10 year old game.
If you're Nintendo that's almost pure profit, continues to cement the brand in the public eye and filled a gap in the calendar. I'm sure they'll be very happy with that.
Re: Japanese Charts: Switch Sales Surpass 12 Million As Animal Crossing Returns To Number One
Why would you physically release a free game? Unless it's dirt cheap and only for the cost of the cartridge and packaging. Or maybe it comes with free stuff like skins and items.