Jeronan

@Cut3Panda-SNES64DD They make a little profit after some years, when economy of scale and parts costs go down a little, but the majority of income was always with selling games and now they push for subscription services like GamePass and PS Plus Premium.

@TheFatPlumber Both Sony and MS are selling their consoles at a loss.

That is why MS is pushing so hard with GamePass. That's what is making them money.

Sony has come to this realization too and started following suit with their PS Plus Premium subscription.
They also started releasing PS exclusive games on the PC platform in recent years, to increase their profits.

The whole console exclusive race (that Sony hypocritically started 20 or so years ago) has been bad for everyone and they also shot themselves in the foot, as it has been depriving them of potential sales on the other platform.

That is why Activision (example) has been laughing their asses off for years with the crazy sales of the CoD franchise, maximizing profits by selling their games on all platforms... raking in Billions each year. Profits both XBOX and Sony can only dream off.

@tektite_captain Lego's own line of sets are much cheaper and people never complained about it.

Licensing popular IP's is expensive and the IP owners want as big piece of the pie as they can get.

Look for example at Lego Icons series, like the NASA stuff. It's leans more towards Lego Technics (which are more complicated and thus more expensive pieces), but you get way more for the money, since it doesn't have a popular and very expensive IP attached to it.

I myself, for example, recently bought the Kingfisher box from Lego for about 48 bucks and this set contains over 834 pieces of Lego.

So no, not all cool Lego sets are expensive and a lot can be bought on sale if you are patient.

It's not Lego's fault it's so expensive, but more like the sheer cost to license the IP's from Nintendo.

All Nintendo IP based Lego sets to far have been quite expensive.
It's the same thing with other licensed Lego stuff like from Harry Potter, etc.

In the end. Lego still needs to make a profit too, after paying the license costs.

@BookhouseBoy Yep. It's pretty obvious that everything is being held back by the inevitable Switch 2 release.

All we get now this year are time filler releases and shovel ware.

@Narrator1 Oh you can bet it has everything to do with it.

Before Elon Musk times, Twitter was one of their main communication channels. XBox, Sony PSN, Nintendo (to a lesser extend), lot of Game studios, etc made big announcements on Twitter, used it for Customer Support updates on outages, Marketing campaigns, etc.

Now that both users are fed up with the platform and leaving it in droves and advertisers abandoning the sinking ship in droves.... there is indeed little incentive left to stay on the platform and as you said, pay those API fees.

@pneumaticgnosis "Free speech" doesn't equal acting like a domestic terrorist, intimidating people, sending death threats, etc.

Everyone is allowed to have different views and debate this on a public forum.... in a civil way.
No one was ever banned on Twitter for just being anti-this or anti-that.

At the end of the day, Twitter was a private company and had every right to set their own social and behavior guidelines, people had to adhere to.

And if you didn't like it, those peeps could go to 4chan and act like total a-holes, rant like pricks and do whatever they want.
Now the new X has been slowly devolving into a new 4chan, after Musk took over and fired almost everyone.
Now there is just a one-person moderation team called Elon Musk and everyone is subjected to his erratic and whimsical behavior.

Why you think Advertisers have been abandoning the platform in droves.... and it has nothing to do with cancel culture like Elon Musk tries to portray it, playing his usual victim card.
These companies have every right to protect their own business interest, their corporate image and values and decide where they spend their money on advertising.
Just like Nintendo now decided to abandon the X platform. It's their own right to do so.

I thought Ryan was axed from the company due to mismanagement?

He is an idiot that got Playstation in the situation it is in right now, with trying to bank everything on Live service "scam" games, which is now backfiring with a revolt from Devs within Sony's studios.

The result is that they have practically no new games currently on the PS5 release roadmap, which is insane.
They are completely reliant on 3rd party now.

I am not a fan of the game being entirely in Lumiose City. Sounds a bit boring to me.
Unless they have some really huge lush parks that look like the Wild areas of Sword/Shield, to break up the monotone of a City scape.

They could have at least have some wild areas included just outside the City as well. Hope that will be the case.

The whole point of the Legends games, just like Mainline games, is to catch a lot of Pokemon and fill the Pokedex.
Bit boring to do it all within a City, which is often a monotone landscape.

They can still announce new games, like either next installment of either mainline or new Legends game. Since the first announcement of big new Pokemon games are always short with just a Teaser, with a larger dedicated Pokemon direct to follow after.

The most reliable rumor is that they will announce a new Legends game, rather than the next Mainline game. I don't expect that until next year. Especially after the performance disaster that was Scarlet/Violet, so they better take more development time this time around..

@Serpenterror They were just typical Click bait rumors!

People need to grow a braincell or two and start using their brain a bit more and not believe everything blindly the internet tells them!

Microsoft has never said nor hinted that GamePass was coming to other platforms like PS and Switch!

This whole rumor started, after Microsoft and Nintendo shared some news about increased cooperation and that more games would come to the Switch.
Then people started immediately putting clickbait articles on the internet about GamePass coming to the Switch! Which was never said nor hinted at!

You can play XBOX Gamepass via the XBOX App on your phone, tablet, laptop and PC. All platforms that are not competing game console platforms.
Many 3rd party studios wouldn't even want that, since separately selling their game on Playstation 5 for example makes about half their profit margins for their AAA titles.

As long as it's fully backwards compatible, I am all for it. Though I do hope they release two versions from the get go!
A cheaper LCD version and a more premium OLED version.

I would be seriously annoyed if they going back to LCD only and we have to wait years, before they release a new OLED model.

@Rascal0302 Don't forget Digimon as well.

Digimon Story: Cybersleuth is a fantastic game too.

I wish they would announce the next Digimon Story game already.

@Switch_Pro It receives a lot of praise, because it's a small Indie studio delivering a gaming experience a lot of people enjoy!
And this game actually runs smooth to boot, with very little issues.
Unlike Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, which is a blurry, stuttering mess with constant pop-ins!

Let that sink in for a bit. TPC is sitting on billions of dollars in yearly profit. One of the largest, if not largest franchise currently in the world.
They have the means to deliver much better and high quality games, but their sheer arrogance has taken the better of current Management in the last couple years, with as result that Gamefreak simply cannot deliver the quality anymore. Which is ridiculous!
Scarlet/Violet should never have been released in the state they were in.
What makes matters a hell lot worse, is that Nintendo send out a statement (after all the backlash) with a promise to address the performance issues!
That turned out to be nothing but a BIG lie! As more than a year later, nothing has been fixed! Hell, the DLC's run even worse than the base game.

@McBurn Exactly. TPC could learn a thing or two from these devs.
For such a small studio, this Early Access release so far has been a very smooth experience. Very few issues in the game. It runs a hell lot better than Pokemon Scarlet/Violet.

TPC should be more worried about their own games and the terrible state they are in and give Gamefreak more resources and more time to develop games and not release them when they are not ready!

Pokemon is currently literally one of the largest franchises in the world! So TPC should be ashamed the state they released Pokemon Scarlet/Violet are in. Even more than a year later, they never delivered on their promise to fix the performance issues. It was nothing but a BIG lie!

@K1LLEGAL I am sure they already looked into it.

TPC just had to come out with a statement, after overzealous Pokemon fans going all crazy on the internet and sending death threats to the people at Pocketpair. Just because a handful of Pals look a bit too similar to Pokemon.

If you actually play the game, then you will see that the vast majority of Pals in this game actually do look unique.

So like I said before, nothing will come from it. At worse case scenario, Pocketpair will have to rework some of these Pals that have too close a resemblance to existing Pokemon. That's it.

@K1LLEGAL Why? XBOX has nothing to do with this.

@Cameron_Poe And you don't think other game studios do it?

Big studios have been caught red handed for this already in the past, by re-using/reverse engineering existing assets and modifying them to save money and time.
As long as the assets are modified enough, it no longer resembles the original, there is no longer any infringement.

It's the same in the music industry. Sampling existing music has been a staple in the industry for decades. As long as the samples are modified enough and/or original used samples are not longer than 3seconds, you can get away with it, as long as the rest of the song is original.

Car industry. It's a known secret that major car manufacturers are buying succesful cars from competitors, take them completely apart / reverse engineer it to check for advantages and copy parts/designs.
Here too, Mercedes was caught red handed years ago, when they steeped so low as to not even buy a Tesla Model X, but rented it from some private person via a proxy entity and took it completely apart to study it and then re-assembled it and send it back to this private person, without saying anything.

Like I said before, if Nintendo/TPC sniffed copyright infringement, they would have already sent lawyers at Pocket Pair's door step. They are in Japan, so same country even.

@Fizza TPC just came out with a statement, because of a handful of overzealous Pokemon fans going all crazy on the internet and even sending death threats to these devs!

Trust me, both Nintendo and TPC are lightning quick in sending out CoD's to people and companies, when they even as much as sniff Copyright infringement.
Just look at that Pokemon mod for Palworld. It was taken down by CoD from TPC very quickly!

Palworld is walking a tight grey line for sure, especially if they used Art AI, but there is literally nothing to see here or TPC/Nintendo would have already taken action long ago, when first footage of Palworld appeared.
These devs are in Japan even, so on same home turf as TPC/Nintendo. The lawyers would have been on their doorstep already.

@Zyph No they don't, because this technology, like AI Art came so sudden, that laws are not in place yet to deal with this.

It's only now being debated about the morality of AI Art engines training on existing artists art without their concent (they claim fair use in this), but no concrete action has been taken yet.

It's the same with ChatGPT, OpenAI, etc that literally scraped the entire internet to feed and train the algorithm.

Google Search engine has been doing this for over 2 decades now, as otherwise it won't function. So it's not even new.
You are literally responsible yourself, if you want your website to stay out of the Google search results, by baking in extra code in your website.

Either way, I have been playing the game for days now. There are only a handful of Pals in the game that closely resemble existing Pokemons and all these overzealous fans, even putting out death threads against the devs, are hammering on.
In worse case scenario the devs will be CoD'ed for these handful of Pals and have to remove them from the game and rework them a bit.
There is nothing to see here. It's all overblown, as Nintendo/TPC would have taken action long ago.
Just look at the Palworld mod, that actually converts all Pals into actual Pokemon and NPC's into known characters of the series. The Youtuber got an immediate CoD from TPC and was forced to remove all videos!

@DennisReynolds It runs great on PC though.

I have played the game for quite a few hours now and while at first I thought, wow they blatantly ripped off Pokemon... after playing for a while and encountering a lot of different Pals, there are plenty unique Pals in the game.

Sure there are some Pals that could be called literal rip-offs with just some minor alteration/recoloring.

So in worst case, Palworld might have to remove/rework those handful of Pals that too closely resemble existing Pokemon.

@Princess_Lilly Some are though. Most of the Pals are unique enough, but there are some Pals that feel like literal copies of existing Pokemon, just with a different color.

But I don't think it's enough for TPC to be able to sue them. Worse case for Palworld, they might have to remove/rework some of the Pals that too closely resemble existing Pokemon.

Most important thing though, that it's just a really fun game to play and it runs quite good with little issues, for an Early Access game.

@UltimateOtaku91 Zelda BOTW and TOTK (and others games) were open world and both looked and ran better than Scarlet/Violet.

The problem is that Gamefreak wasn't ready to release an Open world Pokemon game on the Switch hardware, without getting the time needed to optimize their game engine.

They should have sticked to the same design formula like Sword/Shield and break up the world in dedicated zones with larger free roam Wild areas.
The game would have run a lot better and still be a ton of fun to play. Me and my son had a blast playing Sword/Shield and did at least 3 replays in that game.

Going open world, they could have waited till next generation on Switch 2.

@The-Chosen-one That is the problem with this developer and why I won't be supporting them on Steam. I tried it for free via GamePass on my XBOX and that's about it.

Palworld is a literal reskin of their previous game Craftopia, which has been in Early Access like forever and is pretty much abandonware at this point.
Another game AI: Art Imposter is also a game stuck in Early Access and pretty much abandonware.

These devs are terrible and don't finish anything. So they won't be getting a dime from me.

@B_Lindz They are probably salty, because it's not available on the Nintendo Switch.

@goldeneye700 XBOX has the PC platform, so you only partly right.
Microsoft has always been multi-platform focused.

Yes back in the day before everyone had a PC (and gaming on PC wasn't a big thing yet), Nintendo, Atari and Sega were the big console platforms with exclusive games on them, but there were still 3rd party developers trying to launch on both SEGA and Nintendo, though it was quite expensive.

Since the race of multi-platform game engines, like Unreal Engine and Unity, it's easier than ever to release on all platforms. Except on Nintendo consoles due to the large power gap.
Nintendo is also a bit different, since next to their consoles, they actually build all those IP's like Mario, Zelda, etc themselves in-house and created those games in-house!

Sony is the one that started the exclusivity race against XBOX in the 2000's with buying up a lot of gaming studios, to start making exclusive games for PS only.
At that time Microsoft only had 343 Studios making Halo and EPIC games making Gears of War as launch title for XBOX360.
For everything else, Microsoft depended on 3rd party studios delivering games for the platform, next to playstation and PC.

But, like it or not, it was SONY that started this exclusivity mess between XBOX and PS, by buying up large game studios and go aggressively into timed exclusive contracts with other studios.

So what you expected Microsoft to do? Just give up and let Sony have it's way?

But today.... Microsoft is actually much more focused on GamePass and Cloud gaming, pushing gaming as a subscription service, no matter the platform you using. Be it their XBOX console, PC, iPad, iPhone, Android Tablet, Android phone, etc.
Hell, there even rumors that Microsoft tries to go into partnership with Nintendo and try to get GamePass on the Nintendo platform in the future (perhaps rumored Switch 2).

Microsoft's cloud gaming is actually pretty good already at the moment, so it would bring a lot more options to Nintendo Switch and gaming on the GO.
It's much nicer lying in bed or sitting in a hotel with a Switch console playing games, than using a Tablet and separate controller.

Also, gaming consoles in general will not go away any time soon. Gaming PC's with comparable GFX power as current XBOX Series X and PS5 cost more than two/three times as much to buy or build.
So for the vast majority of people it's still easier and cheaper to just buy a console. Not to mention the smaller form factor and optimized for couch gaming in front of a TV.
Or simply people living in small spaces where space is a premium, not having the space for a dedicated game PC setup.
This is especially true in major cities in Japan like Tokyo (gaming on PC is just not a thing in Japan), but also becoming an increasing trend in other major cities world wide, where apartments become more and more expensive and new build apartments become smaller and smaller.

@goldeneye700 You only talk about a handful of exclusives and yes that is why I bought the PS5.
For just those exclusives.

The vast majority of games are multi-platform and run better on XBox series X.

People shouldn't be so narrow minded and look beyond exclusives. Thank god the vast majority of games are still multi-platform and gives you the choice what platform to play them on.

I hate platform exclusives with a passion and Sony is the worst offender, but is the loudest to complain when their comperitor starts doing it too. Bunch of hypocrites.

@UltimateOtaku91 Well owning both PS4/XBox One X and since release XBOX Series X and PS5.

Microsoft makes better consoles at the moment. Both PS4 and PS5 are terrible designed and noisy. Either loud fan noise under load (especially PS4) and loud coil wine (especially PS5).
All the while my XBOX One X and now XBOX series X are super quiet, even under load.
Especially the XBOX Series X is much better designed than the PS5.
Only thing I hate about the XBOX Series X that I had to buy proprietary add-on storage module, while with PS5 you could add any (although also very expensive) secondary m.2 SSD.

@Clyde_Radcliffe and the PS5 is any better? lol.

I have both XBOX series X and PS5 and use the XBOX Series X more than the PS5.

Unless one has been living under a rock, it's quite a mess within Sony at the moment too, now the whole focus on live service games have failed internally, with managers either quiting or being fired, the PS boss quiting, etc. There is currently no new release road map for PS5!
Spiderman 2 was the last major release and the upcoming FFVII part 2 is pretty much the last major announcement.

Both XBOX and PS have been sorely lacking this generation. The PS5 is doing only better due to hype and overall better exclusives. Bottomline is that this console generation has been the worst when it comes to new releases.

@orbots That is false. The base game has postgame content though.

You roll the credits after you end the story down in the crater (won't go into details to not spoil anything).

So the whole part of re-battling the gyms and the school Ace tournament is considered post-game content.
A bit comparable to the Battle Tower in Sword/Shield. Which was also post-game content.

Then you also have a mystery quest line with those staves, etc.
I haven't done this one yet, but it's where you can catch 4 legendaries I believe? Though technically you could start on this side quest line before the credits roll.

So yes. The base game does have post-game content.

@Don NTSC is not the issue though, as TV's always supported both. NTSC is just looks worse than PAL (which I can live with and especially modern TV's can cleanup a lot).

It's the hard region lock on DVD's that's the problem and TPC never releasing the series in Europe (region 2).

@Don Yeah they have that for the movies, but for us peeps in Europe it's impossible to buy the series in PAL / region 2 format!

Everything is on US NTSC / region 1 format when it comes to the english version of the series on DVD.
So you need to have a custom region unlocked DVD player if you want to buy and watch the series on DVD.

None of the series have been modernized and released on Blu-ray! Only the movies!

For such a huge franchise and TPC swimming in billions of dollars in money, it's absolutely mind-blowing how they are mishandling the Anime series.
As when it comes to streaming, you cannot even watch everything in one place. Pretty much every streaming service has the same handful of seasons, which is either the oldest stuff (first seasons) or the very latest stuff (sun/moon and latest Journey series).

So it's really messed up for such a huge franchise and big company, that makes it literally insane if not impossibly hard to access the Anime!

At least with the Pokemon TV app, they were cycling through the Anime seasons each year, but now that is being taken away too now. /facepalm

Oh yeah and which magical pixy SoC is this Switch 2 going to have?

There is currently no next-gen mobile SoC available from neither NVidia nor AMD that offers a true performance boost to current Nintendo Switch and Valve Steam deck and able to retain the 3-5+ hour battery life both Switch OLED and Steam deck OLED provide today.

Valve has already said that a possible Steam Deck 2 is at least 2 years away still, due to lack of a viable next-gen mobile SoC.
That is why the new Steam deck OLED still has the same old AMD mobile SoC (just more power efficient version) .

Both NVidia and AMD are supposedly still working on a next-gen mobile SoC that is power efficient enough and these won't be revealed until later this year or even next year.

So there is no way Nintendo is going to announce/reveal a Switch 2 this year. Earliest they will do a reveal end next year, with possible release in Q1 2025.

There is no Switch 2 coming this year, simply because there is no true nextgen mobile SoC available from either NVidia nor AMD, that would really justify a new Switch console.
They are both still working on it.

The AMD SoC in the current Steam deck is quite old too by now and barely more powerful than the current Switch.

The latest AMD SoC's in ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Pro are literally a hot mess that drains battery life like no tomorrow. So not suited for the Switch 2 and hence, why Valve didn't put these in the new Steam deck OLED either.
Rumor has it that both NVidia and AMD might come with a new next-gen mobile SoC later this year or next year.

So we won't see a new Switch this year nor next year, since it always takes time for production to ramp up with new SoC's, plus Nintendo will need enough time to incorporate a new SoC and test it thoroughly.

I personally believe the 10 year life cycle is highly plausible at this point.

PS. Valve has also said that a possible Steam deck 2 is still 2 years away at this point, with them still waiting for a good enough next-gen SoC to justify a new generation handheld.

@Dazman You would be surprised in the actual demographic of Pokemon fanbase and how diverse of an age group it is.

I can bet with you that the average Pokemon fan is way older than you think and have been with the franchise since the start.

@John_Deacon The engine Gamefreak uses is just outdated and not capable/ready of doing open world on the Switch hardware.

They should have kept the same format as Sword/Shield with some smaller Open world zones/wild areas.
The game experience would have been much better, since Gamefreak developers simply don't get the time for the optimization that is required.

Every time they say they would do better and give their developers more time.... but they don't! Nothing changes at Gamefreak.

At this point I guess all we can hope for is for the Switch 2 to be fully backwards compatible, so we can truly enjoy Scarlet&Violet without the performance problems. /shrug

Digimon Story Cybersleuth / Complete edition is the best alternative by far.

@UltimateOtaku91 You already answered that question yourself.

"Pokémon has since been estimated to be the world's highest-grossing media franchise and one of the best-selling video game franchises."

That's why. The amount of money that would need to be dropped to acquire TPC will be staggering by any outsider like Sony, TenCent and even Microsoft.

I am sure Nintendo will have tried to acquire Pokemon as a whole, but either Creatures nor Gamefreak would stupid enough to sell their stake in TPC and why would they?
The Pokemon Company is a literal endless money printing machine.

I would love to see X/Y and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon to be lifted to the Switch(2).

@Axecon This is especially true in Japan, where companies expect you to give it all and place/prioritize your work, team and company above all else, even your own family.

It's a slowly self-suffocating society that has gone off the rails, as any resemblance of work/life balance doesn't exist there anymore and it's now causing major problems in Japanese Society, that are facing an ever increasing grey population.

@Friendly They have hosted concerts with popular music artists in Fortnite before.

@turntSNACO Only cheaper in the US/Canada, which, after more than 2 years are still the only two countries the Steam Deck is legally available for purchase.

It's not available here in Europe other than via grey import with limited to no warranty at almost double the price, so significantly more expensive than even the newly released Lenovo Legion GO.

They completely missed the opportunity to go head to head with Asus and Lenovo by adding the new Z1 Extreme SoC into this OLED version.

With the larger/improved battery, they could have used the new Z1 Extreme SoC and have similar battery life than the old Steamdeck, but with greatly improved performance.

So why would anyone buy this Steamdeck, when they can get the new Lenovo Legion GO instead for similar price, with much better performance, 144Hz QHD+ screen and Z1 Extreme SoC.

@rushiosan I have both the PS5 and XBox Series X.

PS5 has some good exclusive games, but the releases have been far and few between and I don't know if you have been living under a rock, but it has been quite in the news lately, where people are wondering what's going on at Sony at the moment?
There are no new planned games anymore in the release schedule going forward. Sony has been silent on this for very long and all we currently hear, is that there is currently a lot of infighting going on at Sony HQ, with key figures leaving or being fired.

@VoidofLight At least they are trying, unlike Sony.

I am more concerned the game itself is only around 8GB in size on the Switch (mentioned size on eShop).
They must have made some severe compromises to run this game on the Switch and I fear the game is going to look horrible and blurry like hell on the Switch with aggressive resolution scaling.

Just in comparison. On PC and PS5/XBox, the game is 85GB in size.

So the game is going to look absolutely horrible on the Switch, if they have reduced the textures that drastically with the game going from 85GB in size on other platforms to just 8GB on the Switch.

@bippity_bop The irony and why it's yet another negative towards Scarlet/Violet, is that they actually did it better in Sword/Shield, where Ghost Pokémon primarily spawned around abandoned buildings/ruins in the wild areas.

They actually did put a little more effort in spawn locations in Sword/Shield and a lot of the areas were also more unique and memorable.

Everything in Scarlet/Violet feels really bland and boring. I cannot think of a single memorable location in this game.
All because they had to go Open World, while their game engine clearly cannot handle it on the Switch hardware, so they had to make way too many compromises and yet, with all the compromises, the game still runs like crap. /sigh

@PersonaTexas They put very little effort in the DLC too.

The area is boring and the quest is finished super quickly. I was done within an hour and there is nothing else to do. Other than a photographer who gives you something if you catch 150 different Pokemon in that area or something, which I am not going to bother with.

Compared to the two DLC in Sword/Shield.....this is a complete farce! It's like Gamefreak isn't even trying anymore and already moved on to development of the next mainline game.