MSaturn

The reason this isn’t the norm in the industry is that it would be impossible to make a profit. Team Cherry may make a profit since they have a very popular IP at this point. But most studios, if tried to do the same thing, would go right out of business.

A lot of games that have protracted developments run into all sorts of problems. Glad to hear that in this case it sounds like they were not beset by serious issues, they were just working steadily to make it as good as it could be. That’s rare - I honestly expected the other thing, lol. I gotta say the trailer looked really strong. I wasn’t that interested in this as I never even finished Hollow Knight, but after seeing that trailer… I may have to pick this up, lol.

I will buy this. Even the mediocre Bethesda games are good for at least a few dozen hours of enjoyment.

The direct was good. A little long/tedious at times. The first game was too simplistic for me. This looks a bit more complex. Might be fun to play with my kids. It’s not exactly for me though. But anyway, it does look like a good sequel since he basically just built on the foundation very faithfully it seems.

As a kid I rented the first Bubsy and I think also the second, several times. I enjoyed sliding down the water slides, lol. My recollection is that they were fine. Not amazing, but certainly not the worst games I rented. I think this idea that they’re terrible is more an exaggeration based on bubsy 3D, which I have not played but apparently it really is quite bad. At this point I almost feel sorry bubsy! Poor little guy - why all the hate? Isn’t a mascot platformer allowed to be mediocre these days?

@Yoshi3 Nintendo: “Copyright for me but not for thee!” Sounds about right.

But actually, patent law is different and I don’t understand it as well. Did Play date never patent their design? If not, that’s kind of on error on their part. Or maybe there’s something sufficiently different about the Nintendo design, idk.

@SegaDude113 This is what I immediately thought of. Maybe Sega bass fishing is getting rereleased!? Dreamcast games on NSO confirmed!

Whoa! Okay, we’ll see. I often prefer indie games actually so I’m quite intrigued about this.

@Yoshi3 tatsunoku vs capcom is so great. Yeah it’s more basic in some ways but I actually like that. And it’s awesome playing as these old anime characters. I really hope that game can be saved from “licensing issues” oblivion!

Good! Not too surprising I guess - of course digital eclipse gets it. They know what they’re doing!

A new Katamari is cool. I’ll get the FF Tactics remake because that game is great although I’m not terribly “excited” about it since I’ve played it a lot. Finally the new action rpg looked like it had potential. I’ll get that if the reviews are good. Other than that, nothing really interested me. It is disappointing because we already know that several much better, more interesting games are coming - and so this direct means they aren’t coming anytime soon! Apparently not until next year I guess.

Well the rumors were true. Also the rumors about the structure of the switch launch seem to be true, with first few weeks focusing on first party announcements and then third parties coming in. The third phase was… big holiday first party game I think? It’s all going according to plan!

Well, unfortunately by the end I saw this coming, but it’s a shame. I believe a cozy hobbit game could work, at least in theory.

I’m not the biggest fan of the actual gameplay but as a retro game enthusiast this is a must buy. The impact of these games at the time cannot be overstated.

@Whirlwound eh, yeah, but I think it would be accurate to say that no Nintendo home console has enjoyed as much third party support as the Switch since… the SNES? I don’t know for sure about that but the trend line actually seems positive to me.

As for this game hopefully it comes to Switch 2 eventually.

Sad; he was pretty young. I hope he knew and got satisfaction from how many people love The Elder Scrolls.

I see that a lot of people are complaining about this site talking about rumors. I want to say that I am glad this site covers rumors! It’s not like I would track these rumors down independently. As long as the speculative nature of these things is clear in the article (which I think this site always does a good job with) then I find it convenient to have all my Nintendo info in one place.

Several these sound cool. Obakeidoro 2 sounds a bit like that Luigi’s mansion Nintendo Land game. And Earthion just looks totally incredible. Astalon is a fantastic metroidvania and I’m definitely curious about any new games from that team.

I don’t have a switch 2 but I did play the demo of this game at an in store kiosk and I actually noticed how much the camera moved around. It definitely has something to do with the alternating between open and confined spaces, at least I think. I’m not surprised it’s making some people sick. I might be affected to if I played long enough as I do sometimes have this issue.

I mean, I’m going to need to see the pixel booty before I can say for sure…

Not really familiar with either actor’s work. Going off of appearance, the woman playing Zelda, I can see it. The man playing Link I’m not sold yet. I hope it turns out good! Recent TotK disappointment aside Zelda remains my favorite gaming franchise.

@JohnnyMind Exactly. I’ve never tried to repair a controller ever. I would just send it in to Nintendo (if they offer repairs) or replace it. For me then the relevant question is how long does it last before it has to be replaced? We don’t know yet, it’s too soon to tell.

People need to understand that the game industry has never wanted consumers to have full ownership over their games. They tried to go to court to block game rentals, and they have complained about used game sales hurting new games for as long as I can remember.

I think they want games to work like amusement parks. You go to six flags and you pay a fee and you get to ride what’s there. And if you want to go a lot you pay a bigger fee for a season pass. But at no point do you “own” the rides, or even have any particular right to access them. Maybe you get there and the ride you were looking forward to is down for maintenance or maybe it’s been removed entirely to make room for something new. There’s nothing you can do about it - it’s just the nature of amusement parks.

This is what they want for games. And they are nearly there. Honestly I think the ship has sailed. They are never going to go along with what this lobby group is asking for because being able to shut down the game and force everyone to move to new experiences is a major part of the business model in their eyes.

@Yosher I agree completely. And it’s a reason I’m pretty focused on the indie game community - because there people can really pursue their creative ideas. But various reasons it’s very difficult to make a living as an indie game developer.

@Yosher thanks, and to take it beyond the personal, I’m sure there are lots of potential game developers who are scared off by all the terrible news stories like this. That’s a completely invisible cost that could be robbing the industry of (some) talent in the years to come.

@Yosher when I was a kid I also wanted to be a game developer. In high school I started looking into what it was really like. The whole “wives of EA” thing had just happened and I quickly realized that it was a terrible industry to work in. Plus the likelihood of becoming who you really want to be - the next Miyamoto or Kojima or something - is basically nil, especially now. Most likely you would spend your career as some kind of specialist who puts foliage on trees or something.

I switched focus to a different creative area, which was a good decision. I do dabble in hobbyist development still just for fun. I wouldn’t recommend the game industry to anyone based on what I know from the outside.

I think one issue is that small/medium sized companies often accept being bought out because they hope for steady funding. As independents they have to constantly go around looking for funding, pitching game ideas. But what we are seeing is that this is not a very safe long term decision. Many studios that make this bargain wind up unceremoniously shuttered despite being relatively successful. It may be best to stay independent.

Of course, in Romero’s case I guess he IS independent which means he could try to find new funding for this game. But yeah being independent does not exactly make you immune to these situations.

Well hey - it’s not a BAD sign, right?

The game is mediocre but has a cool premise and vibe. I’m a fan, after a fashion. Infamously great theme song too. This is a game that could get a few tweaks and really be improved, especially the draw distance. Maybe the color palette could actually be brightened up a little - I might be misremembering but I think the game is quite gray compared to the cover art.

There’s real potential in this game, it just needs a little sprucing up.

@HammerGalladeBro I don’t think they’ve forgotten about Mario but I do think permitting too long a gap between major Mario games is a mistake. Maybe from Nintendo’s perspective Mario Wonder counts as a major release? I think they used to treat the 2D games like a sub-series but Wonder was particularly high quality. But if you don’t count Wonder I think we could now be looking at something like 12 years between main 3D Mario games. That’s an entire childhood skipped, potentially. I guess they’re hoping that the movie and rereleases will get younger players interested even in the absence of new games.

I use ChatGPT on an almost daily basis. I believe ai IS going to be used more and more as a component in creative project, especially low budget or small team situations. But you can’t just copy whatever output it produced. It’s output isn’t good enough for that. This is the worst way to use it. The smart way; you wouldn’t even know it had been used.

In the old days something like this would have stayed in the game forever and become a legendary glitch. These days we can expect it to be patched out in a couple of weeks.

@slytherin_real Exactly. And there’s turnover, and target specs start to age and become outdated, and character designs go out of fashion and you wind up redoing work and everything spirals absurdly.

Common sense says if you’re going to spend 7x the time you need to charge 7x the price or sell 7x the units and since neither of those are realistic you get live service micro transactions as the “best” plan to try and extract more money out of users. It makes a certain kind of sense but it turns every game into a huge gamble.

@Dr_Lugae
I actually think AI enhancements to NPC dialogue is one of the few great uses of AI in video games.

Imagine you’re playing elder scrolls VII, and for the sake of argument let’s pretend the world hasn’t ended by then, and you are on a quest but you’re stuck so you go to the nearest village, go to the tavern and start asking around. But instead of choosing from a predetermined list of dialogue choices you actually type your real question into a prompt and then the npcs give intelligent answers. So instead of “mysterious tomb” from a dialogue tree and hearing the sane basic information word for word that the last npc told you you’re now able to say something “I know there’s a mysterious tomb near here but when I went to where it was supposed to be I couldn’t find it.” And the NPC could respond like “if you approached from the east the entrance may have been hidden behind the rocks. Try circling around from the west”.

I can’t wait for stuff like this. I hope the developers are smart enough to do it right.

Here’s my idea:
1. No game should take more than 24 months to produce, unless there’s a really really good reason (like the game is truly groundbreaking) in which case you may extend the production to 36 months.
2. If at any point in production developers/publishers realize that their game will not break even if it sells “only” a million units, then rescope because this game is too big and expensive.
3. When a game is finished and released they should move on to the next game or sequel, not spend months and months fixing - sorry “supporting” - it. If a game turns out to be a massive hit they may invest some in dlc but this should be decided on after the game is already a proven success, not committed to in advance.

All studios of any size should follow these rules and they will be much less likely to fail after one flop, etc.

The fact that this sounds crazy and impossible is the problem in a nutshell.

Yikes! I really hope this is not the case. I believe in the past Nintendo has indicated that they believe getting Mario out near launch is crucial to their success. I think they blamed GameCube’s slow sales on the lack of a Mario title. But maybe they consider Mario kart to be a Mario title? Surely they won’t make us wait a decade plus between 3D Mario titles?

I’m not interested personally. I guess if they sell the hardware for profit it could make some money? Otherwise I don’t understand it. I don’t think they will sell very many units of this… although I have been very wrong in the past, so…

Freaking finally! Shovel Knight is fantastic and this looks great too. These guys seem to be excellent designers. I hope the game sells well enough to justify the long development time.

Will buy. Best srpg to me, still, after all these years.

I can’t believe this game has 12 hours of music. Most of what I heard sounded like the same music from breath of the wild. I guess probably the boss fights and dungeons had unique music….

@fpcreator2000 yeah I was originally considering trading in my switch 1 and just transferring everything to switch 2, and that’s definitely not happening now. To me it’s so obvious that this all-digital thing gives complete control to the big publishers and basically leaves consumers with no options or leverage or ways to opt out of the ecosystem…. Except I guess for illegal piracy. To me it’s sort like video games went from being an art form that you buy, collect, and maybe even trade and sell to something more like… maybe like an amusement park that buy passes for. Anyway, for some reason this is obviously a minority position as most people seem to be fine with it…

This sounds like a cool mechanic since I’m always interested in seeing the special scenes and dialogue and I don’t necessarily want to start the whole game over for every character. I actually had been kind of uninterested in this game for some reason but with this news I’ll be watching for this a little more closely.

@Sabruka is it possible that people are so on guard against AI that they are imagining AI even where there isn’t any?

When this game came out I played it all summer long. The way this game and goldeneye gave you extra objectives on the different difficulty levels was a really smart way to make the higher difficulties more rewarding and I wish more games did that. What a good game, and what a great summer!

It all sounds good. I also am thinking that when we get to the all digital future I may just focus on retro. I already went through this with music, where physical media just disappeared and basically my interest in music evaporated. I expect the same thing to happen with video games.

@sikthvash great comment, I actually lol’d.

The big question is 2D or 3D? Given that they used the term AAA I’m assuming 3D. It could be cool to see the 3D Rayman style get an update with modern graphics, etc. however I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s something completely different, like a Rayman stealth FPS or something…

That spot the difference challenge is more difficult than anything they had in highlights magazine!

Nope, because there is no way I’ll be transferring my switch 1 stuff to switch 2 any time soon. I have about 700 gigs of data on switch 1… and I’m expecting to wind up with even more on switch 2, since most of the large 3rd party games will have to be downloads. They don’t make big enough sd cards to hold it all… maybe eventually but for now I’m just going to keep the switch 1 like it wasn’t backwards compatible at all.

Excited to get this. I have all these capcom fighting collections. But my one issue is that… I’m not that good at fighting games! And these games don’t have difficulty settings a far as I can tell. If it weren’t for that they’d be perfect. Even still, very worth getting for Powerstone, and some of the best less well known fighting game. Particularly excited to finally play Project Justice.