It could happen again a million times over and the world wouldn’t shift an inch from its axis.
…Admittedly, planetary alignment probably isn’t the best way of measuring social media impact, but the point is: it wasn’t an issue then and certainly wouldn’t be now if it weren’t for the fact that K&K need to dig up content for their show.
@Kiyata The alarm goes off when you set the alarm to go off. Not when you get up to pee or tend to an infant.
And while it’s unfortunate that this clock has caused the Switch 2 and all future consoles and video games to be cancelled forever — just as they were with Nintendo Labo, the Wii Balance Board, the Power Glove and every other bit of whacky kit that Nintendo has ever produced — it’s really nothing to lose sleep over.
@michellelynn0976 It’s not trolling. Really, it’s not
Personally I’m quite fond of the this game’s look, but someone politely expressing that they’re less than enamoured with it is simply not what trolling looks like.
Labelling such unobjectionable statements as ‘trolling’ devalues the term and does nothing but create a pointlessly stifling environment.
I’m not a free speech absolutist. I acknowledge that so can’t say whatever the **** I like with no regard for content or context. But can we please allow people to respectfully express their aesthetic preferences without calling them ‘trolls’?
Nice to see we’re still getting original themes rather than just repeats.
And I imagine this year’s Splatoween will be pretty much just as ‘extra’ as last year’s event as presumably they’ll reuse all the music/decorations/effects/assets/etc. It’d take more effort to actually scale it down.
The idea that “Nintendo needs to announce the Switch 2 to stop nerds on the internet making stuff up” doesn’t seem very watertight. All the stuff that nerds spend their time freaking out about will be forgotten as soon as the actual concrete details are announced.
The Wii U didn’t fail because NintyFan1771 predicted it would have a DVD player and a pizza oven prior to announcement. It failed because of everything that happened afterwards.
Getting the initial announcement right and shaping the narrative from there has potential to meaningfully impact sales. Trying to stop hyperactive nerds from prematurely throwing a fit over complete speculation is a fool’s errand.
This is my prediction every day and it’s accurate most of the time. Occasionally it isn’t but I don’t mind because on those days I get to watch a Nintendo Direct.
My hit rate is much is much higher than most of these leakers so people should really be listening to me instead.
Seemingly a perfect storm of ‘people reading what they want into things they don’t fully understand’, which is the exact feedback-loop that social media and news cycles are set up to propagate.
To be honest, it’s hard to imagine much else while ‘relevance’ (i.e: ‘speed’) and ‘engagement’ (i.e. ‘controversy’) are the two primary financial drivers behind the communication of information.
Incidentally, is there a copy of the original, uncut version floating around anywhere? I know the official source has been deleted, but without the original to refer to I’m not sure there’s much use in saying anything beyond the above hand-wavy generalisation.
@Edu23XWiiU Thanks for confirming! I’ve watched most of the videos but not all of them (and it’s been a while since I logged onto Xitter) so I’m not fully in the loop!
It’s been clear since shortly after the series’ inception that this was conceived a singular project with a planned end, and not a new long-term career for the Smash man.
For one thing, people usually try to make money from their careers, whereas I can’t see how Sakurai has made a penny from this venture. None of the videos are monetised, and all of them require editors and translators who are presumably compensated. I can only assume he financed the entire project from his own pockets. (Correct me if I’m wrong!)
It’s really impressive that he’s managed to keep putting these videos out in such quality and quantity, and I’m sure they’ll act as a valuable resource for years to come.
I hope it’s provided him with a welcome diversion from the grind of game development and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next — if anything at all!
EDIT: See @Edu23XWiiU’s post below for less speculation and more useful information!
@Samalik The character designs date back to the original manga released is 1998, several years before the first Ace Attorney game and well over a decade before Marvel vs Capcom 3.
I don’t imagine that game — or the devs behind it — played a large a role in shaping these characters’ designs.
I must remark that I also find myself in the most phlindipitous position of being an avid imbiber of camellia sinensis var. assamica and find its effects upon the constitution to be most pronounced when enjoyed in the following manner:
Big mug of Tetley’s with two sugars and half a packet of Jammy Dodgers.
I am a worm and so my stupid tiny worm brain could not appreciate this review but I did like how the given score resembles a curly wurly worm embedded in its own midriff.
I wonder if the review copy was played before launch day patches?
I haven’t really experienced any technical hiccups either — though I don’t doubt the whole experience would be a bit slicker (especially the 3D sections) on more powerful platforms.
@Deviant-Dork Do you mean there’s no point in the book, or the review?
I’ll assume the latter (the former seems absurd).
…To which I would counter, even if the majority of NL’s readership won’t be able to read the book in its original state, this review still performs a number of useful functions.
It alerts people to the book’s existence, informs them it will likely come to western shores eventually (if the previous book is anything to go by), and also gives a thorough look at its contents.
Maybe some will want to jump the gun and buy it now. It’s full of pretty pictures, and Google Lens should at least provide a vague idea of the contents. That alone makes it work as an exotic coffee table book/collector’s item. And for those waiting for an official English release, this rundown offers a useful preview of what to expect.
Those all seem like perfectly good ‘points’ to this write-up and I’m really struggling to see what the harm is.
@GameOtaku I’m not arguing with your examples. I’m not arguing that localisations often differ, sometimes significantly, from the original.
I’m asking what AI changes about this.
Let us suppose that localisation teams and development teams are A) entirely independent and B) working in opposition to each other: that there is mutual enmity between the two groups.
Perhaps then we can envisage a scenario is which dev teams can now run their game through a computer and voila, they finally have the version of the game they want to sell to an overseas audience and GameOtaku and friends can rejoice.
But this ignores that fact that for many major game companies, the localisation and game dev teams are different arms of the same machine, often working in close collaboration.
If your argument were ‘now non-Japanese-speakers can read the original Japanese text through Google Lens and get a somewhat less nonsensical translation than before’ or ‘now fan translations can be done much quicker and we can read those instead of the official localised version’ I would completely understand.
What I don’t understand is how the advent of AI will bring official localisations closer to the original text, when these changes are very conscious and intentional to begin with.
If this is not the argument you are trying to make, please do tell me.
The way that video game companies choose to localise their games is usually a very conscious. The motives may differ depending on game and company (wanting to avoid certain age ratings in certain regions, etc.) but it’s rarely an afterthought.
It’s naïve to think that AI will magically restore cleavage in overseas games (even if the technology is capable of it) when this has never been an issue of technology.
If anything, the localisation teams being paid to do relatively ‘free’ translations are less likely to be usurped by AI than those doing relatively ‘direct’ ones because the ‘cultural issues’ they’re working around require a degree of cultural understanding that is harder to synthesise or automate.
@GameOtaku But in many cases — especially for video games — the localisation department and the development team are under the same umbrella.
The people working on the English (etc.) and Japanese versions of the Ace Attorney games are employed by the same company, work in the same city, and are in frequent contact.
The reason we get ‘localisation’ as opposed to more direct or ‘literal’ translation styles is because that it the version that company wants to sell to an overseas market.
‘Direct’ translation styles are nearly always easier to produce compared to the effort that rewriting puns, changing character names and all the other stuff that goes into a ‘localised’ product. And yet game companies have decided it’s in their interests to invest in this.
I don’t see how AI really changes this. Yes, it can produce more direct, straightforward translation styles with relative ease and increasing accuracy, but if that’s what game companies wanted, we’d already have it.
AI is a tool, but from a purely economical perspective, so are people. Between the cheap, malleable tool and the stubborn, fleshy one which asserts its rights and joins unions and digs is feet in, the former will likely win out in an unregulated system.
In order the survive the coming decades there are fundamental questions we need to to consider about the nature of production that go even deeper than AI.
We already live in an age of hyper-production, where GDP is the primary indicator of a nation’s status and success. We aspire to ever increasing growth, in spite of evidently finite and dwindling resources. We have become progressively divorced from ‘process’ and hooked on ‘product’ fed to us at volumes we can barely digest.
AI obscures and minimises the relationship between process and product further. It is a ‘black box’. Not even its creators can fully explain its workings. The line between ‘tool’ and ‘agent’ has never been more blurred.
There is undoubtably huge potential for ‘good’ in this technology, but many of its current applications seem insidious at best and downright dangerous at worst. Bad faith actors are in no short supply and now they have a powerful and accessible new toy.
The revolution is underway. Here’s hoping we can adapt, even if that means challenging some long-held assumptions and societal priorities.
@littlegreenbob I’m pretty sure that’s referring to the frame type rather than the contents of the picture itself!
You can see decorative sakura petals to the top right and bottom left of the picture, but they’re just part of the frame. Notice their absence in the picture with the ‘Inked’ frame (which is instead a bit ‘blotchy’ around the edges).
@RiccyBobby @CazSonOfCaz The flowers pictured are hydrangeas, not cherry blossoms!
They could have started by teaching the specific vocabulary for ‘hydrangea’ (アジサイ/紫陽花) before ‘flower’ (花) but it’d be a bit like learning to run before you can walk.
I suppose my main point, if I have one, is that ‘you can’t please everyone’. It’s less about accusing a specific individual of hypocrisy, and more about pointing out how difficult is it to appease ‘gamers’ as a whole.
Perhaps this is such an obvious point that it doesn’t need stating, but I had my fun with a little tongue-in-cheek comment.
Also, I took issue with the statement, “no one asked for this”. Obviously no one specifically asked for Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club — just as no one is currently requesting Bimbee’s Bodacious Adventures in Bagland for PS6 — but it seems worth pointing out that Emio does actually fulfil a lot of requests people have been making for a while: it has a mature theme, it explores Nintendo’s legacy, and it’s relatively novel (in every sense).
It might not be a AAAA blockbuster, but I personally think it’s neat that Nintendo can explore old franchises that people assumed were dead (or never knew about in the first place). If anything, it gives me hope that F-Zero and Star Fox haven’t been written off entirely. And the fact that it’s not a AAAA blockbuster means it probably wasn’t too resource intensive to make.
@WaffleRaptor01 To be fair, I don’t think playing Shadow the Hedgehog — the internet’s favourite one-dimensional edge-lord — really demands much ‘range or versatility’.
In that respect you could argue it’s a perfect casting.
@WhiteUmbrella I doubt they’ll cover the every inch of the museum so there should still be plenty left to enjoy in person.
Nintendo has spent years building this thing so it’s natural they want to promote it as widely as possible with an online broadcast.
‘Nintendo Direct’ is just the name Nintendo give to their online broadcasts. It’s established branding and there doesn’t seem much point in creating a whole new term specifically for broadcasts about museums.
Equally, it’s hard to promote a museum without taking a look inside the building: that is, giving a ‘tour’ of some description.
Yes, Nintendo usually promotes games with its Directs because Nintendo is fundamentally a games company. But not exclusively so. The only reason why ‘film’ and ‘museum’ Directs aren’t that common is that Nintendo films and museums aren’t that common.
Just make all the cards Double Colorless Energy cards because you can’t detect them even with a scanner because they are not just colorless but double colorless and even if you could scan for them there’s no point because you know all the cards are just Double Colorless Energy cards anyway.
@Ade117 The games are technically available to a worldwide audience as soon as they’re released on the eShop (with the caveat that you might need to make an account for that region). The barriers to accessing games from around the world have arguably never been lower.
The sticking point is language. Localising a game takes time and money; the exact amount depending on the quantity of text and the quality of translation.
Capcom has a sizeable in-house team who produce extremely high-quality localisations which no doubt pay for themselves thanks to the increased global audience the games are afforded.
In contrast, Genius Sonority has only 22 staff in total and I’d be surprised if any of them worked on localisation full time. I don’t know exactly how the latest Denpa Men game came to be localised, but my guess is that not a lot of money was spent, and… well, the results speak for themselves. It’s on another level when compared to something like The Great Ace Attorney.
I’m sure Konami could localise the Momotaro Dentetsu series, but they didn’t seem to consider it financially viable given the potentially niche appeal of the game to an overseas audience. And to be honest, I can’t really blame them.
In an ideal world every game would be localised into every language — and I hope more games get localised in general — but ultimately it’s a financial decision and there will always be always games that deemed ‘too niche’ to warrant the expenditure (even they’re popular in their home country).
I recall a certain Nintendo developer saying they start with a fundamental gameplay idea and build from there. If a certain IP fits the idea, they’ll use that. If it demands and an entirely new IP (like Splatoon, which went from tofu blocks to rabbits to squid kids) then they’ll develop the IP around the core concept.
It seems a lot of modern media takes the opposite approach: start with an IP, try to haphazardly bodge it into something resembling entertainment, then hope it sells on brand power alone.
Sometimes it works. (The Lego Movie, Barbie). More often than not it doesn’t. (Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed, Tomb Raider, Warcraft, Ratchet and Clank, Sonic, etc.)
We’ll see how the Twister and Battleships movies pan out. I don’t have particularly high hopes.
@Oppyz666 @Vivianeat The services won’t end. You can keep playing Splatoon 3.
The Splatfests are fun little events to get excited over, but really they’re just turf war with a fresh lick of paint + a voting system. Neat, but hardly fundamental to the core experience.
There were nine years between the original Splatoon’s release and its online services being shut down. Given the amount of content packed into that game, I hardly felt short changed. Who knows how long it’ll be into the Switch‘s successors’ life before the OG Switch’s online services get pulled, but I reckon will we’ll be able to play Splatoon 3 for a good while yet.
Comments 2,900
Re: Sonic X Shadow Generations Shows Off Awesome Terios Skin
Terios looks like my mate Jezza after chuggin one too many quad vods at The Razz.
Re: Random: Kit And Krysta Pull Back The Curtain On Nintendo's "Controversial" Switch Teaser Photo
“It won't happen again.”
It could happen again a million times over and the world wouldn’t shift an inch from its axis.
…Admittedly, planetary alignment probably isn’t the best way of measuring social media impact, but the point is: it wasn’t an issue then and certainly wouldn’t be now if it weren’t for the fact that K&K need to dig up content for their show.
Re: Review In Progress: Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo - Pricey But Delightful, And Something Only Nintendo Could Pull Off
@Kiyata The alarm goes off when you set the alarm to go off. Not when you get up to pee or tend to an infant.
And while it’s unfortunate that this clock has caused the Switch 2 and all future consoles and video games to be cancelled forever — just as they were with Nintendo Labo, the Wii Balance Board, the Power Glove and every other bit of whacky kit that Nintendo has ever produced — it’s really nothing to lose sleep over.
Re: Review In Progress: Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo - Pricey But Delightful, And Something Only Nintendo Could Pull Off
@-wc- I think you underestimate the challenge of getting out of bed in the morning.
Or you’ve mastered it, in which case you have my envy and admiration.
Re: Mario & Luigi: Brothership Overview Trailer Showcases A Stunning Evolution
@michellelynn0976 It’s not trolling. Really, it’s not
Personally I’m quite fond of the this game’s look, but someone politely expressing that they’re less than enamoured with it is simply not what trolling looks like.
Labelling such unobjectionable statements as ‘trolling’ devalues the term and does nothing but create a pointlessly stifling environment.
I’m not a free speech absolutist. I acknowledge that so can’t say whatever the **** I like with no regard for content or context. But can we please allow people to respectfully express their aesthetic preferences without calling them ‘trolls’?
Re: Nintendo Hits Snooze On Surging Alarmo Sales In Japan
Clocking up the sales.
I hope they eventually update this device with ARMS.
Re: Reaction: A Little Device That Makes Sounds In Sync To Movements On The Bed?... Oh, Nintendo
Wake up babe Nintendo just dropped a new alarm clock.
…
…Babe, I said wake up.
…
…What do you mean you need Jump Up Super Star blaring at full volume for that to happen?
Re: Splatoon 3's 'Splatoween' Event Returns With A Spooky Splatfest
Nice to see we’re still getting original themes rather than just repeats.
And I imagine this year’s Splatoween will be pretty much just as ‘extra’ as last year’s event as presumably they’ll reuse all the music/decorations/effects/assets/etc. It’d take more effort to actually scale it down.
Re: Sonic Rumble Mobile Game Won't Use Gacha As "Such Mechanics Tend To Be Shunned Overseas"
It’s rare to hear a developer be so candid about monetisation tactics. Or at least, it feels like it.
Re: Talking Point: After A September No-Show, Will There Be An October Nintendo Direct?
@NinChocolate I’m in full agreement.
The idea that “Nintendo needs to announce the Switch 2 to stop nerds on the internet making stuff up” doesn’t seem very watertight. All the stuff that nerds spend their time freaking out about will be forgotten as soon as the actual concrete details are announced.
The Wii U didn’t fail because NintyFan1771 predicted it would have a DVD player and a pizza oven prior to announcement. It failed because of everything that happened afterwards.
Getting the initial announcement right and shaping the narrative from there has potential to meaningfully impact sales. Trying to stop hyperactive nerds from prematurely throwing a fit over complete speculation is a fool’s errand.
Re: Talking Point: After A September No-Show, Will There Be An October Nintendo Direct?
My prediction is this:
There will not be a Nintendo Direct today.
This is my prediction every day and it’s accurate most of the time. Occasionally it isn’t but I don’t mind because on those days I get to watch a Nintendo Direct.
My hit rate is much is much higher than most of these leakers so people should really be listening to me instead.
Re: Feature: The Nintendo Museum Goes Hard On Merch & Fun, But Could Dive Deeper Into History
@bones I think you might be getting confused with a neighbouring country…
Re: Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments
Seemingly a perfect storm of ‘people reading what they want into things they don’t fully understand’, which is the exact feedback-loop that social media and news cycles are set up to propagate.
To be honest, it’s hard to imagine much else while ‘relevance’ (i.e: ‘speed’) and ‘engagement’ (i.e. ‘controversy’) are the two primary financial drivers behind the communication of information.
Incidentally, is there a copy of the original, uncut version floating around anywhere? I know the official source has been deleted, but without the original to refer to I’m not sure there’s much use in saying anything beyond the above hand-wavy generalisation.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Are In For The Nintendo Museum
I give it a Ni (that’s Japanese for ‘two’) ‘n’ ten out of dó (that’s Irish for ‘two’).
So it gets a 12/2 which is equal to six whole stars which is one more than the usual maximum so well done Nintendo on your excellent museum.
I reserve the right to adjust my score if I ever actually go there.
Re: Masahiro Sakurai's Excellent YouTube Series Is Coming To An End This Month
@Edu23XWiiU Thanks for confirming! I’ve watched most of the videos but not all of them (and it’s been a while since I logged onto Xitter) so I’m not fully in the loop!
Re: Masahiro Sakurai's Excellent YouTube Series Is Coming To An End This Month
It’s been clear since shortly after the series’ inception that this was conceived a singular project with a planned end, and not a new long-term career for the Smash man.
For one thing, people usually try to make money from their careers, whereas I can’t see how Sakurai has made a penny from this venture. None of the videos are monetised, and all of them require editors and translators who are presumably compensated. I can only assume he financed the entire project from his own pockets. (Correct me if I’m wrong!)
It’s really impressive that he’s managed to keep putting these videos out in such quality and quantity, and I’m sure they’ll act as a valuable resource for years to come.
I hope it’s provided him with a welcome diversion from the grind of game development and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next — if anything at all!
EDIT: See @Edu23XWiiU’s post below for less speculation and more useful information!
Re: Hunter x Hunter's Fighting Game Delayed Until 2025, Now Adding Rollback Netcode
@Samalik The character designs date back to the original manga released is 1998, several years before the first Ace Attorney game and well over a decade before Marvel vs Capcom 3.
I don’t imagine that game — or the devs behind it — played a large a role in shaping these characters’ designs.
Re: Feature: Here's 10 Games We Played At TGS 2024 Coming To Switch
@HammerGalladeBro I was thinking the same thing. Might be worth tagging @Lowell to confirm.
Re: Indie Game 'Ahro' Launches With A Community Giveaway For Japanese Tea
I must remark that I also find myself in the most phlindipitous position of being an avid imbiber of camellia sinensis var. assamica and find its effects upon the constitution to be most pronounced when enjoyed in the following manner:
Big mug of Tetley’s with two sugars and half a packet of Jammy Dodgers.
Re: Miyamoto: Nintendo Won't Be Opening Museums In Other Locations
@KBuckley27 Compared to the last few decades or so, this is probably an entirely accurate statement. The yen is not exactly strong right now.
Re: Review: Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition (Switch) - Digital Eclipse Unearths Another Total Classic
I am a worm and so my stupid tiny worm brain could not appreciate this review but I did like how the given score resembles a curly wurly worm embedded in its own midriff.
Re: Sonic Adventure 2's Biolizard Is Getting A LEGO Set
@DripDropCop146 I’ll get you the LEGO set if you give me your first born Chao.
Re: Video: SEGA Celebrates 'Batman Day' With Shadow The Hedgehog
Shatman is now officially a thing.
Re: Review: The Plucky Squire (Switch) - Enormously Charming, But Not So Plucky On Switch
I wonder if the review copy was played before launch day patches?
I haven’t really experienced any technical hiccups either — though I don’t doubt the whole experience would be a bit slicker (especially the 3D sections) on more powerful platforms.
Re: Nintendo Download: 12th September (North America)
@rjejr To be fair, they made it the cover picture for this article and have done exclusive features/interviews on the game previously.
I must admit I was expecting a bit more pre-release fanfare though — the game has snuck up on me!
Re: Japanese Charts: Switch Dominates As PS5 Price Hike Kills Momentum
@johnedwin Europe is not a bigger gaming market then Japan.
…
…It is a bigger gaming market than Japan.
Re: Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition Physical Switch Release Confirmed
Can you have @Robokku review this so we all get to be called worms again?
Re: Konami Reveals More Game Boy Titles For Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection
C’mon Konami, give us Donkey Kong 94 already!
DK was never the same after you turned him into a spiky haired Egyptian anime boy/man/god/thing.
Re: Book Review: The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom: Master Works - Monumental, But Still Leaves Questions
@Deviant-Dork Do you mean there’s no point in the book, or the review?
I’ll assume the latter (the former seems absurd).
…To which I would counter, even if the majority of NL’s readership won’t be able to read the book in its original state, this review still performs a number of useful functions.
It alerts people to the book’s existence, informs them it will likely come to western shores eventually (if the previous book is anything to go by), and also gives a thorough look at its contents.
Maybe some will want to jump the gun and buy it now. It’s full of pretty pictures, and Google Lens should at least provide a vague idea of the contents. That alone makes it work as an exotic coffee table book/collector’s item. And for those waiting for an official English release, this rundown offers a useful preview of what to expect.
Those all seem like perfectly good ‘points’ to this write-up and I’m really struggling to see what the harm is.
Re: Bayonetta Star Jennifer Hale On The SAG-AFTRA Strikes: "AI Is Coming For Us All"
@GameOtaku I’m not arguing with your examples. I’m not arguing that localisations often differ, sometimes significantly, from the original.
I’m asking what AI changes about this.
Let us suppose that localisation teams and development teams are A) entirely independent and B) working in opposition to each other: that there is mutual enmity between the two groups.
Perhaps then we can envisage a scenario is which dev teams can now run their game through a computer and voila, they finally have the version of the game they want to sell to an overseas audience and GameOtaku and friends can rejoice.
But this ignores that fact that for many major game companies, the localisation and game dev teams are different arms of the same machine, often working in close collaboration.
If your argument were ‘now non-Japanese-speakers can read the original Japanese text through Google Lens and get a somewhat less nonsensical translation than before’ or ‘now fan translations can be done much quicker and we can read those instead of the official localised version’ I would completely understand.
What I don’t understand is how the advent of AI will bring official localisations closer to the original text, when these changes are very conscious and intentional to begin with.
If this is not the argument you are trying to make, please do tell me.
Re: Bayonetta Star Jennifer Hale On The SAG-AFTRA Strikes: "AI Is Coming For Us All"
@GameOtaku I still don’t understand how the existence of AI reduces the degree of creative freedom that companies afford their localisation teams.
It’s not as if humanity has been unable to differentiate between a relatively ‘direct’ translation and a relatively ‘free’ one until the advent of AI.
(I’ll try not to say ‘literal’ as a literal literal translation would end up sounding something like this: https://youtube.com/shorts/BxF6yvAH6oY?feature=shared)
The way that video game companies choose to localise their games is usually a very conscious. The motives may differ depending on game and company (wanting to avoid certain age ratings in certain regions, etc.) but it’s rarely an afterthought.
It’s naïve to think that AI will magically restore cleavage in overseas games (even if the technology is capable of it) when this has never been an issue of technology.
If anything, the localisation teams being paid to do relatively ‘free’ translations are less likely to be usurped by AI than those doing relatively ‘direct’ ones because the ‘cultural issues’ they’re working around require a degree of cultural understanding that is harder to synthesise or automate.
Re: Bayonetta Star Jennifer Hale On The SAG-AFTRA Strikes: "AI Is Coming For Us All"
@GameOtaku But in many cases — especially for video games — the localisation department and the development team are under the same umbrella.
The people working on the English (etc.) and Japanese versions of the Ace Attorney games are employed by the same company, work in the same city, and are in frequent contact.
The reason we get ‘localisation’ as opposed to more direct or ‘literal’ translation styles is because that it the version that company wants to sell to an overseas market.
‘Direct’ translation styles are nearly always easier to produce compared to the effort that rewriting puns, changing character names and all the other stuff that goes into a ‘localised’ product. And yet game companies have decided it’s in their interests to invest in this.
I don’t see how AI really changes this. Yes, it can produce more direct, straightforward translation styles with relative ease and increasing accuracy, but if that’s what game companies wanted, we’d already have it.
Re: Bayonetta Star Jennifer Hale On The SAG-AFTRA Strikes: "AI Is Coming For Us All"
AI is a tool, but from a purely economical perspective, so are people. Between the cheap, malleable tool and the stubborn, fleshy one which asserts its rights and joins unions and digs is feet in, the former will likely win out in an unregulated system.
In order the survive the coming decades there are fundamental questions we need to to consider about the nature of production that go even deeper than AI.
We already live in an age of hyper-production, where GDP is the primary indicator of a nation’s status and success. We aspire to ever increasing growth, in spite of evidently finite and dwindling resources. We have become progressively divorced from ‘process’ and hooked on ‘product’ fed to us at volumes we can barely digest.
AI obscures and minimises the relationship between process and product further. It is a ‘black box’. Not even its creators can fully explain its workings. The line between ‘tool’ and ‘agent’ has never been more blurred.
There is undoubtably huge potential for ‘good’ in this technology, but many of its current applications seem insidious at best and downright dangerous at worst. Bad faith actors are in no short supply and now they have a powerful and accessible new toy.
The revolution is underway. Here’s hoping we can adapt, even if that means challenging some long-held assumptions and societal priorities.
Re: Mini Review: Can Of Wormholes (Switch) - A Very Worm Welcome For This Ingenious Puzzler
Haven’t felt this well represented in a video game since the Worms series of video games which featured a great many worms.
Those games worm my favourite games of all time on account of all the worms I could relate to as a fellow worm.
Hopefully we don’t get blown up as much in this game.
Re: 'Shashingo: Learn Japanese With Photography' Snaps Up September Release Date On Switch
@CazSonOfCaz ‘Sakura’ is one of the themes for the photo frames. You can see decorative cherry blossom petals around the corners of the picture.
The ‘Inked’ theme of the other frame is more subtle but you can see it’s kind of blotchy and ’artsy’ at the top and bottom.
The game lets you personalise your snapshots with various border themes.
Re: 'Shashingo: Learn Japanese With Photography' Snaps Up September Release Date On Switch
@littlegreenbob I’m pretty sure that’s referring to the frame type rather than the contents of the picture itself!
You can see decorative sakura petals to the top right and bottom left of the picture, but they’re just part of the frame. Notice their absence in the picture with the ‘Inked’ frame (which is instead a bit ‘blotchy’ around the edges).
Re: 'Shashingo: Learn Japanese With Photography' Snaps Up September Release Date On Switch
@RiccyBobby @CazSonOfCaz The flowers pictured are hydrangeas, not cherry blossoms!
They could have started by teaching the specific vocabulary for ‘hydrangea’ (アジサイ/紫陽花) before ‘flower’ (花) but it’d be a bit like learning to run before you can walk.
Re: Review: Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Switch) - A Stylish Mystery With One Foot In The Past
@Bratwurst35 You are, of course, correct.
I suppose my main point, if I have one, is that ‘you can’t please everyone’. It’s less about accusing a specific individual of hypocrisy, and more about pointing out how difficult is it to appease ‘gamers’ as a whole.
Perhaps this is such an obvious point that it doesn’t need stating, but I had my fun with a little tongue-in-cheek comment.
Also, I took issue with the statement, “no one asked for this”. Obviously no one specifically asked for Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club — just as no one is currently requesting Bimbee’s Bodacious Adventures in Bagland for PS6 — but it seems worth pointing out that Emio does actually fulfil a lot of requests people have been making for a while: it has a mature theme, it explores Nintendo’s legacy, and it’s relatively novel (in every sense).
It might not be a AAAA blockbuster, but I personally think it’s neat that Nintendo can explore old franchises that people assumed were dead (or never knew about in the first place). If anything, it gives me hope that F-Zero and Star Fox haven’t been written off entirely. And the fact that it’s not a AAAA blockbuster means it probably wasn’t too resource intensive to make.
There are plenty more games to go around.
Re: Review: Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Switch) - A Stylish Mystery With One Foot In The Past
“Nintendo should branch out into more mature games”
“Nintendo should do more with their legacy content”
Nintendo releases an M-rated sequel to a series of Famicom detective games.
“…Nintendo should stop doing those things and give us Star Fox Zero To The Power of Zero instead”
Re: Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Movie Trailer Finally Reveals Keanu Reeves' Shadow
@WaffleRaptor01 To be fair, I don’t think playing Shadow the Hedgehog — the internet’s favourite one-dimensional edge-lord — really demands much ‘range or versatility’.
In that respect you could argue it’s a perfect casting.
Re: Hands On: Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club - Rated M For 'Murder'
@N0SEGaming Rated W for Whoosh.
Re: Nintendo Announces 'Nintendo Museum Direct'
@WhiteUmbrella I doubt they’ll cover the every inch of the museum so there should still be plenty left to enjoy in person.
Nintendo has spent years building this thing so it’s natural they want to promote it as widely as possible with an online broadcast.
‘Nintendo Direct’ is just the name Nintendo give to their online broadcasts. It’s established branding and there doesn’t seem much point in creating a whole new term specifically for broadcasts about museums.
Equally, it’s hard to promote a museum without taking a look inside the building: that is, giving a ‘tour’ of some description.
Yes, Nintendo usually promotes games with its Directs because Nintendo is fundamentally a games company. But not exclusively so. The only reason why ‘film’ and ‘museum’ Directs aren’t that common is that Nintendo films and museums aren’t that common.
Re: Feature: Here’s How Trading Card Companies Could Stop CT Scanning In The Future
Just make all the cards Double Colorless Energy cards because you can’t detect them even with a scanner because they are not just colorless but double colorless and even if you could scan for them there’s no point because you know all the cards are just Double Colorless Energy cards anyway.
Re: 'Emio - The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club' ESRB Rating Summary Reveals Horrific Themes
@JohnnyMind I also found the claim that “糞/くそ doesn’t literally mean sh*t” strange, given… that’s exactly what it means.
…At least insofar as ‘exact’ equivalents exist between languages.
I don’t believe there’s any English word closer to ‘糞‘ than ‘sh*t’ or any Japanese word closer to ‘sh*t’ than ‘糞’.
…Maybe ‘crap’? But you’re really splitting hairs at that point.
Maybe I shouldn’t give a 糞, but it did seem rather odd statement to make, especially seeing as it can be so easily fact-checked.
Re: Good-Feel's Goemon-Inspired Switch Game 'Bakeru' Is Getting Localised
@Ade117 The games are technically available to a worldwide audience as soon as they’re released on the eShop (with the caveat that you might need to make an account for that region). The barriers to accessing games from around the world have arguably never been lower.
The sticking point is language. Localising a game takes time and money; the exact amount depending on the quantity of text and the quality of translation.
Capcom has a sizeable in-house team who produce extremely high-quality localisations which no doubt pay for themselves thanks to the increased global audience the games are afforded.
In contrast, Genius Sonority has only 22 staff in total and I’d be surprised if any of them worked on localisation full time. I don’t know exactly how the latest Denpa Men game came to be localised, but my guess is that not a lot of money was spent, and… well, the results speak for themselves. It’s on another level when compared to something like The Great Ace Attorney.
I’m sure Konami could localise the Momotaro Dentetsu series, but they didn’t seem to consider it financially viable given the potentially niche appeal of the game to an overseas audience. And to be honest, I can’t really blame them.
In an ideal world every game would be localised into every language — and I hope more games get localised in general — but ultimately it’s a financial decision and there will always be always games that deemed ‘too niche’ to warrant the expenditure (even they’re popular in their home country).
Re: Round Up: The First Impressions Of The Borderlands Movie Are In
I recall a certain Nintendo developer saying they start with a fundamental gameplay idea and build from there. If a certain IP fits the idea, they’ll use that. If it demands and an entirely new IP (like Splatoon, which went from tofu blocks to rabbits to squid kids) then they’ll develop the IP around the core concept.
It seems a lot of modern media takes the opposite approach: start with an IP, try to haphazardly bodge it into something resembling entertainment, then hope it sells on brand power alone.
Sometimes it works. (The Lego Movie, Barbie). More often than not it doesn’t. (Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed, Tomb Raider, Warcraft, Ratchet and Clank, Sonic, etc.)
We’ll see how the Twister and Battleships movies pan out. I don’t have particularly high hopes.
Re: Warner Bros. Is Reportedly Looking To Sell A Stake In Its Games Business
Suicide Squad at least lived up to its name. They sent that game out to die and killed much more than the Justice League in the process.
Re: Random: Everybody 1-2-Switch! Was A Best-Seller In July 2024
BREAKING NEWS: Somebody 1-2-Switched
Re: Feature: The Next Splatfest May Decide Splatoon 4's Future, So We Make A Case For Every Team
@Oppyz666 @Vivianeat The services won’t end. You can keep playing Splatoon 3.
The Splatfests are fun little events to get excited over, but really they’re just turf war with a fresh lick of paint + a voting system. Neat, but hardly fundamental to the core experience.
There were nine years between the original Splatoon’s release and its online services being shut down. Given the amount of content packed into that game, I hardly felt short changed. Who knows how long it’ll be into the Switch‘s successors’ life before the OG Switch’s online services get pulled, but I reckon will we’ll be able to play Splatoon 3 for a good while yet.
Re: Review: LEGO Animal Crossing - K.K.'s Concert At The Plaza - A Pleasing But Pricey Set
@dartmonkey
Unless Lego debit is a new form of brick-based currency, I believe there might be a small typo in the first paragraph!