Metazoxan

This was a long time comming honestly.
Looking back Microsoft shot itself in the chest with it's legendary failure of the Xbox One. At the time most people figured they'd recover and bounce back, but it turned out that was the WORST generation for them to loose as that was the generation people started to build up digital libraries that persisted between generations. So when they lost that generation they lost any hope of ever surpassing Sony or Nintendo.
They created game pass to try to compensate as at the end of the day you're basically paying a subscription for access to a digital library. It wasn't a bad idea on paper but they messed up not only by putting day 1 releases on it (Meaning it absolutely tanked software sales) but by creating a PC port of the entire platform. Once they did that the entire service was undercutting their entire console brand, and with the service already eating software sales ... Frankly Game Pass was nothing more than poison for the Xbox brand, a slow, deadly poison.

Their only hope of staying in the game was building up their exclusive library, but Microsoft NEVER cared about gaming. They just wanted profits by any means necessary. So instead they gave up exclusivity and with that they threw away the last bit of value they had as a platform.

Going full software won't save the brand. It might make Mirosoft more money. But in another 10 years people will look at the Xbox like they do the Sega DreamCast.

Because it might be true that in terms of short term profits you can get more with software than hardware, but you lose the brand identity and store presence where you walk by electronics at Walmart and see an Isle of just Nintendo. That has a big impact on people, especailly kids.

@MTMike87 it was obvious Xbox was dropping out of the console market when they started the "What's an Xbox" campaign.

In the words of syndrome "When everyone is super, no one will be". They are trying to hype it up as an evolution, but if everything "Is an Xbox" then the title and brand have no meaning.

If you just treat it as a label you slap onto things then it means nothing. If Xbox at least had good quality control it could serve as a kind of certification. But they fumble enough that that's not true either.

@darkswabber he said "SOME" not all.

Really the fact he said no dlc was planned (Expansions are still possible depending on fan feedback, just nothing is being planned at this time). Should be enough indicator that the game is as complete as possible.

@Max_the_German dude day 1 patches aren't about space. It's about wether all bugs got ironned out before they started manufacturing. Which even back in the old days there were often minor bugs left over were either ignored or resulted in cut content to make deadlines.

@N00BiSH the reality of game development is that it's near impossible to fix EVERYTHING before release. It's not that game development has gotten worse, it's just most developers favor day 1 patches over cutting content entirely.

@Elektrogeist1287 except it's not a terrible game. It's just not the jewel.encrusted treasure you demand it be just because it's Pokemon.

The actual review is state that while the game isn't as exploration focused as Arceus, the combat is amoung the series best so far.

People calling it bad just basically wanted Arceus 2.

@RupeeClock pretty much.

LLMs aren't pure evil and could be used to improve procedural generation to incredible levels.

But too many just want to immediately use it to replace people. I've playee around with text and image generation in a casual sense and while it is helpful for amateurs like me without creative talent, you start to notice it's limitations even with the best models. The way these things write, the way they generate images. There is still a pattern even if it's a complex one. Trying to do this stuff on a professional scale isn't going to turn out well for them in the long run.

@datamonkey I would too. Sadly unless we get a shadow drop ... Not happening.

It's makes sense. The idea with these is you can swap rider and machine.

You'd need to release 4 or more to make that feature actually usable.

Good news is you only REALLY need to buy one or two of you want a specific combo.

Anything after that is just extra.

@datamonkey it's always possible they'll release them later.

it's not like they HAD to be released before prime 4.

@WiltonRoots actually most people would probably be fine with improved cut scenes ... unless they didn't convey info correctly and made the game more confusing.

but that wouldn't be a "gate" and would just be legitimate criticism.

So it's good they prioritised what made the game more fun and not just flashier cut scenes.

I'd be fine with just an NSO release at this point. same with the other zelda games in the wind waker timeline. Spirit tracks and whatever the other one was.

@N00BiSH Nah it wasn't that more focus was put on racing. It's that city Trial was just accidentally that much better than the main racing mode.

If you think about it City Trial was just a single map you could drive from end to end in under a minute with a handful of minigames you played afterwards in a random rotation and a few things thrown in for good measure.

It was fun but the replayability came from how it mixed up those elements, not that it simply had that much more content than the racing mode.

That being said the lack of any real campaign meant you only really bothered to do racing to unlock stuff.

In any case Air Riders so far feels like everythign Air Ride was but improved. So I"m assuming the new direct will show off either Top Ride or it's replacement and will show off the internal achievement system.

Amoung other things of course because just those two won't equal 60 minutes.

@Lizuka there are a fair few DS games made specifically for the dual screens that didn't adapt super well to switch because of that.

If we could get DS versions on virtual console it would be great.

@AG_Awesome yeah joylocks are great.

I do recommend the entire Killswitch package, especially if you don't already have a screen protector. The screen protector has an idiot proof applicator that's great for idiots like me who struggle to keep dust from SOMEHOW making it onto the screen protector.

The armor for the main body of pretty good too if you prefer handheld mode. Travel cover is either great or lacking depending on what you want. It doesn't have extra space for accessories because it's basically front armor that connects to the body armor. But it's space efficient and easy to carry, so if you want something that could still fit into a bag or something then it's great.

@Coalescence seriously the main excuse for raging over gkc is "they'll kill physical" but people acting like anyone that would jump on gkc wouldn't have just ditched physical anyway.

I'm not a big fan of them either, but people talking like they want to boycott games over it was just delusional

Good. I'm kind of getting sick of leaks so a massive wave of them would be annoying.

It's literally just the Rog Ally which already existed but with Xbox logo slapped on it and maybe a few upgrades.

I'm not against Xbox trying to compete with the Switch. But I'm honestly disgusted how completely shamelessly corporate their strategy is "Why make something when we can use our monopoly over the PC industry to just take something someone else made?".

If the steam deck wasn't Linux based we probably would have seen the "X deck" or something.

I feel people aren't talking about this issue enough and act like this is a legitimate entry into the market like switch or steam deck. It's not, it's just Microsoft putting in minimal effort to muscle into a market without committing to it.

If you want Switch competition just stick with Steam Deck. I own both and there is basically no game I can't play even if you don't count emulation.

I honestly don't mind them scaling back on the exploration if it meant they were able to make the more dynamic and fun combat system.

People need to understand games don't just have infinite man power and budget. You make compromises.

Open worlds can be very resource intensive and take a lot of time to get right.

So if we traded that for better combat... I'm good with that. In fact given their apparent struggle with open world I'd say they might want to avoid that.

HOWEVER... They do need a better compromise than locking you into a city the entire time.

I'd love to see them do like Mario and Luigi style graphics and perspective. Not overly detailed or large but enough flair and exploration to give a sense of this being a world I can explore.

@BrazillianCara but then he won't get that sweet sweet attention the loser so desperately craves.

Getting real tired of this *****. And I mean this for all game companies.

These scum aren't Robin hoods. They're just criminals and deserve no sympathy.

@WhiteUmbrella "Nintendo are notoriously litigious. Everyone knows this. Nintendo is a law firm that makes games." just because a lot of people say it doesn't make it true.

Seriously people don't know how to read past headlines to rage bait articles anymore.

Especially with that US government nonsense ... WTF do you think even would have happened? It wasn't for profit so even trying to make a suit would have debatably overlapped with arguments over fair use and fanmade stuff.

But no one cares about that do they? Nope they just wanted Nintendo to go after Trump. That's all that was. Has nothing to do with gaming at all, people just get upset when the big coporations they constantly complain about don't validate their politics.

and of course you'll continue to completely ignore all of the Mario Kart and other clones of Nintendo games they don't go after. Nope Nintendo is DEFINITELY goign to threaten and preassure people with their patents and ruin the industry ... as long as you ignore all the time they don't.

Nintendo aren't saints, but they're not the boogeyman either. People really jump from one extreme to the other too much these days.

@WhiteUmbrella "So, you're arguing that Nintendo should have unlimited power, because we can trust them not to use it? Go and look in the mirror, and take that Mario hat off, while you're at it." You take off the tin foil hat first and look in the mirror.

Do you ... have no grasp on how patents work? How lawsuits work? That junk isn't free or instant. Nintendo couldn't do what you're afraid of even if they tried.

You aren't a freedom fighter stopping a tyrant from taking power. You're the old man on the street screeming "THE END IS NEAR!" everytime he hears thunder.

Nintendo seriously can't afford to just .... sue absolutely everyone over everything. Again you take ONE CASE where they appear to use a game mechanic in a suit, and suddenly you act like that's the norm.

Do you have any idea how much time and money goes into lawsuits like this? People act like Nintendo is some kind of lawsuit Tyrant, but the vast majority of their lawsuits were related to Piracy. Yes even the emulation lawsuits were because those emulators were being used for piracy even if players played dumb and acted like they were fighting for "game preservation" ... I mean FFS one of the emulators Nintendo sued sold a "Premium version" with tools specifically for pirating Nintendo games pre-installed. But all people cared about was "Oh no my emulator I totally used for legal reasons got taken down!"

So seriously, enough with this paranoid nonsense. I'm not naive for not losing my mind over every rage bait article I see. I'm actually looking at trends beyond outlier cases and using common sense. Because even in the WORST CASE scenario possible ... all that really happens is Nintendo goes after a few other copy cat games, and developers either counter sue or just tweek the formula enough to dodge the patent.

It's seriously not even a fraction as serious as you're making it out to be ... I mean WTF do you think Nintendo could do anyway? You're seriously over estimating Nintendo's power here.

@WhiteUmbrella patent troll companies don't win but they can still cause problems. Plus a somewhat larger issue is when smaller game companies engage in the same practice.

But look you brought up two examples but just immediately go "Oh but THOSE are different" no, no they aren't.

People just don't pay attention when others do it and only highlight Nintendo. You go "It's different Nintendo is trying to control the industry" You don't even have one example of that. Again the Palworld suit is an outliar and there is far more to that than some game mechanics.

You're just making far reaching assumptions that outrage articles told you to think "Oh look Nintendo did this, so we're going to assume that" and you're not questioning it further.

Seriously aside from Palworld has Nintendo actually done any of the ***** you claim yet? Some of these "dangerous" patents have been out for a few months now.

Seriously did you develop amnesia for all of the other "Nintendo-like" games that have come out that Nintendo NEVER bothered? What about all of the Mario-kart clones? many even used damn item blocks with the same functions are Mario kart ones but nothing happened. What about Smash Bros clones? Zelda clones?

THe Palworld suit drops and everyone loses their heads like Nintendo is suddenly some patent tyrant.

Look the reality of all of this is simple. Nintendo isn't some massive monolith company with infinite money. THey are certainly a big game company but just being a game company only gets you so far. They do not have infinite reach or power and a few silly patents won't change that.

These patents largely mean NOTHING, because even if Nintendo got possessed and turned pure evil. THey can't really afford to just burn all of their money on lawsuits that won't even get them a return on the money they'd sink into them. Plus many of their games are made in collaboration with other game companies, so they can't afford to just ... go to war with the entire industry even if they lost all sense and tried to.

So enough of the tin foil hat nonsense.

@Wewewi have you not heard anything infamous lord of the rings nemesis patent?

Shadow of mordor has a really cool system where, If a mob killed you they got promoted to an elite mob. There were some other aspects but that was the main one.

But no one else can do something like that because they patented it and do go after people.

Also just to make clear. Nintendo filing a patent doesn't actually mean anything. The Palworld situation is an outliar, not the norm.

The reason japanese game companies NORMALLY file for parents like this is so no one can do it themselves and then patent troll them.

Besides, we all know it wasn't really the game mechanics that started the Palworld suit. That was just the angle their lawyers chose to go from. It doesn't mean they are going to suddenly start sueing everything that plays like any of their games.

@WhiteUmbrella what you people don't understand is this isn't a Nintendo thing.

Most major game companies do this, especially Japanese ones and they don't because if they don't then eventually a patent troll comes in and files for the patent themselves and creates a big legal headache they need to spend a bunch of money fixing.

I'm not saying Nintendo are Saints BTW. But people really need to realize this isn't unique to Nintendo. It's just people only care when it's Nintendo.

@KayFiOS judging by the current pattern. They might do Metroid soon after prime 4 releases.

That's clearly ghost baby from Luigi's Mansion.

@SoIDecidedTo doubtful.

The entire appeal of Mario vs Sonic was the fan perceived rivalry.

It won't have the same appeal just pairing Sonic with random series.

This .... Definitely crosses a line.

At first I read that title as "Lovecraft puzzler" and was confused by the paper theme.

@AllBLK if they could scalp these they would.

@Kiyata the game itself worked perfectly fine at launch.

Most of these fixes likely came from player feedback.

So it's less the game launch d incomplete and more they saw the feedback and went "Yeah sure we can fix that".

Like item box spawn speed. They could have changed that at any time. The fact they only did it now says it's in response to feedback.

Pretty heavy update. Looking good.

@MirrorFate2 except SEGA had no issues using the song until Gioeli just popped in and went "Actually I want money".
But you're still blaming SEGA ... I swear anti-coporate culture is insane these days.

As far as I'm concerned if being payed for this song was that important then this should have been dealt with ages ago.

It's a bit late to not only launch a lawsuit but throw a tantrum over it going "Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine!".

This honestly reeks of someone that smelled money and took their shot. Which I wouldn't mind ... If it didn't mean we might never hear this song in a sonic game because SEGA might just not want to have to deal with this.

@Anti-Matter I wasn't really. The reply just kind of also addressed the idea in general as it's not the first time I've seen that argument.

Honestly feels like ever since marvel made multiverse series mainstream people just kind of try to apply it to everything and I'm just ... Annoyed.

Not taking it too seriously, but I just dislike how every show or game that doesn't 100% fit into a firm timeline is just "Oh must be another universe". Again that's not directed at you specifically, it's more a general trend I'm seeing lately.

@Rob3008 I only care in terms of what it means for future character appearances. Will we see young Pauline again? Will she show up in a Mario game or just the DK series?

Will adult Pauline meet DK and go on an adventure?

Questions like this is why Continuity does matter. It establishes what lore future games can reference.

This is true even for Mario which has made regular uses of Bowser Jr. Ever since his sunshine debut.

So while some take Continuity TOO seriously, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter at all.

@Anti-Matter Nintendo generally doesn't doesn't multiverse stuff with Mario aside from paper Mario and the other RPG series.

Aside from that and a couple other minor one offs everything generally fits into this vague timeline of "It happened at some point". So while Mario doesn't have an especially firm timeline they don't really do the multiverse thing if they can help it and DK is largely the same with all of its games being implied more or less canon, just without a rock solid timeline to answer when they are.

It's not likely Bananza would be the odd one out and just exists in a separate universe entirely.

Some people are so dismissive of continuity in Nintendo games just because they don't regularly post official timelines.

But while Nintendo shys away from firm timelines, they do generally keep some sense of continuity. At least in the sense that most games canonically recognize one another.

Again there are exceptions, but I doubt a major release like Bananza would get treated like a one off.

@Jireland92 yeah ... Actually kind of takes me out of the game to have SpongeBob, joker, and Sonic racing together.

I feel like they should have at least stuck to Sega characters.

I might still get this eventually, but the excessive guest characters actually kind of hurts the hype for me.

Stuff like this is good to see.

Especially when the vocal people online won't stop trying to start a riot over petty stuff like the virtual boy shell being $100. Is that too much for virtual boy. Yes honestly. Even with 14 games I wouldn't pay $10 for any of them.

But frankly I don't care. If you just want to try it get the cardboard virtualboy or get a labor on clearance.

I do not understand the modern gamer mentality that something being expensive is a reason to be upset even if said thing isn't even something they want.

But anyway seeing strong sales means so matter how pervasive those people are it doesn't matter since actual customers are still buying.

Been ages since I played GBA Klonoa, but I remember enjoying it.

Honestly I'd be all for a rivalry revival.

Competition breeds innovation and at this point Nintendo has no real competition.

This isn't me glorifying Nintendo BTW, more just everyone else is either just not even competing with Nintendo or seem to be winding down.

Xbox is more a brand label than an actual console at this point. PlayStation is still around but between Microsoft putting everything on steam and Nintendo maintaining its exclusive library, it doesn't have the massive presence it used to. Even if you put all of that aside, PlayStation always painted itself as more a rival of Xbox and rarely clashed with Nintendo.

Sega is arguably in the best position to have the image of a Nintendo rival.

@Moroboshi876 probably just not enough confirmation to make an article on.

@Geit_de well I loved it. You're certainly allowed to have your own opinion, but that's not universal. I've also heard the thing about MKW is it actually plays a fair bit differently from 8.

So if you're not engaging with the new mechanics and playing it like a higher resolution MK8 then it's going to lose its spark.

So many people tin foil hatting in the comments. People need to calm down.

First of all people need to accept that keycards aren't killing physical media, it was already massively on the decline and most game companies were only barely supporting it with many games requiring downloads to even work anyway. If anything the keycard is just cheaper and more honest.

Now that doesn't mean I support key cards. But I've thought about it and I can see the non-malicious logic behind it.

The rise of digital media is killing physical stores and retail and companies looking to get eyes on their game need to stand out in a digital ocean of games.

Keycards are, on paper, a great way to not fight the digital trend but still preserve presence in physical stores and preserve the resell value of the game.

This, however, does come at the trade off of the inconvenience of a physical game card and needing servers to download from.

What I'm trying to say is angrily shouting blindly won't convince anyone. If you want to do anything of worth you need to approach the issue properly and address the problems while not ignoring the benefits.

Because it's not that keycards have no benefits. It's just the downsides are more important for a lot of people that favor physical media in the first place.

@BaldB3lper78 it's not like this requires much effort. It's most just them throwing a bunch of stuff onto the virtual library and selling what's basically a plastic version of the LABO headset.

Most likely some executive that worked on th virtual boy project pushed for it.

So while I certainly don't care, some enthusiasts will love it so ... Meh.

@Warioware it was a few things.

*Because it was basically an oversized face mask on a stand you had to use it an an awkward angle cause neck pain.
*the harsh red lines combined with the screens of the time lead to eye strain
*The hardware itself was rather expensive for the time and while 3D itself was novel. You were sacrificing color and resolution in exchange. Pretty much everyone wanted better color and resolution, not 3D effects.

There might be a few other things but those are the big ones I remember hearing about.

@Dr_Corndog have you NEVER looked at the price of a figure? $50 is still on the cheaper side compared to some.

Of course Amiibo are small and while good quality they aren't peak quality.

Over all $50 is certainly pricey, but it's not outrageous. You wouldn't find anything else a lot cheaper while still having the same build quality and features.

So really it's just a question of if it's worth it for you.

@canaryfarmer quality figures regularly go to over $100. So yes $50 for a decent one with a swappable function isn't strange.

Of course I'm probably NOT getting one either. $50 is a lot.and I just don't really want a single amiibo that price. I payed that for BOTH Pyra and mythra, but Kirby is just not worth that much for me.

Unless maybe they release a Kirby on dragoon. That is Kirby air ride's best looking machine. That I would at least consider.

@15roundTKO this is a sequel, not a remake. But enjoy being miserable.

@Krisi some people just want to be miserable. Or they delude themselves into thinking something like this is replacing something they want.

I've seen a few people complain about wanting a new Smash Bros, as if Kirby Air riders replaced that. They don't understand Sakuari just DID NOT want to make a new smash bros, at least not yet.

He has stated before he's not sure how he can go further with it. So for now he wants to make other games. If he didn't make Air riders he still would not make a new smash bros. People just need to accept that.

We'll probably get a switch 2 edition of ultimate eventually. Maybe some new dlc. Bit I wouldn't expect a fully new smash bros game for a while. Certainly not from Sakurai who seems happy to try other things.

That might change someday, but let the man create what he has passion for.