Kirby devours awoofies whole. I mean....just think about this for a minute.... Kirby may be the most violent video game ever. Sure, Doom gets all the attention, but you're just killing demons from Hell that have infested the living plane....they're technically not living to begin with, otherwise they wouldn't be in the afterlife like that. Kirby just rolls up and SWALLOWS PUPPIES with a big grin on his face and keeps going like a boss.
I don't think this guy's attitude is helping his cause or hurting Nintendo's at all. He sounds like a wannabe Leninist but without wanting to put himself in harms way for an armed uprising.
Push square: Microsoft is taking our games! Nintendo life: Sony is taking our games! Pure Xb: we have Sony and Nintendo's games to make up for no Microsoft games!
But I still think so much if it is just the mindset of the people that go into game making in general. Maybe the new indie wave is fixing that, but look at the dev interviews with most of the featured indies this week. "Old people". Not just "thirty somethings" which counts as old people in the AAA world, but people in their 50s, 60s, classic game people. People familiar with the old ways and what made it good. A lot of people that fell out of the major studios in the past. Both in the West and Japan. Then look at much of the devs you see for the major AAAs, it's the young, fresh, out of school, 20-something "artist on a mission." There's every sense to me they're less interested in the "game as a whole" so much as excitement for flexing their artistic muscles on the biggest stage with the biggest creations. Their interest is what excites THEM as artists, and not what creates the best packaged product. It's a theme in commentary/interview after commentary. And I get it, and I understand what they're thinking and why, though I couldn't do that myself, I'm no artist, I know that's just how artists tend to work. And part of that is that games used to be made by a small group of people involved in the game. The modern games are so big with so many people most of the people involved have no sense of the game package at all, they know their piece. Amazing lighting. Amazing animation. Amazing models and terrain rendition. That's their little piece of the world, and the thing they're excited about. The resulting game is a hodgepodge of an animator's most impressive animations, a modelers most impressive models, vfx specialist's most impressive vfx, glued together by a game designer trying to make a cohesive tapestry from a bunch of disparate quilt squares made from 20 different companies on 4 continents. Add in business that doesn't want to take a risk and follows the trend....and we get what we have.
Worse is that the trend is "social media but with guns" and you get some pretty bland games....
If you've never played The Magic Circle, you really should, btw.....
@Ryu_Niiyama Whoops, I wasn't tagged so I almost missed this!
The shovelware approach still exists, it's just from indies. And Sega, lol. IDK about "everything you can get it to run on." Back then games were more exclusive to one platform by default, just because it was usually designed around particular hardware. I don't recall a huge list of true multiplats at all back then, and often games that were multiplat were really different games entirely. There were some. Bubsy and some others ring a bell, but overall, it was much more common for most of the library to be exclusive just because of the design differences.
PC...despite being the technical best if you spend the most money, as an average falls behind consoles though. Yeah, the PCMR snobs will have $3k+ rigs, but most of what's running as "PC" in the wild is pretty weak hardware, well below the consoles of a given generation. But largely, that's exactly it. Most games are PC games that run on consoles now. There's not much distinction outside genres that still depend on mice. And that's part of what happens to Nintendo, it's not just another PC to port to. Technically it's just another smartphone to port to.....and port to it, the mobile devs do! Much to the chagrin of eShop shoppers. But most of the major devs are PC devs. Whether PC is the primary or the port, they're really designing PC games, and the consoles are just efficient PCs with a custom OS.
Going off-topic in an on-topic way, though, after watching this weeks presentations, I've come away feeling that the AAAs mostly are caught up in the treadmill in such a way it's largely uninteresting (except for the big Microsoft WRPGs which is mostly made by those old passion project PC folks...), but mostly the AAAs have truly become carbon copy, generic money treadmills, and I've seen the "indies" stepping well up into that sweet spot of AA games. Things like American Arcadia and....can't remember the names but Portal-but-not-Portal and 3D Pokemon with sheep shooting SMGs.... we've maybe come full circle, where AAAs have elevated themselves into something other than premier video games and are into some weird virtual social sim platform thing to supplant Facebook, while the former "indies" are now into AA that creates the main tapestry of "gaming" now. I.E. yesterday's indies are becoming tomorrows AAAs, and the old AAAs are becoming digital social networks (with guns.) I could be wrong, but it seems to be a sort of transition point where the cycle is restarting (one foot in this year, probably 2 feet in a year or two.))
@Ryu_Niiyama LOL, yeah, I sensed while writing it this was inevitably to be one of those multi-giant posts that I eventually never get back to replying to you and we leave it dangling here.....but I pressed on anyway!
Nintendo's a big market, but it doesn't feed into that. You can't create spectacle and guarantee return. Business won't like that. It's not tech for the sake of tech to flex your awesome tech muscles of awesomeness, so the creatives won't like it. And you can't copy your one-design-fits-all product onto it without holding back the spectacle elsewhere, so it just doesn't fit. Plus the Nintendo market isn't a market as wowed by flash, otherwise we wouldn't have our 2017 tablet with 2012 hardware in it still. Nintendo intentionally releasing limited technology is the only thing that forces it to have a creative landscape. Because the flashers can't put their vanity projects on it, only things that aren't so much vanity projects can really fit on it. IDK how long that will hold up, but for now, that's what saves it. Usually, anyway.
I don't think the technophile part refers to a software level optimization to push a piece of limited hardware. That's just a nerd in the biggest pocket protector sense, lol. No, it's about pushing technology to technology's limit, not a particular limited hardware like Iwata's calculator baseball game. It's less about coder tech (optimization/Iwata) and more about effects rigging tech, vfx tech, shader tech. More from the artist/animator side. "Creating the most realistic thing possible by technology" is the obsession. A switch will never ever do that. I don't think they're really into making games particularly. They're interested in replicating reality, digitally. And I'm sure, development wise, they're working on pushing the new twins hardware. Dev kits haven't been out long enough to see the results in consumer space yet, and business is enforcing cross plat for very valid business reasons. Most of the games coming out were in production before the dev kits existed, so that makes sense. Just wait till the 15-30fps framerate flashy masterpieces once current production comes out.
In the mean-time please look forward to the second remaster of a 9 year old game now with more realistic lighting and a new texture pack!
(Ugh I tried to be short, and that's what I ended up writing! )
But at the same time, using Miyamoto as the example again, he'd push back (uncharacteristically for a Japanese worker, especially back then, but Miyamoto does Miyamoto) for his ideas, and because he printed money reliably, even Yamauchi caved to his insistence. But that's just it, the market responded to Miyamoto's ideas at the time so that's what they cloned. But I think devs today for the most part have a different mindset (especially while dev now means everything from artist to animator to "digital lighting" and not software design.) It's a mostly young workforce (how many don't burn out fast?) of mostly short term work, that just wants to be part of The Next Big Thing, wants to play with the biggest tools to product the most impressive things. Wants to build their resumes... So much of the modern "tech demo" feel, I think is just a result of the mindset of the modern young creative that dreams of making video games (or movies.) They want to see what tech boundaries they can push just because they can (and because it builds their portfolio), how impressive they can make a thing, how big a thing they can say they were part of, etc. The games then are an amalgamation of a vanity project to satisfy the indulgence of young creatives led by Hollywood-minded business leaders looking to "wow" an easily amused market space with spectacle for the maximum acceptable cost. Shake that up with a market that is easily wowed by flashy things and equates flashy with more valuable, and there we are. Every game is a Michael Bay masterpiece.... If flashy ever stops selling, those budgets will crash and the creatives won't get their vanity spending accounts anymore. But darn the market...it sells...it always sells... so that's what we get.
I mean, we're down to a market willing to spend more money, far more money, on cosmetics in games than on games. Where a "free" game gets people to spend hundreds on a single game, to play Barbie with it. We just got a Saint's Row trailer, and entire trailer, for a character creator. They're not even advertising the game, they're advertising digital dress-up in an app outside the game!
From the business side, they just look at where the money comes from, you're right. Specacle sells, flash sells, vanity sells. Quality? Really doesn't sell. Tech demos sell. What's the easiest way to get the biggest spectacle to the biggest audience? Slap it on the 3 similar architecture systems that are mostly low effort to port between the 3 from a single design and you capture most of the market with much more spectacle than other platforms. Boom, business is taken care of. Switch, even mobile is an outlying market that isn't worth looking seriously into. Even if mobile is 1000x bigger, it's a different product needed.
From the creative side, that connects nicely with the vanity projects. The brass wants to pay for flashy spectacle, they want to make the flashiest spectacles they can make, they're happy. But need more budget to do what they want. And even though it's all terrible when combined, inexplicably the market throws money at the result. So next time they double the budget and expect double the market.
@Ryu_Niiyama When I think back to the shovelware of the NES, and even the arcades, it reality it wasn't that different from today in terms of taking chances. So much of it was nearly identical clone games following safe formulas, even then. Today, for the most part, the exceptions to the rule are what remain and have floated to the top and we think of it as the full library, but most of the library at the time was, ok, maybe not eShop-bad, but Wii-era shovelware bad at least. With budgets today being so exorbitant, producers and publishers are no doubt tighter on the purse strings and more likely to follow proven templates, Hollywood-style. But I'm not sure they were that much more lenient back then, either. We've just forgotten the massive body of pure junk that existed because most of it isn't still around, and most of us were wise enough to not buy it back then, either.
It wasn't as buggy, though. QA was easier, cheaper, obviously games were simpler, and more importantly with the price of media distribution, it was a necessary expense to avoid a loss, while now it's just a cost line. I think that goes beyond games. It's software in general. Games are the most complex so it's most obvious, but it's been a downward slope for a long time where software used to be designed along rigid engineering principles and tested as such. But demand has been for steadily easier and easier tools to put things together with less and less time and money, relying on more and more powerful hardware to brute force terrible designs for less time and skill to be required to produce anything. Plus the rise of middleware and outsourcing means nobody knows how all the parts actually work, to begin with.
But as for the rest, yeah, you're not wrong. I think it's a clash of roles that end up in the same place. From the top, the producers and financiers certainly are looking for high ROI, brand, etc. They're in it for the money, and increasingly are no longer software people but are media/film people applying the Hollywood approach, or just plain old businesspeople applying the consumer product approach. Back in the 80's most game companies were privately owned, usually by the people making the games. Now they're public companies with investors appointing CEO's who's role is maximizing margin. Of course Yamauchi was the latter and Nintendo ended up Nintendo, but he found a golden cash cow in Miyatmoto by coincidence, who really set the tone.
@Ryu_Niiyama honestly I don't think it's about money at all. Most devs in the west just seem to be technophiles at heart and just have an interest in making the most visually advanced things technology allows, and that never is Nintendo. I honestly think it's just lack of dev interest. They want to make prestige games, show off their talent and be recognized for achievement. Switch does none of that, even if it makes bank.
If money enters into it it's because one game design sells on 2 consoles and PC, while switch is a whole other thing of. If it was all about money and not ego, they'd never not target mobile...
@Grahamthecracker The stories in the wild manuals are so hilariously inconsistent. It's like nobody even considered keeping it straight. Stories didn't matter, it was just backdrop for the pretty graphics to them I suppose.
@samuelvictor lol, that's quite the museum of stuff nobody ever wanted The only one on the list I did have was 32x. I returned it like a week later, though, 😆
@samuelvictor Also weird they'd be named kuribo....because their design is that of a shiitake mushroom.....
I think the main coherent theme is there's no coherence in their naming and stories of old. Which makes sense, because Miyamoto famously even today is firmly anti-story and Aonuma has had a heck of a time trying to fit Miyamoto's half-baked stories into a coherent timeline
That's really interesting about Worlds of Wonder and Action Max. I was not aware of any of that! I'm pretty sure the remaining 20 Sears stores would kill for Switches to sell, today!
@samuelvictor That's amazing to me. Maybe because today you don't really hear slurs against all but a few specific groups that are relentlessly protected to the point of universal self-censorship? Seems so strange that an archaic term like "goomba" would be censored in the UK. Almost comedic. It feels almost like we should censor "yankees" in retaliation or something. Darned limeys....
It is a curiosity though how Nintendo actually picked that word. Obviously it was picked without knowing it was a slur. I can only assume it came from Japan, maybe Miyamoto himself, flipping through some book or media for Brooklyn-Italian phrases and found that thinking meant grunt workers or something? That would be in interesting story to hear. Imagine a games company randomly picking a word that's an ethnic slur today and sticking it in a game as the basic enemy of a kids game!
@Grahamthecracker Well that's interesting. If Jr. is DK's kid, rescuing him from Mario, and that DK was Cranky, does that mean modern DK is actually adult Jr.?!
@samuelvictor Wow, they censor that there? Censoring Dino should be criminal itself.
Weirdly, here, "goomba" is one of those 1940's terms that doesn't really get seen outside Nintendo these days. Other slurs were more common in more modern times, though I can't say you really even hear those anymore. I don't think most here would even recognize it as something other than a Nintendo thing now. I'd say outside Brooklyn, but I still picture Brooklyn as "Little Italy" and not the avocado toast-stocked rich-kid hipster paradise it apparently is today.
Not-E3 is meaningful. It highlights the importance that many of us really do place on E3, and everything that the organized, concise, branded, scheduled convention where companies put their best marketing foot forward represents.
It's not E3, maybe it won't be E3 again, but for the time being it really puts a stamp and and, dare I say it, trends , in a way that shows the popular opinion of the value placed on that format and structure, and makes clear there's absolutely demand for that, whether it's put on by ESA or not.
For better or worse, E3 is a brand. It's a brand for a marketing event and trade show, but it's a brand. Apple's product reveals aren't CES. CES is CES. E3 is E3. And I think the press and public calling it "Not-E3" regularly creates a very solid case that the E3 brand and format holds significant sway in popular discourse, and demand exists for something to live up to that void, be it a return of the brand, or a successor to replace it. Keighley's Summer Games Fest, is too informal, loose, and poorly organized to be a functional successor. Big as his ego may be, he's one guy, not a massive organizing institution to assemble numerous multi-billion dollar corporations and hold them to a schedule.
I think companies' marketing divisions that are trying to follow the community touchtones that may have been thinking "we don't need E3 anymore" are following the journalists, the socials, the public, seeing all the "Not-E3" mentions and getting a clear picture of a demand that exists to fill.
@samuelvictor There's a flaw in that logic. Miyamoto created DK (Cranky) specifically for the US market to utilize Radar Scope cabinets, and from that, Mario (Jumpman) was born.
So, maybe Cranky is American? I mean, the meme builds itself here...
@Jokerwolf Maybe, I could have sworn it was you Anyway, yeah, maybe 6 years is enough, at least for normal tech companies, but for Nintendo, I'm still not sure they've milked all they can from this one, so it would seem strange for them to change now. The OLED isn't even a year old, and sales are still very strong while their competition is more hamstrung by chip shortages and logistics issues. The chip shortage should go on into 2024 according to Intel, so launching a new hardware platform while their old platform is selling so well, at a time when their competitors are still hamstrung on supply (and would be in a position to eclipse them in supply if Nintendo plunges in during the shortages). If this were the before times, then sure they'd have launched something now. But currently, there's atypical forces in play that make it non-ideal to launch even if the original plan was to do so. Whether they do or not, I still say there's a 0% chance of an announcement beyond "we're always looking at the next hardware" before 12/26/2022. You can tag me and laugh at me publicly if I'm wrong, but I'm putting that one in writing now.
@Jokerwolf if you don't think announcing a product is obsolete months before the holiday rush hurts sales, I'm not sure what to tell you.
Whether or not they're doing 2023 switch 2, they're not announcing it in 2022. That's just plain stupidity, and Nintendo isn't that stupid. And I still find it unlikely they're not going to milk an OLED Lite. It's money on the table. Nintendo doesn't leave money on the table. So you might get the monkey's paw version of your "new hardware" this summer in that form. But if you're holding out for a switch 2 announcement in the next 6 months, I think you'll be disappointed. You were expecting one in 2021, too....
@Jokerwolf Announcing a "no release date" next gen system now will risk sales though. If they're doing 2023, and I'm still thinking that's too soon for them, but if they are they won't announce until 2023. They're selling well, they're not in a position requiring defensiveness to the board. It's not a WiiU to "NX" situation they had to reveal their hand early even at the cost of current hardware sales. They control the narrative, not the investors right now.
At the most they'll give an "Of course, we are always working on the next hardware iteration with a focus on providing unique Nintendo-like surprises, but have nothing to announce at this time." response to remind investors they're working on new hardware but not in a business cycle to put it forward. That's more for the AGM later in the month than anything public facing, now.
Saying anything now will cannibalize their commanding holiday sales as people wait for a "Switch 2" or buy a PSXB "in the mean-time." Announcing new product announces the end of the current product. That's why Apple still does the "Available today!" thing.
Not new hardware overall. They're not going to replace OLED less than a year into it's well-selling life, or announce 2023 hardware before holiday sales of current models. But OLED Lite is so obvious and conspicuously missing.
@Grumblevolcano Yeah. I mean, it's Nintendo, whenever you think they'll zig, they unzip the background and do a can-can. But short of Nintendo trolling us, they're pretty much going out of their way to tell us there's no Direct. They're taking E3 week to just make a bunch of twitter drops.
It's the most depressing possible outcome short of Nintendo being bought by Comcast.
Sony's at war with E3. Nintendo's at war with Keighley. Can we get anyone that these companies aren't at political war with to actually coordinate an event with all of them? Maybe China can host it. All the companies love China!
At first I thought this was a Knack 2 situation. The company greenlit a sequel based on high sales numbers, without realizing the sales numbers aren't meaningful since the game was a tech demo during a thin launch and people looked for something to buy.
But the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's probably a game meant for Japan that would sell somewhat in the West due to the casual/party playerbase that does have a Switch, even if it's not the core audience. The problem probably isn't that Switch 1-2-2 wouldn't sell well (for better or worse) it's that if it sells and is bad, it would tarnish their image.
Who at Nintendo actually thought a $60 online-only 1-2 Switch was a good idea? That's one of those ideas Miyamoto should have been there to flip the tea table into people's faces when mentioned.
And expecting a massive physical distribution, to boot? Wow.
Even the description sounds boring. This is like 2007 Wii fare.
@Grumblevolcano Totally with you. I thought the XC3 trailer drop was basically confirmation there's no Direct. Otherwise, that would have been for the direct.
Of course that makes Nintendo the only main company not participating in #NotE3 in some way, unless twitter posts count as participation. (Plus Ubi who announced they'll do a show later in the year.)
@rjejr Keighley's floundering so badly. I mean props for doing kind of an ok-ish job on it, but it's obvious that compared to the mega-money and know-how of ESA, as bad and blundering as they are, he's just an amateur playing around. ESA absolutely is incompitent. No question, But Keighley is a long, long, long way away from 190ft banners hanging in downtown LA for a few hundred thousand people convening relatively smoothly. ESA really is good at event organizing. They're just bad at everything else.
Gamescon and TGS....they're definitely not E3, that's the problem. Yeah, the US doesn't even know they exist, but the format is really just the show floor, no real presentations. And what we really want are the presentations. Every time I hear about those shows it's like "oh, there's game stuff there?" If they could become the new E3, I wouldn't care about E3. There's no Gamescon Treehouse live, or TGS Sony show hammering it in.
LOL, is that before or after we accidentally declare war on both Russia and China in the same month, and then pretend the economy is fine? It's beautiful. I love how from that post I can't even tell if you're left, right, R, D......it's all a giant merged fail and resignation to the immutable doom. Just as it should be....you're becoming me. It was only a matter of time. Welcome.
@rjejr Yeah, I know, and I'm not expecting a revival, but there is demand for it and maybe with a map and both hands, the ESA can eventually locate it's rear end and pull its head out of it. There's a market for a giant gaming convention. and marketers would be fools to turn away a market demanding marketing. But the ESA is too bumbling to market the marketing convention. Can still hope.
2020 was a given, it needed to be cancelled. 2021 was smart, it was a bad show, but they scraped together a salvaged digital event to keep E3 on the map as placeholder. Good plan. I honestly think they were right cancelling the physical conference this year, it was smart, and I think anyone not cancelling these sorts of travel-heavy things still this year is probably insane, or in perpetual denial and beyond hope. BUT why cancel digital? That made no sense, and that erased their claim to holding the event in the future. They had one job - maintain the placeholder and brand. I don't know who made that call but it was either born from publishers just having no interest in E3 (at which point, why pretend there's one next year?) Or they're even more bumbling than I thought (at which point, why pretend they're capable of holding one next year?)
E3 needs to be a thing. ESA just doesn't seem to be the organization to do it, and Keighley is a dude on an ego trip, not a wealthy event organizing institution or industry group. Keightley's grandstanding endangered a real event, but honestly, ESA probably needs to work with him if they're going to pull together a focused week again. Given the number of companies willing to debase themselves enough to work with Keighley (excluding Nintendo and inexplicably including Sony), it's clear there's some interest in holding an organized event at this time of year, even if it's forever digital. The only one stopping them is ESA's incompetence. Even freaking Sony's trying to do it....kinda.
I want E3 to come back terribly, but I also don't how they actually can at this point with how much good will they've squandered at ESA and how they squandered their hold on the event by not hosting a digital show again this year. It would have been much easier to hold onto if they still had had E3-lite this year. I love that there's that twinge of hope for one more year, but getting publishers back on board to do it at this point has got to be ridiculously difficult with what they charge vs what they offer. MS would jump in easily which may set the tone for others. Maybe even Nintendo since they're the only one not doing anything with Keighley and it's in their backyard. I can't see Sony even entertaining the thought of a return, they ended even their own "we're too important for E3" events, because they're too important for themselves, too. And most of the other publishers have moved on to being comfortable with their own thing (or have all been bought up.)
Some want the trade show back, but trade shows, I think are dead forever. What value E3 has left is the public spectacle. And there's room for that. But I'm not sure ESA knows how to do it. And I don't think publishers trust the ESA to do it or are willing to pay their fees. We need someone to organize a new E3 centered around spectacle, incorporating the digital, and making it about tying together one big unified event of events rather than necessarily flying everyone to a single convention center in LA. It can be a broader organized event, not unlike keighley's event but better coordinated with bigger money behind it with more rules keeping everyone at pace, and more authority to pull it all together. And most importantly for one specific week.
The Olympics are evolving starting with Paris to be a central unifying pageant amidst many smaller venues spread throughout France, and extending to the carribbean for kayaking. E3 could evolve the same way. One single convention center is a bad move today. A central show with satellite shows and individual shows could be a good move like the Paris Olympics idea. Heck the biggest shows with MS and Sony were outside the actual show floor anyway, so there's no reason not to embrace that rather than try to gouge publishers more.
I want it back, but, they don't seem to have offered a compelling plan of WHY publishers should pay them after learning their sales didn't plummet without them. We know why WE want it back. ESA needs to figure out how to sell why PUBLISHERS should want it back. Until 2019 it was "because they couldn't afford to miss it". Now publishers know they can. So what can reel them back?
For our part, we still need a venue for Audrey Drake to threaten genocide while playing children's games. Gaming is empty without it.
@samuelvictor That's a good point, though I think Dreams is so far removed from platformer gameplay one doesn't try to compare it to Mario. Miyamoto also didn't like DKC 😆
I tend to agree with wanting to repay Sonic more. I always considered the Mario's the staple game but even in the 90s the sonics we're in constant rotation for me.
@Dr_Corndog IDK, CoD dating sim might be the first game in that series I pay money for. That just sounds like a recipe for a good time, unlike Sonic Frontiers.
@samuelvictor Yeah, that really would be interesting. I remember some sort of round table with him and Naka years ago and I remember Naka talking about things Mario was that Sonic wasn't that he'd wished he could have captured, but I don't recall anything Miyamoto said about Sonic that he'd envied, lol. TBH I think the design of Sonic games is fundamentally opposed to most of Miyamoto's design philosophies, I'd be surprised if he did have a lot of positive thoughts on it. It was designed specifically to be the opposite of his own styles, after all.
@westman98 maybe. Believe me I want it to be true. And I want Treehouse back.
I'm just not convinced that Nintendo wants or needs to do their unveilings in June without E3 participation setting their schedule for them. Just like how ubi announced they're not doing June and will do something later in the year, I can see Nintendo doing the September direct instead of June because they already announced the summer games until then and can hype the holiday lineup more then.
Sony kinda sorta did June with a good showing but they attached themselves to Keighley for some unholy reason and Nintendo didn't.
@Grumblevolcano Yeah I thought of that after I replied but that was a big deal. I was launch day and played entirely D's titles on it the first year.
Still, I'm afraid they'll go for $400 on switch 2. They can probably get away with it, but 😬
There's still external 2023 issues. Continued chip shortages, escalated prices to produce/deliver, and the pending global recession/depression. Launching hardware in 2023 is an expensive gamble, and worse-than-ps5 shortages are nearly guaranteed. That's pretty strenuous on a company not really making money on hardware.
They have to do it at some point but that seems like the worst possible timeline to do it. And they still have big heavy hitting games upcoming.
@Grumblevolcano true, though the problem with wii to wiiu was that they'd stopped software for Wii, it was in a dead market for years and generally dead then wiiu was a guaranteed fail. DS to 3ds was a five transition. The problem wasn't the transition, it was the price of the replacement.
Also, there's no chance they announce new hardware before Christmas sales. Even if they announce, and I really don't think it's 2023, but it wouldn't be announced until Jan-March. They're not cannibalizing Christmas sales. They did it with switch only because wiiu was long dead to the point they removed it from the website and marketing by then and pretended it didn't exist at all unless you searched for it so there was nothing to cannibalize other then 3ds, so the reveal boosted the ailing brand.
@Sonos There's a niche for the type of game. It seems like a big niche on the Internet but it's not a big niche overall. I get it why masochists love it but that's not everyone.
I'd also counter with Kirby. It's easier than most easy platformers but you always remember it positively.
Cuphead is barely a platformer though. It's mostly just a boss battle rush with occasional platforming. Regardless it's just not healthy or fun to play something so infuriating. I get that there's a niche for it, but it's not really for all players.
Comments 8,869
Re: It's Time To Throw Hands: AAA Clock Is Getting Five New DLC Clocks
Anyone want to buy my physical collectors edition with a life-sized replica of the clock, with real moving parts, and actually tells time?
It's $10. Looks so much like the one in the game it's hard to believe it's not digital!
Re: Random: We've Killed Way Too Many Awoofies In Kirby And The Forgotten Land
I love how the article is pink.
Kirby devours awoofies whole. I mean....just think about this for a minute.... Kirby may be the most violent video game ever. Sure, Doom gets all the attention, but you're just killing demons from Hell that have infested the living plane....they're technically not living to begin with, otherwise they wouldn't be in the afterlife like that. Kirby just rolls up and SWALLOWS PUPPIES with a big grin on his face and keeps going like a boss.
Re: Devolver Digital Shares Plummet After Company Downgrades Sales Expectations
I guess they should have just went with the video game singularity.
I legit want Tom Clancy's Animal Crossing. Make it happen, Devolver!
Re: "What Do I Care?" - Nintendo Hacking Mastermind Defiant As Colleague Bowser Is Jailed
I don't think this guy's attitude is helping his cause or hurting Nintendo's at all. He sounds like a wannabe Leninist but without wanting to put himself in harms way for an armed uprising.
Re: Random: Don't Expect To See Sonic Kissing Anymore Humans, Says Sega
...... Still better than Boom.....
@nessisonett Gotta' go fast!
Re: Persona 3, 4, and 5 Seemingly Confirmed For Everything But Switch
Push square: Microsoft is taking our games!
Nintendo life: Sony is taking our games!
Pure Xb: we have Sony and Nintendo's games to make up for no Microsoft games!
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Game Featured In The Summer Game Fest 2022 Opening Showcase
But I still think so much if it is just the mindset of the people that go into game making in general. Maybe the new indie wave is fixing that, but look at the dev interviews with most of the featured indies this week. "Old people". Not just "thirty somethings" which counts as old people in the AAA world, but people in their 50s, 60s, classic game people. People familiar with the old ways and what made it good. A lot of people that fell out of the major studios in the past. Both in the West and Japan. Then look at much of the devs you see for the major AAAs, it's the young, fresh, out of school, 20-something "artist on a mission." There's every sense to me they're less interested in the "game as a whole" so much as excitement for flexing their artistic muscles on the biggest stage with the biggest creations. Their interest is what excites THEM as artists, and not what creates the best packaged product. It's a theme in commentary/interview after commentary. And I get it, and I understand what they're thinking and why, though I couldn't do that myself, I'm no artist, I know that's just how artists tend to work. And part of that is that games used to be made by a small group of people involved in the game. The modern games are so big with so many people most of the people involved have no sense of the game package at all, they know their piece. Amazing lighting. Amazing animation. Amazing models and terrain rendition. That's their little piece of the world, and the thing they're excited about. The resulting game is a hodgepodge of an animator's most impressive animations, a modelers most impressive models, vfx specialist's most impressive vfx, glued together by a game designer trying to make a cohesive tapestry from a bunch of disparate quilt squares made from 20 different companies on 4 continents. Add in business that doesn't want to take a risk and follows the trend....and we get what we have.
Worse is that the trend is "social media but with guns" and you get some pretty bland games....
If you've never played The Magic Circle, you really should, btw.....
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Game Featured In The Summer Game Fest 2022 Opening Showcase
@Ryu_Niiyama Whoops, I wasn't tagged so I almost missed this!
The shovelware approach still exists, it's just from indies. And Sega, lol. IDK about "everything you can get it to run on." Back then games were more exclusive to one platform by default, just because it was usually designed around particular hardware. I don't recall a huge list of true multiplats at all back then, and often games that were multiplat were really different games entirely. There were some. Bubsy and some others ring a bell, but overall, it was much more common for most of the library to be exclusive just because of the design differences.
PC...despite being the technical best if you spend the most money, as an average falls behind consoles though. Yeah, the PCMR snobs will have $3k+ rigs, but most of what's running as "PC" in the wild is pretty weak hardware, well below the consoles of a given generation. But largely, that's exactly it. Most games are PC games that run on consoles now. There's not much distinction outside genres that still depend on mice. And that's part of what happens to Nintendo, it's not just another PC to port to. Technically it's just another smartphone to port to.....and port to it, the mobile devs do! Much to the chagrin of eShop shoppers. But most of the major devs are PC devs. Whether PC is the primary or the port, they're really designing PC games, and the consoles are just efficient PCs with a custom OS.
Going off-topic in an on-topic way, though, after watching this weeks presentations, I've come away feeling that the AAAs mostly are caught up in the treadmill in such a way it's largely uninteresting (except for the big Microsoft WRPGs which is mostly made by those old passion project PC folks...), but mostly the AAAs have truly become carbon copy, generic money treadmills, and I've seen the "indies" stepping well up into that sweet spot of AA games. Things like American Arcadia and....can't remember the names but Portal-but-not-Portal and 3D Pokemon with sheep shooting SMGs.... we've maybe come full circle, where AAAs have elevated themselves into something other than premier video games and are into some weird virtual social sim platform thing to supplant Facebook, while the former "indies" are now into AA that creates the main tapestry of "gaming" now. I.E. yesterday's indies are becoming tomorrows AAAs, and the old AAAs are becoming digital social networks (with guns.) I could be wrong, but it seems to be a sort of transition point where the cycle is restarting (one foot in this year, probably 2 feet in a year or two.))
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Game Featured In The Summer Game Fest 2022 Opening Showcase
@Ryu_Niiyama LOL, yeah, I sensed while writing it this was inevitably to be one of those multi-giant posts that I eventually never get back to replying to you and we leave it dangling here.....but I pressed on anyway!
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Game Featured In The Summer Game Fest 2022 Opening Showcase
Nintendo's a big market, but it doesn't feed into that. You can't create spectacle and guarantee return. Business won't like that. It's not tech for the sake of tech to flex your awesome tech muscles of awesomeness, so the creatives won't like it. And you can't copy your one-design-fits-all product onto it without holding back the spectacle elsewhere, so it just doesn't fit. Plus the Nintendo market isn't a market as wowed by flash, otherwise we wouldn't have our 2017 tablet with 2012 hardware in it still. Nintendo intentionally releasing limited technology is the only thing that forces it to have a creative landscape. Because the flashers can't put their vanity projects on it, only things that aren't so much vanity projects can really fit on it. IDK how long that will hold up, but for now, that's what saves it. Usually, anyway.
I don't think the technophile part refers to a software level optimization to push a piece of limited hardware. That's just a nerd in the biggest pocket protector sense, lol. No, it's about pushing technology to technology's limit, not a particular limited hardware like Iwata's calculator baseball game. It's less about coder tech (optimization/Iwata) and more about effects rigging tech, vfx tech, shader tech. More from the artist/animator side. "Creating the most realistic thing possible by technology" is the obsession. A switch will never ever do that. I don't think they're really into making games particularly. They're interested in replicating reality, digitally. And I'm sure, development wise, they're working on pushing the new twins hardware. Dev kits haven't been out long enough to see the results in consumer space yet, and business is enforcing cross plat for very valid business reasons. Most of the games coming out were in production before the dev kits existed, so that makes sense. Just wait till the 15-30fps framerate flashy masterpieces once current production comes out.
In the mean-time please look forward to the second remaster of a 9 year old game now with more realistic lighting and a new texture pack!
(Ugh I tried to be short, and that's what I ended up writing! )
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Game Featured In The Summer Game Fest 2022 Opening Showcase
But at the same time, using Miyamoto as the example again, he'd push back (uncharacteristically for a Japanese worker, especially back then, but Miyamoto does Miyamoto) for his ideas, and because he printed money reliably, even Yamauchi caved to his insistence. But that's just it, the market responded to Miyamoto's ideas at the time so that's what they cloned. But I think devs today for the most part have a different mindset (especially while dev now means everything from artist to animator to "digital lighting" and not software design.) It's a mostly young workforce (how many don't burn out fast?) of mostly short term work, that just wants to be part of The Next Big Thing, wants to play with the biggest tools to product the most impressive things. Wants to build their resumes... So much of the modern "tech demo" feel, I think is just a result of the mindset of the modern young creative that dreams of making video games (or movies.) They want to see what tech boundaries they can push just because they can (and because it builds their portfolio), how impressive they can make a thing, how big a thing they can say they were part of, etc. The games then are an amalgamation of a vanity project to satisfy the indulgence of young creatives led by Hollywood-minded business leaders looking to "wow" an easily amused market space with spectacle for the maximum acceptable cost. Shake that up with a market that is easily wowed by flashy things and equates flashy with more valuable, and there we are. Every game is a Michael Bay masterpiece.... If flashy ever stops selling, those budgets will crash and the creatives won't get their vanity spending accounts anymore. But darn the market...it sells...it always sells... so that's what we get.
I mean, we're down to a market willing to spend more money, far more money, on cosmetics in games than on games. Where a "free" game gets people to spend hundreds on a single game, to play Barbie with it. We just got a Saint's Row trailer, and entire trailer, for a character creator. They're not even advertising the game, they're advertising digital dress-up in an app outside the game!
From the business side, they just look at where the money comes from, you're right. Specacle sells, flash sells, vanity sells. Quality? Really doesn't sell. Tech demos sell. What's the easiest way to get the biggest spectacle to the biggest audience? Slap it on the 3 similar architecture systems that are mostly low effort to port between the 3 from a single design and you capture most of the market with much more spectacle than other platforms. Boom, business is taken care of. Switch, even mobile is an outlying market that isn't worth looking seriously into. Even if mobile is 1000x bigger, it's a different product needed.
From the creative side, that connects nicely with the vanity projects. The brass wants to pay for flashy spectacle, they want to make the flashiest spectacles they can make, they're happy. But need more budget to do what they want. And even though it's all terrible when combined, inexplicably the market throws money at the result. So next time they double the budget and expect double the market.
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Game Featured In The Summer Game Fest 2022 Opening Showcase
@Ryu_Niiyama When I think back to the shovelware of the NES, and even the arcades, it reality it wasn't that different from today in terms of taking chances. So much of it was nearly identical clone games following safe formulas, even then. Today, for the most part, the exceptions to the rule are what remain and have floated to the top and we think of it as the full library, but most of the library at the time was, ok, maybe not eShop-bad, but Wii-era shovelware bad at least. With budgets today being so exorbitant, producers and publishers are no doubt tighter on the purse strings and more likely to follow proven templates, Hollywood-style. But I'm not sure they were that much more lenient back then, either. We've just forgotten the massive body of pure junk that existed because most of it isn't still around, and most of us were wise enough to not buy it back then, either.
It wasn't as buggy, though. QA was easier, cheaper, obviously games were simpler, and more importantly with the price of media distribution, it was a necessary expense to avoid a loss, while now it's just a cost line. I think that goes beyond games. It's software in general. Games are the most complex so it's most obvious, but it's been a downward slope for a long time where software used to be designed along rigid engineering principles and tested as such. But demand has been for steadily easier and easier tools to put things together with less and less time and money, relying on more and more powerful hardware to brute force terrible designs for less time and skill to be required to produce anything. Plus the rise of middleware and outsourcing means nobody knows how all the parts actually work, to begin with.
But as for the rest, yeah, you're not wrong. I think it's a clash of roles that end up in the same place. From the top, the producers and financiers certainly are looking for high ROI, brand, etc. They're in it for the money, and increasingly are no longer software people but are media/film people applying the Hollywood approach, or just plain old businesspeople applying the consumer product approach. Back in the 80's most game companies were privately owned, usually by the people making the games. Now they're public companies with investors appointing CEO's who's role is maximizing margin. Of course Yamauchi was the latter and Nintendo ended up Nintendo, but he found a golden cash cow in Miyatmoto by coincidence, who really set the tone.
Re: Round Up: Every Switch Game Featured In The Summer Game Fest 2022 Opening Showcase
@Ryu_Niiyama honestly I don't think it's about money at all. Most devs in the west just seem to be technophiles at heart and just have an interest in making the most visually advanced things technology allows, and that never is Nintendo. I honestly think it's just lack of dev interest. They want to make prestige games, show off their talent and be recognized for achievement. Switch does none of that, even if it makes bank.
If money enters into it it's because one game design sells on 2 consoles and PC, while switch is a whole other thing of. If it was all about money and not ego, they'd never not target mobile...
Re: Nintendo Gives Us A Closer Look At Splatoon 3's Octolings
Furry tentacle girls in leather. Nintendo finally understands this Internet thing!!
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Special Edition Will Be Made Available Again At A Later Date (US)
Please don't release new hardware for the next 10 years Nintendo. You'll make 1 million and be surprised they seem out in 3 seconds.
Re: Random: Donkey Kong's Birthplace Indicates He May Enjoy A Spot Of Tea
@Grahamthecracker The stories in the wild manuals are so hilariously inconsistent. It's like nobody even considered keeping it straight. Stories didn't matter, it was just backdrop for the pretty graphics to them I suppose.
@samuelvictor lol, that's quite the museum of stuff nobody ever wanted The only one on the list I did have was 32x. I returned it like a week later, though, 😆
Re: Random: Donkey Kong's Birthplace Indicates He May Enjoy A Spot Of Tea
@samuelvictor lol, it's probably just Sticker Star traumatic stress disorder kicking in
I have a Virtual Boy, so I have no room to judge
Re: Random: Donkey Kong's Birthplace Indicates He May Enjoy A Spot Of Tea
@samuelvictor Also weird they'd be named kuribo....because their design is that of a shiitake mushroom.....
I think the main coherent theme is there's no coherence in their naming and stories of old. Which makes sense, because Miyamoto famously even today is firmly anti-story and Aonuma has had a heck of a time trying to fit Miyamoto's half-baked stories into a coherent timeline
That's really interesting about Worlds of Wonder and Action Max. I was not aware of any of that! I'm pretty sure the remaining 20 Sears stores would kill for Switches to sell, today!
Re: Random: Donkey Kong's Birthplace Indicates He May Enjoy A Spot Of Tea
@samuelvictor That's amazing to me. Maybe because today you don't really hear slurs against all but a few specific groups that are relentlessly protected to the point of universal self-censorship? Seems so strange that an archaic term like "goomba" would be censored in the UK. Almost comedic. It feels almost like we should censor "yankees" in retaliation or something. Darned limeys....
It is a curiosity though how Nintendo actually picked that word. Obviously it was picked without knowing it was a slur. I can only assume it came from Japan, maybe Miyamoto himself, flipping through some book or media for Brooklyn-Italian phrases and found that thinking meant grunt workers or something? That would be in interesting story to hear. Imagine a games company randomly picking a word that's an ethnic slur today and sticking it in a game as the basic enemy of a kids game!
@Grahamthecracker Well that's interesting. If Jr. is DK's kid, rescuing him from Mario, and that DK was Cranky, does that mean modern DK is actually adult Jr.?!
Re: Random: Donkey Kong's Birthplace Indicates He May Enjoy A Spot Of Tea
@samuelvictor Wow, they censor that there? Censoring Dino should be criminal itself.
Weirdly, here, "goomba" is one of those 1940's terms that doesn't really get seen outside Nintendo these days. Other slurs were more common in more modern times, though I can't say you really even hear those anymore. I don't think most here would even recognize it as something other than a Nintendo thing now. I'd say outside Brooklyn, but I still picture Brooklyn as "Little Italy" and not the avocado toast-stocked rich-kid hipster paradise it apparently is today.
Re: Back Page: So, What Are We Calling This Not-E3 Conference, Anyway?
Not-E3 is meaningful. It highlights the importance that many of us really do place on E3, and everything that the organized, concise, branded, scheduled convention where companies put their best marketing foot forward represents.
It's not E3, maybe it won't be E3 again, but for the time being it really puts a stamp and and, dare I say it, trends , in a way that shows the popular opinion of the value placed on that format and structure, and makes clear there's absolutely demand for that, whether it's put on by ESA or not.
For better or worse, E3 is a brand. It's a brand for a marketing event and trade show, but it's a brand. Apple's product reveals aren't CES. CES is CES. E3 is E3. And I think the press and public calling it "Not-E3" regularly creates a very solid case that the E3 brand and format holds significant sway in popular discourse, and demand exists for something to live up to that void, be it a return of the brand, or a successor to replace it. Keighley's Summer Games Fest, is too informal, loose, and poorly organized to be a functional successor. Big as his ego may be, he's one guy, not a massive organizing institution to assemble numerous multi-billion dollar corporations and hold them to a schedule.
I think companies' marketing divisions that are trying to follow the community touchtones that may have been thinking "we don't need E3 anymore" are following the journalists, the socials, the public, seeing all the "Not-E3" mentions and getting a clear picture of a demand that exists to fill.
Re: Random: Donkey Kong's Birthplace Indicates He May Enjoy A Spot Of Tea
@samuelvictor There's a flaw in that logic. Miyamoto created DK (Cranky) specifically for the US market to utilize Radar Scope cabinets, and from that, Mario (Jumpman) was born.
So, maybe Cranky is American? I mean, the meme builds itself here...
Re: Feature: Will We Finally See These Games In The Not-E3 Nintendo Direct?
@rjejr There's always Embracer....
@Jokerwolf Maybe, I could have sworn it was you Anyway, yeah, maybe 6 years is enough, at least for normal tech companies, but for Nintendo, I'm still not sure they've milked all they can from this one, so it would seem strange for them to change now. The OLED isn't even a year old, and sales are still very strong while their competition is more hamstrung by chip shortages and logistics issues. The chip shortage should go on into 2024 according to Intel, so launching a new hardware platform while their old platform is selling so well, at a time when their competitors are still hamstrung on supply (and would be in a position to eclipse them in supply if Nintendo plunges in during the shortages). If this were the before times, then sure they'd have launched something now. But currently, there's atypical forces in play that make it non-ideal to launch even if the original plan was to do so. Whether they do or not, I still say there's a 0% chance of an announcement beyond "we're always looking at the next hardware" before 12/26/2022. You can tag me and laugh at me publicly if I'm wrong, but I'm putting that one in writing now.
Re: Feature: Will We Finally See These Games In The Not-E3 Nintendo Direct?
@Jokerwolf if you don't think announcing a product is obsolete months before the holiday rush hurts sales, I'm not sure what to tell you.
Whether or not they're doing 2023 switch 2, they're not announcing it in 2022. That's just plain stupidity, and Nintendo isn't that stupid. And I still find it unlikely they're not going to milk an OLED Lite. It's money on the table. Nintendo doesn't leave money on the table. So you might get the monkey's paw version of your "new hardware" this summer in that form. But if you're holding out for a switch 2 announcement in the next 6 months, I think you'll be disappointed. You were expecting one in 2021, too....
Re: Feature: Will We Finally See These Games In The Not-E3 Nintendo Direct?
@Jokerwolf Announcing a "no release date" next gen system now will risk sales though. If they're doing 2023, and I'm still thinking that's too soon for them, but if they are they won't announce until 2023. They're selling well, they're not in a position requiring defensiveness to the board. It's not a WiiU to "NX" situation they had to reveal their hand early even at the cost of current hardware sales. They control the narrative, not the investors right now.
At the most they'll give an "Of course, we are always working on the next hardware iteration with a focus on providing unique Nintendo-like surprises, but have nothing to announce at this time." response to remind investors they're working on new hardware but not in a business cycle to put it forward. That's more for the AGM later in the month than anything public facing, now.
Saying anything now will cannibalize their commanding holiday sales as people wait for a "Switch 2" or buy a PSXB "in the mean-time." Announcing new product announces the end of the current product. That's why Apple still does the "Available today!" thing.
@rjejr Sony should buy Nintendo!
Re: Feature: Will We Finally See These Games In The Not-E3 Nintendo Direct?
@Jokerwolf OLED Lite HAS to drop soon.
Not new hardware overall. They're not going to replace OLED less than a year into it's well-selling life, or announce 2023 hardware before holiday sales of current models. But OLED Lite is so obvious and conspicuously missing.
Re: Feature: Will We Finally See These Games In The Not-E3 Nintendo Direct?
@Grumblevolcano Yeah. I mean, it's Nintendo, whenever you think they'll zig, they unzip the background and do a can-can. But short of Nintendo trolling us, they're pretty much going out of their way to tell us there's no Direct. They're taking E3 week to just make a bunch of twitter drops.
It's the most depressing possible outcome short of Nintendo being bought by Comcast.
Sony's at war with E3. Nintendo's at war with Keighley. Can we get anyone that these companies aren't at political war with to actually coordinate an event with all of them? Maybe China can host it. All the companies love China!
Re: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund Acquires $1 Billion Stake In Embracer Group
Soooooo............this is Prince of Persia related, right?
Re: Apparently There's A 1-2-Switch Sequel In The Works At Nintendo, And Everyone Hates It
At first I thought this was a Knack 2 situation. The company greenlit a sequel based on high sales numbers, without realizing the sales numbers aren't meaningful since the game was a tech demo during a thin launch and people looked for something to buy.
But the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's probably a game meant for Japan that would sell somewhat in the West due to the casual/party playerbase that does have a Switch, even if it's not the core audience. The problem probably isn't that Switch 1-2-2 wouldn't sell well (for better or worse) it's that if it sells and is bad, it would tarnish their image.
Re: Shadow The Hedgehog Joins The Cast Of Netflix's Sonic Prime
@SalvorHardin So far, Pez won NotE3, though.
Re: Feature: Will We Finally See These Games In The Not-E3 Nintendo Direct?
@rjejr Yup. We don't even need bingo cards anymore. We'll just burn them in protest.
Re: Apparently There's A 1-2-Switch Sequel In The Works At Nintendo, And Everyone Hates It
Who at Nintendo actually thought a $60 online-only 1-2 Switch was a good idea? That's one of those ideas Miyamoto should have been there to flip the tea table into people's faces when mentioned.
And expecting a massive physical distribution, to boot? Wow.
Even the description sounds boring. This is like 2007 Wii fare.
Re: Feature: Will We Finally See These Games In The Not-E3 Nintendo Direct?
@Grumblevolcano Totally with you. I thought the XC3 trailer drop was basically confirmation there's no Direct. Otherwise, that would have been for the direct.
Of course that makes Nintendo the only main company not participating in #NotE3 in some way, unless twitter posts count as participation. (Plus Ubi who announced they'll do a show later in the year.)
Re: E3 Will Return In 2023, Assures ESA President
@rjejr Keighley's floundering so badly. I mean props for doing kind of an ok-ish job on it, but it's obvious that compared to the mega-money and know-how of ESA, as bad and blundering as they are, he's just an amateur playing around. ESA absolutely is incompitent. No question, But Keighley is a long, long, long way away from 190ft banners hanging in downtown LA for a few hundred thousand people convening relatively smoothly. ESA really is good at event organizing. They're just bad at everything else.
Gamescon and TGS....they're definitely not E3, that's the problem. Yeah, the US doesn't even know they exist, but the format is really just the show floor, no real presentations. And what we really want are the presentations. Every time I hear about those shows it's like "oh, there's game stuff there?" If they could become the new E3, I wouldn't care about E3. There's no Gamescon Treehouse live, or TGS Sony show hammering it in.
LOL, is that before or after we accidentally declare war on both Russia and China in the same month, and then pretend the economy is fine? It's beautiful. I love how from that post I can't even tell if you're left, right, R, D......it's all a giant merged fail and resignation to the immutable doom. Just as it should be....you're becoming me. It was only a matter of time. Welcome.
Where's Pikmin 4?
Re: New Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Trailer Highlights The Gorgeous World Of Aionios
So no #NintendoE3 huh?
#NintendoInDirect?
Re: E3 Will Return In 2023, Assures ESA President
@rjejr Yeah, I know, and I'm not expecting a revival, but there is demand for it and maybe with a map and both hands, the ESA can eventually locate it's rear end and pull its head out of it. There's a market for a giant gaming convention. and marketers would be fools to turn away a market demanding marketing. But the ESA is too bumbling to market the marketing convention. Can still hope.
2020 was a given, it needed to be cancelled. 2021 was smart, it was a bad show, but they scraped together a salvaged digital event to keep E3 on the map as placeholder. Good plan. I honestly think they were right cancelling the physical conference this year, it was smart, and I think anyone not cancelling these sorts of travel-heavy things still this year is probably insane, or in perpetual denial and beyond hope. BUT why cancel digital? That made no sense, and that erased their claim to holding the event in the future. They had one job - maintain the placeholder and brand. I don't know who made that call but it was either born from publishers just having no interest in E3 (at which point, why pretend there's one next year?) Or they're even more bumbling than I thought (at which point, why pretend they're capable of holding one next year?)
E3 needs to be a thing. ESA just doesn't seem to be the organization to do it, and Keighley is a dude on an ego trip, not a wealthy event organizing institution or industry group. Keightley's grandstanding endangered a real event, but honestly, ESA probably needs to work with him if they're going to pull together a focused week again. Given the number of companies willing to debase themselves enough to work with Keighley (excluding Nintendo and inexplicably including Sony), it's clear there's some interest in holding an organized event at this time of year, even if it's forever digital. The only one stopping them is ESA's incompetence. Even freaking Sony's trying to do it....kinda.
Re: E3 Will Return In 2023, Assures ESA President
@rjejr I want it to happen. I hope it will happen. I just can't see them having an angle to make it happen... But I do hope they have one.
Without the Verizon show and tolerance classes
Re: E3 Will Return In 2023, Assures ESA President
I want E3 to come back terribly, but I also don't how they actually can at this point with how much good will they've squandered at ESA and how they squandered their hold on the event by not hosting a digital show again this year. It would have been much easier to hold onto if they still had had E3-lite this year. I love that there's that twinge of hope for one more year, but getting publishers back on board to do it at this point has got to be ridiculously difficult with what they charge vs what they offer. MS would jump in easily which may set the tone for others. Maybe even Nintendo since they're the only one not doing anything with Keighley and it's in their backyard. I can't see Sony even entertaining the thought of a return, they ended even their own "we're too important for E3" events, because they're too important for themselves, too. And most of the other publishers have moved on to being comfortable with their own thing (or have all been bought up.)
Some want the trade show back, but trade shows, I think are dead forever. What value E3 has left is the public spectacle. And there's room for that. But I'm not sure ESA knows how to do it. And I don't think publishers trust the ESA to do it or are willing to pay their fees. We need someone to organize a new E3 centered around spectacle, incorporating the digital, and making it about tying together one big unified event of events rather than necessarily flying everyone to a single convention center in LA. It can be a broader organized event, not unlike keighley's event but better coordinated with bigger money behind it with more rules keeping everyone at pace, and more authority to pull it all together. And most importantly for one specific week.
The Olympics are evolving starting with Paris to be a central unifying pageant amidst many smaller venues spread throughout France, and extending to the carribbean for kayaking. E3 could evolve the same way. One single convention center is a bad move today. A central show with satellite shows and individual shows could be a good move like the Paris Olympics idea. Heck the biggest shows with MS and Sony were outside the actual show floor anyway, so there's no reason not to embrace that rather than try to gouge publishers more.
I want it back, but, they don't seem to have offered a compelling plan of WHY publishers should pay them after learning their sales didn't plummet without them. We know why WE want it back. ESA needs to figure out how to sell why PUBLISHERS should want it back. Until 2019 it was "because they couldn't afford to miss it". Now publishers know they can. So what can reel them back?
For our part, we still need a venue for Audrey Drake to threaten genocide while playing children's games. Gaming is empty without it.
@EVIL-C LOL, yeah...... there's that....
Re: Gary Bowser Jail Term Intended To "Send A Message" To Other Switch Hackers
I'm surprised they didn't demand his pinky.
Re: Talking Point: Should Sonic Frontiers Be Delayed? We Discuss Its Bizarre Debut And Fan Reaction
Maybe they'll redesign it to start on Eggurocho.
@samuelvictor That's a good point, though I think Dreams is so far removed from platformer gameplay one doesn't try to compare it to Mario. Miyamoto also didn't like DKC 😆
I tend to agree with wanting to repay Sonic more. I always considered the Mario's the staple game but even in the 90s the sonics we're in constant rotation for me.
Re: Talking Point: Should Sonic Frontiers Be Delayed? We Discuss Its Bizarre Debut And Fan Reaction
@Dr_Corndog IDK, CoD dating sim might be the first game in that series I pay money for. That just sounds like a recipe for a good time, unlike Sonic Frontiers.
Re: Talking Point: Should Sonic Frontiers Be Delayed? We Discuss Its Bizarre Debut And Fan Reaction
@samuelvictor Yeah, that really would be interesting. I remember some sort of round table with him and Naka years ago and I remember Naka talking about things Mario was that Sonic wasn't that he'd wished he could have captured, but I don't recall anything Miyamoto said about Sonic that he'd envied, lol. TBH I think the design of Sonic games is fundamentally opposed to most of Miyamoto's design philosophies, I'd be surprised if he did have a lot of positive thoughts on it. It was designed specifically to be the opposite of his own styles, after all.
Re: Hidekazu Yukawa, Former Managing Director Of Sega, Has Passed Away
Finding out he's gone a year late somehow seems so fitting for the man who was the face of the Dreamcast.
Re: Talking Point: Should Sonic Frontiers Be Delayed? We Discuss Its Bizarre Debut And Fan Reaction
"A delayed game is eventually good. Except Sonic. That series has always been carp."
-S. Miyamoto
Re: Random: The Powkiddy X51 Emulation Console Tries To Rope In Switch Fans
How did they manage to make an even worse Joycon and also bundle it with DualShock 3?
Re: Nintendo Confirms It Will Not Attend Gamescom This Year
@westman98 maybe. Believe me I want it to be true. And I want Treehouse back.
I'm just not convinced that Nintendo wants or needs to do their unveilings in June without E3 participation setting their schedule for them. Just like how ubi announced they're not doing June and will do something later in the year, I can see Nintendo doing the September direct instead of June because they already announced the summer games until then and can hype the holiday lineup more then.
Sony kinda sorta did June with a good showing but they attached themselves to Keighley for some unholy reason and Nintendo didn't.
Hopefully you're right though.
Re: Nintendo Confirms It Will Not Attend Gamescom This Year
@Grumblevolcano Yeah I thought of that after I replied but that was a big deal. I was launch day and played entirely D's titles on it the first year.
Still, I'm afraid they'll go for $400 on switch 2. They can probably get away with it, but 😬
There's still external 2023 issues. Continued chip shortages, escalated prices to produce/deliver, and the pending global recession/depression. Launching hardware in 2023 is an expensive gamble, and worse-than-ps5 shortages are nearly guaranteed. That's pretty strenuous on a company not really making money on hardware.
They have to do it at some point but that seems like the worst possible timeline to do it. And they still have big heavy hitting games upcoming.
Re: Feature: Our Predictions For The-E3-That-Isn't E3 - Bayonetta, GoldenEye, And... Viva Piñata?!
@rjejr liquids are just cold gases. Don't let them convince you they're real!
Re: Nintendo Confirms It Will Not Attend Gamescom This Year
@Grumblevolcano true, though the problem with wii to wiiu was that they'd stopped software for Wii, it was in a dead market for years and generally dead then wiiu was a guaranteed fail. DS to 3ds was a five transition. The problem wasn't the transition, it was the price of the replacement.
Also, there's no chance they announce new hardware before Christmas sales. Even if they announce, and I really don't think it's 2023, but it wouldn't be announced until Jan-March. They're not cannibalizing Christmas sales. They did it with switch only because wiiu was long dead to the point they removed it from the website and marketing by then and pretended it didn't exist at all unless you searched for it so there was nothing to cannibalize other then 3ds, so the reveal boosted the ailing brand.
Re: Summer Game Fest Airing "Exclusive New Look" At Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course
@Sonos There's a niche for the type of game. It seems like a big niche on the Internet but it's not a big niche overall. I get it why masochists love it but that's not everyone.
I'd also counter with Kirby. It's easier than most easy platformers but you always remember it positively.
Cuphead is barely a platformer though. It's mostly just a boss battle rush with occasional platforming. Regardless it's just not healthy or fun to play something so infuriating. I get that there's a niche for it, but it's not really for all players.