Otoemetry

@dew12333 it's just years of paying attention to the UK charts and knowing that Xenoblade games never set them on fire over here, obviously we can't know for sure if it's been a success (I would be surprised if it didn't sell more than the roughly 800,000 units of the Wii U version but we'll have to wait on that) until Nintendo releases its sales numbers. The UK has particular tastes and historically speaking it has been a weaker market for Nintendo, yes you can say that about any country but in most of Nintendo's other major markets they do much better proportionately than they do here. We're not even the biggest market in Europe 😆

I cannot believe they saved this for last

@AlanaHagues useful guide, thank you! Just fyi there's some missing text just before the "on this page" selection thingie, the previous paragraph finishes with a lone 'what' so you might want to tidy that up 😜

@GrailUK they cannot go higher than 160 million since it's on record that they didn't manufacture more than 160.2 million, apparently they made a video (in characteristic Sony hubris) stamping the final console they made with the number so it's not possible to increase the number further than that. Wouldn't put it past them to create a "mini" PS2 in an effort to inflate the numbers further of course 😜

Also petition to rename @dartmonkey Birt, when?

When Birt was talking about sweetmeats I genuinely thought he meant offal, turns out I was very much mistaken there 😅

@Eel English not being your first language is probably the barrier here, especially with anything using r sounds since English is quite unique in how we pronounce them. Most of the rest of the world (or at least in languages in which the sound actually appears, many use L sounds as a substitute instead) use either the tip of the tongue to "trill" the r sound or it's in the back of the throat to make a more gutteral sound, both are known as "rolling" your Rs in English and a great many native speakers struggle with it... though the trill can still be heard in the Old Hollywood "Transatlantic" accent that some older (usually posh) people still use.
The r sound in English is mostly formed using a depressed tongue shifting the sound towards the centre of the mouth while squeezing the esophagus and partly pursing your lips, it's quite unusual linguistically speaking (or at least that's what the person whose video I watched said! 😅) and it's part of a generational shift away from the other ways of saying the sound. It's similar to how people tend to say a ch sound for words beginning with t such as tuna and tune, most young (southern) English people will say choon instead of pronouncing the t and certainly don't bother making a point of including the you sound unless they're trying to sound like the queen. Anyway I've rambled on enough for now, linguistics is cool yo

@Eel English plays fast and loose with grammar, what can I say. You would never in a million years make a ch sound when pronouncing Christmas lest everyone around you think you'd gone mad, even calling someone named Tristan's birthday "Tristmas" would sound odd.

I'm not an etymologist but there are a bunch of words with ancient greek roots what begin with a ch yet are pronounced with a k sound, words like character, chorus, the aforementioned chaos etc where a ch sound would sound very weird. I think it's probably the interaction of Greek, Latin, French, and German within English that has made this strange situation but as I said earlier English just does it that way for some reason. Probably all the invasions and then all the invading

Hey @Olliemar28 this article isn't appearing on your main page for some reason, thought I'd let you know. Had to find it by scrolling back to last week and clicking the UK chart tag from the previous article posted on Friday

@fenlix because they only track physical sales in the UK

@Patendo the root word is Greek so you should use a kh sound, same as for chaotic and Christmas

@_fatto_katto_ yes but it's quite an unusual one, most people do not pronounce chasm with a ch sound like he does.

@AlanaHagues that's a shame, as a Nintendo only gamer I hadn't even heard of it until it popped up on my Switch's news feed and was hoping to hear about it from nl but I do understand how difficult it must be to cover everything when there is so much being released each month.
Please consider reviewing it if there is any spare capacity in the coming weeks before XCX:DE drops 😉

@AlanaHagues any idea why Ultros hasn't been reviewed? I'm curious why a seemingly decent game with striking visuals garnered zero attention on this site

I am so ready, can't come quickly enough!

I actually think the controls on the Wii are a VAST improvement compared to traditional controller options, they felt like you were actually wielding a brush rather than desperately trying to contort a joystick to get the right shape

@HeadPirate omg don't get me started on Trek "fans" hating the new shows, no-one (and I mean this quite literally) hates Star Trek as much as Star Trek fans!

@RupeeClock crikey that sounds like a nightmare! Thanks for explaining 🙂

@JohnnyMind in my experience the game sinks its hooks into you way before the difficulty spikes so it's not like you're smashing yourself into the difficulty wall for no reason or anything, it truly is a wonderful game

@JohnnyMind you really should play Hollow Knight before you decide to buy SilkSong, the game isn't for everyone and can test the patience of even the most die hard Souls-like fan. If you can make your fingers do that "muscle memory" thing where you hardly even need to think about the controls then you'll have a whale of a time, I struggled with some of the late game bosses (and that's not even mentioning the post-game pantheons!) but my desire to see the multiple endings dragged me through eventually... even if not for that final best ending 😅

@RupeeClock what does ARG mean? I looked it up and I can't imagine why would a picture of a cake would imply an alternate reality game... Pls explain, I am confusion!

Why is this app not on the Switch itself? Excuse my ignorance if it is but wouldn't it be a perfect addition to the NSO offerings

@HammerGalladeBro I think it's because they can't do like a third of a percent, I'm sure I read a comment explaining that once

@MirrorFate2 you can actually see the bones of what they originally planned to include at the end of the game but had to cut, I hope they will use those shelved ideas in the sequel because I always felt like there was something missing

@Vyacheslav333 there's a trash can icon next to every entry on your wishlist, you don't need to open the game's page to remove it just click on the trash can icon. It's very simple

@Purgatorium is this another 'skimpy bikini removed from 13 year old character's costume list' a la Xenoblade Chronicles X?

@BTB20 please see comments above to understand what I mean, they aren't figures reported in official company records and don't even match the numbers on another one of their own websites

@Folkloner @sunnyboy top tier comments, @Liam_Doolan this needs to be an investigative feature! 😜

I don't consider this to be "officially confirming" the 160 million figure, it's merely some tech guy popping Jim Ryan's claim on this website to give it a false sense of authority. Only when Sony's company reports list the figure will I believe it.

@Vyacheslav333 I don't think that's possible since I read that their company records state they only manufactured 161 million of them, though I wasn't actually able to find proof of this claim only an article stating it as fact

@IceEarthGuard you are wrong I'm afraid, @BANJO is correct. The only way this would be the Switch's 7th year on the market is if you ignore the fact that 2017-18 was its 1st.

@JimNorman is there something going on with the UK charts at the moment? Two Mondays in a row now we've not had any reports posted ☹️

@JimNorman no UK charts this week? Desperate to see how M&L and Jamboree are doing!

OMGGGGGGG 🤯😍😍😍
I had no idea there was even an anime! I'm so excited by all this, Sakuna was amazing. So many great announcements lately 🎉🥳🎊

If the OG Switch sells this many units every week it will pass the 20 million mark in less than 4 months, considering its age and the fact that the OLED is so popular this is astonishing!

@LikelySatan edit: so I wanted to double check the veracity of my little factoid and turns out I was mistaken, guess that is what you get for reading internet comment sections and not checking something before you pass it on 😅

@NintendoWife it's definitely its own beast, less story driven and more exploration heavy than the numbered sequels, however there are also series standards that are just quintessentially "Xenoblade" so I think it's a good entry into the franchise. Barring one or two infamous clunkers the music in X is sublime, I used to just roam the enormous world listening to the music because it is so amazing... the Noctilum and Sylvalum biome themes in particular are spectacular!
I envy newcomers to the series because this really is the most underrated game of the Wii U era and you're in for a treat!

This announcement has given me a reason to look forward to something after the death of my sister this March, I was dreading the anniversary and as much as I know it will still be incredibly difficult at least Nintendo has given me this dream come true distraction ❤️

@Shepdawg1 agreed! I don't think it'll happen but it's the last game I really want to come to Switch

@Geit_de that's what I thought, testing their capacity to bring the MMO stuff from XCX to Switch on a larger scale than what was on Wii U

Literally don't notice which is weird because I definitely noticed in the Link's Awakening port, though I was not particularly bothered.

Didn't vote in the second pool because it wasn't an option to say that I noticed but didn't care.

Super helpful, thanks @AlanaHagues

@axelhander what? Now I know you're just trolling.

@axelhander I don't appreciate your inference that I'm dumb based on an erroneous assumption that I've watched a video when I've no idea to whom or what you're referring. You are wrong here, generative AI models take artworks created by human artists and use them to "learn" how to recreate those styles in different ways. I have several artist friends who have had their art stolen in this way and it absolutely is theft, the model's purpose is to take the human creative out of the equation therefore you're stealing the years that artist has spent honing their craft. Genuinely do not understand your position on this, if you create an artwork you own it, it's very simple.

@ChromaticDracula did you find out about the physical cart? Definitely interested in picking it up physically 🙂

@axelhander I won't disagree that AI can be an incredible tool for good, however there are different kinds of AI and the excellent tools aren't the ones being used here... GenAI models are built on mass scale art theft (current AI techbros are trying to argue than anything posted publicly on the internet is fair game with incredible disregard to copyright and ownership law) and using them to generate assets as they have done here is simply stealing from enough people to smoosh enough parts together to get something out the other end that looks vaguely original.
Machine learning to aid in disease detection, AI processed upscaling, these are useful applications for the tech but unfortunately the worst people in society are actively pushing AI to replace artists and I really don't think that's ok

@GravyThief I came to say something similar, AI currently has such a broad meaning it's partly useless in actually explaining what's going on. AI being used to upgrade textures during a remaster of an old game? Brilliant time saver for time-pressed devs. Generative AI models used to supplant real life human artists and create art assets for corporations who don't want to pay for human creativity? Awful product of late-stage capitalism where the never ending quest for higher profits enshittifies everything around us... and probable copyright theft depending on the model used.

(Edit: AI can also be used in other settings that I didn't think were necessary to mention, but the data processing gravy thief spoke about is an excellent use of AI in medicine for things like cancer detection. Machine learning can be put to excellent use where humans could not hope to compete, it's the creative arts where AI has to steal from unwilling creators in order to concoct an amalgamation from the pieces where I think the profit motive is currently pushing the tech in order to get in on the creative pie without any of the necessary skills or dedication)

@PinballBuzzbro level 5 is not a Nintendo owned developer

@axelhander generative AI models aren't inventing anything, they're fed stolen artworks (by huge numbers of unknown artists who were never asked if they agreed for their property to be used in such a way) scraped from the internet by shady developers. GenAI is theft, simple. Plus it has enormous environmental costs as a result of the processing power required, Google's emissions rocketed by either 50% or 150% (sorry I can't remember which is the right figure) solely due to the increased consumption needed to run their AI programs