PikaPhantom

@Zeebor15 Seems like it skipped the states but had physicals elsewhere

I'm surprised that development apparently only began early last year. I would've thought they'd started it sometime after The Touryst, and The Punchuin was a stopgap release to make sure they had something to keep them going, given how polished the game looks and the more complex visuals and mechanics. Definitely says a lot about how efficient Shin'en is for such a small team, because it does not look like the quality's taken a hit anywhere. 100% going to grab this at launch (going for the $450 Switch 2 and then getting Mario Kart physically with some giftcards so I can shave that down by $30, so hopefully I don't have any issues getting a preorder in).

@Zeebor15 Play-Asia at least appears to have a Yakuza 0 physical that is not listed as a game-key card. Campus also did get a Switch physical in the US, so I imagine Museum will have one on Switch

GameCube definitely has the most potential in its NSO library for me. I'd like to see some of the games I spent time with when I was younger - WarioWare: Mega Party Game$, the original Super Monkey Ball games, and Medal of Honor: Frontline being the frontrunners among what was omitted from this list - as well as games I never got the opportunity to play (stuff like Crazy Taxi, and Mario Party 6/7, and Battalion Wars)

Well, in good news, the Street Fighter 6 amiibo will be found in bargain bins before too long. Can't imagine there's a big market for $40 Jamie

Snagged LunarLux. There are some other games I'm mildly interested in this week, but I don't want to be spending too much with the Switch 2 around the corner

@StewdaMegaManNerd There are 32! It's just that 2 locations house 2 tracks each: Crown City and Peach Stadium. Crown City's routes are completely detached from each other, so Peach Stadium's likely will be as well.

@Nintoz People have deduced that Acorn Heights, the Mario Circuit hybrid, and a second route on Peach Stadium are all not part of any of the 7 established cups, and Peach Stadium is in a place where it could connect to Rainbow Road's leaked position on the map. It's seemingly a Special Cup track as per the usual

@Nintendo_Thumb There's no conspiracy there. Nintendo always deletes the archives of their livestreams.

I'm going to wait and see if they roll out a Switch 2 version with mouse support. Using a controller, I struggled with aiming the guns to jump; using a keyboard and mouse, aiming felt much better to me, but I struggled with the base movement. Having the best of both worlds would make this a must-buy for me

I heard this game can stick to 45fps very well on Steam Deck, so hopefully they're pushing for a 40fps mode on Switch 2. Wouldn't make sense for the more powerful hardware to be stuck with a lower framerate given the VRR support. 60fps would be ideal, but might be a bridge too far unless the game runs at 720p or something along those lines

@Citano If nothing else, Doshin the Giant released in the EU and not the US, so it's the only first-party GameCube game North America could get for the first time with a translation intact. It'd be more interesting if they'd actually translate the Japanese-only games, though. I'm most curious to see if they'll try and work out a setup for the handful of GameCube games that relied on Game Boy Advances. If not, I imagine Four Swords Adventures is on the table for a remaster or remake, because GameShare would be perfect for it

Good for them! It's happening anyways

@Yoshi3 Metroid Prime 4 is not open-world, and DK's following the Mario Odyssey formula of open but contained environments

@-wc- They have said the eShop will run much better. Whether it'll actually make for a good experience on its own is unclear

Now that people think the Wii U ports aren't coming, I guarantee they will...but exclusively as Switch 1 releases with no Switch 2 Edition in sight, lol

@Sonicka Shin'en's made up of only a few people. They punch well above their weight, but they're not in a position to make the F-Zero GX sequel people want simply because of how tiny of a team they are

"We'll be scanning our way through Tenmaar as soon as we can" You mean Viewros, right

I can live with this, but I was hoping for Alarmo's 3DS/Wii U-esque menus to carry over here

Yeah, I'm thinking this means they're going for a different feel with the Switch 2 OS. That sound effect doesn't really have the same vibe as the more quirky sounds of the Switch OS. Still has character - I dig it - but it's much more electronic

Would there really be anything preventing them from rolling out all the games over time, as they did for this collection...twice?

Tom Henderson's reporting doesn't make any sense. The holiday season is the October-November timeframe. There can't be a distinct phase 2 set in those 2 months and a distinct phase 3 for the holiday season, realistically. Teams are not going to be able to finish games for October-November if they don't get the devkits until the Switch 2's launch. Nintendo is not going to take a backseat during the holiday season, especially because Pokemon Legends Z-A is all but confirmed to be in the usual November time slot and October consistently has the big (or only) Mario release for every holiday season. Even the existence of a 3-phase plan like that does not sound like Nintendo's approach. The whole thing smells of trying to make sense of talk from GDC that's almost certainly not going to be the full picture.

@VoidofLight @Joeynator3000 @DollyrotsFan1
I think we have reason to be optimistic, especially because DollyrotsFan1 is actually right about what they're aiming for with the casting. Wes Ball outright told the lead of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Owen Teague, that it was a shame he was too old to play Link. Teague is only 26, and presumably, they'll want actors within the same age range for Link and Zelda, so that means late teens or early 20s for them both. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kajXJrqSkJU
But I would think it's also important to consider the rest of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes's casting. If you go over to the Wikipedia page for the movie and look through the names...generally, the list is made up of less prominent actors, some of which have relatively few roles with others generally not being in blockbuster projects. 4 don't even have their own articles. Whereas Illumination unsurprisingly pushed for major celebrities with the Mario movie, it seems like Wes Ball could care less about star power, and if he has his way, then I imagine we'll be getting up-and-comers for Link and Zelda with maybe Ganon and Impa going to more established, but still less mainstream, actors

I really wish I wasn't limited to just 3 choices and could mark off everything I'm interested in. All the first-party titles, Patapon, Shadow Labyrinth, the Monument Valley games, Star Overdrive, and The Eternal Life of Goldman are very much on my radar. Fantasy Life i is looking rough on Switch, but if it doesn't have a solid Switch 2 version I'll at least consider a buy on PC. Some other things also intrigued me, at least to an extent, like Dragon Quest, Raidou, and Everybody's Golf.

Scarlet and Violet absolutely need it the most, though I would hope that even just it running natively on the Switch 2 could get the game to a stable 30fps. I voted for Astral Chain otherwise, though. I enjoyed the time I put into it, but it's the kind of game that really should be at 60fps, and that boost would make me go back. Would also love to see Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the Pikmin titles, the Zelda games (every single new one plus Link's Awakening), Xenoblade X, and Luigi's Mansion 2 HD/3 get boosts, and for Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition to hit 60fps in handheld. However, I'm still not convinced that this won't just be their branding for cross-generation releases. I think Nintendo is more likely to just issue patches for most games instead of overhauling anything visually, with maybe a few exceptions (BOTW is rumored to get the full treatment, and I imagine some partner companies/subsidiaries will have free rein to do as they please - a Xenoblade 2: Definitive Edition feels inevitable to me, especially now that X is no longer the black sheep of the series).

I really bounced off Alba - the only game I've tried from ustwo before - but I've always liked the look of these games and was interested in seeing them come to Switch. I do have the second one available via Apple Arcade, but the vertical aspect ratio does not mix great with my iPad. Did they adapt the games for a controller on PC or just force you to use the mouse?

I don't quite understand why the conversation about this seems to be centering around upgrades for existing Switch games when it's very likely this will be an umbrella term that also includes cross-generation Switch releases, or even solely refer to them. You can't tell me that after they refused to date any of the first-party games shown off today, they won't see dedicated Switch 2 versions. I know Nintendo marches to the beat of their own drum, but why would they bother with Switch-only releases when Sony and Microsoft simply haven't? Doing that presents a number of issues. I think there will be a not insignificant number of people who won't pay attention to any Switch games once the new system is out. People like to move on to the new thing. It would also limit availability to an extent. Depending on how the Switch fares after the Switch 2's release, retailers will likely slowly phase out Switch products. Tomodachi Life sold great on 3DS. Living the Dream could become an evergreen seller. But I don't think it'll be able to if it's only on Switch.

Mario Kart consistently sells well. Differences in attach rates have more to do with the consoles in question and how many people bought them. And it's very clear they're making sure the game offers a different experience from 8 just by doubling the racer count.

There's a 99% chance this is going to be Smash 64 coming to NSO lol

Wasn't this already confirmed for physical release alongside the game's formal unveiling? The website doesn't include any reference to it being limited-time...

@JustMonika Those names are shared with 2 of their more prominent singles lol

@Grumblevolcano Do you really think they're holding the Switch 2 Experience events just for people to see the new hardware and maybe the menus because they haven't announced any games yet

@JustMonika What does Coldplay have to do with anything here?

Nintendo is a strange company that makes strange decisions. None of this sounds like the kind of stunt they'd pull, and it doesn't seem to add up properly either. October and November are the holiday release window. How would phase 3 not just overlap with phase 2? Why would Nintendo pull back in the holiday window, which is all but confirmed to have Legends Z-A (which is seemingly planned to be cross-gen based on some late information from the gigaleaker regarding references to "Super Ikkaku") and will almost certainly have a new 3D Mario based on past precedent? How would developers expect to have ports out in just 4 months? This just seems like the result of Tom reporting guesswork and conjecture from whoever he spoke to at GDC.

@VoidofLight If nothing else, they should be implemented into Champions, which will not only be interesting because of how they'll translate Mega Evolutions designed for a different battle system into the series standard, but should probably also guarantee their presence in Home. Z-A being set entirely within Lumiose also doesn't lend itself well to the idea of regional variants, though it will be a shame if there aren't any new evolutions. Centro unsurprisingly deleted the post (it does look like it was fanart - didn't think to check until now - but it was being discussed before he made a post about it, and in general it's looking like we have a consistent idea of what Megas are planned. So if it is fake, they've certainly tried to coordinate things).

@VoidofLight My understanding is that all this information is circulating because of the gigaleak, and that despite the leaker claiming he would keep Z-A to himself, details got out anyways. A lot of what's been said has apparently been relayed from some Discord server. Centro outright shared an image of a Mega Evolution that's clearly a notable spoiler when it comes to the plot, though in what context is ambiguous. And before Pyoro mentioned the number of Megas, he said that "thousands of people" had already found out about it. We're just seeing the surface-level coverage.

This update alone means it's gonna be like 5 years until this thing has a respectable library instead of 3, if the precedent is being established for small updates like this. At least they didn't leave out most of the soundtrack for Splatoon 3 or New Horizons

Looks promising, but I'd rather pick it up on a modern platform even though I could play it on original hardware

@Zeebor15 The last news update on their website says they were closing...for the 2024-2025 New Year's Holidays. I imagine they're fine

Gonna act like Nintendo will reject Palworld coming to Switch because of the lawsuit when another Pocketpair game came to Switch just a few months ago, huh?

...Guessing the author isn't familiar with the Deltarune Tomorrow meme, which is what all the Silksong Tomorrow jokes are riffing on

Picked up Xenoblade X physically and then got Breakout Beyond preordered. Would've waited for reviews but I wanted the Gold Points, in all honesty

I do wonder how many indie developers managed to get Switch 2 devkits. I imagine all the major indie publishers have them already, but Ruffy appears to be the first game published by Phiphen Games, so perhaps it extends even to some select smaller partners

Had a good time with the Steam demo. Feels like the open-world adventure game with platforming mechanics I've been waiting to see

@tabris95 Good thing you're getting the Director's Cut for free, then

@Joker1234 Fire Emblem has 2 mainline games and Metroid will soon!

@LikelySatan It does sound like there are instrumental versions of the vocal tracks now you can toggle. Not sure about battle voices

@gonzilla They reconfirmed it for Switch early last month, and analysis of the footage suggests it was Switch gameplay they showed (especially because the framerate wasn't actually a locked 60fps). Nintendo also tends to announce larger titles, or at least ones further away from releasing, with simple teaser trailers. I do think the reason why we haven't heard anything since is because it's slated to release on Switch 2 as well, but it is something they have repeatedly indicated is still coming to the original Switch.

@Tasuki A game that's had new footage of it shown off within the last year does not count as vaporware

@gonzilla Every time Nintendo has given us their release schedule at their financial meetings for years now, Prime 4 has shown up as a Switch game