PikaPhantom

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

It's as simple as shelf life and basic psychology, I'd say. If Metroid Prime 4 only releases on Switch, then you're restricting just how long the game is on store shelves for. If Switch game sales slow to a crawl, you're going to see the retail stock of physical Switch games get relegated off to the side. Putting the game on Switch 2 is likely the difference between it spending, at best, 4-5 years on store shelves (and likely less if people move on from the Switch the way they did from the 3DS - game sales have already slowed down big time outside of fringe cases like Mario Party and, inevitably, Pokemon), and being there for much longer should the game do well. And Nintendo obviously wants it to; it is one of the most AAA-looking games we've ever seen come from them
When was the last time a Nintendo game had motion capture like what we saw in the reveal? I think many who do upgrade to the Switch 2 also aren't likely to look back at what's releasing on Switch. We consistently want the shiny new thing. Keeping anything on Switch-only after the Switch 2 is out sends a message that it is outdated. Even something like Legends Z-A (note that one of the last tidbits we got from the Game Freak gigaleaker is that "Super Ikkaku," ostensibly a Switch 2 version of Z-A, is in fact coming). It doesn't matter how well Prime 4 reviews - if there's not a shiny new version on Switch 2 on store shelves, it's not going to get as much attention. It is the best chance for Metroid to achieve wider popularity and maintain more evergreen sales. And it's not even like the game will be gimped on Switch to accommodate the successor. It's already looking like a contender for the Switch's best-looking game, period.

@nocdaes The product code in the filing matches with those for the Switch 2. It's not likely to be compatible with Switch 1.

@StewdaMegaManNerd Nope. It was surprisingly fleshed out and ambitious. I wouldn't expect it until late this year, but I imagine there'll be a second round of playtesting on a larger scale with less secrecy.

@StewdaMegaManNerd I can't tell if this is a joke or not, but I was part of the playtest and it is very much its own thing, with a distinct world, playable characters whose designs inform what they're able to do, and a full soundtrack

I've heard this game is one of the best-optimized games running on Unreal Engine 5, so I hope they're able to squeeze enough out of a dedicated Switch 2 build to manage the 60fps the Steam Deck version can't fully manage despite running above 40fps and often into the 50s. Granted, it'd be nice in general if the Switch 2 was equipped with VRR, since my brief experience with 40fps has suggested it feels a lot closer to 60fps than one might expect, but Nintendo opting for a 120Hz screen seems very unlikely, haha.

But are there Minis on the move?

Picked up Mainframes, but I think that's about the extent of what I'm interested in this week. Which is fine, since I'm eyeing other purchases of games or DLC that don't really get discounted anymore so I can at least get a bit back on them via Gold Points.

@Dom_31 An average of a game a month is not jacksquat regardless of whether you cared about any of the releases or not. Sony would kill to have 11-12 exclusive games (counting Fitness Boxing 3) in a year these days

Weird decision to single out Mario vs. Donkey Kong when it reviewed better than Princess Peach: Showtime!, Nintendo World Championships, and Emio and roughly on par with Luigi's Mansion 2 HD and Brothership. It's a perfect comfort food game for me. Not anything stellar, but it's a satisfying little game that reminds me of some of the flash games I used to love.

I really don't understand how rumors of the 3D Mario team making a DK game, with 2D being emphasized (and them also hiring for a 2D game), have somehow either morphed into "3D DK is coming back!" or "the new 3D Mario is going to be a team-up with Donkey Kong!" Nintendo doesn't rely on crossovers to generate interest in stuff. I'm sure they can come up with something better than "we put the ape in 3D Mario" in terms of theming. I also don't get why so many people are predicting Splatoon 4. They just ran the Grand Festival! They only just had the theming for the next game set up for them. And while it's not really clear what "Past" will entail, it's not likely to have the same kind of 2-year turnaround that Splatoon 2 did, where it was just a matter of adjusting the plot in the campaign so that Marie was your companion character and Callie was part of the final boss. It's much more likely to influence the entire tone of the game the way Chaos did for Splatoon 3. If we see anything Splatoon-related in the next 2-3 years, it's going to be the series' first spinoff. Animal Crossing is quite a bit more likely to show up (there is really not that much overlap between its developers and the Splatoon team, contrary to popular belief) and I still don't think we're likely to see it until 2026.

I'm personally expecting to see 3D Mario, whatever casual-oriented launch title (maybe Switch Sports 2 since there's seemingly a codename tied to it floating around) and digital game they'll probably have on offer, and the NSO Playtest game for sure, with there being a good chance of seeing new games from Next Level Games and Monolith Soft, a new 2D DK (they are pushing this series so, so hard right now), and something tied to Zelda in some way. As for third-party, I expect to see a lot of old games (e.g. Hi-Fi Rush, Elden Ring, Jedi Fallen Order) with some 2025 game releases and a fair few brand-new titles (Square Enix hasn't announced anything new since the June Direct, apparently, and for Capcom, that leaked Power Stone remake from years ago feels like the kind of thing they'd gear towards the Nintendo crowd?)

@Zeebor15 Doomguy appeared as a playable character in the PC version of Pro Skater 3. They're just expanding on that

I'm not particularly interested in this game, but I'm glad it's doing well. Maybe they'll finally do another console RPG based on the trading card game, considering that Let's Go followed Pokemon Go's enormous success

@somnabulance I played the demo for MainFrames on Steam and had a good time with it. It ironically felt smoother with a controller, with the mouse movement to reposition windows containing platforms feeling jarring

My understanding is that Level-5 Comcept wasn't closed and was instead rebranded as Level-5 Osaka. Is there evidence to the contrary?

@FX102A Legends games are officially considered mainline, they're just deliberately more experimental titles

https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/big-3-valve-steam-ces-2025-analysis/
I didn't think this article could get any more funny to me, but somehow it's been done

I think Nintendo will do what they can to maintain a regular cadence of releases even with development times increasing. They've sought out many new partnerships in the last few years, collaborating with Mages, WayForward, ArtePiazza, Acquire, Arc System Works, and Forever Entertainment for the first time (with more reportedly to come). They're investing heavily in their own internal development - EPD in particular has been the focus with their new construction, but Monolith Soft has also expanded greatly, and NST seems to be getting rebuilt into a full development studio again. They've been leveraging more recent partnerships like the one they've established with Tantalus Media, and they've even rekindled some more dormant ones, as we've seen with Eighting in particular. They've also not been shying away from outsourcing parts of development - again, Eighting was responsible for a lot of Pikmin 4, and the Thousand-Year Door remake was apparently largely the work of TOSE rather than Intelligent Systems. I fully expect this strategy to continue with things like Cygames getting contracted to work on a console title for Nintendo, or getting Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio to fit an F-Zero GX remaster into their schedule (they seem insanely efficient, so it doesn't feel impossible that they can't), or them revisiting their indie collaboration strategy that gave us Snipperclips, The Stretchers, Cadence of Hyrule, and Good Job!. To expect only 6 new games a year feels woefully pessimistic, especially because I think even Microsoft and Sony managed better than that in the Xbox One/PS4 era. (Well, maybe not Microsoft, but they're special.) I would be surprised if we get less than 10, at least to start.

@Paulo They did rely a lot on older games, but I'm tired of hearing this. Of the 40+ first-party Wii U games, only around a dozen were brought to Switch. Nintendo just dumped a bunch of them (4) into 2018 and managed to create a stigma that's followed the Switch for its entire life, even though every other year saw 2 Wii U ports at most, and we didn't even get any for a 4-year period between Super Mario 3D World and Xenoblade Chronicles X. They have very little incentive to do the same on Switch 2, which is why I expect we'll see them really rely on the GameCube, Wii, and 3DS libraries with the odd Wii U game here or there (Kirby and the Rainbow Curse feels primed to come back via the Mouse-Con mode and there are a few other stragglers like Pushmo World and Yoshi's Woolly World that could come over). I don't anticipate any of those systems getting NSO apps, though I think there's a slim chance they have Virtual Console-style releases for those platforms specifically for games they're almost certainly not going to remaster (e.g. any Mario Kart or Mario Party), likely using the same base as the Pikmin 1+2 Switch ports.

Even the indies seem itching to move on from Switch - over a dozen games at the show were confirmed for every current platform but it, by the looks of things. We'll be eating good on Switch 2, though, especially because I imagine the vast majority of indies will run at 60fps.

Well, Pyoro's teased over on BlueSky that a multiplayer project developed by ILCA, Game Freak, and apparently The Pokemon Company itself codenamed "Synapse" that was uncovered during the Game Freak gigaleak will show up. So this is going to be the most interesting Pokemon Presents in years on account of that and Z-A showing up. 2 non-mobile announcements (maybe) - imagine that

Where's the option for Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD

@Sylamp
That question can actually be answered pretty easily...and it's a yes. The Game Freak gigaleaker resurfaced last month with a few new tidbits of information, one of which was the codename "Super Ikkaku," implying that Z-A (codenamed Ikkaku) will release on both platforms

@quinnyboy58 Yeah, they already use AI to automate takedowns of stuff
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/24/24252410/nintendo-dmca-notices-mario-fan-art-ai-image-detection

...Looking at the source, at no point do they claim CrossWorlds has the biggest character roster in series history

@Fighting_Game_Loser Steam actually lists Sonic Team as the developer this time around

@Serpenterror The fact they're even making a Switch version will probably (hopefully) translate to a 60fps version on Switch 2

Kinda funny that, as of right now, it doesn't look like this game is going to be the multiverse game people were speculating it would be or All-Stars Racing 3 under a new name. Though I wouldn't be surprised if there's still some crossover content that just isn't the focus, since Sega does kind of love their crossovers (especially with Super Monkey Ball)

Frankly, I expect them to develop the sequel with the Switch 2 as the target platform. I don't think you really need to harness the extra power of the PS5/Xbox Series X with the kind of artstyle Okami has?

@Anachronism Fire Emblem Warriors, Sushi Strikers, and Captain Toad were all cross-generation 3DS/Switch releases