Qwiff

Old Skies. The Switch release was delayed, so playing on a laptop instead.

I'm busy developing my own game and can't muster the energy to play games as a hobby anymore. So on the rare occasion I do play a game, it's a title I've really been looking forward to. So far, Old Skies exceeds my expectations.

Bought it on Steam instead. Playing on a laptop with a controller, the experience is similar to Switch tabletop mode. So far, it's even better than I expected. This might very well turn out to be Wadjet Eye's magnum opus.

Argh! I had today marked in the calendar and was checking the e-shop over lunch. Was really looking forward to this.

@Yalloo Are you having a bad day or something? For an indie dev, having a title available on the planned launch day is extremely important, since games only get a small window of attention. Switch is their only console platform, so it's good that they explain this last-minute delay. They're not blaming anyone here.

Played it on PC for a few hours yesterday evening, but, for me, it lacks the sense of exploration that make later Bethesda games so memorable. Fallout 3/4 and Skyrim have specially designed dungeon/locations that make exploration so rewarding. In Oblivion, the dungeons feel very generic. I'm sure the overall quests are great, but I don't care about that, tbh.

Cancelled the GP subscription and got a full refund for the month. Say what you will about Microsoft, their refund policy is customer-friendly.

Time Splitters 3. I think it's superior to TS2 in every way.

Also, SSX3 would be welcome. I'd choose it over 1080 Avalanche, tbh. NSO already has N64 1080 anyway.

Regardless of how I feel about subscription services, this is a fantastic addition. Played the heck out of it back in the day. And I'm not even a huge fan of fighting games.

I tried playing later entries on other hardware, but I'll always associate this game with the GC controller, so SC2 remains my go-to fighting game. Seung Mina is my favourite character, because of her long reach. IIRC she's an unlockable character.

Most likely, the removal of the mention of docked VRR output has to do with lack of support on most TVs. They don't want to advertise the feature too prominently. Apparently, the PS5 has problems with VRR output in some games, so it may be smart to keep this feature low profile anyway.

Personally, I don't care about docked VRR since my TV does not support it and I'm not upgrading it anytime soon. Having VRR as a core feature will pay dividends over time, however. It really is a game changer.

@electrolite77 Correct. The low memory bandwidth of the Wii U was its biggest problem. Only ~13Gb/sec, compared to ~22Gb/sec for X360.

If they port it, I hope that they address the biggest issue I had with Skyrim and that is the inability to change the brightness. Even cranking up the OLED to max brightness, the game is just too dark in places.

As for the immediate future, I'll be playing this on a gaming laptop. I haven't gamed since early February, so I'm ready to dig into something substantial.

For the price, it's competitive. It feels good that they're swinging for the fences, with the bigger screen, higher res, 120Hz and VRR.

However, the reduction is battery life is a concern. Hopefully the stated 2-hour battery life is the absolute minimum and is tested against the most demanding games running at maximum speed and brightness.

On the OG 2017, I frequently ran into low battery while being engrossed in BOTW. The Switch being a new concept back then, I could understand it, but it was definitely a nuisance.

The new DK looks very interesting (I love destruction mechanics!) and might even make me want to "switch", but the limited battery life is the one glaring flaw that is giving me pause. Just 2 hours for playing, presumably, AAA games is too much of a step back. It's worse than the 2017 OG, let alone the 2019 and OLED revisions.

My thoughts about the game prices is that we can expect fewer first-party titles this generation. The increase in price is there to offset the loss in revenue.

For one, games take longer to make, typically 5-6 years turnaround (TOTK). The new DK has been in development for probably longer than that. It's by the same team that created Odyssey, a game that came out almost 8 years ago.

Second, they cannot rely on porting the Wii U back catalogue anymore. The Switch has been such a success partly due to the failure of the Wii U.

So if my prediction is correct, the average customer might very well, in total, spend about the same amount of money on first-party games during the S2 lifecycle.

The silver lining is that this version can be used on an S1 as well. The games are still fantastic, regardless of the differences in performance.

This also indicates that no dedicated S2 cart is needed to achieve the faster loading times, which is one of the touted benefits. My guess is the faster loading is due to the S2's increased memory bandwidth and faster decompression. On S1, BOTW and TOTK already temporarily boost the clock speed during the loading screens to improve decompression rate.

@JoaoCGS My guess is that the S1 cartridge will act as a Game Key, meaning that you're playing the S2 digital version after the upgrade.

@shoeses Fact check: the entire world has experienced post-Covid inflation. It's not a problem unique to the US. Why do you think it's caused by the government? It's not. It's just market forces.

@Jeronan Technically speaking, if a GPU is capable of 4K output, then it's also capable of native 4K output. Games with simple shading models might be able to reach native 4K/60 when docked. But, yes, the vast majority of games will need upscaling to get to 4K, that's true.

For handheld mode, upscaling might be even more necessary to reach 1080p.

yeah, OLED the does look nice, and in games like Inside and Metroid Dread it really makes a huge difference.

But in the long run, for me, the biggest benefits of the S1 OLED turned out to be 1) the improved kickstand and 2) the larger screen. S2 has both.

As much as I love BOTW and TOTK, you do spend a significant amount in menus, so any speed-up helps.

I hope they also bring over the other menu/UX improvements from TOTK to BOTW.

I hope the upgrade brings the menu QoL improvements from TOTK to BOTW.

@G4n0nD0rf Rumours indicate the S2 dock supports HDMI 2.1. Google "Realtek RTD2175N-CG" for more info.

@vio Emulation. The official sites have interviews with the engineers. Worth a read for everyone interested.

https://www.nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-16-nintendo-switch-2-part-4/

@Toastmaster Not holding my breath for a price drop, but I'll wait until there are more S2 games available. The new MK doesn't interest me, tbh.

120Hz displays can also provide a clean 40 FPS experience. So definitely a good upgrade!

My dream DLC for TOTK would have been you playing as Zelda during the Imprisoning War. This is the closest we're going to get, so I'm interested.

@Mario500 Variable Refresh Rate

VRR would be icing on the cake, but the specs are already very impressive.

EDIT: the official sites now mention support for VRR, although they don't state explicitly if it applies to the built-in display or the docked output. But, yes, the display is almost certainly VRR-capable. That might be one of the reasons for the high price.

I'm seeing a price of EUR 499 listed. That would be a significant price hike if true.

EDIT: So EUR 469 it is. Slightly disappointing, tbh, because they said affordability was something they had taken into consideration. Yet understandable, with inflation, uncertainty and a weak Yen.

For me, it's too expensive to consider for a day one purchase, but I'll definitely get it further down the line. MP4 will be on S1 anyway, so not missing out on the one game I'm really looking forward to.

Top Secret! is my favourite film with him in the starring role. Great comedy, when you're in need of a laugh.

Willow is one of the few 80s fantasy films that I haven't seen yet, will add it to the watch list.

Like most MS-related hardware, the confusing marketing will be its undoing.

Perfect for late-night gaming. Wired headphone support was definitely missing. If they also improve the quality of the D-pad, the Pro would be pretty much the perfect controller.

This timeline makes sense. Most indie games work fine on S1, so no point in limiting your audience to S2, at least not this early in the console's lifecycle.

Yeah, this was the best time for these announcements, just before the S2 showcase, otherwise very few people would still be paying attention, this late in the S1 lifecycle. The MP4 trailer was nice, but no release date was disappointing.

Painterly style looks great. At first, I thought they were showing concept art, but it seems this is all in-game footage.

I'm not optimistic about the release date being revealed anytime soon, though. Why show the trailer now if it's going to be a cross-gen launch title for S2? They could've saved this trailer for next week.

So kind of like how people still prefer SSB Melee to the titles that followed.

Like I said earlier, now is the the best time to have a new Direct, as all eyes are on Nintendo anyway. But I'm surprised that it's not an Indie or Partner showcase specifically, so looking forward to what's left in store for S1.

Hopefully this Direct brings a concrete MP4 release date. I won't have much time for gaming this year, but I'll definitely make time for MP4.

That said, I now feel next week's Direct will focus on the new hardware, rather than new games.

If correct, this might work out well for every party involved, considering the launch of GTA6 later this year.

With this schedule, Nintendo gets their big launch titles in the spotlight months ahead, while third parties can pick up the slack during the GTA6 launch window. Since GTA5 isn't even available on Switch, I would guess there's not that much overlap between these types of audiences, leaving aside the fact that GTA6 is unlikely to be ported to S2. GTA may be a huge, but not everyone cares about it.

In a way an S1 Direct would be good timing, since all eyes are on Nintendo anyway. Why not sneak in another Direct? For one, I'd like more info on MP4, which is a confirmed S1 title. It's going to be a few months before you can get your hands on the new hardware anyway.

Have they actually given any hints that the S2 Direct is going to be about new S2 games and not just provide more details on the hardware?

@notreallyhere Exactly my thoughts on SS1 remake. It's designed with mouse+keyboard in mind, with controller support as an afterthought. While I loved the original SS back in '94, I just gave up on the remake, because controller support never felt right. More fundamentally, if they plan on porting SS1 to Switch, they would also need to do something about the small UI text. Steam Deck shows a warning about this actually. I don't see a handheld port as feasible, tbh, unless players are willing to put up with this.

But seeing that SS2 is coming to consoles day one, and Nightdive's track record, I'm optimistic about the console and handheld-friendliness this time around.

I was skeptical of AI upscaling, but I must admit that DLSS 4 won me over. So it's good that they have Nvidia in their corner.

Yes, it's perfectly understandable that one might feel short-changed, by not having games rendered at the native resolution that you actually paid for. But the memory bandwidth for larger resolutions simply isn't there, so they have to pull all sorts of rabbits out of their proverbial hat to squeeze out every last drop of performance. This patent shows that they took a comprehensive, realistic approach, given the limitations of mobile hardware, and made it a core part of the platform.

For context, the S2 is rumoured to have ~60Gb/s memory bandwidth, which is lower than the Steam Deck, and much lower than even a PS4 with its ~160Gb/s. The PS4 was rendering most titles below its native 1080p, so games not rendering at native resolution has been true for the past decade already.

Can't wait! The only already-announced game that I'm looking forward to this year.

Will likely play it on S1 first, then play it again in, hopefully, glorious enhanced form on S2. If it's, indeed, a BOTW-like (or TP-like) scenario, then it means the release is sooner than I actually expected. Considering the near-silence since the original announcement, I was anticipating an autumn release, tbh.

It took me some time to warm up to Bethesda's games.

I remember playing the Oblivion introduction sequence, where you escape from prison. After that, the world opens up and I thought: nah...

Same with Fallout 3 back in 2008. I stopped playing shortly after leaving the vault, because, looking out over this vast wasteland, I just felt lost. A year later, a friend urged me to give it another try and the open-world formula finally clicked.

But I never got around to giving Oblivion another chance, so I'm looking forward to make up for that with the remake. Not in a hurry, since open-world games require a huge time investment, so if it's coming to S2 at some later date, that would be fine.

Looks like a stopgap solution to remind people that Xbox still exists, even if it's rebranded third-party hardware under the hood.

For their future handheld strategy, they would be wise to go for an ARM architecture to distinguish themselves from the competition. And work on making Windows more handheld gaming friendly.

Went with a group of friends to T2 on opening night, back in '91. Right at the start, when the T-1000 tramples the skull, one of my friends jumped out of his seat, spilling drinks and popcorn all over his shirt. Blockbuster movies were hitting their stride back then and theatres were upgrading their sound systems. This new T2 game is perfect retro. A game that could have been made in 1991, but travelled 34 years forward in time.

The 80s/90s are a goldmine of action IP. The first 3 Die Hards would make for great video game material.

I'm expecting an announcement on the Metroid Prime 4 release date. In case it's a cross-gen title, they might use it to highlight the main differences in graphics and performance between the Switch 1 and 2.

I had assumed SD sales would be in the range of 6-7 million by now, so it's quite a surprise that it's actually considerably lower.

Considering that the Deck is, apparently, outselling all its competitors combined, it looks like the PC handheld market is much more niche than the hype in the gaming press seems to suggest.

Super Tetris is my favourite Tetris of the classic era, so good to hear. Waiting for a sale, though.

Looks like it's more a party game than a racing game. All Stars Racing Transformed nailed the balance between racing (skill) and items (luck), something that MK7 did as well. Hopefully MK9 will dial down the item rate from MK8, otherwise we won't have any good, skill-based kart racers on Switch.

The silver lining here is that this is a strong indication we'll see major first-party S2 exclusives right out of the gate, instead of the platform being stuck in cross-gen limbo for the first few years, like with PS5 and Xbox Series.

These kinds of cutbacks are inevitable, considering the weak yen, as well as general inflation levels. Compared to a potential increase in game prices, it's the lesser of two evils.

Worst case they'll raise the price everywhere else to keep it more affordable for US customers.