@MontyCircus Each to their own, but metacritic places Woolley World above most of the games in your somewhat positive list. I think it’s misleading to drop it down and say it “reviewed poorly” when it’s just IGN pulling it down below those other titles, a single review site.
Something like Paper Mario Color Spash was more widely criticised at release from what I read. IGN also rated that title 7.3, bellow the 7.4 they have Woolley World, so that title at least is rated worse on both IGN and Metacritic (76 vs 78) and presumably belongs in the craptacular list.
@MontyCircus Yoshis Woolley World didn’t review poorly. It holds a higher metacritic rating, which is an aggregate of reviews, than most of the titles in your “somewhat positive” list.
I agree with some of the list, especially the Zelda titles and Yoshi’s Woolley World.
Disagree on Star Fox though. Incredibly average game even if the controls were addressed. That series needs a proper reboot and rethink, not another rehash of the same basic story. There’s stacks of potential to do more with the franchise than what Zero offered:
@HamatoYoshi “This is why some games take up so much gb as they’re not optimised, not efficiently coded from the start.”
Large games are generally large because of multimedia assets including textures and audio, which may include localised audio for multiple markets. Nintendo’s titles are likely smaller because the majority of them don’t push a lot of high detailed textures and are often pretty sparse in the audio department (great quality music, but not necessarily a lot of recorded speech). Their games can also afford a lot of texture reuse due to their style where in a realistic looking title, texture reuse becomes more obvious and an immersion breaker.
Not saying Nintendo doesn’t optimise its games well, they do, but the file size isn’t necessarily a good measure of that. Something like BotW while looking beautiful, doesn’t necessarily have the best textures if you get right in on them. The game looks good in spite of that due to clever art direction, but games going for a more realistic look will take a hit in the assets department.
Measures of efficient code are better assessed by the sorts of things Digital Foundry look at including ability to hold frame rates and/or resolution, rather than just size on disc.
@brunojenso cosmic clones my strongest memory of this excellent game. Made for some very tense levels.
The cosmic clone is also the bit I remember most about Captain Toad Treasure Tracker. I hate those guys, but without doubt they do help add tension to a game.
I seriously doubt the current gen console would ever see a 4k release. Even the PS5 and Series X won’t push 4K for all titles and many will have adaptive resolution. Look at the size of those systems compared to what Nintendo has to work with. I also fail to see a huge benefit too given games will have to downscale to a mobile display and games need to be efficient enough to play on the go.
Figures released in the past showed the Switch was only used around 50% of the time docked by people. That’s a huge investment into something half the customer base doesn’t need, and a big burden on developers to do right.
Also, the Switch media is too limited in size to cost ratio to effectively support widespread 4K game distribution. As it is many devs struggle to get games into a 32GB cart, assuming they don’t skip it and cheap out with 8GB carts like many do. Compared to the capacity other consoles have its an issue. I also don’t believe SD cards would be sufficient for storage from a performance perspective for 4K releases, not would the 32GB internal memory be from a capacity perspective. That’ll be an issue in terms of costs.
I’d think any revision may bump the mobile display up to 1080p and give the system a bit more grunt to get a more reliable 30/60fps from titles. Any substantial performance jump to 4K is years away and would be a brand new generation Switch. The revision may also have increased storage capacity to 64 or 128GB of storage, but still fundamentally allow expansion via SD cards. They also should add Bluetooth audio.
But yeah, massive graphical advancements seem unlikely to me. Maybe the dock would get a high quality up scaling chip, but I doubt the system will natively render 4K.
@SeantheDon29 The very first link in the article has a good summary of events to date. The informations been provided for anyone wanting to click through and read it. Regular readers here are likely across this service by now so they shouldn’t need to retread the ground each and every article.
Don’t think blaming NL for not providing information is warranted at all in this case.
“ Banjo-Kazooie's most basic problem is likely that its publisher Rare was purchased by Microsoft, whose XBox consoles primarily target FPS fans and Mature-rated games. That may not be the sole reason, of course, but demographics absolutely play a role in determining projected sales and profitability.”
I don’t really think the Xbox market being perceived as an FPS console has much to do with it at all. On the Xbox 360 Rare not only shipped a Banjo Kazooie title, they also shipped the even more child friendly titles Viva Piñata 1 and 2, a game that even had an animated TV series behind it. I wouldn’t say there’s any real indication that Rare was forced into focusing on mature games.
As it stands, it’s quite possible that the current Rare team, which is 20 years removed from the staff developing for the N64, would rather focus on IP other than BK or other pre-existing IP. To that end Everwild to me looks interesting, as was Sea of Thieves.
I’d be surprised if at some point MS doesn’t release a BK title. They’ve revived Battletoads and Perfect Dark, and they now have a larger group of first party devs to whom they can pass along the IP.
Unsure why people think Nintendo would be hugely interested in buying the IP though when Mario is still firing on all cylinders. Even on the N64 M64 outsold BK 3:1 almost. If Nintendo wants to do a platformer that’s not Mario, they have other IP to draw off or the talent to create something new. If MS is going to give someone access to the IP, it’ll be to ship it for the Xbox and Nintendo of all companies has shown no sign of distributing games to competing platforms.
@StuTwo “ Apple themselves don't try the same thing for applications other than games (you can log into your Office 365 app on iOS for instance but Apple only gets a cut if you actually subscribe or renew through your phone).”
Game developers can accept payments outside of iOS. Minecraft or fortnite prepaid cards for example can be applied to an account externally and they virtual currency then used on iOS. The issue specifically is Epic sought to collect payments on iOS without giving Apple a cut. Blizzards another example of a developer that allows external purchases for Hearthstone.
Epic could use the same model Microsoft uses for Office 365, they’ve chosen not to. They’ve insisted they should be able to accept payments via the iOS app, but those payments shouldn’t be via Apple.
@COVIDberry MS are at no risk of any sort of Monopoly issues in the gaming space. They’re coming off a console generation where they were a distant follow up to Sony, who themselves own many studios, and even Nintendo have caught up with them in only a few years. Then you have EA, Activision and other studios or publishers.
They’d probably need to buy Sony before they’d start drawing any sort of anti trust attention, and even that might not be enough. There’s still be other manufacturers out there as well as massive publishers.
I’ve seen Capcom floated too and personally I think they’d make more sense. They’ve already partnered on the Dead Rising series, MS could benefit from having Street Fighter back on the console and Resident Evil is in a resurgence. Monster Hunter would also be a good series to pick up.
Capcom last I checked has had some financial struggles the past few years too and perhaps could benefit from a safety net.
That said, any Japanese studio acquisition by MS needs to be handled with care as it’s a market they struggle in and they’ll have a lot to do to make sure culturally the two entities can work together well.
Personally I like the new name more anyway. “Immortals” as a franchise, if they go that way (and its Ubisoft were talking about), is cleaner in my opinion.
I don’t mind the move as long as after March, within a year or so, they break the bundle up and offer the games individually on the eShop probably at a higher price point to collect all three. I wouldn’t like these games to be unavailable ‘new’ for another 10 years.
@PickledKong64 I’d say the difficulty is an arbitrary decision. They could easily put in an “Easy” mode that modified the health and it’d open the game up to a broader audience while having exactly zero impact on the people that want to grind out the same boss 50+ times to get past them.
There’s no reason the game has to be punishing as a base level other than they decided not to offer the option. Plenty of metroidvanias have a lower bar and the game would still be substantial and rewarding given there’s still a stack of content and exploration to do.
Having an easy mode for Doom or normal difficulty in Diablo doesn’t stop people playing Nightmare or Hardcore modes in those titles.
Anyway as I said, I got the base ending of the game after 20 or 30 hours so I did see a good portion of it, just don’t see the point in almost walling off the rest of the content.
@TheDanslator Yeah, Hollow Knight definitely isn’t a bad game. That said I do wish they’d add an option or mode to play at a lower difficulty for those that want it. Basically a story mode. Some of the bosses for me were a real grind and I’m not interested in outright mastering a game. I prefer to get through them and move onto the next title, not replay a game 10+ times like some people will. I’d love for them to add something in for the casual gamers for the next expansion, even if it’s as basic as enemies dealing half damage.
While they’re at it, some bosses had waypoints that were some distance from them. Given you’re going to die a lot in the game it would have been nice to have save points at the bosses.
But yeah, certainly a good game even if it’s not as accessible as it perhaps could be. I’d love to have seen more of the title but after getting past the base run off the boss I’d sort of hit my ceiling skill wise and moved on.
The iPhone 6 is weeks away from being 6 years/releases behind. The 5S a year older still. Think it’s more than reasonable to drop support now. To put it in perspective, between the original iPhone and now, the 5s and 6 are the mid way point in the history of iPhones, and when the 12 arrives they start to drop into the older half of the family.
It’s a shame as there will be some people with hand me down devices, but mobile techs advanced a lot in this time.
I like them but I’m keen to see people take the figures and build much larger worlds out of it. A replica of world 1 or 2 of Mario 64 for example would be amazing.
@electrolite77 I don’t think Nintendo’s issue would be so much with streaming itself as a delivery method, it’d be that MS controls distribution and revenue for Game Pass subscriptions. The Resident Evil 7 release on Switch was an eShop release so it still went through Nintendo’s shopfront. There’s a high chance that MS would expect to be able to offer subscriptions without Nintendo making a cut, given people can subscribe external to the eShop using MSs payment portals.
If we look elsewhere, I believe there’s been additional complications around an iOS release vs Android, in part due to Apple’s policies and requirements. I suspect a Nintendo or Sony offering would have similar issues, if not more so.
Lots of people seem to be making it sound like MS would hold this back to attract Xbox sales. Very much doubt that’s the case when they are putting XCloud on Android devices. It was always clear that Sony and Nintendo would need to come to the party and it’d take a huge amount of convincing for them even to spend 5 minutes discussing it.
We’ve just come off around 2 years of sustained pressure for Sony only to recently even open up the system to cross play with consoles. Having people distribute games on their platform is miles away from where they are at.
And Nintendo? They’re also very well known for wanting control of their ecosystem. While they have been more open to cross platform play than Sony, they’re still very protective of their IPs and ecosystems. It was always a stretch that they’d allow a shop front on their system. The system right now has almost no non gaming services offered in its store, it’s a pretty controlled environment.
From MSs perspective if they could sell subscriptions to buyers of other consoles, that’d be a huge win for them. There isn’t stacks of money to be made in hardware sales and while it’s great to sell units so you can get loyalties from game sales, if someone owns a Switch or PS4/PS5 there’s a good chance they have already closed the door on MS anyway. Having a streaming service would allow them to monetise an audience they otherwise miss out on entirely. Can’t see why they’d turn that up if they had a window to release the service on Switch or PS.
I think Doom Eternals a great game. If you can play it elsewhere then I suggest you do, but hopefully the ports solid for those that are looking for a Switch copy.
For those that haven’t played it, expect a very different game to Doom 2016. In particular early on the game is very punishing and it can be hard to keep up with the new mechanics. It can also be hard to adapt to the idea that the game will make you play a certain way and there’s very few mechanics or weapons you can outright avoid. I didn’t touch the Balista a lot in my play through, but for the most part enemies have very defined weaknesses and you’ll will need to juggle guns to exploit them.
Management of resources is more important than I remembered in Doom 2016.
I’d say stick with it until the third level. I wasn’t liking it for the first one or two until the mechanics sort of clicked and I started to adapt to the game.
One final comment is I’ve never found a game so exhausting. The combat in this games a huge step up in pace over the predecessor and I felt quite mentally drained after playing a new level. As soon as combat kicks in, and it’s 95% of the game, it’s very full on. Took me quite a while to get through the game the first time as I rarely wanted to do more than 2 levels. I was having fun, but it was also very brutal. Felt like a spell of Super Meat Boy or something like that.
@PikaPhantom “ It also gets a lot more difficult - I was wondering why Blind Forest had a reputation for being hard towards the beginning”
I find both titles get considerably easier the further into the game you got.
In particular having a much longer life bar allowed for far more mistakes as you progress. Starting out environmental hazards like spikes pose a serious threat when they take away a high portion of your life and you have limited traversal abilities, where later on their impacts much lower (if not nullified completely in the case of some hazards) and your traversal options expand greatly.
The platforming etc does get more intricate later on, but rarely are you in a position where you can’t take repeated goes at something outside of those “chase” sequences each game has at points.
I’ll probably grab it. The PVC ones are within my budget unlike the resin statues they do they’re also generally a more reasonable size The companies resin figures have gotten larger and larger with time.
No, because I don't think the cost savings from removing the cartridge slot will be significant and likely much much lower than the savings MS and Sony get from removing optical drives. The MS and Sony costs also very likely include licensing for codecs to allow video play back that Nintendo won't be paying for.
Honestly doubt you'd see more than about a $10 saving. Card readers aren't especially expensive, with SD card readers probably a similar hardware set and thus cost and those can be had for close to nothing.
Sony and MS also can't run games off the optical media so they're more reliant on larger internal storage anyway. If Nintendo removes the cartridge slot then the system needs to ship with enough storage to compensate and I'm fairly confident that would cost more than the current setup. If anything cost would go up or there's even greater reliance on customers buying larger SD cards at a higher cost. Ultimately I don't think there's any cost savings to be made for buyers.
Update: The other thing too is they've already done the 'cheaper model' revision. I think many people are looking for a 'Pro' release that adds features, not implement corner cutting to save a few bucks. Many people seem interested in a potentially slightly more expensive unit that for example improves the display, adds bluetooth audio, increases storage etc. Those are the features people seem to be asking for. Even the digital only crowd likely aren't bothered the card slots there.
I think its a good change. I personally feel that its a major design flaw that this game has two rule sets, one for every other level where tonics and checkpoints are expected, and then for no reason other than making the finish difficult those rules were thrown out the window for the final stage.
Realise the level and games called the 'impossible lair', but they could have developed the game such that the rules and mechanics from other levels persisted to the end like most games do, while still building on the challenge. If the game is prepping players for that level, have levels prior to the final one lean into that earlier. Tropical Freeze (which is an often cited comparison to this game) for example has a bonkers final level, but its still grounded in the gameplay elements and logic from earlier stages where abilities you may have been using aren't stripped away.
This feels like an acknowledgement that something wasn't quite right consistency wise, and pretty much every review I read called this out.
Too bad it isn’t able to run on the Apple TV currently. The iOS version supports controllers already so they’re half way there to having a very affordable and good way to play the title.
@Mambitos I wasn’t aware Nintendo supported Splatoon particularly different to Smash when it comes to eSport or that it was a particularly big title in that scene?
To be fair a lot of those titles that have a big eSport backing have a lot of issues as a result. Time and time again those titles have mechanics introduced aimed at more casual players which then creates issues and outrage in the eSport player base, and vice versa. Not surprised that some companies like Nintendo might want to keep a bit of distance and in turn give themselves the ability to release a game and updates that doesn’t necessarily need to tick every box or rule set that the eSport community is after.
I suspect it’s very challenging to consistently appeal to both audiences, especially when you begin to get financially invested as a sponsor for eSport events.
This makes me wish Nintendo had removable faceplates for the dock, not unlike the 3DS or Xbox 360 had. I can’t justify changing my Switch out for custom editions, but I could totally get behind some faceplates that I could swap in and out at will.
@Tharsman "Only reason to buy the two packs (and the DLC for both) "
Well ideally if multiple people were sharing the same Switch you could have people sharing the game while still only needing to grab the DLC once. That and I'm sure some people will just want to run through the entire thing twice given there's always been a subset of users that play right through both titles. We own two copies and it'd be nice to have the content there for both.
Just rubs me the wrong way that they report sales generally as one title but when it comes time to get customers money they're happy to split the titles out.
What I find interesting, and at least mildly annoying, is that sales data for the pokemon games always get reported as a single title yet when it suits the publisher they’ll treat them as two releases. Specifically the fact that anyone that owns both will also have to purchase the DLC twice. It honestly feels like the publishers being allowed to have their cake and eat it too by having sales reported as if it was a single title, even if many customers will get both, while treating digital content as seperate releases.
I mean it’s not the end of the world I guess, but I do find it odd that they cherry pick when the games get treated as one vs treated as two releases.
@Denoloco Personally I was disappointed with Astral Chain also. The combat was good, but I just couldn’t enjoy the pacing of the game. Admittedly I probably didn’t get very far, but I found there to be a lot of disparity between the excitement of the action sequences and what I found to be very mundane moments when I was being pulled back to the police HQ or to do “detective” work around town.
Unsure if those down times stop occurring later on once all the mechanics have been explained, but I gave up before I got very far as the hunting for clues sections really just killed momentum for me and I wasn’t enjoying myself at all.
Not actually sure what I’d put as my number one. If it wasn’t for the performance issues I’d go with Links Awakening, and might still. Luigis Mansions another contender as a surprisingly good game.
@RandomNerds in addition to the “for profit” angle, games made by fans as tributes will generally call out the fact it is a fan made product. People who download the games know it’s not an official item.
Fakes for toys are very often intended to deceive consumers by mimicking original packaging and looking legitimate, so not only are they making money of the IP, they’re often deceiving consumers who may not be aware they are bootlegged items. Not only is Nintendo hurt but also unwilling customers.
@SKTTR I think it was very intentional in the design of BOTW that it wasn’t catering towards collecting and hoarding of gear. I doubt Nintendo feels it’s something that needed fixing but added some potentially difficult decisions for players to make, the same way there was a constant need to cycle out weapons and the fact very rare items can break on the player. The game seems designed from the outset to not encourage you to try and get one of everything.
@retro_player_22 Those aren’t the reason why physical games are becoming less common. The reason is it allows publishers to largely cut out the middle man that is physical retailers and in turn provides a higher profit margin for titles. It also prevents second hand sales of titles and tighter control of end to end distribution including pricing and the like.
Store space isn’t particularly a publishers concern, it’s the concern of retailers who are now cut out from the distribution channel completely and who have nothing to win with games going digital only. Go to a games store and look at how barren the PC games section is, assuming there’s one at all. It’s not that stores can’t spare the space, they did for years, but they’ve been under cut by digital sales and even the physical PC sales have DRM tied to digital storefronts that prevents those titles being resold second hand, where a lot of the money is for Game Stop and other similar game retailers.
What a load of crap. If it’s your livelihood, don’t cheat.
If someone working at a Casino steals from their employer they likely won’t get a job at any other Casino in the country. They aren’t getting a free pass because “it’s their livelihood”.
People need to be accountable for their own mistakes when those errors are pre meditated and they knew what they were doing.
I’d argue popular streamers cheating is worse as it’s advertising the wrong thing to a population versus some random kid no one is following. The streamer is also profiting off their misbehaviour where the random kids getting a laugh out of it but likely not much else. People in the public eye cheating on a game can alter the perception of the game as a whole, so should be dealt with appropriately.
What I’m loving isn’t so much the raw graphics, which are great, but how immersive the game is as a result of basically everything in the world being movable and not feeling fixed down. Really feels great to start sucking and having pretty much everything in the room respond. It makes the game feel so much more dynamic and the world alive than most titles where half the map is fixed props that you can’t interact with.
@Syndrome These things are frequently being pursued, we just don't necessarily hear about all cases and often the punishment would be different such as a firing if it was an employee.
@kepsux I also doubt a pro will see significant performance leaps, in order to not fragment the market. From a performance perspective maybe we could get enough out of the system to allow a 1080p display with docked performance (or a modest 5-10% performance jump to smooth things out), but I doubt we’d get a lot more than that.
Could see enhancements being things like Bluetooth audio support (a must) and things like WiFi6 etc. More internal memory is an obvious easy option too. Perhaps a nicer display panel (OLED), using glass over plastic could round it out. Those sorts of things.
But yeah I think raw performance boost will be modest or if there is a jump it’ll be focused on getting handheld performance close to docked.
@ItalianBaptist don’t hold your breath waiting for any clearances of the older revision due to this release. Seems to be a minor and silent revision, the sort that’s relatively frequent for any hardware that sits in the market for any period of time.
More likely to get some Black Friday sales in a months time.
@Rayquaza2510 I think the PVC ones aren’t too poorly priced but yeah, get that they’re still too much for many.
What disappoints me about F4F is the direction their resin statues have gone. 15 years ago they were at a $100ish price point. I get inflation and the like happens but they cost waaaay more now. Part of that is certainly them just increasing prices, the other half is these past few years they seem to have become obsessed with making things really really large. Half the statues they put out are massive and they take particular pride in that fact. Problem is costs all round go up (especially shipping!) and they’re so large that they’ve alienated many of their own customers who simply don’t have space to display the larger sized busts etc they are doing. They seem to be doing a lot more 1/4 scale now versus 1/8ish.
I’m glad they’re at least doing some small scale, low(we) cost PVC figures which aren’t too out of line with other gaming merch my local EB Games sticks. Would like them to do some smaller resin ones too and try and get those out at a reasonable price rather than the monstrosities they’ve shipped the past few years.
@Kang81 There’s heaps online. Search for “desk cable manager” or “desk cable fastener” or something like that. Probably $1 delivered on eBay.
Unlike the description in this article which suggests these are to help with damaged cables, the general use is just to hold cables in place for cleaner placement and to ensure they don’t fall down the back of a desk. If your cable is stuffed then this probably won’t save you and you’ll still have issues. They probably won’t be some magic fix for cables that are in the verge of death.
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Re: Feature: 6 Huge Video Game Franchises Missing From Nintendo Switch
Ridge Racer hasn’t been a “huge” series since the PS2. Plenty of other racing series that have been more impactful since then.
Re: Video: 13 Great Wii U Games Still Not on Switch
@MontyCircus Each to their own, but metacritic places Woolley World above most of the games in your somewhat positive list. I think it’s misleading to drop it down and say it “reviewed poorly” when it’s just IGN pulling it down below those other titles, a single review site.
Something like Paper Mario Color Spash was more widely criticised at release from what I read. IGN also rated that title 7.3, bellow the 7.4 they have Woolley World, so that title at least is rated worse on both IGN and Metacritic (76 vs 78) and presumably belongs in the craptacular list.
Re: Video: 13 Great Wii U Games Still Not on Switch
@MontyCircus Yoshis Woolley World didn’t review poorly. It holds a higher metacritic rating, which is an aggregate of reviews, than most of the titles in your “somewhat positive” list.
Re: Video: 13 Great Wii U Games Still Not on Switch
I agree with some of the list, especially the Zelda titles and Yoshi’s Woolley World.
Disagree on Star Fox though. Incredibly average game even if the controls were addressed. That series needs a proper reboot and rethink, not another rehash of the same basic story. There’s stacks of potential to do more with the franchise than what Zero offered:
Re: Sadly, The Chances Of Seeing Desperados III On Switch Aren't Good
@HamatoYoshi “This is why some games take up so much gb as they’re not optimised, not efficiently coded from the start.”
Large games are generally large because of multimedia assets including textures and audio, which may include localised audio for multiple markets. Nintendo’s titles are likely smaller because the majority of them don’t push a lot of high detailed textures and are often pretty sparse in the audio department (great quality music, but not necessarily a lot of recorded speech). Their games can also afford a lot of texture reuse due to their style where in a realistic looking title, texture reuse becomes more obvious and an immersion breaker.
Not saying Nintendo doesn’t optimise its games well, they do, but the file size isn’t necessarily a good measure of that. Something like BotW while looking beautiful, doesn’t necessarily have the best textures if you get right in on them. The game looks good in spite of that due to clever art direction, but games going for a more realistic look will take a hit in the assets department.
Measures of efficient code are better assessed by the sorts of things Digital Foundry look at including ability to hold frame rates and/or resolution, rather than just size on disc.
Re: Feature: Remembering Super Mario 3D Land, 3D World’s Oft-Forgotten Predecessor
@brunojenso cosmic clones my strongest memory of this excellent game. Made for some very tense levels.
The cosmic clone is also the bit I remember most about Captain Toad Treasure Tracker. I hate those guys, but without doubt they do help add tension to a game.
Re: Rumour: Datamine Apparently Reveals All About The New Nintendo Switch Revision
I seriously doubt the current gen console would ever see a 4k release. Even the PS5 and Series X won’t push 4K for all titles and many will have adaptive resolution. Look at the size of those systems compared to what Nintendo has to work with. I also fail to see a huge benefit too given games will have to downscale to a mobile display and games need to be efficient enough to play on the go.
Figures released in the past showed the Switch was only used around 50% of the time docked by people. That’s a huge investment into something half the customer base doesn’t need, and a big burden on developers to do right.
Also, the Switch media is too limited in size to cost ratio to effectively support widespread 4K game distribution. As it is many devs struggle to get games into a 32GB cart, assuming they don’t skip it and cheap out with 8GB carts like many do. Compared to the capacity other consoles have its an issue. I also don’t believe SD cards would be sufficient for storage from a performance perspective for 4K releases, not would the 32GB internal memory be from a capacity perspective. That’ll be an issue in terms of costs.
I’d think any revision may bump the mobile display up to 1080p and give the system a bit more grunt to get a more reliable 30/60fps from titles. Any substantial performance jump to 4K is years away and would be a brand new generation Switch. The revision may also have increased storage capacity to 64 or 128GB of storage, but still fundamentally allow expansion via SD cards. They also should add Bluetooth audio.
But yeah, massive graphical advancements seem unlikely to me. Maybe the dock would get a high quality up scaling chip, but I doubt the system will natively render 4K.
Re: Tokyo's Unofficial Mario Kart Service Loses Supreme Court Appeal
@SeantheDon29 The very first link in the article has a good summary of events to date. The informations been provided for anyone wanting to click through and read it. Regular readers here are likely across this service by now so they shouldn’t need to retread the ground each and every article.
Don’t think blaming NL for not providing information is warranted at all in this case.
Re: Random: Banjo-Kazooie Creator Reacts To Duo's Bittersweet Cameo In The Latest Smash Trailer
@AtlanteanMan
“ Banjo-Kazooie's most basic problem is likely that its publisher Rare was purchased by Microsoft, whose XBox consoles primarily target FPS fans and Mature-rated games. That may not be the sole reason, of course, but demographics absolutely play a role in determining projected sales and profitability.”
I don’t really think the Xbox market being perceived as an FPS console has much to do with it at all. On the Xbox 360 Rare not only shipped a Banjo Kazooie title, they also shipped the even more child friendly titles Viva Piñata 1 and 2, a game that even had an animated TV series behind it. I wouldn’t say there’s any real indication that Rare was forced into focusing on mature games.
As it stands, it’s quite possible that the current Rare team, which is 20 years removed from the staff developing for the N64, would rather focus on IP other than BK or other pre-existing IP. To that end Everwild to me looks interesting, as was Sea of Thieves.
I’d be surprised if at some point MS doesn’t release a BK title. They’ve revived Battletoads and Perfect Dark, and they now have a larger group of first party devs to whom they can pass along the IP.
Unsure why people think Nintendo would be hugely interested in buying the IP though when Mario is still firing on all cylinders. Even on the N64 M64 outsold BK 3:1 almost. If Nintendo wants to do a platformer that’s not Mario, they have other IP to draw off or the talent to create something new. If MS is going to give someone access to the IP, it’ll be to ship it for the Xbox and Nintendo of all companies has shown no sign of distributing games to competing platforms.
Re: Epic's Apple Lawsuit Could Have "Significant And Serious Ramifications" For Platform Holders Like Nintendo
@StuTwo “ Apple themselves don't try the same thing for applications other than games (you can log into your Office 365 app on iOS for instance but Apple only gets a cut if you actually subscribe or renew through your phone).”
Game developers can accept payments outside of iOS. Minecraft or fortnite prepaid cards for example can be applied to an account externally and they virtual currency then used on iOS. The issue specifically is Epic sought to collect payments on iOS without giving Apple a cut. Blizzards another example of a developer that allows external purchases for Hearthstone.
Epic could use the same model Microsoft uses for Office 365, they’ve chosen not to. They’ve insisted they should be able to accept payments via the iOS app, but those payments shouldn’t be via Apple.
Re: Random: Microsoft Shuts Down Rumours That It's Buying Sega Next
@COVIDberry MS are at no risk of any sort of Monopoly issues in the gaming space. They’re coming off a console generation where they were a distant follow up to Sony, who themselves own many studios, and even Nintendo have caught up with them in only a few years. Then you have EA, Activision and other studios or publishers.
They’d probably need to buy Sony before they’d start drawing any sort of anti trust attention, and even that might not be enough. There’s still be other manufacturers out there as well as massive publishers.
Re: Random: Microsoft Shuts Down Rumours That It's Buying Sega Next
I’ve seen Capcom floated too and personally I think they’d make more sense. They’ve already partnered on the Dead Rising series, MS could benefit from having Street Fighter back on the console and Resident Evil is in a resurgence. Monster Hunter would also be a good series to pick up.
Capcom last I checked has had some financial struggles the past few years too and perhaps could benefit from a safety net.
That said, any Japanese studio acquisition by MS needs to be handled with care as it’s a market they struggle in and they’ll have a lot to do to make sure culturally the two entities can work together well.
Re: Legal Documents Suggest Monster Energy Is To Blame For Ubisoft's Gods & Monsters Name Change
Personally I like the new name more anyway. “Immortals” as a franchise, if they go that way (and its Ubisoft were talking about), is cleaner in my opinion.
Re: Poll: How Do You Feel About 'Limited-Time' Games From Nintendo?
I don’t mind the move as long as after March, within a year or so, they break the bundle up and offer the games individually on the eShop probably at a higher price point to collect all three. I wouldn’t like these games to be unavailable ‘new’ for another 10 years.
Re: Review: Gleamlight - An Appalling Bad Hollow Knight Clone
@PickledKong64 I’d say the difficulty is an arbitrary decision. They could easily put in an “Easy” mode that modified the health and it’d open the game up to a broader audience while having exactly zero impact on the people that want to grind out the same boss 50+ times to get past them.
There’s no reason the game has to be punishing as a base level other than they decided not to offer the option. Plenty of metroidvanias have a lower bar and the game would still be substantial and rewarding given there’s still a stack of content and exploration to do.
Having an easy mode for Doom or normal difficulty in Diablo doesn’t stop people playing Nightmare or Hardcore modes in those titles.
Anyway as I said, I got the base ending of the game after 20 or 30 hours so I did see a good portion of it, just don’t see the point in almost walling off the rest of the content.
Re: Review: Gleamlight - An Appalling Bad Hollow Knight Clone
@TheDanslator Yeah, Hollow Knight definitely isn’t a bad game. That said I do wish they’d add an option or mode to play at a lower difficulty for those that want it. Basically a story mode. Some of the bosses for me were a real grind and I’m not interested in outright mastering a game. I prefer to get through them and move onto the next title, not replay a game 10+ times like some people will. I’d love for them to add something in for the casual gamers for the next expansion, even if it’s as basic as enemies dealing half damage.
While they’re at it, some bosses had waypoints that were some distance from them. Given you’re going to die a lot in the game it would have been nice to have save points at the bosses.
But yeah, certainly a good game even if it’s not as accessible as it perhaps could be. I’d love to have seen more of the title but after getting past the base run off the boss I’d sort of hit my ceiling skill wise and moved on.
Re: Pokémon GO To Lose Support For Android 5, Older iPhones And iOS Versions
The iPhone 6 is weeks away from being 6 years/releases behind. The 5S a year older still. Think it’s more than reasonable to drop support now. To put it in perspective, between the original iPhone and now, the 5s and 6 are the mid way point in the history of iPhones, and when the 12 arrives they start to drop into the older half of the family.
It’s a shame as there will be some people with hand me down devices, but mobile techs advanced a lot in this time.
Re: Community: What Do You Think Of Lego Super Mario, Then?
I like them but I’m keen to see people take the figures and build much larger worlds out of it. A replica of world 1 or 2 of Mario 64 for example would be amazing.
Re: PlatinumGames Has No Idea If Star Fox Zero Will Be Ported To Switch
Even ignoring the terrible control scheme, it was only an average game at best. Don’t think it warrants a re-release at all.
Stick to Starlink with a digital only release of that. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than Starfox Zero and on Switch you can get the Starfox crew.
Re: Phil Spencer Shuts Down Idea Of Xbox Game Pass Coming To Other Platforms
@electrolite77 I don’t think Nintendo’s issue would be so much with streaming itself as a delivery method, it’d be that MS controls distribution and revenue for Game Pass subscriptions. The Resident Evil 7 release on Switch was an eShop release so it still went through Nintendo’s shopfront. There’s a high chance that MS would expect to be able to offer subscriptions without Nintendo making a cut, given people can subscribe external to the eShop using MSs payment portals.
If we look elsewhere, I believe there’s been additional complications around an iOS release vs Android, in part due to Apple’s policies and requirements. I suspect a Nintendo or Sony offering would have similar issues, if not more so.
Re: Phil Spencer Shuts Down Idea Of Xbox Game Pass Coming To Other Platforms
Lots of people seem to be making it sound like MS would hold this back to attract Xbox sales. Very much doubt that’s the case when they are putting XCloud on Android devices. It was always clear that Sony and Nintendo would need to come to the party and it’d take a huge amount of convincing for them even to spend 5 minutes discussing it.
We’ve just come off around 2 years of sustained pressure for Sony only to recently even open up the system to cross play with consoles. Having people distribute games on their platform is miles away from where they are at.
And Nintendo? They’re also very well known for wanting control of their ecosystem. While they have been more open to cross platform play than Sony, they’re still very protective of their IPs and ecosystems. It was always a stretch that they’d allow a shop front on their system. The system right now has almost no non gaming services offered in its store, it’s a pretty controlled environment.
From MSs perspective if they could sell subscriptions to buyers of other consoles, that’d be a huge win for them. There isn’t stacks of money to be made in hardware sales and while it’s great to sell units so you can get loyalties from game sales, if someone owns a Switch or PS4/PS5 there’s a good chance they have already closed the door on MS anyway. Having a streaming service would allow them to monetise an audience they otherwise miss out on entirely. Can’t see why they’d turn that up if they had a window to release the service on Switch or PS.
Re: id Software Will Share The Release Date Of DOOM Eternal For Switch "Pretty Soon"
I think Doom Eternals a great game. If you can play it elsewhere then I suggest you do, but hopefully the ports solid for those that are looking for a Switch copy.
For those that haven’t played it, expect a very different game to Doom 2016. In particular early on the game is very punishing and it can be hard to keep up with the new mechanics. It can also be hard to adapt to the idea that the game will make you play a certain way and there’s very few mechanics or weapons you can outright avoid. I didn’t touch the Balista a lot in my play through, but for the most part enemies have very defined weaknesses and you’ll will need to juggle guns to exploit them.
Management of resources is more important than I remembered in Doom 2016.
I’d say stick with it until the third level. I wasn’t liking it for the first one or two until the mechanics sort of clicked and I started to adapt to the game.
One final comment is I’ve never found a game so exhausting. The combat in this games a huge step up in pace over the predecessor and I felt quite mentally drained after playing a new level. As soon as combat kicks in, and it’s 95% of the game, it’s very full on. Took me quite a while to get through the game the first time as I rarely wanted to do more than 2 levels. I was having fun, but it was also very brutal. Felt like a spell of Super Meat Boy or something like that.
Re: Ori Dev Thinks It Would Be "Extremely Difficult" To Get The Sequel Running At 60fps On Switch
@PikaPhantom “ It also gets a lot more difficult - I was wondering why Blind Forest had a reputation for being hard towards the beginning”
I find both titles get considerably easier the further into the game you got.
In particular having a much longer life bar allowed for far more mistakes as you progress. Starting out environmental hazards like spikes pose a serious threat when they take away a high portion of your life and you have limited traversal abilities, where later on their impacts much lower (if not nullified completely in the case of some hazards) and your traversal options expand greatly.
The platforming etc does get more intricate later on, but rarely are you in a position where you can’t take repeated goes at something outside of those “chase” sequences each game has at points.
Re: First 4 Figures Provides First Look At Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask Statue
I’ll probably grab it. The PVC ones are within my budget unlike the resin statues they do they’re also generally a more reasonable size The companies resin figures have gotten larger and larger with time.
Re: Poll: Should Nintendo Release A Digital-Only Switch?
No, because I don't think the cost savings from removing the cartridge slot will be significant and likely much much lower than the savings MS and Sony get from removing optical drives. The MS and Sony costs also very likely include licensing for codecs to allow video play back that Nintendo won't be paying for.
Honestly doubt you'd see more than about a $10 saving. Card readers aren't especially expensive, with SD card readers probably a similar hardware set and thus cost and those can be had for close to nothing.
Sony and MS also can't run games off the optical media so they're more reliant on larger internal storage anyway. If Nintendo removes the cartridge slot then the system needs to ship with enough storage to compensate and I'm fairly confident that would cost more than the current setup. If anything cost would go up or there's even greater reliance on customers buying larger SD cards at a higher cost. Ultimately I don't think there's any cost savings to be made for buyers.
Update: The other thing too is they've already done the 'cheaper model' revision. I think many people are looking for a 'Pro' release that adds features, not implement corner cutting to save a few bucks. Many people seem interested in a potentially slightly more expensive unit that for example improves the display, adds bluetooth audio, increases storage etc. Those are the features people seem to be asking for. Even the digital only crowd likely aren't bothered the card slots there.
Re: Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair Update Makes The Final Stage Easier To Beat
I think its a good change. I personally feel that its a major design flaw that this game has two rule sets, one for every other level where tonics and checkpoints are expected, and then for no reason other than making the finish difficult those rules were thrown out the window for the final stage.
Realise the level and games called the 'impossible lair', but they could have developed the game such that the rules and mechanics from other levels persisted to the end like most games do, while still building on the challenge. If the game is prepping players for that level, have levels prior to the final one lean into that earlier. Tropical Freeze (which is an often cited comparison to this game) for example has a bonkers final level, but its still grounded in the gameplay elements and logic from earlier stages where abilities you may have been using aren't stripped away.
This feels like an acknowledgement that something wasn't quite right consistency wise, and pretty much every review I read called this out.
Re: Please Konami, Stop Trolling Us And Release Castlevania: SotN On Switch Already
Too bad it isn’t able to run on the Apple TV currently. The iOS version supports controllers already so they’re half way there to having a very affordable and good way to play the title.
Re: Leading Smash Bros. Player Calls Out Nintendo For "Not Putting Resources Into The Scene"
@Mambitos I wasn’t aware Nintendo supported Splatoon particularly different to Smash when it comes to eSport or that it was a particularly big title in that scene?
Re: Leading Smash Bros. Player Calls Out Nintendo For "Not Putting Resources Into The Scene"
To be fair a lot of those titles that have a big eSport backing have a lot of issues as a result. Time and time again those titles have mechanics introduced aimed at more casual players which then creates issues and outrage in the eSport player base, and vice versa. Not surprised that some companies like Nintendo might want to keep a bit of distance and in turn give themselves the ability to release a game and updates that doesn’t necessarily need to tick every box or rule set that the eSport community is after.
I suspect it’s very challenging to consistently appeal to both audiences, especially when you begin to get financially invested as a sponsor for eSport events.
Re: Start Your Island Life With This Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Switch
This makes me wish Nintendo had removable faceplates for the dock, not unlike the 3DS or Xbox 360 had. I can’t justify changing my Switch out for custom editions, but I could totally get behind some faceplates that I could swap in and out at will.
Re: Pokémon Sword And Shield Dethrones Diamond & Pearl In New Famitsu Sales Chart Record
@Tharsman "Only reason to buy the two packs (and the DLC for both) "
Well ideally if multiple people were sharing the same Switch you could have people sharing the game while still only needing to grab the DLC once. That and I'm sure some people will just want to run through the entire thing twice given there's always been a subset of users that play right through both titles. We own two copies and it'd be nice to have the content there for both.
Just rubs me the wrong way that they report sales generally as one title but when it comes time to get customers money they're happy to split the titles out.
Ohh well, such is life.
Re: Pokémon Sword And Shield Dethrones Diamond & Pearl In New Famitsu Sales Chart Record
What I find interesting, and at least mildly annoying, is that sales data for the pokemon games always get reported as a single title yet when it suits the publisher they’ll treat them as two releases. Specifically the fact that anyone that owns both will also have to purchase the DLC twice. It honestly feels like the publishers being allowed to have their cake and eat it too by having sales reported as if it was a single title, even if many customers will get both, while treating digital content as seperate releases.
I mean it’s not the end of the world I guess, but I do find it odd that they cherry pick when the games get treated as one vs treated as two releases.
Re: Feature: Nintendo Life's Switch Game Of The Year 2019
@Denoloco Personally I was disappointed with Astral Chain also. The combat was good, but I just couldn’t enjoy the pacing of the game. Admittedly I probably didn’t get very far, but I found there to be a lot of disparity between the excitement of the action sequences and what I found to be very mundane moments when I was being pulled back to the police HQ or to do “detective” work around town.
Unsure if those down times stop occurring later on once all the mechanics have been explained, but I gave up before I got very far as the hunting for clues sections really just killed momentum for me and I wasn’t enjoying myself at all.
Not actually sure what I’d put as my number one. If it wasn’t for the performance issues I’d go with Links Awakening, and might still. Luigis Mansions another contender as a surprisingly good game.
Re: US Importer Arrested For Manufacturing Counterfeit Mario And Pokémon Toys
@RandomNerds in addition to the “for profit” angle, games made by fans as tributes will generally call out the fact it is a fan made product. People who download the games know it’s not an official item.
Fakes for toys are very often intended to deceive consumers by mimicking original packaging and looking legitimate, so not only are they making money of the IP, they’re often deceiving consumers who may not be aware they are bootlegged items. Not only is Nintendo hurt but also unwilling customers.
Re: Video: This Golden Lynel Never Stood A Chance Against Link's Breath Of The Wild Boomerang Attack
@SKTTR well you can still get every piece of armour, you just can’t hold them all at once.
And there is a percentage tracker...collecting weapons and armour just doesn’t form a part of that.
Re: Video: This Golden Lynel Never Stood A Chance Against Link's Breath Of The Wild Boomerang Attack
@SKTTR I think it was very intentional in the design of BOTW that it wasn’t catering towards collecting and hoarding of gear. I doubt Nintendo feels it’s something that needed fixing but added some potentially difficult decisions for players to make, the same way there was a constant need to cycle out weapons and the fact very rare items can break on the player. The game seems designed from the outset to not encourage you to try and get one of everything.
Re: Bethesda Is Updating DOOM And DOOM II On Switch With Some Hellish Add-Ons
@retro_player_22 Those aren’t the reason why physical games are becoming less common. The reason is it allows publishers to largely cut out the middle man that is physical retailers and in turn provides a higher profit margin for titles. It also prevents second hand sales of titles and tighter control of end to end distribution including pricing and the like.
Store space isn’t particularly a publishers concern, it’s the concern of retailers who are now cut out from the distribution channel completely and who have nothing to win with games going digital only. Go to a games store and look at how barren the PC games section is, assuming there’s one at all. It’s not that stores can’t spare the space, they did for years, but they’ve been under cut by digital sales and even the physical PC sales have DRM tied to digital storefronts that prevents those titles being resold second hand, where a lot of the money is for Game Stop and other similar game retailers.
Re: Miyamoto Would Rather Focus On New Nintendo Experiences Than Old Ones
Don’t mind them trying new things as long as they show good judgement when determining what should be dumped back at the drawing board.
Star Fox Zero is a great example of something they tried and shouldn’t have shipped.
The Switch on the other hands been a terrific success.
Re: Sonic's Movie Redesign Reportedly Cost Paramount Less Than $5 Million
So is that purely production or are they factoring in marketing done to date?
Re: Ninja Thinks Pro Players And Streamers Who Cheat Should Be Treated Differently
What a load of crap. If it’s your livelihood, don’t cheat.
If someone working at a Casino steals from their employer they likely won’t get a job at any other Casino in the country. They aren’t getting a free pass because “it’s their livelihood”.
People need to be accountable for their own mistakes when those errors are pre meditated and they knew what they were doing.
I’d argue popular streamers cheating is worse as it’s advertising the wrong thing to a population versus some random kid no one is following. The streamer is also profiting off their misbehaviour where the random kids getting a laugh out of it but likely not much else. People in the public eye cheating on a game can alter the perception of the game as a whole, so should be dealt with appropriately.
Re: Video: Digital Foundry Likens Luigi's Mansion 3 To A "Playable CG Movie"
What I’m loving isn’t so much the raw graphics, which are great, but how immersive the game is as a result of basically everything in the world being movable and not feeling fixed down. Really feels great to start sucking and having pretty much everything in the room respond. It makes the game feel so much more dynamic and the world alive than most titles where half the map is fixed props that you can’t interact with.
Re: Epic Sues User Experience Tester For Leaking Fortnite Chapter 2
@Syndrome These things are frequently being pursued, we just don't necessarily hear about all cases and often the punishment would be different such as a firing if it was an employee.
Re: Rumour: Nvidia's New Tegra X1+ Chip Could Make Switch Performance "Up To 25% Faster"
@kepsux I also doubt a pro will see significant performance leaps, in order to not fragment the market. From a performance perspective maybe we could get enough out of the system to allow a 1080p display with docked performance (or a modest 5-10% performance jump to smooth things out), but I doubt we’d get a lot more than that.
Could see enhancements being things like Bluetooth audio support (a must) and things like WiFi6 etc. More internal memory is an obvious easy option too. Perhaps a nicer display panel (OLED), using glass over plastic could round it out. Those sorts of things.
But yeah I think raw performance boost will be modest or if there is a jump it’ll be focused on getting handheld performance close to docked.
Re: A Revised Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Has Been Spotted In Stores
@ItalianBaptist don’t hold your breath waiting for any clearances of the older revision due to this release. Seems to be a minor and silent revision, the sort that’s relatively frequent for any hardware that sits in the market for any period of time.
More likely to get some Black Friday sales in a months time.
Re: Uniqlo Reveals 'Mario Kart Friendship' Range Of Shirts And Hoodies
Looks nice, and cheaper than Mario Kart Tours in app purchases!
Re: SNK Eager To Revive Metal Slug, But Still Unsure About One-Hit Mechanic
Just have a hardcore mode.
Could go the extra mile and have one hit with no retries nightmare mode for the super crazy fans.
Re: First 4 Figures Teases Its Luigi's Mansion 3 Statue
@Rayquaza2510 I think the PVC ones aren’t too poorly priced but yeah, get that they’re still too much for many.
What disappoints me about F4F is the direction their resin statues have gone. 15 years ago they were at a $100ish price point. I get inflation and the like happens but they cost waaaay more now. Part of that is certainly them just increasing prices, the other half is these past few years they seem to have become obsessed with making things really really large. Half the statues they put out are massive and they take particular pride in that fact. Problem is costs all round go up (especially shipping!) and they’re so large that they’ve alienated many of their own customers who simply don’t have space to display the larger sized busts etc they are doing. They seem to be doing a lot more 1/4 scale now versus 1/8ish.
I’m glad they’re at least doing some small scale, low(we) cost PVC figures which aren’t too out of line with other gaming merch my local EB Games sticks. Would like them to do some smaller resin ones too and try and get those out at a reasonable price rather than the monstrosities they’ve shipped the past few years.
Re: First 4 Figures Teases Its Luigi's Mansion 3 Statue
@AndrosEGD That’d be about my bet. It’s around where Crash Bandicoot and BotW Link we’re for the PVC ones.
Re: First 4 Figures Teases Its Luigi's Mansion 3 Statue
If it’s PVC it won’t be that pricy, especially compared to the companies resin statues.
Re: Random: iPhone Charging Cable On The Fritz? Get A Sleeping Pokémon On It
@Kang81 There’s heaps online. Search for “desk cable manager” or “desk cable fastener” or something like that. Probably $1 delivered on eBay.
Unlike the description in this article which suggests these are to help with damaged cables, the general use is just to hold cables in place for cleaner placement and to ensure they don’t fall down the back of a desk. If your cable is stuffed then this probably won’t save you and you’ll still have issues. They probably won’t be some magic fix for cables that are in the verge of death.