TSR3

I liked the look of this from the preview, but I'm glad l waited for the Switch review. I'm not a PC gamer, so I guess I'll give this one a miss

I thought it was a very good direct. I was just hoping for lots of everything, so the breadth of the games coming out was impressive - from family party games to horror. But for now I'm most pleased about the return of Advance Wars and Super Monkey Ball, those a definite buys for me.
As for what didn't make the cut this year, I think as Nintendo are planning for an 8-9 year lifespan for the Switch, they're pacing themselves. I'm still hopeful all the missing favourites will get a run on the Switch this generation. But yeah, I'm getting impatient for more Star Fox too

Just watching the Advance Wars Treehouse now. I really like the design, especially the wooden board for the battlefield. Kinda reminds me of Tanks! from Wii Play

I gave it a sold B. Pluses were the return of Advance Wars and Super Monkey Ball. Metroid Dread looks good too.
It didn’t deserve an A as there wasn’t any Star Fox or Bayonetta 3, but I think Nintendo are treating releases for the Switch as a marathon rather than a sprint

I thought it was a really good all round selection of games. I’m really hyped for the return of Advance Wars, and curious about the Fatal Frame remake as I never got the Wii U. Slightly disappointed there wasn’t any Star Fox or Bayonetta 3, but you can’t have everything all at once.

Nintendo launch New Switch. Fans hate it and to assuage the backlash they’ll relaunch the original as Switch Classic 😜

Just increasing the screen size by 27% (thanks for the maths @westman98 ) would be a wasted opportunity. Sure it would make it better for Tabletop mode, but not much else. Any revision needs better support for 4K TVs, whether that be via DLSS or dedicated upscaling through the dock.

If Nintendo were just to remove the bezels they should do that for a revision to the Lite - not to increase it's screen size above 5.5", but to make to shrink the rest of the case a bit, and maybe make the Lite lighter. It's still a bit chunky for a dedicated handheld to my mind, and why I held off from getting one.

Kinda feels like normal service is starting to resume perhaps. I wonder how long it will take for the next boatload of consoles to land in the UK?

Who knew stability could be so stressful?

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (with offspring as P2). After seeing it miss the 3D All Stars ports, and offspring asking to play SMG1 again, I decided to get it a copy on eBay, which arrived yesterday.

I'm definitely in 'The more the merrier' camp. Apple Arcade exclusives all appear to be timed, so anything good should make its way on to the Switch eventually. I'm not snobbish about mobile to console ports either, a few are quite good.

@NoTinderLife That rumour's quite sketchy. It seems more like like attention seeking click bait in the run up to WWDC next week (Apples big developer conference). It probably got picked because of the comparison to the Switch, as well as referring to Apples new CPU for high end Macs. Apple already have a hybrid solution - their Arcade service runs on everything from iPhones, AppleTVs to desktop Macs. They don't need a hybrid device like the Switch,

Shift Happens. Despite the almost NSFW title, it's been a good fun couch co-op platform puzzler I've been playing with my offspring. It looks a bit like Unravel Two (which i haven't played) mixed with Portal. The big negative is to make sure she clearly pronounces the 'F' in the title, so we don't get into trouble with her teachers at school!

I’m just hoping for lots of everything. I’m a bit hyped since Nintendo said they had a ‘marquee’ of games for the second half of the year

I'm now thinking the name 'New Nintendo Switch' makes the most sense since the Amazon Mexico leak. I had being preferring Switch Plus as a new name, but if you apply that to the Lite you end up with 'Switch Lite Plus'. Which is a bit stupid, to be honest

It's a slightly heretical thought, but does the cheat mode still work? I've got one written on a post-it note in my box for the GameCube original.

@Otoemetry as far as I know, the AMD chips that both PS5 and Xbox Series use are 7nm. AMD were ahead of Nvidia in placing orders with TSMC for 7nm parts. That's also why Nvidia's RTX 30 series GPUs are manufactured by Samsung at 8nm. And I wouldn't be surprised if Samsung are also manufacturing the SoC for the New Nintendo Switch (as well as the OLED displays).

@Slowdive I get where you're getting the 'New Nintendo Switch' name from the product number (tho' I still prefer Switch Plus as a name myself), but where are you seeing two models?

@Otoemetry the shortage issue is due to fab capacity at certain nodes, rather than the design of CPUs themselves. So all the bleeding edge 5nn and 7nm capacity is being fought for by Apple, AMD, Nvidia and even Intel. Meanwhile old tech components made in the 2*nm fabs are also in short supply thanks to the auto industry shooting itself in the foot. I wouldn't be surprised if this is feeding into the next nodes down, i.e. 16nm where the current Switches Tegra X1s are currently produced at. So there may be an economic sense for Nintendo and Nvidia to go to 12nm where there's less extreme competition for fab capacity. Also Nintendo have buying power now, and can commit to ordering 20-30 million units in a year. And it wouldn't surprise me if Nvidia did produce a customised SoC for Nintendo, rather than just an off the shelf design (e.g. Xavier)

@WoomyNNYes great find on that video. It's a very good and concise summary of the situation I've been reading about in the tech press in the last few months. You may find the cost of the fabs even more shocking when you realise they are only productive for a few years before they become effectively obsolete. It's not just the end products that have short lifecycles.

This sale is also in the UK e-Shop (I presume rest of Europe as well). And I can thoroughly recommend Yoku's Island Express (which isn't in the list above, but is in the UK sale).

This reminds me of all the Chinese accessory manufacturer rumour / leaks back in 2019 in the run up to the Lite announcement. Some were close, but others were well wide of the mark. I think some of these manufacturers leak stuff to get attention as a form of marketing. For those who hate the rumour hype, or just like surprises, you may want to stay offline for a couple of weeks

@AnalogWave without getting into details, an undocked OG Switch and a Switch Lite will have similar performance (IIRC the main difference is battery life). My guess is an undocked new Switch ‘pro/plus/xl’ will have similar performance to a docked OG Switch

@BrintaPap I think you're correct about the money argument for upgrading the SoC. Nvidia/TSMC can probably make more money using the 16nm nodes to produce automotive components for silly prices. I'm also hoping the Lite will get an upgrade next year as well

@BrintaPap I think Luigisghost669 was referring to compatibilty rather than performance

@AnalogWave don't Nintendo already have two models of different lines? The original Switch with dock and the Switch Lite

@GrailUK I probably won’t buy one (yet) as I don’t have a 4K TV (yet). But if this is a replacement for the OG switch, rather than a premium version, it suggests the rumours about production of the X1+ Tegra SoCs is on the money. In which case I’d expect the Lite to be replaced as well, next year maybe March time? And I’d probably get that new Lite

I must admit I’d discounted a Switch Upgrade (I’m not going to predict its name, but I like Plus more than Pro) this year. Nintendo must be feeling confident. The battle between the consoles this year isn’t about specs or software exclusives, it’s all about supply chain management and the ability to deliver product into consumers hands.

Hardly anything major gets released in January. Maybe there's a lot of release congestion coming up in 1st half of 2022?

@GrailUK you're not wrong there!
I had a look at the GPD, One-Netbook, and Aya devices the Ars Technica article referenced to double-check the prices. Goodness me those devices are ugly! They're like the old UMPC devices from 10-15 years ago, just larger

I'd love Steam to produce this, if only for all the Switch critics to see how much their fantasy upgrade specs actually cost in real life. Anything below £1000 would be impressive

@Rob3008 my offspring picked up on it and ask me to download the demo. I think having a pre release demo helped build up hype in the playgrounds

@Kimyonaakuma I was thinking it was starting to look a bit like the Japanese charts, but hey GTA V is back in the top 10 😆

@Ghost_of_Hasashi I get you’re point about matching IP with established genre masters, but they’re not really indies, are they? 🙂
GetsuFumaDen remake is obviously an experiment, that’s going well enough so far for Konami to start looking around for other potential suitable indie partners. I’d rather they give more indies a chance than play boring and safe with the same old names (who mostly have their own IPs to concentrate on anyway)

I read in the gamesindustry.biz link that Devolver acquired Serious Sam developer Croteam last year. To my mind that meant they were not longer an indie publisher. Good luck to them anyway. The industry needs more competition and diversity

I think it’s interesting that game pass is now allowed on iOS, as I thought Apple had similar concerns to Nintendo (it’s a 3rd parties virtual console on their own system) that could bypass apple’s app controls

It's got to be a wise decision for the developer as well. Most games only get attention and reviews (if any) at launch. How many people only read a marked down review and then pass over a game because of technical issues at launch, that may get patched later but never reported on.
This game is kinda interesting to me, and I could be swayed by a good review, if there isn't a demo.

@iuli Do you know what state the original Baldur's Gate RPG ports are in as well? Those had middling reviews on release mostly due to technical issues, so I gave them a pass. Just wondering if the were worth playing yet?

Isn't this a bit like the music journalism metaphor, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”? The problem seems similar where you're trying to write about something that is directly experienced and subjective. It's not so much a 'first world problem', more a journalistic problem with the need to have a short hand to summarise a full 2000 word review.
Maybe we will end up with tag clouds as an alternative to putting games into individual genre boxes. Having a filter system would make more sense to me than a folder system for organising games on the Switch.

I know of Sam and Max by reputation from the ‘90s, but never played. Now I don’t have an excuse to at least try it ...

I’ve got quite a backlog, so I’m hoping they slow down the pace of releases a bit

I like the idea of a narrative explorer, and the gameplay video's good. The PC version's already got 7/10 on Steam and 76% on Metacritic. But yes, I'll wait for a Switch review as well.

The Switch is now an icon. That rounded rectangle with the blue and red joy-cons on the side is what pops into the average non-gamers head when they (or their offspring) want to get a game console. It's kinda like Nokia phones were before the iPhone came out.
I can see demand for Switch staying high until 2023 at least.

I thought it was interesting Nintendo count 'software development costs, which include outsourcing' as R&D. That statement makes it look like 2nd party dev work, as well in-house, contributes to the R&D spend. Or have I misunderstood that, and it doesn't mean games development?
I also thought the comment 'the development of the next generation of hardware needs to begin years before launch' was interesting as it looked like their R&D spend broke records in both 19/20 and 20/21.

I world absolutely love to see BG:DA 2 on the Switch. I just had a GameCube back in the day, so never got to play the sequel. I considered getting an old PS2 or XBox just to play it, but focused on the Wii instead.

I ran this by a friend who's on Apple forums. They said they'd seen the same rumour and just brushed it off

Total BS.
Apple already have a hybrid environment (not a single device). You can play mobile on an iPad (or even iPhone) and play on big screen with Apple TV. They’ve just upgraded the Apple TV with an A12 SOC which is their baseline to devs for high performance games on Apple Arcade. They’re already Nintendo’s most significant competition (Sony and Microsoft are really in a different market now). The only gap they have in their game capable hardware is their nearly obsolete iPod Touch

@Jeronan There is an Nvidia SOC available and viable - Xavier is their most recent Tegra chipset, which can run as low as 10w and has a Volta based GPU with Tensor cores that could support DLSS. Interestingly, in his 3rd post, @Slowdive linked to a NateDrake rumour that suggests that Nintendo are getting a customised chip (as well as the Switch Plus not appearing until next year).

@Liam_Doolan Will NL be doing a review of this, when it does finally come out?

@BetterThanVegas I think you’re right about the IP, and it’s also the reason BG:DA2 never ported to the GameCube.

@neufel Ah yes, thanks. I just knew it as Baldur's Gate 3.