TheWPCTraveler

@TeeJay But all the ad ££££££!

(I realize Nintendo Life is most likely based in Great Britain, so I avoided using $, €, or ¥.)

"Because of the success of Pokémon Go, we are pleased to announce that Pokémon Sun/Moon will be transitioning to free-to-play and will receive iOS and Android versions..."

Let's hope that never happens.

@gurtifus Tell your government to make France safe to move like zombies glued to your phones again, then we can talk - FBI

@KH22 By the pre-order chart, do you mean the COMG! one? I've been following that for some time now. I'm really impressed with how Sun/Moon is performing, on track to at least match X/Y even without the finish sprint.

I'm also really impressed with how well SQ V is performing. If it gets a normal ratio, it'll beat Puzzle&Dragons X as well as SMT IV Apocalypse and the Story of Seasons game that released recently. It's nice to see Etrian Odyssey get the respect it deserves.

@hepgius Yokai Watch 2 Ganso/Honke released on a Friday, not a Monday, giving its first week three days. As far as I know, Shinuichi debuted on a weekend, but I'll still have to check.
Well, it's still disappointing for Level-5. I'll still have to look out for sales figures for the next three weeks, but I'm worried that YW3 won't even sell through the first print run by the time Sun/Moon take the spotlight.

By the way, where'd you hear that Sun/Moon pre-orders are lower than X/Y?

@hepgius
YW2 Ganso/Honke FW: ~1.2 million
YW2 Shinuichi FW: ~1.2 million
YW Busters FW: ~750 thousand

Yeah, it's bad. These figures are off the top of my head, but Level-5 did announce sales figures for every 3DS game in the franchise.
They based their report off Famitsu sales figures, which makes YW3 look even worse: ~581k sales for the first week, with ~40% of inventory sold-through.

@Kirk Oh, I don't plan on using AR to play games. I'm fine with it being in games, just make it optional or - at the very least - integrated in a way that it at least makes sense.

I completely forgot about mentioning that.

@Kirk I prefer AR simply because it's cheap, shallow, and what I want from it doesn't even need all the bells and whistles of AR headsets available now.
That said, I agree with you that VR provides a superior experience from the get-go. It just doesn't give me what I think I want.

@rjejr I forgot about it completely. Then again, I've forgotten practically every 3DS Pokémon spin-off, so it might be me getting old.

@Kirk If AR can bring me a good HUD that makes my everyday life look cool, then I say AR >>>>>>>>>>> VR. (Take, for instance, an HUD much like what Persona 5 has. I'd go further than that, but current technology is limited.)

I'm already immersing myself in delusions too much as is, after all.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE 3DS can already do AR, albeit limited by processing power and the 2MP rear cameras.

I can name numerous examples, like Face Raiders, Spirit Camera, the Agnés intro in Bravely Default, and so on and so forth.

@TurboTEF Urgh, I hate "Happy." Its very existence annoys me enough as is.

Then, there are those ads they run featuring "Happy" and its clones...

@Zalb33 I actually couldn't think of anything that would prevent this from catching on in Serbia apart from the "remove kebab" meme.

There's also how Serbian lands have been pried away from Serbia who knows how many times this century, so there's that.

@Ooyah Japan is 120 million people, of which at least 30 million are old and at least 5 million are shut-ins.

I have more than enough reason to believe that the servers can handle them.

@Peterjr1 That's probably because, to avoid being banned, all someone within the EU visa-free access area needs to do is hop on an airplane or train to Britain or Deutschland then start playing Pokémon Go there.

Then return to their home country, of course.

@Ninten-san I believe you meant to say:
SWEDEN YES!

@Kirk If you're worried about it dragging down the quality of Nintendo-developed titles, well, it's already dragging down the quality of Nintendo Life comment sections. Just see @trainyourpoke above.

Ouch. Ukrainians, Serbians, and Russians left out.

Then again, Ukraine is in a protracted civil war, Putin wants Russian birth rates to rise, and Serbia is Serbia.

@Mikanes I'm lumping them in with Niantic and the app store owner take.

Besides, they're in selling consumer data, not maps data. No need for them to shoot themselves in the foot by charging for GMaps.

@luke88 30% of Pokémon Go revenue is rather small compared to what Nintendo is used to (60-100%, depending on the retail medium).

I'm assuming that the cut Apple takes from proceeds off purchases on the App Store is ~30%. If we assume an equal split between Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Niantic for the rest of the proceeds, Nintendo would end up with (23+8)% as a result of their stake in The Pokémon Company.
Hence the 30% figure.

@dumedum If the estimates are correct, Pokémon Go is already bringing in ~$6.5 million a day in the US alone. That's ~$2.4 billion a year at this rate, with at least ~$720 million a year going straight to Nintendo.

That's already more revenue than what Nintendo gets from sales of worldwide Wii U software alone - even with the assumption that all software sold was $60 first-party games, with a 10% of sales being on the eShop.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE I am left astonished and awe-stricken by your comment.

Point taken.

@hepgius I'm speaking from the perspective of the investor.

Their first true mobile effort will, when all is said and done, rake in more money than any single Wii U or 3DS game. (Mario Kart 8 is at 7.5 million sold with bundles, and Pokémon X/Y is at 14.7 million.)
While the investor response to the success of Pokémon Go has been nothing short of irrational, it does give Nintendo much-needed brand exposure and has the potential to bring new fans into the fold. Consider the following numbers:
Pokémon Go install base (USA) - 21+ million
Nintendo 3DS install base (USA+) - <19.76 million
Nintendo Wii U install base (USA+) - <6.20 million

And, there's at least a bit of good news for fans of Nintendo hardware here.
Alongside an uptick in 3DS software and hardware sales (Wii U has been left to die), there's also a large upside possible for those waiting the NX out.
There's also how future Nintendo mobile releases may end up capitalizing on the strong points of mobile hardware, but I don't count on it considering DeNA is involved.

@hepgius To be fair, assuming Pokémon Go nets $1 billion a year in revenue, and Nintendo gets 30% of it (both conservative estimates), here's what the new revenue stream equals:
~35 million figure-type amiibo
~8 million first-party home console games
~15 million first-party handheld console games
~1.5 million Wii U units
~2.5 million 3DS units

I'm taking into account that retail distributors take a cut of the sale price.

@Fandabidozi No wonder they have several "independence" movements. Like the Scots, the Irish, and the Sealander.

@Tsurii I apologize for forgetting about The Vatican, San Marino, and Transnistria.

Does that answer your question?

Why can't they release it somewhere smaller first? Like Lichtenstein, Monaco, or Andorra?

@PlywoodStick I stumbled upon a few stories about wars lately, but that must be because I've recently gotten into a rather complex naval warfare simulator.
It surprises me how amusing wartime events sound after the fact, especially considering how gruesome or disastrous those events may have been. Take, for example, that the German Empire were confident that they were actually winning the first World War in early 1918, so much so that they actually had a holiday to celebrate their impending victory. Or, how about the capitulation of quite a few Swedish kings? Surrendering to the Russians just a few miles away from Neutral (Ottoman) soil after fighting tenacious battles, what a thoroughly anticlimactic ending!

Or, how about the time when Australia lost against a bunch of emus. Actually, that's just hilarious no matter how it's put.

@PlywoodStick Eh, I wouldn't mind it. If they're spewing the truth of what they saw there, then by all means, let them spew it all over the place!

Besides, I'd rather trust a bunch of soldiers who had to defend the place or were at least stationed there, than a bunch of ideologues paid to run their mouths on TV...

@BulbasaurusRex "Racist," yes.

That said, it is possible to make generalizations about the intelligence of a given race and ethnicity of humans, and draw conclusions regarding relative intelligence from that.
It would be "racist" if I said that Greens are generally dumber than Blues, but if I can back it up with statistical evidence, who are you to question the truth?

If the truth is "racist," then it is "racist." But it is the truth, and nothing but the truth.

@PlywoodStick As long as they don't actually live there, I don't think they should care.

But, if they spoke their minds while on duty there, I don't think it would help their stated cause of "protecting democracy" there or somesuch. I'm pretty sure the arms manufacturers are happy to know that, though.

@DarkCoolEdge I like it. It punishes those who can't handle the game or swallow their pride by going on Easy mode through their wallets.

That said, my wallet will be punished a lot harder than theirs...a soundtrack for $7 isn't really heavy for what I'm getting, though.

@YouSeemFRAZZLED According to 3D World, Peach can jump as high as Mario, do all his moves, and acquire all his power-ups. And, if that's not enough, there's Super Princess Peach to look back on. It makes me wonder if she's even a princess in distress in the first place!
Can Cinderella long-jump back-flip wall-jump ground-pound an enemy in 1.5 seconds?

"However in my defense, I was racially vilified for not being a 'white' Australian"

Insulting the country you're residing in, as well as its people, is completely stupid (unless it's in vogue), no matter what color your skin and eyes are.

@SfaFreak I recommend you play EO III, then. Or, at the very least, give its soundtrack a listen.

There's also the bit about these games taking after old-school dungeon crawlers, too. Down to drawing the map manually.

I'm a bit concerned for Etrian Odyssey V now that they've shown off DLC I can't just hold off on buying.

@Spoony_Tech It's a bit disappointing to have a 3DS game not use 3D in 2015 (much less 2016, its western release), but they probably did this in order to lower load times heavily. That, and there's already a bit of stuttering in dungeons without 3D...

I'm more frustrated by their poor use of the touch screen. Then again, they share the HUD between the battles and the overworld, so it may not be such a bad idea after all.

@BLPs Nintendo still has some sort of retail presence in South America.

If banana republics get their Nintendo fix, why can't the Queen?

@Dakt Worked on me, will work on thousands of others.

Eh, I'll just keep blocking the site analytics and ads until I get reassurance that they aren't doing this indefinitely.

Translation: We don't have the money to go up against Disney in a copyright case and win.

That's a suspicious place to pet a bear. Are you sure they're not trying to attract the (money-laden) furry audience?

From experience, furries are generally richer than the general population. Whether this is a cause or effect is up to you to decide.

@BlueNitrous This, though I'll still buy it - cut-price, of course, like every Atlus JRPG I've bought that isn't Etrian Odyssey - if only because Nintendo of America is run incompetently and will claim that poor sales are a result of the game itself being bad rather than their flawed handling of it.
Never mind that they've made great money over thoroughly unnecessary changes to the game, no, just move along.

Localization, after all, is the car repair shop of the gaming industry. Want a translation? Well, you'll have to pay for these model changes, dungeon reskins, oh, and we'll cut some content on the side...here's the bill!

@PlywoodStick The game is, apparently, rated CERO B (or C, though I believe it was the former) in Japan. It's not rated D (their equivalent of a "Mature" rating), so its Japanese box isn't black and the marketing was more for the younger teen audience.

I'm just chuckling to myself about just how different the standards in Japan and the West are.
It reminds me about that picture floating around about how the West criticizes Japan for sexualizing fictional women, while the West sexualizes real women.

I'll probably never understand how these people think.

@beazlen1 Falling with style != Flying

@edcomics I'd agree with you if I wasn't holding out hope that I could fly. Hot air balloon, peregrine falcon, Epona with wings, Paratroopa, anything! Just let me fly.

@PlywoodStick Eh, people might attack me for saying EUSSR. It rolls better off the tongue, though.

@Socar Nintendo has presence here only through retailers that go through the American market, if you don't live in Malaysia, Singapore, or Thailand. Or Play-Asia, if that counts.

Actually, there are some channels that go to the Middle East, but I'm not sure just how well-organized they are.

I'm leaving out Korea and China, for obvious reasons.

@KappaBeta You just went ahead and listed all of them, assuming you count Kosovo as "Slavic."

The nice thing about my playthrough is that I haven't gone bankrupt yet, so I'm somehow fourth in the world in terms of prestige, and best educated to boot.
The downside is that I haven't progressed enough to make my Greece a naval superpower, and on top of that, my education is setting off trends that eat away at my population (this is a mod-specific feature, though).

Here are a few "features" of my playthrough:

• Philippines is somehow one step away from being Great Power
• Sao Tome and Principe is somehow second best educated nation
• Korea is somehow united
• India and China are 20% below their historical population sizes and are completely irrelevant
• Hyderabad somehow is independent
• Turkey became great power thrice, and lost it each time because of going bankrupt (it reduces prestige score sharply).

To acquire cores on Thrace and Smyrna, I need to break away from the USA sphere, but I'm not sure I can do so cleanly without either becoming a GP or getting destroyed militarily (Turkey is 6x my size).

Wish me luck, and maybe Cyprus too. Because I conquered them, hehe.

@KappaBeta The same sort of arrangement is done with the Scandinavian countries. At least there, Nintendo of Sweden is at least willing to provide rough retail sales rankings.
I'd be really impressed, though, if NoE is able to build a supply chain across every Slavic country in Europe, from Bulgaria to Russia to Poland to Montenegro.

As for Greece, I'm trying to play as them in Victoria II with the New World Order mod. It's really frustrating to deal with their low population and poor economy, but it's fun, too.

While I admire the Greeks for their contributions to history, their economy is in tatters.
Here's to hoping they escape being a colony of the Fourth German Reich.

So...the NX (if home console) will not have Wii U backwards compatibility?

@Jazzer94 Isn't Fatal Frame 5 an example of this, too?