Comments 51

Re: Super-Rare And Supersized Pre-Nintendo Game & Watch Goes Up For Auction

brideck

@chardir My understanding, which may be incorrect, is that Game & Watch is a Nintendo invention, but the first four games were manufactured and sold by Mego in the US as the Time Out series. Mego folded shortly after that, so Nintendo took it back over and relaunched as the Game & Watch series here, too.

http://megomuseum.com/catalog/1980e/game.shtml

The fact that this device says Game & Watch on it must mean that it's either from a time before Mego decided to rebrand the series or it's from right before they folded.

Re: Reminder: Today Is Bunny Day In Animal Crossing: New Horizons

brideck

@ShadJV
"Casual players should be able to get all the recipes, this series is built for casual players."

I would say that if you feel a compulsive need to have all of the recipes, then you're probably not a casual player of the series. I consider myself casual, have "only" played for 45 hours since release, and am perfectly all right having only gotten 5 or 6 of the blossom recipes this year.

My wife, on the other hand, has logged more than double my hours since release and had no trouble getting all of the blossom recipes and then some without altering her play habits at all.

Re: Poll: Has Your Family Bought A Second Switch To Play Animal Crossing: New Horizons 'Properly'?

brideck

@Crono1973 In what way am I not having fun? I still get to fish, hunt bugs, buy things, donate to the museum... What is missing from my Animal Crossing experience?

It's a game built around mundane activities. What's adding a handful more to that list?

And really... choices like the shared warehouse save me from having to carry wood around in my pockets or eat up the storage in my house with that stuff.

Re: Poll: Has Your Family Bought A Second Switch To Play Animal Crossing: New Horizons 'Properly'?

brideck

I don't get the "on principle" wording of the last choice. Where's the "One Switch is fine because the game works as designed" choice?

There are easy workarounds to a lot of people's issues.

  • Rare shop items? Just set up a policy where you trade them back and forth. Having them in your pockets for one nanosecond is enough to get it in your Nook Shopping catalog.
  • Shortage of crafting supplies? Set up a communal warehouse in a remote part of your island, or just get used to flying DAL for all of your crafting needs.
  • Only one person ultimately decides where "important" things like bridges, ramps, and buildings go? Talk about how you want to design the island with your co-players ahead of time.

If you're trying to play on the same island with a bunch of people who don't know how to share, this seems like a great tool to teach those lessons.

It reminds me of The Sims. Back in college, we used to joke that it was a real test of a relationship to see if a couple could manage a shared household in that game without getting into terrible arguments.

Re: Angry Players Are Starting To Review-Bomb Animal Crossing: New Horizons

brideck

I actually really like the one island thing. In our family, my wife is the one who plays the most, so we made her the first player. She progresses the island (and enlists help from the rest of us through communicating either in-person or on the bulletin board) and we all reap the benefits. If we had separate islands, mine would perpetually be "behind" hers by a lot and I'd probably stop playing much sooner. With Dodo Airlines there are more than enough natural resources to go around for everyone.

Re: Random: Star Wars Director Appears To Use Pokémon GO To Comment On Angry Fans

brideck

@MisterKorman
"People were unhappy with how some characters were portrayed, people who don’t understand character arcs were bothered by a sequence that they felt was pointless, and some just felt that the story didn’t live up to what they hoped for (though that was by design, it’s also a fair conclusion to reach)."

Could not agree more with this. Many of the story decisions made in The Last Jedi seemed to intentionally be the exact opposite of what you would see in a run-of-the-mill Star Wars story. Between movies, TV, books, and comics, we already have 100,000 of those — heaven forbid we try to reinvent and push things in a new direction.

Fandoms seem to easily get stuck in ruts, though. What I wouldn't pay for a Marvel movie that didn't feel the need to be nothing but punch, quip, punch, quip over and over again. They're starting to move things in a positive direction there, but it shouldn't take 20+ movies to make baby steps toward an improved mode of storytelling.

Re: Hackers Are Already Uploading Additional Games To The Switch NES Library

brideck

@Heavyarms55 "But I have been saying for a while, if Nintendo does not offer more of their legacy retro content, then homebrewers are gonna find a way to do it themselves."

The thing is that Nintendo does do a good job of offering their legacy retro content. It's everyone else's content and/or the stuff caught in property rights jail that never makes it to these services. Out of all the first-party NES games, I think Pro Wrestling is the only one that I could spot that had never made it to the VC before. And now it has. The other Nintendo-published games that have never materialized are all Rare, Irem, or other developer games - or things that require peripherals.

If people are clamoring for Contra or Battletoads or Journey to Silius on these services, then people need to be lobbying/complaining to Konami, Microsoft, and the modern day equivalent of Sunsoft. Nintendo can only do so much.

Re: Nintendo's Long Lost Arcade Game Sky Skipper Flies Onto Switch This Week

brideck

So pleased that they're doing this one; I'd never heard of it before the NintendoArcade guy launched his Sky Skipper restoration project a couple of years ago.

Is it too much to hope that they would do some of their pre-DK arcade games? I don't know that I need things from their Space Invaders or Breakout families of games, but Sheriff would be neat to see.

Re: Check Out All These New Discounts on My Nintendo in North America

brideck

I was initially a My Nintendo apologist, but at this point Nintendo should do one of these things to improve it:

1) As @Rocky2418 mentioned, leverage their big data collection to offer discounts/free downloads of games that you don't actually own and would be interested in.

2) Increase the number of discounts/free downloads for eShop-only games, since you can generally get physical copies for cheaper via sales or secondhand shops.

3) Forget the system of offering a limited set of specific discount rewards and just offer cash equivalent in eShop credit. 100 platinum = $1, 8 gold = $1. Less exciting than a system with a lot of desirable specific benefits, but everyone wins, assuming Nintendo is actually doing something useful with all of the data they're collecting.

Re: Super Mario Cereal Has Shown Up in Target’s Online Inventory

brideck

@Anti-Matter Mixed berry cereal with marshmallows. It says so right on the box.

This is probably going to be pretty similar to the steady drumbeat of Disney and Star Wars cereals they've been cranking out for the past few years, so it'll taste like a sugar bomb going off in your mouth.

Re: Random: Sealed Copy Of Super Mario Bros. Fetches Over $30,000 On eBay

brideck

@dkxcalibur This isn't talking about the plastic hangtab stuck on to the wrapper. This is talking about the older box variant where there's a perforated hangtab built-in to the cardboard. It's relatively uncommon to find this type of box where the hangtab hasn't been punched or torn in some way, let alone is still sealed in mint condition.

I agree that this seems like a massive overpay, though.

Re: Review: Mr. Shifty (Switch eShop)

brideck

@Snakesglowcaps
That's surprising to hear given the high marks it's currently getting on Steam. I would be much more likely to see this as a porting issue. Team Shifty may be experienced former Halfbrick staffers, but the four people credited with Console Porting don't have a whole lot of experience (zero in one case) under their belt.

Re: Nintendo Download: 30th March (North America)

brideck

Speaking of dead consoles, don't forget that tomorrow is the last day you can buy anything on the DSi Shop, if you happen to still have any unspent points languishing there. You haven't been able to add points since last September.

Re: Nintendo Switch Will Be a Single-Screen Experience

brideck

Not sure I get all of the eulogies for Super Mario Maker.

Disney Infinity and LittleBigPlanet before it successfully had popular level/world-building tools without requiring a touch screen (or 2nd screen) interface. Nintendo can figure it out just fine, if they want to.

Re: Feature: Ten of Our Favourite DSiWare Games

brideck

After a little more research, I've found that there's basically a 3DS version of each game on that entire list of DSiShop "exclusives" that's available in the 3DS eShop. The only exceptions are Asphalt 4 (which has a physical-only port of Asphalt 6 for the 3DS instead), Oregon Trail (which got a physical-only release for 3DS), and the two Hudson Sudoku games. But if you can't find any Sudoku to play on the 3DS, you're not trying hard enough. So all-in-all, there's nothing that should make anyone rush out and put funds in their DSi Shop.

Re: Feature: Ten of Our Favourite DSiWare Games

brideck

@dok5555555 @Moon I don't think that list has been updated since the 3DS came out. I've done some cataloging over the last week or so, and it looks like for NA the list of DSiWare software (that is still available today in the DSi shop) that is not also in the 3DS' eShop is:

Asphalt 4: Elite Racing
Cave Story (although there's obviously the newer 3DS version)
Crazy Chicken: Director's Cut
Crazy Chicken Pirates
Let's Golf
Oregon Trail, The
Puzzler Brain Games
Puzzler World 2013
Sparkle Snapshots
Sudoku Sensei
Sudoku Student

Other than the 60+ pieces of software that have been delisted from both shops over the years, everything else is available in the 3DS eShop.

Re: E3 2016: Brandwatch Data Shows The Legend of Zelda Dominating Social Media During E3

brideck

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm pretty sure that the 2nd chart indicates that Zelda hasn't exactly won E3. It's mostly an indication that those trumpeting about Nintendo don't have any other games to chat up, since Pokemon clocks in next at #43.

Meanwhile, anyone talking Sony/Microsoft has split their mentions among all of the different games they announced. That's not to say that Zelda didn't make a big splash... it definitely did.

Re: My Nintendo's Rewards Have Been Updated for May

brideck

@rjejr
The points are really not random at all. 100 platinum points = 8 gold points = $1 discount on all of those. It's the price of the games in the eShop that varies wildly. If anything they've simplified this time around by making all of the platinum discounts 15% and all of the gold ones 30%.


A lot of people are viewing this as a loyalty program, but does it work at all as an enticement program? If you're a new Miitomo user and don't have a Nintendo system, would you be enticed by these discounts/free games to pony up for a system and see what the fuss is all about? Remember that part of Nintendo's stated goal is to increase awareness of their products and drive sales to their platforms. Does this work in doing that? I'm not in that boat so I couldn't say for sure, but I suspect that the answer unfortunately is not really.

Re: Talking Point: My Nintendo's Pros, Cons and Areas for Improvement

brideck

The exchange rate for gold coins to dollars is about 8 to 1, given some room for rounding. (Note: that there also seems to be a slight premium added to the reward prices of the free downloads — SM64, SLU) So if you manage to get in the habit of buying digitally and cashing in gold coins, you're saving anywhere from 12.5 to 25 percent on every purchase depending on where the thing you're buying is in each price range.

On its face, this isn't a bad deal. For example, if I buy Pikmin 3 digitally at full price it costs me $19.99 and I get 20 gold coins (cash value $2.50), so it's like I saved 12.5% on it. The catch is that there need to be rewards that don't cost so many coins that I'd have to buy 3 or 4 large games every 6 months just to cash in for a single discount.

The platinum points are a much better deal. 100 of them are worth $1, and you can get 120/week for doing nothing and 245 more a week if you're a hardcore Miitomo user.

Re: Poll: What Do You Think of My Nintendo and Miitomo?

brideck

Anybody else having this particular problem with Miitomo? I've successfully downloaded the extra data, linked my Nintendo Account, and imported my Mii. I'm at the point where it's asking me the starter question "What's your favorite food?" and it just sits there. The on-screen keyboard doesn't appear at all. I'm running Android 4.4 on a pretty cheap phone, but it should be compatible.

Re: Disney Infinity Sales Struggling To Maintain Momentum

brideck

@CosmoXY The recent financial results are not talking about comparing 2.0 sales now with at release. All comparisons are year-to-year. So it's comparing 2.0 at the end of its lifespan to 1.0 at the end of its lifespan.

In fact, Disney's Interactive Division has underperformed every quarter of 2.0 when compared to the same quarter of 1.0. You can see the details here: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/investors/financial-information/earnings

Again, this is mostly at the feet of Nintendo customers who bought the game for Wii, but didn't make the jump to Wii U. Unfortunately, the Wii U version is nowhere near the best version of the game. Otherwise, some sort of bundle to entice marooned 1.0 players may have been a good way to promote some Wii U sales.

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