@HeadPirate So... I guess that you don't like how people are angry ONLY at Xbox for horizontal mergers and aquisitions. I mean... fair enough? I suppose Xbox is the one big on doing it at the moment so that's why people are angry with them specifically.
Like, Xbox bought Zenimax followed by Activision and then in emails we know they were even discussing casually horizontal mergers like Microsoft+Nintendo. I don't really blame people to be a little bit peeved about it. Even if Microsoft is not alone in this.
We could discuss how the system of capitalism that we have ends up with consolidation and how laws should be more focused on avoiding that instead of relying on decades old laws that weren't made for current time mergers but I don't think that's a discussion for this website.
But I believe that, even with current laws, mergers like Nintendo+90'sSega and Microsoft+Nintendo would not really fly. And we shouldn't let it happen in the first place. No matter if 90s Nintendo or current Microsoft had the resources to do it. Horizontal mergers like that are not good for competition.
How do you explain the third console maker buying up the second not having any effect on competition? Even in the current US judiciary it would be hard to explain. Although... I guess now it makes sense to see Microsoft insistense to lable Nintendo as not a "direct competitor".
Nintendo is also a weird case since it is the only one of the big three that is just a videogame company. Both Sony and Microsoft have other sectors in their company that gives them more money to act (hence the difference in value between them).
@HeadPirate I don't think people are surprised that companies are buying other companies. Nintendo is an outlier with buyouts and even them had cases of trying to buy other companies (like you showed). I think people here are more surprised about the nature of that buyout.
It's not the same when a big videogame developer buys another one or when a console maker buys a videogame publisher than one of the big three console makers buying another one.
Case in point, it's not the same if Facebook bought Twitter than an outside investor buying it. With the same logic, it's not the same when Microsoft buys Zenimax than Microsoft buying Nintendo. And that's without considering the fact that those companies are from different countries.
Horizontal aquisitions like that are by nature more scrutenized, specially ones of that magnitude. Mainly because in Microsoft buying Nintendo it would mean going from three console manufacturers to two. Nintendo buying Sega when Sega was still a console maker it would not have happened for the same reason.
@HeadPirate Phil himself said that a hostile takeover would be a bad idea and Nintendo said they do have tools against that. Besides, if they do attempt a hostile takeover to Nintendo, another of the big three console manufacturers, regulators are probably not going to like that. Specially since it is also doing it to a non US company.
Could Microsoft technically buy 51% stake on Nintendo? Yes, technically they could. But doing it against the current board and doing it to a company that directly competes with them in the videogame hardware space would not fly that easily.
I know regulators let a lot of stuff sly (mainly because competition laws in the US and EU+UK are extremely lenient) but even them have their limits. I still remember the whole NVIDIA+ARM buyout attempt.
Besides, I don't see Nintendo letting anyone buying them at the moment. They didn't let it happened during the GameCube or the Wii U era and they won't let it now.
@HeadPirate to be fair, as someone who does not read internal company emails that often, it looks... odd to see one of the big three, one in the middle of two huge aquisitions (Zenimax and Activision) just casually talking about buying another of the big three in a "random thought" email.
To be fair, this possible buyout wouldn't even fly in the US. Courts usually allow aquisitions like Microsoft buying Activision because they are not direct competitors, one console manufacterer out of the three big ones buying each other would be harder to pass. Not impossible (Disney bought Fox after all) but much harder. Add to that to Nintendo being a Japanese company, which makes it even harder.
Even outside of that, Nintendo didn't allow to be bought back in the GameCube days, when they were much worse money wise so I doubt they would let it pass now.
@VoidofLight What? The games are literally made to have impossible to complete Pokedex unless you have two consoles with two games or a friend. You know that, right?
Also, my point was that you don't need a server to upkeep to offer the option to transfer Pokemon to newer games and that was how it worked before X&Y.
Again, if you have a PAID service dedicated to the transfer of old Pokemon to the newer ones, then claiming all those extra Pokemon that they could include are "bloat" feels... off.
If they truly want to compleatly cut the National Dex, eliminate the service that is basically trying to get money of the idea of compleating all the National Dex (despite the games not having it anymore).
@VoidofLight Fun fact, before X&Y, the option to transfer Pokemon to newer games didn't require aditional charge and was more useful since it transfered Pokemon that weren't obtainable in game and it include all the Pokemon at that time.
For me, having a more defined mouth doesn't really replace that. Unless the animations are actually really good (which they aren't btw).
If you have a PAID service dedicated to transfer older Pokemon to newer games, then I don't think it is that farfetched to be asked to have a high number of Pokemon to take advantage of that service. If you truly want to reduce the "bloat", make a Pokemon game that looks tuly amazing with 300 creatures tops and close Pokemon Home.
They didn't do that so that tells me that the reason why this happened is not because of a desition to reduce the "bloat" and rather the fault of their unreasonable development times. They clearly still want to take advantage of taking Pokemon for older games to the newer ones (or at the very least the money that brings), hence Pokemon Home existence.
@Not_Soos I usually just pre-order when I get stuff like a collector edition or get the game cheaper. For instance, right now I have Mario Wonder and Mario RPG preordered at Amazon because I got them each for 46 euros.
And since I was going to buy them anyway and Nintendo games in Europe usually came out, increase in price for a while and then hover arround the 40-50 euro mark until the end of time, I just decided to preorder them.
These games are clearly bottom of the barrel material but, to be honest, the best thing (at least... supposedly) about a subscription service is that it gives justifications for a company to bring back old games that people won't buy in order to fill the catalog.
Sure, this sounds like a bad thing but getting a western release of "kirby super star stalker" is neat.
@VoidofLight My only issue is that, if including extra Pokemon for transfer is "bloat" and because of that they don't include them... why do they have a service with the only purpose being to transfer old Pokemon to newer games? A paid service, too.
@Bolt_Strike Weird that you are critizing Pokemon Go for being "quantity over quality" and claiming the mainline games are "quality" when the mainline games have anual releases that are clearly rushed. Still waiting for that SV patch that was surely going to come out, right?
@Poodlestargenerica What do you even consider "oversaturation"? In here people have been negative towards farm games since THAT Direct and that Direct had 4 farming games. Was that oversaturation? I just think people are being salty for no reason at all.
Like, do you think this game was do by billionares trying to jump into a trend and nothing else?
@Cashews Ah, yes. Indie devs. Clearly know for having billions of dollars in cash.
Like, what is with this cynical view of farming sims all of a sudden? If a genre is popular then people will make more videogames like it. Both indies and AAA even at times.
There are PLENTY of indie rougelike metroidvania pixel art games released like every week on digital stores and I hear more disdain about farming games because in one Direct we got like 4 of them. Move on.
@Fulgor_Astral Two comments above there were someone complaining because they thought that the Amiibo items COULDN'T be unlocked through gameplay... The duality of mankind right here I guess.
Also, I couldn't find those amiibos no matter how much I tried. Hoping they get restocked somehow.
Want to remind everyone that this regulation is not as strong as forcing every product to have old mobile phone like covers. It would be something more along the lines of not making the battery compleatly impossible to remove for the end consumer. The Joycon right now would probably comply without much issue, for instance.
Although... I'm also worried about another thing. Are batteries propietary? Like, can third parties now make joycon batteries?
Honestly, Battle Network Legacy Collection sold better than I anticipated. There is clearly a market but Capcom seems to have a mentality of releasing fewer games but of higher quality. It's been some time since the last new MegaMan game tho so... hoping the next one is soon.
Part of me supports this. I don't like how companies just decided to close all their internal forums in favour of centralized platforms like Discord, Twitter or whatever. Like, specially nowadays with platforms like Twitter imploding. It shows how unstable those platforms are and one of them closing would affect so many things it's honestly ridiculous (like, Twitter is used a lot for direct updates for emergencies, for instance).
However... unfortunatelly you just can't have a social platform of any kind nowadays without moderation. You just can't. In the "wild west" era of the internet it was possible because there were a lot less people (and less bots) but now? If you don't moderate your platform it will have even more spambots and hate than the big social media sites.
@romanista Hm... I guess they could do like animal crossing and let you choose your pronouns. More personalization is always a good thing even if it is not necessary. Honestly, the whole character customization angle was not really necessary either seeing previous Pikmin games.
I can't believe how badly managed is Niantic. They had like 100 cancelled projects that are all Pokemon Go clones and even released Pokemon Go clones that did so poorly I didn't even have time to try them before they were delisted.
And... of course, lowly employees taking the hit of a mistake they had no say in it. A classic.
@Captain-N Just one clarification. I don't know about Pikmin 4 (I still haven't played the demo, I've been busy) but, in the case of Animal Crossing New Horizons, you can choose whether you want the villagers to refeer to you as a "he" or as a "she". It is an option when you go to the mirror menu to change your apeerance.
@Nintendo-or-Noth Personally? Yeah. I like how Nintendo handles gender in their games with custom characters. It's just not a factor or, if it is, you can change your apperance outside of how the game refeers to you. It could be better (like adding a "they" option in non gendered languages) but it's not a bad approach in my opinion. Even outside of representation, the fact that you can wear any clothes in Animal Crossing with any assigned gender is an objectively good thing.
IT'S NOT A "NEW" SUPER MARIO BROS GAME! Finally! My one fear for a possible 2D Mario return was that they just made New Super Mario Bros Switch with the same artstyle and the same level design motifs and the same music... And that isn't the case at least.
Now seriously, how random that they are giving her another chance of having a game with her as the star tho, specially since Super Princess Peach wasn't... amazing. Very curious how it turns out.
@Not_Soos Some of the leaks were false but unfortunatelly those are the ones that stick with people. Stuff like Star Fox Grand Prix, the multiple fake Smash fighters leaks over the years and I remember arround (I think) 2021 when Nintendo was just not releasing a Direct in june and people online keep claiming "next week, guys!". Of course, there also were leaks that were 100% true like the Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle. But, like I said, the wrong ones are the ones that people remember.
It was a recent post of mine in this very website on the forums. I don't think that users had illintent or anything. Just that they tried to overcomplicate logic to somehow claim that we won't get a Direct for two months (by using a recent Tweet by NoA promoting a tour of theirs arround the US). The exact reason why they said that? I can't say.
@Not_Soos it's true that the "leakers" that keep posting each week how that week is the one that will have a Direct are annoying but the inverse is also true. Posting about how a Direct will never happen each time the time for one comes close because of unrelated factors that say nothing and make fun of the people that are getting antsy for one is also kind of annoying.
My last comment here was answering someone that argued that a Direct wouldn't happen in a month or two because Nintendo is doing a promotional tour around the US. I have nothing against that person but... Come on. How is that even remotely related?
Man... What happened with this game is so sad. It could have been a neat alternative to Mario Kart but the awful microtransactions hurt it big time. And they did all of that on a niche game that didn't had an entry in years. And the game wasn't even full F2P, it had an entry fee.
A Direct is not a surprise if it happens so late that all the third party games leak beforehand. Although this one isn't that much of a surprise. Hoping Activision has a new Spyro or more Crash in the pipeline but after what happened to Vicarious Visions and Toys for Bob... Hm...
@BlueCoolYoshi It happened with the remasters of Crash, the Crash racing game and now probably this one. I guess it pays off because of double dips? Who knows.
To me it seems that they got a bunch of captial investment and tried to make themselves look bigger than they were by buying a lot and then all went fine... Until the investors called and they realized they had nothing aside from a bunch of bought companies that produced quite little. I'm not a busness expert but... Guys... Capital investment is not an infinite money trick.
@Not_Soos I That whole NFT boom was just so... odd. Like, sure, it is easy to find easy answers like... the fact that the NFTs boom happened right after a big law passing in both US and EU+UK to fight against money laundering using art pieces or how the rich people were all just buying their own NFTs to artificially inflate prices and create false hype. And, even though I think that is a part of the reason for that boom, I also believe there is more to it. I've seen people much poorer than me buying NFTs. There was a whole culture behind it and I don't think all of it was artificial. I wish it was honestly... I wish I don't have to accept that there were people that went through dead end jobs for years to end up with 20k on the bank and then put all of that money into a monkey picture and I could blame all on rich people stuff. There were people that were literally using "rented" creatures in "pay to earn" games to play that game for hours on end and then they only got like a small part of the money they made because the rest went to their "boss" and they did it willingly. I just... I can't believe that happened.
Also, I was a person that truly believed that every piece of art had a point. Even with modern art, art that people love to critize, I believed had a point. Like, that time someone literally presented a picture of a toilet to an art exhibit. It sounds like a ***** post (....heh) but to this day, people are still talking about it. And if you checked what that artist actually said when he presented that... it honeslty kinda makes sense. Unfortunatelly, stuff like art purely designed for money laundering, NFT art and now AI art has just drained me and I just can't defend the theory that all art has a point. Which is unfotunate. And I don't want to test if there is actually a character limit for my comments so I'll be brief here. There is genuenlly good modern media. The problem is that there is just so much of it and the one that get the attention is the one for general audiences. Man... Today I don't have much to do at work it seems.
@Cashews Every media company wishes it could be Disney. Every single one. Can't blame them either. Now, we can discuss if it is a good thing to have a system that allows for companies like that to be a thing and have so many media franchises in one umbrella (a lot of them through aquisitions) but this isn't the place for that.
Nintendo has the potential of being a big media company even more than a videogame company honestly. Pokemon (which is under Nintendo umbrella, let's be real) and Mario alone are huge and have multiple avenues for stuff like merchandising and movies and toys, etc. Neither Sony or Microsoft have that. It's what makes Nintendo unique in the market, despite having less market value than Sony and Microsoft.
I don't know if they could be Disney (not even other big multibillion media companies can be that) but still.... We'll see how far they even want to go with this. Will they still only be a "talent agent" or will they will try making media on their own? Will they start with mergers and adquisitions?
...I guess if we are forced to be subjected to corporative capitalism the least we can do is make it interesting.
@Not_Soos I'm a recent Computer Science graduate and even I'm done with a lot of the tecnobuls*** recently.
This whole jumping head first to new technologies (or stuff that sounds like new technologies) without even knowing it's purpose or consequences is just annoying and the smug reaction some people have online in support of them is just cringe in the most purest form. Seriously, go back to NFT ads, those will be remembered just like those old pyramid scheme tapes.
I'd argue it's not as bad with AI as it was with crypto and SPECIALLY NFTs because AI at least has actual uses.
It still baffles me how many people were duped by NFTs and cryptos despite the messaging being like it was. To this day, not even the biggest NFT defenders can explain to me an actual use NFT has aside from making THEM money. But in a lot of the techno world, it seems you just have to use big words and claim your product is the next iPhone to get everyone, from investors to idiots online. to simp for your product. And it goes way back to the 2000s .NET bubble.
Going back to AI, I personally think that the whole thing sounds quite interesting actually, not going to lie. But seeing techno bros selling it as a way to replace actual workers, seeing the smug reaction online from certain groups saying that certain people should be replaced by AI and the flagrant illegalities with the whole process (from stolen art to breaking data protection laws) just makes me hate the whole thing.
And the way they've been going after creative works is honesltly the worse of it all.
Art is a very important part of the "human experience" and I personally have a ton of respect for artists, specially because their line of was has always been undervalued. But between AI art stealing artists work, public platforms online for art and writing being swarmed by bad AI art and AI stories and then all of those people claiming their jobs have become "obsolete" makes me sick. Specially since basic coding has even more numbers of being "replaced" by AI.
Between the NFT art and AI, it has shown to me that a big part of the techno world in general seem to genuinely despise artists and seeing their input as something to be replaced by "technological innovation".
@Dev9417 I don't know how big Illumination is but I don't know if they are big enough to make their internal movies (new IPs, Gru, Sing, etc) plus a sequel to the Mario movie and a new Zelda movie.
Maybe they would have to choose to renounce to some of those projects and I doubt they will have two Nintendo IP movies at the same time.
But hey, Myamoto already described Nintendo as a "talent agent" and Universal owns other studios aside from Illumination. There are also other studios to choose outside of Universal and even outside the US. If Nintendo wants a sequel to the Mario movie and a Zelda movie at the same time, they'd have to consider that.
I've recently been going through old stuff I had in my room and found old videogame magazines that included this very sections. This is somewhat nostalgic.
@Debbiee Lots of people just focus on US price and ignore the rest but foreign prices of AAA games can be even more questionable. Even in Europe, AAA PS5 games actually increased 20 euro instead of 10, costing 80 euros per game.
At least... in theory since retailers know that price is ridiculous so they sell it for 60-70 at launch and in Europe ToTK actually costs the same as BoTW: 70 euro (yes, BoTW was 70 euro in Europe).
@Not_Soos THANK YOU! I'm kinda done with all the "are movies not written by AI anyways?" "jokes" and the dismiss of simple plots by saying that they actually don't need writers. All of these mentalities are the ones that made this strike happen in the first place. Writers are a very important part of media. They should be treated as such.
Wait... Now some people want Green Hill back? Why? The worse thing about games like Sonic Mania and Frontiers is how they keep recycling the same classic stages over and over.
I can't believe Ubisoft is making a game that is not an Assassins Far Cry 92 with open world and markers and RPG elements. Very glad tho. It looks good.
I've always thought that it felt weird that they didn't do more Sonic games using the Generations 2D style as a base instead of more pixel art and this game seems basically that. If the game is not overrun with boostpads, it'd be a better game than Sonic 4 in all counts by default. We'll see how good it gets.
Also, glad they are using other characters again. They did well to stop for a bit with the extra characters but now it feels long overdue to have them back.
@fromjtov my guess is that they sold much more early copies than they thought so they are trying to extend it as much as possible. There is a reason why that Disney Kart developed by the same people was anounced as a F2P game but, after the success of Dreamlight Valley, it ended up releasing "early" too.
It is a shame but I suspect a lot of the small devs dedicated to portable games are finding it difficult to transition to the Switch.
Between the technical aspects, there is also the fact that it is difficult to position those AA games. You can't put them in the 50-60-70 euro range or you'll get another Sushi Striker situation. But even at a price of 20 euro you now have a much more difficult competition due to the deluge of indie games coming every week on Switch.
@Switch_Pro Zelda was always better than Pokemon and it is fine if Pokemon doesn't even try to do better? What kind of defense is that? Pokemon games not even trying to be polished is a good thing now?
Also, I want to remind everyone here. Home is a PAID service. People paid for a Pokemon transfer service that is taking like 6+ months to be implemented into the latest game.
@SuperWarioWorld To be fair, like I said, those same complains were also directed towards the OoT style change. I mean... The complaints were different (complains about being "more linear" and "slower" and "easier") but the style of the complaints were the same: being nostalgic about a previous Zelda style that some people percieved as better.
With complaints slowly brewing in each instalment after Majora's Mask, reaching it's maximum point when we got Skyward Sword.
Like, people look fondly to it now but some months after it launched and the hype settled... there definetly were some disscusions.
It didn't help that (like another commentor said) Skyward Sword actually sold quite badly for a Zelda game, which in part is what lead to the change in BoTW. Mainly because those complaints couldn't be ignored anymore so the devs sought a compleate change of formula.
Mark my words, people will use some generic complaints once again to justify just being nostalgic about the previous style ("world too empty", "game too long" or whatever) and then Nintendo will probably make a nostalgic one off game in the style of OoT, like how they did with Link Between Worlds. But we are probably far off from that.
@SuperWarioWorld It is a fair point. Specially after BoTW catapulted sales of Zelda to points it has never seen before. Don't get me wrong, it always sold really well (maybe except cases like Skyward Sword) but now it's literally selling double of what they did in the early Wii days with Twillight Princess.
But now I'm seeing exacly what I imagined would happen when BoTW launched and became the new standard: a bunch of people online being nostalgic for the older style.
It was innevitable, specially when I saw the exact same thing happen when they went from the Link to the Past style to the Ocarina one.
I guess Nintendo can always do a nostalgic game in that vein some years down the line, like how the did Link Between Worlds in order to cater to the people that wanted a return to the past. We'll see.
@gcunit I mean... Some day it is going to happen. The Switch will be almost 8 years old when the DLC of Splatoon 3 wraps up and console sales are starting to fall. This year we won't be getting new hardware (no matter how many Switch pro rumours appear) but next year is possible we would see at least an announcement for next gen.
Sony got away with it and Call of Duty also got away with it. It was a matter of time unfortunatelly. Fun fact, the increase from 50 to 60 dollars was done in a very similar way.
I'm still A BIT worried about the fact that they reused BoTW base map. Bought it anyways tho since I own all Zelda games since Ocarina of Time. And the good reviews also put me at ease.
If this physical version was released on actual stores for like 50-60 euros I would buy it in a heartbeat. But Square Enix had to do a Square Enix I guess.
Comments 671
Re: Internal Xbox Email Details Desire To Acquire Nintendo
@HeadPirate So... I guess that you don't like how people are angry ONLY at Xbox for horizontal mergers and aquisitions. I mean... fair enough? I suppose Xbox is the one big on doing it at the moment so that's why people are angry with them specifically.
Like, Xbox bought Zenimax followed by Activision and then in emails we know they were even discussing casually horizontal mergers like Microsoft+Nintendo. I don't really blame people to be a little bit peeved about it. Even if Microsoft is not alone in this.
We could discuss how the system of capitalism that we have ends up with consolidation and how laws should be more focused on avoiding that instead of relying on decades old laws that weren't made for current time mergers but I don't think that's a discussion for this website.
But I believe that, even with current laws, mergers like Nintendo+90'sSega and Microsoft+Nintendo would not really fly. And we shouldn't let it happen in the first place. No matter if 90s Nintendo or current Microsoft had the resources to do it. Horizontal mergers like that are not good for competition.
How do you explain the third console maker buying up the second not having any effect on competition? Even in the current US judiciary it would be hard to explain. Although... I guess now it makes sense to see Microsoft insistense to lable Nintendo as not a "direct competitor".
Nintendo is also a weird case since it is the only one of the big three that is just a videogame company. Both Sony and Microsoft have other sectors in their company that gives them more money to act (hence the difference in value between them).
Re: Internal Xbox Email Details Desire To Acquire Nintendo
@HeadPirate I don't think people are surprised that companies are buying other companies. Nintendo is an outlier with buyouts and even them had cases of trying to buy other companies (like you showed). I think people here are more surprised about the nature of that buyout.
It's not the same when a big videogame developer buys another one or when a console maker buys a videogame publisher than one of the big three console makers buying another one.
Case in point, it's not the same if Facebook bought Twitter than an outside investor buying it. With the same logic, it's not the same when Microsoft buys Zenimax than Microsoft buying Nintendo. And that's without considering the fact that those companies are from different countries.
Horizontal aquisitions like that are by nature more scrutenized, specially ones of that magnitude. Mainly because in Microsoft buying Nintendo it would mean going from three console manufacturers to two. Nintendo buying Sega when Sega was still a console maker it would not have happened for the same reason.
Re: Internal Xbox Email Details Desire To Acquire Nintendo
@HeadPirate Phil himself said that a hostile takeover would be a bad idea and Nintendo said they do have tools against that. Besides, if they do attempt a hostile takeover to Nintendo, another of the big three console manufacturers, regulators are probably not going to like that. Specially since it is also doing it to a non US company.
Could Microsoft technically buy 51% stake on Nintendo? Yes, technically they could. But doing it against the current board and doing it to a company that directly competes with them in the videogame hardware space would not fly that easily.
I know regulators let a lot of stuff sly (mainly because competition laws in the US and EU+UK are extremely lenient) but even them have their limits. I still remember the whole NVIDIA+ARM buyout attempt.
Besides, I don't see Nintendo letting anyone buying them at the moment. They didn't let it happened during the GameCube or the Wii U era and they won't let it now.
Re: Internal Xbox Email Details Desire To Acquire Nintendo
@HeadPirate to be fair, as someone who does not read internal company emails that often, it looks... odd to see one of the big three, one in the middle of two huge aquisitions (Zenimax and Activision) just casually talking about buying another of the big three in a "random thought" email.
Re: Internal Xbox Email Details Desire To Acquire Nintendo
To be fair, this possible buyout wouldn't even fly in the US. Courts usually allow aquisitions like Microsoft buying Activision because they are not direct competitors, one console manufacterer out of the three big ones buying each other would be harder to pass. Not impossible (Disney bought Fox after all) but much harder. Add to that to Nintendo being a Japanese company, which makes it even harder.
Even outside of that, Nintendo didn't allow to be bought back in the GameCube days, when they were much worse money wise so I doubt they would let it pass now.
Re: Pokémon GO's Pokédex Is Now Bigger Than Any Mainline Entry
@VoidofLight What? The games are literally made to have impossible to complete Pokedex unless you have two consoles with two games or a friend. You know that, right?
Also, my point was that you don't need a server to upkeep to offer the option to transfer Pokemon to newer games and that was how it worked before X&Y.
Again, if you have a PAID service dedicated to the transfer of old Pokemon to the newer ones, then claiming all those extra Pokemon that they could include are "bloat" feels... off.
If they truly want to compleatly cut the National Dex, eliminate the service that is basically trying to get money of the idea of compleating all the National Dex (despite the games not having it anymore).
Re: Pokémon GO's Pokédex Is Now Bigger Than Any Mainline Entry
@VoidofLight Fun fact, before X&Y, the option to transfer Pokemon to newer games didn't require aditional charge and was more useful since it transfered Pokemon that weren't obtainable in game and it include all the Pokemon at that time.
For me, having a more defined mouth doesn't really replace that. Unless the animations are actually really good (which they aren't btw).
If you have a PAID service dedicated to transfer older Pokemon to newer games, then I don't think it is that farfetched to be asked to have a high number of Pokemon to take advantage of that service. If you truly want to reduce the "bloat", make a Pokemon game that looks tuly amazing with 300 creatures tops and close Pokemon Home.
They didn't do that so that tells me that the reason why this happened is not because of a desition to reduce the "bloat" and rather the fault of their unreasonable development times. They clearly still want to take advantage of taking Pokemon for older games to the newer ones (or at the very least the money that brings), hence Pokemon Home existence.
Re: Super Mario Bros. Wonder Has Already Topped Amazon's "Best Sellers" Chart In The US
@Not_Soos I usually just pre-order when I get stuff like a collector edition or get the game cheaper. For instance, right now I have Mario Wonder and Mario RPG preordered at Amazon because I got them each for 46 euros.
And since I was going to buy them anyway and Nintendo games in Europe usually came out, increase in price for a while and then hover arround the 40-50 euro mark until the end of time, I just decided to preorder them.
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch Online's Game Boy Color, SNES & NES Library With Four More Games
These games are clearly bottom of the barrel material but, to be honest, the best thing (at least... supposedly) about a subscription service is that it gives justifications for a company to bring back old games that people won't buy in order to fill the catalog.
Sure, this sounds like a bad thing but getting a western release of "kirby super star stalker" is neat.
Re: Pokémon GO's Pokédex Is Now Bigger Than Any Mainline Entry
@VoidofLight My only issue is that, if including extra Pokemon for transfer is "bloat" and because of that they don't include them... why do they have a service with the only purpose being to transfer old Pokemon to newer games? A paid service, too.
@Bolt_Strike Weird that you are critizing Pokemon Go for being "quantity over quality" and claiming the mainline games are "quality" when the mainline games have anual releases that are clearly rushed. Still waiting for that SV patch that was surely going to come out, right?
Re: One Lonely Outpost Is Bringing Some Stardew Valley-Inspired Space Farming To Switch
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Re: One Lonely Outpost Is Bringing Some Stardew Valley-Inspired Space Farming To Switch
@Poodlestargenerica What do you even consider "oversaturation"? In here people have been negative towards farm games since THAT Direct and that Direct had 4 farming games. Was that oversaturation? I just think people are being salty for no reason at all.
Like, do you think this game was do by billionares trying to jump into a trend and nothing else?
Re: One Lonely Outpost Is Bringing Some Stardew Valley-Inspired Space Farming To Switch
@Cashews Ah, yes. Indie devs. Clearly know for having billions of dollars in cash.
Like, what is with this cynical view of farming sims all of a sudden? If a genre is popular then people will make more videogames like it. Both indies and AAA even at times.
There are PLENTY of indie rougelike metroidvania pixel art games released like every week on digital stores and I hear more disdain about farming games because in one Direct we got like 4 of them. Move on.
Re: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Version 2.1.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@Fulgor_Astral Two comments above there were someone complaining because they thought that the Amiibo items COULDN'T be unlocked through gameplay... The duality of mankind right here I guess.
Also, I couldn't find those amiibos no matter how much I tried. Hoping they get restocked somehow.
Re: Handheld Consoles Will Need Easily-Switchable Batteries By 2027, Says New EU Regulation
Want to remind everyone that this regulation is not as strong as forcing every product to have old mobile phone like covers. It would be something more along the lines of not making the battery compleatly impossible to remove for the end consumer. The Joycon right now would probably comply without much issue, for instance.
Although... I'm also worried about another thing. Are batteries propietary? Like, can third parties now make joycon batteries?
Re: Capcom Provides A Vague But Mildly Promising Update On Mega Man's Future
Honestly, Battle Network Legacy Collection sold better than I anticipated. There is clearly a market but Capcom seems to have a mentality of releasing fewer games but of higher quality. It's been some time since the last new MegaMan game tho so... hoping the next one is soon.
Re: Pokémon Launches Official Community Forums And It's Already A Disaster
Part of me supports this. I don't like how companies just decided to close all their internal forums in favour of centralized platforms like Discord, Twitter or whatever.
Like, specially nowadays with platforms like Twitter imploding. It shows how unstable those platforms are and one of them closing would affect so many things it's honestly ridiculous (like, Twitter is used a lot for direct updates for emergencies, for instance).
However... unfortunatelly you just can't have a social platform of any kind nowadays without moderation. You just can't. In the "wild west" era of the internet it was possible because there were a lot less people (and less bots) but now? If you don't moderate your platform it will have even more spambots and hate than the big social media sites.
Re: Disney Speedstorm Goes Free-To-Play On Switch This September
My guess is that it didn't sell that well in the "early access" period compared to Dreamlight Valley.
Re: Round Up: Here's What Switch Fans Are Saying About The Pikmin 4 Demo
@romanista Hm... I guess they could do like animal crossing and let you choose your pronouns. More personalization is always a good thing even if it is not necessary. Honestly, the whole character customization angle was not really necessary either seeing previous Pikmin games.
Re: Pokémon GO Developer Niantic Axes Two AR Games And Lays Off 230 Employees
I can't believe how badly managed is Niantic. They had like 100 cancelled projects that are all Pokemon Go clones and even released Pokemon Go clones that did so poorly I didn't even have time to try them before they were delisted.
And... of course, lowly employees taking the hit of a mistake they had no say in it. A classic.
Re: Round Up: Here's What Switch Fans Are Saying About The Pikmin 4 Demo
@Captain-N Just one clarification. I don't know about Pikmin 4 (I still haven't played the demo, I've been busy) but, in the case of Animal Crossing New Horizons, you can choose whether you want the villagers to refeer to you as a "he" or as a "she". It is an option when you go to the mirror menu to change your apeerance.
@Nintendo-or-Noth Personally? Yeah. I like how Nintendo handles gender in their games with custom characters. It's just not a factor or, if it is, you can change your apperance outside of how the game refeers to you. It could be better (like adding a "they" option in non gendered languages) but it's not a bad approach in my opinion. Even outside of representation, the fact that you can wear any clothes in Animal Crossing with any assigned gender is an objectively good thing.
Re: Super Mario Bros. Wonder, A Brand New 2D Mario Game, Is Coming To Switch
IT'S NOT A "NEW" SUPER MARIO BROS GAME! Finally! My one fear for a possible 2D Mario return was that they just made New Super Mario Bros Switch with the same artstyle and the same level design motifs and the same music... And that isn't the case at least.
Re: Princess Peach Will Star In Her Own Game On Switch In 2024
Super Princess Peach 2: The Scepter's return
Now seriously, how random that they are giving her another chance of having a game with her as the star tho, specially since Super Princess Peach wasn't... amazing. Very curious how it turns out.
Re: Mario + Rabbids Sparks Of Hope "Should Have Waited" For Switch Successor, Says Ubisoft CEO
I guess he just announced the first "Switch 2" game?
Re: Nintendo Direct Showcase Confirmed For Tomorrow, 21st June
@Not_Soos Some of the leaks were false but unfortunatelly those are the ones that stick with people. Stuff like Star Fox Grand Prix, the multiple fake Smash fighters leaks over the years and I remember arround (I think) 2021 when Nintendo was just not releasing a Direct in june and people online keep claiming "next week, guys!". Of course, there also were leaks that were 100% true like the Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle. But, like I said, the wrong ones are the ones that people remember.
It was a recent post of mine in this very website on the forums. I don't think that users had illintent or anything. Just that they tried to overcomplicate logic to somehow claim that we won't get a Direct for two months (by using a recent Tweet by NoA promoting a tour of theirs arround the US). The exact reason why they said that? I can't say.
Re: Nintendo Direct Showcase Confirmed For Tomorrow, 21st June
@Not_Soos it's true that the "leakers" that keep posting each week how that week is the one that will have a Direct are annoying but the inverse is also true.
Posting about how a Direct will never happen each time the time for one comes close because of unrelated factors that say nothing and make fun of the people that are getting antsy for one is also kind of annoying.
My last comment here was answering someone that argued that a Direct wouldn't happen in a month or two because Nintendo is doing a promotional tour around the US. I have nothing against that person but... Come on. How is that even remotely related?
Re: Chocobo GP Switch eShop Page Updated With New Release Date
Man... What happened with this game is so sad. It could have been a neat alternative to Mario Kart but the awful microtransactions hurt it big time. And they did all of that on a niche game that didn't had an entry in years. And the game wasn't even full F2P, it had an entry fee.
Re: Crash Bandicoot Rumble's Activision Support Page References Switch Version
A Direct is not a surprise if it happens so late that all the third party games leak beforehand. Although this one isn't that much of a surprise.
Hoping Activision has a new Spyro or more Crash in the pipeline but after what happened to Vicarious Visions and Toys for Bob... Hm...
@BlueCoolYoshi It happened with the remasters of Crash, the Crash racing game and now probably this one. I guess it pays off because of double dips? Who knows.
Re: Embracer Group To Make Severe Cutbacks After Absurd Spending Spree
To me it seems that they got a bunch of captial investment and tried to make themselves look bigger than they were by buying a lot and then all went fine... Until the investors called and they realized they had nothing aside from a bunch of bought companies that produced quite little.
I'm not a busness expert but... Guys... Capital investment is not an infinite money trick.
Re: Mario Movie Star Chris Pratt Says Sequel News Should Be Coming "Soon"
@Not_Soos I That whole NFT boom was just so... odd. Like, sure, it is easy to find easy answers like... the fact that the NFTs boom happened right after a big law passing in both US and EU+UK to fight against money laundering using art pieces or how the rich people were all just buying their own NFTs to artificially inflate prices and create false hype. And, even though I think that is a part of the reason for that boom, I also believe there is more to it.
I've seen people much poorer than me buying NFTs. There was a whole culture behind it and I don't think all of it was artificial. I wish it was honestly... I wish I don't have to accept that there were people that went through dead end jobs for years to end up with 20k on the bank and then put all of that money into a monkey picture and I could blame all on rich people stuff.
There were people that were literally using "rented" creatures in "pay to earn" games to play that game for hours on end and then they only got like a small part of the money they made because the rest went to their "boss" and they did it willingly. I just... I can't believe that happened.
Also, I was a person that truly believed that every piece of art had a point. Even with modern art, art that people love to critize, I believed had a point. Like, that time someone literally presented a picture of a toilet to an art exhibit. It sounds like a ***** post (....heh) but to this day, people are still talking about it. And if you checked what that artist actually said when he presented that... it honeslty kinda makes sense.
Unfortunatelly, stuff like art purely designed for money laundering, NFT art and now AI art has just drained me and I just can't defend the theory that all art has a point. Which is unfotunate.
And I don't want to test if there is actually a character limit for my comments so I'll be brief here. There is genuenlly good modern media. The problem is that there is just so much of it and the one that get the attention is the one for general audiences.
Man... Today I don't have much to do at work it seems.
Re: Mario Movie Star Chris Pratt Says Sequel News Should Be Coming "Soon"
@Cashews Every media company wishes it could be Disney. Every single one. Can't blame them either.
Now, we can discuss if it is a good thing to have a system that allows for companies like that to be a thing and have so many media franchises in one umbrella (a lot of them through aquisitions) but this isn't the place for that.
Nintendo has the potential of being a big media company even more than a videogame company honestly. Pokemon (which is under Nintendo umbrella, let's be real) and Mario alone are huge and have multiple avenues for stuff like merchandising and movies and toys, etc. Neither Sony or Microsoft have that. It's what makes Nintendo unique in the market, despite having less market value than Sony and Microsoft.
I don't know if they could be Disney (not even other big multibillion media companies can be that) but still.... We'll see how far they even want to go with this. Will they still only be a "talent agent" or will they will try making media on their own? Will they start with mergers and adquisitions?
...I guess if we are forced to be subjected to corporative capitalism the least we can do is make it interesting.
Re: Mario Movie Star Chris Pratt Says Sequel News Should Be Coming "Soon"
@Not_Soos I'm a recent Computer Science graduate and even I'm done with a lot of the tecnobuls*** recently.
This whole jumping head first to new technologies (or stuff that sounds like new technologies) without even knowing it's purpose or consequences is just annoying and the smug reaction some people have online in support of them is just cringe in the most purest form. Seriously, go back to NFT ads, those will be remembered just like those old pyramid scheme tapes.
I'd argue it's not as bad with AI as it was with crypto and SPECIALLY NFTs because AI at least has actual uses.
It still baffles me how many people were duped by NFTs and cryptos despite the messaging being like it was. To this day, not even the biggest NFT defenders can explain to me an actual use NFT has aside from making THEM money. But in a lot of the techno world, it seems you just have to use big words and claim your product is the next iPhone to get everyone, from investors to idiots online. to simp for your product. And it goes way back to the 2000s .NET bubble.
Going back to AI, I personally think that the whole thing sounds quite interesting actually, not going to lie. But seeing techno bros selling it as a way to replace actual workers, seeing the smug reaction online from certain groups saying that certain people should be replaced by AI and the flagrant illegalities with the whole process (from stolen art to breaking data protection laws) just makes me hate the whole thing.
And the way they've been going after creative works is honesltly the worse of it all.
Art is a very important part of the "human experience" and I personally have a ton of respect for artists, specially because their line of was has always been undervalued. But between AI art stealing artists work, public platforms online for art and writing being swarmed by bad AI art and AI stories and then all of those people claiming their jobs have become "obsolete" makes me sick. Specially since basic coding has even more numbers of being "replaced" by AI.
Between the NFT art and AI, it has shown to me that a big part of the techno world in general seem to genuinely despise artists and seeing their input as something to be replaced by "technological innovation".
Re: Mario Movie Star Chris Pratt Says Sequel News Should Be Coming "Soon"
@Dev9417 I don't know how big Illumination is but I don't know if they are big enough to make their internal movies (new IPs, Gru, Sing, etc) plus a sequel to the Mario movie and a new Zelda movie.
Maybe they would have to choose to renounce to some of those projects and I doubt they will have two Nintendo IP movies at the same time.
But hey, Myamoto already described Nintendo as a "talent agent" and Universal owns other studios aside from Illumination. There are also other studios to choose outside of Universal and even outside the US. If Nintendo wants a sequel to the Mario movie and a Zelda movie at the same time, they'd have to consider that.
Re: Mailbox: Welcome To The Nintendo Life Letters Page!
I've recently been going through old stuff I had in my room and found old videogame magazines that included this very sections. This is somewhat nostalgic.
Re: Mailbox: Welcome To The Nintendo Life Letters Page!
@Debbiee Lots of people just focus on US price and ignore the rest but foreign prices of AAA games can be even more questionable. Even in Europe, AAA PS5 games actually increased 20 euro instead of 10, costing 80 euros per game.
At least... in theory since retailers know that price is ridiculous so they sell it for 60-70 at launch and in Europe ToTK actually costs the same as BoTW: 70 euro (yes, BoTW was 70 euro in Europe).
Re: Mario Movie Star Chris Pratt Says Sequel News Should Be Coming "Soon"
@Not_Soos THANK YOU! I'm kinda done with all the "are movies not written by AI anyways?" "jokes" and the dismiss of simple plots by saying that they actually don't need writers. All of these mentalities are the ones that made this strike happen in the first place.
Writers are a very important part of media. They should be treated as such.
Re: Sonic Superstars Won't Recycle Locations Like Green Hill Zone
Wait... Now some people want Green Hill back? Why? The worse thing about games like Sonic Mania and Frontiers is how they keep recycling the same classic stages over and over.
Re: Prince Of Persia Is Back With Brand New Title, Out January 2024 On Switch
I can't believe Ubisoft is making a game that is not an Assassins Far Cry 92 with open world and markers and RPG elements.
Very glad tho. It looks good.
Re: Sonic Superstars Sees The Return Of Classic-Style Sonic With New Visuals
I've always thought that it felt weird that they didn't do more Sonic games using the Generations 2D style as a base instead of more pixel art and this game seems basically that. If the game is not overrun with boostpads, it'd be a better game than Sonic 4 in all counts by default. We'll see how good it gets.
Also, glad they are using other characters again. They did well to stop for a bit with the extra characters but now it feels long overdue to have them back.
Re: Disney Dreamlight Valley Gets A New Update, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@fromjtov my guess is that they sold much more early copies than they thought so they are trying to extend it as much as possible. There is a reason why that Disney Kart developed by the same people was anounced as a F2P game but, after the success of Dreamlight Valley, it ended up releasing "early" too.
Re: Dillon's Rolling Western & Kirby Developer Vanpool Shuts Down
It is a shame but I suspect a lot of the small devs dedicated to portable games are finding it difficult to transition to the Switch.
Between the technical aspects, there is also the fact that it is difficult to position those AA games. You can't put them in the 50-60-70 euro range or you'll get another Sushi Striker situation. But even at a price of 20 euro you now have a much more difficult competition due to the deluge of indie games coming every week on Switch.
Hoping the best for the employees.
Re: Pokémon HOME Support Release Date For Scarlet And Violet "Mistakenly Announced"
@Switch_Pro Zelda was always better than Pokemon and it is fine if Pokemon doesn't even try to do better? What kind of defense is that? Pokemon games not even trying to be polished is a good thing now?
Also, I want to remind everyone here. Home is a PAID service. People paid for a Pokemon transfer service that is taking like 6+ months to be implemented into the latest game.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Has Surpassed 10 Million Sales In Three Days
@SuperWarioWorld To be fair, like I said, those same complains were also directed towards the OoT style change. I mean... The complaints were different (complains about being "more linear" and "slower" and "easier") but the style of the complaints were the same: being nostalgic about a previous Zelda style that some people percieved as better.
With complaints slowly brewing in each instalment after Majora's Mask, reaching it's maximum point when we got Skyward Sword.
Like, people look fondly to it now but some months after it launched and the hype settled... there definetly were some disscusions.
It didn't help that (like another commentor said) Skyward Sword actually sold quite badly for a Zelda game, which in part is what lead to the change in BoTW. Mainly because those complaints couldn't be ignored anymore so the devs sought a compleate change of formula.
Mark my words, people will use some generic complaints once again to justify just being nostalgic about the previous style ("world too empty", "game too long" or whatever) and then Nintendo will probably make a nostalgic one off game in the style of OoT, like how they did with Link Between Worlds. But we are probably far off from that.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Has Surpassed 10 Million Sales In Three Days
@SuperWarioWorld It is a fair point. Specially after BoTW catapulted sales of Zelda to points it has never seen before. Don't get me wrong, it always sold really well (maybe except cases like Skyward Sword) but now it's literally selling double of what they did in the early Wii days with Twillight Princess.
But now I'm seeing exacly what I imagined would happen when BoTW launched and became the new standard: a bunch of people online being nostalgic for the older style.
It was innevitable, specially when I saw the exact same thing happen when they went from the Link to the Past style to the Ocarina one.
I guess Nintendo can always do a nostalgic game in that vein some years down the line, like how the did Link Between Worlds in order to cater to the people that wanted a return to the past. We'll see.
Re: Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Has Surpassed 10 Million Sales In Three Days
@gcunit I mean... Some day it is going to happen. The Switch will be almost 8 years old when the DLC of Splatoon 3 wraps up and console sales are starting to fall. This year we won't be getting new hardware (no matter how many Switch pro rumours appear) but next year is possible we would see at least an announcement for next gen.
Re: Sega Looks Set To Raise Its Game Prices Up To $70
Sony got away with it and Call of Duty also got away with it. It was a matter of time unfortunatelly.
Fun fact, the increase from 50 to 60 dollars was done in a very similar way.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom - An Absolute Marvel, But Is It Better Than BOTW?
I'm still A BIT worried about the fact that they reused BoTW base map. Bought it anyways tho since I own all Zelda games since Ocarina of Time. And the good reviews also put me at ease.
Re: Looks Like Poochy Might Be Coming To Mario Kart Tour
@FawfulsFury I would put Fawful before the Shroobs personally
Re: Looks Like Poochy Might Be Coming To Mario Kart Tour
@Kayloo I personally would prefer to see Nintendo acknowledge that Tatanga was a Mario character once. Just because.
Re: Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Pre-Orders Being Charged, Launch Date Reveal "Not Quite Ready"
If this physical version was released on actual stores for like 50-60 euros I would buy it in a heartbeat. But Square Enix had to do a Square Enix I guess.