mainstream05

@Selim I haven't tried it, but MP Remastered has an easier, casual mode that might help.

Something something preservation

I hope the ones are the way turn out better than Blade Runner…

Gonna wait for a review

@WoomyNNYes I said REAL money

Just tell me how much real money it costs.

Nintendo of America… where you at?

@VIIIAxel It’s a little hard to read (and I must stress “a little”) but that’s because of the opacity of the background behind the text, not the size of the box.

I went into it with low expectations, and while that helped, it was still a frustrating experience to actually play. I never lost the sense that I was fighting the controls and it wasn’t until I had unlocked every last one of Samus’ abilities that I felt like I was having genuine fun. In spite of that, I have to admit to myself that not only did I complete it (I’ve given up on much better games), I 100%ed it. I think a rerelease with a more traditional control scheme would help (worked for Skyward Sword), but I’m not surprised that it’s found an audience that loves it.

@Casco There’s no reason to lower the price of the current Switch. It’s still hard to get. The PS5/Xbox Series consoles are brand new and impossible to buy. The $350 Switch is for people that don’t have one already and want the nicer screen. The people that don’t mind the OG Switch’s screen should be able to get one a little easier now.

@Kevember Or they appreciate Zelda going back to its roots

Crossplay?

@justin233 Went to Steam to see how it's reviewed there, and it's reviewed very well (4.5 out of 5), but there's a huge discrepancy with Metacritic (58%). :

@GuruOfGreatness Same (also bought Black Ops 2 and Ghosts for Wii U). I really liked how much functionality they included in Black Ops 2, even though I think it was missing the Zombies mode. It supported IR aiming and asynchronous multiplayer.

@wiggleronacid Maybe it won't be reasonable. Maybe they'll put out a $600 portable PS4.

Too many games...

I’m interested in This is The Police, but $29.99 sounds a little steep...

I hope motion controls fix help. The aiming on the 3DS and Wii U version are atrocious.

@Yosher I mean... how else would an AR-based game like this work?

Drawful is my jam.

Looks pretty cool. Also makes me wish for an HD MadWorld.

@zool No, it's not.

@zool I'm not disputing that it's nothing Nintendo can't handle (as you noted, Nintendo still isn't selling at a loss, and it was a temporary measure), but your "I bought Mario Kart twice so they should be fine" logic is simply not how corporate accounting works.

@zool $45 is not meaningless. It's variable cost. And you're trying to use software sales to insist that they will cushion Nintendo from that cost, but video games already need to cover their own development costs and variable costs before they make a profit, not to mention that they cost only $60 to begin with.

At any rate, this may be moot because Nintendo didn't make air freight an ongoing practice... specifically because $45/unit ISN'T meaningless.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE You're taking away a mark FOR including a functionality?

Looks pretty slick. Can't wait to get it!

I don't get the railing on the price. $300 is too much, but $250 was the sweet spot? GTFO

I was expecting 2 SKUs again (like with Wii U) and was fully prepared to buy the more expensive one, which I guess would've been $300 anyway. For those $300, you get the Switch, the $80 Joy Con (essentially two controllers), the $90 dock, and the completely optional Joy Con Grip.

I really hope they release this in NA. I gave my physical copy away to a friend who'd never played it.

I absolutely agree that this sucks (I contributed with the expectation of a Wii U version as well), but that's the risk that's laid out in Kickstarter's terms of agreement. We did not buy a product. We took a risk.

@Quorthon See, if you decide to not take any of his money, that's your decision. But I'd argue that if he uses YOUR IP to voice his opinion - not clips of promotional material you sent out, but recordings of things you wanted people to discover for themselves - and he makes money from it, you're entitled to a cut.

I deliberately picked the worst case scenario because the flip side of the coin is what if someone uploads an entire playthrough of your game but loves it. It's easy to say the value of that video is free advertising, but I argue that that is not the inherent case.

@Yorumi We are discussing Let's Plays, so let's focus on that.

The reason I don't believe it's a gray area, ethically, is because you're assuming that the only value a video game is the interactive component. As we all know because we're all gamers, video gamers are not solely interactive. Metal Gear Solid has like hours of cutscenes that are not interactive. That is value. Lots of video games have story, some of which (Rainbow Six Vegas comes to mind) is told exclusively through gameplay, meaning a Let's Play inherently is giving away the story as well. That is value too. That is why IP law needs to be updated.

@Quorthon I won't have 23 free minutes for several hours, but I ask you to put yourself in these shoes:

You make a game. Someone does a Let's Play trashing it.

It's his opinion. His opinion is protected as free speech. But he's using footage of your game to show off the only parts worth playing to save his viewers money. He spoils the end of the game, shows off secrets you wanted players to find for themselves, etc.

And he's making money from ads doing it.

How the hell do you feel about that?

@Yorumi I would say these videos aren't transformative. They're using the product as it was meant to be used, and adding commentary. Rifftrax does commentaries for popular movies, but they only sell the audio of their commentary, because the movie in every other form is protected by IP law. Again, the law needs to be updated to protect video games and their creators.

@Quorthon No, it wasn't, my argument is that a video using a company's intellectual property without permission and collecting ad dollars influenced someone's decision to purchase the product containing said intellectual property. The "without permission" and "collecting ad dollars" being the key parts.

As a creator yourself, I'm shocked that you're so quick to dismiss the IP rights of gamemakers.

@Yorumi If fair use law is extended to protect recordings of people playing video games, I'll shut my mouth. But I don't see how it's a form of parody. In the case of most Let's Plays, I see it as using someone else's intellectual property without permission to make money, and in my book, that's theft.

@Quorthon Ahh, the slippery slope argument. Are we talking about written reviews or video reviews? Written reviews are words; they're protected as journalism and free speech. Publishers also release marketing materials for public use, including screenshots and videos. They have given permission for those things to be redistributed, so their use in video reviews or, really, anything is encouraged. I guess if people put up playthroughs of demoes, themselves forms of marketing material, I wouldn't have anything negative to say about them either.

You used the phrase "apples and badgers." I found that amusing, and gave you credit.

@Quorthon First, authors receive royalties from audiobooks of their work.

Second, your point is not only that Nintendo has been too knee-jerky (which I have never disputed). Or if it is your only point, you have gone out of your way to also insist that these long-form videos are a form of "free advertising." To your earlier point, there's a HUGE difference between Jerry drinking a can of Coke on an episode of Seinfeld and a video of someone playing Titanfall (or what-have-you). One is a prop on a television show, the other is the subject of a video, and the game publisher and developer have no control over what is said in the video about their product. There is a general assumption that if a Let's Play is made about the game, it is reinforcing that the game they're playing is worth buying and playing for themselves, hence suggesting it benefits the publisher.

You're also arguing that video games are "meant to be played." Another commenter used the "this form of media is meant to be this, this is meant to be this, etc. etc." argument and, in the very same comment, claimed that watching videos of playthroughs saved him money, implying that it influenced his decision to NOT purchase a game. This is not helping the "free advertisement" argument! Nor do I believe that you can insist that games are only "meant to played" because it is a relatively new form of media and "played" is a vague term. The point of this argument is to devalue a recording of a playthrough. But by collective ad revenue on that action, YouTubers are demonstrating that it does have value! That is money Nintendo could be collecting on its own channel.

So once again, we come around to the "Nintendo being too knee-jerky" point. If that really is your only point, then your arguments should be rooted in why it's a bad business decision, not because Let's Plays are a form of "free advertising" (they're not; they've become a form of entertainment) or because it is not taking away value from its product (it is, or the amount of revenue Nintendo would be collecting is 0 percent). I don't dispute that there are benefits to Nintendo offering more of the revenue to the YouTubers, but I still don't think offering ANY revenue at all is the best business decision when they could easily and cheaply create their own content.

@Yorumi Your bakery comparison is, as @Quorthon called it, like comparing apples and badgers. Flour is a commodity, a good. The amount of bread is limited by the amount you can sell, which is limited by the amount of flour you have to make bread. To make more bread, you buy more flour.

Video games, video, music, and media in general are intellectual property. I can't make a movie using songs from incredibly successful artists and then sell it without paying those artists. Or to pick up on your "these personalities have millions of subscribers so they must be doing something right" argument, Grand Theft Auto is a wildly successful series with a reputation for featuring really good soundtracks. It could be argued, though, that those games are well-designed and would sell even if they used generic or unknown music. But Rockstar still pays every artists because that is - well, the law, but more importantly - because that's what's morally and ethically responsible.

If there is one thing we can agree on, it's that the laws need to be updated to define and protect interactive media.

@Yorumi And there are YouTubers that make money solely from their personality or from the original content that they create.

Of course playing a game that you legally bought isn't wrong. I don't even believe that recording and broadcasting a playthrough of a video game is inherently wrong if it's done for free. But it dovetails with another discussion about whether games are a form of art. I, and a lot of other people, believe that they are, and for them to be taken seriously as a form of art, they must be held to similar standards. If you're going to use someone else's work, you must consult them before you're allowed to profit from it, ESPECIALLY when it's so dependent on its existence. It's as simple as that.

@Quorthon
Is there really not a clear difference between Jerry and Larry using real-world products (and by your admission not caring about "free advertising") to make their show more relateable and, for example, spending twenty-two minutes reading aloud from a best-selling book every week, and using that book to advertise their show?

"The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" - Jerry and Kramer read Stieg Larson's best-selling novel. This Thursday on NBC.

@Yorumi
In an ethical and moral sense, if not an entirely legal one, I don't think it's right to profit from someone else's work like this. There's creative expression, which would just be doing it for free, and then there's actually depending on it for your livelihood, in which case the decision to not opt into Nintendo's revenue sharing program should be a clear and emotionless one. If it doesn't make financial sense, don't do it. The free market will dictate that Nintendo will eventually make their revenue sharing program more attractive or - what I think would be smarter - simply start putting out their own content.

Nintendo is unquestionably out of touch when it comes to issues like this. But I do not like the sense of entitlement some people have when it comes to what they can and can't profit from.

@ZenTurtle
@Quorthon
A free advertisement is a poster for Super Mario Galaxy in the background of a video of me eating Cheetos, not an hour-long session of footage of Super Mario Galaxy called "Let's play SUPER MARIO GALAXY." That's me using Super Mario Galaxy to draw attention to my video. I know these YouTubers have millions of subscribers that are genuinely following their personalities, but that fame was obtained by using other people's work.

Now if a company or an artist is okay with that, that's their choice. If, @Quorthon, someone makes a video of them playing your game and you don't want a cent from them - that's your choice and I don't have an opinion about it. But video game makers have to pay royalties for third-party work. You might buy a GTA because it has an awesome soundtrack, but Rockstar had to shell out money to the artists because it was using their work in a game they're selling for music. I hold YouTubers profiting from ad revenue to the same standard.

We can argue that their royalty is too high. Fine. As armchair analysts, we can sit around and critique their practices if it's rooted in the belief that they will make MORE money by LOWERING their cut. That is how business works. But Pewdiepie is just being a little @*#$(%.

Saying Nintendo should take a smaller cut makes sense if you put it in the context of staying competitive with other video game publishers, but it makes little sense given that it's not clear how much these videos affect sales, negatively or positively. Nintendo spent an entire generation selling Wiis to people who probably aren't even aware these videos exist, and there biggest fumble has been failing to convince that same demographic to upgrade to a Wii U. Basing the argument that Nintendo should take a smaller cut from the ad revenue on all these supposed rights YouTubers have just comes off as entitled whining.

If there is such a high demand for videos of people playing video games - and clearly there is - the smartest thing for Nintendo to do would be to just start posting Let's Plays on their own YouTube channel.

@ZenTurtle
How is making a video of a game not derivative? And how is it free advertising by default?

That it's not up-res'd or touched in any other way doesn't bother me. You can download classic Xbox games on the Xbox 360, and they are completely untouched as well. It's a convenience. And $10 is a pretty good price for a game like this, even if it's just for the first week. It might speak to how behind Nintendo as a company is in the online marketplace, but I'm thankful for the option nonetheless.

I'm torn between Super Mario Galaxy 1+2 and Metroid Prime Trilogy. I've never played SMG2, but I'd love to. On the other hand, having played MPT on the Wii, it's hard not to wish it were bumped up to HD graphics.