Yeah. Being exposed to more of the series certainly helps the enjoyment, but its not necessary. Trails, this is not. With very few exceptions, each Ys game stands alone with connections to other games being on the level of easter eggs.
When the Switch 1, at its actual pricing, manages to be on track to be the best selling console of all time...
What evidence do you have that a significantly lower price would have any meaningful impact on said install base? Particularly an impact big enough to be worth the losses on hardware?
One mild bit of hope is that, IIRC, they didn't announce all the games included in Vol 1 initially. So, there's a chance they are saving some added content for a future marketing reveal. Probably not any "main" games ( ie, Revengeance ), but its not completely impossible they might unveil Portable Ops or Acid 1/2 in a later trailer.
I think its a mix of factors, but the biggest is that Ubisoft is addicted to the "All The Money" marketing mindset. Basically, they tend to only think games are worth making, if the game has the chance to turn into a giant billion dollar smash hit that dominates the medium and channels an endless stream of added revenue to the company. Hence why they mostly just make entries in a small number of mega popular series, that coincidentally have extensive MTX or GAAS aspects.
Spend money on a single player platformer, that would only sell a couple million copies with no chance of funneling people into a cash shop? Why "waste" budget on that when they could add it to the pile used for the next giant Assassins Creed game? That would definitely bring a larger return on investment!
( Spoiler: It would not, in fact, bring a larger return on investment. Adding budget to an existing project does not guarantee any greater sales. )
With their marketing explicitly calling Belmonts Curse the first game, I feel like its almost a shoe-in that one of the others will be Symphony of the Night in some form. It's the best combo of "easy" and "high demand" left in the franchise, and also would presumably be done by M2 who weren't exactly busy making Belmonts Curse.
This collection does feel kind of. . . limited. The first collection had three "main" games and four "bonus" games, by comparison. Yes, in this case one of the "main" games is a notable tough port, but still. It feels like this collection really needs at least the Acid games to be as meaty as the first.
What, don't you know? That standard only applies to Nintendo, Sony platforms are allowed to take credit for all games released on them, no matter how multiplatform. ahem
I actually can believe it. . . but only because Konami has actually put in the effort. For a number of years now they've been consistently putting out stuff that, at the very least, was trying to be the good version of what it aimed to be. Sure, it started small with rerelease collections, but they were at least good rerelease collections, that showed signs of being something people cared about rather than being quick and dirty cash grabs. And after proving this effort for a while, they graduated up to remakes and entire new games, which generally have been received well.
Basically, Konami did the thing that a studio with its rep in the toilet should do: be patient and put in the effort.
Because the metroidvania style is historically more popular, presently more popular, and thus much more likely to sell well ( especially to an audience that is often concerned about value for money and thus skeptical of overly short and linear games )?
I actually wouldn't consider Star Ocean 2 to be a "2D-HD" game. While there is some resemblance, the key issue is that Star Ocean 2R very closely resembles in style. . . the original Star Ocean 2, just with higher res sprites and backgrounds. It already was "high resolution" ( for the time ) sprites on fixed ( pre-rendered ) polygonal backgrounds.
If that's enough to qualify, than you open the floodgates and really should consider a lot of games, going back decades, as "2D-HD".
Don't forget people being angry that the production runs are. . . limited. Which admittedly is probably a variation on "whining about price" at its core ( print runs actually being limited = no ability to pretend that a willingness to wait to buy will translate into some arbitrary desired discount ).
Yeah. Anyone who is complaining about how "2D-HD is overdone", really needs to explain why other styles like "photorealism" or "anime cel-shaded" aren't exponentially worse. Seeing as they have been used in games by the hundreds, if not thousands.
Because its much much easier to optimize performance in non-interactive cutscenes than it is to do so when the rest of the game has to function? All else being equal, if you can hit 60 FPS in normal gameplay, there would be no technical reason not to also run 60 FPS during cutscenes, too.
I mean, they could. The issue is that, based on their experience with the VC, there wasn't any good reason for them to actually do so. Not when, outside of rare exceptions, games didn't sell well enough on VC to be worth keeping the lights on. Unless your name was "Pokemon", stuff sold as badly as "single digit copies per week".
Yes, in theory this was a result of an immature market and the lack of an account-level system with plausible persistence. However, that current customer behavior would be different is also just that: a theory. Choosing to base their marketing plan on the evidence they actually have is not some kind of insanity. And the evidence they have points towards "However much people might claim otherwise, they don't put their money where their mouths are".
( The fact that there is at least as much complaining about "prices being too high" as there is about "not being able to buy stuff only rent"? Does not exactly help matters. Nintendo rightly does not want to rebuild their marketing plan only to have people change to complaining that they can't buy Mario 64 for four bucks and Legend of Zelda for a dollar. )
I wouldn't get your hopes up about the Quintet games. Hamster showing interest in consoles doesn't intrinsically solve the "The Quintet IP is a mess and the key owner is missing and possibly dead" problem.
As for the rest. . . honestly, I think its more likely for such games to show up on GOG, given Square-Enix suddenly being willing to do business with them.
I suspect the issue is that, yes, the user could make the Labo VR headset "work". . . sort of, poorly, with some end user modification. But it would be entirely dependent on the quality of that modification, and so YMMV strongly.
The issue, I would say, is less that investors only care about money ( on some level that is reasonable ). Its more that investors typically only care about stock prices, not the actual profitability of the company. It doesn't matter if the company is making profit, or setting up to continue making profit in the future. All that matters is if they take actions and announcement that causes stock prices to go up. Which, since stock valuation is almost completely irrational and based on hype and trends and wish fulfillment, rather then actually making money by selling a product? You get this massive toxic disjoint.
If you aren't willing to point to the actual tech that would support your claim as being true, than you are basically conceding that your position is not, in fact, true. So, once again- if the Switch 2 is supposed to be 2015 tech, please point out the commercial item from 2015 with similar performance and size and power efficiency and price.
While this is a fair concern, the overall answer is "From the money they are currently spending on endeavors aimed at propping up stock values". Sure, reinvestment into the company is important, but its more important to force a healthy relationship between company and investor, IMO. The standard formulas would obviously need to be set so that a company with a given amount of profit doesn't have to burn all its profit on dividends, but if companies can be secure from investors forcing them to make bad long term decisions? It'd be a net benefit.
1. Corporate execs who are desperately eager for a magic bullet that will make line go up in the face of various headwinds.
2. Techbros with both megalomaniacal tendencies and a lack of understanding of the larger world, who really want to convince themselves that they still have a shot at being early revolutionary innovators.
3. The one thing LLMs are definitely good at, being a storytelling chatbot, is exactly the thing people are most easily convinced by.
My own suggested solution? The issuing of dividends should be compulsory for all publicly-traded corporations, with the amount of those dividends being fixed by a formula derived from the corporations declared earnings. And investor rights with regard to corporate ownership should be black letter law defined as in relation solely to those dividends, not to aftermarket stock valuations.
That would at least push things back in the direction of "Corporation achieves financial success by actually bringing in revenue by selling a product/service", as opposed to the current tendency for corporations to take actions purely based on their impact on stock prices. Which are, as you pointed out, often disconnected from reality.
Stupid question time: how exactly is the Switch 2 supposed to be compatible with LABO VR, when the Switch 2 is a different size from the Switch 1, and LABO VR works by fitting the Switch unit into the headset?
Consumers have the right to hold whatever opinion they wish. They don't have the right to declare that said opinion establishes a consumer right to a particular price. A company does you no wrong by setting the price higher than you personally wish.
They aren't "pro-consumer", because there is no such thing as "pro-consumer" in the first place. The only obligation on a company is to not violate legitimate consumer rights, not to somehow look out for the personal interests of individual consumers. That responsible lay with the consumer.
Or, no, you don't have a right to any particular price or any particular discount. Thus, setting the price higher than you would prefer violates none of your rights.
An irrelevant statement, seeing as no one is discussing 2015 hardware here. They are discussing the Switch 2.
Reminder: the technical advancement of a device is not measured just in processor power. Its also measured in size, cost, and power consumption/heat generation. If you want to claim the Switch 2 is "tech from 2015", show a device from 2015 that has similar processor power, and size, and power consumption, and price. If the "similar" device takes up twice as much space, guzzles ten times the electricity, and would make the product cost $1000+ retail, then its not actually similar at all.
People keep suggesting this, and it remains a bad idea. For one, you wouldn't be able to get the price down anywhere near $100, since the stuff you suggest to remove are largely the cheap parts. The most expensive components of a Switch are the chips, and those would all remain.
For another, all of that ( not trivial ) product reengineering would go to making a product whose only virtue compared to existing models is "Is Cheaper". Spending a lot of time and money to pursue an audience whose only defining feature is "Does not want to spend money" is questionable at best. Especially when the Switch 1 is already a ridiculously popular console, the cheapest option on the market, and where "second hand market" is a thing.
TLDR: Nintendo isn't going to spend a ton of money making a money-losing SKU, in order to pursue people who probably aren't going to pay them much money anyway.
None of which is "anti-consumer" in the slightest. There are real consumer rights, like the right to a functional, accurately-advertised product. "Products being sold at a particular price or discount" is not one of them.
Strictly speaking, they aren't "scams". . . but what they are is a bad faith product used to undermine consumer rights. That's plenty bad enough to condemn them, at least insofar as they've actually been put to use.
The thing I find more weird, is why when the "gaming community" seems willing to condemn things as "anti-consumer" at the drop of the hat, there seem to be so many people eager to get up to bat defending GKC. It feels bizarre that people will passionately lambast perfectly reasonable things like "setting the retail price higher than I personally want to pay" as some kind of crime, and yet will actively defend an attempt to undermine First Sale Doctrine.
Its a big budget Business Division 1 project. "Failing to meet expectations" is for smaller budget works by lesser studios. ahem
Less facetiously, I think Square-Enix might have finally been broken of their "lets sell ourselves to Sony for free" strategic plan. Probably because artificially limiting their audience was pushing their FF/KH sales levels down to levels where even they couldn't pretend they were acceptable anymore. Releasing their titles generously across all platforms, but especially the Switch, might not magically grant them the high sales figures they used to get all the time. . . but it at least might buy them enough added revenue to come up with a better plan or hope for a turnaround.
Given the known facts regarding the Switch library, this should have been the safe assumption from the getgo. Sadly, "Developer is lazy and cheap with physical release" does not earn as many clicks as "Evil Nintendo Conspiracy!" Especially when you have the loudness multiplier that is the "Anti-Censorship" dogwhistle brigade.
You are assuming that they are primarily motivated by attention-seeking, as opposed to by the promotion of hatred. I wouldn't call that a safe assumption.
I mean, is it really? Think of how many media adaptations there are of the Trojan War, for a vaguely similar example. "Journey to the West" is if anything an even bigger cultural touchstone in the East than the Illiad and Odyssey are in the West.
There's at least one really strong reason why: Monolith was a Nintendo subsidiary. Generally speaking, its more productive to support your own first party works than those of outside studios. Easier, too, since you don't have to worry about external contracts.
Nintendo can do a lot of things. Why should they do so, is the question. Given the wildly unpredictable course of development, things generally should only be announced as close to launch as possible, precisely to keep expectations as closely matched to reality. Also to make sure that people get excited about an actual product, and not a fever dream imagining of a product.
The question of whether a Direct is coming soon ( one probably is ), is entirely separate from the question "Should we give any credence to this leaker?" To which the answer is a firm "No, you should not".
To put it bluntly. . . why exactly should Nintendo care about such an incredibly niche, self-inflicted issue? "We can't release our next console when it would be most prudent, because somewhere out there a person might not be willing to buy it unless they can 100% complete an entire series of games first?"
Like, if the way you want to live your life is never playing New Game X without having replayed the entire series before it again, you do you. But expecting the entire rest of the world to then revolve around your chosen quirk is not a reasonable ask.
It is tragic, yes. I just don't think its solvable. Crowdfunding campaigns can get away with far greater transparency, precisely because they are a much smaller and differently-filtered population. Low "development literacy" customers simply don't show up to participate in crowdfunding in the first place, and if they do they very swiftly get discouraged and leave. You can't do that in broader marketing campaigns dependent on influencing the opinions and zeitgeist of millions, if not tens of millions, of people.
As for the solution? Its the solution Nintendo already largely adopts: stop announcing games so damn early. Until a game is at least solidly in beta, you shouldn't say anything about it in public. Ideally, you don't announce the game at all until the release is scheduled. Maybe there was a day when "starting development" and "going gold" were close enough together to make the former a valid announcement date, but if so we've left that land behind decades ago.
I think the fundamental issue with transparency as a goal, is that transparency is only helpful if the public is willing to engage with said transparency intelligently and in good faith. Given the reactions in the past to leaked developer builds and the like? I'm not optimistic. I suspect that actual transparency would lead to far too many ignorant responses, where people interpret the inside view from a position completely lacking in context and with zero willingness to be educated. Which would pretty much kill any enthusiasm for transparency. "Why should we put the effort to show people how game development is really working, when half the time the response is 'You are lazy liars'?"
Its not a big series right now. . . due to extended years of neglect and abandonment. That's not the same as having never been a big series. According to some quick googling, the original Sands of Time sold something on the level of 14M copies across various platforms. That is, by any reasonable standard, a huge hit. . . and also why they wanted to do a modern remake, clearly.
Plus, even despite that neglect, they made a new PoP game in a different genre with a different art style. . . and The Lost Crown apparently still sold 1.3M copies in its first year. Most companies ought to be thrilled by that level of success for the first revival of a franchise in a long time ( especially since it certainly cost way less than the debacle that was the Sands of Time remake ).
I've said plenty of critical things about Tanabe's work before, and won't mince words about specific decisions in the future either. Nonetheless, when the worst that could be said about someone is "they made some creative decisions that didn't work great", things could be much worse. Lets try to be gracious, and perhaps judge a creative by his best work and not his worst.
My thoughts, similarly. The SoT remake was kind of cursed, I can believe it is more trouble than its worth. Due a much cheaper and simpler remaster ( or just port the remaster that IIRC already exists ), and get on with new games.
. . . or at least, those would be my thoughts if I were generous. Its Ubisoft, odds are they are actually cancelling it because it doesn't have enough MTX potential.
I very much get the sense that most, if not all, the public fan hatred for Air Riders is purely based on it existing at all, instead of some other game the fan wants. "How dare Sakurai not make another Smash Bros game, that's what I want!" Or the like.
Here's hoping he can have some vaguely positive influence on Hasbro. I don't mean in a "don't be evil" sense, but simply that they be less. . . self-destructively stupid. A voice in their board willing to say stuff like "Hey, remember when you tried to rewrite the OGL and almost burned your company to the ground by picking a fight with every media megacorp on the planet at the same time? Try not to do stupid ***** like that again."
Comments 234
Re: Review: Ys X: Proud Nordics (Switch 2) - The Definitive Version Of Adol Christin's Seafaring Saga
@imgrowinglegs
Yeah. Being exposed to more of the series certainly helps the enjoyment, but its not necessary. Trails, this is not. With very few exceptions, each Ys game stands alone with connections to other games being on the level of easter eggs.
Re: Nintendo Is Considering A Switch 2 Price Hike This Year, According To New Report
@The_Nintendo_Expat
When the Switch 1, at its actual pricing, manages to be on track to be the best selling console of all time...
What evidence do you have that a significantly lower price would have any meaningful impact on said install base? Particularly an impact big enough to be worth the losses on hardware?
Re: Nintendo Is Considering A Switch 2 Price Hike This Year, According To New Report
@ParrakerriRush
Why would you think this for a second? The proposed reason for a price increase is "greater component costs".
Re: 13 Switch Emulators Hit By Latest Wave Of Nintendo Takedowns
@Vyacheslav333
You realize that the Switch 2 does provide backward compatibility, thus making this seeming-complaint nonsensical, right?
Re: PSA: Metal Gear Solid 4 Is The Headliner, But Master Collection Vol. 2's "Bonus" Is One Of GBC's Best
@abe_hikura
One mild bit of hope is that, IIRC, they didn't announce all the games included in Vol 1 initially. So, there's a chance they are saving some added content for a future marketing reveal. Probably not any "main" games ( ie, Revengeance ), but its not completely impossible they might unveil Portable Ops or Acid 1/2 in a later trailer.
Re: Surprise! Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition Arrives On Switch This Week
@Wexter
I think its a mix of factors, but the biggest is that Ubisoft is addicted to the "All The Money" marketing mindset. Basically, they tend to only think games are worth making, if the game has the chance to turn into a giant billion dollar smash hit that dominates the medium and channels an endless stream of added revenue to the company. Hence why they mostly just make entries in a small number of mega popular series, that coincidentally have extensive MTX or GAAS aspects.
Spend money on a single player platformer, that would only sell a couple million copies with no chance of funneling people into a cash shop? Why "waste" budget on that when they could add it to the pile used for the next giant Assassins Creed game? That would definitely bring a larger return on investment!
( Spoiler: It would not, in fact, bring a larger return on investment. Adding budget to an existing project does not guarantee any greater sales. )
Re: Konami's Anniversary Revival Of Castlevania Is Only Just Beginning, Expect More "New Products"
With their marketing explicitly calling Belmonts Curse the first game, I feel like its almost a shoe-in that one of the others will be Symphony of the Night in some form. It's the best combo of "easy" and "high demand" left in the franchise, and also would presumably be done by M2 who weren't exactly busy making Belmonts Curse.
Re: PSA: Metal Gear Solid 4 Is The Headliner, But Master Collection Vol. 2's "Bonus" Is One Of GBC's Best
This collection does feel kind of. . . limited. The first collection had three "main" games and four "bonus" games, by comparison. Yes, in this case one of the "main" games is a notable tough port, but still. It feels like this collection really needs at least the Acid games to be as meaty as the first.
Re: Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Unveiled For Switch, Launching In 2026
@kal_el_07241
What, don't you know? That standard only applies to Nintendo, Sony platforms are allowed to take credit for all games released on them, no matter how multiplatform. ahem
Re: Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Unveiled For Switch, Launching In 2026
@Fizza
I actually can believe it. . . but only because Konami has actually put in the effort. For a number of years now they've been consistently putting out stuff that, at the very least, was trying to be the good version of what it aimed to be. Sure, it started small with rerelease collections, but they were at least good rerelease collections, that showed signs of being something people cared about rather than being quick and dirty cash grabs. And after proving this effort for a while, they graduated up to remakes and entire new games, which generally have been received well.
Basically, Konami did the thing that a studio with its rep in the toilet should do: be patient and put in the effort.
Re: Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Unveiled For Switch, Launching In 2026
@CaptainQuo
Because the metroidvania style is historically more popular, presently more popular, and thus much more likely to sell well ( especially to an audience that is often concerned about value for money and thus skeptical of overly short and linear games )?
Re: Square Enix Reveals Save Data Bonuses For Its New HD-2D Game
I actually wouldn't consider Star Ocean 2 to be a "2D-HD" game. While there is some resemblance, the key issue is that Star Ocean 2R very closely resembles in style. . . the original Star Ocean 2, just with higher res sprites and backgrounds. It already was "high resolution" ( for the time ) sprites on fixed ( pre-rendered ) polygonal backgrounds.
If that's enough to qualify, than you open the floodgates and really should consider a lot of games, going back decades, as "2D-HD".
Re: Limited Run Games Is Bringing NES 'Jaws' To Switch Later This Week
@ElkinFencer10
Don't forget people being angry that the production runs are. . . limited. Which admittedly is probably a variation on "whining about price" at its core ( print runs actually being limited = no ability to pretend that a willingness to wait to buy will translate into some arbitrary desired discount ).
Re: Square Enix Is Making Changes To Its New HD-2D Game Based On Demo Feedback
@Friendly
Yeah. Anyone who is complaining about how "2D-HD is overdone", really needs to explain why other styles like "photorealism" or "anime cel-shaded" aren't exponentially worse. Seeing as they have been used in games by the hundreds, if not thousands.
Re: Tales Of Arise - Switch 2 Performance And Resolution Revealed
@Valkian24
Because its much much easier to optimize performance in non-interactive cutscenes than it is to do so when the rest of the game has to function? All else being equal, if you can hit 60 FPS in normal gameplay, there would be no technical reason not to also run 60 FPS during cutscenes, too.
Re: Hamster's 'Console Archives' Starting Lineup Revealed, Includes More Than 10 Titles
@GameOtaku
I mean, they could. The issue is that, based on their experience with the VC, there wasn't any good reason for them to actually do so. Not when, outside of rare exceptions, games didn't sell well enough on VC to be worth keeping the lights on. Unless your name was "Pokemon", stuff sold as badly as "single digit copies per week".
Yes, in theory this was a result of an immature market and the lack of an account-level system with plausible persistence. However, that current customer behavior would be different is also just that: a theory. Choosing to base their marketing plan on the evidence they actually have is not some kind of insanity. And the evidence they have points towards "However much people might claim otherwise, they don't put their money where their mouths are".
( The fact that there is at least as much complaining about "prices being too high" as there is about "not being able to buy stuff only rent"? Does not exactly help matters. Nintendo rightly does not want to rebuild their marketing plan only to have people change to complaining that they can't buy Mario 64 for four bucks and Legend of Zelda for a dollar. )
Re: Hamster's 'Console Archives' Starting Lineup Revealed, Includes More Than 10 Titles
@Friendly
I wouldn't get your hopes up about the Quintet games. Hamster showing interest in consoles doesn't intrinsically solve the "The Quintet IP is a mess and the key owner is missing and possibly dead" problem.
As for the rest. . . honestly, I think its more likely for such games to show up on GOG, given Square-Enix suddenly being willing to do business with them.
Re: Nintendo Clarifies That Labo VR Will Not Work With Virtual Boy For Switch Online
@MeloMan
They are making just such a device. The cardboard VR viewer is in addition to that, serving as a much cheaper alternative.
Re: Nintendo Clarifies That Labo VR Will Not Work With Virtual Boy For Switch Online
I suspect the issue is that, yes, the user could make the Labo VR headset "work". . . sort of, poorly, with some end user modification. But it would be entirely dependent on the quality of that modification, and so YMMV strongly.
Re: Nintendo Explains Why Switch Games Are Still Getting Free Updates
@ShadLink
The issue, I would say, is less that investors only care about money ( on some level that is reasonable ). Its more that investors typically only care about stock prices, not the actual profitability of the company. It doesn't matter if the company is making profit, or setting up to continue making profit in the future. All that matters is if they take actions and announcement that causes stock prices to go up. Which, since stock valuation is almost completely irrational and based on hype and trends and wish fulfillment, rather then actually making money by selling a product? You get this massive toxic disjoint.
Re: Nintendo Will "Carefully Consider" A Switch 2 Price Increase, Says Furukawa
@weisske
If you aren't willing to point to the actual tech that would support your claim as being true, than you are basically conceding that your position is not, in fact, true. So, once again- if the Switch 2 is supposed to be 2015 tech, please point out the commercial item from 2015 with similar performance and size and power efficiency and price.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Drops 11% Following Its Financial Release
@MocawNow
While this is a fair concern, the overall answer is "From the money they are currently spending on endeavors aimed at propping up stock values". Sure, reinvestment into the company is important, but its more important to force a healthy relationship between company and investor, IMO. The standard formulas would obviously need to be set so that a company with a given amount of profit doesn't have to burn all its profit on dividends, but if companies can be secure from investors forcing them to make bad long term decisions? It'd be a net benefit.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Drops 11% Following Its Financial Release
@Metazoxan
I blame a mix of three factors:
1. Corporate execs who are desperately eager for a magic bullet that will make line go up in the face of various headwinds.
2. Techbros with both megalomaniacal tendencies and a lack of understanding of the larger world, who really want to convince themselves that they still have a shot at being early revolutionary innovators.
3. The one thing LLMs are definitely good at, being a storytelling chatbot, is exactly the thing people are most easily convinced by.
Combined, its a perfect storm.
Re: Nintendo's Share Price Drops 11% Following Its Financial Release
@Makyurax
My own suggested solution? The issuing of dividends should be compulsory for all publicly-traded corporations, with the amount of those dividends being fixed by a formula derived from the corporations declared earnings. And investor rights with regard to corporate ownership should be black letter law defined as in relation solely to those dividends, not to aftermarket stock valuations.
That would at least push things back in the direction of "Corporation achieves financial success by actually bringing in revenue by selling a product/service", as opposed to the current tendency for corporations to take actions purely based on their impact on stock prices. Which are, as you pointed out, often disconnected from reality.
Re: Labo VR Will Reportedly Be Compatible With Virtual Boy For Switch Online
Stupid question time: how exactly is the Switch 2 supposed to be compatible with LABO VR, when the Switch 2 is a different size from the Switch 1, and LABO VR works by fitting the Switch unit into the headset?
Re: Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase Announced For Tomorrow, 5th February 2026
@SpacedDuck
Why would it be considered 3rd party? Monolith is part of Nintendo, and has been for almost 20 years.
Re: Switch 2 Storms Towards Its Forecast Target With 17.37 Million Units Sold
Consumers have the right to hold whatever opinion they wish. They don't have the right to declare that said opinion establishes a consumer right to a particular price. A company does you no wrong by setting the price higher than you personally wish.
Re: Switch 2 Storms Towards Its Forecast Target With 17.37 Million Units Sold
@darylb24
They aren't "pro-consumer", because there is no such thing as "pro-consumer" in the first place. The only obligation on a company is to not violate legitimate consumer rights, not to somehow look out for the personal interests of individual consumers. That responsible lay with the consumer.
Or, no, you don't have a right to any particular price or any particular discount. Thus, setting the price higher than you would prefer violates none of your rights.
Re: Nintendo Will "Carefully Consider" A Switch 2 Price Increase, Says Furukawa
@weisske
An irrelevant statement, seeing as no one is discussing 2015 hardware here. They are discussing the Switch 2.
Reminder: the technical advancement of a device is not measured just in processor power. Its also measured in size, cost, and power consumption/heat generation. If you want to claim the Switch 2 is "tech from 2015", show a device from 2015 that has similar processor power, and size, and power consumption, and price. If the "similar" device takes up twice as much space, guzzles ten times the electricity, and would make the product cost $1000+ retail, then its not actually similar at all.
Re: It's Official, The Switch Is Nintendo's Best-Selling Console Of All Time
@Pipulitoch
People keep suggesting this, and it remains a bad idea. For one, you wouldn't be able to get the price down anywhere near $100, since the stuff you suggest to remove are largely the cheap parts. The most expensive components of a Switch are the chips, and those would all remain.
For another, all of that ( not trivial ) product reengineering would go to making a product whose only virtue compared to existing models is "Is Cheaper". Spending a lot of time and money to pursue an audience whose only defining feature is "Does not want to spend money" is questionable at best. Especially when the Switch 1 is already a ridiculously popular console, the cheapest option on the market, and where "second hand market" is a thing.
TLDR: Nintendo isn't going to spend a ton of money making a money-losing SKU, in order to pursue people who probably aren't going to pay them much money anyway.
Re: Switch 2 Storms Towards Its Forecast Target With 17.37 Million Units Sold
@Porky
Please stop spreading misinformation. Banning a person from the online networks is not "bricking a console".
Re: Switch 2 Storms Towards Its Forecast Target With 17.37 Million Units Sold
@darylb24
None of which is "anti-consumer" in the slightest. There are real consumer rights, like the right to a functional, accurately-advertised product. "Products being sold at a particular price or discount" is not one of them.
Re: Upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Games & Accessories For February & March 2026
Strictly speaking, they aren't "scams". . . but what they are is a bad faith product used to undermine consumer rights. That's plenty bad enough to condemn them, at least insofar as they've actually been put to use.
The thing I find more weird, is why when the "gaming community" seems willing to condemn things as "anti-consumer" at the drop of the hat, there seem to be so many people eager to get up to bat defending GKC. It feels bizarre that people will passionately lambast perfectly reasonable things like "setting the retail price higher than I personally want to pay" as some kind of crime, and yet will actively defend an attempt to undermine First Sale Doctrine.
Re: Japanese Charts: Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade Emerges Victorious In A Quiet Week
@Kraven
Its a big budget Business Division 1 project. "Failing to meet expectations" is for smaller budget works by lesser studios. ahem
Less facetiously, I think Square-Enix might have finally been broken of their "lets sell ourselves to Sony for free" strategic plan. Probably because artificially limiting their audience was pushing their FF/KH sales levels down to levels where even they couldn't pretend they were acceptable anymore. Releasing their titles generously across all platforms, but especially the Switch, might not magically grant them the high sales figures they used to get all the time. . . but it at least might buy them enough added revenue to come up with a better plan or hope for a turnaround.
Re: Nintendo Responds To Dispatch Switch Censorship With Official Statement
@tabris95
Given the known facts regarding the Switch library, this should have been the safe assumption from the getgo. Sadly, "Developer is lazy and cheap with physical release" does not earn as many clicks as "Evil Nintendo Conspiracy!" Especially when you have the loudness multiplier that is the "Anti-Censorship" dogwhistle brigade.
Re: Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream Nintendo Direct: Every Announcement - How Would You Rate It?
@SykoMuffin
You are assuming that they are primarily motivated by attention-seeking, as opposed to by the promotion of hatred. I wouldn't call that a safe assumption.
Re: Arc System Works Unveils New River City Saga Game 'Journey To The West'
@PinderSchloss
I mean, is it really? Think of how many media adaptations there are of the Trojan War, for a vaguely similar example. "Journey to the West" is if anything an even bigger cultural touchstone in the East than the Illiad and Odyssey are in the West.
Re: Anniversary: 'The Last Story' Helped The Wii Go Out On A Real-Time High 15 Years Ago
@Johnny_Arthur
There's at least one really strong reason why: Monolith was a Nintendo subsidiary. Generally speaking, its more productive to support your own first party works than those of outside studios. Easier, too, since you don't have to worry about external contracts.
Re: Absolum's First Free Content Update Arrives Next Month
Cool. Absolum wasn't Hades good, but it definitely scratched my "Capcom D&D" itch. More content and variations can't help but be good.
Re: Feature: "Demoralisation Is A Strong Word, But It Accurately Describes The Situation" - Why Do So Many Games Get Delayed?
@sportymariosonicmixx
Nintendo can do a lot of things. Why should they do so, is the question. Given the wildly unpredictable course of development, things generally should only be announced as close to launch as possible, precisely to keep expectations as closely matched to reality. Also to make sure that people get excited about an actual product, and not a fever dream imagining of a product.
Re: Rumour: A Nintendo Direct May Be Coming As Soon As Next Week
The question of whether a Direct is coming soon ( one probably is ), is entirely separate from the question "Should we give any credence to this leaker?" To which the answer is a firm "No, you should not".
Re: Feature: "Demoralisation Is A Strong Word, But It Accurately Describes The Situation" - Why Do So Many Games Get Delayed?
@sportymariosonicmixx
To put it bluntly. . . why exactly should Nintendo care about such an incredibly niche, self-inflicted issue? "We can't release our next console when it would be most prudent, because somewhere out there a person might not be willing to buy it unless they can 100% complete an entire series of games first?"
Like, if the way you want to live your life is never playing New Game X without having replayed the entire series before it again, you do you. But expecting the entire rest of the world to then revolve around your chosen quirk is not a reasonable ask.
Re: Feature: "Demoralisation Is A Strong Word, But It Accurately Describes The Situation" - Why Do So Many Games Get Delayed?
@somnambulance
It is tragic, yes. I just don't think its solvable. Crowdfunding campaigns can get away with far greater transparency, precisely because they are a much smaller and differently-filtered population. Low "development literacy" customers simply don't show up to participate in crowdfunding in the first place, and if they do they very swiftly get discouraged and leave. You can't do that in broader marketing campaigns dependent on influencing the opinions and zeitgeist of millions, if not tens of millions, of people.
Re: Feature: "Demoralisation Is A Strong Word, But It Accurately Describes The Situation" - Why Do So Many Games Get Delayed?
As for the solution? Its the solution Nintendo already largely adopts: stop announcing games so damn early. Until a game is at least solidly in beta, you shouldn't say anything about it in public. Ideally, you don't announce the game at all until the release is scheduled. Maybe there was a day when "starting development" and "going gold" were close enough together to make the former a valid announcement date, but if so we've left that land behind decades ago.
Re: Feature: "Demoralisation Is A Strong Word, But It Accurately Describes The Situation" - Why Do So Many Games Get Delayed?
@somnambulance
I think the fundamental issue with transparency as a goal, is that transparency is only helpful if the public is willing to engage with said transparency intelligently and in good faith. Given the reactions in the past to leaked developer builds and the like? I'm not optimistic. I suspect that actual transparency would lead to far too many ignorant responses, where people interpret the inside view from a position completely lacking in context and with zero willingness to be educated. Which would pretty much kill any enthusiasm for transparency. "Why should we put the effort to show people how game development is really working, when half the time the response is 'You are lazy liars'?"
Re: Prince Of Persia Team Behind Cancelled Sands Of Time Remake Shares Final Message
@Kilamanjaro
Its not a big series right now. . . due to extended years of neglect and abandonment. That's not the same as having never been a big series. According to some quick googling, the original Sands of Time sold something on the level of 14M copies across various platforms. That is, by any reasonable standard, a huge hit. . . and also why they wanted to do a modern remake, clearly.
Plus, even despite that neglect, they made a new PoP game in a different genre with a different art style. . . and The Lost Crown apparently still sold 1.3M copies in its first year. Most companies ought to be thrilled by that level of success for the first revival of a franchise in a long time ( especially since it certainly cost way less than the debacle that was the Sands of Time remake ).
Re: Nintendo Producer Kensuke Tanabe Has Seemingly Confirmed His Retirement
I've said plenty of critical things about Tanabe's work before, and won't mince words about specific decisions in the future either. Nonetheless, when the worst that could be said about someone is "they made some creative decisions that didn't work great", things could be much worse. Lets try to be gracious, and perhaps judge a creative by his best work and not his worst.
Re: Prince Of Persia Team Behind Cancelled Sands Of Time Remake Shares Final Message
@HotGoomba
My thoughts, similarly. The SoT remake was kind of cursed, I can believe it is more trouble than its worth. Due a much cheaper and simpler remaster ( or just port the remaster that IIRC already exists ), and get on with new games.
. . . or at least, those would be my thoughts if I were generous. Its Ubisoft, odds are they are actually cancelling it because it doesn't have enough MTX potential.
Re: Kirby Air Riders Is Getting Its First Update Of 2026 "Soon"
@KayFiOS
I very much get the sense that most, if not all, the public fan hatred for Air Riders is purely based on it existing at all, instead of some other game the fan wants. "How dare Sakurai not make another Smash Bros game, that's what I want!" Or the like.
Re: Former Nintendo Of America President Doug Bowser Joins Hasbro's Board Of Directors
Here's hoping he can have some vaguely positive influence on Hasbro. I don't mean in a "don't be evil" sense, but simply that they be less. . . self-destructively stupid. A voice in their board willing to say stuff like "Hey, remember when you tried to rewrite the OGL and almost burned your company to the ground by picking a fight with every media megacorp on the planet at the same time? Try not to do stupid ***** like that again."