nocdaes

EE is now out of stock. Argos is still available.

@RupeeClock Nice one!

Yes, I did the same with the Nintendo store and I also want the Gamecube controller!

Argos has stock live roght now too.

Argos and EE

EE have stock live right now for pre-order BUT you have to pay in full up front.

You get what you vote for people!

Literally everything in the world from milk to jaffa cakes costs more today than it did when Switch launched. And we're not even talking about a BIT more... everything costs significantly more.

Plus... in many cases you get less too. I pay more for Jaffa Cakes and they give me 10 instead of 12.

I'm sorry, but can people quit the moaning about videogame prices going up? Everything costs more! Staff wages. Rent. Utility bills. Software licenses. Computers. Storage. Literally everything... so yes. Videogames SHOULD cost more too. Anyone suggesting otherwise is either 8 years old with no understanding or living under a rock.

That's before you even consider the value proposition! Look at the cost of Mario Kart 64 back in the 90s and the content that was available versus Mario Kart World today!

This is just like a variant of the multiple Cup race you can do in Double Dash...

I'm nit really sure why they're bothering with a Mario Kart direct! I'd rather NOT know anything else about the game at this point.

I think it looks fine. It does the job of ensuring people don't pick up the wrong game.

The Zelda updates annoyed me a lot. I don't mind the cost for an upgrade... I mind the fact it's 2025.

I'm not going back to BotW in 2025 to use a smart phone app as a map. This should have been done AT THE TIME or certainly with TOTK launch?!

If someone could explain why Nintendo couldn't add mobile phone app as a map before Switch 2?!

Talk about late to the party!

Also, stop faffing about with this nonsense and just release Twilight Princess on Switch...

Annoys me when irritating mistakes like this are made as it means someone is in a job where they don't 100% understand what they do.

When you consider there are literally thousands of people that would love to do this job and have 100% understanding... it annoys me!

And it's not just some mistake... they are 2 entirely different Yoshi games. The marketing manager/ product manager is clearly not right for the job if they cannot tell the difference.

It's why games marketing is so different to any other industry. You can't teach it. You either get games... or you do not. This person clearly does not... so they should go get another job and let someone else that would love this job properly do it instead.

I just don't have the patience for Hitman... it bores the socks off me. I really, really, really hope their Bond game isn't just a reskin of Hitman... yhat would suck.

Lovely keyart, although perhaps a bit too busy...!

I've not been blown away by this so far... looking forward to learning more in a couple of weeks. I really hope there's some missions and nice unlockables to reward exploration.

Donkey Kong saved the day today!

I already bought a Portal to play this and Rebirth.

It was way, way, way too samey... and where the heck are all the games Nintendo? What have you been doing these past 4 years?!

Donkey Kong saved the bloody day there. Was a disaster until then!

Genki can sod off to be honest with you. I'm not buying a single thing from them.

Imagine running a business that is solely reliant on another business' product and then treating that business with zero respect - revealing information and speaking out of turn.

Doesn't sit right with me. Genki do not deserve our money. Shop elsewhere.

If they put Chadley in the FF9 Remake I am going to scream!

It's depressing how badly Square messed up the FF7 remake. I'm actually really optimistic, given how long this project has been rumoured, that they might just be doing FF9 Remake PROPERLY and with some PASSION!

Metroid will be next week I think. This smells a lot more like a port would be announced this way... Twilight Princess feels about right.

I call BS on this, sorry. I'm a huge Metroid fan, but I'm sorry to say that I have absolutely zero faith in Retro or Nintendo producing a Metroid game that gets anywhere near the potential - and is ultimately, and fully, the same Metroid game all over again.

If that blows everything else out of the water... then the Switch 2 mustn't have any big games in the reveal. And thus it is BS, because we already know Mario Kart 9 is 99.9% likely to feature.

Metroid Prime 4 making a bigger splash than Mario Kart 9? Everyone needs to calm down, take a deep breathe and accept, factually, this is never going to be true!

@MontyCircus Nah, I don't think that makes any sense at all. Brand new Mario and Mario Kart is how you get people to pick up a Switch 2.

Gamecube on NSO is about driving subscriptions. It doesn't matter if you're a Switch or Switch 2 subscriber. NSO will be universal - play any platform on any Switch.

Nintendo missed a trick waiting this long. I cancelled my NSO a while ago because I had better options to play those games. Gamecube, though? I don't have better options for Gamecube. They should have added it 12 months ago.

@Uncle_Franklin I'm not sure we'll ever see a new Smash game! What could they possibly add?!

OK apart from Waluigi...

This has nothing to do with Switch 2... Gamecube is being added to NSO. It will be available on Switch or Switch 2.

Biggest console launch ever is great for Nintendo, but just a word of caution that it isn't actually always that great for us. All those millions of machines just sat in warehouses for months on end combined with the rush to produce such a volume of them will mean a lot of defects - a lot as in a higher relative percentage than if it was a smaller launch.

Choose your vendor carefully I'd say.

August 1991 Super Mario Bros 3 and then April 1992 Super Mario World.

It's sad Nintendo don't release games at this sort of frequency more often. All the time that whistles past us all, waiting for a new 3D Mario to release. History suggests that it's actually nonsense that more games would mean lower quality. Nintendo need to spend some more money already and deliver the goods!

@tektite_captain There is absolutely no reason. Nintendo just didn't think about it.

To be fair, they probably are quite busy at this particular point in time...! However, I would argue their core online services (NSO, eShop and Website) are woefully under-resourced. Considering how successful Switch has been, it is difficult not to be disappointed by Nintendo's lack of commitment to making their online services better.

Another minor but relevant example is the fact you can only play Link's Awakening DX and not the original version. It's really frustrating that such little things don't get picked up because they simply don't have enough people to do a better job that this.

Another example is their email newsletter. It's nearly always "buy this now" with nothing interesting to say or share. No news. No insight. No analysis. Just the usual "Nintendo won't let its staff have any sort of opinion" and as a result the emails are bland are largely pointless. I already know that game is out this week...

And then the eShop. Nintendo being stubborn. Another one of their ugly attributes. They need to hire someone that is qualified in ecommerce because it is painfully clear that nobody working on the Nintendo eShop has a scopby-doo about it. Even hiring an intern to sift through the games would instantly improve it. The algorithms are all over the place. The quality has dropped off a cliff about 5 years ago (pandemic cannot be to blame surely). Hire someone that knows how to run an online store... an ex Amazon exec perhaps?! But Nintendo won't do that, will they? They don't like to be told. They just do what they want.

And to be fair... they get a LOT of things right. It's just frustrating to see a business that is not striving to be better. They literally just allow the eShop to wallow in mediocrity.

9/10?! It only loses a mark if your only way of ever playing it is through NSO.

This is a perfect game. Always has been and always will be. It's up there with Zelda Link's Awakening, Super Mario Land 2 and the original Pokemon games. The best of the Gameboy's best.

And the Gameboy has a ton of 9/10s too by the way. Donkey Kong 94 ain't one of them. It's a 10/10 all day long.

Metroid Prime 4
Mario Kart 9
Mario

And I'm happy with that.

I'm not sure why anyone would suggest Donkey Kong or Star Fox. Nintendo clearly do not care about either of those IP's.

More than a decade since a new game in either series, against a backdrop of 8 years of huge success with Switch, is unforgiveable.

I've looked back on my Switch and I've averaged 5 Nintendo game purchases every year!

Except 2024. When it was zero.

So say what you want about Metacritic... they're clearly not wrong.

BUT does it even matter? This was a twilight year. The feast is just over the hill...

I played Crystal Warriors for the very first time ever on my Analogue Pocket in 2024. I thought it was a brilliant strategy game, for its time, and scored it 43/50. I gave the gameplay a perfect 10 and Sound and Replayability got 9's.

One thing I rarely see discussed with regards to Retro games and reviews of them is how you sourced it to play.

I researched Game Gear games, identified Crystal Warriors as interesting, did not look at any videos related to the game, sourced an original copy and set about playing it to completion.

I know not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to do this, but it really does make a huge difference on perspective when assessing the game.

Can ROMs achieve the same? Absolutely they can. My advice is to limit what you play, go in as blind as possible, and finish the game. Its really satisfying. ROMs can give you too much choice and can quickly devalue the overall experience as we quickly fall into the trap of not properly playing anything and moving onto something new. You have to be disciplined!

Buying cartridges helps as you can't just buy them all... (well, not without the other half having something to say about it anyway!)

Crystal Warriors is an excellent Strategy game. Don't let this 5/10 put you off!

@Medic_alert The Bond license changing hands definitely puts a spotlight on "things" potentially happening.

Personally I feel pessimistic in Amazon's ability to do anything even remotely half decent with the Bond license - be it film or gaming, past or present.

Also, I'm 99.99% sure that the rights do not come packaged up with the ability to do absolutely anything you want... There will be caveats all over the place and a certain Brocolli will still have a say on key matters. GoldenEye seems unlikely to do anything in my opinion.

Best bet is to pick up the Analogue 3D!

Oh and final point from me. There is evidence that Brocolli is behind a lot of Bond things not happening. The fa t the license has been sold to Amazon (with their frankly laughable knowledge at making blockbuster movies) is absolute hypocrisy of the highest level. Protecting the Bond license? She has sold it to the highest bidder. And we are going to receive absolutely bang average drivvle from Amazon.

I just don't understand this debate!

Wii U had a virtual console. We bought digital games. And now they just sit there locked on an obsolete machine you never even plug in let alone play.

Why do we need this for Switch? To buy them all over again until the Switch then becomes obsolete?

What's the point?

If you want the game... buy the original and play it on original hardware. Buying a digital copy on a console is just pointless. It will disappear. It always will. We can pretend we're going to get the Wii U out and play them all with all this imaginary time we have to play games... all the while our back logs tick into another 100 games!!

UNLESS/UNTIL Nintendo allow you to access them from ANY hardware past or future, but where is the commercial sense in that, exactly?!

@Jam78 I think the debate has moved on from what you have said. The main issue today is people want the choice. The choice to rent with a subscription, where things will come and things will go, or the choice to own it forever.

We are increasingly in a world where you own nothing. That's the issue. It is not entitlement. It is choice. More choice is only a good thing.

@mookoo I feel like T1 and T2 are really very different films. It's like Alien and Aliens which are also very different films. The first in each has significantly more suspense and a sense of dread. The sequels in each are more balanced on the nerves and also have more humour.

I agree that both are awesome in each case, but if I had to pick just one from each series... it would be T2 and Aliens all day long.

Also... Guns N Roses - You Could Be Mine. T2 has the soundtrack to go with it.

Oh and a FUN FACT for you all that I only discovered when watching the Aliens 4K film last year! These two films have 4 actors that are in both, my personal favourite being John Connor's Foster Mum who is also the very awesome marine Vasquez!

Some nice announcements overall, but it's very much so in the "more of the same" barrel and I can't help but feel disappointed by that.

Also, who comes up with the names?

Concierge? Cafe? Sleep? Z-A?

The lack of creativity and originality in the latest projects shouldn't come as a huge surprise when they can't even come up with a decent name.

Fingers crossed for something awesome on Switch 2.

I'm keeping Switch OLED until there is a Switch 2 OLED. Whether that's at launch or in 5 years time I really don't mind.

Nintendo insist on a slow release rate on their major games so I'm honestly very happy waiting until they wheel out all the goods before I purchase. I've already got, no exaggeration, hundreds of games to play in the meantime.

@Duncanballs Haha yea maybe 😅

Still, eleven years without a new Donkey Kong game is diabolical from Nintendo.

It suggests there are problems at the top because let's be honest here, the creator of Donkey Kong isn't going to be happy with that. These two Returns game re-releases are appeasement at best.

Eleven years without a new entry is just bad. It's actually made worse by the fact they've put DK in a hugely successful film. They've given him a theme park!

Where is the game to back all this up? It's disappointing at best, but utterly poor from Nintendo.

I've already picked up a copy of the original for the N64 ready and waiting for when Analogue ship the 3D! I remember seeing it back in the day, especially in magazines, but never played it so I'm looking forward to it!

Not really interested in a Switch port. I actually really, really dislike the disjointed "these N64 games are on NSO" and "oh, sorry these ones arent". I already feel like I got stung by buying Turok, which turned out to be a bad port, and which eventually landed on NSO anyway...

I think the gaming community put up with too much of this kind of rubbish to be honest. I'm done with that.

Happy to wait and play the original on my own terms.

This is awesome! I've recently played Shinobi for the Game Gear and it was awesome. Already have the second game lined up to play late this year, but I'll have to bring it forward with this arriving in August!

Great to have Shinobi back, but it has to be said... it never should have gone away and SEGA still have a lot of work to do to restore any good faith with me!

I'd be a lot more excited about Nintendo's non-game announcements if they could actually announce some games too.

I know the growing assumption is that we're going to get a load of great game announcements in April, but seriously, Nintendo need to spend some of their mountains of Switch cash on some developers...

Eleven years since a new Donkey Kong game is too long. Star Fox is MIA. Mario Odyssey feels like a lifetime ago. Mario Kart does have something lined up, but it's still coming way, way too far down the road after the Wii U release of 8.

Consider this. If Nintendo release a new Donkey Kong game every 11 years... how many more Donkey Kong games will you get to play in your lifetime?

Meanwhile Call of Duty serves up new dross every frigging year. Doesn't seem fair to me!

Tales of Eternia is great. Always surprises me how little love it receives in these votes, but then, it was a PSP title - I guess a lot of people didn't have a PSP? Highly recommend it.

It's really difficult to know how to price these sorts of things. There seems to be an assumption that a wealthy person could come along and just buy it as it's so rare.

The thing is though, wealthy people don't really like spending their money... and this is priced way off what it could actually make.

Personally I'd be surprised if it even sold for 10,000.

I'm also surprised they are using eBay...

Try your kids on the first level of Super Mario Bros 3 for the NES. It has a fire spitting piranha plant, a flying goomba and at least 2 perilous jumps.

Mario has always been tough at first. Once it clicks, it's fine. I don't see any value in kids playing "easy modes". It's a completely different game that way.

I picked up a copy of RE Gaiden for Gameboy last year. Not played it yet, but it's one of the titles that made me leave NSO. The Gameboy library is so vast, I just couldn't stand how uninspired the selection was. Its not impatience... I don't mind the volume of games or the drip feed releases... I mind the fact we simply won't see so many games due to Nintendo's inability to negotiate!

@PinderSchloss well you've made me feel bad and sad now...

But I stand by my comment. That really IS a nice horse!

Well there goes my new year's resolution of only saying something if you have something nice to say...

Jokes aside, clearly they failed to convince their Dad to dress up as Ganon.

Wait, I said jokes aside... Nice horse!

@Alpha008 that's a good point. Inflation in the UK has had a significant impact, so you're absolutely right, Switch is cheaper today than at launch in real terms.

@Toastmaster Don't forget there's a couple of Banjo games on the Gameboy Advance too. Grunty's Revenge is good fun - I finished it a few months ago and gave it 37 out of 50!

I've not played Banjo Pilot yet, but I've got it lined up for later in the year.

...and when exactly have Nintendo lowered their Switch hardware pricing?!

That's some shoddy analysis from the analyst. Nintendo will launch Switch 2 at a price, and that price will remain the price for years.

One thing we can all be confident on is that Switch 2 is obviously not going to be too expensive.