Gotta wonder, is this the reason there's no Switch 2 version of MLB 26, the dev kit allocated to San Diego Studio (the one SIE studio you'd expect to actually have a Switch 2 dev kit) got sent to Polyphony?
"the plan is to include 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit versions in a single package"
Gotta assume the "32-bit" version they're talking about is the Windows 95 version? And that's assuming the PC package actually included distinct executables for both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 (at least as far as the assets other than the majority of the music is concerned, since I'm sure the CD soundtrack can be shared), since it wouldn't be considered a 32-bit program if it were a single executable. There wasn't a fully-realized port to either 32X or Saturn, so it can't be referring to either of those platforms...
(There were two 8-bit versions--Master System and Game Gear--and two 16-bit versions--Genesis and Sega CD, or whatever those things were called in other necks of the woods--and no 32-bit versions apart from possibly the PC version...)
(For the record, Tides of Time only had console versions on the same platforms, although in that case the Master System version is one of those Brazilian backport jobs, unlike the first game...)
Gotta assume the old PEGI credentials were still valid, since the European versions still bear the old 3s (they'd've been a lot higher had they needed to re-submit on that front)--I'd've considered a scenario where there'd be a rude surprise once you reached the Game Corner, but given what went on in ESRB territory and I seriously doubt anyone'd want a Euro-centric repeat of the game machine debacle from Platinum...
Question is, did they re-submit to the ESRB because they had to, or because they wanted to due to realizing they didn't need an E rating after all given a plot-important spinoff game bore an E10+ without really impacting the bottom line? Surely Nintendo knew it was a risky play due to the content descriptor involved ("simulated gambling"), since a first-release modern game would've likely been slapped with a T for it...Anyway, hard to believe a re-release of the third generation remakes of the original Kanto duology is where we finally get the core series to finally crack past the barrier and land the E10+ that I've felt the series has deserved since at least late fourth-generation with or without the gambling...
(Keep in mind the E10+ rating didn't yet exist during the core-line third generation, and the only connected game that released both during the third generation and after E10+ was introduced was the E-rated XD: Gale of Darkness. I'd be tempted to think, though, that Colosseum might've had a valid argument for an E10+ first time around had that rating existed at the time...)
"The recent release of Console Archives Cool Boarders, for instance, very carefully notes that the game originally launched on "a 32-bit home console" in the official blurb. Nintendo putting its foot down, or Hamster not wanting to take any risks?"
Probably the latter. Keep in mind something similar is listed for the other Console Archives launch game, Ninja Gaiden II, originally for the NES; that one is worded as it is, "an 8-bit home console", primarily to avoid referencing Nintendo hardware on the Playstation 5's storefront, even though the same wording is in place as-is on the Nintendo eShop listing.
(Interestingly, a few badly-veiled references from Danganronpa 2 to Sony handheld hardware just came to me, one being the PSP abbreviation on a road sign, another a mention on an in-game book of the term "PS Vita"; they probably got away with those references in the Switch version primarily because the exact word "PlayStation" wasn't invoked...)
...Wait, where's that last 9% for EA Sports FC 26, and the last 8% for Hogwarts Legacy? Guess only the top four platforms get their percentages in this list, then...
(Quidditch Champions also adds up short, but only by 1%, and keep in mind that they're rounding to the nearest whole percents here...)
@batmanbud2 It hit Japanese DSes in 2007 as a reward through their Club Nintendo. However, that particular installment was fronted by a certain 35-year-old wannabe fairy originally from the Zelda series, so I'm not sure westerners would have even wanted to see the game come to their shores...
RAM prices creeping up, price increase being mulled (we've seen it already a few times over at the competitors)...And this is why I ended up becoming as early an adopter of Switch 2 as I did (over this Christmas season), given the disturbing trends as of late. If the trends we'd usually had before recent years were still in play, I'd've probably waited at least another few months, if not another whole year, before jumping on the bandwagon--but the price increases over at the competitors had me scared into thinking it might happen in the Nintendo camp had I waited much longer...
@UpsideDownRowlet Well, given Morshu's a CD-i character, we'd get lucky if he gets paraphrased, much less mentioned; odds of him getting official Nintendo merchandise is a firm zero. Even less likely would be taking that unintended launch-day "feature" Arknights: Endfield is likely to be forever known for and actually making an intentional feature out of it...
@FishyS Yeah, the old cap is primarily why I held off on getting the corresponding Canari Plushes until the last regulation ones; I'd come very near 999 before having any way to turn them in.
@EarthboundBenjy Yeah, just in this previous late night I'd had to slowly slog through buying berries individually just to get certain targeted ones to reach 18 or 21. This'll make keeping stacks of berries high much easier.
On the flip side, though...what, no Polish-language support? Could've made it a trifecta of such additions along with those for Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, but alas...
Honestly, I'm surprised this zombie's still going; I was surprised amiibo kept going after the last console jump (3DS to Switch), given the major players in the toys-to-life genre--of which amiibo was never among them given Skylanders and Disney Infinity had already cornered that market--had either already died off (Disney Infinity) or were falling apart (Skylanders) at the point of said last console jump. Were Nintendo THAT determined to ensure the amiibo figure line at least outsold the Virtual Boy?
This coming from someone who was never that much of a fan of toys-to-life; when I got my Wii U in 2014 (amid the same sales conditions I picked up my Wii in 2008, shortages in the wake of a recent Smash release), I passed up the best available deal primarily because it involved Skylanders and by extension would've started running up the totals later when it came to the toys, and the fact that the most major enhancements to Twilight Princess HD involved an amiibo turned me off from ever picking up Twilight Princess HD for myself (and this coming from someone known to double-dip or even triple-dip on other Zelda titles based on feature improvements)...
Galaga '91 finally coming to America via the Dragons...Certainly didn't have THAT on my bingo card...
Gotta wonder, though, will the settings used for the North American region default to the Japanese release, or to the European release under the "Galaga 2" title?
(For the record, this'll also be the first time for the Game Gear version of Pac-Man in the PAL regions, and the first time for the Game Gear version of Mappy outside Japan. As for the Sega IPs, the Game Gear version of Puyo Puyo is about to make its first global rodeo [complete with the thirty-puzzle Puzzle Mode that was later faithfully translated for Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, contrary to some popular belief that said puzzle mode was a cut-down version of the standalone Nazo Puyo game added to Mean Bean as a regional bonus]--wonder if the hardware-related easter egg'll be included at least in non-Japanese regions?)
The fact that there's even been price increases primarily on rival platforms recently is a key reason why I went ahead and got a Switch 2 over this holiday season rather than waiting a bit longer; I'm not usually this early an adopter of new hardware (usually no less than a year in), but I feared that we might get hit with a Switch 2 price increase before getting to the point where I'd typically pounce...
@Max_the_German Last I checked, if the eShop's "Coming Soon" section is to be believed, that's when Mina the Hollower is due out with both Switch 1 and Switch 2 versions...
@MamaSymphonia Pokopia a big hitter? Uh, I'd imagine that if they actually saw Pokopia as a big hitter, they'd've given it a proper physical...
Gotta wonder, what are the odds that this ends up primarily compared to some cheesy Pokémon-wannabe franchise centered around the usage of ghost watches? One that the actual Pokémon fans weren't too thrilled of back in the day and still aren't now...one whose fourth mainline installment fell into limbo as far as localization is concerned and is unlikely to ever emerge from said limbo (partly due to sales figures being lower than anticipated due to the games releasing on Pokémon's turf)...
@Bulborb Actually, last I checked, there have been some two-disc PS5 releases for products that exceed 100 GB. Most notable of them including stuff such as Baldur's Gate III and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. (The former of those two even managed to wrangle up a four-disc Xbox version, Xbox only supporting 50 GB discs--though that version was originally planned for just three discs until one particular update sent the total size above the 150 GB mark...)
Now, a number of the other larger games on PS5 do make use of an entire disc surface before resorting to downloading the rest. For the most part, those are what you were initially thinking of.
Then we get to what's essentially the "evil twin" of the Switch 2's game-key card (even though it's quite a bit older), discs with barely anything on it and force downloading the vast majority if not everything with not much--if any--upfront warning about it (and often, if there is an upfront warning, it's similar in nature to cases where you're simply installing a full disc and then downloading the rest). I call this the "evil twin" of the game-key card due to the fact that Switch 2 game-key cards require being upfront about their nature, something that few if any of these "game-key discs" do. The companies that make up the Xbox ecosystem are quite the big offenders when it comes to this type of product.
@RiasGremory Still too early to say anything for sure, but if they do take the exact same approach with 2nd as with 1st, we won't be dealing with a game-key card.
Keep in mind, though, that the approach with 1st was that only a Switch 1 physical ever hit retail, you had to snag the upgrade pack digitally afterward. Said upgrade pack was otherwise in the standard "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" format (and an all-digital Switch 2 bundle to that effect does exist), hence a game-key card would've been extremely unlikely in this case...
@Zeebor15 That'd be assuming it actually gets a physical release on Switch 1. We're too far out from release to say THAT'S a certainty (for all we know, you may have just jinxed things)...just like how we're too far out to make an accurate call on whether or not the Switch 2 version will be using you-know-what (and that's assuming they're still in play by then; Capcom may be all-in on them right now, but even assuming those things do remain in play we can't assume their tastes on the matter will or won't change by this game's release)...
@Coffee-Waffle Actually, I believe the upper-right of the trio of 12s on the European box is the Russian rating (PEGI's the upper-left, German USK is the lower). Keep in mind this came out before Putin went [words and reasons I can't describe on this site].
@Liam_Doolan So, we're talking about a Switch 2 SKU that supposedly launched nine months ago, before we even knew much about the Switch 2 including the fact that the dreaded game-key cards that this SKU avoids using were even a thing...What kind of wizardry are they trying to pull off, anyway?
Gotta wonder, just when did basketball become more of a space hog than golf? I remember when some PGA games (EA's, this was before 2K was in the golf game) needed two Gamecube discs due to the vast number of courses included; nowadays, golf's roughly half the size of basketball...
Well, there's three games I've narrowed down to in my mind as to what I think GOTY will come down to...Which is probably bad news for all of them, since I similarly narrowed down last year's field to three in the same manner, and Astro Bot was not one of those three...
(Of course I'm not going to say which three of this year's crop I've narrowed it to! Don't want to jinx things!)
@Tainaru That analogy of yours (the plastic case being the only thing physical about it) fits code-in-box releases better. A game-key card release at least has the card (which has the download key coded on it) in the package; the card is the reason why there are people and outlets who can call it a physical release. Keep in mind that there are some PS5 and Xbox Series X releases--many of those put out through the brands within the Xbox corporate fold--that are just as bad if not worse than game-key cards (minimal data on a medium that costs far less than even game-key cards, and no requirement to be upfront about their nature unlike game-key cards)...
Now, game-key cards do allow easy sharing, easy trade-ins for those who are in the habit, and possibly the best way to get games not actually available in a player's region without needing to use a foreign eShop account (the best example of that would be a hypothetical Switch 2 port of "Venus Vacation Prism: Dead or Alive Xtreme" assuming its regional availability and language options precisely match those of the already-extant versions of the game; the versions of that game already extant are available only in Asia but have English-language support). For most people, though, the cons tend to outweigh the pros...
Now, I don't yet have a Switch 2, but I still gotta say this given what I do with my original Switch (and what I plan to do with a Switch 2 once I actually get one)...where's the option for "I don't use a dock at all"? What are us handheld-only players to whomever came up with these polls, chopped liver?
@RoboCube I think you mistook Astro's Playroom for Astro Bot there. Astro's Playroom's the PS5 pack-in, pre-installed on every console. Astro Bot's a full-on retail release and typically a separate purchase (although given how much of a tentpole game it is, PS5 bundles including the Astro Bot game do in fact exist--which may have helped stir up the earlier-mentioned confusion to begin with)...
"Save data carries over"...sure, but almost certainly not between a Switch 1 demo and a Switch 2 full version. Demo save's platform's probably going to have to match that of the full version given the nature of their SKUs...
@MirrorFate2 All of the characters in question (Sally, Bunnie, Nicole, Rotor, and Antoine) originated on SatAM, and Sega has full ownership of the characters who originated on that series. Doesn't mean they're in by any stretch of the imagination (they'd be based on their SatAM versions if they do somehow get in), but the legal red tape you're implying keeping them for-sure out doesn't actually exist (at worst, you mistook those characters for actual OCs from the Archie comic continuity--THOSE characters are the ones snarled in legal red tape, not anyone originally from the games or SatAM).
The fact that the comic versions of all of those characters survived the Penders incident (or, to get technical, the "Super Genesis Wave" as in-universe events played out), albeit not unscathed (as if any of the survivors really did make it through unscathed), should've tipped people off as to who owns them...
@MisterStu Actually, we've already had an instance where Japan/Asia got a game-key card but the west got a proper physical, in the form of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Expectedly, the PS5 version sold better in Japan while the Switch 2 version sold better in Europe.
Now, we can't say for sure something like that's going to happen again--but we also can't say for sure something like that's not going to happen again. (Also can't rule in or rule out a situation where the regions are reversed--as in Asia gets the proper physical and the west gets the game-key card.) Doesn't have to be the game this article's primarily talking about...
@HaNks As much as I'd like to see that, I'm willing to bet the oddsmakers are already taking bets as to which anime license makes use of this engine first...
Ah, the days when it was more common to reskin games when it came to deal with regionalized source licenses as opposed to just leaving them inaccessible completely. Back when the Internet wasn't widespread, it was far easier to get away with such a thing--after all, back in the late 1980s, would any westerner have been expected to have even heard of Anmitsu Hime, much less been able to piece together that its licensed Master System game was reskinned into Alex Kidd: High-Tech World for the western market?
(It's also the whole "untranslatable source license" deal that I believe J.J. & Jeff on TurboGrafx-16 caught a bit too much flak for the censorship it underwent. Yes, the content certainly was toned down for the western market, that much is undeniable, but its original Japanese incarnation had an untranslatable source license, meaning they actually had a valid excuse to tone things down. Now, "Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan" did have one segment get adapted internationally--the segment in question led to "America's Funniest Home Videos"--but the licensed video game in question adapted a different segment of the original Japanese show unrelated to the home video portion of the format...)
@Elektrogeist1287 Just don't count on there being a true physical in the event such a release were to happen. ****, given the track record nowadays of the distribution network we'd be going through now (read: Xbox), there's no guarantee the rival platforms would get proper physicals either, especially if such a proper physical would need more than one 50 GB disc to facilitate an Xbox hardware release (even though the discs necessary would cost less than a Switch 2 game-key card)...
Wonder just how the upgrade path will actually work? We know it's not in the same fashion as a "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" deal, since those don't get game-key cards (they either get full-on-card physicals--ones that can also be played on the predecessor system at that--or else no dedicated Switch 2 physical at all)...Still, other publishers cough*Sega*cough*SquareEnix*cough should take note, given the amount of products being given no upgrade path whatsoever...
Gotta wonder, just who's that mainly blue-clad plumber on the cover? He does have some red on the scheme, so it may or may not be a distinct character from Mario...a scrapped Inverse Mario power-up, perhaps? Or maybe an early idea for what eventually became Wario? (They did have roughly four years from this point to flesh him out, though...)
@Bizzyb Yeah, given the track record of the brands under the Xbox umbrella (of which Bethesda is one) these days, odds are better you'd get struck by lightning while holding jackpot-winning tickets for both Powerball and Mega Millions simultaneously than this announcement leading to a proper full-on-card physical release. Shoot, track record suggests even (the Switch 2's) rival platforms wouldn't have gotten full physicals if such an option were there...
(Yeah, the Xbox physical track record is so bad these days, full-on-disc physicals even on their own hardware being few and far between as of late, one might think Nintendo was taking note when they whipped up their game-key card guidelines. And we all know how well THOSE have been going down...)
@PlusFan Nope, never been rereleased. And unless they do some sort of "Collection of Gaia" (Square Enix doesn't do NSO), it's likely to remain in purgatory...
@HammerGalladeBro Now you've got me thinking "Rare Kart" here...which may not be that bad an idea--such an idea would probably be the closest we'd ever get to a proper follow-up to Diddy Kong Racing roster-wise...
What's the rest of the platform split for Little Nightmares III, then? There's still 67% the article itself didn't account for (well, at most 67%--the numbers don't always add up to a clean 100%), and the chart doesn't list any platform splits for that title...
Volume 10...The one that, if it were to get an American release, would be the one that carried the ESRB's M rating on it (possibly on an E-M rating range icon, given the nature of the collection), given it's got the one and only game in the entire Arcade Archives line thus far to be rated so harsh (Samurai Shodown V Special)...
(For the record, a hypothetical European release would carry the PEGI 16; Australia'd slap on their MA15+...)
If this rumored Singaporean eShop is anything like the corresponding already-extant Singaporean PSN when it comes to offerings and interface options...something tells me it'll get quickly slammed by foreign traffic. Such a storefront would presumably offer a sizable number game releases offered specifically in Asian regions while including an option for an English interface. I've read that Singaporean PSN cards are popular among the import crowd for those very reasons--I'd bet that import-specialty sites would have trouble keeping Singaporean eShop cards stocked in the early going...
So, looks like even the Japanese have revealed they've caught on to what game-key cards are like, given Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion sold better on PS5 at retail than on Switch 2 (the Japanese Switch 2 "physical" is one of those dreaded game-key card deals)...Guess those Japanese who wanted a physical of that game either got it on PS5 or imported a western Switch 2 copy (those are proper physicals), the latter of which wouldn't show up on their charts...
(And yes, for the record, the western Switch 2 physicals do in fact support Japanese...)
@AverageGamer Somehow, I'd've thought we wouldn't get "street-date break, playable copies in the wild early" situations like this with game-key cards...You'd think they'd've, at the very least, locked the download to unlock at the official time, much like a digital preorder, in order to render the street-date-breaker's efforts futile...Guess many of us now have even lower opinions of these game-key card things than ever before (and I was already pretty much no fan of them to begin with), now that probably what could've been their biggest "advantage" is nullified...
@Serpenterror Don't count on a full physical. In addition to being a very hoggy game, we're talking a game under the Xbox umbrella, they've basically been "game-key discs" on the platforms competing against Nintendo's without upfront disclosure, if they even get physical versions at all. A Switch 2 game-key card may very well be the best this game treats consumers at retailers, if only for the fact that Switch 2 game-key cards are upfront about their nature...
Winning at Street Fighter 6 with a guitar? Reminds me of those fishing rod controllers that you could play the original SoulCalibur with (and they worked with a tennis game, too)...
@Coalescence Could even toss the originals onto the Nintendo Classics applications for good measure, complete with support...And given that the control remapping options in both the N64 and SNES applications explain how the controls work, they might not necessarily have to hack into the game code itself...
@Ulysses I do seem to recall the original Game Boy had a pocket sonar, complete with fishing minigame. That's all the dedicated fishing-related stuff I recall on the Nintendo front, although I'm sure quite a few of us remember the Dreamcast's fishing controller (a few of its primary-purpose compatible games have already been mentioned--and I say "primary-purpose" compatible games since there might be some mentions of its existing crafty non-fishing applications forthcoming)...
@DiamondJim Knowing the third-party trends, that'd be a longshot. The sportsbooks will probably be listing odds heavily favoring use of the dreaded game-key cards...which begs the question, who'll make more money when it comes to "physical" copies of this game, Capcom or bookies selling sucker bets?
"and a physical version is also believed to be on the way to the Switch 2"
Define "physical version". Is it full game completely on the card (yay), is it one of those dreaded game-key cards (boo), or is it one of those ghastly code-in-a-box deals (grab the pitchforks)?
Comments 86
Re: Rumour: Sony Apparently Has Gran Turismo Running On Switch 2, Just Don't Expect To See It
Gotta wonder, is this the reason there's no Switch 2 version of MLB 26, the dev kit allocated to San Diego Studio (the one SIE studio you'd expect to actually have a Switch 2 dev kit) got sent to Polyphony?
Re: Yes, Ecco The Dolphin's Remaster Will Probably Make A Splash On Switch
"the plan is to include 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit versions in a single package"
Gotta assume the "32-bit" version they're talking about is the Windows 95 version? And that's assuming the PC package actually included distinct executables for both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 (at least as far as the assets other than the majority of the music is concerned, since I'm sure the CD soundtrack can be shared), since it wouldn't be considered a 32-bit program if it were a single executable. There wasn't a fully-realized port to either 32X or Saturn, so it can't be referring to either of those platforms...
(There were two 8-bit versions--Master System and Game Gear--and two 16-bit versions--Genesis and Sega CD, or whatever those things were called in other necks of the woods--and no 32-bit versions apart from possibly the PC version...)
(For the record, Tides of Time only had console versions on the same platforms, although in that case the Master System version is one of those Brazilian backport jobs, unlike the first game...)
Re: Pokémon FireRed And LeafGreen Officially Revealed For Switch
Gotta assume the old PEGI credentials were still valid, since the European versions still bear the old 3s (they'd've been a lot higher had they needed to re-submit on that front)--I'd've considered a scenario where there'd be a rude surprise once you reached the Game Corner, but given what went on in ESRB territory and I seriously doubt anyone'd want a Euro-centric repeat of the game machine debacle from Platinum...
Question is, did they re-submit to the ESRB because they had to, or because they wanted to due to realizing they didn't need an E rating after all given a plot-important spinoff game bore an E10+ without really impacting the bottom line? Surely Nintendo knew it was a risky play due to the content descriptor involved ("simulated gambling"), since a first-release modern game would've likely been slapped with a T for it...Anyway, hard to believe a re-release of the third generation remakes of the original Kanto duology is where we finally get the core series to finally crack past the barrier and land the E10+ that I've felt the series has deserved since at least late fourth-generation with or without the gambling...
(Keep in mind the E10+ rating didn't yet exist during the core-line third generation, and the only connected game that released both during the third generation and after E10+ was introduced was the E-rated XD: Gale of Darkness. I'd be tempted to think, though, that Colosseum might've had a valid argument for an E10+ first time around had that rating existed at the time...)
Re: Talking Point: How The Heck Will MGS4 On Switch Handle Its PlayStation References?
"The recent release of Console Archives Cool Boarders, for instance, very carefully notes that the game originally launched on "a 32-bit home console" in the official blurb. Nintendo putting its foot down, or Hamster not wanting to take any risks?"
Probably the latter. Keep in mind something similar is listed for the other Console Archives launch game, Ninja Gaiden II, originally for the NES; that one is worded as it is, "an 8-bit home console", primarily to avoid referencing Nintendo hardware on the Playstation 5's storefront, even though the same wording is in place as-is on the Nintendo eShop listing.
(Interestingly, a few badly-veiled references from Danganronpa 2 to Sony handheld hardware just came to me, one being the PSP abbreviation on a road sign, another a mention on an in-game book of the term "PS Vita"; they probably got away with those references in the Switch version primarily because the exact word "PlayStation" wasn't invoked...)
Re: UK Charts: Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined Starts Strong, But It's Not Enough To Reach The Top
...Wait, where's that last 9% for EA Sports FC 26, and the last 8% for Hogwarts Legacy? Guess only the top four platforms get their percentages in this list, then...
(Quidditch Champions also adds up short, but only by 1%, and keep in mind that they're rounding to the nearest whole percents here...)
Re: Telltale's "Cult Classic" Poker Night At The Inventory Returns On Switch This March
@PKDuckman Hopefully the chips fall right when it comes to the necessary licensing...
Re: Nintendo Expands Switch Online's Game Boy Library With Two More Titles
@batmanbud2 It hit Japanese DSes in 2007 as a reward through their Club Nintendo. However, that particular installment was fronted by a certain 35-year-old wannabe fairy originally from the Zelda series, so I'm not sure westerners would have even wanted to see the game come to their shores...
Re: Nintendo Will "Carefully Consider" A Switch 2 Price Increase, Says Furukawa
RAM prices creeping up, price increase being mulled (we've seen it already a few times over at the competitors)...And this is why I ended up becoming as early an adopter of Switch 2 as I did (over this Christmas season), given the disturbing trends as of late. If the trends we'd usually had before recent years were still in play, I'd've probably waited at least another few months, if not another whole year, before jumping on the bandwagon--but the price increases over at the competitors had me scared into thinking it might happen in the Nintendo camp had I waited much longer...
Re: Mailbox: Non-Standard Switch 2s, Joy-Con Colours, Zelda amiibo We Need - Nintendo Life Letters
@UpsideDownRowlet Well, given Morshu's a CD-i character, we'd get lucky if he gets paraphrased, much less mentioned; odds of him getting official Nintendo merchandise is a firm zero. Even less likely would be taking that unintended launch-day "feature" Arknights: Endfield is likely to be forever known for and actually making an intentional feature out of it...
Re: Pokémon Legends Z-A Version 2.0.1 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@FishyS Yeah, the old cap is primarily why I held off on getting the corresponding Canari Plushes until the last regulation ones; I'd come very near 999 before having any way to turn them in.
@EarthboundBenjy Yeah, just in this previous late night I'd had to slowly slog through buying berries individually just to get certain targeted ones to reach 18 or 21. This'll make keeping stacks of berries high much easier.
On the flip side, though...what, no Polish-language support? Could've made it a trifecta of such additions along with those for Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, but alas...
Re: Opinion: I'm Happy amiibo Survived The Console Jump, But These Unlocks Are Getting Silly
Honestly, I'm surprised this zombie's still going; I was surprised amiibo kept going after the last console jump (3DS to Switch), given the major players in the toys-to-life genre--of which amiibo was never among them given Skylanders and Disney Infinity had already cornered that market--had either already died off (Disney Infinity) or were falling apart (Skylanders) at the point of said last console jump. Were Nintendo THAT determined to ensure the amiibo figure line at least outsold the Virtual Boy?
This coming from someone who was never that much of a fan of toys-to-life; when I got my Wii U in 2014 (amid the same sales conditions I picked up my Wii in 2008, shortages in the wake of a recent Smash release), I passed up the best available deal primarily because it involved Skylanders and by extension would've started running up the totals later when it came to the toys, and the fact that the most major enhancements to Twilight Princess HD involved an amiibo turned me off from ever picking up Twilight Princess HD for myself (and this coming from someone known to double-dip or even triple-dip on other Zelda titles based on feature improvements)...
Re: Sega Is Adding Playable Bandai Namco Game Gear Titles To Yakuza Kiwami 3
Galaga '91 finally coming to America via the Dragons...Certainly didn't have THAT on my bingo card...
Gotta wonder, though, will the settings used for the North American region default to the Japanese release, or to the European release under the "Galaga 2" title?
(For the record, this'll also be the first time for the Game Gear version of Pac-Man in the PAL regions, and the first time for the Game Gear version of Mappy outside Japan. As for the Sega IPs, the Game Gear version of Puyo Puyo is about to make its first global rodeo [complete with the thirty-puzzle Puzzle Mode that was later faithfully translated for Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, contrary to some popular belief that said puzzle mode was a cut-down version of the standalone Nazo Puyo game added to Mean Bean as a regional bonus]--wonder if the hardware-related easter egg'll be included at least in non-Japanese regions?)
Re: Nintendo's President Remains Coy On Potential Price Increases
The fact that there's even been price increases primarily on rival platforms recently is a key reason why I went ahead and got a Switch 2 over this holiday season rather than waiting a bit longer; I'm not usually this early an adopter of new hardware (usually no less than a year in), but I feared that we might get hit with a Switch 2 price increase before getting to the point where I'd typically pounce...
@Max_the_German Last I checked, if the eShop's "Coming Soon" section is to be believed, that's when Mina the Hollower is due out with both Switch 1 and Switch 2 versions...
@MamaSymphonia Pokopia a big hitter? Uh, I'd imagine that if they actually saw Pokopia as a big hitter, they'd've given it a proper physical...
Re: A Pokémon-Inspired RPG More Than 20 Years In The Making Is Finally Heading To The Switch
Gotta wonder, what are the odds that this ends up primarily compared to some cheesy Pokémon-wannabe franchise centered around the usage of ghost watches? One that the actual Pokémon fans weren't too thrilled of back in the day and still aren't now...one whose fourth mainline installment fell into limbo as far as localization is concerned and is unlikely to ever emerge from said limbo (partly due to sales figures being lower than anticipated due to the games releasing on Pokémon's turf)...
Re: Feature: Mothers & Daughters - Women Are The Heart Of Hollow Knight: Silksong
@MoldyPasta Don't we already have one of those?:
https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/best-atelier-games-on-nintendo-switch
Re: Nintendo Has A Game-Key Card Alternative In The Works With Smaller Switch 2 Carts
@Bulborb Actually, last I checked, there have been some two-disc PS5 releases for products that exceed 100 GB. Most notable of them including stuff such as Baldur's Gate III and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. (The former of those two even managed to wrangle up a four-disc Xbox version, Xbox only supporting 50 GB discs--though that version was originally planned for just three discs until one particular update sent the total size above the 150 GB mark...)
Now, a number of the other larger games on PS5 do make use of an entire disc surface before resorting to downloading the rest. For the most part, those are what you were initially thinking of.
Then we get to what's essentially the "evil twin" of the Switch 2's game-key card (even though it's quite a bit older), discs with barely anything on it and force downloading the vast majority if not everything with not much--if any--upfront warning about it (and often, if there is an upfront warning, it's similar in nature to cases where you're simply installing a full disc and then downloading the rest). I call this the "evil twin" of the game-key card due to the fact that Switch 2 game-key cards require being upfront about their nature, something that few if any of these "game-key discs" do. The companies that make up the Xbox ecosystem are quite the big offenders when it comes to this type of product.
Re: Trails In The Sky 2nd Chapter Continues Estelle's Journey In Fall 2026
@RiasGremory Still too early to say anything for sure, but if they do take the exact same approach with 2nd as with 1st, we won't be dealing with a game-key card.
Keep in mind, though, that the approach with 1st was that only a Switch 1 physical ever hit retail, you had to snag the upgrade pack digitally afterward. Said upgrade pack was otherwise in the standard "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" format (and an all-digital Switch 2 bundle to that effect does exist), hence a game-key card would've been extremely unlikely in this case...
Re: Mega Man Returns In 2027 With A "Brand-New Entry" For Switch And Switch 2
@Zeebor15 That'd be assuming it actually gets a physical release on Switch 1. We're too far out from release to say THAT'S a certainty (for all we know, you may have just jinxed things)...just like how we're too far out to make an accurate call on whether or not the Switch 2 version will be using you-know-what (and that's assuming they're still in play by then; Capcom may be all-in on them right now, but even assuming those things do remain in play we can't assume their tastes on the matter will or won't change by this game's release)...
Re: The Game Awards GOTY For 2025 Is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Gotta love how the Japanese guy brushed up on his French...
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - SNES Classic Mini Console
@Coffee-Waffle Actually, I believe the upper-right of the trio of 12s on the European box is the Russian rating (PEGI's the upper-left, German USK is the lower). Keep in mind this came out before Putin went [words and reasons I can't describe on this site].
Re: Marvel Cosmic Invasion Scores 'Deluxe' Physical Release On Switch And Switch 2
@Liam_Doolan So, we're talking about a Switch 2 SKU that supposedly launched nine months ago, before we even knew much about the Switch 2 including the fact that the dreaded game-key cards that this SKU avoids using were even a thing...What kind of wizardry are they trying to pull off, anyway?
(EDIT: Since been taken care of.)
Re: PGA Tour 2K25 Is Teeing Off On Switch 2
Gotta wonder, just when did basketball become more of a space hog than golf? I remember when some PGA games (EA's, this was before 2K was in the golf game) needed two Gamecube discs due to the vast number of courses included; nowadays, golf's roughly half the size of basketball...
Re: The Game Awards Nominees Announced, Donkey Kong Bananza Up For GOTY
Well, there's three games I've narrowed down to in my mind as to what I think GOTY will come down to...Which is probably bad news for all of them, since I similarly narrowed down last year's field to three in the same manner, and Astro Bot was not one of those three...
(Of course I'm not going to say which three of this year's crop I've narrowed it to! Don't want to jinx things!)
Re: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Is Now The "Best-Selling" Physical Game In The US This Year
@Tainaru That analogy of yours (the plastic case being the only thing physical about it) fits code-in-box releases better. A game-key card release at least has the card (which has the download key coded on it) in the package; the card is the reason why there are people and outlets who can call it a physical release. Keep in mind that there are some PS5 and Xbox Series X releases--many of those put out through the brands within the Xbox corporate fold--that are just as bad if not worse than game-key cards (minimal data on a medium that costs far less than even game-key cards, and no requirement to be upfront about their nature unlike game-key cards)...
Now, game-key cards do allow easy sharing, easy trade-ins for those who are in the habit, and possibly the best way to get games not actually available in a player's region without needing to use a foreign eShop account (the best example of that would be a hypothetical Switch 2 port of "Venus Vacation Prism: Dead or Alive Xtreme" assuming its regional availability and language options precisely match those of the already-extant versions of the game; the versions of that game already extant are available only in Asia but have English-language support). For most people, though, the cons tend to outweigh the pros...
Re: Poll: Is Your Third-Party Switch 2 Dock Still Working After This Week's System Update?
Now, I don't yet have a Switch 2, but I still gotta say this given what I do with my original Switch (and what I plan to do with
a Switch 2 once I actually get one)...where's the option for "I don't use a dock at all"? What are us handheld-only players to whomever came up with these polls, chopped liver?
Re: Sony Once Again Takes A Leaf From Nintendo's Playbook In Japan
@RoboCube I think you mistook Astro's Playroom for Astro Bot there. Astro's Playroom's the PS5 pack-in, pre-installed on every console. Astro Bot's a full-on retail release and typically a separate purchase (although given how much of a tentpole game it is, PS5 bundles including the Astro Bot game do in fact exist--which may have helped stir up the earlier-mentioned confusion to begin with)...
Re: Octopath Traveler 0 Demo Now Available For Switch And Switch 2, Save Data Carries Over
"Save data carries over"...sure, but almost certainly not between a Switch 1 demo and a Switch 2 full version. Demo save's platform's probably going to have to match that of the full version given the nature of their SKUs...
Re: Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds New Free Characters Update, Coming Soon
@MirrorFate2 All of the characters in question (Sally, Bunnie, Nicole, Rotor, and Antoine) originated on SatAM, and Sega has full ownership of the characters who originated on that series. Doesn't mean they're in by any stretch of the imagination (they'd be based on their SatAM versions if they do somehow get in), but the legal red tape you're implying keeping them for-sure out doesn't actually exist (at worst, you mistook those characters for actual OCs from the Archie comic continuity--THOSE characters are the ones snarled in legal red tape, not anyone originally from the games or SatAM).
The fact that the comic versions of all of those characters survived the Penders incident (or, to get technical, the "Super Genesis Wave" as in-universe events played out), albeit not unscathed (as if any of the survivors really did make it through unscathed), should've tipped people off as to who owns them...
Re: Pokémon Pokopia Gets March 2026 Release Date, Brand New Trailer Coming This Week
@MisterStu Actually, we've already had an instance where Japan/Asia got a game-key card but the west got a proper physical, in the form of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Expectedly, the PS5 version sold better in Japan while the Switch 2 version sold better in Europe.
Now, we can't say for sure something like that's going to happen again--but we also can't say for sure something like that's not going to happen again. (Also can't rule in or rule out a situation where the regions are reversed--as in Asia gets the proper physical and the west gets the game-key card.) Doesn't have to be the game this article's primarily talking about...
Re: Kirby Air Riders Looks To Be Powered By Bandai Namco's New In-House Engine
@HaNks As much as I'd like to see that, I'm willing to bet the oddsmakers are already taking bets as to which anime license makes use of this engine first...
Re: Poll: Box Art Brawl - Dragon Power (NES)
Ah, the days when it was more common to reskin games when it came to deal with regionalized source licenses as opposed to just leaving them inaccessible completely. Back when the Internet wasn't widespread, it was far easier to get away with such a thing--after all, back in the late 1980s, would any westerner have been expected to have even heard of Anmitsu Hime, much less been able to piece together that its licensed Master System game was reskinned into Alex Kidd: High-Tech World for the western market?
(It's also the whole "untranslatable source license" deal that I believe J.J. & Jeff on TurboGrafx-16 caught a bit too much flak for the censorship it underwent. Yes, the content certainly was toned down for the western market, that much is undeniable, but its original Japanese incarnation had an untranslatable source license, meaning they actually had a valid excuse to tone things down. Now, "Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan" did have one segment get adapted internationally--the segment in question led to "America's Funniest Home Videos"--but the licensed video game in question adapted a different segment of the original Japanese show unrelated to the home video portion of the format...)
Re: Anniversary: 20 Years Ago, 'GUN' Brought America's Old West (And An All-Star Cast) To GameCube
@Elektrogeist1287 Just don't count on there being a true physical in the event such a release were to happen. ****, given the track record nowadays of the distribution network we'd be going through now (read: Xbox), there's no guarantee the rival platforms would get proper physicals either, especially if such a proper physical would need more than one 50 GB disc to facilitate an Xbox hardware release (even though the discs necessary would cost less than a Switch 2 game-key card)...
Re: Co-Op RPG 'Nicktoons & The Dice Of Destiny' Scores Free Switch 2 Upgrade Next Month
Wonder just how the upgrade path will actually work? We know it's not in the same fashion as a "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" deal, since those don't get game-key cards (they either get full-on-card physicals--ones that can also be played on the predecessor system at that--or else no dedicated Switch 2 physical at all)...Still, other publishers cough*Sega*cough*SquareEnix*cough should take note, given the amount of products being given no upgrade path whatsoever...
Re: Nintendo Seems To Be Uploading Old Nintendo Power Covers To Nintendo Today!
Gotta wonder, just who's that mainly blue-clad plumber on the cover? He does have some red on the scheme, so it may or may not be a distinct character from Mario...a scrapped Inverse Mario power-up, perhaps? Or maybe an early idea for what eventually became Wario? (They did have roughly four years from this point to flesh him out, though...)
Re: Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition Brings The Apocalypse To Switch 2 In 2026
@Bizzyb Yeah, given the track record of the brands under the Xbox umbrella (of which Bethesda is one) these days, odds are better you'd get struck by lightning while holding jackpot-winning tickets for both Powerball and Mega Millions simultaneously than this announcement leading to a proper full-on-card physical release. Shoot, track record suggests even (the Switch 2's) rival platforms wouldn't have gotten full physicals if such an option were there...
(Yeah, the Xbox physical track record is so bad these days, full-on-disc physicals even on their own hardware being few and far between as of late, one might think Nintendo was taking note when they whipped up their game-key card guidelines. And we all know how well THOSE have been going down...)
Re: Anniversary: SNES Action RPG 'Terranigma' Is 30 Years Old Today, And It's Still A 10/10 In Our Book
@PlusFan Nope, never been rereleased. And unless they do some sort of "Collection of Gaia" (Square Enix doesn't do NSO), it's likely to remain in purgatory...
Re: Feature: "We're Going To Need More Toilet Paper" - This Is Mario Kart-Attack!
@HammerGalladeBro Now you've got me thinking "Rare Kart" here...which may not be that bad an idea--such an idea would probably be the closest we'd ever get to a proper follow-up to Diddy Kong Racing roster-wise...
Re: Reminder: Pokémon Legends: Z-A Switch 2 Hardware Bundle Now Available
@1UP-HUSKY Then be thankful you're not Americans...otherwise she'd have to wait until age 10 as per the ESRB's E10+ rating...
Re: UK Charts: Mario Galaxy Loses Steam As Battlefield Blasts Onto The Scene
What's the rest of the platform split for Little Nightmares III, then? There's still 67% the article itself didn't account for (well, at most 67%--the numbers don't always add up to a clean 100%), and the chart doesn't list any platform splits for that title...
Re: SNK Announces ACA NEOGEO Selection Vol. 9 And Vol. 10 For Switch
Volume 10...The one that, if it were to get an American release, would be the one that carried the ESRB's M rating on it (possibly on an E-M rating range icon, given the nature of the collection), given it's got the one and only game in the entire Arcade Archives line thus far to be rated so harsh (Samurai Shodown V Special)...
(For the record, a hypothetical European release would carry the PEGI 16; Australia'd slap on their MA15+...)
Re: Opinion: NSO Subscribers Outside Key Markets Get Less, And Nintendo Should Fix That
If this rumored Singaporean eShop is anything like the corresponding already-extant Singaporean PSN when it comes to offerings and interface options...something tells me it'll get quickly slammed by foreign traffic. Such a storefront would presumably offer a sizable number game releases offered specifically in Asian regions while including an option for an English interface. I've read that Singaporean PSN cards are popular among the import crowd for those very reasons--I'd bet that import-specialty sites would have trouble keeping Singaporean eShop cards stocked in the early going...
Re: Japanese Charts: Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots Scores An Eagle Despite Mixed Reception
@StewdaMegaManNerd You can easily compare using the Play-Asia listings:
Japanese: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion-multi-language/13/70igdv
Asia: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion-multi-language/13/70igdx
VERSUS
USA: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion/13/70igf3
Europe: https://www.play-asia.com/daemon-x-machina-titanic-scion/13/70igf5
Re: Japanese Charts: Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots Scores An Eagle Despite Mixed Reception
So, looks like even the Japanese have revealed they've caught on to what game-key cards are like, given Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion sold better on PS5 at retail than on Switch 2 (the Japanese Switch 2 "physical" is one of those dreaded game-key card deals)...Guess those Japanese who wanted a physical of that game either got it on PS5 or imported a western Switch 2 copy (those are proper physicals), the latter of which wouldn't show up on their charts...
(And yes, for the record, the western Switch 2 physicals do in fact support Japanese...)
Re: The Force Isn't Strong With Star Wars Outlaws On Switch 2, Initial Impressions Suggest
@AverageGamer Somehow, I'd've thought we wouldn't get "street-date break, playable copies in the wild early" situations like this with game-key cards...You'd think they'd've, at the very least, locked the download to unlock at the official time, much like a digital preorder, in order to render the street-date-breaker's efforts futile...Guess many of us now have even lower opinions of these game-key card things than ever before (and I was already pretty much no fan of them to begin with), now that probably what could've been their biggest "advantage" is nullified...
Re: Mini Review: Arcade Archives 2: Aqua Jet (Switch 2) - Classic Aquatic Racer Lags Behind Wave Race
Reminds me of that Hydro Thunder cabinet I played from time to time at a pizza buffet...Never was the best at it, but still...
Re: Indiana Jones And The Great Circle Will Launch On Switch 2 In 2026
@Serpenterror Don't count on a full physical. In addition to being a very hoggy game, we're talking a game under the Xbox umbrella, they've basically been "game-key discs" on the platforms competing against Nintendo's without upfront disclosure, if they even get physical versions at all. A Switch 2 game-key card may very well be the best this game treats consumers at retailers, if only for the fact that Switch 2 game-key cards are upfront about their nature...
Re: Review: CRKD x Gibson Guitar Controller For Switch + Switch 2 - Great Quality, At A Price
Winning at Street Fighter 6 with a guitar? Reminds me of those fishing rod controllers that you could play the original SoulCalibur with (and they worked with a tennis game, too)...
Re: Nintendo Patent Featuring Crank And "Clickable Wheel" Attachments For Joy-Con 2 Surface
@Coalescence Could even toss the originals onto the Nintendo Classics applications for good measure, complete with support...And given that the control remapping options in both the N64 and SNES applications explain how the controls work, they might not necessarily have to hack into the game code itself...
@Ulysses I do seem to recall the original Game Boy had a pocket sonar, complete with fishing minigame. That's all the dedicated fishing-related stuff I recall on the Nintendo front, although I'm sure quite a few of us remember the Dreamcast's fishing controller (a few of its primary-purpose compatible games have already been mentioned--and I say "primary-purpose" compatible games since there might be some mentions of its existing crafty non-fishing applications forthcoming)...
Re: Capcom's Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Announced For Switch 2
@DiamondJim Knowing the third-party trends, that'd be a longshot. The sportsbooks will probably be listing odds heavily favoring use of the dreaded game-key cards...which begs the question, who'll make more money when it comes to "physical" copies of this game, Capcom or bookies selling sucker bets?
Re: Rumour: SpongeBob SquarePants Is Bringing A New Game To Switch 2
"and a physical version is also believed to be on the way to the Switch 2"
Define "physical version". Is it full game completely on the card (yay), is it one of those dreaded game-key cards (boo), or is it one of those ghastly code-in-a-box deals (grab the pitchforks)?