@Shadow_Fox As a Developer (not VG) I completely agree code can always be executed in different ways that are more efficient, and Switch ports are often POSSIBLE. Never said anything different.
What I did say is that the COST and TIME associated with refactoring code or rewriting whole systems or even just specific optimisation is often prohibitive for just one platform. It's not that it is impossible, it's that it takes time and money, especially on Switch.
It will depend on the individual game and it's potential size on the market on Switch whether the cost benefit ratio is worth it to go the extra mile.
If it truly is as easy as you suggest why do we:
a) get so many bad ports
b) often get no port
c) get an increasing number of cloud versions
If it's so simple to just DO THEIR JOB as you state, why aren't they?
@Shadow_Fox Witcher 3, Dying Light are the sort of examples I meant by 'Herculean effort'. The W3 port was praised by Digital Foundry and others as a "mobile miracle", not my words THEIRS.
Of course it takes "MONEY AND TIME to port a game", that's the whole point. To go the extra mile and make these ports work as well as they do takes a LOT more dev money and time comparatively which is why we don't see as many ports of this calibre; why we are seeing more Cloud versions; and why there is increasingly no Switch port at all.
There just isn't always enough benefit to spend so much more time and money more on a Switch port. Often this has to be outsourced to a 3rd party studio BECUASE it takes so much additional time. And often to a specialist developer like Saber Interactive that really understands how to get the most out of the Switch. It's not always a sensible financial or time option.
If we want to keep seeing Switch ports then the next Switch 2 needs better specs.
@sanderev There is a difference between making a fixed 3D audio track like this that (yes it sounds cool) and proper REAL TIME 3D audio in a game that requires serious hardware processing to work in real time. Switch cannot do that, or not at the expense of other tasks.
My point is, I think you are being very dismissive of other innovations from others and over-exaggerating Nintendo's innovations.
"MS & Sony are purely hardware based and sell you the same games again and again and again, just with a better coat of paint." Like every Pokemon game ever made, Mario 3D All Stars, Zelda skyward sword or Links Awakening? Nintendo does PLENTY of that too. They just like to charge full price for the convenience!
I love my Switch it's a great piece of hardware in MANY ways, but not being frank about it's flaws and where it struggles doesn't help anyone.
@sanderev So you've played Astro's Playroom on a Dual Sense or Returnal with headphones and 3D audio? These are transformative experiences that enhance the gameplay.
I can literally tell where bullets are coming from in Returnal without seeing them.
@sanderev But that's the problem, it can't play most current gen console games. More and more are becoming cloud version or need a herculean porting effort to make them work. Or like the Outer Worlds strip back so much that you are almost playing another game.
This is only getting more prevalent as devs aim for PS5 and XSX
I don't need it to be 4K.
I don't need it to compete with Sony & MS.
But I do want a little more power. It's seriously old tech now and struggles on many games with more ambition.
Games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 dropped as low as 368p in handheld mode at launch. 368p!!! It looked grainy as hell and the frame rate was bad too.
I wouldn't mind a 720p minimum in handheld and 1080p minimum docked as long as those were minimums.
At a push 1440p docked would be great. It's a really solid resolution that still looks good on 4k screens would be a perfect balance but probably asking too much.
Aside from resolution a better processor and ram to allow better framerates and textures and just enough specs to allow ports of next/current gen games.
Considering how much tech has evolved I don't think this is too much to ask at a similar pricepoint.
Gameplay was great!
Story was woeful even if it tried to hit some deeper notes.
Could live with the last but they did a dirty to Samus turning her from the greatest bounty hunter in the universe into a simpering fool crying about Adam and 'The BABY' ad nauseum.
I'm all for creating a deeper character but this was seriously regressive stuff.
TLDR: She became a female manga cliché! #NotMySamus
@BloodNinja "If that's the case, we will start to see more evidence, as the story seems to be in it's infancy. If not, then we know it's more hearsay."
I'm not sure this is 100% true. The studio is based in Spain and very few reporters have the contacts or confidants for this sort of access.
It's similar to the very infrequent reports of the state of some of the support studios in Asia. We know it's happening even if there aren't a wave of news about it. On the whole Western news has a very short memory and news cycle, especially for things not on it's doorstep, and it quickly moves on to something else.
In this case it's been reported several times before that the boss does a great job of keeping people quiet through a culture of fear and making a point of ruining people's careers. Yes these were just a couple of new articles and a few anonymous posts on things like Glass Door, Neogaf, reddit etc. It COULD be just a few really disgruntled employees but then why don't we see this after the release of every game with so many other studios. Plus there were similar stories after Castlevania LoS1 & 2, this isn't a new thing.
The Glass Door rating of 2.4 is the lowest I could find for any game studio, even Konami gets a 2.5... lol
Just to further add if you look at this Glass Door reviews it is an abysmal 2.4. That's one of the lowest I could find for a game studio.
Looking at other studios/companies comparatively.
Mercury Steam - 2.4 / 5 (just 1.8/5 for Culture)
343 Industries - 3.0
Retro Studios - 3.2
Blizzard - 3.5
4A games - 3.6
The Coalition - 3.7
N.O.E. - 3.8
Gearbox - 3.9
Ubisoft - 3.9
EA - 4.1
Nintendo - 4.1
Bloober Team - 4.2
Insomniac - 4.3
Santa Monica - 4.7
IMO Mercury Steam has always been a badly managed studio.
UPDATE: Konami gets a 2.5. So I guess Jim Sterling had it wrong all along, Konami is not actually the worst. lol
@Lordplops "Stress is a part of a lot of jobs, deal with it." BAD take.
Mercury Steam have LOTS of history here. It sounds like the boss is a total tosser. Loads of complaints after Lords of Shadow 1, even more during and after Lords of Shadow 2. Not surprised to see more here.
On the counter side obviously disgruntled employees show things in a bad light, things likely are quite as bad as they say. But that doesn't mean they are good either.
Reading between all the lines it sounds like a bad workplace with a top down toxic culture. That shouldn't be acceptable under "stress is a part of jobs"
@Kidfunkadelic83 Sadly that's 99% of gamers who don't read websites like this. Hopefully some of them will do a search and find articles like this with the fix, or ask a friend who may know. But many won't.
In a perfect world I agree all should be listed. However I do think there are some valid reasons companies do this as we don't live in a perfect world.
1) to stop people building a quick portfolio by jumping between companies and games. Why get credited in just one game over 4 years when you could get credited in five or more? This could increase employee turnover, and incentivises loyalty.
2) Not all stages of production are equal. They don't want to incentivise people to bail when the harder stages come.
Regardless both 8 or 11 months sounds like a long enough stint to warrant inclusion.
I don't really care about the backwards long jump or speed running - though that's fun to watch. But I do want my 'Gay' bowser back. (if you hear something else, that's fine too)
@Ironcore "I still don't understand who is buying this." People with more money than sense. People who have to have the newest things, even if they won't really use it. People who get annoyed by tongue in cheek internet comments...
Glad to hear so many gamers are enjoying Metroid Dread. Was on the fence as I didn’t think Samus Returns was as good others, this is just what I needed to hear.
OLED no use to me as play docked 95% of the time since covid, but again glad to hear others are enjoying it and it’s subtle changes are shining through
@Pod I’ve personally replaced sticks because of drift on 8 separate joycons. Both of mine, all 4 of my nephews and 2 of his best friends.
My joycons were less than 2 years old and hadn’t been used much, relative to my other console controllers (less than 500 hours according to games played times)
On the flipside I have only had drift on 2 other analogue sticks over 20 years and 10 consoles. Each of those were over 5 years old.
Good that it is reviewing well (currently 88 on Metacritic), but personally I'd also take that with a large pinch of salt. Samus Returns got 85 which to me was massively inflated.
@BloodNinja I've got to run and get back to work but just to leave you with the monetary part of the reform vs imprison debate, obvs. far more complex, but it's a start and it is interesting... and sorry... bad form to post and run
In 2020 it cost, on average, around £44,000 to imprison someone per year in the UK.
Meanwhile a year of education at Eton College, one of the most expensive boarding schools (food, board and education included), was also around £44,000.
While i'm not suggesting we roll out the red carpet to all wannabe car thieves, it does beg the question; given better opportunities and education how many would make the same criminal choices?
@BloodNinja Don't you worry we've got PLENTY of that too!
But yes it is a really interesting topic with no easy answers. Yet many feel very passionately one way or the other... often without much basis in fact other than a few dubious statistics and misquoted sound bites. Sound familiar
@BloodNinja Depends on what obligations the judge imposed AND where you sit on the reform vs imprisonment debate.
Usually if they think the scare and suspended sentence has a chance of actually helping the defendant reform they'll go with that. Not least prisons are over subscribed and expensive!
But yes it sounds a little lenient to me as published in the BBC.
The Pathless, Manifold Garden, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Fantasian, Tetris Beat, Thumper, Alto's Odyssey: Lost City, Hitchhiker, Lego Builder's Journey, World of demons, Threes+, Overland to name a few.
PLENTY of great titles on Apple Arcade and £4.99pm is very reasonable if you like playing on the go.
Hardly surprising considering the size of the mobile gaming industry and until Apple Arcade they were mostly just leeching 30% off everything.
The 30% tax needs to be stopped though, even if they have limited it to 15% for apps/games makers making less than $1 million/year (That's for the studio not one game/app)
Apple Arcade IS a good service though, that has tried to undo the worst aspects of mobile gaming MTX/Timers/gatcha/F2P etc. and replace it with full games. It's their best contribution to the industry thus far.
I'm not the biggest fan of TGAs, but even if you don't like Geoff you surely have to respect his hard work and dedication to gaming over several decades.
His body of work from GameTrailers, G4tv, Kotaku and Spike VGAs is huge. Not to mention his brilliant The Final Hours series.
I'm not his biggest fan, and I find TGA's a bit of a self congratulatory circle-jerk (far too much like the Oscars in that reward) but I have to hand it to him for creating the awards out of nothing.
A hard working man who loves games and gaming. Keep it up Geoff.
I wonder why he said that this week of all weeks?
Did they just release a game or something...
Quit with the transparent BS moves Konami. You know full well if you made a decent new Castlevania game it would sell well. Hell an average one would at this point.
There's nothing I want more in gaming that for Konami to sell their IP to someone who actually cares.
I was definitely in the sceptical until proven otherwise camp.
I think this was a sensible position at the time having owned and been jaded by the Wii U, and to a lesser extent the Wii - a console that abandoned many longtime gamers in favour of short term gains and gimmicks.
I played Breath of the Wild on the Wii U (all 120 shrines). It wasn't till 6 months later when Mario Odyssey came out that it became a must buy for me. I rebought Breath of the Wild and re-did all 120 shrines and more. (It's virtually identical to the Wii U version)
The BIG difference is that third parties and indies flocked to the Switch, the complete opposite of the Wii U.
Joycons still janky AF and could do with a CPU/GPU/resolution boost. But aside from that it's been great.
Having been a little over-obsessed by folders etc. in the previous gens (and on Xbox S X) I now really appreciate the minimalism of both the Switch and PS5 interface more.
Comments 557
Re: Random: Forget The Switch OLED, PS5 And Xbox Series X - Transparent Retro Consoles Are The Must-Have Item Of 2021
$126.79!!! People will buy anything
Re: "I Don't Think The Switch Needs A More Powerful Version" Says 'World War Z' Lead Designer
@Shadow_Fox As a Developer (not VG) I completely agree code can always be executed in different ways that are more efficient, and Switch ports are often POSSIBLE. Never said anything different.
What I did say is that the COST and TIME associated with refactoring code or rewriting whole systems or even just specific optimisation is often prohibitive for just one platform. It's not that it is impossible, it's that it takes time and money, especially on Switch.
It will depend on the individual game and it's potential size on the market on Switch whether the cost benefit ratio is worth it to go the extra mile.
If it truly is as easy as you suggest why do we:
a) get so many bad ports
b) often get no port
c) get an increasing number of cloud versions
If it's so simple to just DO THEIR JOB as you state, why aren't they?
Re: My Nintendo Adds Some Rather Nice Metroid Dread Wallpapers
@Matl It's bizarre. Spend points on Wallpapers... yeah? no!
Re: "I Don't Think The Switch Needs A More Powerful Version" Says 'World War Z' Lead Designer
@Shadow_Fox Witcher 3, Dying Light are the sort of examples I meant by 'Herculean effort'. The W3 port was praised by Digital Foundry and others as a "mobile miracle", not my words THEIRS.
Of course it takes "MONEY AND TIME to port a game", that's the whole point. To go the extra mile and make these ports work as well as they do takes a LOT more dev money and time comparatively which is why we don't see as many ports of this calibre; why we are seeing more Cloud versions; and why there is increasingly no Switch port at all.
There just isn't always enough benefit to spend so much more time and money more on a Switch port. Often this has to be outsourced to a 3rd party studio BECUASE it takes so much additional time. And often to a specialist developer like Saber Interactive that really understands how to get the most out of the Switch. It's not always a sensible financial or time option.
If we want to keep seeing Switch ports then the next Switch 2 needs better specs.
Re: "I Don't Think The Switch Needs A More Powerful Version" Says 'World War Z' Lead Designer
@sanderev There is a difference between making a fixed 3D audio track like this that (yes it sounds cool) and proper REAL TIME 3D audio in a game that requires serious hardware processing to work in real time. Switch cannot do that, or not at the expense of other tasks.
My point is, I think you are being very dismissive of other innovations from others and over-exaggerating Nintendo's innovations.
"MS & Sony are purely hardware based and sell you the same games again and again and again, just with a better coat of paint." Like every Pokemon game ever made, Mario 3D All Stars, Zelda skyward sword or Links Awakening? Nintendo does PLENTY of that too. They just like to charge full price for the convenience!
I love my Switch it's a great piece of hardware in MANY ways, but not being frank about it's flaws and where it struggles doesn't help anyone.
Re: "I Don't Think The Switch Needs A More Powerful Version" Says 'World War Z' Lead Designer
@sanderev So you've played Astro's Playroom on a Dual Sense or Returnal with headphones and 3D audio? These are transformative experiences that enhance the gameplay.
I can literally tell where bullets are coming from in Returnal without seeing them.
Re: "I Don't Think The Switch Needs A More Powerful Version" Says 'World War Z' Lead Designer
@sanderev But that's the problem, it can't play most current gen console games. More and more are becoming cloud version or need a herculean porting effort to make them work. Or like the Outer Worlds strip back so much that you are almost playing another game.
This is only getting more prevalent as devs aim for PS5 and XSX
Re: "I Don't Think The Switch Needs A More Powerful Version" Says 'World War Z' Lead Designer
I don't need it to be 4K.
I don't need it to compete with Sony & MS.
But I do want a little more power. It's seriously old tech now and struggles on many games with more ambition.
Games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 dropped as low as 368p in handheld mode at launch. 368p!!! It looked grainy as hell and the frame rate was bad too.
I wouldn't mind a 720p minimum in handheld and 1080p minimum docked as long as those were minimums.
At a push 1440p docked would be great. It's a really solid resolution that still looks good on 4k screens would be a perfect balance but probably asking too much.
Aside from resolution a better processor and ram to allow better framerates and textures and just enough specs to allow ports of next/current gen games.
Considering how much tech has evolved I don't think this is too much to ask at a similar pricepoint.
Re: Random: It Has Now Been 1,000 Days Since Metroid Prime 4's Development Was Restarted
@Ralizah "I'm guessing this'll be a cross-gen release with whatever Ninty's next console is. Hopefully around 2023 or so."
HA! i've been thinking this more and more with MP4, Zelda and (presumably) Mario all suddenly taking longer than expected.
Re: Talking Point: How Many Hours Is A 'Short' Game For You?
It depends on the game, genre and price.
It's also always subjective.
But personally I would almost ALWAYS take a shorter focused experience over a bloated cut'n'paste fetch quest filled time sink
i.e. don't create needless busywork just to artificially extend the length of your game.
Re: Wow, Nintendo Switch Was First Revealed Five Years Ago Today
Having been a Wii & especially a Wii U owner I was a sceptic!
Glad to see it all worked out.
Re: Random: Forget Dread, It's All About Metroid: Other M On Twitter Right Now
Gameplay was great!
Story was woeful even if it tried to hit some deeper notes.
Could live with the last but they did a dirty to Samus turning her from the greatest bounty hunter in the universe into a simpering fool crying about Adam and 'The BABY' ad nauseum.
I'm all for creating a deeper character but this was seriously regressive stuff.
TLDR: She became a female manga cliché! #NotMySamus
Re: Poll: Which Sega Genesis / Mega Drive Games Should You Play First Via Nintendo Switch Online?
Many of these were great at the time, but time has not been kind to many.
Re: Looks Like Dune's Coming To Fortnite
@nessisonett I wouldn't be too bothered by Dune either... if Denis Villeneuve wasn't the director.
Brilliant from his early stuff like Incendies & Prisoners, to later bigger budget projects like Sicario, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.
Re: Metroid Dread Studio Hit With Allegations Of Poor Organisation And Management
@BloodNinja "If that's the case, we will start to see more evidence, as the story seems to be in it's infancy. If not, then we know it's more hearsay."
I'm not sure this is 100% true. The studio is based in Spain and very few reporters have the contacts or confidants for this sort of access.
It's similar to the very infrequent reports of the state of some of the support studios in Asia. We know it's happening even if there aren't a wave of news about it. On the whole Western news has a very short memory and news cycle, especially for things not on it's doorstep, and it quickly moves on to something else.
In this case it's been reported several times before that the boss does a great job of keeping people quiet through a culture of fear and making a point of ruining people's careers. Yes these were just a couple of new articles and a few anonymous posts on things like Glass Door, Neogaf, reddit etc. It COULD be just a few really disgruntled employees but then why don't we see this after the release of every game with so many other studios. Plus there were similar stories after Castlevania LoS1 & 2, this isn't a new thing.
The Glass Door rating of 2.4 is the lowest I could find for any game studio, even Konami gets a 2.5... lol
Re: Metroid Dread Studio Hit With Allegations Of Poor Organisation And Management
Just to further add if you look at this Glass Door reviews it is an abysmal 2.4. That's one of the lowest I could find for a game studio.
Looking at other studios/companies comparatively.
IMO Mercury Steam has always been a badly managed studio.
UPDATE: Konami gets a 2.5. So I guess Jim Sterling had it wrong all along, Konami is not actually the worst. lol
Re: Metroid Dread Studio Hit With Allegations Of Poor Organisation And Management
@Lordplops "Stress is a part of a lot of jobs, deal with it." BAD take.
Mercury Steam have LOTS of history here. It sounds like the boss is a total tosser. Loads of complaints after Lords of Shadow 1, even more during and after Lords of Shadow 2. Not surprised to see more here.
On the counter side obviously disgruntled employees show things in a bad light, things likely are quite as bad as they say. But that doesn't mean they are good either.
Reading between all the lines it sounds like a bad workplace with a top down toxic culture. That shouldn't be acceptable under "stress is a part of jobs"
Re: Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack Release Date And Pricing Revealed
EXACTLY what I expected.
Re: Nintendo Aware Of Crash Error "Near The End" Of Metroid Dread, Says It's Working On A Fix
@Kidfunkadelic83 Sadly that's 99% of gamers who don't read websites like this. Hopefully some of them will do a search and find articles like this with the fix, or ask a friend who may know. But many won't.
Re: Nintendo Aware Of Crash Error "Near The End" Of Metroid Dread, Says It's Working On A Fix
At the end of the MONTH that's a long wait for gamers who are near the end after days. ouch!
Re: Metroid Dread Staff Say They've Been Left Out Of The Game's Credits, MercurySteam Responds
In a perfect world I agree all should be listed. However I do think there are some valid reasons companies do this as we don't live in a perfect world.
1) to stop people building a quick portfolio by jumping between companies and games. Why get credited in just one game over 4 years when you could get credited in five or more? This could increase employee turnover, and incentivises loyalty.
2) Not all stages of production are equal. They don't want to incentivise people to bail when the harder stages come.
Regardless both 8 or 11 months sounds like a long enough stint to warrant inclusion.
Re: Don't Worry, 3D All-Stars' Super Mario 64 Will Still Likely Be The Definitive Switch Version
Hopefully it's the original version!
I don't really care about the backwards long jump or speed running - though that's fun to watch. But I do want my 'Gay' bowser back. (if you hear something else, that's fine too)
Re: UK Sales Data Shows A Strong Start For Switch OLED
@Ironcore "I still don't understand who is buying this."
People with more money than sense.
People who have to have the newest things, even if they won't really use it.
People who get annoyed by tongue in cheek internet comments...
Re: Teardown Suggests The Switch OLED Dock Is 4K 60fps-Ready And 'Future Proof'
Wait a few years: Switch to output YouTube in 4K
Re: Poll: What's A Fair Price For The Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack?
Do you really think N64 and MD games are going to be a lot LESS than SNES & NES?
This is Nintendo.
Though with WND's who knows.
Re: Random: Nintendo America's President Doug Bowser Celebrates The Return Of Samus
Glad to hear so many gamers are enjoying Metroid Dread. Was on the fence as I didn’t think Samus Returns was as good others, this is just what I needed to hear.
OLED no use to me as play docked 95% of the time since covid, but again glad to hear others are enjoying it and it’s subtle changes are shining through
Re: Consumer Advocacy Group Calls Out Nintendo For Joy-Con Drift Ahead Of Switch OLED Launch
@Pod I’ve personally replaced sticks because of drift on 8 separate joycons. Both of mine, all 4 of my nephews and 2 of his best friends.
My joycons were less than 2 years old and hadn’t been used much, relative to my other console controllers (less than 500 hours according to games played times)
On the flipside I have only had drift on 2 other analogue sticks over 20 years and 10 consoles. Each of those were over 5 years old.
It’s a much worse problem.
Re: Round Up: The Metroid Dread Reviews Are In
@Rin-go Which part of "to me" didn't you understand?
Hint: Every post here is a personal opinion.
Re: Round Up: The Metroid Dread Reviews Are In
Good that it is reviewing well (currently 88 on Metacritic), but personally I'd also take that with a large pinch of salt.
Samus Returns got 85 which to me was massively inflated.
Re: Video: Why Didn't Square Enix Port The Kingdom Hearts Collection To Switch?
Salt levels in the comments are over 9000!
Re: Random: This 'Game Boy' Device Was Used To Steal Vehicles Worth £180,000
@Eddy9000 aha! That would remind me of my twenties… but they’re a bit hazy
Re: Random: This 'Game Boy' Device Was Used To Steal Vehicles Worth £180,000
@BloodNinja I've got to run and get back to work but just to leave you with the monetary part of the reform vs imprison debate, obvs. far more complex, but it's a start and it is interesting... and sorry... bad form to post and run
In 2020 it cost, on average, around £44,000 to imprison someone per year in the UK.
Meanwhile a year of education at Eton College, one of the most expensive boarding schools (food, board and education included), was also around £44,000.
While i'm not suggesting we roll out the red carpet to all wannabe car thieves, it does beg the question; given better opportunities and education how many would make the same criminal choices?
Re: Random: This 'Game Boy' Device Was Used To Steal Vehicles Worth £180,000
@BloodNinja Having travelled a fair bit i'd recommend Bali! lol
I'm off to Manchester from the big smoke this weekend in fact.
Re: Random: This 'Game Boy' Device Was Used To Steal Vehicles Worth £180,000
@BloodNinja Don't you worry we've got PLENTY of that too!
But yes it is a really interesting topic with no easy answers. Yet many feel very passionately one way or the other... often without much basis in fact other than a few dubious statistics and misquoted sound bites. Sound familiar
Re: Random: This 'Game Boy' Device Was Used To Steal Vehicles Worth £180,000
@BloodNinja Depends on what obligations the judge imposed AND where you sit on the reform vs imprisonment debate.
Usually if they think the scare and suspended sentence has a chance of actually helping the defendant reform they'll go with that. Not least prisons are over subscribed and expensive!
But yes it sounds a little lenient to me as published in the BBC.
Re: Random: This 'Game Boy' Device Was Used To Steal Vehicles Worth £180,000
@Damo Yeah, doesn't look Wata 9.8 A++ Sealed
Re: Random: This 'Game Boy' Device Was Used To Steal Vehicles Worth £180,000
Worth £20,000 according to who? Heritage Auctions?
Re: Apple Made More Profit From Games In 2019 Than Nintendo, Sony And Microsoft Combined
@1UP_MARIO Haha! 👍
Re: Apple Made More Profit From Games In 2019 Than Nintendo, Sony And Microsoft Combined
@GamingDude800 Apple Arcade??? You mad bro?
The Pathless, Manifold Garden, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Fantasian, Tetris Beat, Thumper, Alto's Odyssey: Lost City, Hitchhiker, Lego Builder's Journey, World of demons, Threes+, Overland to name a few.
PLENTY of great titles on Apple Arcade and £4.99pm is very reasonable if you like playing on the go.
Re: Apple Made More Profit From Games In 2019 Than Nintendo, Sony And Microsoft Combined
Hardly surprising considering the size of the mobile gaming industry and until Apple Arcade they were mostly just leeching 30% off everything.
The 30% tax needs to be stopped though, even if they have limited it to 15% for apps/games makers making less than $1 million/year (That's for the studio not one game/app)
Apple Arcade IS a good service though, that has tried to undo the worst aspects of mobile gaming MTX/Timers/gatcha/F2P etc. and replace it with full games. It's their best contribution to the industry thus far.
Re: Sakurai Invites Everyone To Watch Smash's Final Reveal, Whether You Play The Game Or Not
Never played the game, have no interest in it, but i'll tune in.
They have done a wonderful job with these announcements. Pure gaming entertainment filled with in jokes.
Re: Random: Sakurai Seems To Be Finally Taking A Break From Smash Bros. Development, With The PS5
Sakurai's long been known as a video game collector and nerd.
Great setup that i'm sure has been upgraded since.
PS5 and XSX are both brilliant bits of hardware.
Re: Geoff Keighley's Game Awards Return To In-Person Events This December
I'm not the biggest fan of TGAs, but even if you don't like Geoff you surely have to respect his hard work and dedication to gaming over several decades.
His body of work from GameTrailers, G4tv, Kotaku and Spike VGAs is huge. Not to mention his brilliant The Final Hours series.
I'm not his biggest fan, and I find TGA's a bit of a self congratulatory circle-jerk (far too much like the Oscars in that reward) but I have to hand it to him for creating the awards out of nothing.
A hard working man who loves games and gaming. Keep it up Geoff.
Re: Rumour: Developers Have Reportedly Been Working On "4K Switch Games"
@KiraMoonvalley "I'd take 1080p screen and 1440p native docked with dlss to boost it to 4k."
Take my MONEY!!!
Though I think it will be difficult to get 1440p + DLSS in a small enough heat/power profile right now. Few years away.
Re: Want A New Castlevania Game? You Need To Make Yourself Heard, Says Konami Director
I wonder why he said that this week of all weeks?
Did they just release a game or something...
Quit with the transparent BS moves Konami. You know full well if you made a decent new Castlevania game it would sell well. Hell an average one would at this point.
There's nothing I want more in gaming that for Konami to sell their IP to someone who actually cares.
Re: Video: We've Actually Played Metroid Dread, Does It Meet Our Expectations?
@Bobb Same cautiously optimistic. Also wasn't a fan of Samus Returns and it's Mercury Steam again.
Re: Poll: What Did You Think Of Yesterday's Nintendo Direct?
Thought It was very good though there wasn’t that much that appealed to me directly
Re: Talking Point: Remember When People Thought Switch Would Fail?
I was definitely in the sceptical until proven otherwise camp.
I think this was a sensible position at the time having owned and been jaded by the Wii U, and to a lesser extent the Wii - a console that abandoned many longtime gamers in favour of short term gains and gimmicks.
I played Breath of the Wild on the Wii U (all 120 shrines). It wasn't till 6 months later when Mario Odyssey came out that it became a must buy for me. I rebought Breath of the Wild and re-did all 120 shrines and more. (It's virtually identical to the Wii U version)
The BIG difference is that third parties and indies flocked to the Switch, the complete opposite of the Wii U.
Joycons still janky AF and could do with a CPU/GPU/resolution boost. But aside from that it's been great.
Re: Random: This Nintendo Switch UI Redesign Makes The Home Menu And eShop Look Like Apple's iOS
Having been a little over-obsessed by folders etc. in the previous gens (and on Xbox S X) I now really appreciate the minimalism of both the Switch and PS5 interface more.
Too much going on here.
Re: Japan's Getting A Stunning Zelda: Skyward Sword Soundtrack With An Adorable Music Box
Don't usually go in for VG memorabilia, or any clutter, but damn I want this!