westman98

Mario riding Yoshi then:

Mario riding Yoshi now:

Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary Edition is real!

Sonic is not just going up directly against Matio, it's also facing off (to a lesser extent) against Spider-Man 2 which launches on the same day as Mario.

@Chaotic_Neutral
Unless you are intentionally trying to trigger it, a Blood Moon happens every in-game week which is like a bit under 3 hours of real-world playtime. You can't build something you want in that time? Must be extraordinarily complex lol

Even then, favoriting in Autobuild should be able to help.

Launching 3 days before Super Mario Bros Wonder is a bold choice.

Actual end of an era 😞.

At this rate MGS4 on Switch will run at 720p 15FPS.

Having worse performance than the initial HD releases is laughable. These are PS2 games FFS.

@Giancarlothomaz
No, that was misinterpreted. The 10-year deal between Microsoft and Nintendo only applies to Call of Duty.

And regardless, that has nothing to do with Larry Hryb/Major Nelson who is no longer a Microsoft/Xbox employee.

@Giancarlothomaz
Larry Hyrb just recently retired from Microsoft.

And even if he hadn't retired, he has nothing to do with Microsoft's 10 year deal with Nintendo, which relates to porting Call of Duty to Nintendo platforms once Microsoft completes their acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Remarkably, despite being way larger in size, it took less time for me to beat TOTK than BOTW (150 hours vs 220 hours). I assume this has to do with the faster methods of traversal: Ascend often makes climbing unnecessary, Tulin's gust makes gliding quicker, and Zonai vehicles (i.e. the fan hoverbike) are quite fast in general. Being familiar with the layout of the surface map probably also helped here too.

Curious if this applies to anyone else.

It still boggles my mind that GameFreak decided to launch Legends Arceus and Scarlet/Violet in the same year, with both games being quite ambitious scope-wise while also both being impacted by Covid restrictions during development. Not even the world's most talented game studio would have been able to develop two games of that scale simultaneously under these conditions without at least one of them being a buggy mess.

I actually reached the Construct Factory while exploring the Depths many many many hours before I ever set foot on Dragonhead Island. The factory didn't activate and therefore nothing happened, so I didn't think much of the area and moved on. I was pretty amazed to return to the area once I started the entire Mineru questline and found out that this was actually a 5th temple.

That VGC article about Switch 2 suggested that 3rd party developers were somewhat against backwards compatibility because they were afraid that people playing old generation games in the current generation hardware via backwards-compatibility would hurt new game sales, but here it seems like Zelnick isn't really concerned about that at all.

I guess I can't be surprised here: PS5 and XBS are fully backwards compatible but Take Two was pretty quick to resell a new version of GTAV for the 3rd time anyways. There is no doubt they'll be reselling old Switch games on Switch 2 regardless of whether Switch 2 is backwards-compatible with Switch or not.

I don't think Rockstar has the bandwidth to work on both GTAVI and a full-blown remake of Red Dead Redemption. A lot of RockStar employees were crunched to the bone during the development of RDR2 and I imagine many of them are going through the same struggles right now working on GTAVI - I can't imagine them also needing to work on a remake of the first RDR.

Also, the code of the original Red Dead Redemption is apparently poorly written and optimized (this is the reason why it has never been ported to PC even after 10+ years). The fact that a port studio was able to develop native ports of the game for Switch and PS4 is actually kind of a miracle in it of itself.

I never understood this discourse on whether the Switch can outsell PS2. Sure, it would be awesome if it did, but the Switch is already the most profitable game system in history and has (more importantly) fostered an environment where most Nintendo IPs have seen incredible record-breaking growth. That is far more important than simply being the best-selling console, which ultimately a meaningless trophy. Like, Nintendo could have cut the price of the NDS back in 2011/2012 to give it enough of a boost to outsell PS2, but they were way more focused on making sure the 3DS could succeed especially after its early struggles.

What is very important for Nintendo right now is that they ensure Switch maintains a high active playerbase and that those Switch players transition to Switch 2 once it releases. Nintendo is doing a great job at maintaining a large active Switch playerbase with big releases like Zelda, Pikmin, and Mario - now they just need to make sure the transition to Switch 2 is as smooth as possible.

Not sure why Alana Hagues thinks Nintendo will have a soft launch lineup for Switch 2 - they did this with 3DS and Wii U and things did not work out at all.

@Reztobi
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet sold faster since it was a holiday launch.

Outside of that, there are only a small handful of games that have sold faster than Tears of the Kingdom in their first ~2 months: Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, and a few Call of Duty titles.

Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD are the only games with a feasible chance of receiving Switch ports, and even then I don't think it'll happen. They'll probably be pushed as early Switch 2 games.

Disney Illusion Island is out? Seems like this game had absolutely zero marketing whatsoever.

Mickey Mouse may be an icon but he isn't a big active franchise like Marvel or Star Wars - people won't impulse buy a Mickey Mouse game based on his name or appearance alone.

There is no way any 3rd party developer knows what the actual screen on the final retail hardware will be if it is 15-18 months away from release.

There is also little evidence that any 3rd party developer would know if the new hardware will be backwards-compatible. Game console dev kits contain only the necessary hardware to run native games of that platform, and nothing else. I remember Wii dev-kits from back in the day not including GameCube backwards-compatibility...even though the Wii is pretty much just a souped-up GameCube internally ("2 GameCubes duct-taped together").

I would have been fine with more DLC fighters, but I also think 3 years of DLC support was more than enough for Ultimate. I look forward to the next Smash on new hardware, whenever that may be.

Kinda sounds like Sakurai/Nintendo are in the planning stages of the next brand new Smash Bros at the moment, and that it won't launch until several years from now (like 2027/28).

Pikmin is bigger than Final Fantasy in Japan now. Crazy to imagine such a thing just 4 or 5 years ago.

@Daggot
That's true, though it's not like Syn Sophia owns the Fashion Dreamer IP - it belongs to XSEED as far as I can tell.

Obviously they are not obligated to work with Nintendo, but working with Nintendo does come with the benefit of working on a somewhat established IP with Nintendo's marketing machine.

Fashion Dreamer is actually being developed by Syn Sophia, who developed Style Savvy. I'm actually kinda curious why they made a new IP similar to Style Savvy rather than just make another Style Savvy - the game is still exclusive to a Nintendo platform so its not like they went with a new IP to expand to PS/XB/PC.

I'm pretty close to finishing this game - I've beaten all temples + shrines, found all lightroots + caves + schematics, completed all side adventures, and fully upgraded my inventory slots + sages + Zonai battery. Just missing a handful of side quests and armor upgrades at this point.

This is easily one of the finest games ever made. I was somewhat skeptical about the map reuse and the emphasis on building things but none of those ended up being big issues. There is a ton of new areas to explore, all of the abilities are fun and intuitive (though I do miss Stasis), puzzles are as interesting and freeform as ever, and the main story is a big improvement over previous Zelda titles. Of course there are certain things to nitpick about as there will be for any game of this scope and scale - material grinding and frame rate are my biggest complaints - but none of that ever hampered my enjoyment to any significant degree. The fact that this game even functions at all given all the systemic gameplay elements and features without any major bugs/glitches is honestly pretty remarkable.

I still think BOTW will end up being the "better" game since it was a transformative new entry where everything was fresh, but this is a truly outstanding sequel.

Beyond the terrible design and box art , I'm not even sure why the JoyCons need that sliding mechanism to begin with. It's a (rather lackluster) solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

@samuelvictor
EAFC 24 is FIFA 24 with a name change.

Isn't the Switch battery relatively easy to replace (i.e. not super easy but also not a Herculean task)? I'm pretty sure all you need is a certain type of screwdriver, and that's it.

@VioletSword
Unless the game is stealing code/violating copyright or fails to pass certification, I'm not sure Nintendo or any platform holder can block games like this.

Yuji Naka should quit game development and become a politician

I don't think anyone can honestly think that any other Nintendo platform had a comparable 7th year to the Switch.

@EaglyPurahfan
Imamura mentioned how developing F-Zero would cost a lot, whereas developing Everybody 1-2 Switch probably cost about as much as a large coffee from Starbucks.

As I suspected, the game is mediocre but not a reputation-destroying catastrophe. The story of this game's development was ultimately more interesting than the final game itself.

GCN games aren't going to NSO when Nintendo is selling their HD ports or remasters on Switch.

Final Fantasy uses to sell 1.5-2 million copies at launch in Japan, while Zelda used to sell 300-400,000.

The situation has now flipped.

I'm surprised Nintendo even bothered to do any previews for this game given how it was internally considered one of their worst games ever.

Given these impressions I guess the game will still suck but won't be an unmitigated catastrophe like RedFall or The Lord of the Rings Gollum.

Basically reconfirmed Nintendo's plans from late 2021.

The audio files containing recordings of that talking flower probably accounts for a significant proportion of the game's overall file size lol

Switch isn't a direct competitor to Xbox/PlayStation because of it's greater product/software differentiation, but they are all still video game consoles that share the same general business model and shelf space. They are absolutely all competing for consumer dollars.

I thought that one shareholder who attended a meeting just to ask for free Super Nintendo World tickets was crazy, but this goes beyond that lmao

This would be the 2nd 1st party 3DS remaster on Switch after Miitopia.

Can't wait to see this beautiful boy in HD

Feels like the first time since Mario made the jump to 3D that a 2D Mario game has the same zaniness and creativity as the 3D Mario games.

Wonderful announcement.

I don't really have any strong feelings about the minigames themselves, which look very similar to the ones in the original 1-2 Switch, but that horse host is quite off-putting.

Iterative sequels have no issue selling well on Switch - one is dominating the charts as we speak.

The issue for Ubisoft is that a lot of people bought Kingdom Battle simply because it is the cheapest and most regularly discounted Mario game on Switch. Sparks of Hope is neither as cheap nor as frequently discounted as its predecessor since it is fairly new, so it won't sell to the price-conscious consumers who Kingdom Battle such a big success.

It's telling that Kingdom Battle still outsells Sparks of Hope from time to time.

Gotta eat crow on this, I thought there was no way a Driect would air this month. It seems E3 not existing anymore simply means Nintendo will air the Direct at the end of the month rather than near the beginning.

There is no way Meledandri would reveal any details about the next Nintendo/Illumination project in some random interview, especially with the current ongoing writer's strike that makes confirming any project a challenge.

@fenlix
Neither of those two games are great, but they are a lot better than Balan.