Julius

Expectations are low, and I'm ready to be disappointed which should make for a great show! Will be absolutely elated if we get something from PlayStation Studios which is original (a sequel, spin-off, whatever) and not a remaster/remake of a game from last gen. Hell, I'll take an interesting PS1/PS2/PS3 remaster. Not expecting it, though

For the casual audience who makes up the vast majority of people responsible for the Switch sailing by that 100 million sales mark and still going strong, the Steam Deck is a total non-factor. It is a niche even in the console space (as is pretty much every other, besides Nintendo's, currently); it is limited in supply; and has next to no marketing that the casual audience will have visibility of. Now, if we get reports of Steam upping their manufacturing numbers into the 10s of millions when the Steam Deck 2 gets announced, and throw a massive marketing budget behind it, with TV commercials, brand deals, celebrity sign-ons and such? I'll totally agree. Until then, Nintendo don't have any reason to think about the Steam Deck. I agree with @Hero-of-Time in that the Portal isn't in this conversation (I know you didn't bring it up but that's one of the weirdest products that'll be a brick in a couple of years that I've seen since I got into games, more so than the Vita), and so the only real question, which I think you kind of touch in, is whether Xbox are thinking of doing something similar; I don't know if they will, but well, I think they certainly should be. Xbox adapting the OS approach of Steam and it's stored and making a dedicated handheld to house it which doesn't depend on streaming and can download games, basically their take on the Steam Deck, is a truly scary proposition when you throw some marketing behind it and couple it with Game Pass. But do Xbox even have the balls to do that? Absolutely agree. I'm all for new ideas and new control schemes, but doing it completely for the sake of it seems like a very bad idea, in that it opens them up to unnecessary risk factors like, well...no-one liking whatever they come up with? The Wii motion controls were completely played out by the second half of that console's life, even if it did open them up to a much wider and new gaming audience. I'm not sure either. There are things which sounds interesting conceptually (3D, foldable screens, etc.) which would be great differentiators – but I'm not convinced that they will improve the system in any meaningful way, from a consumer or developer perspective. The main risks I foresee with a Switch 2 being focused on being a more powerful Switch is that they end up bottling the messaging around it (which, well, they've been much better at this last gen with the Switch, and a simply "2" or "Super" added to the name seems more than sufficient; that initial reveal trailer for the Switch has to be one of the most clear and effective "here's our concept, come join us" videos in a long while) or that they simply don't make the hardware powerful enough to last the entire gen. If this gen is anything to go by, they don't really seem all that interested in mid-gen upgrades, so yeah, just make it beefy enough for developers and consumers alike to get a gen of play out of the thing. Super Mario Odyssey DX and Mario Kart 8 Deluxest inbound

Monthly games for Feb: I mean...sure, I guess

Still a bizarre choice, but alas, here's another trailer: Gotta pay the bills I guess, if it keeps people in work, why not?

Reviews are up, and currently showing as 83 on Metacritic and 80 on OpenCritic: Seems pretty solid

@drahkon (and maybe @Hero-of-Time? Can't remember if you'd already picked them up, but think you mentioned they were on your wishlist at some point) the Pixel Remasters are finally on sale on PlayStation, too (by 20%) as part of the Critics' Choice sale that started today Hilariously self-aware that these being on sale is an event in itself, they even released a January sale trailer: ETA: also I guess the plan is that they'll be on sale on all available platforms (judging from the Steam sale and it being included in the description)? But still not showing on the eShop...guess they're waiting for their next sale to go live? Not that it's unexpected when an update like this happens, but the update broke all of the fixes people had modded in, which is very funny (and unfortunate...but also funny) to me

Multiple pieces of DLC planned, including The Answer epilogue from 3 FES. Disappointing, but not unexpected – after the Portable and FES stuff was reported as being left out, it seemed like DLC/an enhanced edition was inevitable. It's a lot of video game as it is, so it's hard to complain, but man, SEGA are really trying to piss people off and milk them for all that they're worth in increasingly frustrating ways. Guess 3 Reload is going to be slipping to the back of the list of new games I want to get this year until we get some clarity on when this is dropping, but with Metaphor also arriving towards the end of the year... I wouldn't be shocked if I either pick it up and play it knowing I'll never get to the additional content when it releases, or just wait until 2025 It's January – why are we already needing to make these calls?!

What do you mean? Those are all JRPGs! You're right though, the sheer volume of quality releases we've got now is stupid – and the crazy thing is, of the games you've listed, all of those were on radars before the year even started. We haven't even got to that point in the year where someone looks back and realises something slipped under the radar - "oh, wait, we all missed that indie!" - which is inevitable, and I don't think we'll realise it's happened until March at this point, because Feb looks pretty unrelenting, too. I'm trying to keep a closer eye on indies this year and have seen two release in the last week alone which look like they might be worth some time, and my Steam wishlist is packed with indie goodness already on my radar for release this year, or of games released last year on Steam which might see console releases this year. It's simply nuts. Great time to be playing games; terrible time to be playing all of them. If nothing else it gets us to make the hard choices...which is why I've spent January replaying two games and fallen in love with them all over again/for the first time and we haven't even mentioned existing backlogs! I'd like to say that I hope it's a quiet summer, which it is at the moment...out of us simply not knowing what's coming. It seems like everyone will have their first major event of the year out of the way by the end of Feb, so we should have a clearer picture of how this year is going to shake out by then, at least

Makes sense, though. Considering how they've added silly ways to spend on almost all of their games, I guess we should've expected something - anything - to be changed here in the slightest way to make an excuse for there to be a new SKU. That it actually sounds on the surface like it could be something kind of sizeable is pretty surprising, purely because it wasn't mentioned in the initial leak/rumour.

Reviews are up and they're looking good: currently at 90 on OpenCritic and 89 on Metacritic. Two 90ish rated JRPGs dropped in the space of a week by SEGA, and they've still got Metaphor up their sleeve for later on in the year. The Year of the JRPG has started real good!

Super Nintendo World is opening at the Universal Epic Universe theme park at Universal Orlando Resort in 2025: "Universal Epic Universe" sounds completely un-epic

Personally, it doesn't bother me, as my Switch is used docked 99% of the time anyways and the other 1% might be a game of Tetris here or there, or out of curiosity checking to see how a game looks in handheld mode before returning it to its rightful spot in the dock. The OLED is undeniably prettier to look at (be it for the Switch or the Steam Deck compared with their original releases) and so I'd be gutted to step down from a Switch OLED to a Switch 2 LCD if I used it in handheld more than a third of the time, though, as I imagine quite a few people do. But that's such a small % of their install base with the Switch, I imagine; I say this without checking the numbers, which I guess I could do, but it was released really late in the Switch's life, and so has only realistically really been an option for people picking up a Switch this late on in the gen and doing their homework to compare the two (I don't see why you wouldn't get the OLED for just a little bit more when compared with the original LCD which still hasn't received a permanent price drop) or because they use it in handheld enough and have the disposable income to upgrade from the LCD to the OLED. I agree with @Dcubed about that budget (both in power draw and construction cost) probably being better off used elsewhere in the console, especially if it's going to set the baseline for the entire generation like the Switch did, including a potential Switch 2 OLED in the future.

Probably the same as the Red Dead Redemption remaster last year, I imagine? Which is to say: nothing. It'll be a PlayStation and Nintendo release, and Xbox will just continue to keep it available through BC. Unless there's anything new to this remaster, in which case I imagine it'll probably get a separate SKU made available.

To add to all the rumours and supposed leaks going around, Kojima has just shared the SoP broadcast details on Instagram, so...I'll be shocked if you don't get it That's a good shout, hadn't picked up on that. Love a surprise so fingers crossed! Though reading the PS Blog post about the event, it seems like we're due another round of PlayStation pretending like they care about PS VR2, so it's possible that a couple of those are going to be VR2 titles Just give me the next Asobi game, damn it! Kind of wild to me that we know so little about this year now, but it's only the end of the year...yet they're already talking about things "beyond" 2024. Urgh.

A definitive version of Builders is coming to Steam on Feb 13th! Neat!

Worst kept secret in a while. Please be e̶x̶c̶i̶t̶e̶d̶ prepared to be disappointed? Although, Final Fantasy VII's anniversary is on the 31st Jan...is it finally time for the Rebirth demo?

What do you mean? Breath of the Wild has an epic narrative! Set 100 years in the past and only visible in cutscenes, but still! (to be fair, I mean, it is an 11/10 trailer) I mean, they risked house fires and getting found out for daylight robbery by selling egregiously priced cardboard origami sets you could use to strap your multiple hundred £ console to your face with this thing: So, are we thinking paper airplanes next gen or..?

Nintendo have filed some trademarks this past week in the UK relating to the GameCube controller: Per Time Extension: Could be for a future re-released of the controller with NSO plans as we've seen for other consoles on the platform, could be for implementation in the host of GameCube remasters we've seen on the Switch...could be nothing. Yeah, there have been some excellent Feb Directs in the past – honestly, besides Directs focused on showcasing third-party partnerships or for particular games, I can't think of a single Direct which hasn't had at least one nice surprise since the launch of the Switch. We've had years of PlayStation, Xbox, and others trying to ape the Nintendo Direct...and I don't think any of them has come close overall. Heck, I can't think of any two consecutive showings by anyone else in the industry as strong as any two consecutive unfocused, general Nintendo Directs. Some showings stronger than others, sure, but I never felt I was potentially wasting my time by tuning in, unlike with a good number of Playstation State of Plays. They've been best in the biz with their showings with the Switch, and I really hope we see that form continue with the Switch 2. Kimishima trolling everyone with the "yeah, shut up guys, we'll get to Breath of the Wild in a sec, let me give a brief recap" before dropping one of the best single trailers in games of the last decade always make me laugh Can't speak to the Wii U showings in anything but retrospect (though it's not hard to imagine the response as someone who has watched them since), but very simple things like ice cubes in the Joy-Cons to get across the idea of HD Rumble was pretty genius. The best of times I regularly go back to their reactions of events between events, and many, it's crazy how the time has flown. And also just kind of bums me out with how everything has played out Also, say what you will about Damiani, I will always respect just how quickly he picked up on that Link's Awakening reveal in that Feb Direct from a few waves and a bit of a storm

To the surprise of no-one, Eurogamer are also now reporting that a State of Play is arriving this week. Bit late to the party there, boys. There are another two games to add to the list H-o-T posted above, so if that was a leak, it thankfully doesn't seem to be a complete one: Doesn't exactly move the needle for me if those two games are there, so...still holding out hope for something. Also have to imagine that they're going to try one last attempt to throw a finalfinalV3 Helldivers II trailer out there, right?

Yeah, out of the new stuff listed there's nothing of any real interest for me either, and the games showing up which aren't new are ones I've already made my mind up on. So fingers crossed there's nothing to that list, or that there's at least something missing. Feels like it's been a minute since the last great showing by PlayStation, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was it

Regardless of how you feel about Part II, the music

Got to put this on some radars: Geeks-Line's PS2 tetralogy book set. Still haven't been able to track down a copy of their Playstation Anthology (have been checking in on it for months on eBay now, missed out a couple of weeks ago after being messed around by a seller ) so I've got to put my name down for this.

Launch trailer: Patiently waiting for reviews and to see how long people think a typical playthrough + quests might be. I doubt I'll get to it in Feb, but hopefully not going for the Plat and needing to redo things on higher difficulties could mean I get to it sooner than I'd been anticipating