Julius

In today's episode of The Switch is Killing It!!, the Switch continues killing it: its lifetime sales in the States has now surpassed those of the PS4 in the same territory. This shouldn't be too surprising given the EoY report from earlier this week (107m Switch units vs 117m PS4 units), but still, it's pretty wild!

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks this! There really is a lot more news now (seems Lucasfilm have finally figured out their groove, and having the space for shows on Disney+ definitely helps), so I think there's definitely space for them to do it - heck, if they were smart, they'd upload something like that weekly/fortnightly/whatever to Disney+'s Star Wars page as well as the YouTube channel. Admittedly haven't seen much of Kristin, but from what little I have seen of her, she seems a nice presence to have around Oh yeah, for sure. Think we might see some concept art, heck maybe even a trailer, on the Mando+ stream (I do expect about half of it to be Q&A stuff, just considering this is the first time Mando is getting fan interaction at an event like this since it launched - which is nuts!), but I definitely think they'll have something to show off to attendees at that Mando+ panel; I mean, it's Favreau and Filoni, they *definitely* won't be able to resist As for Bad Batch S2, I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I'd be betting a whole lot on it getting the first two episodes shown off to attendees (way, I don't know, a ship I'd definitely regret losing in a bet). From memory, it's something Filoni did at Celebration for Rebels S2, S3, and S4 (I can't remember for the life of me what happened with S1, but I think it got the same treatment?), and I think they also premiered S5 E1 of TCW at a Celebration (for Maul's revival), and to top it off, there was that time that he brought those incomplete rigs for S7 of The Clone Wars to Celebration. So if/when it is there...good luck with that American audience speaking of which, are you planning on catching any of the confirmed screenings they've got for fans, like Siege of Mandalore or Attack of the Clones? Watching Siege of Mandalore in a crowd has got to hit different with a crowd like that I'd imagine Oh yeah it's not an easy one at all, honestly I think they should just say "bye to those watching from home, but those here celebrating with us, stick around as we've got something else to show you." We're going to find out there was something shown one way or another just from excited attendees, so I think they might as well just say it, rather than what I'm pretty sure at the Mando S1 panel and some panels we've had before where they would just say "we've got something else!" and then all of a sudden the stream would stop just saves the pain as one of those stuck at home watching! And oh yeah, that's totally fair, I'm sure I'll be the exact same way whenever I get to go to Celebration I think the timing of it is pretty abysmal but man, David W. Collins is basically the one who opened the door up for me when it came to finding more depth in the music of Star Wars (and in general). He had a show he hosted on Rebel Force Radio called 'Star Wars Oxygen: The Music of John Williams' where he and Jimmy Mac (one of the RFR guys, basically played the less informed role and asked a lot of good questions) would go through and break down the tracks of the films, the history, some of the music theory, and point out some absurdly smart stuff; since then, I've been pretty obsessed with a lot of that stuff from some of their teachings, and it's helped me pick up on so much more when I listen to music. Most of his work is around sound design and music, so unsurprisingly, with Empire being the film (at least at the time) with the most cut music, he actually edited John Williams' original score back into the film to show at Celebration one year. Unfortunately, RFR landed in some heat in early 2017 (if I'm remembering right due to some sexist and derogatory comments about women), and David W. Collins either left over that or just fell out with RFR, but either way, they stopped after getting through the original trilogy, prequel trilogy, VII and some of Rogue One. It's awesome stuff, and in my opinion the absolute best fan content when it comes to Star Wars. To further compound the unfortunate circumstances, these podcasts were free, but RFR took them down a while back and have been putting out "remastered" versions (a glorified reason to just make it a Patreon exclusive thing at one of their middle tiers). And it gets even worse: no-one saw this coming, and so seemingly no-one has archived any of them! I go in every few months now, sign up for a month and Patreon, and am backing them up everywhere I can do; so far, they've got back up to Attack of the Clones again (they're taking the mick honestly with how slowly they're dripfeeding them), and I've been enjoying giving it all a listen, but man, it's annoying it's locked behind Patreon, and a Patreon of people I don't really want to support at that. Regardless -- I'll share some of their findings and my own on the music when I post my thoughts after rewatching the film, think it'll definitely be a good way to show off the strengths of each film's music and some cool findings, one of the things I noticed in Rogue One when it came out has had me dizzy for years Yeah, I thought that was weird too; at the moment, if the Fallen Order sequel is turning up at all, I doubt it's much more than a trailer being shown off at the Lucasfilm Studios Showcase (though not TV/show/film, it's by far always the biggest stream, and if there aren't other games/enough they want to show up, I could see it sneaking in) or at the closing ceremony. I do also wonder if maybe someone's come along and agreed to show the game off as we head towards Not-E3 and the summer? Or maybe the game has just slipped further back than where we all think it might be in development? Yeah, I think the lotto system is a great change, just a shame though that it really makes the Jedi Master VIP package that much more of a desired thing, so fingers crossed for you! Out of the Showcase, Mando+ and Bad Batch S2, is there one specifically you'd want to go to over the others? If I were attending I think I'd have the obvious answer of the Lucasfilm Studios Showcase Those other ones sound like a blast, and I think the smaller panels at Celebration are always super cool -- there are definitely niches within the many folds of the Star Wars fandom (some gravitate towards exhibitions of props, others to the ships, others yet to concept art, etc.). That Secret Miniatures of the Prequels stands out to me in particular of those non-LFL ones you mentioned, and of the LFL ones, seeing a Doug Chiang panel would be awesome!

Happy days! Feel like it's been a hot minute since we've seen Andi and Anthony (I miss the days of The Star Wars Show), so glad they'll be back, and hey, Hector Navarro is pretty solid too (used to regularly guest on a movie podcast I watched before he started turning up more places). I'm really curious to see what stays behind closed doors this year, got to imagine anything Mando S3 is likely staying on the premises, potentially some Andor stuff (like a scene/part of an episode? Imagine the trailer would be wise to drop here while Star Wars attention is running white hot with Kenobi), maybe Bad Batch S2 (again, imagine we'll get a public trailer drop, but they might show off an episode of two as they've done with their animation panels in the past). Either way, I just hope it's handled a bit better than it has been in the past where they don't say "we've got something for you!" before cutting the stream, and instead basically wrap the stream up before showing things off to attendees (I'm 100% fine with things being kept exclusive for attendees, just don't want it waved in my face, if that makes sense? ). In any case, I've started flipping through the panels to plan what I'll tune in for, and man, what a stacked year, should be a great time for you @Ronnie! Not having to make the choice between attending a publishing panel and David Collins talking about the music of Attack of the Clones is a decision I'm very glad I won't have to make think I'll be tuning in for everything being livestreamed, there's a lot to enjoy it seems: Lucasfilm's Studio Showcase, Light & Magic (I'm very hyped to see and hear more on the ILM documentary!), Attack of the Clones' 20th Anniversary (curious to see if they've managed to get Ewan and Hayden to attend this, but imagine a lot of the usual convention names are a shoe-in), Mando+, Tales of the Jedi, Bad Batch S2 and the Closing Ceremony. Exciting times ahead can't wait to hear Cantina Band on repeat between shows, but hope we get more Cantina Band 2 representation than we've had before

I mean, more specifically - and bringing it back around to what I was saying about curation - those three games were released within a 4 month window, and that's part of the problem I'm pointing at. If you look at that 4 month window in a vacuum, it looks excellent, but when you take a step back, that's probably one of the most concentrated few months Xbox Game Studios has had for new titles in a very long time, which I genuinely think shows a lack of curation on Xbox's part. Yes, COVID has been a factor, and I don't want to mitigate its impact, but the only one of those games without a prolonged development period was Forza Horizon 5: Psychonauts 2 was a 2015 Fig; Halo Infinite was announced back at E3 2018 to be a Series X launch title, which it missed out on by over a year because they had to scrap some two thirds of the game. As others have pointed out already, Halo Infinite had issues with marketing and gameplay showings before release, many who have played the game have talked about how clear it was that it had issues from the limited number of biomes/lack of diversity (for the record, I haven't and will hold off my own judgement until I do play the game, but listen to a lot of podcasts where people whose opinions I trust have talked about the game at length), and it's multiplayer has tapered off quickly due to some fairly egregious - but unfortunately not totally unexpected - practices, as well as not being updated regularly enough to continue to bring players back. For Psychonauts 2, obviously it's production was in place long before the Xbox acquisition, and Double Fine at the time decided to go the crowdfunding route (a smart move before the age of acquisitions we've found ourselves in these last few years for a game which was more of a cult classic than it was a commercial success). It's worth pointing out too that they also shipped a VR game in that time, so I don't want to make it sound like they weren't busy, but it was a holdover from prior to the acquisition and not really a sign of Xbox managing them well. Others who have played the game have mentioned Forza Horizon 5, so I won't dig too deep there, but yeah, from what I've heard and seen from others the live service route meant the game tapered off pretty quickly. I think, for me personally, it's letting your biggest acquired studio (at least until Activision-Blizzard goes through) with a history of buggy game launches announce a specific release date well over a year before launch without showing a glimpse of gameplay. I absolutely get bringing the game back to start ramping up the conversation as it's been in cryogenic slumber since it's teaser at E3 2018 - I think that was absolutely the right move, especially for Xbox after the acquisition - but in hindsight, what they really should have done is show the trailer and have Todd come out and say "we'll have more to share with you next summer", rather than spitting out a date of 11/11/22 for a gimmick release date to coincide with some of their previous big release patterns. We've seen a lot of delays due to COVID, and again, I don't want to dismiss the impact that would have, but we are talking about BGS, and I'm still firmly of the opinion that during this (still ongoing) pandemic, announcing a specific release date so far out is asking for trouble. But yeah, like I said before: Game Pass is still a great deal for those that are already in the Xbox ecosystem, and I think indies have been the strongest point of the service so far. But as someone who owns a Switch and PlayStation 5, indie games and legacy Xbox titles aren't enough to bring me in personally, and that's why it's so important that Xbox start to churn out quality first party content consistently, as they'll then have the attention of people like myself who don't care to play on PC. I mean, in fairness, as has been mentioned in the game's own thread, Christopher Judge was out of action due to what sounds like a very serious injury/back problem in the middle of the game's development: I certainly think it makes the original "2021" announcement prior to the release of the PS5 more egregious in hindsight (I definitely get the feeling that that announcement was a PlayStation publisher decision vs a Sony Santa Monica developer decision). Again, I think in hindsight, they should have announced the game without a release window, but making the announcement as early as they did made business sense (we all knew a sequel was in the works, but putting a name out there months before the PS5 dropped is just smart business). As for Insomniac, let's be honest, Spider-Man 2 probably isn't getting delayed, as far as I can remember since Spider-Man (2018) they haven't actually announced a delay (maybe I'm forgetting something about R&C, but: pandemic). Spider-Man didn't have a release window in its E3 2016 trailer, got a 2018 window at E3 2017, and then in 2018 we got specifics on a release date. Miles Morales was also put out in a timely manner. They've been one of only a handful of first party studios outside of Nintendo that has been consistently churning out quality AAA experiences, they've likely up-sized since their acquisition, and they're always on time. And, I mean, you aren't the only one who is feeling the lack of first party titles from PlayStation - as myself and others have stated recently, our PS5s at this point are mostly used to get the best experiences for PS4 titles - but I think a key difference between them and Xbox right now is that the number of deals they strike up for AAA games with third party publishers, as well as the almost guaranteed high quality AAA output of their first party studios, which we consistently know are coming; this is where looking back at last generation inspires confidence because once the generation really got going, so did PlayStation, whereas Xbox fell off a cliff and basically faked their own death. Comparatively, we still know so little Xbox Game Studios as a publisher/overseer/curator because they have yet to consistently put titles out before we even start thinking about them consistently putting out critically acclaimed titles on a regular basis. I think that's the big question mark in everyone's minds right now, and I think it's a fair one to have. Also, regarding GT7, as someone who has put a lot of time into the game I do need to speak up and say: the game itself is fantastic, and recent patches have made it so that you can earn ~2.5 million credits per hour with the right car settings and event, which is pretty standard considering that grinding has always been a part of these games. I still absolutely think the microtransaction practices in the game and how they're presented (and especially how it was handled in marketing before release and how it was presented at launch) are nothing short of disgusting, though; going off what @Cube said about Forza, sounds like both are quality AAA racing games with unfortunate problems brought about by greedy execs (focus on live service/lottery system vs microtransactions up in your face 24/7).

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards lands on NSO on May 20th:

Game Informer have put out a profile piece and interview on Yoshi-P, XVI's producer: It's a bit of a meaty one, but a recommended read while we wait for the next update on XVI

Yeah, it really is. It feels like every year for years now we've been saying "next year is going to be the year!", and every year we're proved wrong. Some might point to COVID, but their first true wave of acquisitions were back in 2018, nearly 4 years ago now: Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games (all announced at E3 2018), Obsidian and inXile (announced November 2018). Let's take a look at what these studios have managed since then: • Ninja Theory first showed off Senua's Saga: Hellblade II at The Game Awards at the end of 2019. We've seen the game a few more times, but no release date is in sight. There's also that experimental mental health horror game, Project: Mara, which we've heard pretty much nothing about. • Playground Games is pretty much the exception on this list, but - shocker! - that's likely because of their already strong relationship with Xbox pre-acquisition. Since their acquisition they've shipped Forza Horizon 4 in September 2018, as well as Forza Horizon 5 in November of last year. However, despite being an exception on this list, Fable seems to have got itself stuck in development hell. • Undead Labs shipped State of Decay 2 in May 2018, prior to their announced acquisition at E3 of this year, meaning that the only thing new we've really seen from them after the acquisition is a smattering of DLC for State of Decay 2 (which didn't get much fanfare) and the pre-rendered teaser trailer for State of Decay 3 we got at the Xbox Games Showcase in July 2020. Kotaku reported at the end of March that the studio is in disarray with reports of bullying, harassment, and burnout meaning that the game is stuck in pre-production. • Compulsion Games shipped We Happy Few in late 2018 after it's early access release in 2016, and since then we've only heard that they're working on a third person narrative driven game, and that their team has doubled in size (we heard this in October of last year). Otherwise, not a peep. • Obsidian are another exception on this list in that they've shipped games since being acquired in June 2018. In October 2019 they shipped The Outer Worlds, in July 2020 they released Grounded through early access (which might still be scheduled for a full release this year?), and they've announced Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 as being in development since being acquired. While I think there's rightly some skepticism about how Xbox's slate fits both Obsidian and Bethesda, there have also been reports for months now about Obsidian potentially taking on a sequel to Fallout: New Vegas. • inXile announced a few months back that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was delayed indefinitely due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine: there are much more important things going on outside of games right now. However, even prior to the indefinite delay, it was slated for December 2022 - I wouldn't have been at all surprised if it slipped into 2023 if not delayed for other reasons. So, in four years across six teams we have: • 3 games shipped which were already deep in development at the time of acquisition (Forza Horizon 4, The Outer Worlds, We Happy Few). • 9 games have been announced by these teams in the time following these acquisitions (Hellblade II, Project: Mara, Forza Horizon 5, Fable, State of Decay 3, Compulsion's currently untitled and unseen game, Grounded, Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2) and only 2 of these games have launched, being Forza Horizon 5 and the early access release of Grounded. • 1 game is delayed indefinitely due to war (again, nothing can really be said about that - they have bigger things going on), and at least 2 games are in some sort of development hell. All of this is to say: Xbox aren't doing a good enough job of managing and curating their portfolio of first party titles if in six acquisitions you have two games announced and released during the nearly four year period following these acquisitions. This has long been my concern with their acquisition blitzing of the industry: it's fine buying everyone up, but without a plan and a solid slate which is - again - being curated (for example, you don't want similar games releasing too close to each other), I'm not surprised that we're currently potentially looking at an entire year without a first party release (if we're not counting Grounded potentially shipping). There needs to be better oversight, because how on earth you justify letting Bethesda and Todd Howard announce a specific date over a year out when they aren't even showing off gameplay is beyond me. I think that's pretty much the only route they can go -- well, that and continuing their indie push, which is by far and away the only consistent thing about Game Pass that I've seen as an outsider. There's a lot of them, a lot of the critically acclaimed ones being exclusive in some form or another, they've done a great job there; let's hope none of those guys get acquired, lest they never release another game. I think A Plague Tale: Requiem has already been announced as being on Game Pass day one (which is a good shout as it's a great get). The only game I'd add is a weird one, as it's technically already had multiple releases, but I think we could see Final Fantasy VII Remake finally come to Xbox this year (in its Intergrade form), probably as a Game Pass exclusive. Final Fantasy VII Remake seemingly had a one year exclusivity deal for PlayStation, which I think got re-upped with an additional one year exclusivity deal for Intergrade last year, and so now I think Square Enix can take a third truck of money home by sticking it on Game Pass. The only other announced game I'd add is potentially Project: Mara from Ninja Theory, and otherwise your guess is as good as mine, because I have no clue. You have to imagine they'll announce something to slip into the second half of the year next month at Not-E3, but even then, it'd be strange if it were Forza or Hellblade II for me just because we don't even have a year for them and they'll be leapfrogging everything else. Think it'd be good for them if it happened, don't get me wrong, but it's a weird one where I don't feel like we have any idea of what they're like when it comes to Xbox Game Studios' plans in terms of rollout and release, because we haven't really seen it happen successfully for them yet. Yeah, I hate to be a downer, but I think they've naively gone into these acquisitions thinking that just letting these companies do what they do and sticking the end result on Game Pass makes for a great first party experience, and it just doesn't work. I think it's undervalued just how great a job PlayStation and - to a much greater degree in my eyes, just in terms of sheer volume of their output - Nintendo do in terms of curating a steady wave of high quality releases. They don't really mess around with early access, and it seems like there's a person or team - as there should be at Xbox; and if there is, it certainly doesn't feel that way at the moment! - meticulously planning every quarter for them (more so for Nintendo right now, feels like PlayStation are taking a breather). We very, very, very rarely get pre-rendered trailers from those companies these days, and on the rare occasions we do, they feel warranted due to the size of the announcement, and/or are from studios we trust to ship a game (for example, Insomniac with Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine, or Nintendo with how they handled the reveal of Smash Bros. Ultimate). Xbox, on the other hand, seem to keen to do this as soon as the ink dries on a game being signed off for production. Yeah, agreed, it seems pretty quiet at the moment, and with every delay that gets announced I do get more and more nervous about Ragnarök landing this year. I'm sure there's more in the works, but we don't really know what they are; from a first party perspective, the only things I think we can speculate on to potentially land this year are a potential title from Bluepoint (depending on what exactly is going on with them - are they only working on their new IP, or have they grown to have a team for the new IP and a remake team? Who knows) and something/s from Naughty Dog (Factions and/or The Last of Us remake, though I think the latter depends on how they're handling marketing for the show and I have no idea if these two end up being one package). I miss Japan Studio already

English version of the previously released Japanese overview trailer is up:

Pretends to act surprised

505 Games showcase next Tuesday at 14:00 BST:

Welp, big blow for Xbox's year (in terms of first party content), but smart to get out ahead of the Xbox/Bethesda showcase next month, and it's not totally unexpected (Bethesda's recent track record paired with firming a launch date over a year out never inspired confidence). Still, have to imagine it could still turn up next month seeing as we haven't seen any gameplay yet, and while it's a shame, a delay is pretty much always the right move This is for exactly the sort of thing I've been talking about when it comes to Xbox's pick-ups: it's all well and good buying up one studio after another, but we still haven't seen how they manage and curate their slate of games (sure, this game has been in the works since before the Bethesda buyout, but at the end of the day Xbox allowed them to come out and say 11/11/22 so far out), and how consistently they can get them out of the door. Maybe I'm forgetting something, but does that mean that the only first party Xbox game currently slated for 2022 is S.T.A.L K.E.R. 2? (EDIT: completely forgot this was delayed indefinitely due to the invasion of Ukraine, so yeah, they've got nothing slated currently) Guess it means I can put off picking up the Series X a bit longer

Well, this warms my heart. It's 100% true, and I'm glad that my childhood heroes on the silver screen are getting the love I always thought they deserved 15 days to go. I'm nervous, but so, so excited

Season 3 of Mob Psycho lands this October

Well now you've seen it, I don't need to hold back: totally agree, glad you loved it! Soundtrack is also just banger after banger, RADWIMPS rule gah I guess I'm watching Your Name again sometime soon now

That's my bad then! I had no luck finding what you quoted in any sort of official confirmation from anyone involved - the exact quote is only on three sites currently including N-Europe, it's not on the 505 Games website, the official page of the game hasn't been updated to include Switch, it's not mentioned in the Kickstarter, it's not even been announced on 505's or Eiyuden Chronicle's Twitter page, and heck even on the ResetEra page for the series it's not been given a mention yet - but having another look I did manage to find official confirmation of Hundred Heroes getting a Switch release from Rabbit and Bear's own site (translated): So yeah, forgive my confusion - I couldn't find anything official outside of a clearly quoted statement, because literally no-one is talking about it but us, not even 505 directly when I was looking around Still, I think it might be worth updating the thread title to be about Hundred Heroes and Rising, seeing as that game is what everyone's discussing here at the moment? I'd love to discuss Rising too once I get around to it

@Dcubed think you've got the two titles mixed up, so I'm not sure if the thread title needs updating: while Rising (the 2D platformer) is confirmed for the Switch and launched yesterday (and is the game being discussed), Hundred Heroes (the JRPG) is still being looked into for a Switch release. This is from Monday's Kickstarter Pre-Launch Update for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising: Not that I really doubt that it will eventually come to Switch one way or the other, but it's still not 100%; that statement you quoted is very confusingly phrased, as it does make it sound like they're talking about Hundred Heroes, but everything else is relating to Rising. I backed it on Kickstarter so thought I'd missed a pretty important update about Hundred Heroes coming to Switch when I spotted your thread! Anyways, I'm curious to check Rising out, but not really in a rush to get into it: sounds a bit too easy, swimming in 7's, etc., from what I've heard, but it does look great visually, and from what I've heard it sounds like it follows Suikoden closely with a huge focus on character bonds. I'm always a fan of whenever a smaller project is made leading up to the main event - and it's a nice little call back to when Suikogaiden did so for Suikoden III to bridge the gap between it and II - and even more so if anything carries over in terms of lore or items/materials. I haven't seen much said about the music so far, which is a shame, as Suikoden had some excellence music and Eiyuden Chronicle as a series has a whole lot to live up to in that regard. Hundred Heroes on the other hand, please inject into my veins yesterday, that's probably one of the games I'm most excited for after enjoying Suikoden and Suikoden II so much

Nah, I'm pretty sure that the official English transcript will be totally different to the fan translation and talk about how they're actually pulling the plug on game development and that Nintendo are shutting down

Just caught up... Ooblets - looks very charming, definitely saw some Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Bugsnax, and Wattam/Katamari inspiration while watching. Didn't really get a great idea of what exactly the gameplay loop was? But seems like a perfectly chill late summer/early autumn game. Batora: Lost Haven - top-down ARPGs aren't something I've played up until now...and this isn't going to be the game that changes that. Just didn't seem like it did a good job of saying whether it did or did not do anything different to every critically acclaimed top-down RPG out there? Elec Head - yeah, instantly sold. Looks charming, love the look, and seems very focused on getting the most out of its mechanics - and unlike the two games preceding it, I actually come away knowing what's different and what the game is going to play like. Short but very effective showing, will be looking for this when it comes out this summer! Soundfall - think it looks visually very generic in its colour palette, and I'm never really a big fan of games that look very round and smooth when it comes to character models...BUT, I'm sold on the idea, and it's a perfect game to shadow drop. Might have to give it a look at some point! Wildfrost - some of those card designs are giving me massive Adventure Time vibes, which is a positive (well, if that isn't a false promise). Card games aren't really something I gravitate towards, but the holiday window seems perfect for the look and vibe of the game. Will wait to see more. TABS: Totally Accurate Battle Simulator - looks like very silly fun, especially with the unit creator. Summer seems a smart window for it, curious to see how they try to format the gameplay loop. Gunbrella - oh hell yes, count me interested. Umbrella-wielding woodsman with a shotgun? How can I not be interested?! Going to be a long wait until this drops next year, but looks like good fun. We Are OFK - honestly just not at all vibing with how this game is always introduced, there's very little gained by their intros, and I'm sure more people would be in if they just went straight to the game instead. I don't know where I stand on this game, but maybe that is my stance? Silt - hand drawn black and white underwater puzzle adventure? You have my interest. And June? Not that long a wait at all! Mini Motorways - was actually thinking of picking up Mini Metro on my phone, but maybe I'll get this instead. Always a fan of a simple but well presented game, and a shadow drop is always a bonus these days in my eyes. Wayward Strand - love the simple hand drawn look, reminds me of Florence, and is also kind of giving me a Roald Dahl vibe? July 21st - I'm curious to see more. Cult of the Lamb - who isn't in? I'm all for some religious cults and the corrupting of innocents, obviously. Looks great fun, shame we haven't really got something a bit more to latch onto in terms of a date outside of it landing this year, but I'll wait somewhat patiently Another Crab's Treasure - Sebastian's origin story is way darker than I was expecting. I'm a little curious, at least. 2023 is a long way away, so hopefully they do a good job of showing this off in the future. Muh-Muh-Muh-MONTAGE! - not much really grabbing my attention here honestly, other than Idol Manager (I'll wait to see more but it kind of looks like a 2D and simplified crossover between Yakuza's cabaret club and idol stuff, which could be good fun if executed just right). Also thought OneShot: World Machine Edition looked very interesting, but we barely got to see it. EDIT: it got a full trailer, and I dig it. In my opinion, this should have been shown in full in the Showcase. Keeping an eye on that for when it lands this summer then. Same goes for OPUS, which is out now and looks much better here than it did in the handful of shots in the montage: /EDIT Overall, I thought it was a fine showing, with a few games I'm interested in grabbing, namely being Elec Head, Gunbrella and Silt. Not sure what was up with the stream or if they just consciously decided to terribly dub over some of the people who showed their faces to announce things, but oh well. Can't help but come away thinking that some games were shown off fairly poorly, and honestly, I would've liked to see more from some of the games included in the closing montage. My Verdict: 6.5/10 Also...where the hell was Omori? I believe it was the last Indie World Showcase in December (?) when we got told that it was coming in Spring 2022, so it being a no-show isn't much of a confidence booster. I believe the physical edition for Switch in the States is slated for release on June 17th (could be a placeholder, but seems awfully specific), so maybe it'll be a shadow drop during/be announced to release shortly after Nintendo's potential Not-E3 showing next month?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Like I said, they'd be lucky if those cash reserves kept them afloat for two years; I mention Ultimate Team's revenue in particular just to illustrate how stupidly well that single mode does. And yeah, I agree that they've been struggling, and I definitely get the vibe that they're gearing up to be sold. I think a lack of ambition outside of Respawn has really taken their wheels off the last few years (can't imagine it's great for onboarding talent either), they completely mismanage exclusive rights time and again (they had some success, but overall the Star Wars licensing deal was poor from an output perspective, and garnered terrible backlash at times; outside of FIFA and Madden, they simply make too many sports games which don't perform well enough), and some of their other IP's have been dwindling (Battlefield) while they've only just figured out that they should bring back popular IP in a big way (Mass Effect, Dead Space remake) yet weirdly have mostly been ignoring the potential of remasters. Their slate is often as predictable as it is straight up boring to read through. Yeah, we'll have to wait and see, but if FIFA (the entity, not the series) is one thing, they are unjustifiably arrogant, so I imagine they were shocked when EA decided not to pay a pretty extortionate amount for their name. It honestly wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they either straight up say "Look forward to EA Sports FC 24!" when the game starts dying down, or runs ads in in-game menus as they already do to tease things, etc. Or, like you suggest, something very shady like a relaunch of effectively the same title just without FIFA's name plastered everywhere. Now that I think about it, I can totally see the PS Store next year recommending EA Sports FC 24's product page from FIFA 23's, not even as an act of aggression, but just because that's how you should be curating your digital storefront (to promote the upcoming football game made by the same company on the page of the current football game).

It's a good question, and it boggles my mind a fair bit that they chose to go with the name of their virtual in-game catalogue rather than snatching the opportunity to rebrand. I think the shorthand to refer to EA's football game will remain as 'FIFA' for the time being, but EA Sports FC is about as half arsed and dreadful as the games themselves often are these days. Virtual Football, Pro Football, Ultimate Football like you suggested (think that's the strongest one to be honest), I mean pretty much anything else will do, hell why not get all high and mighty and name it 'EA Sports: The Beautiful Game'? I think it just needs to be a vessel of a title, as I don't think anything they come up with can really challenge the brevity you achieve with 'FIFA' (and it also inadvertently corrects Yanks on their use of the term 'soccer' ), but unfortunately I really don't think it'll be an issue for them though, even if it's a stupid name. A really stupid name. I mean, I think the only power FIFA really has is their name and FIFPro licensing (which won't impact EA too much anyways at this point, as a lot of their deals are directly with clubs, which has been increasingly frustrating to watch when it comes to the rights of Italian clubs going up in smoke; other than that, I think they've smartly jumped off at the right time while FIFA are looking for their next fix of corruption money). I looked up the figures just (thought it was worth clarifying what is up with respective financial might) and EA's revenues and cash reserves are much larger than FIFA's - which shouldn't be too surprising, as let's not forget that FIFA's main source of income is a quadrennial tournament, which is exactly why they won't shut up about trying to make it a biennial tournament, and us why their finances are looked at as a three year window (culminating in a World Cup year). They're also a non-profit, so while they have some reported $2.7 billion in cash reserves as of 2019, a lot of their money is (supposedly) pumped straight back into the sport. EA reportedly has cash reserves more than twice as large ($5.44 billion in cash reserves as of 2019) and the reported annual revenue for EA's Ultimate Team alone ($1.62 billion FY ending 31st March 2021) is just under a quarter of FIFA's entire projection for their triennial revenue covering the period of 2019 - 2022 (more than $6.44 billion projected for this period as of February). Long and short of it: FIFA has their name and some real money, EA no longer has the FIFA name but also has a lot more money immediately available* and some skin in the game industry already. *for clarity I think it is worth noting that EA's cash reserves would likely only keep them afloat a couple of years if they stopped posting profits. It's very unlikely, but might as well share everything I find. EA are weird. They do indeed. Despite being referred to as FUT in shorthand, EA are the registered owners of the trademark to 'Ultimate Team'. Yeah, agreed. As someone who plays Career Mode exclusively when they do play FIFA, it's long been an afterthought for EA (and that is a generous statement), with so many missed opportunities. They lack ambition. While competition should only be good, FIFA gonna FIFA and stuff their faces with greed and malice. They remind me of that one scene of Chihiro's parents in Spirited Away... Not that EA are much better, mind you. I think it says something that 2K Sports would probably be ideal from a gameplay and potentially single player experience, but let's not forget that they would also be ideal to fulfill FIFA's greedy ask of throwing a crap load of sponsors into their games too in some very disgustingly overt ways, as they already manage in NBA 2K. The biggest shame of all of this for me is that it's a World Cup year, and we're seemingly not going to have any official content for said World Cup. I know we only DLC back in FIFA 18, but still, that was something. I think EA's advantage here is that they already have a successful model which - despite leaving single player modes behind - does a very good job of keeping players informed of major and even some very minor updates (such as Maradona image rights issues the other day meaning he's been pulled from the game temporarily), and I'm sure they are going to plaster the name 'EA Sports FC' all over their unavoidable notifications when you hop onto the game in the coming months. They also seemingly have a year or two to cement EA Sports FC as the new brand name. I do also think we're (collectively as a more hardcore gaming community, not you specifically Jonnas) oftentimes guilty of underestimating the FIFA audience a little bit; most of them might only play a handful of games, but man, do they really keep on top of news for those games. It's anecdotal, but I think back to early June 2016 and the guys in my high school group (people most of us would politely label as being more casual gamers: FIFA, CoD, Assassin's Creed and GTA are 90%+ of their interactions with gaming) were blowing up a group chat as they were busy sharing leaked clips and going mental over the at-the-time unannounced 'The Journey', a single player mode added for the first time in FIFA 17. Now that I think about it, I wonder how - if it does at all - this will impact EA's current agreement with PlayStation for their marketing deal? As I would have to imagine that the FIFA series is directly referenced in such a deal, rather than "the football game from EA Sports."

Thought it deserved a thread, seems pretty huge, but has been rumoured for a while now. Who could've guessed that the one entity greedier than EA would be FIFA itself? I'm sure FIFA will continue to be used as the shorthand, but it's going to be very confusing in the future with an entire generation trained to call it FIFA and bringing their kids up on it. This is all a very long and roundabout way of me pointing out how absolutely awful a name EA Sports FC is, even if it is the name of the virtual catalogue that's been around in these games for ages

Man, the MH Pro Controllers always look so nice, and this one is no exception:

Here we go again... itsfinallyhappening?.gif

It looks...kind of rough in spots? And only mentions next-gen consoles at the end now.

As had been rumoured: Should be fun! I don't play nearly enough indie games, but a lot of the ones I do have interest in have been mentioned in previous Indie World Showcases, so hopefully we get an update here on those (looking at you, Omori).