Julius

Another update on The Game Awards, courtesy of Geoff Keighley, courtesy of...Epic Games? Please, please, please let Ueda's next game be here

Steam Deck launch delayed by two months to February 2022. Mine wasn't due for me to confirm my order until Q2 anyways, and I'm in no real rush for it either, so...oh well, these things happen!

Oh, I get you now, didn't know you were on about that promotion. Honestly, that's a fair point in those cases, though I doubt most outside of the gaming industry's web of news made use of it? But that could just be a totally misplaced hunch of mine. I know I'd totally be on it too if I had an Xbox right now, though I'd probably also be one of those ponying up for the Premium Bundle too. I honestly don't think I want to try to get my head around how much Xbox have had to haemorrhage to offer promotions like that. I think it will be really interesting to see when the price goes up (I'd assume when Starfield releases next year), and how they're going to keep the model sustainable. But I've probably derailed the thread enough, so to get back on topic: to those of you playing, which car/s are you mainly driving around? Is there a particular car that you're really looking forward to taking for a spin?

Embargo is up, and so previews / impressions are coming in hot ahead of this weekend's Network Test. The hype is tangible

Okay, so something not totally apparent in today's update from the video, but is on the official site...the Genome Slates are based on the cartridge design of the game that the Legendary Pokémon it is designed for is originally from. GB cartridge for Mewtwo. GB cartridge for the legendary birds. GBA cartridge for Rayquaza. I kind of love it. Honestly, maybe it's just me and because it seemed so rare to see someone with certain event Pokémon back in the day, but legendary Pokémon just don't really seem that...well...legendary anymore? They give away almost as many legendary Pokémon as Oprah does cars, it's a bit perplexing. I remember the excitement for the 20th anniversary, seeing all of the event Pokémon be released over the course of 2016, and now they're in each game like sardines in a can.

Full details of tomorrow's patch that @Ike mentioned: Yeah, it's way more than just the music and bug fixes expected from the leaks...and it doesn't even mention the music here, hopefully it feels under "Other adjustments and corrections were made to improve the gameplay experience." And all official tweets following this latest update have a follow-up set of tweets in an attempt to keep things transparent I guess? I wonder if they've had time to update the box with these details -- that online is needed to update the game to actually have full access to a lot of the post-game content? Either way...what a mess. I'd like to say detailing Ramanas Park (at least we know what Pal Park is in this game now!) this late would have to do with the leaks, but I seem to remember the Delta Episode being detailed very late into the marketing for ORAS too. Which honestly just makes them seem more lost. Not super keen on Mew and Jirachi requiring save data from previous games (it's like the Poké Ball Plus all over again), much less being available as seemingly early as Floaroma Town. Kind of wish they'd nip remakes in the bud now rather than try to remake Black & White at this rate.

Haha oh wow, it's been a long week! I wouldn't say it's what I want the most, but the fact that the only good dogfights we've really had in a film since Disney took the reins were way back in Rogue One, I'm definitely hungry for it. On the second point, I guess there's a first time for everything Iger wanting to go out on the obscene high of Endgame, Toy Story 4 and Episode IX in the same year really clouded his judgment I feel, and obviously The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and Solo all had plenty of reason to be delayed. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that is the case, but if anything I feel like the only reason Disney would give into Lucasfilm on something like this is how poorly Episode IX turned out, critically and financially (when compared to other Star Wars films and even the other films in its trilogy). Yeah, I read that and I think I maybe just jumped the gun and assumed it was Feige's film, because I feel that's been in the works a bit longer than has been let on in the past, and also because if there's someone out there who can run a ship so tightly that their film can take the place of Rogue Squadron in 2023, it's absolutely going to be Feige. Honestly I feel like they risk confusing more casual fans with The Old Republic and High Republic split. The former is getting a game probably releasing by the middle of the decade, and potentially some films in the works, but the latter so far is largely published works. If they want to make The High Republic their connected universe thing, which I feel is the plan, then yeah, they really need to get to work on it I feel: animated series, live-action film, the works.

PlayStation Direct has gone live in the UK!

I know what you mean, but that mindset is exactly why subscription services like Game Pass do so well I think it's a great amount of players, but I think the really interesting thing will be seeing what that figure is a few months from now, especially compared (probably internally, since Xbox aren't one to share numbers) to earlier games. Does players giving the game a go on Game Pass mean a crazy peak at launch offset by players being more open to dropping the game seeing as it was include in Game Pass? If anything, as it's not a number of copies sold, I think this number really highlights the growth of Game Pass over the last few years. It is worth noting, though, that there were more than 1 million players who got access to the game a few days early (some in this thread), either through paying for the Premium Edition of the game (RRP £84.99) or the Premium Add-ons Bundle if you had Game Pass (RRP £39.99). Which I'd say is probably even more nuts than the figures Phil Spencer gave, because I could easily see the earlier access model being utilised more for Xbox Game Studios games moving forwards given its success here.

It's been a fairly quiet year for news by Star Wars standards, but the last week or so has seen a flurry of activity. Firstly, as originally reported by THR, Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron has been delayed out of 2023 due to scheduling conflicts. However, some on the leaks side of things have actually stated that production isn't going well behind the scenes. Which, with Lucasfilm's track record since the move to Disney, has happened so frequently that maybe we should have been expecting it to happen again? Elsewhere, One Take News got the scoop on Chloé Zhao being the director for Kevin Feige's Star Wars film. According to some, the film will be set before any other film in the Star Wars universe - and with KOTOR Remake on the horizon, I don't think it's too crazy that we start to see other Old Republic era media on the way. Something I've been fawning over the last few days is the re-release of the cinematic trailers for The Old Republic in 4K, coinciding with the game's 10 year anniversary. So far, only Deceived and Return have been re-release, but rest assured the others are on the way. Can't believe it's been over a decade -- I remember going crazy over Deceived back towards the end of primary school! Which makes me feel a little nauseous...still think these are the gold standard for cinematic trailers. I'd love to see these on the big screen, or better yet one day have a full film like this. It would cost a fortune and take a lot of time to render, but just look how good they still look! To round it out, Andor is apparently going to last for three seasons; LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga might be releasing on 5th April 2022 (and weirdly no, apparently they didn't mean 4th May?) according to the GeForce leaks; and Matt Smith has finally talked loosely about his cut role from The Rise of Skywalker. With Disney+ Day tomorrow on Friday, there's a special going up on the service relating to Boba Fett, and I would expect some more official news and potentially a teaser / trailer or two. Been a pretty crazy news week, hope we get a first look at Kenobi tomorrow on Friday!

Those are some pretty insane numbers, but from the reviews and what people have said here, it seems deserved! This game (and, well, franchise) is by far the biggest reason I'll be picking up a Series X at some point...I'm just not sure when.

Meanwhile, TPC:

So, apparently the (estimated) release date for the game has been showing as 8th April 2022 for a week or so now on the eShop? Thought I'd double check this against the Nintendo Store, and sure enough... There's no way a date like that is a placeholder, right? But then there's the small print captioning the fuzzy promo art saying it's planned for release in Spring 2022, so who knows Pretty bizarre that this slip-up hasn't been picked up and corrected by anyone over at Nintendo yet, regardless of its accuracy. And if it is accurate, I've got to admit, that's a bit later than I was expecting (I thought maybe late Feb / March).

I remember last time this came up thinking that I remembered something coming out earlier about them being at the halfway point, but I thought maybe my perception was way off as a result of 2020 being what it was. David Gibson, who sits in on the Investors Q&A, actually shared that Nintendo's perspective was that the Switch was "barely in the middle of the Switch life cycle" way back in May 2020 after releasing their end-of-year report. So if we were to take that literally, then the Switch being 3 years old at that point would mean a 6 year life cycle ending in 2023. Now, obviously this was before the true extent of COVID was known, and plans are always changing. The middle of a 30cm ruler is 15cm, but the middle of a sandwich is anything between the two slices of bread, so to apply that here, the Switch could have been 50% way through its life in May 2020 or it could have been starting what Nintendo considers the middle of its life, the middle 33% - 50% I do hear you on them saying it'll have a longer life than most, but would a Pro extend that? I'd argue yes. But what about a Switch 2, or something so clearly a Switch successor that still carried the Switch name? I don't know, but if Nintendo considers it part of the Switch family, and there is no real difference in the "gimmick"/USP unlike the stereoscopic 3D from DS to 3DS, with the only bump being in processing capabilities, but the core concept of a hybrid console is clear front and centre, I guess that could still be argued to be extending the life of the Switch too. Nintendo has always been a fickle pickle as it is, as they are by far the most unpredictable company in the video game industry, and honestly probably only second off the top of my head next to Tesla, who have a nutjob like Musk playing yo-yo with his company's valuation and paying his taxes. Which is my very kind way of admitting that I think trying to predict what Nintendo does next requires an almost complete absence of logic, and yet a hell of a lot of it at the same time. The Switch Pro for example, I still think transitioned into what we got with the OLED. Pretty much everything lined up with the rumours we got before this year except the boost in performance capabilities, and the change was most likely brought about by the ongoing chip shortage. So what would Nintendo do with a potential Pro model now? I think it really depends on how the chip shortage situation develops, and their confidence in being first in line once it starts to subside. On the one hand, they could just leave the Pro in the dust, as the OLED has practically served the purpose of getting a "better" console out there in terms of screen size and clarity, and instead pool resources into getting a Switch successor ready to go. If that happens, maybe 2023 isn't too crazy a time for the Switch successor - the new console would sell out regardless, so it's not like the chip shortage will put a massive dent in their projections with the chip shortage potentially to subside in the following 12-18 months from launch (this is based on current reports on a changing situation, so could easily be different by the time we get there). I also think marketing a Pro and OLED model at the same time is something if a catastrophe waiting to happen, and I can already imagine the confusion from the average consumer. A 2023 launch alongside a potentially delayed-again Breath of the Wild sequel would be pretty great. On the other hand, Nintendo could just as well go the other way: if the Switch successor isn't going to be able to sell like crazy when compared to the Switch from the off (which you know they will want to be the case for their investors), then maybe a Pro model extending the life of the Switch wouldn't be such a bad thing after all. It would buy them time to make it past the chip shortage, buy them R&D time for the Switch's successor, and probably help cement the Switch's sales history as one of the greatest seen since the jump to HD development in the home console market. So I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Seems like invites to the Network Test this weekend have started to be sent out, just got mine and very excited to be giving it a go! This info has been going around before, but might as well throw it in here: Times Session 1 - November 12: 11:00 to 14:00 GMT Session 2 - November 13: 03:00 to 06:00 GMT Session 3 - November 13: 19:00 to 22:00 GMT Session 4 - November 14: 11:00 to 14:00 GMT Session 5 - November 15: 03:00 to 06:00 GMT I'm working on Friday, so will probably only be trying to check out sessions 3 and 4 I guess! Character Presets The five available character presets were revealed a few days ago. Think I'll be going with Bloody Wolf first, as someone who has sword-and-boarded their way through Demon's Souls and Dark Souls so far I was thinking about going for a Greatsword in whichever medieval fantasy From game I played next, so it seems a good fit! If I get a chance to try another it'll probably be the Enchanted Knight, it's really clear from the gameplay preview last week just how much they've put into making the spells really pop on screen.

From the game's page on the Japanese Nintendo Store: Guess it's time for me to make like Switzerland and go find that fence I was sitting on before. And then probably jump over it and not look back. I feel really sorry for any fans - especially any kids - who don't have dependable / easy / any access to the internet for such an update. As if there wasn't enough here to be absolutely, belligerently indifferent already, with this game setting the bar at the floor for what we should now expect from Pokémon remakes moving forwards. Game Freak clearly wanted to take a next step into 3D with Legends: Arceus, felt like they needed to make a remake for these games, and so outsourced them, but in turn completely misread the situation in giving us remakes which are quickly adding up to not even be the definitive way to play through Sinnoh. I know myself and many others wanted remakes, but if we knew it'd end up getting this treatment, I'd much rather they didn't bother. You might try to be super optimistic and say "hey, maybe they've done this so that those who get access to the game before it's meant to launch don't get access to Episode Platinum / post-game stuff / etc., so it doesn't leak!" To which I say: if that were the case, that's somehow even worse for those unable to update the game. I don't get how you end up that tight on time when you are pulling off the lowest effort and most "faithful" pair of remakes to date that a Pokémon game isn't being shipped in a complete form. It's not on ILCA, heck it might not even be on GF at this point (it probably isn't, it's probably TPCi), but it seriously feels like ILCA were only approached about this project last year. Maybe they were approached in 2019 and things being delayed due to COVID is what makes me feel that way, but if you're needing to ship a Pokémon game which needs a day 1 patch that isn't to do with a bug picked up very late in QA and is of a noteworthy size, potentially replacing temporary MIDI tracks on shipped copies? It will genuinely be the most embarrassing thing Pokémon has shipped since the franchise started. I don't think there's been a project anywhere near as objectively messed up - not talking about the quality of the game, but I genuinely mean from a technical and development perspective - for them as this appears to be right now.

The IMAX enhanced versions of select MCU films are coming to Disney+ this Friday as part of Disney+ Day. The list of films getting IMAX Enhanced editions added are: Also, for anyone who has been holding out on picking up Disney+, new subscribers can pick up their first month at £1.99 / $1.99 / €1.99 in an offer which will be running until 14th November, as part of the platform's two year anniversary celebrations.

PlayStation Direct has gone live in Germany, with the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg set to follow soon. Took them long enough

No, it's exactly that. With the number of copies that Pokémon games need available at launch globally to be in excess of demand, the logistical nightmare probably means they're shipping to retailers up to a full month before launch. Typically these copies which have been sold before release have been sold at smaller chains or local stores (typically stores not dedicated to gaming) rather than supermarket chains or larger dedicated gaming chains like GAME, GameStop, etc., where the smaller chains have very little reason to hold out on selling the game until launch (such as not having the technology to report stock in a timely / accurate manner automatically, or simply because they need the business / are doing a friend a favour). Rarely if ever are these smaller chains going to come under much scrutiny from TPCi and Nintendo because they aren't even on their radar as needing to be watched. Unsurprisingly I think it's got a lot, lot worse since the transition to 3D, as X and Y were the first mainline games to be available simultaneously worldwide and the language options have been expanding each gen. Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire and Sun & Moon both got datamined big time after their demos, and while the former was delayed in Europe (some still believe due to many of the X & Y leaks originating from this side of the pond, though I remember there being some in Canada too, so it may genuinely have just been due to shipping or localisation), the simultaneous worldwide release has been pretty consistent since. That means a whole lot more smaller stores where the street date can be broken. It is what it is, it's like how we get leaks during the trailer cutting process for some massive films, or even see very small chains have screenings before they are supposed to of the latest blockbuster. In terms of these games, though, nothing of note has leaked so far (unsurprisingly), and I've been following them a bit. There's nothing to spoil, the UI looks like a nice modernisation of the original, and that's pretty much all there has been to say in terms of additions and improvements that we haven't seen too much in the marketing. What seems to be unforgivable - if accurate - is that some of this early footage sounds like it has a MIDI soundtrack which doesn't really match up with what we've been hearing in the trailers, which makes you wonder if that will be patched in on day 1, which would mean that the game is shipping in an incomplete form.

Performance specs: I guess the trend of me only playing these games at 60 fps will be continuing

New teaser poster: Sets reminder for 1st January 2024

A bit surprised that this visually looks quite a bit compromised compared to what we've seen in the trailers and other promotional images? Is it just me? Some of those textures and the lighting just looks really flat, like the resolution has been reduced (you'd hope meaning a pretty solid frame rate). Probably not the best composition for promo images in general, though. Interested to see what the differences are exactly if Digital Foundry cover the release, because going off these images (and how little has been shown of the Switch version so far), unless you really want the portability the version releasing on dedicated home consoles and PC will likely be the definitive Definitive Edition. Which I guess shouldn't be very surprising?

I fully expect to see a sign at the end of Spear Pillar after you see credits roll which says The Distortion World Project Has Started!

Yep, for better or worse! And wow, yeah it's crazy because I don't think I've seen a PS5 other than my own in-person at this point, but it seems like stock might - slowly - be getting there!

Haha yeah, that's true! Actually pretty crazy thinking back that me and my friends all got to that point in the same week...just to rub it in my face that I hadn't seen a Burmy. But speaking of transferring Pokémon, I wonder what the plan is for Pal Park now? Seeing as I imagine the Safari Zone is going to end up like the one in ORAS? Maybe that'll be where they have the swarm Pokémon turn up instead to save you running around or something.