Julius

Xbox have announced their presence at this year's TGS, with a showing set for 19:00 JST (that's 11:00 BST) on September 26th. Good lord is TGS stacked this year. Genuinely feels like it's shaping up to be the busiest week of gaming news in a good while – not that I'm complaining!

THE DAY HAS FINALLY ARRIVED - HAPPY ASTRO BOT LAUNCH DAY EVERYBODY! I finally got around to tracking down the three Bots I hadn't yet sought out. I managed to find Lady Maria without a guide back when it dropped, but not the clock and obviously had no idea about the date, but the rest of them went above and beyond to stay hidden, huh? All wrapped up, just in the nick of time too! I also stuck around for the midnight launch celebrations in the PlayStation Labo area, and honestly? Super exciting and just plain old fun, kind of makes me wish there was a special hub for a bunch of people to gather in dressed as Bots for every PlayStation first-party launch in all honesty! For anyone that missed it or hasn't yet seen those last minute festivities: This came around so quickly – and I'm not complaining can't wait to get stuck in later today!

Over 4 million copies sold: Good stuff.

There's a new Snow Patrol album coming out and the few songs released so far have been great, think my favourite so far is All Love The Warning and loved this collab, need to check out some more stuff from Band-Maid. Can't help but feel sorry for Dany's vocal cords at the start though

A new sneak peek of the game released earlier today: Not sure it was really needed this late on, but yeah, surprise! It still looks great

We already knew Level-5 were turning up at TGS, but it also seems like they might be bringing a new title along with them...or two? Hoo boy, wonder what those could be (and why they feel the need to announce more)... Time for a port of Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn perhaps?

San Marino have registered their first ever competitive win, over Lichtenstein in the Nations League! The end of times are truly upon us

Sure, just close your eyes and use your...

Do you think if we squint hard enough we'll be able to see Naughty Dog's next game?

Just seen about this, love it. Actually insane. I'm surprised it took someone that long to spot it in hindsight The Astro Bots reviews were fabricated just to throw us off the scent!

idk seemed relevant

Seems to go well beyond the remit of simply being aligned with the PS5, so seemed appropriate to have a dedicated thread to keep a track of their 30th anniversary plans in the lead-up to December and beyond. This is just an early glimpse, and they've made it clear that more is on the way. So...retro DualSense/plate designs unveiled at TGS later this month?

Digital Foundry have dropped their tech review: Don't think it was ever going to be the most demanding game and so I'm not surprised that it would be "virtually flawless", but I'm curious to see if there are any hitches at all and hear what they might be down to.

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi will be speaking at TGS on Thursday 26th September. Love it. TGS this year is stacked and is shaping up to be the best since COVID, easily, but also seems to have much more in store than anything we've seen from TGS a long while before that, too. Am I getting hyped for TGS?

Thanks – sounds like a perfect fit for work breaks, think I'll look to pick it up and chip away at it then Productivity be damned indeed

Balatro Mobile releases on 26th September, launching on the Google Play Store, the App store and Apple Arcade. Love that the tag on their Twitter account for this is "Productivity be damned" @drahkon say I don't do every single thing in this game but wanted to "complete" it and get a good grasp on what it has to offer, how long of a commitment do you think I'd be in for? Your love for the game has worn me down somewhat that I'm finally considering giving it a shot, just trying to figure out when I can fit it in before the end of the year

Per this interview from Bloomberg, the game has now sold 18 million copies and an expansion is in the works. Absolutely insane.

At this point I'm convinced that @Dcubed just doesn't like games that are doing and are being received well which is fine but...meh. It is very cynical and it's not the first time, I don't think even Nintendo makes him happy anymore PS5 sells great and is still aligned with PS4 but is slightly behind? Bomb. Switch 2? Double-barrelled bomb that's going to roll off a cliff at launch. Any game wins GOTY at TGAs? It was a lock and total GOTY bait. Because, ya know, Baldur's Gate III was such an obvious lock-in last year (was up against literal Game of the Decade from the 2010s contender's sequel in Tears of the Kingdom) and pandering to that GOTY crowd in the same way that it and Elden Ring and It Takes Two were all third-person over-the-shoulder linear story-heavy GOTY bait tripe we apparently see all the time winning these awards. Anyways, my hopes and expectations were aimed at 90+ ratings based purely on the quality of Playroom back at the launch of the PS5, and though I haven't played Rescue Mission myself, seeing @Hero-of-Time and others gushing about it absolutely gave me every bit of confidence that Asobi would deliver here. I just think it seems like it's a great game, which will come as a shock to literally no-one who has played an Asobi game, and I don't think any reviewer worth their salt is seriously seeing the lean into nostalgia as something heavily impacting their scores. Should it be considered? It's part of the game, so absolutely – but it's how it's handled, not the fact that it's there, which seems to be getting praise. That it is doing so at a time where PlayStation has maybe lost their way, and their most recent GAAS attempt in Concord has unfortunately gone the worst possible way it could have? Makes for a really interesting talking point. What was that article I was reading earlier...oh, here it is: Astro Bot Isn't A Celebration, It's A Graveyard. But it in no way damns the game, nor do I think it is fair to have it undermine the discussion of the game's quality. I agree with H-o-T that we should be happy and grateful that someone besides Nintendo has finally pulled the trigger in making a quality modern 3D platformer. As an aside, and to take it back to the topic at hand, my friend played Playroom for a little bit when the PS5 launched waiting for Miles Morales to install – enjoyed it but never went back. I've been turning on the heat with my excitement for Astro Bot the last few weeks and after seeing the scores he says he'll pick it up – this coming after I let him borrow my copy of Shadow of the Colossus (the remake) to play through it for the first time these last few weeks, which has spawned some great conversations (especially as he typically leans to the more Western, narrative-heavy games like those from Naughty Dog). Hell, I seem to have finally worn him down into considering playing through Bloodborne next year, too. Does this mean I win?

Reviews have dropped... Did someone say GOTY? Currently at a 94 on Metacritic and a 94 on OpenCritic – meaning it is currently ranking as the second highest rated gaming experience of the year, behind only Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, and so it the best rated standalone title of 2024 as things stand . Oh boys we eating gooooooood this weekend

Sort your gun laws out already America, for crying out loud.

Less than a day to go – where has the time gone, huh? My copy from ShopTo shipped this morning so should be on track to arrive tomorrow Glad I didn't start anything up and took a short break from games over the last few days to ready my hunger for this one – and boy am I ready for it! This evening I'll hop into Astro's Playroom for the last few of the Special Bots and probably make sure I'm on when the celebration goes down, because I'm really curious to see what Asobi have cooked up for that. Then, if/when it arrives tomorrow, first order of business will be digitally upgrading to the Deluxe Edition for some more avatars I've got a light day at work tomorrow and Monday off with no plans for the weekend outside of playing this game, so should get some good time in with it! Can't wait – not long to go now at all!

Hell, I'd argue if not for potential production line and assembly leaks, they could announce the Switch 2 in January and launch in March. Hell, you want an extra month, you could even turn up in December at The Game Awards if you wanted to follow in the footsteps of *checks notes* the Xbox Series X. But seriously, I'm not kidding, and I've said this before – what exactly is there to advertise and message differently this time around? The concept is bulletproof, it's Nintendo so there could be something else to message which we haven't seen or heard of up to this point, but ultimately they've knuckled down as a business so hard over the course of this generation that while, yes, they still do very Nintendo-like weird ass things, they're typically run like a much more well thought out business than they used to be. And yes, I'm saying that current Nintendo probably wouldn't come up with the Switch in the first place, but with it already existing? They'll juice it up and iterate, anything and anyone which gets in the way of messaging that this is simply a more powerful Switch capable of playing more demanding games needs to be thrown into a cannon and fired far, far away from Nintendo HQ. Show us the games, show us the juice and the sauce, there shouldn't be much else to show. Oh, and don't mess up the name this time around. Struggle out of the gate by your definition, or by Nintendo's and the rest of the industry's? I jest, but so long as Nintendo don't take a double barreled shotgun to their own feet and face, this thing is a pretty nailed on success which will almost guaranteed eclipse the Switch's launch, which I don't really think is a big ask – it will sell out just like the Switch did, and there will simply be more Switch 2 units manufactured for the launch of this thing if only to say that it did better than the Switch at launch. Standard stuff, PlayStation and Xbox would've done the same with the PS5 and Series X|S, respectively, if not got COVID and the parts shortage when they both launched at the end of 2020. I really disagree on them letting the iron go cold to chase the PS2 sales record and am surprised you'd suggest that's what they're doing – there is very little about Nintendo today or for as long as I can remember which would suggest that they have any interest in breaking a record like that. PlayStation or Xbox? 1000% they'd chase it, and they'd probably never shut up about it either. Nintendo flexes their ego in a lot of ways - like Switch Online basically coasting by on legacy titles despite offering a subpar (to put it lightly) online experience in a good number of games - but this just doesn't seem like their sort of fight to me. I think the closest we'd see to them chasing the record would be a Switch price cut, but that's been long overdue by virtually every metric for the last 3+ years anyways, yet they've kept getting away with not doing that very thing. I seriously think that the wait now is down to them curating and perfecting their launch year plans to ensure that everything is in place for this thing to hit the ground running, both with first-party games and third-party titles. I think first-party games will still be treated as the tentpole releases that they rightly are for Nintendo, but after the explosive success of the Switch how many third-party games from the last gen are lining up at the door to be there in that first year, and who at Nintendo's third-party relations is now needing to help manage and curate things so that Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate III aren't too close to each other or a first-party game, or a port of GTA V or Red Dead Redemption II? This time around it's just not going to be a case of Wii U ports and Indies propping up those first-party releases, but third parties are going to be doing some serious heavy lifting I feel. My goodness - Capcom can port the REmakes from last gen and potentially Monster Hunter World, you've got Bandai Namco sitting on Elden Ring but also the entire Dark Souls trilogy (as only the first game came to Switch), you've got them being friendly with Xbox still and so games like Fallout and the like aren't off the table, Square Enix no doubt want to do something with the Final Fantasy titles not already on the Switch, and it just goes on and on. Honestly, the more I type this out, the more I'm a little concerned about how indies are going to fare the first year or two when the Switch 2's catalogue could be getting swamped with the best third-party offerings of last gen. I agree with @Hero-of-Time, and think both of his points connect nicely: I am so sick and tired of Switch Pro-turned-2 rumours over the last 4 or 5 years that I just want to see a couple of games and I'm in, which I think is the case for many of the more hardcore who keep tabs on the industry like we do here, but I also think that the gap in tech that the lack of a Switch Pro allowed for is going to see this huge jump in performance and presentation with Nintendo's own first-party titles and also an incredible expansion in the games offered going from the Switch to Switch 2, and when combined I think these two factors alone make this a far easier sell than the PS5 or Series X|S were at their respective launches due to the mid-gen refreshes we saw with the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Again, this is all trusting that Nintendo don't shoot themselves in the feet and the face and call the damn thing the Swiitch or Switch U. And goodness knows they've had a habit of doing that in the past, but surely not this time... ...right?

Some of the video previews: Sounding really positive on the game. Another choice quote from the Eurogamer preview: Incredibly high praise. Weird to consider Zelda in any form a dark horse, but in a year filled with some great games, could Echoes of the Wisdom be a dark horse come GOTY discussions by year end? Guess we only need to wait a few more weeks to find out!

That spoony bard

This looks predictably cursed.