Julius

Watching this, and find it weird that Activision just expect the audience to know that MTX is cool kid talk for microtransaction. Just struck me as a bit odd. Crash 4 lookin' really good though, love the level diversity on show, and the dimensions idea I think is really cool.

Had no idea where to post this, so it goes here! I mean, it's retro-ish. Rare have just put out a 35th Anniversary Collection of music encompassing their history

Oh. Well this hurts. Game looks so cosy and I can't wait to play it, so I appreciate the heads-up drahkon. Saves me from the breakdown later over it not showing up

The quarterly report covering 1st April 2020 - 30th June 2020 is out. The big takeaways: - 5.68 million units sold this quarter between the Switch and Switch Lite. The Switch now has lifetime sales of 61.44 million units sold. - Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold 22.4 million units as of 30th June 2020. More copies sold now than there were GameCubes sold in its lifetime (some 21.74 million units). - Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition sold 1.32 million units in the space of a month. Which is awesome, and fully deserved! - Clubhouse Games sold 1.02 million units. Which is also pretty bonkers. - Pokémon Sword/Shield have sold 18.22 million units, making them the third highest selling pair of main series Pokémon games in over 20 years (since Gold/Silver, 23.10 million units, and behind Pokémon Red/Green/Blue, at 31.38 million units). Top 10 best selling Switch games as of Q1 for FY21 1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 26.74M 2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 22.40M 3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 19.99M 4. Breath of the Wild - 18.60M 5. Pokemon Sword/Shield - 18.22M 6. Super Mario Odyssey - 18.06M 7. Pokemon Let’s GO - 12.20M 8. Super Mario Party - 10.94M 9. Splatoon 2 - 10.71M 10. New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe - 7.44M On the back of all of this, Bloomberg reports that Nintendo is increasing production to 25 million units for this Financial Year.

I mean, realistically, I'm not sure what else would have been on the table for this year? At least from what we know of, maybe I'm missing something. Breath of the Wild 2 could well have been targeting the end of this year originally, but I think it's more realistic that it was being lined up for 2021. Metroid Prime 4 wasn't going to be ready this year, neither was Bayonetta 3. Maybe SMTIII HD was delayed out of this year? Of course we've got Bravely Default II on the publishing side of things still coming, and though I feel like it's not coming until next year now, I do feel like the worldwide release of Yo-kai Watch 4 could have been targeting the latter half of this year too. And then I kind of feel like it's potentially just other ports again? Zelda ports for the 35th Anniversary next year, Metroid Prime Trilogy, etc. Don't get me wrong, I want them, but like I said before, I totally get why some don't want to pay for every remaster of games they already have. Apart from instances like Xenoblade, where the game clearly hadn't had a fair chance before, these shouldn't be tentpole releases, but filler. They certainly shouldn't be making up the bulk of their first party offerings (of course this might continue to be the case due to COVID for a while, but I don't think it impacted this year's plans too drastically). It's weird to me thinking about how the Switch was supposed to be the coming together and streamlining of Nintendo's home and portable software development teams, and that Nintendo have quite frankly been their own biggest obstacle to having this be the case. Retro most likely getting a big project shelved, Metroid Prime 4 having to start from scratch because of not being in the right hands to begin with, Pikmin 4 going MIA, and so on. It's a shame, but I think this road bump in reforming and streamlining their workflow has been the best biggest detriment to the Switch's software thus far.

I'm not sure if that first part was responding to what I said about the Spidey exclusivity, but if it is, I'm not really sure it's a beneficial advantage for consumers. Of course, it makes perfect business sense, but in some cases I think it can do more harm than good. First party exclusives of course I'm all for, and third party exclusives in some cases too (PlayStation 4 being the place for Yakuza to grow throughout the course of generation exclusively, up until recently, comes to mind), but timed and DLC exclusivity often rubs me the wrong way if presented in the wrong light. A single player game, something like Final Fantasy VII Remake? Honestly makes sense to me as a timed exclusive on PS4, considering how JRPG players likely don't only have an Xbox One as their only home console, seeing as it unsurprisingly hasn't done a great job of supporting them. That's changing a bit with Game Pass, sure, but Square Enix aren't going to put a game like this out on Game Pass on Day 1, and the Final Fantasy brand, and in particular VII, has made itself almost synonymous with PlayStation since '97. It's a great business move, sure, but I'm not the biggest fan of that at all. I'll come back to Final Fantasy and some other things in a moment. On the other hand, DLC? I'm all for exclusive DLC based on marketing deals, I think it's fine if PlayStation owners get some DLC ahead of Xbox owners, but that's not what's happening with Avengers: they've locked in exclusivity to (free! This game has been designed with a free DLC rollout in mind, structured instead around microtransactions!) DLC for Marvel's biggest superhero, and it's not timed, it just straight up won't be coming to Xbox at any point. This is different to, say, CoD's 30 day or so exclusivity to some maps, items or mode - at least I feel it is - because it means that even though Spidey was always planned as part of this DLC, there has to be some level of compromise. For example, you can't exactly tease the next DLC for Spidey with the same messaging and have him mentioned in other pieces of DLC available on Xbox too, only for him to just not turn up (I mean, you can, but expect backlash). It also divides the player base, which is the last thing a GaaS game should aim to do. I'm on the fence about whether or not I'm buying the game (I'll be checking out the open beta next weekend with some friends), but it is something that rubs me the wrong way. Having insiders come out with confidence saying "oh, this is only the beginning when it comes to these deals on PS5" has me even more nervous. I'm sure RE8 will have a PSVR exclusive mode, which I think is fine, but then if something like Final Fantasy XVI is announced as a timed or full PS5 exclusive? I would totally understand the uproar, even if it makes business sense. At the same time, it's crazy to me that Yakuza 7 won't be on PS5 day 1, considering this is where the franchise has blossomed over the last few years, but will be on just about everything else, and that we'll be waiting for a newer version/upgrade for our PS4 version, which I'm sure will outsell it's Xbox counterparts. I imagine this all has to do with Xbox tripping over themselves by agreeing deals for Game Pass more than anything else, rather than going toe-to-toe with Sony in trying to secure AAA exclusives, which I think could be a big mistake. With regards to it affecting the industry: you're right, it already has, and will probably continue to do so. I'm just not the biggest fan of it. But on online games especially, and in a game offering free DLC specifically, having the biggest Marvel character locked behind one console just seems like such a poor way to handle Spidey's exclusivity. I'm sure it's probably related to Sony's sit-down with Marvel last year over letting them use Spider-Man, but it doesn't make it any less strange for me

Played a few more hours tonight, got up to lvl 15, and finally got that sweet victory. Came super close to another an episode or two later, lost out by a couple of inches. Definitely agree with what @drahkon mentioned in the other thread, I think the races are easily the best courses. They all require some weird sense of focused competitiveness and uneasy alliances with the other players, and have the greatest variety of course layouts. Tail grabbing and anything to do with rolling a ball around isn't amazingly fun like some of the other stuff, some of the weaker stuff here I think alongside the memorisation game. It's funny because even though there are nearly identical courses for egg and ball hoarding, egg hoarding is much more fun I find, having a smaller and thus more chaotic course helps you feel much more involved too. No idea how long I'll keep at it, but it's charm, idea of fun and how quickly you can find other games to jump into it at the moment (I have lost track of the number of times where I've found myself "sure, I'll play one more") have me hooked until at least lvl 20 I feel. I think this game's biggest potential downfall in the long run, fun as it may be, is that it's overwhelmingly luck which gets you victories, and not player skill. It's a fresh take on battle royale and I'm loving it (and clearly others are too, those numbers drahkon posted are crazy!), but I'm not sure how effectively that might sustain its player base. Still, it's not going anywhere anytime soon, and I'm curious to see what they eventually bring in the second season, whether or not I'm still playing in two month's time.

Never played a Pikmin game before, seems cosy and don't think there'll be anything dropping around that time which might compete for my time (I'm not big on Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, et al, which are the games that we normally find filling up late October and early November). Big fan of the art style, only really familiar with the series from Smash and having read/heard about it a bunch from other people's love for the series. Yeah, it unfortunately has me thinking the same thing. Don't get me wrong, Animal Crossing, Xenoblade, this and potentially that 3D Mario collection will have made this a great year for me playing my Switch, but it has been a year a bit barren of reasons to be excited, at least for me. I mean, three of the four games I've mentioned there are some form of remaster/port, so I can totally empathise with those like @Nicktendo not wanting to fork out again. I doubt we'll ever know just how much COVID affected their plans, and maybe they make up for it next year having held some things back, but some of their decisions, as well as those of third parties - someone want to try explaining to me why Square Enix STILL hasn't brought over the first six Final Fantasy games after the success of Octopath, and after bringing every main game after VI to the Switch, except MMO's and XIII?! (Also yes we're counting XV Pocket Edition ) Can't believe SE of all companies is leaving money on the table like this - continue to baffle me a bit. Because I think it is a pretty sizeable gap from now until the end of October.

Servers went down for a bit there, so got myself busy and jumped back on when they went back at 22:30. After a few more hours, got up to lvl 10. Having a blast so far, consistently getting to the later rounds but yet to win. Only been getting the same final round, not sure if there are more or just the one? Good mix of fun and competitiveness, but not getting many occasions as you would expect where other players are acting out by trying to spoil the fun - because the game is smartly designed in a way where it's honestly too frantic for it to happen. Good variety of courses and customisation, definitely feeling the pull of the seasonal stuff for the first time. Even when you lose, be it in the first or final round, it feels like relatively low stakes (say, compared to getting the end of other Battle Royale games, where things get real tense) and just a fun time, and whenever I've lost a game and backed out to the menu, I'm back in another game within 30 seconds. Great stuff. Ended up dropping £7.99 on the Collector's Pack because even though I'm sure this PS+ partnership has some kind of financial backing behind it, always feels good supporting an indie developer, especially a team with fun and unique ideas like this. Plus, that astronaut suit is awesome. No idea if I'll stick with the game for the next week, or month, or until I've reached this season's max lvl...but I know I'll be diving back in to it tomorrow, at least definitely worth picking out and trying out for anyone remotely interested, and even if you're not, it's free with PS+, so do it!

Jumped on after work, and unsurprisingly servers are getting mashed right now. Apparently I got in just before they've temporarily suspended account creation At the moment doesn't want to give me a game. Started loading me into one before it disconnected me from the server Going to give it a few more minutes and then just concede for now and try again later, not like I haven't got plenty of other games and things to do! EDIT: got a game shortly after. Love the pure chaos and fun came top 10 before someone dragged me into the slime with them on Slime Climb!

Continued rumours about an upcoming PS5 announcement from Bloomberg. I would just like to know the price and maybe have a bit of a teardown by the time that Gamescom rolls around at the end of the month. Anything else would be a bonus, especially anything relating to upcoming games. Hope they plan to turn up at Tokyo Game Show next month too. And the Kaz account just keeps on giving

Got it downloading ready for a spin after work, should be a great time!

Goron mentioned it in the other thread, but thought it was worth sharing some more details and a bit more of the breakdown here. This is taken from this excellent OP over on ResetEra. Biggest takeaways for me: - best quarter in PlayStation history - best Q1 ever for PlayStation (or any platform holder) - for the past three Q1's, PlayStation has broken - the PS4 is still tracking ahead of the PS2's lifetime sales - 44 million PS+ subscribers (up from 36.2 million this time last year) - PlayStation makes up a whopping 48% of Sony's profits They are incredibly well positioned going into the next generation, no surprise that their best quarter was bookended by Final Fantasy VII Remake and The Last of Us Part II. Barring any disasters relating to price or any other potential barriers, I honestly don't know what Xbox could do to change things. Even with Game Pass, they would have to sell that to a lot more consumers to surpass Sony in any major way. If they can bring PlayStation Now up to snuff, I think they can effectively freeze them out of doing any real damage to them next gen.

As a mainly PlayStation 4 player: this sucks. By all means try to win us over with exclusive first and third party games (I hate timed exclusivity but unfortunately it feels like that's becoming a more popular thing with big third party games), but a character like Spider-Man being tied to one system in an Avengers game? I'm annoyed for players on other performs. Sony don't even own the video game rights so you know they paid a pretty penny for this and the rest of the marketing deal, and from a business perspective it's a great move to set the Miles game up for the PS5. But it just rubs me the wrong way completely. EDIT: and to add to my woes... That's...interesting, but in a potentially pretty negative way for the industry as a whole. Still, I don't think Xbox's focus on Game Pass helps with such negotiations for these deals where they want massive AAA titles on Game Pass early on, potentially killing sales. It's no wonder that massive companies like Square Enix have so many deals going on with PlayStation for (timed) exclusivity.

I honestly haven't paid too much attention to it, so wouldn't be able to say. Though at best I imagine they're just teasing a new engine (which would be nice, considering how poorly it runs on Frostbite) or some diabolical mode called FIFA Ultimate VAR, where you assist in the obviously completely empty VAR room during matches while you wait for your Ultimate Play meter to restore. Or, you can pay to restore it immediately As much as I love to fault the games, EA's penny pinching and marketing for FIFA is excellent. Even if I do feel like this year's box art looks like it's bad enough that I'd be offending kids if I said it looked like it was designed by them:

Waiting for the inevitable "PS5. 5, for five 5's...the PS5 will be on sale for $/£/€555.55" to come out of all of this honestly don't expect that to be too far off the mark now that I type that. I've done my saving so far based on £499, but left myself quite a bit of wiggle room. Much more interested in seeing the price for the digital edition, even though I don't plan on getting one, because that seems best positioned to try to match any potential lowball Microsoft puts out there, such as with Lockhart, if that still comes to fruition. £449, £429, and £399 all seem kind of realistic for that version in my eyes. Yeah, I'm just getting to the point where I want to have my pre-order in, if nothing else, and I know a lot of others are in that same position too. Might be a bit impatient of me, but I'm really excited! Of course I'll still tune in though, curious to see which indie games will be showing back up. Please be Kena.

It is done! Had a bit of a panic when the shipping screen wouldn't load there, and also when I noticed I accidentally removed the card I wanted to use from my Google Pay account, but got there in the end shipping ended up being $35 for those curious. Now for the long wait and to pick up a couple of the GB and GBA games I've had my eye on when they're at a good price

Just a reminder that pre-orders for the Pocket are going up in just under half an hour, @will' and @Ike Think I'm going to try for a black version, dock, case, and screen protector. If nothing else the dock is just there for the bigger screen option (I say this now, watch me never use it portably! )

Completely missed this, sorry for the double post 40+ minutes puts it on the chunkier end of State of Play presentations, I can't recall any of them being this long before. Hopefully it's 20 minutes of Kena No updates from PlayStation Studios isn't too surprising, pretty much confirms that Ghost was the last first party exclusive coming to the system, but no surprise there.

That's a good shout, feels like the appropriate platform for showing off their current gen marketing deals. Which I'm guessing means FIFA and Avengers showing up here too, even if it's just them reiterating the launch date and saying there's exclusive content on PlayStation.

Oh yeah, I totally agree that they know what they're doing, though I just think it's an odd thing to do at this time. Now that TLOU2 and Ghost are out, I think most were fully expecting them to turn their full gaze towards the PS5. Which I don't think is a totally unfair expectation three and a half months from launch. Agreed, but an even bigger pounce I think would be advertising going around saying "PS5 - Pre-order now". They no doubt know what they're doing and this thing will break records, I'm sure, especially after the reported increase in units being manufactured for launch, but I feel like it would have been a great way to show that the PS5 is now their main focus. It just reminds me a little too much of Xbox's handling of their Showcase where they looked like they were caught in the middle of two generations. Don't think that's the case here, but I do hope this is the last PS4 SoP and that they share some plans for the PS5 not too long after.

Made a dedicated thread for it, but wanted to put it down here too, because I do think it's an important part of the conversation surrounding the PS5: this week's State of Play won't feature any news on the PS5. Now really isn't the time to start mixing their messaging, I feel they should be all-in on PS5 now, especially seeing as we have the (presumably) last of the first party exclusives out of the way now that TLOU2 and Ghost have released. Would hope that they at least have the foresight to confirm a date/time for the next State of Play if there is indeed another one scheduled for August. Weird too, because the Champions League kicks off again this Friday, and with PS5 advertising being on show, you'd think now would be the time to pounce. But alas, guess we might end up waiting until Gamescom for more game news, but I would hope that we'd have been able to pre-order it by then.

No PS5 news. What a strange thing to do seeing as they should be ramping up to PS5! Sony, the master procrastinators At the very least, hoping for a better look at Kena and some of the other indie games that were on show during the PS5 event in June.

Update on compatible peripherals and accessories. Biggest takeaway is that the DualShock 4 will not be compatible with PS5 titles, but will be compatible with supported backwards compatible PS4 titles.

New trailer for Demon Slayer: Mugen Train looks so good. New song from LiSA too And new key visual: Absolutely love that they're just continuing the story with this film instead of the usual canon-but-not-actually-canon hype fests we usually see. Can't wait to see what ufotable can do with a movie budget!