Julius

Yeah, wasn’t that revealed during the Direct itself? I think it’s an appalling move for them, and I hope this sort of practice doesn’t somehow weed its way into the traditional core series games.

Haven’t seen anyone post the box art yet, so... ...very much worthy of the Ultimate name!

That’s absolutely disgusting, and the blame can’t at all be put on Lopetegui for this. Even with @killthenet‘s great examples aside, Real are the ones who decided to share it with their players, not Lopetegui, and the Real players are the ones who shared it with other members of the team, which is what resulted in the premature announcement yesterday. By all means, this was supposed to be kept under wraps until Spain’s World Cup was over. I’m reading that Rubiales made the decision simply because he didn’t want players being given less of an opportunity because they are/aren’t Madrid players, but that’s a really odd one, considering that the squad submission date was a few weeks ago; there’s not much that can be changed now about who’s already there, so it’s just odd. Del Bosque could return, but I’m not sure how many would take to it after their two previous tournaments, and I feel like his return could fly in the face of the fundamental changes that have been made to the national team since then. Luis Enrique has been out of action as a manager since the end of last season, but surely he’d also be a good shout? I’m very concerned if they’re planning to go to the World Cup with a sporting director or untested assistant manager at the helm. Based on their time under Lopetegui, and on paper, Spain need a strong and experienced leader to try to steer them back to the top of international football. Anything less just won’t do.

Almost certainly; they’ve been saying this was a possibility for quite a while now, and this seems to be more of the same vagueness. Not that surprising for a developer that puts the quality of its games above all else. I can’t wait that long! but seriously, I’m not shocked at all (maybe more shocked that the rumour that it would be playable behind closed doors turned out to be true?), and I think it’ll be out by the end of next year, probably sooner. You don’t go dark for as long as they did on the game only to come back with a game which is 2+ years off. Plus, they’ve had hundreds of people working on the game for the last year or so. And they never stop talking about their want to do what Bethesda did with its short turnaround from announcement to release for Fallout 4. I think next year’s E3 will be the platform that they choose to really push the game hard and dive relatively deep into the early sections of the game. Wouldn’t be surprised at all if we saw another trailer at TGA in December.

You’re absolutely right, there is a rather significant gap there. I expected much more than we got just because I knew that it was barebones from mid-July to mid-November, and that Direct didn’t do much to change that. I don’t see them putting that right with a Direct towards the end of the summer, seeing as those games would have also presumably been welcome at E3...but then again, we have games like Yoshi that have gone completely MIA, despite being shown off during Treehouse last year, iirc. The pessimist in me says that they’ve messed up, but I don’t really listen to that guy when it comes to video games. The optimist in me says that they’ve got something tied to the deep dive Direct/launch of their Online Service which they’ve kept quiet up until this point. Why else do we have that gap, especially between Online’s September launch and the next major first-party game? It makes me wonder...could their retro gaming catalogue for Online be substantially larger than they’ve let on to date? Or will we see an overhaul of the eShop, with a slew of retro/older games coming to the console in this window? Not to lead anyone on or get anyone’s expectations too high up, but surely there has to be a legitimate reason for that gap, which has currently gone unsaid?

Apparently the Madrid players in the Spain camp were informed of the news, and, rather unluckily, some non-Madrid players in the squad ended up hearing about it, which forced Real’s hand in officially announcing his appointment. You're right though, it really is a weird one!

The more I watch the trailer, the more I can’t wait. Picked up Awakening the other day, which will be my first FE game, and I plan to get into it as soon as my exams are done. Really like the video description that they put out alongside it. Were troop formations in recent/previous games?

Not surprised at all by all the good things Reiner has to say about this. This was always going to be much further along than they were willing to share with the general public. I maintain my stance that a 2019 release is on the cards; there’s no way that they’ve come out of the blue in the last six months only to have a two year wait remaining. It would just seem to go against the customer relations they currently have. Also, @Fierce_LiNk, @Happenstance and others interested in the lore of the tabletop RPG (much of which will find its way into this game, I’m sure), I posted a link to this (links are being funny atm for me: https://www.pcgamesn.com/cyberpunk-2077/cyberpunk-2077-factions-classes-characters-story-setting-lore) excellent piece on the previous page, which goes into detail on the setting/story, megacorporations, characters and NPCs, and classes and roles in 2013 and 2020. Well worth a read

Not to be too much of a sore loser, but I think I might be owed a point? Not that I made a few other guesses too many... I’m probably happier with the roster that we’ve got than the roster that I predicted anyways!

Current Spain boss Julen Lopetegui will take over at Real Madrid once Spain’s World Cup ends. Very odd choice, and very much out of the blue.

Looks amazing, but I’m very disappointed that it’s come out after 18 months of being left in the dark to be revealed as being delayed into 2019. But alas. This autumn is packed as it is

Out of the three of their four deep dive games currently without a release date, yet alone a release window, I think this is probably the safest bet to come first. Doesn’t really answer your question, I know but I hope so. I don’t know how long I can wait for a game like this without losing my mind it looks beautiful, that much is for sure!

So, we got a new E3 character trailer which wasn’t shown off at Nintendo’s or S-E’s conference (as far as I’m aware?)... The game sounds better every single time that we hear some more music.

I agree, it looks great, especially the environments. But I also really appreciate the faithfulness to Sugimori’s art style within the return of Pokémon Trainer in Smash, and I’d love to see a game stick to that art style in the way that Sakurai and co. have. What say you, @Glen-i?

Love the look of this, and the music

Oh, yeah. And Daisy. I didn’t forget about her. I swear.

Smash + Pokémon launching within three weeks of one another means that I beg to differ. They’re both systems, meaning that they’ll be well on course for the 20+ million units sold as they currently have projected for this FY, and next year will probably be a similar tale, with Gen VIII of Pokémon on the way, and the potential for big hitters like Animal Crossing, Super Mario Bros., a new Mario Kart, etc., to be announced/released in the next FY. I definitely agree with those of the opinion that this was a relatively poor Direct, even in the event that more games are revealed during Treehouse: people have already left the stream, and thus Nintendo has lost some of its audience. To then go and announce that Yoshi (which we didn’t see, oddly), for example, is coming in a few months without showing it in the Direct seems very optimistic to me.

So, December 7th 2018 it is! Love the name, and the key art is gorgeous. In case you missed the Direct, the game has been confirmed to have every single playable character who has been featured in the previous entries, in addition to two new characters: Inkling and Ridley. A slew of changes across the board, too, ranging from the meta and controls to some minor and returning character redesigns. Also: SNAAAAAAAAAKE!

Does this mean that they're cutting the Smash roster to half the size of 4's? Or that the Direct will be half the length of last year's Spotlight?

Before the show, I would have probably disagreed. Now I'm not too sure. The romanticist in me would really like the PS5 out for PS's 25th, but, on the other hand, I do think we could still be a couple of years off. One of their three remaining AAA titles that were shown last night releasing every six months could still stretch the lifespan of the console out well into 2020, all being told. Then again, Xbox are now positioning themselves to be a very serious threat come the start of the next "generation", and announcing Project Scarlet (and hinting at the way in which it might change console gaming forever, in a more permanent and sustainable portable/home version of what the Switch has done) a bit over six months after the release of the One X has to be intimidating for PlayStation. They outpaced Xbox towards the end of the last generation, and blew them out of the water up to this point, but everything that Xbox has done recently - five new studios, backwards compatibility, pushing the boundaries of current console tech with the One X and shifting their focus this E3 to finally making a bigger push in the Eastern markets, with an emphasis on Japan, by paying a lot of money to show all of those games on their stage - surely must be making those Sony folks nervous. Maybe not right now, but certainly looking ahead. Xbox have been busy - far too busy - future-proofing and pondering the future of the industry, but now that they've finally figured out their next step, I think it's possible that we see their roles slowly flip. Heck, if we're going to take the lack of new first-party titles last night as proof that PlayStation are prepping for next gen (I'm not too sure I agree with that; I just think they had a number of excellent first-party titles release within too short a window), then their roles are already flipping. I think it goes without saying that next 12 months are going to be an especially interesting time for the industry.

Oh yeah, I remember that tweet now. Could it also be a double-blind, though? I don't think anyone really expects Bayonetta 3 or Prime 4 to release next year in 2019, given how little we've seen to this point of them, so if they are coming in 2020, then that's how they could get away with that. It could also simply be a case of subverting expectations, given that Nintendo have been getting much better when it comes to closing on a surprising and totally unexpected tease. I honestly didn't expect much of anything beyond 2018 at this point anyway, considering how frequently we've been getting Directs, but I still think that there could be a few pretty big surprises to come in the next six months.

I have no current investment in the Resident Evil franchise, having not played any of them up to this point, but damn. That was a brilliant trailer.