Julius

Wouldn't they need to match Wii + 3DS sales to not be worse off though? You mean the Wii U, right? I think most people bundle the Wii and the DS together generationally and when talking about eras of Nintendo, and i think it’s largely thanks to that era that Nintendo is going to be safe from catastrophic failure for a long while — between those two consoles, Nintendo sold over 250 million console units in a generation, and thanks to their generally not wanting to push the limits of technology (at least for the last decade and a half or so), that would surely make for a massive profit margin, and thus likely give them a large cushion to deal with discomforts brought about by relative failures like the Wii U. Also worth mentioning that I imagine the profit margins for Nintendo’s handheld consoles are historically much larger than their profit margins for home consoles, and that in each generation that Nintendo has had both a home and handheld platform, the handheld platform (i.e. likely the more profitable platform) has always outsold the home platform, so I imagine that their cushion for discomfort is large and plush. In addition to the points made by @Hero-of-Time and @Glen-i, it’s also worth noting that Nintendo had been the only ones seriously fighting on both the home console and handheld console fronts for a while, so it made perfect sense for them to pool their resources into one console — as H-o-T mentioned, why have a dedicated handheld console when you have no direct competitor in the dedicated video game space in the first place (largely thanks relative failure of the Vita), and thus mainly find yourself competing against a much larger, broader, and much more varied competitor in the shape of the smartphone market?

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Nikkei are reporting that a smaller and less expensive version of the Switch will be launching in Nintendo’s next fiscal year (i.e. April 2019 - March 2020). We’ve talked about it here before plenty of times, but a smaller and more cost effective version of the Switch launching in potentially the same year as the next Pokémon and Animal Crossing makes far too much sense to not be happening.

Matt Reeves’ The Batman has been handed a release date of June 25th 2021. Yes — the film that he was brought onto back in February 2017. Ben Affleck will be stepping down as Batman, with the film reportedly focusing on a younger Batman. It is believed that Affleck will have a producing role on the film. So, it probably won’t be too long until we hear that Henry Cavill will be stepping down as Superman, if recent reports (and this shakeup) are anything to go by. James Gunn has also been revealed to be writing and directing The Suicide Squad, aka Suicide Squad 2, after months of rumours and reports about him taking on the role.

Aren’t these the figures as of December 31st 2018? Which makes it all the more impressive, given that it would have sold that many units in only three and a half weeks! I’m of surprised that they lowered their Switch unit sales forecast as much as they did, though I suppose it’s always better to forecast low and “over perform” when there are shareholders to take into account.

After @Ganepark32 kindly supplied me with access to the demo (thanks again! ), I booted the game up five or six times on Friday and three or four times yesterday, only getting so far as the loading screen between the town and any of the missions that I attempted to start. I didn’t even bother attempting to play it today. The least amount of time I waited was around ten minutes, and the most was around forty-five. So, yeah, I didn’t get to play it, and while I can’t really speak from my own experience with the game’s demo...I am not sold on the game. At all. Almost everything that I’ve read about and watched from the demo is riddled with seemingly unavoidable negativity, whether it be problems with the demo’s servers, loading times, frame rate, the game not looking or controlling so great, a poorly constructed UI, etc. Can we also talk briefly about how this isn’t at all what I and many others expect a demo to be? When I hear the word “demo”, I personally think about a vertical slice of a game limited in environment or time when compared to its full game, and I get a feeling that’s what comes to my mind for many other people here, too. Which is why I find it especially surprising that the “demo” for this game was actually more of a beta (around a month from release, as has come to be expected when it comes to EA) likely seen more as an opportunity to stress test servers (ironic considering that servers for a number of EA games went down to some degree this weekend) than to let players actually try out the game, put across more in my next point than in any other I’ve made so far: they’ve also admitted that this “demo” is based on an older build of said game. Because what better way to sell your game than people on the fence that to let them try out the poorly constructed build from a few months ago? I’m genuinely worried for BioWare to some degree. Not necessarily because their future relies solely on how this game performs, but because I haven’t seen or heard any reason yet to seriously consider picking up Anthem next month. A saving grace could be the story, I suppose, or even the game being much more functional than the “demo” has been, but I think that the possibility that they have their second AAA bomb in a row (critically or in terms of sales) is a very real one. I’m curious what you’ve seen/read/heard that makes you willing to fork out for this game on release date, @Ronnie? Or did you mean that you would just wait for reviews? Not trying to rile you up, just genuinely curious, as you hinted that you think this could be a case of the game not being where it should be at launch, but given the support that it could potentially receive, it could be in a much better place in a year or two. I’m just not personally in a place where I have much confidence in EA right now. I play FIFA briefly in between long gaming sessions, and although I got plenty of playtime out of Battlefront and quite a bit out of Battlefront II, their general attitude towards game development continues to irk me, and their sloppiness when attempting to put Anthem in a positive light with this “demo” has only worsened that feeling for me.

I meant something more along the lines of an iteration such as the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, as others have mentioned, as opposed to a generational leap, or some weird console exclusive (along the lines of what happened with a couple of New 3DS titles). I mean, we’re nearly two years into the Switch’s life already, and assuming a three year development cycle for Metroid Prime 4, we’d be five years into the console’s life, which seems around the right time to introduce a more capable model of the Switch. Having such a model launch a little earlier than/on the same day as Prime 4 seems like a perfect scenario from a business perspective, at least for me?

Well, that was a shock, but I’m definitely a fan of the honesty. I can’t remember the last time I remember a delay being announced for a game with such genuine appreciation for how it would disappoint fans — and what makes this even more noteworthy to me is that it’s not even like Metroid is one of Nintendo’s best-selling IPs. I’m definitely curious about whether or not we’ll actually get confirmation that Bandai Namco was working on the game, and how this effects what Retro have supposedly been working on since Tropical Freeze. Does this mean that whatever they were working on is near completion? Was there even anything that they were actually actively working on for the past few years? Hopefully we’ll get some answers at E3. I hope this doesn’t effect any hopes of a Metroid Prime Trilogy arriving on Switch in the near future — it would be a great way to appease fans for the time being. Also, I think I’m with @Dcubed in that we might not see the game until the next iteration of the Switch, and I can certainly foresee this game serving as the centrepiece of that potential iteration’s marketing campaign/launch.

If you’ve still got some, could I get one please @Ganepark32?

A summary of the new information given by Yu Suzuki and Hiroaki Takeuchi from G-Fusion Tour 2018, courtesy of Spaghetti over on Shenmue Dojo (roughly translated from Chinese):

So, at the start of the month, some job listings turned up from The Pokémon Company International advertising numerous localisation roles, many of which specifically refer to the translation of in-game text and strategy guides. The advertised roles were added by the company’s London office, and, in their descriptions and lengths, seem to line up with the previously speculated late 2019 release. Also, in their typically annual letter to Famitsu leading up to the new year, Game Freak thanked fans for a good 2018, and expressed their hopes of wanting to surprise them in 2019.

A bit late, but I hope everyone had a great Christmas! My birthday was on Christmas Eve, so I never know what to ask for for Christmas I just ended up with a lot of cash this time around — the worst thing about getting older is definitely that I didn’t know what to ask for for my birthday, either, so I ended up with some cash for that too First thing to attend to was a small raid of the PlayStation Store’s Christmas Sale, in which I picked up: I’d been waiting for a sale on The City That Never Sleeps DLC; LIMBO and The Unfinished Swan cost me a bit over £5 between them, which is a steal for games I’ve been interested in for a while; and I mainly picked up Requiem for Symphony of the Night, which has been on my radar ever since I got more into gaming, and I can’t wait to check it and Rondo of Blood out. I also picked up FIFA 19, as it was 50% off, just as something I can play mindlessly when I feel like I need something along those lines. I also have a few games that I ordered which are on the way, though I don’t expect them to turn up for a week or so: — which gives me ample time for me to finish off Dragon Quest VIII and NieR: Automata before the end of the year I’ve been wanting to play Chrono Trigger for a while now, but the price for the DS version was always a bit too high every time that I checked (somewhere between £60 and £100 for the UK release with everything included) — I spotted that it was only £40 on CeX and that it was back in stock, so that’s on the way. Think that’ll be my first game of 2019 Persona 5 is something that I’ve wanted to pick up for a while now, as I’m loving what I’ve played of JRPGs so far, and I found it on sale for only £20; even if I don’t get to it for a month or two, it’s nice to know that I got it on sale and I can start whenever I like. The Last of Us Remastered (without the strange-looking PlayStation Hits strip) I’m picking up as I mostly enjoyed my playthrough of the Nathan Drake Collection a few months ago, and wanted to see where Naughty Dog went next. Oh, and people keep claiming that it’s one of the best games of all time, too and, finally, I picked up Yakuza 0 after reading nothing but good things about the series here, hearing good things about it in podcasts and in YouTube videos, and plus, I had a great time with Shenmue I & II, so I want to see what SEGA’s spiritual successor to the series was like. Honestly, the early months of 2019 were lining up to be pretty empty for me in terms of new releases — I haven’t played any of the Kingdom Hearts games, so would feel lost jumping in with KH3; though I want to check out the Resident Evil series, and hence 2 Remake at some point, I haven't played a horror game before; and, to put it simply, I have other games that I really want to dive into from my list of games that I want to play, that I’ve been interested in for longer, and are (generally) a lower price. I also have one eye on the price of the SNES Classic in the coming days — a good chunk of the games that I want to play are from the era, and though I have played a few on 3DS Virtual Console, it felt a bit strange to me, so I’d like to try playing them on the TV. Plus: Final Fantasy VI So, yeah. I guess these are the games I’ll be playing for the first few months of 2019 oh, and I also got some clothes and films Hope everyone has a good, fun — and safe — end to the year!

Yesterday we got a behind-the-scenes look at Galaxy’s Edge: We also got to see a very familiar bounty-hunting droid courtesy of Jon Favreau on Instagram, confirming that IG-88 will indeed be in The Mandalorian:

Got Ending A yesterday...this game was weird as hell — probably the strangest game that I’ve ever played — but I absolutely loved what I’ve played of it. As I mentioned before, the traversal, music and combat are all excellent, and the themes driving the heart of the story are really compelling. The game’s art style, character design and sound design is also excellent throughout. Maybe it’s just me, but I get the feeling that the game was made on something of a tight budget? I’m not too sure, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way: more so, that the way in which Yoko Taro and his team seem to have creatively overcome some obstacles in their methods of storytelling seemed almost experimental in some ways, and a lot like some of the extremes I’ve only heard talked about by some indie filmmakers/game developers. I’m going to put it down for now — I’d like to go back to Dragon Quest VIII on 3DS as something a bit lighter over Christmas — and then pick it up again to see the other endings later on, but man, I’m probably going to have to play other games by Taro-san at some point for some (read: probably a lot) more context.

As revealed at the end of the trailer, the game is currently scheduled for release on the Nintendo Switch in 2019 in Japan, and I can’t see the English version of the game being too far behind. Here’s a comparison between the Switch and PS4 versions of the game (the Switch version is the top image): UPDATE: More comparison shots, with PS4 screenshots on top and Switch screenshots on the bottom this time around: We also have a Japanese site for Dragon Quest XI S. As for the Japanese VA that @Hero-of-Time mentioned: Maaya Uchida voices Veronica; Ami Koshimizu will play the role of Jade; Erik is voiced by Kouki Uchiyama; Serena by Sora Amamiya; Sylvando by Masaya Onosaka; and Rab by Mugihito. Voices can be toggled on/off. Square Enix confirmed that there will be over 200 characters voiced in Japanese, which is likely on par with the amount of voice acting featured in the English release. Finally, Square Enix said to look forward to the New Year, promising a broadcast for Dragon Quest XI S, as well as more news on the Switch release, in January.

We’re 12 months from Episode IX releasing! Which also means that we’re 12 months from The Last Jedi’s release, and I still don’t know where I land on that film... I really, really enjoy The Force Awakens, and I like The Last Jedi for the most part, but I am nervous as hell for IX; I just think that there’s too much to potentially see and wrap up, and far too little time to do that in — at least when compared to the original trilogy, or even the prequel trilogy, because at this point with those films we knew the general direction that their plots were going in. Hopefully we’re only a month or so out from a title reveal, and I’d love to see something prior to Star Wars Celebration in April, but yeah, I’m much more excited for pretty much everything else Lucasfilm has planned for Star Wars right now

Picked up the game the other day, and I’m around five hours in. It got off to a really rough start. I think the beginning is a bit obtuse, and not from a storytelling perspective, but completely from a gameplay perspective. The tutorials (or lack thereof) were pretty poor, and for someone who hasn’t played a game developed by Platinum before, I found myself dying time after time against the first boss, and constantly losing thirty minutes of progress to then be booted back to the home screen felt completely jarring. The initial controller configuration also felt very strange, which I think only compounded my difficulties and therefore frustration. However, that opening segment aside, I’m enthralled. The through the world feels great, and I love the sound design and the general themes of the story so far. I also find myself being consistently humoured by what’s going on around me, even in the middle of an intense battle. I’ve finally started to come to grips with the controls after nearly five hours, and it’s becoming very fun very quickly. I accidentally wandered into a chasm where I was outlevelled by nearly 20 levels, and yet thanks to the great combat system, I didn’t feel the need to run away, but wanted to test myself against some stronger foes. The boss battles too have been really fun so far. The music is absolutely phenomenal — I think I might have to pick up the OST after I’m done in particular:

Well, I guess I’ve found the suit that I’ll be playing in when I pick up the DLC and have my second playthrough...probably put Danny Elfman’s score on in the background too

The main cast for The Mandalorian was confirmed last week — I thought that I’d posted this already, but apparently not?. Anyways, the press release from StarWars.com: Seriously, what a stellar cast! I can’t wait for this show...and we also got a look thanks Pascal at some gorgeous Dave Filoni sketches of the show’s protagonist: Speaking of The Mandalorian, an excellent composer has been selected for the show in the form of Black Panther and Creed franchise composer Ludwig Göransson. I’m looking forward to hearing his take on classic themes, as well as surely adding some great pieces to the franchise’s musical catalogue. Finally, to round up the news on announcements, Warwick Davis has been announced as the host for Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019! He was excellent last year, especially during the particularly packed opening panel for the 40th Anniversary Celebration. Finally, @Ronnie recently mentioned reading about the possibility of a teaser trailer this month. That still seems very unlikely — though the phrase “footage” in particular is being thrown about a lot (not particularly by anyone with a great track record, mind you), so maybe it’s possible that some footage could be released at the end of something like a short montage of the Saga so far? Okay, time for the actual final announcement: it seems that our first preview of Galaxy’s Edge, the Star Wars-themed expansion coming to Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, and Disney World Resort, Florida, and it will be coming on Christmas Day. Speaking of which, for anyone wondering how development is going, it looks to be going swell...

Some developers in Japan were asked what they think of the New Year for an upcoming article, and with Kingdom Hearts III finally releasing at the end of the month, it seems like Nomura-san and Kitase-san have finally taken it upon themselves to start teasing us with the possibility of some news coming in 2019. So, I’ll see you all in 2023, then?

So, the beta goes live tomorrow...but only for those subscribed to the Media Molecule newsletter. Prior to today. Yeah. Looking ahead, the public beta will begin on Tuesday 8th January 2019, with sign-ups beginning on January 4th — though this will seemingly only offer you the opportunity to try the game “in waves” during the week of the 8th, and seemingly opening up afterwards. The public beta is scheduled to close on Monday 21st January 2019, but will not feature PSVR functionality as it will in the final game. The beta client will be approximately 4GB in size, and will not require you to have PlayStation Plus.