Julius

Nuts that it’s already available to pre-load, but I absolutely agree with you: I think that’s entirely down to it originally being in development for Wii U. I get the feeling that it was originally going to be a 25th Anniversary game for release last year on Wii U, because, if I’m remembering right, the last Wii U Kirby title was Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush (/Curse), which was released in 2015, I think. Makes sense that they would have delayed it for the Switch, and probably shelved it/decentralised their focus on it to focus on what they already had in development in the meantime?

FINALLY. That’s all there is to say, really...

I’ve also heard some excellent things about the soundtrack; how did you find it, if you can say anything about it?

Yeah, I’m pretty much convinced that there’ll be another Direct, if typical 25-50 minute length, in the next 1 - 6 weeks (i.e. by the start of March). A quick look at the Wikipedia page for Nintendo Directs tells us that Direct Minis are typically followed up by a typical Direct in 1-4 weeks, but focusing mainly on Direct Minis followed up by a Direct which aren’t both exclusive to Japan narrows it down to only three separate occasions where there’s a range of 8-37 days following the Mini before a Direct. I’m fairly confident in this: we have games which we’ve known about for over a year, such as Fire Emblem and Project Octopath Traveller, which remain without a release date, and whilst it’s of course possible that they’re H2 (or worse yet: delayed), I think that such announcements belong in a Direct, and might have been delayed to one accordingly. Honestly, I just hope we hear about Virtual Console sooner rather than later. If they take too long, I’m going to get a bit nervous about how they might be attaching classic games exclusively to the purchase, and use of, the Switch’s online service.

Hey all, hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year! What’s everyone played/been playing? Anyone completed a game in 2018 yet? Any 2018 gaming resolutions? My personal goal is to try to be much more consistent when it comes to gaming this year, and I hope to round off certain playthroughs which I’ve been putting off for a while now (I’m looking at you, Final Fantasy VII and Horizon Zero Dawn) before I dive into anything new.

The lack of Wolfenstein and, perhaps more noticeably, Yoshi and Fire Emblem, took me by surprise a little. A lot of ports and content updates, and I really like the look of Mario Tennis. And it’s good to know that they might be able to dip back into the DS/3DS catalogue going forwards. I don’t mean to start exciting anyone, but I just took a quick look at the Wikipedia page for Nintendo Directs, and there’s something pretty interesting I noticed regarding the Nintendo Direct mini format: they almost always precede a more typically formatted Direct by 2-3 weeks, if not less. Could just be an odd coincidence, mind you, but I thought it was worth sharing.

Laura Kate Dale is claiming that the Direct will be approx. 15 minutes... ...and drop within the next 2-3 hours (i.e. by 15:00 GMT).

Absolutely nuts. I’m loving every single second of this. Everyone’s coming up with their own conspiracies all over the place, ranging from news of a new Fire Emblem game (Chibi-Robo is on fire; hot(=fire) dog; etc.) to Nintendo purposely putting people through a loop. And everyone’s going nuts over Twitter accounts for Assassin’s Creed, Star Citizen and Resident Evil responding to their vague tweets. IGN’s Alanah Pearce is saying that she’s only heard that it would be coming later this week, Laura Kate Dale is near-positive it’s coming this week, and agrees with someone else on Twitter, who is claiming that they were in contact with people who would have knowledge of the matter as recently as last night; they supposedly informed them that the Direct is indeed happening tomorrow. My best bet would be that Nintendo is aware of the anticipation, and if anything, the craze is only benefiting them, as more and more people are hearing about the Direct than might have otherwise. I wonder if they’ll shadow-drop it or only announce it an hour before it airs? EDIT: interesting Twitter theory about the Direct coming out of the blue...

Someone, please, make it stop...

Darkest Dungeon releasing January 18th (next Thursday).

Yeah, I think the fact that GameStop posted and deleted that tweet, coupled with the fact that Nintendo JP’s Direct website currently has a free spot (15 Directs down from the “full” 16; typical indicator that there’s a Direct incoming) definitely seems to point to it being on its way. @Glen-i part of me wants them to round it off by just shadow-dropping the damn thing in the middle of the work day. They've played the trolling card expertly up to this point, this is way too funny I wonder if they’ll do anything for April Fool’s this year... EDIT: on a side note, Red Hook Studios just announced that Darkest Dungeon is releasing next Thursday. I wonder if we could see any other release dates for Nindies announced prior to the Direct? EDIT 2: Nintendo tweets! They definitely know what they’re doing... ...Chibi-Robo for Switch confirmed?!

Typically, yep, or at least based on last year’s announcements. Last year’s Nintendo Direct (April), ARMS Direct (May), Pokémon Direct (June), Splatoon 2 Direct (July) and other Nintendo Direct (think was the indies one? - September) were all announced ~15:00 GMT/BST. The Fire Emblem Direct (January), Animal Crossing Mobile Direct (October) and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Direct (November), however, weren’t announced during that time frame. It’s pretty random. And I agree, I don’t (normally) care too much for the announcement of something, but especially when it’s announcing that comes later that very week or day.

The ARMS Direct and Pokémon Direct were both announced only one day before they were aired, so they’ll just have to wait and see. However, my inside sources and extensive research (I asked my uncle who worked at Nintendo) have exclusively confirmed to me that we will definitely be hearing about the January Direct within the next 22 days.

Sony sold over 5.9 million PS4s over the holidays (down from 6.2 million last year) and 20.2 million units from January 2nd through December 31st (a record for the platform in an annual year). The console now sits at over 73.6 million units sold worldwide. With the games they have coming later this year - heck, even just later this month - and next year too, 100 million seems a formality, so long as they don’t start talking about the PS5 too soon. I have to wonder if they could even pull it off this year, seeing as they have the line-up to potentially back up such a surge, though it admittedly seems unlikely (but not impossible), as the 26.4 million units they would need to sell this year to cross the 100 million unit threshold would be a record for any platform within an annual year. Elsewhere, software sales reached 645 million, with 243.9 million units being sold in 2017 alone. The PS Store recorded its largest ever monthly sales of content in December 2017, and the number of PS Plus subscribers crossed 31.5 million. PS4 console annual sales: Year — annual — holiday — cumulative 2013 — 4.2M — N/A — 4.2M 2014 — 14.3M — 4.2M — 18.5M 2015 — 17.4M — 5.7M — 35.9M 2016 — 17.5M — 6.2M — 53.4M 2017 — 20.2M — 5.9M — 73.6M

So, a tour of the 5.0 update for the Switch has potentially been uploaded to YouTube, and will supposedly launch in February, according to the potential leak. Key features of this purported update are: • Custom themes/theme shop. • Cloud storage. • Game sorting. • Party chat. • Media apps (YouTube, Twitch, etc.). • Virtual Console. • System-level microphone support. • Internet browser. However, there are some discrepancies: • The YouTube logo seen in the video is outdated. • Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a digital purchase, which takes up 6.8 GB of system memory. However, as seen in the storage menu, only 2 GB of system memory, less than 3.2 GB of SD card memory and 0.9 GB of cloud storage is taken up (totalling 6.1 GB). Some have argued that the game might have been archived, but there is no icon to download the game back to the system (note: this could be something which changes with such an update). • Such a massive update which ticks a lot of the fans’ wants across the board would seem a strange move from a company as conservative in decision making as Nintendo (at least when it comes to this sort of thing). I’ll believe it when I see it. There are certainly a lot of things I’d love to see which were in this video (namely Virtual Console), but at the very least, this person seems to have a very good idea of how to map out a convincing Switch UI in the event it turns out to be a fake.

High-res version of some leaked promotional art: Elsewhere, LEGO set leaks for the film have already begun (despite them supposedly not launching until April), and the film will be known as Han Solo: A Star Wars Story in a number of territories (which, in my opinion, is a better title). I’m actually starting to get excited for this...

Well colour me hyped. My body is Reggie.

Whilst John Powell (Bourne, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon) will still serve as the film’s primary composer, he has asked John Williams to compose Han Solo’s theme, which Williams has gracefully accepted. Speaking to Variety recently about his most recent work on The Last Jedi, Williams said that:

Some two hundred or so new threads (which are still being added to as I type this, by the looks of things) over in General Gaming. They've been at it for a few hours now, according to their profile pages. Titles look to be in Korean, and it’s @sebeyusika and @jafuxez who have been adding them.

I could see them releasing that Story Mode that we never got for Smash 4 as part of a Smash 4 Deluxe for Switch. I always disagreed with Sakurai’s reasoning for that getting cut out... I really, really hope that we get Virtual Console sooner rather than later too. Smash 4 Deluxe + Melee is a deal I’d be happy to pay for

Got given this on Saturday as a birthday gift. Had I known it was coming I might have asked for something else, but it’s Star Wars so I can’t complain too much. Campaign is meh. It’s extremely repetitive, and doesn’t really do much to further anything in terms of canon lore. It’s a huge missed opportunity. The crates and cards system are terrible, and become extremely evident in Heroes v. Villains. It really does ruin the balance the game and it really does make it feel unfair if you come up against someone and lose simply because they got better cards from the loot crates than you did. The visuals are amazing, and it’s great that there’s more great Star Wars music in this one. This had the potential to be a great game, but the poorly executed campaign, micro-transactions and consequent balancing issues really tarnish the experience.

Yeah, with regards to getting Pokémon in 2018, I agree with @Hero-of-Time and @Glen-i: as much as I would love to get the game/s next year, I’d much rather wait until 2019 if it means that the game will be objectively great, and not just better in comparison to previous entries. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got our first glimpses at it in 2018 at E3 with a teaser/trailer, though. That announcement at E3 earlier this year could have easily been used in the Pokémon Direct a week or so before which revealed Pokkén Tournament DX, as well as Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, so the announcement being saved for E3 suggests to me that they really want to push this game out there with regards to consumer awareness. Also gives Nintendo time to come up with a budget Switch option and to introduce a price reduction to the base model.

I have to say, I have nothing but faith in Kimishima when it comes to Nintendo's sales projections. Even then, though, 20 million consoles sold in only their second complete fiscal year with the system is nuts; in comparison, Sony only achieved this with the PS4 in its third complete fiscal year, which ended March 31st of this year, and the numbers for PS4 sales already seem to be in something of a decline, with “only” 10 million consoles being sold from May through earlier this month. I think that there are actually a few ways in which they could achieve this lofty goal, but I agree with @Ronnie: the most straightforward way to achieve this is through the launch of the core Pokémon RPG on Switch. That, coupled with no major supply issues and a price reduction of some 10%-20%, could certainly push the console to some 20 million sales, so long as momentum is kept up elsewhere as has been the case these past 9 months. Another alternative for launch of Pokémon on Switch would be the introduction of a budget option mini Switch (smaller screen, no dock included, etc.) for around £150 (similar to how the 2DS was introduced as a budget option for the 3DS family when Pokémon X and Y came along), as well as a 10% or so reduction in the original Switch model. However, this could certainly be achieved without Pokémon. As @liger05 pointed out, most consoles of course will do better in their second fiscal year, though I think it’s worth pointing out that the Wii U actually did worse in its second fiscal year from the little research that I just did to check. The already announced console exclusive titles for 2018 - such as Yoshi, Fire Emblem, Kirby Star Allies and Project Octopath Traveller - seems to suggest that Nintendo and third parties will continue to support the console with tentpole releases on a regular basis throughout the console’s second year, so I think that there are plenty of methods which could be used to achieve their ambitions.

Pokéjungle have published some rumours about Pokémon Switch, and I want to say beforehand that I don’t buy into this at all, but I do think that it could catalyse some more discussion about the game regardless of whether or not any of these rumours are true. Take this all with a few lumps of salt. They are reporting that this information was gathered from Chinese sources; in particular, it supposedly comes from some of the same people who shared knowledge of Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. The rumours state that: This reminds me somewhat of those Plus and Minus rumours from a few years ago, which stated that Game Freak were working on a hybrid console game which planned to “completely overhaul the basic systems of battle, simplifying the process” and that the theme is “old tradition vs. new exploration” (i.e. tradition vs. innovation, as in the Pokéjungle rumour). My personal thoughts are that it’s way too soon for the Chinese localisation to have already started, yet alone be completed. If the games were set in a region based on China, then sure, maybe I could believe that, but this seemed a bit off to me, because if that localisation was already completed, it would suggest to me that Game Freak are hoping to make a big impact in China with this game, and so why would the region not be inspired by China? The thought of scrapping Mega Evolutions has been on the cards for a while now, since Gen VII didn’t introduce any new ones, but it will be a shame if that idea was just a flash in the pan. Then again, they did introduce something of a tremendous power creep (as do Z-moves, but to a lesser extent), so it’s not too surprising that it could be binned so soon after its introduction. Personally, I’d love regional variants to be explored further, and for Mega Evolution and Z-moves to become a thing of the past, but maybe that’s just me. The theme of the central plot sounds interesting, but I wonder how it could be applied to an Italian or Spanish inspired region. Perhaps an evil team consisting of modern day Romans or Conquistadors holding onto ideas buried in the past? Or perhaps just a mostly rural region become urbanised, and some rebelling against that? The reported release date doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, and it falls into that 2018/2019 window, but considering that a fair share of the main games have been released in November as of late, I’d personally be surprised if it came out in March. On a completely different note, after playing a little Chrono Trigger around a friend’s house lately, I think that something this series could really benefit from is a seamless transition from overworld interaction with a wild Pokémon to the battle screen. This game, like any other in a long standing franchise, would greatly benefit from relatively smaller quality of life improvements, but that’s just my take.