Julius

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.

I think it stands a good chance of releasing by 2020 - at the latest. Despite having seen more gameplay from The Last of Us Part II, I think Kojima is having a field day with misleading our expectations, and that this game will release before TLOUII: everything that we know about the game up to this point, outside of trailers, points to it being much further along than we currently think it is. I also think that there's a very good chance that some of the amazing folks over at Guerrilla Games have been working alongside Kojima Productions on this game, and that's why it could be so far along. I remain an optimist Also...

Maybe they've changed it since, but the last time I checked in on this, wasn't the wording saying that there would be a focus on 2018 games? In much the same way that last year's Spotlight had a focus on 2017 games? I haven't read anything to suggest that they are talking exclusively about 2018 games this evening is what I'm saying. But hey, could just be me reading into it a little too much Though, I do think that this... ...is more a case of attempting to subvert/manage expectations, as opposed to suggesting that there will be nothing of merit besides what is already expected (Smash, Fire Emblem, Yoshi, etc.). Nintendo currently have a window of four months between first-party releases on the Switch from Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker in July to Pokémon Let's Go! in November, and have had a relatively quiet year up to this point, so I do expect to see more than we already know about tonight. And besides first-party exclusives for the Switch, I expect a relatively strong third-party showing, even if the bulk of it is a number of Japanese studios. Whether that be new titles or rereleases of older ones, I do expect them - Square Enix especially, after having shown nothing for the Switch in their conference yesterday (yes, we have Octopath Traveller coming in July, but I think they've had some other stuff in the works for the console too) - to have a greater presence than they did last year.

I think it's them continuing what they did last year. The last four months of 2018 are nearly saturated from a gamer's perspective - way I see it, there's already a few games for every type of gamer coming this autumn/winter - and that's without having seen what Nintendo's bringing to the table this evening I think the smart move is to continue what they've been doing up to this point. They waited on revealing God of War's release date until January, iirc, which was the smart move because Q1 2018 was already pretty full, and I think that they didn't want to pit one of their tentpole titles against another AAA title: they want all eyes on their biggest games (i.e. potential system sellers, which I think all of their deep dive games are) when they launch. Q1 2019 is already filling up nice and fast, and I don't think that they want to be part of the frenzy again this time around. The smarter move, I think, would be to wait out like they have been, and navigate the sea of release dates to find one suitable to their title. I don't think that all three of those other games will release next year, because there's really no reason for them to do that at this stage, but I do think that we could get at least one of them, maybe even two of them, in 2019. Plus, they reacted to the backlash of last year's E3 by starving PSX, so I wouldn't be surprised if those release dates have been saved until the end of the year - when they'll know what everyone else is doing - in a reaction to how the last PSX was received. Really weird that they didn't put a release date on it yet, but that got me wondering: would a game like Dreams really stand to benefit much from a typical marketing campaign? Because I don't think that it necessarily would: the game does fill something of a niche, and those who are interested in it have been paying attention this whole time. It also doesn't seem like your typical £60 RRP affair (my guess would be £20 - £35), nor does it really need a physical release (at least at launch), just considering the type of game that this is. I love physical copies of games, but I don't think that anyone will be clamouring for a physical copy over a digital copy, just given the type of game that this is. I think we'll see more at Gamescom in August, and potentially a bit more at PGW or PSX, but I do think that, of all of their games, this would be a great game - and the best suited - to shadow drop at PSX (beginning of December is looking pretty quiet if I recall, right?).

Love that we're finally getting into some lore for the game. You're right: the engine is just superb. Still have very little idea as to what's going on, but I'd want it no other way

Blew me away. The animations are on a whole other level!

Love it. Green Goblin at the end, riiiiiiiiiight? EDIT: or Venom? Or Doctor Octopus? Actually, I think it probably is Doctor Octopus. There’s definitely a mechanical noise, and I suppose the reveal of Otto Octavius as Doc Ock would be just as surprising for Peter as a Norman/Green Goblin reveal would be?