Mr-Paul

And number 4 in the middle of the film!

Sorry, a lot of this post is bollocks. The Irish border isn't a trump card that the EU is using. It's a necessity to uphold the Good Friday agreement and keep the peace on the freedom of Ireland and not have a border between the two nations. It's irresponsible from the UK that this wasn't ever considered in the first place. Your point about sovereignty is bollocks - you don't have more rights as an EU citizen in the UK than a UK citizen. There isn't 'pro-EU propaganda' in schools either - not sure where you've pulled that notion from. The vote to leave was built on lies, un-achievable promises and xenophobia. And to put that one of the main reasons to vote to remain was a vote to support the Conservatives/Cameron is rubbish. You are right that no Brexit deal will please everyone.No deal will horribly damage our country. But the government are refusing to compromise to make a deal that will satisfy more. They're despicable. The referendum should never have been held in the first place.

Will wait and see if there's any more ambition shown in terms of gameplay and features... but on first impression it just looks like it's going to be like Sun/Moon, but in a higher resolution. Was looking forward to it being at least a bit more free-roaming, and having the Pokémon actually out in the wild like in Let's Go.

So I was offered the job today... and said yes! Took them ages to get back to me - all sorts of corporate approvals it had to go through. Sad to be leaving my current job. Going to be very weird handing in my resignation in. But the opportunity was too good to turn down. Exciting times ahead

Maybe I'll order a 2 or 3 year old game for a bargain price... Oh wait. I can't do that on a Nintendo console as they (generally) don't reduce their prices any more.

I'm not going to wade into every point, because Dcubed, Sheikah and the likes have ably said what I would say. Just a couple of things though. You know that's not what I said so please don't use this shit argument. Read my post again. I didn't say N64. I didn't say SNES. I said Gamecube, Wii and Wii U. Game development costs being higher doesn't therefore make the games cheaper. You can't use a correlation between the two at all. A game isn't priced relative to its development cost. Just like a cinema ticket is the same price whether you see a film with a $50m budget or a $200m blockbuster. Game companies wouldn't invest the 10x number you've made up if they hadn't made a business decision that it will be profitable. EA can afford to pay their top executives $48m in a year and are milking it from micro-transactions. They don't NEED to charge so much for a game, and don't need to rake it in from extra DLC (which in lots of cases is made as part of the normal development and stripped out to sell later) and micro-transactions. They do it because they can. I appreciate there is inflation to take into account, but to say it's cheaper than ever is not right.

Stop saying this lie. It isn't cheaper than it's ever been. Yes, there are indies giving you cheap, affordable gaming, but the top line stuff is getting more expensive. Gamecube, Wii and Wii U eras were definitely cheaper (funnily enough, also when Nintendo used discs rather than carts for their home consoles.) And while there has been the RRP rise there's also DLC, special editions, micro-transactions and loot boxes taking even more money from gamers. And when Nintendo's online offering is arguably worse than it was in the previous generation, it's certainly a cash grab.

I was waiting for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to go down in price before getting it for Switch as I paid for it already on Wii U, but seeing that it's still selling bucketloads at full price makes me realise it's not going to happen. I've bitten the bullet and bought it again now as I want to play it with friends and am fed up of waiting! Still going to continue waiting before double-dipping on Breath of the Wild though.

Hasn't come down to notice periods yet (think mine is two months) but basically, the new place want someone on board to cover this event in the summer so don't think it's very flexible (for those not aware like Ashley is, I'm in the sports journalism industry). If I stay, I'm at the organisation running the event so very involved, attending the event and doing what I've been doing for the past few years, but if I move, my involvement will be at a distance. But is maybe going to be more fulfilling at non-event time. Who knows. All things I'll have to weigh up if offered. I guess it would be a privileged position to be in, asked to choose between two good things.

Fingers crossed for her Shorty. Things happen that delay this sort of thing - people being off ill etc. I had a second-round interview for a job today. I don't even necessarily want to leave the job i'm in, I'm very happy at it and we've got a very exciting summer coming up that I'm really looking forward to being part of. But just before Christmas I was contacted through Linkedin by a recruiter at another big player in the industry, asking if I'd be interested in a new role they have open. I thought it'd be wrong not to look into the opportunity. Went for an interview a few weeks back and that went well, went back today for a second interview which involved giving a big presentation, with the global boss calling in from India to join, so a pretty big deal. Think today went well too (today's interview was 90 mins long!) so waiting to hear whether they want me. Still slightly split over whether I really want it - this is a really exciting opportunity, it'd be a good company to work for, would likely get a good pay rise and the employee benefits at this place are so, so good. However, it would mean leaving just before a massive event that I've been working really hard towards and am really excited to be part of, and I feel like I'd be leaving the rest of my team and our major client in the shit by abandoning them just before it. If there was the opportunity to go for this position after the summer, I'd be all in for it! Trying not to think about what I'll do if i'm offered it - I might not even get offered the job, then I'll have nothing to worry about! Whatever happens, I'm glad I went for this interview process and think I've done myself proud regardless, and it's given me confidence that if I was to look for another job in the industry, I'm well placed.

This is the one I bought: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F391307038012 As SCG said, you need a tri-wing screwdriver, which I bought from the same seller. They have an offer if you buy two items, you save 10 percent, so it came to just £3.63 for the pair. Ordered on the Wednesday night, came on Saturday morning. I'm not good with fiddly things myself but this was simple - just unscrew, lift off Z button and wire, lift circuit board, replace stick, then reassemble. Haven't looked at the video above, but there's an ifixit guide that I used which you can find if you Google it. Hope that helps - going to order another for myself now for my other controller that is back at my parents' house!

So as well as getting the wireless gamecube switch controller, I sorted this out with my original cube controller! Nice little solution for a couple of quid rather than buying a new controller! I've been addicted to the adventure mode. Almost done now though. Got to the stage that almost every battle is easy because my spirits are levelled up, but have thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, this game has made me try the Nintendo Switch Online service for the first time with the free trial. Pretty naff, isn't it? Unsure whether I'll sign up afterwards or not, I don't really use it enough to justify. If I could just look on my friend list and invite someone to a game, there would be a higher chance, but nope.

I've got one and I'm loving it. Haven't tried it with any other Switch games yet, but it feels just like the original Cube controller, except that it doesn't have rumble. Nice to not be tethered to the console/dock with a wire, though. The console treats it as if it's a pro controller. Would have been nice if it had a rechargeable battery pack, but it has a long battery life (yonks longer than a PS4 pad!) so if you just get a couple of rechargeable AAs, you won't need to worry much.

@Sheikah mate. These are stunning. Six years ago... crikey.

I need more friends! Add me 6654 7096 9353

Oh absolutely, the family plan is quite 'good' in terms of that. If I sign up, I would be tempted to ask a bunch of people on here if they want to be a 'family' and go cheap that way. But it shows that the £18 package that's being touted as cheap has yet another drawback compared to other online services.

Read a good point in that HUKD link that isn't being mentioned much in terms of the price (correct me if it's wrong!) Nintendo's £17.99 (or £15.67 or whatever if you get that discount code) is for one singular user account. If you want several accounts on the same Switch to be able to play online, you need to pay for the family plan - £34.99. On the PS4, all user accounts on a PS4 can share the benefits of playing online if one account has PS Plus. 12 months PS Plus on CD Keys is £37.99. So, to get somewhat equivalent in terms of allowing all users of your console to be able to play online, the price of Switch Online and PS Plus are only a few pounds different - but Nintendo are providing a far, far worse service for that price.

They probably wouldn't let you voice chat with them anyway, so there wouldn't be much point in playing most things two player with randoms!

I don't think there will be any in game change in terms of menus etc. to enable online. I think essentially you will connect to an opponent/friend before entering the software, and one of you will essentially be controller 2 and play multilayer as if you were local.

Just thought I'd update with how I'm doing at climbing out of the rut! So last week I bought Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy for a bit of nostalgia. Man, the first game is difficult! I got to the "High Road" level, died many, many times and gave up and moved onto the second and third games! Much better! Or maybe I'm just rubbish Turns out that 2 and 3 are really the ones I remember more from my childhood, especially 3. Having a lot more fun with those - although they're challenging in places, they don't feel unfair like the original. On top of that, I've just got a review copy of the Xenoblade expansion, so another incentive to get gaming again. Look out for that here on N-E soon! Looks like Spider-Man may have to wait until Christmas for me!

Personally, even the NES games aren't tempting me into subscribing. Surely most people have played most of them they've wanted to play before? Sure, you might get the occasional one you haven't, but realistically, it's not going to be something you're going to spend a ton of time on. There's a reason they're giving it away so cheap (although I welcome that it's a much better proposition than them charging £3.50+ per NES game on Wii/Wii U!). If it had a wider span of their library, for example each month they added one NES game, one SNES game, one N64 game and one GC game, I'd be much more tempted to subscribe. Another thing: If it worked like PS+, and you had to be subscribed that month to get that month's games, there would be a much bigger incentive to subscribe straight away. As it is, I'm more than happy to wait until there's a game that i'm desperate to play online, or the free game library has expanded so much that it's a no-brainer to have it. This is actually a very consumer friendly thing from Nintendo - but not a decision of theirs which is going to make me pay them £18 right now!

£18 isn't too expensive for an ever-expanding library of NES games. But this isn't about the NES games. This is about the online service. You can't just deflect from how poor everything else is by saying 'but free NES games!' Giving away some 30 year old games really doesn't stop the online service from being antiquated. The NES games are a free extra. The main point of the service is to play new games online. That you can't communicate with your friends list, make a party etc., all basic features from the console itself is ridiculous. They should have the subscription for NES games. Online play should be separate, and free while it doesn't offer features which have been standard for years, even regressing from the Wii U.

Yeah, it's £20. Yeah, it's decent value for essentially what will become a Netflix of NES games. That doesn't stop the actual online service being substandard. It's still absolute nonsense that voice chat has to go through the app. I still can't get over that they went back to having a friend code rather than using the Nintendo Network ID from the Wii U/3DS era! In many ways, Nintendo's online offering was better in the last generation - you even had a whole online community in the form of Miiverse! Xbox 360 and PS3 provided a better online service over a decade ago - yes the former charged for it, but we're a decade on now. Surely Nintendo should be at least matching that with their paid service? Yes, it's cheap, but it's no excuse when in some ways it's gone backwards from what they offered before for free. Hopefully managing cloud saves is simple and it gives you plenty of warning ahead of when your subscription is due to end so anyone who has just got their saves on the cloud doesn't get fucked over. They really should just keep playing online free, and I'm sure many would pay the £20 a year to have a subscription to NES games.

Fear Of Missing Out!

Thanks for sharing your perspective. It's interesting to think about how we find it harder to spend long periods playing games anymore - a natural symptom of growing up, combined with having more distractions easily accessible and competing for our attentions? I hope you find your gaming mojo again! Another interesting perspective, thanks. I'm not as old as you, only in my late twenties, but you raise a good point about the 'games as services' thing, where there's not a definitive end, and they're designed to keep you playing, and playing, and playing, (and spending money, and spending money, and spending money...), but I don't think it's necessarily all like that, and there's definitely heavy shades of nostalgia in your post, which is of course natural! There still are experiences where there's a definitive start and end, but moreso than ever before, games are built to reward you if you're coming back day after day, which means if you aren't able to, you can feel left behind and unmotivated to return. I agree that it was overall a great start, and I admitted in my post that perhaps I'd look at it a bit more fondly had I got Breath of the Wild on Switch rather than on Wii U, and there's quite a few bits of software i'd still like to pick up, but not necessarily at the full price that they're still sat at, this year has been a little weaker and coincided with my own 'lull' that inspired this thread! You're completely correct that in the N64 era games were £50-60 - I was a child at this time and very rarely got a new game (birthdays and xmas) or picked things up at the local independent store second-hand. The Gamecube era was when I started buying games myself on a regular basis, and £30 was standard online. This largely held through the Wii era too, and as I believe I said in my OP, on Wii U this moved a bit more up towards the £40 mark, but there were still bargains available if you shopped around around (around £25 at launch for Splatoon). You're right that on pound per hours entertainment gained, it certainly works out better than other forms of entertainment, but when you're not finding much time to game, the perceived value becomes harder to justify. I did say that I might be being a bit irrational on this And you say that Nintendo prices stay high because they sell like crazy, but I'm sure that software like ARMS etc. would pick up a lot more sales from people like me if they reduced in price months after launch like games on other platforms. As it is, I see the £40-45 pricetag, and don't make the purchase, as I'm only willing to fork out that much on something I know I really really want. And this is kind of irrelevant, but seeing i'm responding to every point: I live in London and spend nowhere near that amount on the cinema! £18 a month on a cineworld unlimited card, which I use around 4 times a month, then either take a bottle of water with me, or buy a £1 bottle in the Tesco outside, and occasionally a snack for £1! And they take years to take and cost millions of dollars to produce too! The movie industry is an interesting one to compare the video games industry with though. You will pay say an average of £10 for a ticket to see it once in the cinema, if you want to be first (not taking into account subscriptions, meerkat movies). If you wait for the physical release, you'll pay £10-15, but can watch as much as you want. If you wait longer, the price of the DVD/Blu-Ray will go down, and you might be able to watch it as part of a subscription like Netflix or Amazon. How things work on the other platforms are fairly similar. Launch at max price. Reduce in price and pick up more sales. Game then potentially added to subscription service. Nintendo are the only ones who think they can just keep selling at a high price, and I'm no expert on their internal economics and accounts, but I'm sure they'd end up selling more of certain software if they cut prices more and didn't insist on keeping software at launch RRP and selling previous generation ports and full price rather than as a bargain release.