sumo73

Interesting to talk about this on St. Patrick's Day of all days but anyway I really hope it's not a big step back either. From a mainland UK view, the whole Northern Ireland situation should the UK leave the EU was not spoken about very much during EU Ref debates last year on TV (although I watched them on YouTube) and now people are finally seeing what the UK has got itself into. I've still got family over in Northern Ireland and really hope it's not a return to the situation that it was before the Good Friday agreement otherwise Brexit is a case of one step forward and two steps back.

If Scotland became independent then they would push to rejoin the EU and therefore would have to accept the Euro thus dropping the pound sterling. Spain (I've also heard France and Belgium) has already said that it won't accept Scotland as a single country rejoining the EU since it doesn't want to promote parts of Spain doing the same thing, this in part is also true with France and Belgium. Also the EU would be accepting a country in debt into it's fold. I'm not sure how that would work. With Scotland having a nationalist party in charge they will always push for independence but the situation is different in Northern Ireland as long as you have a Unionist party in charge. If the first minster became someone from Sinn Fein then things change. Wales voted to leave the EU and again the situation is different. If leaving the EU makes Wales much worse in the future then parties like Paid Cymru could make the case for independence and a push to rejoin the EU. Again some EU countries would object. These are all 'ifs'...no one knows what will happen. 'These humans are being to bore me' - Zod

My view has remained the same (although was completed different prior to 2016) and if there was a vote tomorrow I would vote the same again. I looked into both sides of the debate, researched it quite a bit and came up with the same conclusion. Prior to the vote, I was engaged in politics but now my faith in each other, my faith in politics and the media (both old and new) is at a new low. I started getting into Star Trek and superhero films late last year as a way to getting out of the mess that is politics right now. If things turn truly bad which I think they won't but if they do I can always apply for an Irish passport (which I have thought about for several years) alongside my British one.

Recently - and I can finally put my old Dazzle DVC 100 to bed for a bit.

The last Spy vs Spy game I bought was the one that came out for the PS2 back in 2005. I don't have an iphone but there is remake of Spy vs Spy for it which came out in 2012.

I bought myself something for the Tết New Year -

From what I could find very quickly online - “AC Adapter input: AC 100 – 240 V, 50 / 60 Hz, 1 A is a power brick with worldwide compatibility. This heavily points towards the console being region-free,” suggests NeoGAF user Thraktor. Incidentally, the Wii U had the same specifications. Source - http://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/features/nintendo-switch-price-release-date-specifications-what-the-headlines-and-rumours-say-1648212

Thanks for the videos. I guess my view of what Left Field is, is different from everyone else. I consider games like No One Can Stop Mr. Domino!, Katamari Damacy, Rez... to be left field in some way. Anyway, I never had an N64 but my mini list would be- Space Station Silicon Valley Glover Iggy's Reckin Balls Conker's bad fur day Hybrid Heaven and maybe Hey You, Pikachu!

Any Blu-ray's or DVD's that you want to get? Maybe some learning materials for studying Italian (at your level)? A decent Italian grammar book perhaps?

I don't. I still buy DVD's/Blu-ray's even if some of them are second hand. I guess I'm a fossil around here. I'm still a big fan of owning things I guess. Even places like the Poundshop in the UK have £1 DVD's and while the selection is not great and the movies are not so recent I can normally find something to buy and watch. When I can I still go to the cinema as well. Compared to when I was young the move from analogue to digital TV channels, the rise of YouTube and being able to buy DVD/Blu-rays from anywhere means that I can watch so much more. I'm not perfect and when I was younger about a third of my Amiga games were copies but I felt guilty about it and some years later I went around and destroyed them. I know now I could get whatever I want from the net for no cost but I really am not interested in it. People who copy a lot don't see the end effects and the drip drip effect it has on the industry as a whole. I still buy new stuff but I normally wait a few months for a price drop or see if I can get it second hand. If I don't have enough money for something I can wait.

Have been learning Japanese for well over 20 years now. I used to be a lot better a few years ago but then stopped using the language on a regular basis hence the decline. A think learning Japanese is just an ongoing thing for me. I'll never stop studying the language and will never be advanced in it but I'd like to be a lot better than I am right now. There's a few other languages that I'd like to learn but at the moment no.

Years ago my girlfriend gave me the nickname 'sumo' and I really hated the name. Got used to it now hence my name here. Going back to your work situation maybe have a word with the other Ashley and see what they think. Maybe they are ok with being called Ash or something else. I don't know your work situation at all but that's what I would do. I've had this situation at work before with a new person with the same name as me and I refused to change my name for them or for work. We ended up just using the same name since it's our names and there were very few issues.

When I get the switch I'll go with grey. I'm sure some third party will develop a decent set of skin colours beyond red and blue for the Joy-Con's in time.

When the PS3 was released and Sony had issues putting in rumble into their Sixaxis controller. Sony's Phil Harrion said back in 2007 "I believe that the Sixaxis controller offers game designers and developers far more opportunity for future innovation than rumble ever did. Now, rumble I think was the last generation feature; it's not the next-generation feature. I think motion sensitivity is. And we don't see the need to do that". Then the internet was ablaze with people for and against rumble. Later on Sony made the DualShock 3 controller and everyone became quiet. When the Wii came out many people dismissed motion controls and then later on Sony Move (ok EyeToy was earlier) and Xbox Kinect came out. If there any concerns about the HD rumble then if people have a chance to use the new system and play with some games I'm sure those concerns will be lifted. I'm not concerned about the cost of the system or HD rumble but more about the cost of future games themselves.

Sorry, no I don't have a spare £300+ (console plus game, extras..) lying around. If money was no object then of course!

Thanks for clearing things up because the official stuff on their website plus a few other sources were very vague about the whole thing. Since more games often have a bigger focus online I guess a lot of people will pay for online Switch play in order to see the games full experience. As for me I'm gonna wait and see how the console and games turn out.

My hope is that after the trial period of free online gaming on the Switch is over (Autumn 2017) that people who buy the console 'new' after that time could have a month or a small period of time free from Nintendo or some incentive where the first month is cheaper. Microsoft did this with Xbox Live. Nintendo can not just rely on the Nintendo faithful who are already pre-ordering this system make this system a success. The competition with PS4 and Xbox One is going to be tough enough already. I'm going to be a late adopter to the system so I'm hoping that I can buy a months pass just to see how good the online system is. Since Nintendo have not even said how much that will cost or even if you can buy from a month at a time, I guess many are just going to have to wait until further announcements are made.

People complained when Microsoft released the Xbox 360 and you had to pay for it's Xbox Live Gold service especially as online play was free for the original Xbox. People complained when Sony released the PS4 and you had pay for Playstation Plus for online play even though online play was free for Sony Vita, PS3, PSP and PS2 but people got used to it. Nintendo is just following suit. I don't like it at all but it won't change anything. There's already a petition about this online but the company have already made up their mind. The problem is if Nintendo doesn't get their act together and actually market this thing and advertise it well, people will be left with a console with a small handful of games asking themselves if it's worth paying for online play. EA predictably will be the first to jump ship.

Sadly I agree. EA during the Switch presentation didn't give me much hope.

People in the past have complained about shorter single player games, the lack of A.I bots in games, the increase in paid DLC and bigger focus on online gameplay but in time most people just accept it. Just for the record, I'm not happy that users will have to pay in future. I just hope Nintendo are not stupid enough to start messing around with 3DS and Wii U online services as they currently are. This is the thing with Nintendo, they talk about the next big thing and yet give very little away about existing things. I've only just seen the Nintendo Switch presentation and I have question marks over EA. Good luck with paying for a new Nintendo console, Nintendo's online service and then possibly EA's (Origin/Access) service as well. Sony rejected EA Access, just wonder what Nintendo will do? Anyway, as someone who rarely plays online and will be a late adopter to Switch, the whole thing isn't going to affect me much.

I had a quick look at several new sources from Japan both in English and Japanese. Most of it is the same info that every else has seen and I didn't see much else. I did find some comments from one website (toyokeizai). Very loosely put/translated one person complained about the lack of titles, another the lack of real info about the machine and whether Nintendo can pull this off? Another was talking about was it necessary or needed for the Switch to be linked to Nintendo's mobile phone offerings like Pokemon Go? Another comment said it would be difficult to predict how well the system will sell. Someone else said the price was similar to the PS4 but not as powerful. Finally someone started talking about Nintendo selling consoles and mentioned the Wii U and the VirtualBoy. These are just a few comments that I quickly found and not to be taken as what everyone in Japan thinks. (not many comments here so far)

I agree with what you've said it's just a shame we are going into a 2 year+ situation where if things go wrong it's because of Brexit and if things go right it's because of Brexit. It's such a mess. Sorry forgot the 20% tax in America. Having said that I'm not sure if you have to add consumption tax (currently 8%) to the price in Japan. It would be easier if people just gave the final price as they have done with the UK price. Since the Switch is region free I guess some people might try to import it and hope they don't get stung by import duties. Regardless of all this, I don't know how the Switch will work out price wise since you can pick up Xbox One and PS4 deals cheaper. The key for Nintendo is great marketing and advertising. Just hope they deliver this time.

Doubt this has anything really to do with Brexit, the UK hasn't even left. This is just an excuse for companies to blame whatever, whoever they want just to jack up the prices (like Apple did a few months back). Maybe people in America are blaming Trump for the price difference, I don't know. From what I could find these are the prices right now. US $299.99 works out to £246.18 UK £279.99 JPN ¥29,980 works out to £214.68 EU €281.97 works out to £246.01 but Australia gets the full boot in...with $469.95 which works out to £288.84. There is no real excuse for this.

This is a few months old video from Adam Koralik but the views from the 9~10 minute mark I think are the worry for me plus the fact that Nintendo have issues with marketing. Yes I'm sure Nintendo will say "lessons have been learnt" from the Wii U and they have got a lot of free advertising on the back of the rumours of the NX in the past. I just wonder if they can really deliver.

Hi Animal, Pretty much have got all presents for everyone and am just finishing off the Xmas card list although have a bunch off Japanese New Year cards to send off soon. Every year I promise myself that I will sort Christmas out soon but it never happens. This time of year is such a pressure cooker time. There's such a build up to what is effectively one day and there is really no need for that. No wonder some people people break up after Xmas or have family arguments. As sad as it seems, I always buy myself some presents so no matter what I get I won't be disappointed. I'm not disappointed by what others give me anyway. This year has not been great at all so this year I bought myself a second hand Xbox original along with some cheap games. I wish everyone here a very Happy Christmas with wishes for a great Nintendo filled New Year! If you are not celebrating Christmas then best wishes for the New Year. See you then!! : peace: