Ronnie

You act as if Nintendo had no input. Do you think that Next Level Games woke up one morning and said "Today we're going to make a new Luigi's Mansion game" or Good Feel do the same with Yoshi? No, Nintendo go to them and commission them to make a new game for their console. What does it matter if it's an EPD team or not? Regardless of you dismissing the critically-acclaimed Mario and Zelda series, there are 6 internal development teams, a 2D Mario one, a 3D Mario one, a Zelda one, a Mario Kart/ARMS one, typically an Animal Crossing one, and a sixth one that does quirkier titles. All of them are working on games, two of them just put out Game of the Year contenders. One is currently supporting a mobile game. Crazy concept I know but maybe, just maybe, they're working on Mario Kart 9 or 8 DLC concurrently with Tour. A mobile game which, maybe you don't know, is also being co-developed by Bandai Namco and DeNA. You can throw up a patronising "speculation" gif all you want, funnily enough, that's what message boards are for. Oh comedy gold like the below...

Says the man who needed educating that MonolithSoft is a first party studio, and calls Nintendo's software over the Switch's 2 years and 9 months "pathetic". This debate was started because it was "clear as day where Nintendo's priorities lie: in the mobile market" allegedly. In a year where they've done nothing but shove top quality Switch games down our throat, just because a grand total of one internal EPD development team is currently helping develop Mario Kart Tour, and another developed Super Mario Run three years ago. Yep, clear as day Nintendo only care about mobile gaming now.

Sorry I don't have a patronising image for the entitled, never-happy internet gamer. I wholeheartedly apologise to him for writing "What are you talking about?", not long after he accused me of being "detached from reality" when I said I expected PS5 to retail for about £300-400. I'm just surprised that after an insanely good 2019 people still manage to complain about the Switch's software output. I've already laid out what the internal EPD studios are working on at the moment. EPD 3: BOTW Sequel EPD 4: Brain Age EPD 5: Animal Crossing New Horizons EPD 8: ?? (3D Mario team) EPD 9: Mario Kart Tour support (at least) EPD 10: ?? (2D Mario team) We've no idea how much of the 9 team is on MK Tour and how much of it is working on an announced game. Regardless, I don't see much to complain about in the above. We've also got a big January Direct coming up shortly when they tend to do their big reveals (more so than at E3 lately)

Maybe they are who knows, or maybe they're working on ARMS 2 or Mario Kart 9. I know I don't need to tell you but just because none of that is announced doesn't mean they're not. The only thing we factually know is that some (or all) of the team is co-developing Tour.

Yes they do. They have a handful of internal development studios making things like 3D Mario, Breath of the Wild 2 and Animal Crossing and an army of second and third party studios making an insane amount of exclusives for the Switch for the past twelve months. Oh and yes, the Mario Kart team are helping with Mario Kart Tour while MK8 still flies off the shelves. "Pathetic".

Monolith Soft is a first party developer for Nintendo. Wow. I know you mentioned that, but I was suggesting before you compare them and talk about how the difference was stark, we wait until all the second party stuff is removed from both lists.

The 11 EPD groups, 7 internal development studios, 4 that act more for assistance and publishing + one external EPD group that's been specifically tasked with mobile gaming. Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 1 - External R&D Series/Titles: Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Kirby, Pokémon, Bayonetta, Style Savvy Recent: Xenoblade 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country (Developed by Monolithsoft), Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Developed by Intelligent Systems/Koei Tecmo), Astral Chain (Developed by PlatinumGames), Pokémon: Let's Go (Developed by Game Freak), Super Kirby Clash (Developed by Hal Laboratory/Vanpol), Pokémon Sword/Shield (Developed by Game Freak) Current: Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Developed by Monolithsoft), Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE Encore (Developed by Atlus), Bayonetta 3 (Developed by PlatinumGames) Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 2 - External R&D Series/Titles: Mario & Luigi RPG, Mario Sports, Mario Party, Super Smash Bros., Ever Oasis, Fatal Frame, Golden Sun, Yoshi series Recent: Mario Tennis Aces (Developed by Camelot), Super Mario Party (Developed by NDcube), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Developed by Bandai Namco Studios), BOXBOY+BOXGIRL! (Developed by Hal Laboratory), Yoshi's Crafted World (Developed by Good-Feel), The Stretchers (developed by Tarsier Studios/NST) Current: ?? Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 3 - Internal R&D Series: The Legend of Zelda Recent: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Developed by Grezzo, production by the group) Current: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 4 - Internal R&D Series/Titles: Brain Age, Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, Nintendo Badge Arcade, Miitopia Recent: 1-2 Switch, Nintendo Labo, Ring Fit Adventure Current: Brain Age: Nintendo Switch Training (co-developed w/ indieszero) Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 5 - Internal R&D Series/Titles: Splatoon, Animal Crossing Recent: Splatoon 2, Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion Current: Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 6 - External R&D Series/Titles: Metroid Prime, Donkey Kong Country, Paper Mario, WarioWare, Chibi-Robo!, Luigi's Mansion Recent: Metroid Prime: Federation Force (Developed by Next Level Games), Paper Mario: Color Splash (Developed by Intelligent Systems), WarioWare Gold (Developed by Intelligent Systems), Luigi's Mansion 3 (Developed by Next Level Games) Current: Metroid Prime 4 (Developed by Retro Studios) Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 7 - Internal R&D with External Collaborations Series/Titles: Tomodachi Life/Mii-series, Rhythm Heaven, Metroid (2D) Recent: Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Miitomo, Metroid: Samus Returns (co-developed with Mercury Steam) Current: Famicom Detective Club Remakes (co-developed with Mages Inc.) Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 8 - Internal R&D Series/Titles: Super Mario (3D), Captain Toad Recent: Super Mario 3D World, Ultimate NES Remix, Super Mario Odyssey, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Current: ?? (Probably Mario Odyssey sequel) Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 9 - Internal R&D Series/Titles: Mario Kart, Nintendogs Recent: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, ARMS Current: Mario Kart Tour Nintendo EPD - Production Group No. 10 - Internal R&D Series/Titles: Pikmin, Super Mario Bros. (2D), Super Mario Maker Recent: Super Mario Run, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Super Mario Maker 2 Current: ?? (Super Mario Maker 2 DLC?) Nintendo EPD - Smart Device Production Group - External R&D Recent: Fire Emblem Heroes (Developed by Intelligent Systems), Dragalia Lost (Developed by Cygames), Dr. Mario World (Developed by LINE and NHN Entertainment) Current: Mario Kart Tour (Production for the title of EPD9) In summary, Current first-party fully internal projects: Breath of the Wild 2, Brain Age Switch, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Mario Odyssey sequel??, Mario Kart Tour and something from the Mario Maker team.

1-2 Switch, ARMS, Splatoon 2, Xenoblade 2 and two Game of the Years in BOTW And Odyssey in the space of 9 months. Fine I suppose. Could do better I can't quite believe the hyperbole in this thread: "Shocking, Pathetic and Sickening" to describe Switch software. @Glen-i you're mixing first and second party there. A glaring example is why can OOT3D and MM3d count but not Link's Awakening on Switch?

So: 1-2 Switch Breath of the Wild MK8 Deluxe Arms Splatoon 2 Mario Odyssey Labo Sushi Striker NSMBUDX Super Mario Maker 2 Ring Fit Adventure Brain Age Switch Animal Crossing New Horizons in three years. Ok? Seems pretty healthy, especially knowing what's in the pipeline as well. Then throw in the dozen or so second party/outsourced titles and all the third party games they've worked hard to get on board + first party studio Monolith Soft and Xenoblade 2. How much work do you really think EPD put into Doctor Mario? If you're dismissing outsourced games like Yoshi, Luigi's Mansion and Link's Awakening, then why not dismiss their co-developed mobile titles? If they were prioritising mobile gaming, which they obviously aren't, they'd push them and make Directs on their mobile games. They don't. Mario Kart Tour was pretty much just released one day with almost no fanfare. There were a couple of YouTube videos and that's it. Same with Dragalia Lost and Doctor Mario

What are you talking about? Yoshi, Labo VR, Ring Fit Adventure, Tetris 99, Mario Maker 2, Fire Emblem, Astral Chain, Link's Awakening, Luigi's Mansion, Pokemon, all in the past eight months. Animal Crossing, BOTW 2, likely a Mario Odyssey sequel, Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4 on the way. In no world is that "moving away from their reliance on traditional gaming", and it's as far away from the Wii U's software situation as possible.

5 million PSVRs sold in just over 3 years, I can see why Xbox aren't particularly fussed. Plus their messaging is all about streaming + Game Pass + exclusives atm so it makes sense

Wow 5 quid for Titanfall 2! I was looking at Shadow of the Tomb Raider, a game that isn't that old and it's 11 quid on Amazon. Great time to be a gamer I guess.

It's hard to argue that the Switch software line-up is struggling when they've just released 6 or 7 big first or "second" party games in the past 6 months. Now obviously we'll see how things go next year and if they can keep it up, but this year at least the Switch software output has been insane. I also can't imagine the bulk of the ARMS/MK8 EPD team are hard at work on MK:Tour. Creatively sure but the actual mobile development will have been left to DeNA, with Bandai Namco helping too. I think the reason we haven't seen MK9 is because frankly, MK8 is still selling. Once that slows down, they'll put out a new game. They're probably working on it as we speak, or an ARMS sequel, who knows. As for the monetisation, I completely agree but I don't think you should dismiss the shareholder aspect so easily. It's probably not the best idea for new Nintendo Presidents to rock the boat so much when they first come in and throwing shareholders a bone when it come to mobile gaming probably smoothed the transition for them.

Got to the first "dungeon" of the game, and probably did about half of it, until I got to a story beat. I didn't even know this game had dungeons. So much fun. Put the game down for the night but can't wait to play again tomorrow night and explore all the newly open paths.

I'm finding scout troopers really challenging on the second planet you visit, even on normal difficulty. Especially when there's a couple of them, it's hard to focus on parrying their hits when you have both of them melee-ing you at once. I just end up button mashing. The combat definitely takes some getting used to, but it was the same for God of War I suppose.

I'm definitely getting it eventually but I've got Fallen Order and Link's Awakening to play first.

Just did a quick search on Twitter and it's full of people asking for refunds because they got charged without any warning. In fact half of them seem to be saying they'd switched auto-renew off and it still signed them up for another year. Seems a pretty flaky system, I haven't got any email from them apart from "Thanks for your purchase!". Oh well, hopefully they'll give me a full refund.

Next film in the saga on the way to IX, I just watched Attack of the Clones... Frankly, it was even worse than I remember it. The same issues from Phantom Menace carried over: terrible characters, terrible acting and terrible script, now with added terrible story-telling, editing and pacing. It was also way too long, I was bored half way through and I'm a huge SW nerd. The plot was just all over the place, I'm not a fan of how the plot jumps around from place to place every two minutes like in 2 and 3. Christensen I'm sure did the best he could but was an awful casting choice, almost unwatchable and Portman is as bad as ever. Samuel L Jackson with his stupid purple lightsaber (cause he's apparently supposed to be a cool guy) annoys me. So many cringy scenes, glances and moments. Why can Artoo fly all of a sudden? Threepio swapping heads with a battle droid was just dumb. Actually that whole sequence was. Why is Yoda a military strategist all of a sudden? His portrayal in Last Jedi was perfect, I don't know who the fuck Ep 2 Yoda was. Way, way, too much CG. The actors must have spent the entire production surrounded by green screen. There's tons more negatives, but a few positives: the three arena beasts were pretty cool, a look into Coruscant's night life was fun (if not particularly well done), the seismic charges were obviously fantastic (what chance we'll see them show up again in Mandalorian) and the sound effects were on point as usual, especially the speeder chase early on. But yeah, urgh. 3/10 Lucas has some good ideas, but he's no film-maker. Thankfully the original trilogy was rescued by people close to him.

Don't get me started on Nintendo's policy, even though I had a free code (via Amazon Prime) to get the sub it puts you onto auto renew. At least Nintendo warn you when your sub is about to auto-renew, in advance. Nothing from PS4, just "Thanks for giving us another 50 quid!"

Thanks I will do. A few places at least warn you your subscription will auto-renew soon. To be honest I thought I had cancelled it, but evidently not.

I just got an email saying my PS+ has automatically renewed for another year and my card was charged 50 quid. I had no idea I was on auto-renew, let alone that it was up for renewal at all. Just got in touch with Sony 5 minutes after getting the email requesting a cancellation and a refund. I checked my transaction history and I haven't downloaded anything off PS+ for over a year, and haven't touched my PS4 in that long to use online play, so if I don't get a refund it'll be the biggest waste of 100 quid ever.

I've basically got the biggest grin on my face pretty much the entire time playing this game. Been running around and exploring the first planet you visit and got to the first main story checkpoint. It plays like a dream, love the traversal, it's so much fun finding all the secrets and collectibles, love BD-1 and I'm finding myself surprisingly invested in Cal. Cutscenes and facial animations are top notch, great performance from Monaghan too. Storyline sounds pretty intriguing so far. Also, I've got this weird obsession with menus, so I tend to pay attention to UI a lot, the interface in this game is lovely. Can't wait to play more tomorrow night

It's funny Chapter 3 has been getting rave reviews, it's at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes etc. I actually enjoyed it the least of all three. It just felt quite one-note and predictable to me. It didn't help that three of the scenes may as well have been filmed on the same day as their identical scenes in the first chapter (and by all reports, they were). It was good though, I still liked it but I'm looking forward to the Mando getting out into the wider galaxy now and showing us something new.

Finally started this tonight, I think there's been a patch this week that's hopefully made the game a bit more stable, but it was getting to the point where IGN were putting spoilers all over their YouTube so I decided I should probably get a move on and play it now. Very impressive opening, visually stunning (at least on the One X), fun traversal, challenging combat. I was a bit all over the place with the lightsaber, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. So many little touches for Star Wars nerds. Cutscenes were fantastic. Loved walking around the ship and interacting with the guitar thing, nice little touches. Oh and the cockpit when in hyperspace is f-ing cool. Just got to the first planet, decided to stop there and carry on tomorrow

Great to see games like Breath of the Wild, and now Death Stranding do this. The industry needs new openworld experiences like these games, the Ubisoft model is a bit played out by this point, it's why I didn't think Spiderman was all that last year.