Ronnie

Great news, these are always really great to watch. I thought the one a few days ago felt a bit more low key than usual.

Mario Kart 8 could be released now and it wouldn't feel dated in the slightest. It's an old game but it's still worth the price tag it released at. NES/SNES/N64 games, sure, obviously Nintendo aren't going to (and haven't) charged full price for those games that fit the term "old", but a port from last gen that holds up graphically and mechanically this gen (WITH bonus DLC thrown in) should absolutely cost a similar value.

I get comfort knowing that I can buy it as soon as I want it, not be forced to wait for a price drop just to save a few quid. I held off buying Shadow of the Tomb Raider for a year before buying it at bargain basement prices, same with Battlefront II, it's at £15 at the moment, I'll probably buy it now. It's doing the industry no favours. "rewarded for your patience"? I'm not sure what that even means mate. Publishers aren't rewarding people to wait and pay bargain prices for their games, they're lowering prices because that's what that side of the industry has made the norm. A game is a game, games should be worth their price tag. You see so many publishers talk about how their big AAA game sold 3 millions but that still wasn't enough and so they're either shutting that studio down, not making more games in that series, or injecting microtransactions, DLC and season passes to try and recoup the extra cost, cost they lost by lowering the value of their own games. I'll take Nintendo's approach any day, even if it puts me out of pocket a bit more, it means I can buy games at launch and more importantly it means a healthy industry.

They had no idea how much it would sell and so priced it conservatively. You can guarantee they'd have charged full price if they knew the crazy numbers it would sell. Shadow of the Colossus was probably sold at a reduced rate because Sony suspected the typical PS4 install base would balk at being charged full price for a 10-15 year old game. It's somewhat comforting to know that when I buy Mario Odyssey at launch it won't be half price 6 months later. Otherwise I might wait, like I do with a lot of PS4 games.

I'll never understand this "Nintendo should reward people who bought our games in the past" thing. From my point of view, playing the games is reward enough, I had a great time with MK8 on Wii U and they're aren't forcing anyone to buy the same game twice, so why should they charge a discount rate just to appeal to people who have already bought the game? MK8 is the same MK8 as on Wii U, in fact it's even better with the DLC already added. Why charge less? Probably because they know selling those games at full price won't get many sales, unlike Nintendo first party games. Just because other publishers heavily discount games two weeks after release or put out a GOTY edition 6-12 months later at half price doesn't mean 1. it's healthy for the industry (it really, really isn't) and 2. Nintendo have to do it as well.

Oh and Switch had another big month in the US. Top selling hardware, and Octopath Traveller #1 selling software. (and that's only physical sales, NPD don't track Nintendo's digital sales) Software: Octopath Traveler* Grand Theft Auto V Mario Kart 8* Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild* Far Cry 5 Super Mario Odyssey* The Crew 2 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege Mario Tennis Aces * FIFA 18** Lego Incredibles God of War (2018) Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker* NBA 2K18 Call of Duty: WWII Detroit: Become Human MLB 18: The Show Minecraft** Destiny 2**

Interesting stuff from Miyamoto Fixed cost v free to play for mobile games: Subscription-style games

I think it's similar to how games used to say if they were compatible with the video recording feature, a new service devs were excited about supporting. Now no one mentions that and it just comes as (more or less) standard. It'll be the same here. People will say "oooh we have cloud save support" at first, then it'll just be the norm.

Totally agree, and I realise Kickstarter games often take 5+ years to make. I guess I just found it weird that it was on stage at E3 before work had barely begun.

I do realise that yes. Sony's conferences of the last few years have left me in no doubt about that fact. Personally much prefer a short reveal > release schedule like Fallout, Assassin's Creed and (mostly) Nintendo first party.

5 years after its E3 reveal

Sure, why not

Yep, seems very likely

Disappointed not to have Damon Baker hosting the video, the woman they chose instead was... not good. Then again maybe this isn't their usual Nindie showcase and was just something to show off in time for Gamescom? Monster Boy, Bad North and possibly Children of Morta probably the highlights for me personally. Morphie's Law just looks waaaay too janky and unpolished to me. I'm sure the gameplay is fun though.

I was hoping that Game Maker title Swords of Ditto could now be ported to Switch... but it apparently isn't much good shame cause it's one of the prettiest looking games I've ever seen. The devs I spoke to at EGX said pretty much every person who came up to them asked if they could port it to Switch.

Yeah I suspect it'll be a mini Direct with a bunch of release dates for previously known games and we'll get our usual Nindies Showcase next month. I think those have always been 6 months apart.

How exciting

On holiday atm so of course brought my Switch and thought I'd (finally) give the Donkey Kong Adventure a go. As reported and predicted, it's fantastic. I also get the impression they've made the cutscenes a LOT better, they seem to be of a higher quality than the original game. What a delightful game this is, a real gem.

Take the joy con off. Figure of speech anyway

I almost stopped reading at 4K, that's where it loses all credibility. The PS4 Pro can barely do 4K properly, let alone something that fits in your pocket.

For £18 a year I'm not sure how much more there is to know. Really dumb tweet from Liam Robertson imo.

Exactly, I really don't understand all these "we still don't know anything about it" comments. Online play, old NES games, cloud saves. The only thing that's vague is the date, but I'm not exactly climbing the walls waiting for that. Second half of September, fine, whatever.

I'm sure they're making a new one as well, it's just that porting games over requires a comparatively tiny fraction of the time/cost/reseouces so they might as well. The rest of the year could use maybe one more game in addition to Smash and Pokemon and a 2D Mario port would do nicely.

I really hope we don't see another multiplayer Zelda game any time soon. Tri Force Heroes and the Four Swords games just aren't what I play a Zelda game for. Nintendo aren't exactly short of multiplayer games on Switch. Kart, Smash, Splatoon, Arms, Tennis, Pokken etc.

Hollow Knight is just amazing. I can't stop thinking about it, once I got over the early hump of wanting throw my controller through the TV it ended up being pretty much the best Metroidvania I've ever played.