Debug Mode

The only thing I remember hearing was that it'll most likely be broadcast on the 10th of December, but it might be Hokkaido TV only. I'll let you know when I get more details as I had no idea who any of these guys were but I imagine they're quite famous given how the girl I was eating with's jaw dropped wide open when they came in.

You've got two months to learn some Japanese my boy, hop to it.

So I might be making an appearance on Japanese TV ahaha. Thank fuck the person I was eating with wanted to bail too, being the only foreigner in the place would have definitely got me on the hit list for an interview

Hmm, I can't really argue with that logic I guess. I'd personally opt for something like Amazon or ShopTo, but ShopTo have already opened up the pre-orders which makes it difficult to gauge how likely you are in getting one. But yeah, be vigilant mate, £50 is a huge deposit and it just seems very suspicious. Hope it all pans out well for you and you get it day one!

Got a party at work tomorrow night, will need to speak in English as well as the rest of the staff but I'm being dragged into doing a costume. I think I've got the stuff I'll need, but it'll go horrible wrong. For reference, here's an image of what I'm going to attempt to do, it's a silicon creature from Blame

50 fucking quid? What happens if they go under again?

Of course it would totally depend on the software output around launch and what additional features there are for the Switch that are not yet unveiled, but £250 would probably be my maximum. That would easily be upped to £300 if there are some killer apps in the pipeline that are fully announced instead of rumoured. To be honest, there would need to be something special to get me to pick it up at launch and I know I'm not the only one in that boat, so Nintendo needs something to not have a repeat of the Wii U where too many potential customers sit on the fence so see what happens to the point that the adoption never gains traction or it's too late and third parties aren't convinced.

Quoted for truth. Expect a real ass buggering on the price. Just need to make sure I have enough yen laying around by launch period myself

Not been to any game stores since the reveal last week, but among friends the buzz is definitely up there. One of the first things said by a group of friends I went to university with her about 4 years ago was "Monster Hunter best stay on Nintendo". Aside from that, not heard much. One of the important things out here is that pre-orders work differently and there may not be a good gauge of hype levels until the date pre-orders officially open. No one takes pre-orders here for things until a certain amount of time before release here and it must be a date set by the manufacturer/publisher because every one opens them up at the same time.

One thing I'm curious about is whether or not they're considering alternatively shaped JoyCon controllers in future. The beauty of a control scheme that can be removed is that they can release many different types and it'll still be compatible despite being a hybrid. You could always launch controllers on a console, but you'd have to wait until the next reiteration of a handheld to see if something more ergonomically pleasing for your hands would be released. They demonstrated that the controllers can be used wirelessly, but is that still the case when you slide them onto the tablet itself? Is there some form of connection when they are docked with the tablet to conserve battery life? If there is, does that open up the opportunities for thicker Joy Cons that have additional batteries inside of them that can be used to power the tablet for longer? So many questions man, a very exciting time for gaming.

Monster Hunter 4G/X HD double pack for Wii U due in the holidays to finally get the fucking stock out of Japanese stores 12PM Thursday! When do the clocks go back? It might be 11am if they've gone back in the UK

Kanji is very important to the writing system as it can distinguish the meaning of words that have the same spelling and also 'simplifies' texts by requiring less space. Once you get to a certain level, you can actually work out what a kanji you've never seen before actually means by the radicals contained in the kanji (as in, certain shapes or strokes in the kanji). Giving an example of why kanji is useful, I'll give you a word. かえる Romanized: Kaeru Now, there's two words that immediately spring to mind that are spelt that way in their basic dictionary form (present tense). 変える - To change 帰る - To return (as in, return to your room, apartment, country etc) Both spelt the exact same way yet two different meanings. Obviously you would be able to tell the difference by context、but the 'kanji' element I mentioned is the first symbol and those can be combined. One example from the latter word is 帰国, to return home. Instead of having a long winded explanation that you're returning to your home country, you now have just one verb for it and it is read as 'kikoku'. I hope that serves as a decent explanation as to why kanji is important, but by all means message me if there's any thing you're stuck with in the future!

Yo! Yes, you are correct! First piece of advice: Don't pass up on any conversational practice, no matter how bad you think you might be. You'll remember so much more that way and it's one of my biggest regrets that I didn't take advantage of the many opportunities I had. Ashley already hit the nail on the head that the grammar rules are very simple, the key is to simply remember them. All you really do is 'conjugate' the verbs and the verbs are split into three different groups, you'll definitely be taught how to identify what group a verb belongs to so I wont touch upon it here. The best advice I can give you is study from this website as well as your classes. I failed my second year miserably due to many different circumstances (laziness was admittedly one of them). I had to repeat the year but instead of attending classes, I studied from that website and attended the tests and was getting high 90's for marks. Completely free, you have the option to buy the book too if you want but there's no point given that it's available in it's complete form on the website and as a smart phone application. Don't neglect the kanji writing system. Hiragana and katakana are a piece of piss, but you'll need to know your kanji. i'm okay at reading, but terrible at writing so make sure to practice as much as you can so you ingrain it into your memory! If you need any help along the way, send me a PM and I'll do my best to help you out mate, good luck!

I agree. The Vita games were rarely at native resolution as the screen resolution was just far too fucking high, but stuff like WipeOut managed it (but sacrificed the series staple of being 60fps), still very impressive graphics which made going back to the 3DS a little bit of an eyesore. But hey, we're now back to the waiting game! So... who wants Persona 5 Portable?!

More info slowly but surely trickling out

Very excited so far, brilliant reveal. I just hope they don't fuck it up. Give us those hard hitters like OS level communication features, region free and, more importantly, keep to having non propitiatory storage.

I'll have the IV ready just in case they announce a mobile phone and all of their games from now on are going to be freemium titles.

I think it's just going to be a teaser with a full reveal date at the end. I've said this for a while now, they needed to get something out before their investors meeting next week because they will not remain silent if they were still hush hush. My guess is that it will be something similar to how the Wii's controller was revealed, lots of shots of people 'playing' something and then the main distinguishing feature of the console shown at the end.

I'm not allowed to play my 3DS at home? When I read "home gaming system", I get more of the image of a game system that is available to regular consumers in comparison to arcade units etc, but that's just me. There's all the possibility it's a home console you can take out in some form though

HAPPENING. IT'S HAPPENING.

Hey mate, thanks for the offer but I've already received one! As for protean Froakie, I may have one laying around somewhere that you can have as I bred a whole bunch of them. Send me your friend code by direct message and I'll try and get back to you as soon as I'm able to trade you one

Not sure about this Donkey Kong thing, but Paper Mario was accidentally leaked at a video game event by someone claiming that the company he is working for was working on a new title in the series. But I'm not hating or bitching? I just think it's very odd to put out that something 'weird, fun and crazy' is in the works when pretty much the majority of Nintendo's IP's could be described as such? It's like me saying that the new Nintendo console has a d-pad, you'd be thinking "Well no shit". Like I said at the very beginning, I'm just finding myself very cynical of her 'leaks' lately.

Don't get me wrong, if she turns out to be completely correct about the NX stuff I have no problem admitting I was incorrect, but you do realise absolutely none of your examples have been proven right? The NX was rumoured to be hybrid way before she mentioned it by the way. She was wrong about Star Fox and wrong about female link in the new Zelda (could still happen though!), and those were her previous high profile 'insider source' findings.

My only complaint is the camera as well, it's like Game Freak asked for lessons from the Sonic Team