Dcubed

Very interesting... Really quite unusual for Nintendo to outright buy an external developer (and a western one at that), and it sounds like they're going to be placed purely on 3rd party game porting duties. Makes it all the more baffling that they let Tantalus get snapped up by Keywords back in 2019 instead of pouncing on them when they had the chance. Edit: Ahh… Just saw someone else point out an interesting connection that might help partly explain this acquisition… Shiver’s founder (John Schappert) was previously COO of EA and worked directly alongside Doug Bowser while he was also at EA. So there’s a bit of personnel networking going on here too... Wouldn’t be too surprised if Schappert starts rising up the ranks of NOA after this acquisition then.

Ehh, Wipeout has always been a bit pants when it comes to gameplay. It's not even a poor man's F-Zero, it's actually a poor man's Mario Kart. It's absolutely dripping with style though, and that's what really sold the series back in the late 90s/early 2000s. It was exactly the right game at the right time, as it successfully tapped into British club culture and helped the Playstation brand to supplant SEGA's position amongst older game players. Still, Wipeout 64 is one of those neat little weird anomolies from just before Psygnosis got absorbed into Sony proper (who later became Sony Studios Liverpool; before being made defunct in 2012 after being turned into a F1/Wipeout games factory for around a decade beforehand). Something that supposedly Sony weren't too happy about; in fact, they actually tried to sell Psygnosis in 1996 after they got their hands on Psygnosis' real crown jewel (SN Systems), but eventually weren't able to, so they ended up reigning Psygnosis in and eventually absorbed the company proper. Indeed, Sony's treatment of Psygnosis isn't that dissimilar from how Microsoft would end up treating Bethesda. Both were similarily prolific publishers in their day too.

Speaking of old rags... https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/05/polands-dreamcast-extreme-magazine-looks-so-good-youd-think-it-was-official Out of nowhere comes a brand new Polish Dreamcast magazine called Dreamcast Extreme. Pretty cool!

Yeah, from what I’ve seen of him playing it; it’s really cool so far. If you’re into abstract sci-fi with an intentionally disjointed and cryptic narrative structure that’s grounded in real world allegory and family drama, as well as experimental art-house theatre; and you like games like Zero Escape or AI: The Somnium Files that mix the VN and puzzle genres, I reckon you’ll get a kick out of this one

Personally, I think that Wario Ware 2 (Twisted): Wario Land 6: Mario Land 8 is the weirdest Mario Land game, but Mario Land 1 is pretty weird too I suppose.

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/microsofts-quest-for-short-term-dollardollardollar-is-doing-long-term-damage-to-windows-surface-xbox-and-beyond Sounds like we’re coming close to the end of the line for Xbox. What a shame, such a waste of potential. If they want to make the biggest splash possible as a 3rd party publisher though, they should probably wait until the release of Switch 2; come swinging right out of the gate with the likes of the complete Halo, Gears and Forza series during the launch window and immediately establish themselves as the biggest 3rd party on Nintendo’s next console. No doubt they’d get the sweetheart royalty deal to end all sweetheart royalty deals if they do this.

Resident Evil Remake Remastered Remake.

Crazy stuff! Insane that it actually seems to work as well as it does!

Probably should post this here… Investor's Q&A is now out officially in English. Transcript is here: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2024/240508e.pdf Some notable tidbits... Nintendo Accounts to transfer forward. Expected, but nice. Switch 2 won't be dropping support for physical games, unlike what some stupid rumours were reporting before... Console supply at launch should be good. Good. Oh look! This was a mistranslation, what a surprise Sounds like they realise that putting out heavy hitting software on Switch 1 is a fools errand at this point, and ensuring business continuity with a successful Switch 2 launch is more important than selling software on their existing hardware. Makes Metroid Prime 4 even more likely to be a next gen exclusive.

Well, the Q&A isn’t all Switch 2 related… just mostly

Investor's Q&A is now out officially in English. Transcript is here: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2024/240508e.pdf Some notable tidbits... Nintendo Accounts to transfer forward. Expected, but nice. Switch 2 won't be dropping support for physical games, unlike what some stupid rumours were reporting before... Console supply at launch should be good. Good. Oh look! This was a mistranslation, what a surprise Sounds like they realise that putting out heavy hitting software on Switch 1 is a fools errand at this point, and ensuring business continuity with a successful Switch 2 launch is more important than selling software on their existing hardware. Makes Metroid Prime 4 even more likely to be a next gen exclusive.

Well, I mean, it’s a Ys game; of course the music is killer.

Midway really were the N64’s biggest 3rd party publisher, weren’t they? Their output on the console is kinda bonkers. And most of it is at least semi-decent to boot too. Shame that they didn’t last much longer after the 5th Gen. They fell off their peak like a lead balloon as soon as we hit 2001 and as they exited the arcade business.

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/05/cotton-reboot-high-tension-announced-for-ps5-ps4-and-switch Potentially of interest to @Hero-of-Time I’m always down for a good rail shooter

See, the thing about those old T239 rumblings is that they came about so long ago now that I can’t imagine that they’d still be valid anymore. If the console had launched back in 2022-2023, then yeah, it’d make sense, but this console is gonna be launching in 2025 now. Nvidia will be moving onto their next hardware architecture (Blackwell) this year with the RTX5000 series, so there’s no way that they’d still be using the now 4-5 year old Ampere architecture with a 2025 system; they won’t be manufacturing with that node or architecture anymore by that point. The hardware will undoubtedly have been heavily revised since those rumours first came about 2-3 years ago, they’re probably using something completely different now. I’d expect that they’d have to support SD Express by this point. There’s no other real viable option for external storage in a portable device that’ll have the loading speeds that this console is gonna need. Of course, the main problem is that SD Express cards aren’t commercially available yet, and there isn’t really any incentive for SD Card manufacturers to begin making these cards until Switch 2 comes out; since it’s gonna basically be the only device out there that’ll even be making use of the tech (well… until Steam Deck 2 comes along as well I suppose).

I guess there’s just nothing you can do except use QR codes but shh, don’t ruin the joke.

Keep in mind that's an unofficial translation (the Investors Q&A isn't out in English yet), so take the exact wording with a grain of salt until the official English transcript comes out. I'm not overly concerned about how Nintendo will handle the increase in hardware power with Switch 2, because I think they're sensible enough to realise that they don't have to massively increase the fidelity of the art assets in their games. Nintendo are also already releasing plenty of games with mid-tier and lower budgets that aren't pushing the limits of AAA Switch production (such as the recently announced Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition), and they've had plenty of success with said mid-tier budget titles. I don't expect a huge jump (if any) when it comes to art asset fidelity with Switch 2. All they really need to do is stick with their current level of visual fidelity, but allow their games to run in higher resolutions at better framerates, with reduced loading times. Give their current games more breathing room on a technical level. That's all we're really asking for from their next hardware when it comes to production values. If anything, the reduced amount of time needed to achieve the extreme level of hardware optimisation that games like TOTK needed in order to run on the current Switch should actually reduce development time if anything. I think Nintendo are sensible enough to realise that this is the way to go.

Game Pass is Xbox's only real legitimate USP though. Otherwise, there's nothing else that it offers that isn't already offered by Playstation. There's a reason why the consoles are commonly nicknamed "The HD Twins" after all. Ultimately, this is the culmination of what Iwata was warning about back in the early 2000s. He warned that the lack of gameplay differentiation between consoles would ultimately result in games becoming a comoddity business, where lower prices would be the only way to meaningfully differentiate your public offering. And he was right. The problem with Game Pass is that its growth potential is directly tied to Xbox hardware sales, and that has now become a bit of a chicken & egg situation. Can't sell subs to people who don't have Xboxes, but they haven't got enough exclusive software to bring people to the platform, so hardware sales continue to stall. Price drops remain their only real option, but that takes away the revenue needed to sustain their expensive (and chaotic) development pipeline.

Most people consider rail shooters like Star Fox and Space Harrier to be a completely different genre compared to horizontal or vertical shmups, but there is certainly enough crossover that it can at least be considered an adjacent genre. Personally I get more annoyed when people don’t consider Space Harrier or Afterburner to be in the rail shooter genre, despite them basically being the progenitors of said genre!

It does summarise the specialities of each platform and the differing expectations of each respective audience quite nicely doesn’t it? By the standards of 3D platformers seen on PS1, Gex ain’t bad at all. But once you bring it to the N64? You’re up against Mario 64 and Banjo; which is a lopsided fight that no 3rd party could ever be reasonably expected to compete against. Conversely, the Tony Hawks games on N64 are solid enough, but they compare poorly to their PS1 counterparts.

8 player local multi support is sick! Doesn’t look quite as creative as NES Remix, but it still looks fun. Will cop

https://www.resetera.com/threads/some-companies-are-already-confirming-switch-successor-support.864372/ That's two already (though admittedly small devs), confirming support for the Nintendo Swop. Guess we'll probably start seeing developers and publishers announcing games for the system before we see the console now that it's officially "announced". Nice to finally get the ball rolling

Yup, totally agreed. They'll likely be on the chopping block when Hellblade fails to sell 10 million consoles. Speaking of which, I'm shocked that MS haven't shut down Rare. They've basically been spinning their wheels ever since the end of the original Xbox and have only had one true bonefide hit (Kinect Sports) since their acquisition in 2003 (Ok, Sea of Thieves has done well in terms of userbase size; but it hasn't really made any money since it was the first first party game to be given away for free on Game Pass). Everwild is also a complete failure, having already been rebooted at least once and having nothing to show for 7-8 years of development. Same with The Initiative as well. They've been working on Perfect Dark since 2018 and that has been such a disaster that MS had to hire Crystal Dynamics to take over development from them. How can they justify shutting down studios that have a proven ability to ship product and (usually) quality product at that, when they are happy to keep throwing money into the Rare and Initiative black hole!? Utter mismanagement at the highest level of Xbox.

Insane action that Xbox are taking today. The absolute last thing they need to be doing is reducing their output, and especially not cutting the developer responsible for their most critically acclaimed first party game since the Xbox 360 era. I seriously question whether or not they're planning on launching another console if they're gonna be taking actions like this. Feels like they're just giving up now.

Some choice words from Arkane Lyon's Co-Creative Director... ... not exactly a good look when your own developers are publically throwing your company under the bus.