Dcubed

Controls are fantastic. Game is a ton of fun to speedrun, just like its predecessor (bit of a shame about the autoscrolling levels though, since they slow the pace down quite a bit). But yeah, this is one of my top 3 Wii U titles for sure!

Yeah but the 500GB one isn't really part of their current marketing is it? It's more that they need to phase out the older model and sell off their stock before the 1TB one takes over completely. The 500GB ones aren't just gonna up and disappear over night, it takes time to phase them out.

Well Sony have only ever had one PS4 SKU being sold on the market at any one time no? MS however have had multiple Xbone SKUs at the same time though haven't they? (and that hasn't exactly gone down well). Every time we've had a console with two or more models, the lower priced one has always gone ignored. 60GB PS3 VS 20GB PS3, Premium Wii U VS Basic Wii U, Xbox 360 VS Xbox 360 Core etc... The market clearly doesn't respond well to having multiple SKUs, so why bother making multiple ones? The issue in regards to HDD storage and price isn't so much the fact that the HDD needs to be continuously replaced to avoid the price increasing, it's more that it's a fixed cost that never goes down; making it very difficult to reduce the cost of manufacturing over time. 360 and PS3 never hit the kinds of price points that the PS2 and GCN did for this very reason. Flash storage however will reduce in cost over time, alongside all the other system components, meaning that the console will become much cheaper to produce over time. Adding in a HDD means that this cost reduction will not happen as it otherwise should do.

This is true as well. Nintendo favour flash storage over HDDs for a number of reasons (this being a key one). Flash storage is also more reliable and performs better too (and we all know that reliability is a chief concern of Nintendo's, moreso than anyone else). I reckon they're more likely to have 128GB of flash storage as standard (256GB at the absolute max, but I'm leaning more towards 128GB) and just allow people to connect any USB 3 HDD they want for more storage. No Premium or Basic SKU, just the one model.

It's not terribly complicated, but considering that this is the same company that tried to explain how computer storage works to their audience with beads in glass jars, I can imagine that they want to avoid any sort of unnecceasary complication with their products wherever possible. It did take until Wii U before they finally started measuring game sizes in MB/GB instead of blocks after all! Plus all the other associated benefits as well (not to mention that the savings on the cost of the drive, as well as the heat and wattage budget that it would otherwise consume, can be put towards a more powerful CPU/GPU instead - forgot to mention that!)

I actually said this before, but I'm pretty confident that they're gonna go with 3DS style Game Cards with the NX console and handheld. Typically, cartridge/game card sizes for Nintendo's consoles and handhelds increases by a factor of x8 when jumping generations. Going by that, we should be looking at 64GB Game Cards with the next generation (3DS max size was 8GB), which is already larger than a dual layer Blu-Ray. Also, no Wii U game ended up being larger than 25GB, so that's more than double the size of even the largest Wii U game. Greatly cuts down on loading times, increased reliability of the media, removes the noise of the disc drive, greatly decreased console size, decreased console heat, greatly increased console reliability, decreased console cost and the ability to share Game Cards across both console and handheld (use the exact same physical game card on both console and handheld - there's your cross buy!) and it's a no brainer really. The cost difference between modern day Game Card and BD disc is pretty minuscule now, so it's not really an issue of cost either. With loading times being so incredibly long with optical media on PS4/Xbone, the alternative would be to copy what MS and Sony do with the PS4/Xbone (have mandatory installs that force the player to copy all data from disc to HDD). That's the kind of tech savvy thing Nintendo do not want to have to ask its audience to have to do. It would also greatly increase the price of the console as well because not only would they have to include a noisy disc drive, but they'd also have to include a large HDD as well; something they won't have to do (and probably wont - I suspect internal flash memory/USB 3 HDDs being used for digital purchases like on Wii U) if they go with Game Cards. It really is the best solution all round. The main issue here is that of marketing though as many people still associate Game Cards with 90s consoles and handhelds...

And it was well deserved :p

Cool. Fine by me

Well we're only two races in so... Restart? As long as everyone else is in on it, that makes the most sense to me.

Non-existent?

Whelp! Guess E3's dead to me now! Probably won't even watch the Zelda event. Why bother spoiling half the game for myself? Exactly! We know they have stuff to show, so why not show it? It's completely barmy!

I'm pretty sure that's not everything they have planned. Not only do we know that they have Wii U and 3DS games to show other than Zelda, but they also said that they were planning on doing another Nintendo World Championships event this year, so I'd expect some other announcements regarding E3 plans coming shortly... Edit: Never mind... Turns out that NWC 2016 wasn't actually officially announced... I really can't believe that they'd actually go ahead and show nothing but Zelda. It's not like they actually have nothing to show... Even just amongst known games, what about Paper Mario Colour Splash and Pokemon Sun & Moon? They're not small games!

I do hope they bring back the Spaceworld name and make it a proper event with this post E3 event they're planning. If they're willing to bring back the Nintendo World Championships, then why not go full hog and bring back Spaceworld and make it a yearly event again!

3D Land was better than 3D World :p

Runbow is a fantastic, FANTASTIC game! If you ever get the chance to do 9 player local, take it! It's an absolute riot! It's still fun in 4 player (I'd really say that's the minimum for a good time with this game - 3 is pushing it), but the fun really does increase exponentially with more players. It was designed as a 9 player game from the outset and it shows! The Bowhemoth is good fun in 1 player (or any amount really) though!

Oh yeah! Forgot to say... IN!

BTW, for those wondering... Expected, but still disappointing. Sadly Super Meat Boy on Wii U uses the new soundtrack and not the original one (for those wondering, there was some sort of fall out between Team Meat and the original composer after the game was released originally, meaning that they replaced the soundtrack entirely when they re-released the game on Sony platforms and now here as well). Looks like a good port otherwise, but man... the new music sucks so much

Hey! Swords N' Soldiers 2! Nice! Shame I already own the others, but they're all great games. Insane value overall!

Zelda worlds are like giant constructed puzzles. Much like Metroid, the environment is designed to be interacted with both directly (hookshot onto certain points, cut down vines, climb up cliff faces, blow up walls etc) and in-directly ("How the hell do I get up to that upper path?" "There's a path hidden below this bridge, how do I get down!?" "I can't get this thing yet, I have to remember to come back later on when I get a new item"). Even the enemies are basically glorified puzzles in a sense! Those other games you mention simply aren't built in the same way. The world of Witcher 3 for example is basically just a pretty backdrop; you can't really interact with it in any meaningful way. With Assassin's Creed, you can parkour up things, but that's about it; there's no puzzles to solve or anything like in Zelda. Zelda's environments are shall we say, "designed", while the environments in those other games are basically naturalistic environments that you don't really interact with outside of just running and jumping through them really. I don't mean that as an insult, just that Zelda games are unique in that regard (God of War is closer to Zelda in terms of its environment design than any of the other games you mentioned). As such, there's a design process that happens with Zelda's environments that takes a really frickin' long time. And to attempt making a Zelda game on this scale is actually probably complete lunacy. In fact, it's such lunacy that I don't think it's gonna work out that well in the end. The best Zelda games are the ones that exchange scale for density of design (see Majora's Mask and Skyward Sword VS OoT and Twilight Princess for what I mean). I reckon this new game will feel a bit like butter being scraped over too much bread.

Those games aren't Zelda though and don't have nearly the same level of interactivity that a Zelda game offers. You can't really interact with the environment in those games like in Zelda, you don't have the intricate level, dungeon and enemy designs that Zelda games are known for. And they also don't really take the same handcrafted approach that Zelda does in how they are made (much of those games is precedurally generated). Quite frankly, they're built in a very different way that isn't compatible with how a Zelda game works (and their development focus is entierly different; they're not trying to achieve the same things that Zelda games do). A game of this scale, with the kind of interactivity and gameplay that Zelda is known for is completely unprecedented. And while I'm at it, I'm not convinced that Nintendo will be able to pull it off either, even with 5-6 years of dev time. If people moaned about Twilight Princess' world feeling "empty", then they're gonna hate this game...

HD development and the sheer, ridiculous and absurd scale that they're aiming for with this game are to blame.

For Glory For Fun Crazy Smash Enjoy! : peace:

Heh, glad you liked it. You'll be glad to know that I'm uploading the full videos for all three nights on my own Youtube channel right now. I'll post the links once they're up!

Cool! Keep an eye on the chat if you miss something and be sure to ask anything you need to know there, or here in this thread! AND WE HAVE OUR CRAAAAAZZZZYYYY WINNER!!! It's @Glen\-i! Congratulations Glen! You failed like a pro! : peace: Thanks to everyone for taking part and making this Smash the craaaaazzziest one yet!

Have you tried re-loading the page? I haven't changed any of the settings at all... Are you able to see the stream? Kinda important, because I need to be able to shout out the rules!