Dcubed

Well. Normally I'd say the same, but with everything that's going on with Xbox right now? Circumstances are different this time around It makes sense that we'd see a tapering off of new first party games for Switch by this point. It must be all-hands-on-deck for Switch 2's launch window lineup of games right now; so it's sensible to focus on 3rd party games and the remaining el-cheapo ports/remasters/remakes to come for the existing Switch. Still. The Xbox Partner Direct ought to be pretty entertaining and exciting in its own right, if only to watch video game history get made

Very impressive stuff. Not bad at all for a game that went through so much development hell.

Very sad. Damn shame that he never got to live to see Hundred Heroes come to fruition

Oh 'eh! A new trailer for your eyeball holes! Guess that confirms that this month's Ninty Direct is gonna be a Partner Direct, just like the rumours said it would be. Also Persona Peach lol.

Q3 financial results are out now... https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/sony-q3-fy3-2024-financial-results-oct-dec-2023-gn-s-sales-up-by-16-yoy-oi-down-by-26-ps5-hw-at-8-2m-sw-at-89-7m-new-forecast-sm2-at-10m.2418/ Oh, and yes @Sheikah, PS5 is falling further behind PS4, just like I said it would... Also relevent... and also relevent... ... no major first party titles are planned for release this fiscal year (ending March 31st 2025). Will be interesting to see if anything changes sales wise as Xbox pulls out of the console market, but yeah... @Sheikah you can stop pretending that I'm wrong now; and accept that Sony are pushing into the PC space to help offset the continuing decline of the traditional console market, and will only be pushing further as time goes on.

I didn’t think so myself, which is why I discounted the idea originally. But they have been relatively quiet since they released Yoshi’s Crafted World and Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn in 2019 (with only Monkey Barrels and Mameda no Bakeru released in that 4 year gap; both fairly small scale games). I still think it might be a stretch, but I also couldn’t imagine them fully breaking off their relationship with Nintendo; so their UE4 experience would make sense here…

Probably not internally developed then… Maybe it is Good Feel after all?

A podcast is a bit of a bizzare way of announcing whatever this is, but I suppose it’s indicative of how last-minute this whole thing is. They clearly had no intention of making a public statement any time before April originally; but the leaks have forced their hand now. So this is what they could cobble together in the shortest time possible… … plus it gives them time to react to this week’s Nintendo Direct

And there it is… February 15th at 20:00 marks the Time Of Death.

Not that I'd put any particular stock into this rumour, or its source, but really this is the minimum that I'd expect from Switch 2. Microsoft and Sony have set the standard, and I would expect Nintendo to at least try to match up when it comes to backwards compatibility.

@Glen-i is right. Pokken's Charizard With Pecs is just weird... Also, Lizardon being the Japanese name is hilarious ... definitely a case of its trainer pumping a bit too many drugs into it.

@Julius, you can alleviate some of the performance issues by installing the game onto the Switch's internal storage, rather than the SD Card; assuming that you have the digital version here. Seems that most of the hitching is caused by the game trying to stream new data in on the fly. Glad you're enjoying it though. Link's Awakening is probably the most condensed game in the series, it's small-scale by design and it's all the better for it

Doh! Yeah, I meant the 15th of February nerrr

I don’t have a single Friday off until March 2nd now… I can do Thursday 8th though if you guys want to play before/after Mario Kart? Otherwise it’s gonna have to be either a Wednesday or a Saturday if you don’t want to wait a month.

What the actual hell!? HOW DID GLEN END UP WITH 600 COINS!?!?

Lovely stuff, mostly the same arrangements as seen in the Seattle Nintendo Live event last year, but still great. These concerts are always wonderful; always great to see Nintendo pay tribute to the series as a whole

Come on guys! Let’s get some 3DS games in while we still can! Kid Icarus Uprising? Mario Kart 7? Mario Golf World Tour? Monster Hunter 4? Triforce Heroes? There’s plenty to play before the day!

Honestly? We may well get the first announcement during next week’s Nintendo Direct. The timing already matches up so flawlessly that they may well just latch onto Nintendo’s audience; especially if Nintendo and Microsoft have already come to some sort of behind-the-scenes deal (which would be an extension of their already existing relationship). As for Phil Spencer? He has already been pushing this multiplatform future for some time now. I could absolutely see him turning up in a Nintendo Direct. I can’t see him being SO against the idea of a multiplatform future that he would quit in protest; I think he’d have to be forced out.

Rare was already starting to fall apart before the Microsoft buyout. Most of the GE/PD team left right before the end of PD’s development to form Free Radical, you had Martin Hollis leaving to found Zoonami (after working freelance for a few years as a consultant on the GCN hardware’s development), lots of other staff members like Neil Gallagher were leaving to go into education or go freelance or join other companies. And most critically of all? The Stamper Brothers had already announced their intention to retire by 2000-2001; really, this was the biggest reason why Nintendo chose not to buy the remaining 51%. Tim & Chris Stamper were really the lifeblood of the company, and it’s when they left in 2007 that the house of cards truly fell apart.

That's not saying much though

Goldeneye is such an absolute miracle of a game. To think it came from a freshman team at Rare is just even more ludicrous; the Stampers just simply had the Midas Touch when it came to scouting talent and incubating the best games that the industry ever saw. On paper, this game should've been a dismal failure. A long delayed licensed title, original intended for the fucking Virtual Boy, that came out almost two years late, on a platform that was almost dead in the water by this point. Not only did it revive the console, not only did it revolutionise the FPS genre (indeed, this was the inflection point where the FPS genre truly came into being on consoles), it actually managed to supplant the original source material it was based on. Today, when you hear the word "Goldeneye", you instantly think of the 1997 N64 video game, not the 1995 movie; the movie was shit. Martin Hollis, Dave Doak and the rest of the team at Rare not only beat the odds, but they crafted one of the single most important and influential video games of all time. Goldeneye is amongst the single most representitive games of the entire N64 library. Quality over quantity. The droughts were the stuff of legends, but when the big hitters hit? They HIT. Every single subsequent FPS game owes Goldeneye a debt as deep as every 3rd person action game owes both Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. But it's only right and proper that we look at the debts owed by Goldeneye itself. Looking past the obvious foundation laid by Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, as well as the control foundations laid by Turok Dinosaur Hunter (1.2 Solitare is a 1:1 carbon copy of Turok's controller layout), Goldeneye also owes a debt to SEGA's Virtua Cop; and I do mean that literally. Most of you are probably already aware, but just in case you're not, Goldeneye was originally going to be an on-rails light-gun game without the light gun... and we actually have footage of this version of the game! Only a short snippet, but timestamped for your viewing pleasure The "aim mode" seen in the final game (Where you hold down R to make a reticule appear) was directly inspired by both Virtua Cop and this old prototype. Finally, Goldeneye also owes its mission structure directly to Super Mario 64, again, common knowledge for most people here probably; but it just goes to show how everyone stands on the shoulders of giants. Even something completely original and groundbreaking is built on what came before; and sometimes, all it takes is using those existing ideas and elements in new ways to create something completely unforseen before. It's really hard to understate the impact of this game. Without Goldeneye? Nintendo may well have not survived the N64 era. It single handidly saved them in 1997, coming not a moment too soon, despite being 2 years late; and it would revive interest in the console as a whole, putting it back into mainstream conciousness in the west and raising the sales/mindshare tide for all of the console's other software. Goldeneye went on to become the 3rd best selling game of all time for the console (4th best selling throughout the entire generation), ushering in a whole new era of console FPS games that would later flood the market (and indeed, for a time, the N64 itself). We all owe a debt to Bond, and to Rare. Addendum This one's for @Glen-i @S.C.G and @BowserBasher more than anyone else, but we're not the only ones who adore the ridiculously stupid slapping animations in this game...

No, that would be TGM3... Enter the world of Survival Horror God I hope we get TGM 3 on Switch... Come on Arika! You can't just leave me hanging at TGM 1 & 2! Finish the trilogy of re-releases!

https://www.installbaseforum.com/threads/media-create-sales-week-4-2024-jan-22-jan-28.2362/post-228583 https://www.businesstoday.com.tw/article/category/183015/post/202401240002/

... was thinking exactly the same thing. In which case, a Partner Direct would actually be more exciting than a standard February Direct in this one exceptional case