Dcubed

Well here’s a genuine shocker… Namco remembered that the Switch exists after all! Perhaps the feud is finally over and there’s now hope for Namco support going forward on Switch 2!

That's not ISS... Arcade1up/Tastemakers managed it because of two reasons... one, their products are classified as toys and not video games (thus are not subject to the same licensing rules as standard video game releases), and two... they have some really fucking good legal staff! Seriously! The stuff they've managed to get official licenses for puts the rest of the retro video game re-release industry sector to absolute shame!

No, you’re spot on @Hero-of-Time. The games industry is very aggressively pushing for an all digital future in the way that no other industry is. Putting aside the issue of industrial level malice for the time being, I think one of the biggest reasons why this is happening within the games industry in particular is because its products lack a real secondary form of revenue. Books have library and educational sale, theatre have recordings and movie adaptation, while film is primarily made for the box office with physical DVD/Blu-ray sales and TV syndication being secondary sources of revenue that come after its box office life has ended. Video games though? Once you buy it, that’s it… which is why so much effort now goes into after sale of DLC and “recurrent user spending” (microtransactions/scam content). Now, ironically, video games did once have their own equivalent of the box office… the arcades. Games would come to the arcades and make their money there before coming to home consoles (and eventually handhelds too). But by the mid 2000s? The arcades were virtually dead, and DLC/microtransactions began in lieu; especially as arcade developers died out and PC focused western developers really began to dominate the market from the Xbox 360 onwards.

The map is an absolute game changer. Makes the game SO much more enjoyable and approachable! The rest of the new features are cool, but really they’re just gravy compared to the automap. Of course, you can choose to play it completely faithfully to the original with the SEGA AGES release as well, but once you map? You can’t go back!

That’s great and all, but why the hell are you up at 04:30 in the morning to tell me this? Go back to bed!

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-snubs-epic-games-legal-battle-with-apple-2024-01-16/ Neither side really got what they wanted, but Apple is the smallest loser here. There will be no 3rd party app stores on iOS, and Epic's EGS trojan horse strategy has failed. That being said though, developers being now able to steer customers towards alternative payment methods is a nice win for app developers; expect to see your favourite apps start to move payments away from direct in-app purchases enmasse over the coming months.

Might want to stay away from Foamstars if you value ethical game development...

It's so frustrating that they released that physical version of MK8DX with the Booster Course Pass included... up to Wave 5. Like, come on! You couldn't wait an extra month to make it complete!? Still hoping that they do another reprint with Wave 6 included this time. Failing that? Well, there's always Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Deluxe for Switch 2 I suppose.

It does feel a bit like a Black Mirror episode turned into reality doesn't it? I don't mind subscription services when the games/movies/TV/whatever are also available elsewhere, but when it's the only game in town? Shit's dystopic. I still wish that Nintendo would bring back the Virtual Console service, or at least offer an option to buy their retro games piecemeal outside of the NSO app. I bought the Mario Kart 8 DLC, despite getting it for free with my NSO subscription because I wanted to own it. I'm sure I wouldn't be alone. Ownership is only going to become more and more important as digital services continue to take over and physical games die out. But even here, the value of physical games themselves are dying out because the physical games themselves are increasingly becoming useless coasters that act as unlock keys for games that have the majority of their game content released as downloads. Almost every modern game these days requires some sort of update or download right from day 1 to either fix some sort of game breaking bug, or deliver the actual finished game content; so in 10-15 years or whatever, when the servers go down? Those games will either be missing huge chunks of game content, or be literally useless. And unfortunately, Nintendo are pretty much the only video game publisher who actively reprint their games with updates and DLC content included on their physical media; a saving grace for games like New Pokemon Snap (where literally half of the game's entire content was released as a post-launch update), but these efforts are still far and few inbetween as far as the industry goes as a whole (and even here, the second hand market will still be full of copies that are missing half of the entire game - but at least the option exists). Digital might be more convinient, but it is also transient. I'm glad that I bought both physical and digital copies of my entire 3DS and Wii U collections (especially now that the eShop is gone), and I'll be doing the same with Switch once its successor comes out and I can get my hands on those reprint copies with the updates and DLC included on the cheap (there's an awesome dude keeping track of all of the various Switch cartridge revisions in a handy Google Doc Spreasheet here and here!)

Fair. That's something I really like about the Rad 2x/Retrotink 2x and the Carby/EON GCHD. Literally just plug n' play.

If you want to strictly stick to no imports... would you accept buying from Republic of Ireland? https://videogameperfection.com/products/open-source-scan-converter/ They've got the OSSC going for a pretty good price right now. Would require a bit more tinkering on your end, as it's not a plug n' play device, but the quality you can get out of it would actually be quite a bit better than what the Rad 2x/Retrotink 2x can offer! MLIG have covered the OSSC extensively before, but here's one particular video that goes over it in detail if you're interested... And there's a more recent video covering the OSSC from Game Sack here, timestamped for your viewing pleasure... IIRC, @Ike actually has an OSSC himself, so I'm sure he'd be able to offer you some advice if you were interested in picking it up

That's where you're wrong... because there is ONE way to get it officially... Yes, this is mine ... the arcade version at least is available via the Arcade1up cabinet. And yeah, it's perfect for a quickfire bit of arcade multiplayer fun Can't imagine that it'd have much staying power as a single player console game, but the arcades are a vibe, and the NBA Jam games are really the quintisential arcade sports games. They're loud, they're brash, they're stupid, they're not complicated and they're fun. Midway at their finest. NBA Hangtime is also another rare example of a pure 2D game on the N64, and graphically it's actually superior to the arcade version in some respects (and also much better looking than the only other home console version, the PS1 release); it was an excellent port of an arcade game that was perhaps a bit behind the times by 1996. I can imagine this being a popular game to rent back in the day though (when you could still rent games), perfect for the weekend when you had friends coming over and you wanted a good four player multiplayer game that wasn't Mario Kart 64 again. I'm not even a big basketball fan, but even I enjoy a good Jam. Hard to go wrong with it on any console, and this is probably the best console release a Jam game ever got.

Yeah, saw this the other day. Considering that this was always Game's one big lifeline? Yeah, the end is very near now. Damn, that sucks. Same thing happened with my ancient bedroom TV last year (which I was keeping around for that exact same reason). And yes... ... you're right. All currently produced TVs are now HDMI only, with no analogue inputs whatsoever. It really sucks, but at least most systems have some sort of HDMI mod option now (or failing that, an FPGA alternative with HDMI like the Super NT or the MiSTer). Unless you're willing to buy an older second hand TV? You're SOL if you want to hook up retro consoles to a modern display without resorting to some sort of HDMI solution. The cheapest true HDMI option for the GCN is the Carby. Literally plug n' play, It-Just-Works. Gives you a true all-digital 480p HDMI signal as if it were a modern console, no fuss. The Eon GCHD Mark 2 (which I have the earlier Mark 1 version of) is very similar and a bit more expensive, but also allows for the use of Wii component & RGB scart cables and it also adds an optical audio out (useful if you have an older AV Receiver that lacks HDMI audio support). Either will give you the absolute best possible image you can get out of a Gamecube and are identical as far as their HDMI output is concerned. Rather than get the Rad 2x cables, I would recommend just getting the Retrotink 2x SCART instead... https://stoneagegamer.com/retrotink-2x-scart-480p-upscaler-for-rgb-scart-digital-video.html ... it's the same thing as the Rad 2x cable (literally the same thing, running the same upscaling software made by the same guy; Mike Chi), except you can just plug in any RGB SCART source; so it's not limited to the one device (and you don't need multiple Rad 2x cables for each console). Only thing that you need to keep in mind is that the Retrotink 2x will only accept an RGB SCART signal, nothing else will work. So if you wanted to use it with an N64 for instance? You'd need to get it RGB modded and use an appropriate RGB SCART cable for it to work. This is the device that I personally use with my RGB modded N64 and my SEGA Saturn, and it works a treat.

Absolutely. They should’ve waited until Switch 2; just like what Nintendo advised them to do. Same console sequels nearly always sell significantly worse than their predecessors, no matter the budget increase. The list of sequels that outsell their predecessors on the same console is vanishingly small. Without new hardware/controller inputs, same console sequels just inherently lack the novelty their predecessor had, and they have less time on the market to sell too.

That’s not a good result. It’s roughly about half of what Kingdom Battle sold in the same timeframe, had a much higher budget and a much longer dev cycle than its predecessor; and most of those sales came at heavy discount. Raw sales numbers don’t tell the full story… It’s a similar situation as with FF15; sure, the raw sales numbers look good in isolation, but when you consider that most of those sales came at half price or less and that it had a ~10 year dev cycle? Suddenly you realise that it wasn’t the success it appears to be on paper…

51 Worldwide Classics has an excellent rendition of Riichi Mahjong with a fantastic tutorial. That’s how I learned to play it. Riichi Mahjong is the standard form of Mahjong that is commonly played in Japan. And Riichi Mahjong is fun! But yeah, it does have a steep learning curve (so much so that even 51WWC takes the piss out of how steep that game’s learning curve is ). Mahjong games are ridiculously common in Japan; even the Wii U of all consoles has multiple Mahjong games! And Mahjong games with stories and RPG mechanics had been done plenty of times before. So this game wouldn’t have been very novel, even at the time of its release. But I suppose the N64’s built-in 4 player support would’ve at least have given this game some sort of USP by the time of its release.

OHHHHH BANANA! Walls really are just a suggestion aren’t they?

Oh God, they’ve got QWOP going in the Twitch chat this year

https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick?tt_content=channel_name&tt_medium=embed AGDQ 2024 starts now!!

I’ll save my commentary for the international version, but when your game is being praised by no one less than Shigeru Miyamoto himself? You know you’ve done something right

@Jonnas. If you haven’t played Golden Sun before, it would fit your requirement perfectly! It can easily be beaten within 15-20 hours your first time through (and much quicker if you’re good). Comes out this coming Wednesday on GBA NSO!

Hey @RedShell, I wasn’t able to join in time to play while you were doing the custom stages, but I saw your new Pilotwings stage. Great job with it! It looks awesome! Also I did notice the sneaky changes you made to The Fun Box, now with even more fun

Honestly? I don’t think we’ll actually get a price cut. I don’t think it’d make a meaningful difference in sales this late into the console’s life anyway. Best we’ll get is a clearance sale when Switch 2 comes out.

So… it’s essentially a knockoff Power Pro Baseball then? Well, it beat Power Pro 4 to the punch at least; that wouldn’t come out on the N64 until March 1997. But I can’t imagine that many people wouldn’t just prefer to wait a few more months for the real thing back when this one launched in December 1996.