Dcubed

Yeah, this game just got Metroid Prime 4'd; as did Ubisoft India. Calling it now. This game will never release. Edit: Oh wait, I forgot that I already predicted that before... Well... I'm predicting it again

Fair enough, though the NSO vouchers are valid for 1 year; so you could always just use the second voucher at a later date (Use it on Splatoon 3?)

You shouldn't be buying 1st party eShop games without getting them using NSO vouchers. They effectively reduce the price of £50 games to £42 (and you get Gold Coins on top of that too which can be put towards future releases, essentially 5% cashback on every purchase); so you save quite a bit over time. Unless it's a budget price release (ALA Nintendo Switch Sports or Miitopia), you should buy all your 1st party eShop games using NSO vouchers.

Total PS4 + Xbone WW hardware sales are around 165-170 million; that's 15-20 million less than PS3 + 360. Total WW software unit sales are significantly lower than PS3 + 360 too. The point is that it's the same people buying these current games who used to be in that 10-25 male demographic back when the PS360 were kicking about. Kids these days grow up with mobile F2P games, Minecraft, Roblox and Youtube/Twitch streamers; not consoles anymore. That all came at the expense of Xbox's sales, not by bringing in new audiences. Sony basically stole the 360 audience from Microsoft and added it to the people that previously bought PS3s; but the total number of people buying console hardware has actually shrunk from generation to generation. PS5 is also now significantly behind PS4 in terms of hardware sales launched alligned; as its sales have fallen off significantly after its explosive launch (another sign that the business is becoming more and more reliant on the hardcore early adopters). Not anymore... Sony are now starting to follow in Microsoft's footsteps with a push towards more service ("GAAS") orientated games, and a push towards being more hardware agnostic. The reason why Sony are now starting to release their titles on PC is because they have reached a plateau with their traditional console business; they need to start reaching out to "new" audiences by releasing their titles on PC in order to grow their Playstation business now.

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That's because the market itself is actually shrinking. It's making more money than ever before, but that's off the back of fewer and fewer people as they squeeze more and more money out of fewer and fewer people. The sad truth is that the traditional "AAA" industry has failed to bring in new audiences, as its current userbase continues to die off and grow out of the 10-25 male demographic. Console sales (outside of Nintendo) have continued to trend downwards ever since they hit their peak with the PS3/360, you just don't notice it because total software sales as a whole are consolidated into fewer and fewer (highly successful) tentpole releases, and revenues climb ever higher off the back of abusive microtransactions that are being lifted "artificially" by whales. The truth is that the traditional AAA industry is dying a slow death; which is why the future of this side of the industry now lies in the subscription and services model, rather than traditional retail sales.

Holy shit! $300 million is nothing! I know that S-E have been struggling with their more recent western projects, but man! Embracer are getting Eidos for an absolute steal! S-E must've been utterly desperate to offload them! I'm shocked that MS and Sony allowed Embracer to snipe them, especially considering that MS are actually already making use of Crystal Dynamics for the upcoming Perfect Dark reboot... though I suppose MS probably don't want to rock the boat and risk losing their chance to buy Activision Blizzard...

Oddly enough, this is the only game to be newly put on sale... weird.

You joke, but that game actually was re-released on PSN; and was even included on the PS1 Classic, so it's very likely to show up here! Likewise, we're pretty likely to also get Motor Toon GP, since that got re-released on PSN too. Personally, I wouldn't expect anything for PS1 that wasn't previously re-released on PSN to show up here. That list was surprisingly comprehensive though as far as the heavy hitters went though! Apart from the obvious licensing hell no goes (such as the Tony Hawks games, movie licenses and Gran Turismo); pretty much all of the quality PS1 titles actually did get re-released... apart from the Tales of games and the Lunar games unfortunately. Outside of those games though, the list really left little to be desired by the end!

The big Spring eShop Sale has started... Here's a few highlights I've spotted so far...

Microsoft always go first with announcements and dates; so that's nothing new... which is actually quite the comfort this year, considering what happened to E3!

Ridge Racers 2 is particularily noteworthy because that game was never originally released in the US! Nice to see that they're not letting region exclusivity get in the way of releases. Bodes well @Julius There is no way that we're getting the old Gran Turismo games on this service. The licensing costs for all of those cars would be astronomical.

Soul Calibur 5 is certainly a low-point as far as the mainline series goes... but we can do better than that... Bet you forgot this trash existed! An absolutely insulting piece of shovelware that was unceremoneously forced upon Wii owners as compensation for not getting Soul Calibur 4. An utterly grim experience from start to finish that exemplifies so perfectly how utterly little of a shit that 3rd parties gave to the platform... You wonder why Wii owners distrusted pretty much any and all 3rd party games shovelled their way? Well here's why! Now, this game is bad enough for how it drags the good name of Soul Calibur through the mud, but oh no... that's not enough to satiate its desire for brand destruction... Because it also has the gall to drag poor Tales of Symphonia's Lloyd Iirving down with it too! And you thought that Dawn of the New World was his lowpoint!!! So there you have it. Another fine example of a disasterpiece of a game that pummels not one, but TWO series into the dirt at the same time! Street Fighter X Tekken is in good company

Then the Retrotink 2x SCART will be perfect for you. Plug n’ play, dead simple I’d actually probably recommend forgoing the GCN EON HD then and to just get a GCN RGB SCART cable alongside the Retrotink 2x SCART. Couple it with a good ol’ SCART switcher (so you can have multiple consoles plugged in at the same time) and you’re golden.

FWIW, there’s an Irish store that’s selling the Retrotink 2x SCART… https://videogameperfection.com/products/retrotink-2x-scart/ Still technically an import, but should be cheaper in terms of shipping than the US-based sellers Oh and yes, the EON HD adapter for the GameCube comes highly recommended! I’ve got one (as does @Glen-i) and it’s brill! Every bit as good as the official GCN Component cables in terms of quality (and even better in that it carries audio through the Digital Out port, which the official Component cables can’t do!). Of course, if you want to get the most out of it with its 480p support though, you’d need to be either be using NTSC software, or some way to run the Swiss Homebrew app that can force 480p output with PAL games.

If you want a decent solution that doesn't break the bank, might I recommend the Retrotink 2x Scart? Upscales any 240p/480i RGB SCART source to 480p over HDMI and does a great job at doing so! (I have one of these myself and I'm very pleased with how it upscales N64/Saturn/Dreamcast). Do note that you MUST use an RGB SCART signal with this thing though, as it will not accept Composite/S-Video over SCART. This isn't a problem with Dreamcast since it supports RGB SCART natively, but N64 will require an RGB mod for instance. Another nice thing about the Retrotink 2x compared to its more expensive (and higher-end) contemporaries is that the 2x is a completely plug n' play solution. No settings or anything that you need to mess around with; you just plug it in and It Just Works (There is a button on the back that you can use to cycle between a couple of filters though if you want to... the smoothing filter actually looks pretty good for N64 content in particular, and while I'd normally avoid these sorts of things, I actually do use the smoothing filter with N64 games!)

Thoroughly enjoyed both videos! I actually learnt a few new things about Sonic Heroes' development that I didn't know about before! Good stuff! Will be keeping an eye on that channel going forward. The 2nd DF Retro GT video is also excellent. Really appreciate the historical context and comparisons against the series' contemporaries. Had never even heard of Enthusia, but it's an enormously impressive effort from Konami! Especially considering that it was their first go at a sim-racer! Real shame that they never followed up with it, as they clearly had a good thing going there... but that's just the way the industry went when it made the jump to HD. The racing genre basically just completely collapsed, where literally only about four different series and developers were able to survive, and where everyone else just got culled. Also, that Volvo game section was hilarious

Sony could've at least announced a selection of the games that will be available... I mean, sure, I get that they don't yet know the full list of what can be made available on day 1, owing to technical and licensing reasons; but that doesn't mean that they can't afford to at least announce a selection of them. It's hard to get excited for a retro service where you have no idea of what will be available, or what emulation features will be made available. It wasn't exactly announced in the most enticing fashion that it could've and should've been. Of course, this will all be forgotten once it releases; as long as the game selection is good and the emulation is of good quality.

Sounds interesting… I do loves me some internal SEGA drama. Will have to give it a watch later

There were initial plans for a Rogue Squadron collection on the original Xbox; but this didn't really get past pre-production. The Wii Rogue Squadron collection however was a completely 100% finished game that was just shelved by Lucasarts.

I liked the on-foot missions in Rebel Strike. They were a nice way to break up the flight stages, even though weren't as fully polished as they could be.

I get the feeling that the Expansion Pack will only include DLC for games made by Nintendo's internal studios & closest affiliates (EPD, Monolith, NLG, Intelligent Systems etc); so that would count out any of the Warriors games. Of course I could be wrong, but that's what my gut is telling me (and my gut is almost always right )

It's obvious that Splatoon 3 was always originally meant to be released in July. All of the previous Splatoon games were summer releases; it doesn't take a genius to work out when Splatoon 3 was supposed to come out originally. Game wasn't going to be ready in time, so they delayed the game and pulled Xenoblade 3 forward to fill the gap. Simple.

Agreed. Splatoon 3 is basically just glorified DLC for Splatoon 2; there's literally nothing new here mechanically that hasn't been done before. Very disappointing. I have no idea why Nintendo is releasing this on the current Switch instead of just waiting for Switch 2 in that case (where it would at least serve a purpose). It's not going to sell nearly as well as Splatoon 2 now; since this is a largely redundant release.

Called it. Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3 basically exchanged release slots because Splatoon 3 wasn't ready in time.