Recent Posts

41

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Price Increase Beginning September 1

« Last post by Adrock on May 08, 2026, 12:26:55 PM »

I still haven’t bought another Nintendo Switch 2 game. I’m gladly I got the console when I did.

Nintendo is using some older standards like UFS 3.1 (instead of 4.0) in Nintendo Switch 2 leading to a price hike that is smaller than its contemporaries. I read (but haven’t verified) flash storage was like ~$18 more. Not sure how much more RAM is. A $50 price hike is better than it could be which still feels gross to admit.

42

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Star Fox Reboot In Emergency Star Fox Direct

« Last post by Adrock on May 08, 2026, 12:05:36 PM »

Voice acting is really good so far. And $49.99 digital is pretty rad. A friend already preordered; I probably won’t get this myself.

So this is what the Switch 2 is for?  Spruced up N64 games and framerate updates for Switch 1 games?

While this is on brand, it’s somehow still grossly disingenuous even for you.

You guys don't have new stuff in the works?

As soon as I saw this news, I knew the old band was getting back together to play the greatest hits.

Are y’all not living in the same reality where everything sucks badly? In general but specifically: the economy is in the toilet, countless development studios we grew up with simply don’t exist anymore, AI is fucking up [broadly gestures at everything] etc. etc. All this while Nintendo hasn’t closed studios and laid off a ton of people. Relevantly, it’s also one of the few developers still making A and AA games which even a Star Fox remake is.

The options weren’t a remake or new game. They were a remake or literally nothing. This isn’t the 1990s and 2000s anymore. What would have been a best seller decades ago is a moderate success at best today. We are getting a remake because it’s cheaper/faster to develop and keeps people employed.

The current state of the industry is unsustainable, and Nintendo anticipated this all the way back in 2005. In fact, we need more A and AA releases like this. We need games that don’t completely obliterate a developer if they don’t meet some absurd sales target. If studios keep shutting down, who’s left making games?

43

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Price Increase Beginning September 1

« Last post by Ian Sane on May 08, 2026, 11:49:56 AM »

I didn't feel the Switch 2 was worth the price before and I'm not going to change my mind simply to avoid a price increase.  I can hold out.  I didn't have a Switch 1 until years into the system's life, content to work through my 3DS backlog.  Now it would be nice if to balance things out they lowered the price of games, which had been the worse part since day one.  Hey, Nintendo, if you wanted to get rid of Game Key Cards that would be nice.  Hmmm?

At this point I'm more worried about my Switch 1 breaking and having to spend more money to replace it than I paid the first time, which has never really been a thing in the history of consumer electronics.  But I'm also worried about my laptop and my phone.  The chip shortage is going to affect everything.

On one hand I am eagerly awaiting the AI bubble bursting but there are also concerns that the economy is so propped up by that right now that that would have a huge negative ripple effect.  Is the choice between expensive electronics and Great Depression Part 2?  Ugh.  And of course in all this is the constant fear that AI is going to take my job so buying a videogame system will be the least of my priorities.

44

TalkBack / Re: Takashi Tezuka To Retire From Nintendo Board In June

« Last post by TheYoungerPlumber on May 08, 2026, 11:22:44 AM »

This one really hurts. Mr. Tezuka is a legend, and easily most directly responsible for more of my favorite Nintendo games / game moments than anyone else. Shigeru Miyamoto might be more of the visionary—but Mr. Tezuka did a lot of the design legwork. His retirement is well deserved; he will be missed.

45

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Price Increase Beginning September 1

« Last post by broodwars on May 08, 2026, 08:27:13 AM »

I love living in a world where like 3 people with alot of power, money, and influence, can make incredibly boneheaded decisions that jack up the prices of things like oil and silicon and nobody can or seems to have any interest in having them suffer any kind of consequences for actions that effect billions of people.

I don't think you can blame those people this time, though. This has "the AI gold rush ate all the chips" written all over it. Sony raised the PS5 prices recently for that same reason.

46

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Price Increase Beginning September 1

« Last post by pokepal148 on May 08, 2026, 07:35:10 AM »

I love living in a world where like 3 people with alot of power, money, and influence, can make incredibly boneheaded decisions that jack up the prices of things like oil and silicon and nobody can or seems to have any interest in having them suffer any kind of consequences for actions that effect billions of people.

47

TalkBack / Re: Takashi Tezuka To Retire From Nintendo Board In June

« Last post by umkart on May 08, 2026, 07:27:43 AM »

Wow - this shouldn’t be surprising. Creators from our childhood (I’m 46) are retiring and moving on. But still shocking.

48

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Price Increase Beginning September 1

« Last post by broodwars on May 08, 2026, 06:23:18 AM »

This generation is so weird. It's the first one ever where the devices got MORE expensive over time instead of less.

Figured this would end up happening when I bought my S2 last year. Glad I pulled the trigger when I did.

49

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Star Fox Reboot In Emergency Star Fox Direct

« Last post by Caterkiller on May 07, 2026, 08:23:58 PM »

When it comes to the art style, I’ll tell you this, Miyamoto and presumably others within Nintendo view Star Fox as a “realistic” franchise. The first time I was given this notion was either Smash Melee or Brawl. I believe it was Melee, one of the later Event Matches. Event 33, I just looked it up.  The description is “Nintendo’s realistic fighters!” These
Fighters include Samus, Link, Zelda, Captain Falcon and yup Fox. Teenage me was like Fox?! Then I thought about the war setting and it made a little sense.

Do you all remember the Crystal interviews? How Miyamoto wanted a sexy character in Star Fox? So she was then carried into Assault? Yes it’s out there I promise! Not to mention Miyamoto’s insistence that story for a Star Fox game is ok lol. Despite cartoony depictions the games themselves are played pretty straight as far as their characterizations and story beats involving death and such.

Fox needed to fit in with the Mario cast so of course within that art style he’d look like that. However, ever since Zero’s character renders it looked to me like the characters were getting closer to a realistic art style. Not too much but far and away more gritty than 64 3D’s art style or Commands.

Much like Zelda never really being able to sit too long in a single style I imagine the artists at Nintendo wanted to go ham now that they had technology that is somewhat cutting edge. Remember when Aonuma wanted to convey NES Zelda artwork into a real game? I bet the developers looked back at the real life puppets and realized they could go beyond that now.

At the very least isn’t this at least more visually distinct from Nintendo’s usual offerings? I love that Star Fox is finding a new identity with this super realistic look. Though admittedly outside of the characters being animals this art style might fit in well with any old realistic 3rd party offering. Still, I keep seeing Rocket Raccoon and the other Guardians. Gosh I hope Donkey Kong and Zelda lean in towards the realism. Doesn’t have to be this realistic but more of what I imagined Country and Ocarina of Time would be by now in this day and age.

50

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Switch 2 Star Fox Reboot In Emergency Star Fox Direct

« Last post by broodwars on May 07, 2026, 07:50:24 PM »

Though that's an interesting idea that Nintendo may have rushed this after putting Fox in the Mario movie.  If the goal was to get something out quick, a remake of the most popular game in the series makes tons of sense.

Bear in mind that animated movies take years to make, even for a soul-less creativity-bereft corporate machine like Illumination. Fox was inserted into the Galaxy movie for the explicit purpose of selling a product, just like the rest of that movie. The fact that they announced this game just a month before it was scheduled to come out tells me they've been sitting on a completed game for a while now, just as we heard was the case with Metroid Prime Remastered (and have continued to hear is the case with Primes 2 & 3 on Switch).

On a side note, I don't understand why they went the generic "Unreal Engine 5" approach to the game's visuals. Seeing what Fox's part of the Galaxy movie looks like, ans 80s cel shaded graphic style like Hi-Fi Rush would have definitely gone over better.