Messages

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TalkBack / Re: Switch Online Expansion Pass Adding Paper Mario To N64 Library December 10

« on: December 04, 2021, 10:21:25 PM »

This game alone makes the N64 Switch Online virtual console offerings a delight for me. I played it when I was in the hospital for a couple days as a kid and it's earned forever a place in my heart because of that.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack To Also Include Otherwise Paid DLC Beginning With AC: New

« on: October 16, 2021, 07:10:19 PM »

It'll be interesting to see Nintendo revisit this in a year. By then they'll have data on exactly how many people took the Expansion Pak upgrade and, IF people vote with their wallets against this product offering, Nintendo will be strongly pressured to either improve the value proposition (adding more systems, games, or features to the expansion pak) or lower the price.

I think Nintendo DOES want to hit a $50-60 annual price for this to bulk up on recurring subscription income (the best kind of income! yummy!), so I think if it came to that they'd be compelled to try to sweeten the pot instead of lowering the price: add the GB and GBA systems, flesh out the game libraries of existing systems as much as they can, throw in MULTIPLE free DLC packs (imagine, for example, if there was a Smash Fighter's Pass Volume 3 and that was promised! Or a Mario Kart 9 DLC?), or come up with some other additive features, like Pokemon Box, Mobile Game bonuses, Better Gold Points Cashback Bonuses, etc.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack To Also Include Otherwise Paid DLC Beginning With AC: New

« on: October 15, 2021, 11:22:31 AM »

Yeah no. I'm not paying an extra $30 a year for a bunch of random N64 & Genesis ROMs for games I probably already own.

If there are enough people like you (and fewer people like me) I hope that either puts a negative price pressure on this product when Nintendo revisits it (probably in a year's time when everyone will be thinking about up/down-grading) or encourages them to add in more and better features for the Expansion Pak.

However, the family plan is still an absolutely amazing deal. I've got 5 people on mine so if we all shared the cost that comes to only $16 a year for each of us for everything listed.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack To Also Include Otherwise Paid DLC Beginning With AC: New

« on: October 15, 2021, 11:18:15 AM »

I wonder how much the Animal Crossing DLC will cost standalone.

EDIT: OMG Happy Home Paradise costs $24.99 STANDALONE?!?!?!? That's ALMOST the price of the ENTIRE YEAR of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pak upgrade!!!

On subsequent examination Nintendo is obviously sacrificing the Animal Crossing DLC as a price anchor to make the Online Subscription seem like a steal.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch Online N64 And Genesis Controllers Now Available

« on: October 15, 2021, 11:11:15 AM »

Boy howdy they cost as much as a 1 year subscription to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak!

As a result, I only bought two T-T

Two N64 Controllers that is. As neat as the Geneses controller is I'd be paying a hefty $49.99 USD for something that isn't very functionally different from other standards controllers out there? At that price, and with no real Genesis nostalgia etched into my soul, I would probably be better served buying my first Pro Controller...

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Games you DON'T want to see come out

« on: September 01, 2021, 04:09:28 AM »

one franchise I really don't wanna see get a new game coming soon is those godforsaken Raving Rabbids....

Hate em, they, Assassin's Creed, & Just Dance killed our boy Rayman.

Just Dance is innocent in this. Great game series and fun for a lot of people at my office.

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General Gaming / Re: The Nintendo Advent Calendar platformer is coming back after 15 years!

« on: August 31, 2021, 01:39:21 PM »

Your images are not loading for me.

I'm not sure what changed to break the image links but this looks to be the game's official website:

http://www.mission-in-snowdriftland.com/

Looks like they're prepping for a Kickstarter AND have a FREE 3-level demo on steam!

So I assume that the IP remained in the developer's hands despite Nintendo publishing the game to some extent? That's always nice to hear that creators retain their IP.

I also wonder how/if the advent calendar mechanic is coming back, given that this is no longer a sort of stick marketing ploy but now its own full game.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: August 14, 2021, 01:48:55 AM »

This just makes me want a Nintendo Land Switch port.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: July 29, 2021, 07:02:48 PM »

So let's say that the Switch "owns" the majority of the Japan console market for the next couple years, minus a couple PS5 diehards due to unique offerings on Sony's platform. How useful is that to Nintendo is terms of garnering third-party dev support?

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General Gaming / Re: Playdate by Panic - [OT] for console/games/future season(s) discussion

« on: July 25, 2021, 04:02:03 PM »

Thanks for this! For some reason I'd completely forgotten the cover accessory existed, so that threw me for a loop! Also, I don't know why I thought this but I was under the misconception that it was actually "launching" this month, lol. A first wave of units coming end of 2021 makes sense, and with just 20,000 units in that bunch it sort of makes sense with the scale of what this is and embracing its niche status.

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General Gaming / Re: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

« on: July 24, 2021, 03:30:39 PM »

Playdate preorders go live July 29! I've read some fun things, but this is probably staying on my list of "fun toys to buy if I win a small lottery or something."

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General Gaming / Re: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

« on: July 24, 2021, 03:28:16 PM »

A recent youtube video from Intellision themselves showing an office party and some prototypes and demos going on ended on a segment where they were talking about cornhole, which is one of their pack-in titles. (Cornhole is also one of the three main Amico games I'm actually interested in.) Putting aside the question of whether it's going to be a fun way to play the game or not, the fact that they're still tinkering and considering up-ending the tea table on one of their launch pack-in games at this stage gives me pause. Motion controls in videogames are a decade and a half old by now, demonstrated by plenty of examples not just from Nintendo but devs at every level of the industry, even with limited accelerometer performance. It would have been more encouraging to see them more locked in to a vision for this simple game concept at this point.

Also it strongly suggests that Cornhole is being developed internally, and I wonder if that's part of the situation. I wonder if they might be closer to a final product if only they'd found some external indie dev who has experience doing motion controls and having them do this game for them.

It also reminded me that while the content of these games have been approved by official ratngs boards, the actual gameplay underpinning that content could definitely still be in flux and not finished. I wonder just how much crunch they've got ahead of them for some of these games...

UPDATE: Apparently the game isn't being completely redone, they claim this is more of a late stage controls experiment in order to find alternative control methods that play better than what they currently have? And that the game is being developed externally in Germany... hmmm Well, not quite as dramatic then, but still worrisome that they haven't nailed down yet exactly what they want, but with game development it's true that sometimes stuff doesn't come together until very late. (Additional Update: Some information in an interview with Intellivision's CFO/COO seems to contradict this interpretation of events, so maybe this is just a really confusing situation to try to nail down with certainty)

Still, I'll be VERY disappointed with this game if it isn't Wii Sports quality out of the box. I want it to be just pick-up-and-play and not have any weird bowling/golf styles power bars or aiming that isn't motion controlled, I want it to "just work" like Wii Sports felt back in 2006.

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General Gaming / Re: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

« on: July 24, 2021, 01:10:44 PM »

The internet is going all crazy over the Valve Steam Deck, and all I can think of is meh.

The steamdeck looks like a great piece of tech honestly. So have other handheld pcs in its niche product category too actually, like the GPDWin or Aya Neo. And with Valve's size and ability to make money on the valve ecosystem and the choice to have a low storage 64GB SKU the price is starting to get close enough to bring up comparisons to Nintendo and console instead of full-priced laptops. (Though the much more expensive SKUs are the true full experience, and you have to buy a dock separately, so the more appropriate comparison is against the Switch Lite.)

I think it looks pretty neat but the biggest question is how much of a mass market product it's going to be. It sounds like reservations are already stretching into 2022 so I don't think they're planning to manufacture huge quantities of it and right now I'd guess it's probably going to be pretty niche when it first arrives purely due to unit quantities available. That right now seems to be the biggest limit on it. That and a lack of an audience rallying "killer app" to market it with (Half-Life 3?).

I think the more interesting thing about it is it offers either a comparison or a ceiling to a future Switch 2, both in price and performance. My take right now is that an eventual Switch 2 from Nintendo will be slightly under the raw performance of this Steam Deck, or match it, but due to being a closed system will be able to look more optimized in actual outcomes. And Nintendo will also probably have to be aware of that when pricing a Switch 2.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: July 17, 2021, 04:46:22 PM »

The PS5 isn't leading in Japan, but apparently launch-aligned globally it's slightly outpacing the PS4, which is a pretty good place to be, right? With the Switch also a launch-aligned sales rival with the PS4, I'm interested how the PS5 will compare to Switch historical sales as it gets more time on the market, and how long the Switch can continue this pace before it sees a decline.

When will the Switch peak hardware sales be? Did it happen already in 2021? Will it be 2022 or 2023? Or is it less a single year peak with following drop, and instead maybe more of a 2 or three year sustained plateau?

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General Gaming / Re: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

« on: July 15, 2021, 08:38:54 PM »

A lot of what you say is very true. The reason the NintendoLife interview stands out for someone who's been keeping semi-up-to-date on this is because the bar has essentially been set SO low by the lack-of-coherent-marketing they've had for the past two years. It's hyperbole to say that they've had a $0 marketting budget so far, but only technically... And yes, Tommy Tallarico can talk, but if they want to continue doing things publicly they really need to get a professional in front of the camera.

I think the Amico is far beyond past things we've seen from vaporware consoles, there are actual accounts and recent public events where prototypes have been played, and even some footage I believe. HOWEVER for some reason they're not publicizing this, and the only people trumpeting and talking about these hands-on experiences are their diehard community members.

Yes, they're on the defensive in that interview, which means that they're not fully in control of the message, but their default until now has been to have NO message essentially. The defensiveness is great not so much because that's what they wanted to do, but because it's dragging them out into the spotlight a little and forcing them to divulge some stuff that, really, they oughta have been talking about anyways.

I'm not about to preorder one of these just yet. (There's an extreme dearth of specifics about what will happen at Launch, which is just a non-starter for me.) However, like you, I find this whole saga fascinating.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Sales Thread

« on: July 09, 2021, 12:58:49 PM »

All of these games (besides Resident Evil) have been outsold by Miitopia, which itself isn't exactly hanging with the usual Switch Big Boys club.

Oh man really? o_0 That's certainly something!

Wonder if other factors are at play too, like hardware shortages? The higher prices of Playstation games? Moves towards digital? Various lockdown measures? All of the above?

I think also in general the current climate for the Japan console market is heavily in Nintendo's favor. I think Nintendo's solidifying most of the remaining local Japanese developer niche support for that market, and doesn't Japan generally just have one big clear winner per console gen usually anyways? Also, the Japanese console market has been famously "dying" for years now, and the PS5 is very much a traditional console compared to the hybrid switch. I think PC is finally making some inroads to Japan (heck, Sony is even publishing their games on PC now right?), and Sony's own focus might be veering more to the bigger super profitable western markets for their console as Japan's market may not offer them a similar opportunity due to it's smaller scale.

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General Gaming / Re: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

« on: July 09, 2021, 12:39:42 PM »

NintendoLife did an interview with Tommy Tallarico specifically to follow up on the criticism that's brewed up after the developer site leak and consequent Ars Technica article. It sounds like he's had a chance to craft a much better message now and really offer a counter-narrative to the criticism that was sort of being left unanswered.

In fact, this might be the most encouraging thing I've seen in a long time by way of presenting the Amico. (I admit though that's really not saying much. However this is at least written out in text easier to digest than verbal responses on some youtube video, it contains a lot of important information about the Amico and the company themselves in one place, AND he actually goes into specifics!

The most important tidbits I feel he's elaborated on or revealed here include:

- Talking extensively about how they work with developers (Basically, everything on Amico will be 1st Party with Intellivision as the publisher and willing to pay indie devs upfront for the work (compare: Epic Store?))
- Pointing out clearly explained inaccuracies in previous criticisms, but steering clear and not getting bogged down in less useful tech specs talk
- Stating that the final hardware is completed and has passed compliance tests
- Going into more detail about the lag in updating the controller screen on one debug unit's firmware version.
- Stating on what terms they worked with J Allard
- Clarifying how they're not a crowdfunded platform
- Claiming 100,000 preorders and purchase orders already and having to turn down Costco and Target because of hardware shortages
- Clear statement of $20 million in funds (at the start? in the bank right now? That's not clear, but what is clear is that they have funding, just not infinite amounts of it)
- Talking about how Amico differentiates from a Switch, and also from Mobile, and some scenarios it is uniquely designed for
- Going into specifics about the substantial features and work they fund and put into ports like Finnigan Fox or Rigid Force Redux

It sounds like with the orders they have they're thoroughly convinced the players are there, they just are running into (understandably) difficult headwinds in building the final physical units they'd actually need to make launch. The final hardware is approved and tested, the launch software is also probably near-final (I think I learned that from some other place on the internet he was talking about), but they just need to build the darn things and at scale.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces

« on: July 06, 2021, 07:20:42 PM »

This does have me question as to the timing of the Switch's successor. A 2023 release would put it in line with the gap between the Wii and the Wii U. By 2023, the old, circa 2015 Nvidia Tegra System-on-a-Chip in the Switch would be 8 years old technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra#Tegra_X1. This is a gut feeling that makes no sense, but I'm thinking maybe Nintendo would rather avoid Metroid Prime 4 being a split-gen title as a matter of pride (of it being promised Switch-only/first title). Not that Nintendo ever showed that much reverence for the Metroid series for it to put the next generation of Nintendo hardware on hold, but maybe?

Then there's the chance that maybe Nintendo would want to coast on the Switch's success through 2023 and not release a successor to 2024. The money-making would probably make sense to Nintendo, but this notion has me nervous given the performance issues/quibbles in games such as Bowser's Fury and the Monster Hunter Stories 2 demo.

Yeah, this is the new point of fascination for me: what does the Switch OLED appearing in 2021 mean for the timing for a "Switch 2"? I think it's clear that Nintendo has ambitions to keep profiting from the Switch as long as it can, but the length of time they sat on the Wii was clearly a lesson that there is such a thing as "too long" to stretch things out. Still, I would imagine that a "blurring" of generations (strong backwards compatibility, cross-gen titles) would let them deliver a Switch 2 SKU in 2023, or even in 2022.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces

« on: July 06, 2021, 03:58:28 PM »

If I understand this correctly, it's still the same exact hardware?

That's my understanding. Which means I can stick with my launch Switch and not spend even more money on video games this fall. Phew! The big disappointment to me is that the Joy-con issue sounds like it's still not getting fixed.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch Lite and Future Revisions

« on: July 06, 2021, 03:56:47 PM »

Since it's functionally the same as the current regular Switch, I think it should replace it eventually, to help lessen possible confusion by having too many models. But, only if they bring it back down to $300 when it comes time to replace it.

And by doing so, Nintendo will have successfully maintained the $300 price point for even longer. They must really be trying to support that price point and avoiding a "price cut" below it for as long as possible.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch Lite and Future Revisions

« on: July 06, 2021, 01:42:55 PM »

Looks like this is a 3DS XL style upgrade, or a DSLite style, both of which were revisions I skipped. Thankfully this doesn't seem to be on the DSi or New 3DS level of upgrade, which I DID splurge on. Phew!

I'd guess there's still room for an improved-hardware Switch to come out in 2022 though.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch Wishlist Game Recommendations

« on: June 29, 2021, 06:56:20 PM »

Low Concern
Starlink

Do you already have a copy of Starlink for the Switch? Because...uh...I got some spares...

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General Gaming / Re: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

« on: June 29, 2021, 06:36:08 PM »

Yeah.  And Tommy immediately went on the attack, threatening legal action.

I'd say I'm about to cash out my $100 preorder.

Tommy Tallarico going ballistic on twitter was just additional self-inflicted wounds.

Amico really at this point needs to "put up or shut up". I don't have a pre-order yet, but I will actually consider pre-ordering this fall if this thing actually starts to shape up and look like it'll have a real, honest-to-god, competent launch. Some of the pack-in games already have my curiosity, they just need to deliver the actual things they said they would.

On the other hand, getting a better idea of the hardware internals of the machine makes me think that the internals of the machine aren't horrendously expensive after all, so they might actually have more space than I thought for profit in whatever business plan they're running.

Edit: Got around to watching some videos that analyzed the big leaks and some other amino stuff yesterday and I'd definitely way more concerned about the amino now. As a concept it was already very very niche and having to prove that a market was there that no one believes exists, but now I'm worried about other things entirely, like whether they might have run afoul of SEC rules when raising funding. To be clear I think the Amico has definitely shown a lot more than the vaporware consoles of the 90's and early 2000's, but there is a real chance this thing becomes like the Phantom or something like that ilk.

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General Gaming / Re: Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

« on: June 29, 2021, 04:24:25 PM »

Ah-ha! The Intellivision developer site for the Amico was available without any login credentials for long enough that details about a couple more in-depth technical aspects of the system, like actual hardware specs or how aspects of the controller can be disabled to conserve battery life, have been exposed to the wild of the internet: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/06/what-the-hecks-an-intellivision-amico-consoles-leaky-dev-portal-offers-hints/

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch Wishlist Game Recommendations

« on: June 29, 2021, 12:48:56 PM »

Any Shantae title, even the lesser ones in that franchise, deserve to be at or near the top of your list. It's not just because they're solid games, but also because as mostly level-based 2D action action-platformers with a spiritual home on Handhelds, they're TRULY pick-up-and-play because you get to the gameplay fun so quick, can knock out distinct levels or areas in the game without too much time commitment before putting it down again, and you will make steady progress towards the end which you WILL see because it's not some distant 40-70 hour goal.

I'm not saying they're all 10/10 games by any stretch, but especially when one has a busy life and immense backlogs simple straight-to-gameplay and complete-able games like Shantae actually HELP YOU to play videogames instead of giving you analysis paralysis or making you trudge through a 1 hour tutorial just to saddle you with 40+ hours of game ahead of you before you can cross it off your list.