The Nintendo news and discussion thread

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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Alex79
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

Ha, I guess not.

Heads up for any Pinball FX fans, they've got some of the table packs at discount on the Switch at the moment, including some of the Williams tables. If you've not tried any of the Williams tables before, they're very different to the in house Pinball FX tables. A lot faster and more difficult. Take some getting used to, but once you do they're so much more satisfying to play. I just grabbed pack 2, which has the Attack From Mars table, mainly just because I remember really enjoying the real life version in a pub I used to drink in ~25 years ago or so.
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KissMammal
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by KissMammal »

Angry_Kurt wrote: May 15th, 2020, 10:15 am Does anyone find it odd that Nintendo revealed Paper Mario not via a Nintendo Direct? It seems odd to me when they have done Directs for a lot less.
My suspicion is that Nintendo has put the kibosh on all Directs for 2020 due to Covid. Partly because it's no doubt thrown a lot of their plans into disarray, and partly because they want to keep any announcements low key and drip-feed them throughout the year as making a big concerted marketing fuss about videogames in the current climate seems a bit.. 'off' or in poor taste somehow, given everything that's happening (like how that PS5 spec announcement that took place right when everything went into lockdown and it felt weirdly jarring and almost dissonant in its timing). Remember that the last Direct they did was stealth-dropped with zero fanfare, almost like they felt a bit embarrassed about it. That's just purely my own speculation, though.

I'm gutted that they have cancelled all the Directs. Not in a dickish, impatient way or anything - of course I understand the reasoning... It's just that the Directs are one of those lovely little things to look forward to, now moreso than ever.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by DomsBeard »

Alex79uk wrote: May 22nd, 2020, 1:13 pm Ha, I guess not.

Heads up for any Pinball FX fans, they've got some of the table packs at discount on the Switch at the moment, including some of the Williams tables. If you've not tried any of the Williams tables before, they're very different to the in house Pinball FX tables. A lot faster and more difficult. Take some getting used to, but once you do they're so much more satisfying to play. I just grabbed pack 2, which has the Attack From Mars table, mainly just because I remember really enjoying the real life version in a pub I used to drink in ~25 years ago or so.
Cheers Alex, I will have a look. Fingers crossed the Star Trek TNG one is there that was a favourite of mine in the pub.
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Alex79
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

I don't think I've seen a Star Trek one to be honest, but Pinball Arcade has more of the music/TV licensed tables (although frustratingly, according to length of licenses, they're only ever available for a finite period of time. I wanted to pick up the AC/DC table, but it's no longer for sale).

I'm not even sure what's happening with Pinball Arcade actually, a lot of the tables they used to have are now available on Pinball FX3 so I'm not sure whether PA is still being update or if FX3 has kind of merged it in with its own game.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Magical_Isopod »

https://www.nintendoenthusiast.com/fren ... -take-two/

Behold, the most boring games leak of all time. This appears to hint at the major Switch reveals of the summer.
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chase210
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by chase210 »

The bioshock collection on switch is a great port! I’m really enjoying it.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

Bizarrely tempted by it, which is stupid given I didn't really like the games first time round. Wouldn't mind playing the second one again, might just wait for a sale and grab that one.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

I've had a bit of a play of Panel De Pon on the Switch online service, and it's really fun. I don't understand, though, why they put the Japanese rom on there instead of the WW Tetris Attack. Its the same game, we'd just have been able to read the menus... Bizarre, and seemingly pointless (presumably down to some sort of licensing issue I guess though?).

EDIT: Just to add, I watched a video translating the menus and there's a lot more to the game than the single player endless mode. I'm currently making my way through the stages campaign, and there's a puzzle mode too, in which I assume you have a limited number of moves to clear a board. It's really a good game.
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NoMoreSpearows
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by NoMoreSpearows »

I've heard it's because Nintendo didn't want to do more dealings with The Tetris Company, so they just went with the property they know that they own.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

I added the Japanese NES and SNES libraries to my Switch last night (you just download them via a Japanese account and can then play them with your normal account). Aside from the cool box art there are a small number of games which we didn't get in the UK, including Famicom Wars (Advance Wars predecessor) and the first Fire Emblem. I was interested to see what they was like, unfortunately they're both (obviously) all in Japanese and I can't make head nor tail of it :lol:
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

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By the way, this Japanese only game on the NES library makes it worthwhile alone. Its brilliant fun!



So smooth, good moves, fun game! The video is a fan translation, obviously it's in Japanese on the Switch.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by DomsBeard »

This just popped up on my Facebook timeline from ShopTo:

"Hi, just to let everyone know, due to a Nintendo decision for all EMEA territories, as from Tomorrow 30/06/20 at 23:00 we are no longer able to offer/sell Nintendo digital full games.

We will however, be continuing to offer/sell online membership and add ons, so, with this in mind, if there is a title you were keen to add to your collection, we recommend checking out our digital item bargain prices, before we have to de-list them

https://www.shopto.net/en/nintendo-eshop/"

Interesting
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Alex79
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

Well that's shit! I saved over a tenner getting Animal Crossing from there. I don't see how this is fair to block sales of digital games. I wonder if it'll affect other websites.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Flabyo »

Ultimately what they’re selling are keys to download the game from the Nintendo store.

If Nintendo don’t want to let other people sell those keys... they can do that.

It’s similar to how you can’t buy apps for your Apple devices through any other store than Apple’s. It’s not illegal *at the moment*, but it’s definitely something that The EU are looking into.

There’s nuance here though depending on whether they’re saying that *no one* can sell these keys but Nintendo, or them saying ‘stores that we don’t want to do business with can’t sell them’. Because the latter point is absolutely legal.

(Some of the companies that make and sell replica premier league shirts decided they didn’t want to do business with Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct, for example. Just because Mike runs a sports store doesn’t give him the *right* to sell *anyone’s* sporting goods if they don’t want him to)
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by seansthomas »

Quite telling that we've not had a post in here for a month.

Seen lots of tweets and articles comparing the drought of first party news to the Wii U era but that feels a bit of a knee jerk reaction to me.

For about 2 years of owning a Wii U there really was little to look forward bar the delayed BOTW or barely any updates. The difference between the two to me are that we at least do know about some further off games (Bayonetta 3, Metroid Prime 4, Smash Bros DLC, Shin Megami Tensei, BOTW2, No More heroes 3, Bravely Default 2) but as a gamer with only a Switch, it is odd not having a big game on the horizon to get excited about.

True, Paper Mario got announced out of nowhere and is only a fortnight old. Plus we'll not know how much COVID19 affected whatever plans they had for this year and E3.

But those first 2 years of solid releases seem like a long while ago now. Lots of people were expecting that with 2 divisions working on just one console now, it'd be like that forever but that doesn't seem sustainable to me, especially given an international epidemic.

But I do think they need to do SOMETHING soon to have on the horizon. It's almost August and we have no Christmas release confirmed.

The obvious bet there is this long rumoured Mario 35th collection of remasters which makes sense... Mario sells like gangbusters at Christmas. But I do wonder if originally they were going to come out to tie into the Lego Mario sets and now they've been pushed back, presumably because Zelda was lined up to hit Holidays and battle the next gen machines but has slipped.

I have a big old backlog so aren't even that bothered personally. But it is weird for a machine selling so well to not have anything new officially on the horizon.

What do you make of it?
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Alex79
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

I'm very disappointed we've not heard a peep about any Mario remasters, given we are halfway through the year and it's his anniversary. The rumours were strong, and I hope they weren't just rumours, but I think even counting for the pandemic, we surely ought to have heard something if they were really on their way.
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Stanshall »

I don't know what this is worth but I was talking to a guy elsewhere who used to be a game dev in Japan at a large company (he didn't want to give details) and he said the working practices over there and, particularly, the management style mean that it's virtually impossible to get things done effectively in a WFH scenario.

Everything is heavily directed and constantly verified, with little delegation or independence. I'm sure that's a gross generalisation but he said that even working in an office, there's a tremendous amount of time lost/wasted while waiting for approval or verification from a superior. I don't know what Nintendo is like but I imagine that quality control and decision making is micro-managed to fuck.

He also said that very few apartments in the major cities are set up for remote working because of space, size, and even Internet access. He said he lived basically in one room and didn't have the Internet because he used his phone or went to an Internet café if he needed it outside work. He also said he wouldn't have been able to work from home because he didn't have a desk or computer.

This helped me understand the difficulties a bit better. I'm sure it's related to Covid.
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Alex79
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

Hmm, yeah all good points and they make a lot of sense. They've still managed to get Paper Mario both announced and released during the whole thing, and done a couple of directs though, so who knows?
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by seansthomas »

Stanshall wrote: July 27th, 2020, 6:43 pm I don't know what this is worth but I was talking to a guy elsewhere who used to be a game dev in Japan at a large company (he didn't want to give details) and he said the working practices over there and, particularly, the management style mean that it's virtually impossible to get things done effectively in a WFH scenario.

Everything is heavily directed and constantly verified, with little delegation or independence. I'm sure that's a gross generalisation but he said that even working in an office, there's a tremendous amount of time lost/wasted while waiting for approval or verification from a superior. I don't know what Nintendo is like but I imagine that quality control and decision making is micro-managed to fuck.

He also said that very few apartments in the major cities are set up for remote working because of space, size, and even Internet access. He said he lived basically in one room and didn't have the Internet because he used his phone or went to an Internet café if he needed it outside work. He also said he wouldn't have been able to work from home because he didn't have a desk or computer.

This helped me understand the difficulties a bit better. I'm sure it's related to Covid.
This very much fits stories friends who've lived in Japan tell me, and backs up certain experiences I had visiting 8 years back. Also I think leadership traits have altered over the years. I lead a big branding design business of 150 people and in the past, the founders of these businesses very much dictated what they did and art directed the team. It meant long hours and lots of miscommunication as you're never fulfilling your own creativity, rather trying to second guess another persons. Several places I worked with strong design leads who are regarded as industry greats functioned like this when I freelanced and I found it very draining.

Modern leadership is different and asks you to empower and give space. We run our business like that and moving to WFH hasn't affected us much work ethic wise as people were already taking charge of their own destiny. I hear less favourable things from agencies still run by directors who work in this way.

I think it's why you always get indie developers, art house cinema, solo artists etc. People who are creative need to be able to go against the grain and express themselves.

I strongly suspect that the culture at Nintendo doesn't allow that. Though maybe the success of Splatoon suggests they'll be more open to that way of working in the future.

Anyhow... Huge digression but I agree. Just think it's all COVID19 related myself. Just don't know why they don't put out a statement saying 'we've been hit hard but will have an update in September' or something...
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Re: The Nintendo news and discussion thread

Post by JadePhoenix »

It's not as if the first half of the year was exactly stacked, either. We got Animal Crossing in March, which was originally slated for last year, just now Paper Mario, and a handful of 2nd party remasters/remakes.
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