It's a thread! (Games discussion, etc.)

[JG]

Also, SquareEnix is getting a flareup they didn't predict after yesterday's Direct. We all knew gender type was a choice in the old DQ3 game, and I was pleased to see they had four different poses or clothing types for the NPC so you wouldn't end up with two of the same gender and vocation looking like twins.

But then they went on to show hair color and voice changes, which are also great additions. However, they didn't think globally enough to realize that showing choices for body type, voice, and hair color without skin color is not racially sensitive to many western fans, and now they've got a PR problem on their hands. This is not something they can just overlook or claim to have forgotten, because they've had skin color choices before in games like DQ9 and Builders 2. They need to show a screenshot of skin color changes this week or drop everything else and get developers and graphic artists fixing it before the demo launches. They just can't launch this game in the west with several customization choices except skin color without significant backlash - something they can't afford with this 7 million unit sales moonshot they're aiming for.


But weren't they creating a new Atelier leading lady every year or two for a long time before doing the Ryza sequels? It just seems like developers have gone back to doing what they were before rather than suddenly changing directions without reason.

[Moge]

There hasn't been any controversy from what i've seen from the customization aspect. Would be nice to alter skin color, but i would think most DQ fans are already happy that this remake is above and beyond what they showed initially. If the game were fully 3D, then perhaps people would start raising their pitchforks and torches over the low customizability.

Awesome Direct. The Haunted Castle remake and Capcom Fighting Collection 2 announcements took me by surprise. Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is really the one i've been waiting for as someone who has put a crazy amount of hours into Capcom vs SNK 2 in my youth. Also i'm very happy to see Capcom dropping most of their Dreamcast arcade library into the collection. Crazy amount of value in this collection of games that haven't revisited since the turn of the millenia.

Side note, it blows me away that we're getting not one but two retro remakes this week: Shadow of the Ninja and of course Haunted Castle.

[JG]

No Atelier Ryza.....  ._.

I LOVE Reisalin Stout....... and NOT seeing her as the main character breakes my heart so much.......Yumia DOSENT look bad but... Reisalin Stout had the SPUNK, energy, and so much of a growth (Also GIGA HOT) that I saw as the FACE of the games.

WILL give Yumia a chance but dont think she would match Reisalin at all.

By the way, Direct said "Early 2025", but earlier today Nintendo of Japan pegged it to March 21.

[JG]

Comparison of PS5 Pro prices, including disc drive add-on, at today's exchange rates. In Europe, its over twice the cost of regular American disc model.

[Moge]

That price is bonkers

Well, with that outta the way, i get more confused with each passing month at the direction Sony is taking its console business. These half-step consoles aren't what the majority of gamers want.

[JG]

Well, with that outta the way, i get more confused with each passing month at the direction Sony is taking its console business. These half-step consoles aren't what the majority of gamers want.

Especially when said half step is to do the things the console touted it would do in 2020 and failed to deliver on. For example, in the upper right corner of all PS5 boxes until recently, there are labels for "8K" and "4K 120". I think a handful of games do 4K 120, but most running 4K only get 30 or 60fps and those running 120fps are usually 1080p or 1440p. Even the brand new Astro Bot, touted as the most advanced game for PS5 yet doesn't do 4K 120: its dynamic resolution jumps between between 1440p and 4K at 60fps. And video I saw earlier said not a single 8K game exists yet though the boxes said 8K on the front until recently.

A lot of people are calling out Sony as frauds for misrepresenting original PS5 capabilities, then asking an additional $780 (USD) to get the performance promised four years ago.

[JG]

Japan Game Awards 2024 Results:

Minister of Trade and Industry Award
Playstation

Breathrough Award
Exit Eight

Movement Award
Tsuika Game

Awards of Excellence (up to 12 can be awarded, 11 this year)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Street Fighter 6
Final Fantasy XIV
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Super Mario Bros Wonder
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
Like a Dragon 8
Persona 3: Reload
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
Unicorn Overlord
Dragon's Dogma 2

Best Sales Award
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
(3.75M copies in Japan)

Special Award
Street Fighter 6

Game Designers Award
Viewfinder

Grand Award (Game of the Year)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom


Future Division awards (ie, most anticipated) get announced Sunday.

[Moge]

2023 games for a 2024 award? I can understand if the games were released in December, but TotK came out in the first half.

Very pleased to see Lunar getting remasters. Seems like they'll be using the Working Designs translations, which are love it or hate it for so many. I don't mind them for the most part, although a lot of that NPC dialogue is really out there, but i heard they'll be going over the old translations and making some adjustments, so i'm pleased.

We really have reached the point where graphics aren't the be-all-end-all of selling game consoles. Seeing those side by side comparison shots of vanilla PS5 and PS5 Pro games, yeah, they're not gonna convince the vast majority of gamers. Sony is clearly in desperate need of more games. Not indie games, but games that will demonstrate the system's power.

[JG]

This confused me at first two but it makes sense if you consider that the eligibility period probably isn't a twelve month period, as this would greatly penalize games released right toward end of period. Most likely 15-month rolling period.
And most likely April of last year to July of current year period, as Japanese fiscal year for most companies is April-March. Thus a game released April, May, or June of a given year isn't eligible for current year award, but is for next year, thus they can better gauge how many sales its made.

What you said about the graphics is exactly why Sony is foolish to make a PS5 Pro. Cerny apparently believes that developers want to tap as much power as possible, which is only a half-truth. What they really want to do is sell games, which means the PS5 Pro is a red herring. Now developers have to do exactly what Cerny doesn't want them to do, and develop the game in such a way to do a fidelity thing for PS5 Pro players and a performance thing for PS5 players. So not only does PS5 Pro not solve the problem, it makes it worse. (As did PS4 Pro before it.) And to make matters worse, if developers are STILL going to be making PS4 games into 2026, then now you have at least three layers of graphics modes for some games (and maybe four if they do PS4, PS4 Pro, PS5, and PS5 Pro), and that's not even considering 2026 is probably when we'll hear about the PS6. Potentially five concurrent platforms?? This is why Sony's messed it all up.

Astro Bot and Ghost of Yotei certainly add to a weak lineup of games that improve a lukewarm reaction to the PS5 and maybe finally get people to move off PS4 and only PS5 like Sony wants, but Sony's got to their part too and not jump overboard on PS5 Pro and not continue to tinker or support the PS4 platform with new operating system updates every month or two and new software still two years away.

Between the Concord abandonment (and apparently nearly half billion dollar loss), PS5 Pro PR flop, and bizarre commitment to support PS4 for a few more years, Sony gaming has unquestionably had the worst month they've ever had - even worse when they shot for the moon with that $599 PS3 launch price.

[Moge]

Valve recently made a statement that they have no intention of releasing a Steam Deck 2 until there's a large enough leap in tech. I appreciate that they're in no rush to devalue the original Steam Deck. Having bought one this year, i'm satisfied for the most part with its power.

[JG]

Yeah, that's smart of Valve.

They don't want to have to make 'compatibility levels' where games could be playable on SteamDeck 2 but not on Steam Deck 1. Or weird things happen in one but not the other. Plus they still have a ton of existing games to go through to try to improve for SD1 or encourage developers to improve. (For example, Dragon Quest Builders 1 cuts off background audio when suspended and resumed from sleep mode, though normal PC doesn't.)

They probably also don't want to get into the habit of phone manufacturers or Meta Quest, where new versions release so often prospective buyers just shrug their shoulders and decide to wait for the next iteration, leaving lots of older versions to be sold below cost after new ones arrive, requiring latest versions to be sold at premium to make up for it.

[JG]

It's that time of year again - my Video Games Recap.

Though I expected to play more games in 2024, since I never finished Tears of the Kingdom in 2023 I had to sink a healthy portion of my 2024 game time into it and didn't play as many as I expected. I did do a bit better than last year, since I had no move or Builders 2 project to handle, but I only had nine games played for the first time, three of which were new editions of games I'd played before.


9. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Switch): D-
This game has not aged well at all. Though a 2021 remaster of a 2003 game, it still looks like 2003 graphics and has poor and overly complicated gameplay. The word "remaster" is used very loosely here. Fights don't even look like people are shooting or sword-slicing at each other - just kind of walking up to each other and making minor arm movements with one of the two combatants eventually following down dead - probably from exhaustion more than injury. It's laughably bad. And why is a port of a 2003 game 12.1 gigabytes in size and require a 60 megabyte save file? That is extreme bloat over 2003 game sizes. Probably has a decent story but it was barely tolerable through the hour and a half of gameplay I gave it during NSO trial in May. I've only ever given one F before, for Marvel's Avengers simply because it kept crashing on PS4 to the point of being unplayable (though later proved tolerable on PS5), but this game is likely the worst pile of garbage I've tried to play in the last 10 years.

8. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (Steam): D
This spinoff game derailed me from the Integrum Masterpiece Collection that I had intended to play all the way through when I bought it. It also has not aged well. I can actually imagine the original DS version not being so bad for its day, but the card deck gameplay just doesn't work for a modernized version.

7. Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (Steam): D+
I had actually never played a Kingdom Hearts game before this year. The poor naming of repacked collections over the years had always confused me over to exactly what I could be getting (and what was missing), until they finally got it right with this Steam set. So, I naturally started from the beginning. But oh boy, this game is a mess. It looks like it was very rushed in development, with poor controls, glitches, and horribly unbalanced gameplay with the hardest bosses early in the game and mostly jokes towards the end. There is zero clue as to where to go next in many stages, so the game pretty much demands the use of a guide. The story also doesn't feel like it was written by an adult, with what seems like every other word being "heart" or "darkness". And SquareEnix has had over twenty years and multiple rereleases to fix all these problems - and apparently haven't bothered. People remember it fondly out of nostalgia, but it doesn't change the fact it's actually a really bad game.

6. Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch): C+
Nothing terribly wrong with this game, but also nothing all that great either. I found too many of the stages hard to 100% and the no-hit challenges hampered by some lousy controls. I'd have rather had Super Princess Peach 2.

5. FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage Collector's Edition (Steam): B
A new recompilation of the FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage engine. The big change is finally dropping the Games for Windows service which required finding a copy of xlive.dll from the internet to get the game to play, which of course prevented it from being playable on SteamDeck. Not that I have a SteamDeck, but it kept this game, and thus the entire FlatOut Collection, in 'Unsupported' status, which the current IP owner publisher found unacceptable. However, removing Games for Windows had some side effects, namely removing multiplayer (not that this worked in Steam earlier anyway) which would have been really nice to restore in some fashion. They did add mod support, but it doesn't really seem to be popular enough to really demand it. They also did some unnecessary tweaking to the physics engine I don't like, causing cars to ducktail much more often or just crash in the middle of the race from hitting debris that shouldn't cause a car to just suddenly stop. If you could install the xlive.dll, the earlier edition was probably better for the more solid physics engine, but being playable on SteamDeck and future Windows versions is a good thing, too. And it's still a ton of a fun. When it's on sale for just $3.99 USD, it's well worth it just for the laughs.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch): B
Very good but surprisingly shows too much lack of playtesting - which is almost unheard of for a Zelda title. There are just too many echoes that are extraneous and go unused, and no way to easily reorder them or categorize them: too much time is wasted scrolling through the echoes list to find the one you want or need for a particular puzzle or battle. And too many puzzles can be cheesed with water blocks, to the point its faster to just cheese it than solve it the way the designers probably intended. Better graphics than Link's Awakening, particularly toning down the headache inducing blur along screen edges, but it feels like it's on the shorter side. I enjoyed this game a lot, and was the only one I played through twice, but it's got too many rough edges to give it a better score.

3. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door HD (Switch): B+
The graphics updates are great, the improved background audio is great, and it has a few new features that are great, but it lost some of its charm in some absent sound effects like the crowd cheering or screaming in terror. Great pickup if you never played the GameCube version, but it left me wanting more additions than what it got.

2. Metroid Prime Remastered (Switch): A-
This is a really solid update. It's right up there with Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in showing off that the Switch can produce high-quality graphics that rival other platforms if developers put the time and effort into it to do it right. Its only problem, and it's a whopper, is the difficulty scale. One mode is just too easy and not challenging enough, while the other is too hard, doubling enemy HP and the damage they do. I'd have enjoyed it more if there were a medium difficulty mode where HP and damage were scaled up by only 50%, not doubled, or one of the two doublings was applied but not the other. But if you never played the original Metroid Prime, or want a visual showcase for the Switch, this is worth the discounted $40 price. This might have been the best game I played all year, but my problem with the difficulty gap and the lack of being brand new gives the edge to another game.

1. Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Switch): A-
Probably the best Mario & Luigi yet. Some textual humor replaced by slapstick visual humor which may have soured some people, but I think it's just fine: moving from 2D to 3D just allows for more visual humor. Good story and gameplay. Good enemy balance. Just a really good adventure. The loading screens are maybe the biggest problem I have with the game, though I'm still not so fond of all the purple accents on the backs of Mario and Luigi's hats and around their wrists.



Most looking forward to in 2025:

• The Switch 2 Line-up: Switch 2 may not launch with a new 3D Mario game, but we'll probably see it before end of year. So even without knowing the name its likely my most anticipated title of the coming year. I suspect they'll also bring a second powerhouse game before end of year, be it Mario Kart, Splatoon, Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, or something unexpected - though I'm crossing fingers for the unexpected choice as I'm not a big fan of those four series.
• Ghost of Yotei: Ghost of Tsushima was incredible, and its tough to bet against the sequel being just as good.
• Astro Bot: All good things said after release and then it won Game of the Year at the Game Awards (though against weak competition, as each of the other candidates had major flaws.) I'll look to pick this up sometime in 2025 when it's on sale and they've slowed down adding content. I'm not a big fan of playing a game, then having developer add more content that I'd either miss or have to revisit.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition: I couldn't get into this back on Wii U, because we only had one Xenoblade game under our belts at that point and XCX was so different from XC1 that it didn't feel connected in any way. With a few more games the universe is now better explained and I'm much more psyched for another chance at it.
• Metroid Prime 4: Metroid Prime Remastered got me reinterested in Prime 4. I'd like to see Metroid Prime 2, but it seems Nintendo's going to do that same dumb thing they did with Pikmin where they're release 2, 3, and 4 all in the course of about a month or two and not expect people to be burnt out form too much Metroid in too short of a period. I really hope we get Metroid Prime 2 and 3 early enough that I have time to consume them before Metroid Prime 4 arrives.
• The Plucky Squire: Back from last year's list. I think Devolver made a very poor choice in release date selection, scheduling it a week before Echoes of Wisdom which offered a similar creative adventure game and Plucky Squire just got pushed to the side. A month or two earlier and I've have likely bought it day one. Now I'm kind of waiting on it to drop in price and find an opening to play it in 2025. It still looks really fun.
• Pikmin 4: I picked this up at Black Friday sale but haven't had a chance to start it yet.
• Sand Land: Ditto Black Friday pickup not yet started. I played the demo on PC and I don't have terribly high hopes for the game but love the Akira Toriyama art style.
• Dragon Quest III HD-2D & I+II HD-2D: I sort of hope there's a discount on both games from Steam once I+II arrives. I never really liked III's story from earlier NES and Game Boy editions, but the full trilogy at a discount might interest me.

Dropped off the interest list:
(I may get back to these someday, but no real interest in them now)

• Forspoken
• Tinykin
• Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory

Rumors/Things we did (not) see come true in 2024:
Well, I struck out on all the guesses from last year so I'll just recap all my disappointments.

• Not only did Nintendo not release the new hardware, they haven't even officially revealed it yet. They did have a much stronger release schedule in the fall than expected, but Sony did brought new hardware in the same quarter and has had a couple of months of higher sales dollars than Switch. Nintendo had ruled the roost for several years, but 2024 was Sony's year.
• No Metroid Prime 4 yet but I might still be right about it being a Switch 2 launch title.
• No Dragon Quest Builders 3. In fact, no brand new Dragon Quest game at all in 2024, the first time in the west since 2014, and the first time worldwide since 1997. A whole different millenia! Really would not have expected that streak to break.
• No Dragon Quest XII news. While I expected some for DQ Day, all SquareEnix gave us was a DQ III HD-2D teaser.
• No Dragon Quest X Offline English/European Localization. Yep. SquareEnix basically did double extended middle fingers all year to my desires.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising Remake or Sequel. Also nada, but with so many Wii, Wii U, and 3DS games getting remakes or trademark refreshes in the last year, it still feels like it could happen. And yet, Nintendo finds a way to do things like give us two Donkey Kong remakes instead: Mario vs Donkey Kong and the upcoming Donkey Kong Country Returns.

Rumors/Things I want to see come true in 2025:

• New 3D Mario. I think its a incredibly safe bet Switch 2 launches in 2025 (and shipping info seems to indicate first half), and 3D Mario and Mario Kart are the two powerhouse first-party game series that have been on the bench awaiting a new entry the longest. I'm not such a fan of Mario Kart (because of cheating CPU racers) but 3D Mario has both eyes and both ears once announced.
• Metroid Prime 4 is Switch 2-enhanced. I really don't want this to be Switch 1 only. Switch 2 needs an early graphical showcase, and maybe Xenoblade Chronicles X does it, but being the newer game (and not a remastered port), Metroid Prime 4 really ought to be Nintendo's flagship title for how good the Switch 2 graphics can be.
• Dragon Quest Builders 3 is announced - and launches before the end of 2025. We haven't seen a Dragon Quest spinoff game since 2023, and with Dragon Quest III HD-2D recently released and reengaging players with the backstory, now the time to do Builders 3. There will never be a better year to do it than 2025 - if they'd released it before DQ3 HD-2D, or wait until 2026 or later, the sales potential is probably cut in half. Hopefully SquareEnix doesn't drop the ball on this. Continuing to chase the ten million or so strong JRPG community and not going after the 300 million plus strong Minecraft/sandbox community would be very shortsighted.
• Dragon Quest XII is revealed - and its an MMORPG. It's gotta be revealed on DQ Day (May 26) or else I think there's serious doubts the game will make a 2026 release in time for the series' 40th anniversary. I also think the reason we haven't seen much is that they're going to the MMORPG route, so they can finally scale down the twelve year old and Japan-only Dragon Quest X and reinvest that money and development team into a worldwide game. Final Fantasy XIV is making more money that FF15 or FF16 made, so I think it works out than DQ12 may follow suit. (As a consequence, the west just simply won't get DQ X in any form.)
• Nintendo's new IP previewed in the NSO Playtest Program is a social phenomenon and its either a Most Anticipated or Game of the Year Award nominee, depending on its release date.
• Kid Icarus Uprising remaster finally gets announced. Though I think it might be an early 2026 release.
• Bravely Default gets remastered for least Switch 1, if not all modern consoles. Asano mentioned there would be new Bravely series information by end of year, which didn't happen, but its either held up by the Switch 2 embargo (Bravely Default 3?), the project is running behind, or it's a reveal that missed out on the presumed October-ish Nintendo Direct. Given Bravely Default series sales haven't been great, I'd lean more toward the BD1 remaster than a new game. The first Bravely Default is brilliant and its well due for a remaster and spread to newer platforms.
• A redesign of the Nintendo News and E-shop apps. News is just cluttered with too many channels and e-shop has become a haven for shovelware and rip-off titles because it prioritizes listing new releases over quality/highly-rated/most purchased releases. Both badly need a rework and it's hard to see Nintendo launching Switch 2 with the same software problems that have plagued the Switch 1. (In fact, they should have fixed both for Switch 1 well before now.)

The Annual "Let's Not Do This Again" Award:
Every game being called "roguelike". Almost every game in the late May State of Play, at least half in Summer Game Fest, and several in the Xbox Showcase got this appellation, whether deserved or not. As the saying goes, if everything is special, nothing is.
Honorable mention to the explosion of "New to <insert game name here>. Any tips?" posts across the internet in 2024. Do people just not even try to play the games themselves before asking for help anymore? Players complain of how much handholding and explicit hints there are in games these days (which is true), but so long as people keep asking for even more handholding, developers are going to keep doing it.


Payoff of the Year:
Sony's novel approach to preorders for PS5 Pro and PS5 30th Anniversary. Scalpers were salivating at another chance to tie up all the Sony hardware and flip it at a tidy profit before Sony completely wrecked them by requiring preorders to be tied to PSN accounts with a sufficient number of hours played in the last twelve months. Preordering is not hard for real people or scalper bots. Setting up a PSN account is free and not hard for real people or scalper bots. Getting the minimum number of hours for those PSN accounts isn't all that hard for real people, but not something bots can't do on their own, and the scalpers were not willing to invest the time to set up each of their bots with the required number of hours. As a result, scalping went from way too much with the original PS5 launch to virtually vanishing with the fall 2024 hardware. Nintendo should really pay attention and do something similar for the Switch 2 launch.


Backfire of the Year:
Nintendo's disastrous decision to not announce the new hardware when manufacturing began in September or October. First of all, it was a decision based in fantasy that they could navigate all the way to the end of January without any significant leaks, which hardly anyone outside of Nintendo felt was possible. (And we were all proven correct about it, too.) Secondly, it left a lot of Direct-worthy October news unused, so we got tidbits every other day or so that would have been better combined into a single, longer Direct video, whether the Switch 2 reveal was there or not. (Though it feels like the reveal would have anchored it as the ultimate 'one last thing' moment.) Third, by moving up the September Direct to August to compensate, it left a hole in their announcement schedule that Nintendo's major competitor in Sony was more than happy to fill, having not one, not two, but three different hardware presentations in September leading into Tokyo Game Show. Lastly, Nintendo threw all the third-parties completely under the bus by extending Switch 2 game announcement embargoes for several more months. Nobody knows when they're going to release games, because no one's brave enough to pick a date that Nintendo might also pick and risk having their game steamrolled by the new system launch. Most studios have not set their schedule beyond January or February, and they're losing precious time promoting games prior to release. Nintendo may have shortened the hype cycle to their own benefit, but it's hurting the companies who are ready to start hype cycles for their games. And by all indications, the only reason they did this was to not have the big Donkey Kong advertising campaign in November, December, and January be overshadowed by Switch 2 news, because the Donkey Kong theme park area was so important to their wider non-gaming growth. However, 85% of Nintendo's income comes from outside of Japan and prioritizing a Japan theme park over something with true worldwide appeal was a gigantic mistake. If Nintendo could turn back the clock and do it again, they'd have made fans happy, third-parties happy, and given up a little bit of theme park focus to maintain control of the messaging over their new hardware and blunt the advance of their closest competitor.


Moment of the Year:
The final battle of Tears of the Kingdom. That was pretty epic and a big step up from the disappointment of Breath of the Wild's final battle.


Besides key releases, what will gaming in 2024 most be remembered for?:
The sheer number really dumbass decisions made by gaming companies. Everybody got dumb at the same time.

• Pretty much anything Sony did except the hardware preorder plan and Astro-Bot.
  • The PS5 Pro reveal sure went over well didn't it? $700 to buy a unit that promises to do all the things the PS5 already promised to do. I know because my PS5 box says so right there on the front. It rarely did 4K/60fps in games. It never did 8K video. Then PS5 Pro rolls out and lot of older games look worse because the PSSR isn't as refined as DLSS.
  • Designing the PS5 Pro to use the exact same size plates as the PS5 Slim model, but not putting the mounting pins in the same place. This looked like a total cash grab to force owners to buy all new plates, and has trouble at retail because of two visually identical products that have to be clearly labeled to avoid consumer confusion.
  • Concord. Probably could be considered backfire of the year, though I'm not really sure there was time to realize it was such a trainwreck in the making. The game took eight years to develop, Firewalk had gone $100 million in debt to develop it before Sony paid $200 million to buy it outright and absorb its debts, then spent another hundred million to finish making it, bringing its total cost to around $400 million - the most expensive video game ever developed if advertising isn't considered (for which its only second behind Red Dead Redemption II.) And then it gets critically panned in open beta, which leads to a less than 30,000 total sales at launch, making back less than $1 million of its investment - not even enough to pay to keep the servers running. Even selling the game was a problem, as it was actually sold, and not simply given away. The hero team shooter live service genre is rife with free-to-play titles but Sony wanted $40 for it. Sony even put themselves in a position where they couldn't even give it away as a PS Plus freebie after launch because they'd already made an exclusive deal with SquareEnix to do this for Foamstars earlier in the year: they simply had to eat the cost. Sony was so excited by how much money Concord would make if it became a media powerhouse that they were blind to the huge amount of money they'd lose if it didn't.
  • And after Concord's failure, Sony quickly cancelled six of the twelve live service team shooter games in development. Why did they have twelve of them? Who at Sony thought it was a good idea to have that many in the works at once? Even six is seen as too many still and Sony's likely going to lose money on most if not all of them. And right at the end of the year Herman Holst announced how they were still confident making live service games is the way to go, based on Helldivers II success while ignoring the failure of most live service titles, such as Concord.
  • Speaking of Helldivers II, it had a great start on PC preorders, but then Sony suddenly said it would require PSN access to play PC version. The Steam version store page's view rate collapsed and preorders were cancelled en masse. Sony reversed this decision, but damage was done. Overreach likely cost Sony untold millions in revenue. (They still made a ton of money on the game, but likely could have made more.)
  • The late year "Like a Child" advertisement. A bunch of younger people, parkouring around buildings that are constantly changing shape. At no point in the advertisement is a Playstation 5 seen or anyone playing one. In fact, the ad tells us that it's more fun to go run around outside than to stay indoors, sitting in front a TV playing PS5. Exhibit A in how not to do video game advertising.
• Microsoft's "This is Xbox" ad campaign. Not as bad as Sony's but it got a lot more ridicule. Microsoft was already devaluing their console gaming business by taking all their games to PC and offering them at huge discount via GamePass, and now some of them are moving over to PS5 and Switch 2 as well. There is very little reason to buy an Xbox Series X or S anymore. But actually advertising that's the truth is a whole new level of bizarre. I get that the ad is reworking Xbox as a brand rather than a hardware platform, but it seems much less monetizable. It really looks like the white flag moment for Microsoft - they know they're beat and this is the first step in following Sega's footsteps into software-development only (though maybe retaining some space in third-party controller hardware.)
• Microsoft closing Tango Gameworks immediately after Hi-Fi Rush's launch, only to see it become the most critically-acclaimed exclusive game on the Xbox Series X|S to date, proving even Xbox Game Studios upper management can't identify good games from bad. They'll give you two dozen games a year where you kill bad guys with guns or swords, but a game that doesn't just isn't of interest to them, no matter how good or creative it actually is.
• Nintendo trying to out-think the room by withholding the Switch 2 reveal until after the holidays, as described above.
• Nintendo also thinking Endless Ocean Luminous was not only a tentpole title to carry the month of May (especially after no April release), but thinking it was strong enough title with which to end the February Direct. And with Metroid Prime 2 on the bench awaiting a turn it still hasn't got.
• SquareEnix not giving skin tone options in Dragon Quest III HD-2D. SquareEnix keeps telling us how they wish to expand the Dragon Quest brand in the west, and gave us a dozen or so hair color options and four different stances and clothing options for each character class. But everybody is pale skinned and that's not really a great thing for the west, especially after giving skin tone options in prior games like Dragon Quest Builders 2. This did not go over well in some countries, especially Brazil whose gamers were really upset to see SquareEnix create a Portuguese preorder website for the first time, but then announce that the game wasn't actually localized for the Portuguese language.
• IGN being exposed for still running single person reviews for games published by major industry players. While probably acceptable for the small indie releases, major review outlets (both gaming and non-gaming) tend to do group reviews to eliminate scoring outliers. Astonishingly, IGN wasn't doing this. The very low score given for Mario & Luigi: Brothership, not backed up by other outlets, really shone a light on the practice and the IGN brand suffered some humiliation as a consequence. And IGN may have panicked to prevent some other games that would have been given low scores from facing the same scrutiny, as some other November titles, notably Dragon Quest III HD-2D, didn't get scored until several weeks after their release. IGN was already struggling to remain significant on the same scale as compilation metrics like Metacritic and Opencritic, but with this misstep they nailed their own coffin shut.
• The Game Awards nomination panel accepting a DLC package for Game of the Year nomination. If it can't be purchased as a standalone game, that kind of speaks to the criteria doesn't it? If I want to go buy the Motortrend's Car of the Year at an auto dealership, they're not going to try to make me buy the truck it was delivered on are they? But the Game Awards panel apparently thinks that is completely acceptable. They really dodged a bullet when it didn't win because that would have set a very bad precedent.
• PEGI not backing down from the 18 rating for Balatro on the basis that it teaches gambling mechanics. Super Mario Bros 3 teaches slots and Super Mario Party has dice. Does that mean PEGI will give the next Mario Party an 18 as well? PEGI has planted their flag in the ground that this is exactly what will happen, and it's going to have some repercussions throughout the industry. Developers are going to double down on micro-transactions and lootbox gambling that players tend ot hate because PEGI clearly doesn't care about that, but if your game has slots, or dice, or playing cards, or any kind of wheel that picks a random number in a roulette-fashion - you may need to rethink that or risk PEGI's wrath.

So overall 2024 was really not a good year for gaming. Nintendo gave us some solid titles, though nothing that really blew the doors off like they have in prior years, and Sony finally arrived with a game that appeals to all players, but that's about it. Expecting 2025 to be better with Switch 2 launch and some heavy hitters out of Nintendo and Ghost of Yotei.

[JG]

I realized I left one of the 'dumb' things off the list:

* Nintendo scheduling Mario & Luigi Brothership just a week before Dragon Quest III HD-2D. When these got release dates only one week apart I had grave concerns about Mario & Luigi's sales potential, and sure enough Nintendo pretty much marched it out to die. It a fine game, but clearly very few people wanted to invest in a big RPG game right before another big RPG came out. Nintendo would have been better off swapping schedules with another game. Fitness Boxing 3 looks like it was always planned to be the December title to capitalize on peoples' New Year's resolutions so that leaves swapping with Mario Party in October or Donkey Kong in January, and I think either would have protected its sales. I think Nintendo regrets not swapping Donkey Kong and Brothership now, as it seems hype for the DK game could get sidelined by Switch 2 news and having a new Mario & Luigi game to kick off Mario's 40th Anniversary year would have been a great story.

[JG]

So... that trailer.

Yeah. I'm very disappointed. I expected a showcase similar to Switch 1 reveal, show off the magnetic joycons and new kickstand, the larger screen, the mouse controls, several games, and some people playing together in different ways. We got part of the cosmetics covered, but the rest was severely lacking.

I don't know who in Nintendo could have thought this was better than the Switch 1 reveal, or even close to it. It failed to hit four marks I felt it needed to hit (which I'm reposting from elsewhere):

1. Improvements in both handheld and TV play. If you play handheld, the larger screen and joycons, an extra USB port, and sturdier stand were very enticing. But if you play on TV there wasn't anything new here. Nintendo failed to explain why the Switch 2 is an upgrade over Switch 1 for TV players any more than Switch OLED was over original Switch. Some mention of increased hardware processing capabilities or even showing off a Pro Controller would have been useful.

2. New gimmicks. Technically they showed the joycons move around as if they were mice, but we didn't see them actually used AS mice - there was no indication that moving the joycons around would move an indicator on screen. Perhaps a tease toward it, but not confirmation. Again, the casual viewer may just think this is a bigger Switch. Perhaps the two joycons racing around on a flat surface could have made for a stronger connection to computer mice if there weren't an actual racing game taking over the video a short while later. Did no one at Nintendo realize that racing joycons put next to racing karts buries the connection on mice pointer functionality? Not only did they not show the gimmick clearly, they even misused how it was presented.

3. Games exclusive to new hardware. Keen eyes can identify a new Mario Kart game, but does the casual viewer recognize it as new? I think many people could simply mistake it for Mario Kart 8 - I wasn't sure until I saw more than 12 racers because I'm not a big Mario Kart fan and thought we might just be seeing one of those Booster Pass courses. They needed a game (or several) that was unmistakably obviously made for the new console, and this wasn't it. The Mario Kart we saw in the trailer does not stand apart enough for non-Mario Kart players. And this was the only game!? Granted Mario Kart is the best seller, but its still only in the area of being owned by 45% of Switch owners. What about the majority of Switch owners who don't own Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? Why didn't Nintendo show them something else? We didn't need to see 20 straight seconds of one game - we didn't see that long of a stretch for any one game in the Switch 1 trailer, which got the point across of having multiple different types of games much more clearly, and many of them we could more easily spot were not like the ones we had on Wii U. (For example, Mario Odyssey looks radically different from 3D World. Splatoon 2 being the only obviously confusing one.)

4. The leakers controlling the messaging. The 3D render through first half of the video pretty much confirmed everything the leakers said and offered no surprises, like an explanation of the mysterious C button. Most likely Nintendo is not ready to tackle that feature yet, but if they want to take back control and assure investors that the leakers don't actually know everything that would have been a good place to start. Including just a single game that everyone assumed would be coming soon anyway, also didn't really surprise. It seems President Furukawa will be grilled hard about the leaks and Nintendo's weak response to them in the upcoming February investors meeting unless they reveal more between now and then to take back initiative. April 2 is two months too late to regain control over the messaging. By then leakers probably explain the C button in detail, give us a full launch game list, and who knows what else. Its already out of hand, and Nintendo not only didn't takeback control by showing something novel, they basically conceded the leakers have them by the throat.

[Moge]

Yes, the trailer was disappointing in that it didn't show much, but I'm gonna withhold judgement until the actual reveal in April. Anyone following any of the leaks in the past few weeks, there's nothing surprising about the hardware design. It really is just a iteration on the Switch, which is completely fine (for me at least). Nintendo's been stuck on 360 console power for an eternity, so i'm eager to see what they can do with more juice.

There's a lot of fervor that Nintendo's playing it too safe, which might actually be true, but the company has never been shy to experiment. Just look at their NSO exclusives. Some really good stuff there like Tetris and F-Zero 99.

[JG]

I'm actually more disappointed in the April Direct bit than anything else. I was psyched to see the big blowout in February, and a launch in April or May. Now everything is pushed back two more months. That means at least two more months of low-interest* Switch 1 fillers, and at least one if not two or more fewer months of very exciting Switch 2 games.

* I'll give them credit that Xenoblade X is a great game to renew from Wii U/3DS era though. Far superior to Donkey Kong Country Returns Returns Again or the rumored Kirby Planet Robobot. When XCX first came out, all they had was one Xenoblade game behind them and the sharp contrast between XC1 and XCX was jarring. Now that they have many games in the universe, the wider concept is easier to understand. XCX never should have been released before XC2 and can be much more appreciated now than in 2015. The concept was just too much of an overreach for its time.


The investors don't seem to be very impressed either, with three days of stock price drops since the reveal. They've been led on about Switch 2 launching in 2024, then told to expect it early in FY2025, and now they're seeing an April date to even show it off for the first time, and still no solid release window. They want to see big profits from the new system and I think some of them are starting to get tired of this "not soon but someday" approach. Keep in mind that were this not the holiday quarter that just passed, this would have been Nintendo's worse three month stretch in a long time. They had no Pokemon game at holiday, and the three games they did have November, December, and January, are all very low selling. (October better, but one ten million seller in the year is several ten million sellers too short.) The holiday console sales helped rescue it, but they don't get that benefit in the coming quarter. The February-April timeframe is looking very grim. Xenoblade X is not going to be that big of a big seller, it doesn't even look like they'll have a February game short of a digital-only shadow drop, and we don't know what they've got for April. Investors want certainties. With so little to offer, short-term investors are pulling out, and the longer-term investors need some reassurance they aren't waiting until October or November to start seeing profits. It really won't help when they go into this February investors meeting, and see Nintendo revise downward the fiscal year units sold estimate again, closer to 10.5 million units, when they just revised it downward from 13.5 to 12.5 million in November.

[Moge]

I played KotOR back in the day on the og xbox. Never finished it, but i enjoyed what i played of it. Bloated save sizes are a thing for all the big western RPGs. Looking at you, Bethesda.

I've had a mild curiosity to check out Kingdom Hearts since it seemed like the spiritual successor to Mana/Seiken Densetsu.

Metroid Prime 1 was such a revelatory experience for me back in the day. The music, the gameplay, the exploration... fps games never gave me that sense of wonder, but MP1 made me see the genre in a new light.

Brothership makes me happy that the M&L franchise is alive and well. Paper Mario never gelled with me, but M&L was closer to what i wanted, which was basically more SMRPG. Crossing my fingers for a real SMRPG sequel someday.

[JG]

What If I told you Nintendo staged a Direct, and this was the outcome:

None of Nintendo's "Big 5" franchises is present.
None of the first-party games got a firm release date (something that's never happened before)
Not one, but two of the first-party games are into next year (odd to see even one in the spring Direct.)
One of the first-party games is this year, but well past the summer or fall Direct air dates.
One of the first-party games is missing its dance partner.
Three of the twenty-eight games are 1+2 collections.
Three of the twenty-eight games are rhythm genre.
The one rail shooter (a genre the Switch is woefully weak on) gets only five seconds of coverage.
The one third-party game that is a Switch timed-exclusive gets only five seconds of coverage.
One of the games is the third game from one franchise in 13 months; while other, more profitable franchises from same publisher haven't got anything in that span.
This Direct was apparently delayed five or six weeks and no apparent reason was ever shown to explain why it couldn't have aired in February.

Objectively, this is terrible all over. Even if you didn't know the titles, you should be able to tell this is a bad lineup with some bizarre outcomes.

[Moge]

The final Switch direct was delightful. My expectations were low to begin with, but i was pleasantly surprised.

Metroid Prime 4 graphics stole the show for me. If the final product looks as good as the trailer, then hands down it'll be cemented as the most technically impressive game on the platform. On the gameplay side, it looks like more Metroid Prime, which is fine given it's been almost two decades since the last entry. Sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel if there's enough time between sequels.

The other highlight of the show, Rhythm Heaven Groove. The WarioWare games are lowkey Nintendo's best games to just pick up and play. Since Rhythm Heaven is just an extension of that franchise, you know you're in for a good time.

The final highlight: Sony putting their exclusives on a Nintendo platform through Bandai Namco. Not much to say, but it's an interesting development that would make seismic waves if this were 10 years ago.

Not surprised if anyone was disappointed with this direct. It was quirky and not specifically catering to the most hardcore of Nintendo's base. For sure, Nintendo is saving the best for their next system.

One minor gripe, the Gradius Collection is clearly missing a lot of games, namely the superior console ports.

[JG]

I though the Chozo forest temple we saw in the Metroid prime trailer looked washed out, like watercolors. It didn't look sharp to me. I really thought the battle scene we saw in the first trailer looked better.

This Direct failed to do the thing it needed to do the most - set the stage for the next 3-4 months. I'm frankly getting very worried about the April 2 Direct because its been over half a year since Nintendo's media relations did it right. They messed up September by not doing anything (despite Sony running roughshod over them), messed up October by rolling out all the announcements in Twitter instead of a more consolidated program, messed up January by sidelining DKCR HD with the Switch 2 trailer that failed to hit the marks it needed to hit, messed up February by doing nothing (an again, Sony was there to step up), and now messed up March by not properly setting up a transition period, and just casting Switch 1 fans off into the unknown for the next several months. I fear 3D Mario may be the only thing they deliver to rest of year that I want, and it'll probably be a fall game too. I don't care about Mario Kart and hope they have something better to offer at launch (a cross-gen Metroid Prime 4 would have done it, but that's seeming less likely now.) I don't really care to see Breath of the Wild DX. I don't want to see Fire Emblem remake or Kirby: Planet Robobot be Switch 2 if they don't need to be. And I sure don't want to see Camelot show up with another Mario Tennis game for Switch 2. I don't want to dig out my Wii to replay Metroid Prime 2+3.

Also sad to see this being the potentially end of the line for the Metroid Prime series. Six years of development, with the staff size of Retro in Austin, Texas (one of the most expensive software development markets in the world) its incredibly likely Metroid Prime 4 is Nintendo's most expensive game ever at around $200 million (unless they're also dropping a Switch 2 title in the next 12 months.) The way its being set up, its rolling out to Dread-like numbers of 3 million tops, perhaps 2.5M million given the scale down of Switch 1 advertising. Unless Nintendo has some secret ad campaign, or an at-launch cross-gen upgrade, its going to take a $50-$80 million bath and be Nintendo's largest money loser ever. I don't think they ever do an MP5 if they lose $50+ million on MP4. It needed to get done in 2022, or it needed to look forward toward Switch 2 so it would have the legs to run out to 4 or 5 million unit sales over the course of a few years. If its a Switch 1-only title in a post-Switch 2 world, there's little hope for it.