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

[JG]

And now the other shoe drops.

As I just said, SquareEnix has not had a good year. Its worse than I thought. They've just announced the sale of Eidos Interactive, Crystal Dynamics, and SquareEnix Montreal to another group, so they can "cut down on costs" and move "forward with investments in fields including blockchain". They've been trying to offload these for a while, but had no takers because the price was apparently too high for investment by other pandemic-paralyzed groups. As a result, SquareEnix has sold them under-value to (apparently) the only taker, Embracer Group of Sweden (who have the Borderlands games under their umbrella)

Don't be swayed by the positive spin: this is a panic move. SquareEnix has tied their financial future to NFTs (despite customer backlash), and are now jettisoning a money-maker in the Tomb Raider franchise to get there because they've badly overextended themselves in the last few years. FF7 Remake went way over budget due to its prolonged development schedule; they can't finance their own Switch cartridges, letting Nintendo take half the profit for each game they sell for Switch; they are outsourcing more and more of their development to others (especially KoeiTecmo); they're mired in a pool of half-finished projects (like the aforementioned DQ games); and still have commitments to deliver a FF7 Remake Part 2 and Dragon Quest XII down the line, with the unease that Forspoken is starting to shape up to be another sales disaster due to lack of a sufficient number of PS5 consoles.

Cutting costs is fine - they should be doing that. Investing in new stuff, not so much until they get their current house in order. They should refocus on their core business and their core franchises, of which Tomb Raider was one.

[JG]

Don't be fooled by reports that the Xbox Series S/X is suddenly outselling PS5 in Japan, and that its some kind of hostile change in Japanese player preference. It isn't. It's merely Sony not putting out as many consoles into Japan last week.

Case in point, here's the numbers from week ending May 7 (per vgchartz.com)
Switch: 53,011
PS5: 22,422
Xbox Series S/X: 6,271

And the week for May 9 to 15 (per TechRadar):
Switch: 65,322
PS5: 2,693
Xbox Series S/X: 6,225 (of which 6120 are S and 105 are X)

As you can see, there is no significant difference in the Xbox numbers, but a swift drop in PS5 stock. You can go back previous weeks and see the Xbox typically runs a few thousand, and usually between 6 and 7 thousand for the last month or two, while the PS5 has been jumping around from anywhere from 11,000 to 27,000 since early April until the past week.

Is it a sore point that Sony just watched those Microsoft gaijins outsell them over two to one in the past week in Japan? Probably, but it doesn't mean much other than bragging rights.

But Sony better get their supply chain issues under control quick or else this trend could continue. Nintendo had some problems at the launch of the OLED, and some smaller scale problems with those N64 controllers but they are mostly resolved and you can certainly find the OLED Switch everywhere now. Microsoft has now gotten theirs under control and Xbox Series S is available everywhere, and the X is starting to finally crop up for general purchase in most places. (Best Buy for example says I can pick one up from my local store today, though not available for shipping like the S is.) The Xbox X/S has been, for most weeks, outselling the PS5 worldwide for a few months now, and if its come to the point of shoppers being able to walk into a store and get one but not the other, it'll only widen the gap further. The potential is there for Microsoft to flood the Japanese market with extra consoles at a cut rate price to pry some PS5 players away.

[JG]

Following up on the Dragon Quest 35th Anniversary presentation a year ago today.

Many promises were made last year that the 35th Anniversary year would be full of new games. SquareEnix came up rather short. The Japanese got Dragon Quest X Online version 5.5 and 6 and also Keshi Keshi (the Puyo-Puyo like Eraser game) but the two games promised for the west, Dragon Quest III HD-2D and Dragon Quest Treasures went MIA and there was no news. Until the 365th and final day of the year, when they finally drop some news on Treasures, and a nice surprise no one saw coming.

The bigger news:

And a new teaser for Treasures:

The end of the Treasures video says more news coming in June, which seems to imply that there may well be a SquareEnix Presents this year during E3 week. (Or whatever it'll be called this year since there is no E3.) SquareEnix has not yet officially committed to putting on a show though.

SquareEnix also published a a Yujii Horii video where he visited the Dragon Quest Island mini-amusement park, and said DQ X Offline, Builders and Treasures games were all coming soon, but did NOT mention any other games such as DQ3 HD-2D. Maybe we found out more at SquareEnix Presents or whatever they do in June.

[Moge]

At the last SquareEnix Presents, they showed too much Guardians of the Galaxy and were rightfully clowned on by the internet. Now that they've sold off their entire western development branch (for way undervalue I might add), I don't think we'll have to worry about them focusing on western games. I'm still bitter how little they showed of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters in their last presentation.

I never imagined Sony would ever be in third place again in the console wars, but here we are. Game Pass is really eating into the mindshare of value between both the PS5 and Xbox Series, so much so that Sony revamped their subscription services into some rather confusing tiers. Seems to be quite a huge mess at the moment in what's available for the PS5. The fact they're using the gimped PAL versions of some of these games tells me they don't know what they're doing.

[JG]

Well, Guardians of the Galaxy and Life is Strange: True Colors. They got about equal billing and completely overshadowed anything else in the show. And Life is Strange isn't exactly a marquee series. Its ok but its far cry from SquareEnix's other IPs, namely Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider (which has since been sold), Kingdom Hearts, and Marvel, to name a few. Advertising it for 12 minutes and maybe a minute or two total for all three Final Fantasy products (Pixel Remasters, Stranger in Paradise, and Final Fantasy XV) was a bad decision. Advertising a Marvel game for that long was a good decision - it just flopped on release because of quality (the same specter that haunts Avengers)

I'm not terribly surprised Sony is slipping back to #3. After all, PS3 was pretty hot garbage compared to PS2. Sony isn't advertising its product and letting other companies like SquareEnix do the talking for them. And when companies like SquareEnix give a bad impression of Sony hardware and software while Microsoft is practically giving stuff away for free, of course Sony will look bad in comparison. Game Pass was the only thing keeping Xbox One alive, and now that they have better hardware (or at least much more widely available) they are closing the gap. Sony really should get back into periodic telecasts, at least a yearly E3 show to show off their exclusive stuff. The last sure hit Sony and Playstation had was Ghost of Tsushima and its nearing two years old. With some self-advertisement they could have possibly put Miles Morales or Ratchet & Clank 2 into that category. Instead, they've gone with this madness of three different PS Plus tiers when they could have just fixed the one they had to better align to Game Pass.


Also, thoughts on Sega's big announcement coming Friday morning? The leading rumor is a Sega CD Mini / Mega CD Mini. Which would be "okay" but I'd rather it be Sega CD games coming to NSO's Expansion Pak Tier. Expansion Pak needs more quality stuff to justify the much higher cost. A bunch of Sega CD games would certainly help.

[JG]

Sony really should get back into periodic telecasts, at least a yearly E3 show to show off their exclusive stuff.

It's been brought to my attention that they are having a mini-show this year, just not during what was going to be E3 week. (Which is rather poor timing in my opinion.)

The Summer State of Play show is Thursday, June 2 from 6:00 to 6:30 PM EST (3:00 - 3:30 PST). Based on information gleamed from a few different websites, this appears to be a general line up:

From Sony:
* Confirmed: The Playstation VR 2 device, including release date
* Confirmed: Horizon Call of the Mountain PSVR2 game
* Confirmed: Identification and brief previews of at least 3 more PSVR2 launch game titles
* Unlikely: God of War Ragnarök - Some sites say its near certain while another says it's likely to be the main subject of the Fall State of Play instead of getting second billing to the PSVR2 stuff. I agree it'll get shown in detail later and skip the Summer show.
* Highly Unlikely: Bloodborne remake (this rumor was debunked)

From Annapurna Interactive:
* Highly Likely: Stray

From SquareEnix:
* Highly Likely: Forspoken
* Possibly: Final Fantasy XVI
* Highly Unlikely: teaser for Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 2

From Insomniac Games:
* Possibly: Marvel's Wolverine
* Unlikely: Marvel's Spider-Man 2

From Capcom:
* Unlikely: Pragmata
* Unlikely: Resident Evil 4 Remake

From Ubisoft:
* Unlikely: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - If Ubisoft does their own show, they'll keep this for themselves. And its not a Playstation exclusive anyway.

From Warner Bros:
* Likely: release date for Hogwart's Legacy - The Spring State of Play was 20 minutes of this game alone so they won't really show much new this time around.

Possibly some more games from other developers. But with only 30 minutes the more games they show, the less of each they show.

[Moge]

Well, Guardians of the Galaxy and Life is Strange: True Colors. They got about equal billing and completely overshadowed anything else in the show. And Life is Strange isn't exactly a marquee series. Its ok but its far cry from SquareEnix's other IPs, namely Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider (which has since been sold), Kingdom Hearts, and Marvel, to name a few. Advertising it for 12 minutes and maybe a minute or two total for all three Final Fantasy products (Pixel Remasters, Stranger in Paradise, and Final Fantasy XV) was a bad decision. Advertising a Marvel game for that long was a good decision - it just flopped on release because of quality (the same specter that haunts Avengers)

I'm not terribly surprised Sony is slipping back to #3. After all, PS3 was pretty hot garbage compared to PS2. Sony isn't advertising its product and letting other companies like SquareEnix do the talking for them. And when companies like SquareEnix give a bad impression of Sony hardware and software while Microsoft is practically giving stuff away for free, of course Sony will look bad in comparison. Game Pass was the only thing keeping Xbox One alive, and now that they have better hardware (or at least much more widely available) they are closing the gap. Sony really should get back into periodic telecasts, at least a yearly E3 show to show off their exclusive stuff. The last sure hit Sony and Playstation had was Ghost of Tsushima and its nearing two years old. With some self-advertisement they could have possibly put Miles Morales or Ratchet & Clank 2 into that category. Instead, they've gone with this madness of three different PS Plus tiers when they could have just fixed the one they had to better align to Game Pass.


Also, thoughts on Sega's big announcement coming Friday morning? The leading rumor is a Sega CD Mini / Mega CD Mini. Which would be "okay" but I'd rather it be Sega CD games coming to NSO's Expansion Pak Tier. Expansion Pak needs more quality stuff to justify the much higher cost. A bunch of Sega CD games would certainly help.

If both PS5 SKUs weren't in short supply, Sony would be maintaining its position over MS.

After Sonic and Virtua Fighter news this past week, I'm not expecting any monumental announcements out of Sega soon. It is exciting to hear they plan to ramp the revitalization of their old IPs. They've been steadily doing so over the past few years with Streets of Rage, Classic Sonic, and Wonder Boy getting new games.

I really wanna hear news on Street Fighter 6. Last gen, it was a Playstation exclusive, so I wonder if they're gonna strike another deal again. Can't imagine Sony will pursue exclusivity again after 5 had such a disastrous launch. The game's in a good state now but boy, it's failure really transformed the fighting landscape (i'd say for the better, 'cause the fighting scene back then heavily favored Capcom fighters a bit too much).

[JG]

Don't forget the Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX remake. Alex Kidd was Sega's mascot and answer to Mario from 1986 until replaced by Sonic in 1991. Its kind of embarrassing that Sega let 20 years go by without any remakes or ports to keep him fresh.

Whatever the Friday news is, its most likely something to do with 16-bit era because the Twitter post included a photo of a cake or pastry shaped like a Genesis/Mega Drive three button controller. Since the Genesis/Mega Drive games have been all over the place for years (including NSO most recently), speculation has been that the announcement pertains to the CD platform. Thats much more likely than 32X, since CD games were basically same hardware (68000 cpu) and have only been limited to wide distribution due to media size, while 32X hardware is more complex despite cartridge-sized media footprints. A low cost 16GB flash memory chip loaded with 20-30 CD games is feasible these days when it wasn't a few years back.

[JG]

Not quite what I expected. And holy crap was the closed captioning awful. Not only poorly timed but often didn't even repeat what was actually said. Sony needs to up their telecast production quality because that was unacceptable to anyone hard of hearing or unable to play audio.


Very little about the PSVR2 device. Didn't even show the hardware, just some game play, and no release date. Though one of the PSVR2 exclusive games said 2022 so we must presume its coming holiday season. Here's what they covered:

Resident Evil 4 Remake - March 24, 2023. PS5 with bonus PSVR2 content. Most sites suggested it was too far off to bother covering, but the PSVR2 content (which wasn't shown) apparently justified its inclusion.

Resident Evil Village - Unknown release date. PSVR2.

The Walking Dead Retribution Chapter 2 - Sometime in 2022. PSVR2 exclusive.

No Man's Sky - Unknown release date. PS5 and PSVR2.

Horizon: Call of the Mountain - Unknown release date but widely assumed to be a launch title. PSVR2 exclusive.

Horizon Forbidden West updates added today

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered - August 12. PC port from PS4/PS5 and looks like it'll have all the DLC baked in.

Stray - July 19. PS4 & PS5. Will be free to Premium and Deluxe tiers of PS Plus on launch day.

The Callisto Protocol - December 2. PS4 & PS5. This game reminded me way too much of DOOM, even down to taking place on the moon of another planet. C'mon guys, get original. I don't see this game being successful with so many similar games on the market with catchier names.

Rollerdrome - August 16. PS4 & PS5. This looks to me like Playstation's response to Splatoon. Except not as cute, not for kids, and not as multiplayer friendly. I call it a bust.

Eternights - Early 2023. PS4 & PS5. Some anime-inspired teen superhero game. Looks like a surefire bust in the west to me.

Street Fighter VI - 2023. PS4 & PS5. Looks like it has a campaign mode that borrows heavily from Final Fight.

Tunic - September 27. PS4 & PS5. This Zelda-inspired indie title looks rather attractive to me but I'll need to see more.

Season: A Letter to the Future - Autumn 2022. PS4 & PS5. Cel-shaded adventure game focused on taking photos and recording sounds to move the story forward. Probably not a big seller but its an indie title so maybe does ok on smaller scale, especially if it picks up a few nominations or awards for story telling.

Final Fantasy XVI - Summer 2023. Presumably PS5 exclusive.

[JG]

Sega's announcement was for the Mega Drive Mini 2. Basically a refresh of the Mega Drive Mini they released in 2019, with a different game selection and including some Sega CD games (Sonic CD, Silpheed, Shining Force CD, Popful Mail, and Mansion of Hidden Souls)

It's not a Mega CD Mini-only.  Which perfectly explains why Sega isn't one of the big three any longer: they just don't get how to make money. Why replace a model on the shelf when you can make a second that sits beside it rather than replace it? Why make a new $80 model when you can sell both old and new $80 models to prospective buyers? Sure, it might be the better model (and the old one has been out of production for a while and is hard to find), but it seems unnecessary and undercuts their profit margin. A proper Mega CD Mini would have been the wiser, more profitable choice. Could have sold two things for $160. Instead they'll sell one for $80.

Coming to Japan on October 27; no word on whether it comes west yet. But the original Mega Drive Mini / Genesis Mini launched worldwide same-day and no way Sega doesn't get into stores for the Christmas season so I'd expect it no later than mid-November, unless Sega wants to leave even more money sitting on the table.

[JG]

Microsoft appears to be going for the kill. With SquareEnix, Ubisoft, and Nintendo apparently bowing out of the Summer Games Fest schedule, MS is doubling down and putting on a second show on the 14th. They had already planned a show, the 'Xbox+Besthesda Games Showcase', for Sunday, June 12 at 1pm EST / 10am PST (still a weird time), and will now show a second, titled 'Xbox Games Showcase Extended', on Tuesday, June 14 at 1pm EST / 10am PST, promising more trailers and covering in more depth some of the games shown on Sunday. They'll probably show off Starfield heavily to try to explain why it was recently bumped out of the Christmas season and into next Spring and try to make the Q4 slate more attractive, because S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 isn't enough as the sole scheduled Xbox/PC exclusive for the quarter.

So now its time for the other guys to put together something. It doesn't have to be heavily organized, just throw some trailers and gameplay and announce a few release dates and it'll be enough. SquareEnix is in sore need of image repair. Ubisoft needs to explain what they've been doing with no Assassin's Creed game in two years and finally put a release date on the already overdue Mario+Rabbids Sparks of Hope game. And Nintendo needs to make clearer the Q4 schedule, particularly the delayed Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp. Some of the smaller studios could use some free advertisement in the form that a Nintendo Direct might provide them as well. Capcom might be the lone company that can safely claim they needn't do anymore this month.

[JG]

Obligatory E3-week recap. Of course, not much to talk about since hardly anyone showed up for the party this year.


Best-in-show: Starfield. They weren't kidding when they said this game was overly ambitious a year or so back. Its got FPS ground battles, TPS space battles, resource management, exploration, customization, crafting, diplomacy, multiple story branching - just about every modern feature imaginable. Looks like something for everyone. The real challenge is if it all melds together and creates a sum greater than the parts.

Worst-in-show: Xbox's Calendar. Starfield, Redfall, Forza Motorsport, Ara, Flintlock, and Minecraft Legends are all going to miss 2022, leaving Xbox with another desert of mediocrity since Halo Infinite's launch last year. Even S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 got bumped off its November date. This leaves Grounded and Naraka: Bladepoint as the only significant exclusives for 2022, and one was released in parts in 2020 and the other for PC in 2021 (and may even have a competing PS5 port by Christmas.) Another incredibly unimpressive slate put forth by Microsoft.

Things I liked:
* Tinykin finally getting a release date - and a demo! (Which I've yet to try but will soon.)
* Starfield looks very intriging and may finally be the killer app to get people to go out and buy Xbox Series Xs (myself included, becuase I haven't seen a game worthy of doing so yet.) But I'm not sold on the promise it arrives by mid-June of next year.
* Minecraft Legends looks like its a better attempt to match the Dragon Quest Builders series, since Minecraft Dungeons was so off the mark. Graphics-wise it still looks bad but at least they are trying to compete in the Block-Make RPG genre and not fold to the younger, superior entry.

Thing I didn't like:
* Absences from Nintendo, SquareEnix, and Ubisoft. Nintendo might yet give us a Direct soon (and certainly will before the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 launch on July 29), so they get a pass. SquareEnix needed damage control, didn't do much of it, and now looks like half the company they were this time last year (both literally and figuratively.) And Ubisoft is simply MIA: nobody knows what they're doing, but we know they aren't releasing software anytime soon as both Rocksmith+ and Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope still don't have release dates.
* Street Fighter character designs are getting even more comical. There's a point when you pass from muscular to laughable and SF6 has clearly passed it (if SF5 hadn't already.) Two or three fingers are not bigger than someone's entire face. I'm already seeing memes crop up about how Chun-li's bust has shrunk but all the arms, hands, and chests of the men have gotten ridiculously large. Ryu, Ken, and Guile all look like Zangeif now.
* Mojang's obstinance that Minecraft games have to look like they run on 20 year old hardware, despite requirements for Minecraft Legends that puts it firmly into the last 10 for workstations and last 5 for laptops. (It's requirements are even greater than that of the noticeably superior graphics of Dragon Quest Builders 2!)
* Still no word on Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, indicating the game is irreparably stuck in development hell. Sadly, I'm forced to treat it with Beyond Good & Evil 2 as vaporware until they show something new.

[JG]

https://www.nintendo.com/nintendo-direct/06-22-2022/

I don't know if these one-game Directs really count as a Direct or not. I certainly don't consider them comparable to E3 presentations.

But at least its something about one game. The bad news of course is that this one game is still over a month out, which begs the question if we'll see a Splatoon 3 or generic Direct in late summer. I don't know why they can't tack on another 10 minutes of non-Xenoblade Chronicles stuff this week such as a minute or two of MHR Sunbreak DLC, word on Mario+Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Advance Wars 1+2: ReBoot Camp release date, etc. Or better yet, delay this Direct a week or two when there's more to add and its closer to the XC3 release date.

[Moge]

What a massive disappointment it is that Nintendo decided to go with a game-focused Direct during E3 month.

[JG]

I don't know if that Direct really showed much of anything we didn't already know about from earlier preview videos (or the numerous extra videos presented only in Japanese.) Except maybe the DLC schedule at the end of video.

I was really questioning the value of showing a game-specific Direct this week, and not delaying it to later to either include it as part a fuller Direct or to present it closer to the July 29 release date, but after seeing the video and noticing that it was fully recorded ahead of time with no lead in by a human Nintendo representative, I think I now know why. I think Nintendo had a contractual agreement with Monolithsoft to air that video during E3. But since there was no presentation, Nintendo was still on the hook to air it this month. Nintendo could do whatever they want with their own stuff (Splatoon 3, Advance Wars, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet) and may not have had any agreements with other companies (such as Ubisoft for Mario+Rabbids), but the agreement with Monolithsoft forced their hand.

Of course, they could have just gone through with a real E3-week presentation and made all parties happy.

[JG]

Today's Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase recap.

Didn't know about it? Not surprised. Nintendo sprung it on the world with only a 23 hour heads up, and didn't even list it on their own webpage or send out email communications. Failure in marketing/communication. But it was a juicy direct with lots of good stuff. And release dates! The joyous certainty of release dates! Thank you Nintendo - SquareEnix and Ubisoft would not but you will!

* Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak DLC - June 30; this has been well known for a long while
* Monster Hunter Rise Free Title Updates: Beginning June 29
* NieR: Automata - October 6; this was leaked as coming, but I don't recall it being identified as soon as October
* Lorelei and the Laser Eyes - 2023; apparently a Switch console timed exclusive
* Super Bomberman R 2 - 2023
* Mega Man Battle Network Collection - 2023; physical will be one set, but digital broken into two volumes
* Pac-Man World Re Pac - August 26
* Blanc - February 2023; another Switch console timed exclusive
* Return to Monkey Island - late 2022
* Mario+Rabbids Sparks of Hope - October 20; Hooray! Many months late, but at least now we know when its finally coming. Ubisoft will air a Youtube video June 30 at noon EST (9am PDT)
* Little Noah: Scion of Paradise - Today
* Railgrade - fall 2022
* RPG Time: The Legend of Wright - August 18
* Sonic Frontiers - holiday season 2022; its been a long while since I played a Sonic game but I have to admit this looks good
* Disney Dreamlight Valley - September 6
* Live A Live - July 22
* Imperial China - Today; one of three 2D RPG remakes being re-released today
* Twilight of Edo Japan - Today
* The Distant Future - Today
* Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom - 2022; having a more recognizable character/series tie-in is probably just what Story of Seasons needed, since so many similar games exist and are just simply better (like Stardew Valley)
* Minecraft Legends - 2023
* Dragon Quest Treasures - December 9; More Hooray! SquareEnix had been tightlipped on whether this would or would not arrive in 2022.
* Fire Emblem: Three Hopes - Out Now
* No Man's Sky - October 7
* A Plague Tale: Requiem: Cloud Version - October 18
* Captain Velvet Meteor: The Jump+ Dimensions - July 28; I don't know much about this game but "Captain Velvet Meteor" is a kickass porn star name
* Portal: Companion Collection - Today
* Harvestella - November 4; another SquareEnix game that has appeared out of nowhere since they opted not to do a presentation this year; another farming life sim (ala Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley) but with a season that destroys everything and apparently makes you start over Groundhog Day style until you figure out a way to overcome it. That's an interesting twist on what has become an all too familiar formula.
* Persona 5 Royal - October 21
* Persona 4 Golden - "soon"
* Persona 3 Portable - "soon"

Odd that they said up front all games previewed would be for this year and four of the first six new games previewed were 2023.

And Bayonetta 3 is obviously missing. Either Platinum Games is not going to be delivering this by end of year, or else Nintendo is treating this title as their own property now for inclusion in a later Nintendo-focused Direct covering things like Splatoon 3 and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. But its made by same studio as NieR: Automata so unclear why it wasn't on today's video if it's coming anytime soon. Best guess is its been delayed and won't arrive until summer next year.

Also, not expected at all, but with Dragon Quest X Offline getting a revised release date in Japan of September 15 a few days ago, I had a small wish that an announcement of localization for 2023 release would be made. But apparently SquareEnix is sticking to their guns and going about it in a dumb manner, relying entirely on Japanese sales of a downgraded, 10 year old game to determine what the sales may be like in territories which never had the upgraded version. We're still dependent on one or two million Japanese players being duped into buying Offline rather than Online just so we can get it.

[Moge]

I watched the entire Direct. Wasn't too shabby. Harvestella and that Bravely Default lookin' platformer caught my most attention. Happy to see Square continuing their fine tradition of meaty RPG demos. They're all Switch exclusive if I'm not mistaken. Makes me wonder if Nintendo is paying for these.

Can't imagine DQX Offline will have trouble selling. So many just don't give a single flip about playing online.

[JG]

But DQX Online looks better and has more episodes. It isn't clear to me if Offline is just episode 1, episodes 1 and 2, or episodes 1-5, but certainly doesn't include episode 6, though DLC may add the additional episodes. I've been waiting for a demo to show up in Japanese Playstation e-store (which I have access to) but I checked yesterday and still nothing.

Harvestella does look like a nice farming life sim, but its not exactly my forte having tried a few like Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley. The character artwork is clearly by the same guy who did Bravely Default though. Though if marketed right, I think it could pick up some Animal Crossing fans into moving into more serious resource management type games with meatier plots.

Nintendo has long been known to publish SquareEnix titles outside of Japan, going all the way back to the very first Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest/Warrior games. Nintendo may be footing the bill for localization (even if SquareEnix employees do the work) and are certainly paying for the cartridges and distribution, in exchange for a healthy cut of the sales price. This is why the SquareEnix-published games for PS4 are dirt cheap, but Switch versions are practically full priced (see DQB series or DQ XI S.) SquareEnix has also realized that the DS series and now the Switch are uber popular and will make games for whatever platforms they can make a buck on: they aren't stuck to the very high end Playstation, Xbox, and PC platforms that many publishers have painted themselves into (Electronic Arts comes to mind.) A few years back Square even explained they'd make some games mostly specific to Switch, Playstation, or Xbox or timed exclusives for each, with Playstation getting preference for Final Fantasy, Xbox getting Tomb Raider, and Switch getting Bravely Default and non-graphics-heavy experimental titles like Octopath Traveller and Triangle Strategy.

[JG]

The Intellivision Amico is now functionally dead. Intellivision failed to submit an extension to their Statement of Use to the Trademark Office by the July 4 date stipulated in their most recent (and fourth) extension dating from last November.

As I understand it, this means other companies are no longer restricted from using the Amico name without permission from Intellivision. While the Amico could still be manufactured and sold, it effectively destroys any software licensing model Intellivision had hoped to obtain from third parties (and how Nintendo and the gaming divisions of Sony and Microsoft make a lot of their money.) Intellivision's only sources of income would be the hardware itself and the games it produces. Its already known the hardware is way too expensive and the games likely too low of quality (even at a "budget" price of $20-$30 each) so this really hurts.

Excuses of production problems relating to either hardware or software development are one thing, but this is just dumb laziness. Its simply a form submitted to the Trademark Office that should cost next to nothing and should have been among the most important things the company could have actually done in the last few months. If you can't spend an hour in 8 months to submit a form to renew your IP, you probably don't deserve to own it anyway. Complete mismanagement at Intellivision.

[Moge]

It's disappointing to see Tommy Tallarico transform into a grifter.

He did so much to promote videogame music as a medium to take seriously, and his old televised game reviews were always hilarious.