Cliff Notes – Are you getting a Nintendo Switch 2 next week?
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Consumer Hesitation: Many potential buyers express uncertainty about purchasing the Nintendo Switch 2, citing a lack of information on key titles like Metroid Prime 4 as a significant factor in their decision-making process.
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Pre-order Issues: Reports indicate widespread cancellations of Switch 2 pre-orders from GAME, raising concerns about the retailer’s reliability and the overall availability of the new console.
- Market Dynamics: The gaming industry faces challenges, with major companies like EA potentially downsizing and concerns about the sustainability of triple-A titles, leading to a cautious outlook on future releases and acquisitions.
Games Inbox: Are you getting a Nintendo Switch 2 next week?
Metroid Prime 4 – have you made your decision yet? (Nintendo)
The Friday letters worries about what Elden Ring Nightreign means for The Duskbloods, as one reader fears for the future of Codemasters.
The big decision
If this is shown on Thursday we’ll be exactly a week away from the Nintendo Switch 2 launch and I still haven’t decided whether I want it or not. Ignoring the problem of whether you can find one or not I’m still not decided. It’s a lot of money and I’m not really interested in anything this year but Mario Kart and Metroid Prime 4.
Admittedly, they probably will be two amazing games but it’s always difficult with a new console, knowing when to pull the trigger and trying to be strong enough to resist the fear of missing out. My gut feeling is that I’ll cave in within the next couple of days, but I guess I’ll see.
I do wish Nintendo would reveal more about Metroid Prime 4 though, as I feel we haven’t heard much about it yet. If we had more info/footage I’d feel a bit more confident about spending all that money for a day one purchase.
Spooner
Bad omen
I’m not surprised to see the mostly negative reviews for Elden Ring Nightreign, from the more reliable sources, and I agree that it must’ve started out as DLC. I can’t be too angry, because it’s at least not too expensive, but it does harm FromSoftware’s reputation and seems to overall be a waste of time.
More than that though, it makes me worry about The Duskbloods. I’m sure that’s a bigger budget affair but some of the problems with Nightreign, like needing a super skilled and committed team to play with, are not things that can be fixed with more budget, they’re just fundamentally bad ideas brought on by From’s dedication to difficult games.
That’s fine when you’re only wasting your own time, but I don’t see how it’s ever going to work in multiplayer if you’re working in a team. I guess we’ll see but I don’t have a good feeling about it.
Tacle
Change of plans
It’s felt like EA has wanted to back out of making these Marvel games almost as soon as they got the licence. I bet the only reason they’re carrying on with the Iron Man one is because it’s further along, and the games industry is a big believer in the sunk cost fallacy.
Although, to be fair, the Black Panther plot did sound pretty bad. T’Challa has been kidnapped by Skrulls and you have to play as a bunch of other people, including his son. But… why? Why couldn’t they just do a normal story with you playing as him? It’s not like the character has been removed from the comics, it’s only the MCU where it’s a problem.
Or maybe that was a genius set-up and we’ll just never know. If I was anyone at EA working on a licensed game though, I’d be polishing up my CV right about now, because the second the third Star Wars Jedi game is done they’re going to jettison all those people into space too. So you can forget all your hopes about Battlefield 3.
Hanson
Disobeying orders
I have received an email from GAME saying my Switch 2 order has been cancelled as payment ‘was not able to complete successfully’. So initially I think, did I enter my details incorrectly? But no, I did enter the details correctly, so all a bit odd.
I checked and it appears this is happening to other GAME pre-orders as well. GAME would not have been my first choice for pre-order, and I am aware of their HQ closing, but they were one of the few retailers with stock when I ordered. Silly me, yes.
GAME’s online help is useless, and I can’t even get into my account with GAME to review the order, so assume it is now cancelled. Have any other GC readers had their pre-orders cancelled by GAME?
Mawgan
PS: Just an update – GAME have posted on their Facebook and Twitter feeds about the (what looks like) widespread cancellation of Switch 2 pre-orders.
GC: Yep, unfortunately it’s a pretty widespread problem.
Second edition
I am interested in getting Fantasy Life i and whilst it seems to be getting a good reception, I haven’t seen any reviews from websites I trust. Will you guys be reviewing it? I find your reviews the most informative and always use them when weighing up a new gaming purchase.
I am considering getting Fantast Life i as a Switch 2 launch title but was hoping to read your thoughts before committing.
Separately, I can’t believe it’s only a week until the Switch 2 launch now. I got my pre-order in early from Amazon and I am very excited to play Mario Kart World, as well as the hopefully many other great Nintendo games to come over the next few years.
Pigfish2 (PSN ID/NN ID)
GC: Thank you. If we get a chance we’ll try and look at the Switch 2 Edition, but it’s not actually confirmed to be a launch title in the UK yet – even though we suspect it will be.
Double launch
I really think we have to be ultra conservative when it comes to expectations about Nintendo at Sumer Game Fest. In my opinion, the chances of them showing anything at a Geoff Keighley event when they’ll probably have their own a week later is minuscule.
The worst thing is that everyone is going to get worked up into imagining all these amazing new reveals and the ‘secret Christmas game’ and then blame Nintendo for not announcing it, even though they never promised anything.
I agree that the most likely outcome will be nothing but a montage and a bit of on-stage banter. If we’re really lucky we’ll get a hint at a new game for next year but nothing else.
They’re not going to announce a big new game out of nowhere for this year because there’s not the time to build up the hype for it and, most importantly, they’ll still be pushing Mario Kart World by the time it gets to Christmas.
June is a weird time to launch a console for a reason. Very few people are spending money on consoles at that time of the year so really this autumn is going to be the second launch of the Switch 2 and there’s no need to complicate that with another big game, when most non-gamers will barely, if it all, be aware the console exists until they start thinking about presents for the year.
Casper
Physical treasure
Just a quick message to say Metro Redux 2033 is free on Xbox until May 30th. It is not currently free on PlayStation Store, unfortunately.
Andrew J.
PS: Just seen recently you can pre-order Another Crab’s Treasure physical version on Amazon and iam8bit. I’ve been waiting to pick this up on physical for PlayStation 5, after GameCentral’s good review of the game a while back.
I’m in danger
So it sounds like Codemasters is going to shut down by EA, just a few years after they outbid Take-Two for them, for a $1.2 billion. So… what was the point of that? I imagine the Codemasters’ driving games are pretty consistent in sales – they’re always high quality and the audience is always there – so what was EA expecting?
What it probably means is that Codies has just been sacrificed to ensure EA’s graphs keep pointing up (there was already talk about ‘growth’ in the story) after EA Sports FC 25 and Apex Legends didn’t do so well.
You don’t need me to tell you how shortsighted and dumb this is but what happens next year when they also need to show growth? They keep doing it and they’ll soon have no one left to make any of their games. They already publish far fewer than they used to, so if something big like EA Sports FC even just underperforms the whole company is in trouble, as we see.
Ubisoft are already on the edge of the cliff, EA are going to be half the size they used to be if they keep this up… the truth is the triple-A video games business is dying and it’s so far gone I don’t think anything can help it now.
Imagine a future where the only independent publisher is Take-Two, because they’ve got GTA, and everyone else is either owned by someone else or is basically an indie publisher. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad in itself but just look how far we’ve fallen!
Focus
Inbox also-rans
Maybe I’ve missed something but why is it called Pokémon Legends: Z-A? Seems a pretty bad name to me, if no one knows what it means.
Ansel
GC: We don’t think they’ve ever said exactly but it seems to be to do with tournament ranking (starting at Z and going up to A) and as a reference to the legendary pokémon Zygarde.
Little heads up but Hasbro are releasing a line of figures based on Marvel characters from Marvel Vs. Capcom and they look dead on. No Capcom characters but you should be able to find plenty of them in the same scale.
Gorf
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