Will the Switch 2 be announced today? (pic: Nintendo)
The Wednesday letters page tries to predict what will be at today’s Nintendo Direct, as one reader recommends John Wick Hex.
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Game of chance
I’m suspicious the Nintendo Direct is 40 minutes long for what seems like only a few Switch games. Unless they do a deep dive on those games? I suspect the Switch 2 will launch next spring or winter 2024. Would it be too early to announce it? If it’s early 2024, I suppose there’s a chance.
The only thing I’m convinced of is Metroid Prime 4 will be a cross-gen game and will launch on Switch and their new console. I hope Nintendo has a mic drop moment, but you never can tell with those guys. I fully expect a tame show, but I’d love to be surprised.
Anon
Boost power
The only thing I would predict with any reasonable degree of confidence about the Nintendo Direct is that they’ll reveal the next batch of booster pack courses for Mario Kart and they’ll be available pretty much straight away. I’m not that confident about it though.
Aside from that I will likely be busy with Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom for some time, so I won’t be too upset if there are no jaw dropping reveals.
As they’re fairly chummy with Microsoft now it would be nice if they could announce Conker’s Bad Fur Day being added to the N64 online line-up but that won’t happen, hey ho.
John Atkinson
GC: The next booster course wave isn’t due till August, so we don’t think it’s very likely it’ll be mentioned. Unless they’re padding for time.
Remasters all the way
I’m intrigued to see what Nintendo has planned for the rest of the year, given there’s barely anything on the schedule and a Switch 2 is likely in 2024.
As much as I’d love to play them, I’d sooner they save Metroid Prime 4 and a new entry in the mainline Super Mario series for a new, more powerful console. Now would be a great time, though, to fill the schedule with remasters.
So how about it, Nintendo: Super Mario Galaxy 2 Deluxe (with additional pathways to new galaxies), F-Zero GX, and Zelda: The Wind Waker again, but this time with additional dungeons. My expectations are low.
With another Direct imminent, we’ll soon find out…
Ciara
GC: Keeping expectations low is your best bet for not being disappointed.
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Coming soon
I hope the new game Forgotlings by the Forgotton Anne game developer’s is successful on Kickstarter but the fund raising is going very slow for it, unfortunately, and I have backed 20 to 30 projects on Kickstarter and Fig and this is one of the slowest climbing totals I have seen.
All the other crowdfunding projects I backed were successful except for one the new Socialable Soccer game by the maker of Sensible Soccer.
Andrew J.
PS: Just got an email this evening to say The Super Mario Bros. Movie is out on Blu-ray and DVD on 24th July, so I wonder if that will be mentioned at the Direct on Wednesday.
GC: That seems very likely, if that’s true.
Two years of nothing
These PlayStation 5 bundles with two years’ worth of PS Plus Premium are a peculiar thing, aren’t they? At most Sony are going to give you £50 off the total, so you’re still looking at spending an extra £150 on thin air. I know that’s what subscriptions are but when you add it all up like that, in one lump sum, it seems like so much for something you may not end up using that much.
It makes me realise, more than previously, why Game Pass hasn’t taken off in quite the way Microsoft expected and why Sony are better off taking the more reserved approach. Not only would they have bankrupted themselves trying to match Xbox’s day one promise but they wouldn’t have gained all that much from it either.
And yet I bet this hugely expensive bundle will end up making tons of money, just because people see how many games come with Premium and yet apparently don’t care so much what they actually are.
Prendo
Declining market
Although in theory I resent the decline in physical games, and recognise that digital is generally more expensive, the fact that it’s more convenient means, I am afraid, that it is not going anywhere. As the years go by fewer and fewer people grow up with physical editions being anything other than an obscure option I think it will quickly fade away until it’s a completely niche concern.
That makes me very dubious that GAME can weather the storm, although trying to turn themselves into some sort of merch shop does make sense. I guess they’re going the same route as Zavvi but the problem is that Zavvi is just a website and so can afford to stock all kinds of things, whereas a GAME store has to have a £500 collector’s edition statue, or whatever, sitting around gathering dust until someone decides to buy it.
I guess Forbidden Planet gets away with it but they have the smaller stuff like comics to get them through day-to-day and I don’t know what GAME’s equivalent of that is. Actual games I suppose you’d say but the fact that that business is shrinking all the time is the whole reason they’re selling all the other stuff. So is the other stuff going to grow in proportion? I somehow date. For better or worse I think any kind of physical edition is soon going to be just a novelty, appreciated only by older fans.
Grontz
Game of two halves
I think I can answer Wonk’s message about fanboy tribalism. It’s like a football team you support; no matter how good or rubbish yours is, the opposing teams are worse and you hate them (though we all know they’re just insecure and want to justify their purchase/choice).
It’s a bizarre loyalty to go by but it’s what seeps into fanboy’s brains.
Cold Waste (gamertag)/Worlock_ed (PSN ID)
Eternal enemies
Now as a grown-up I really have no truck with the whole console rivalry nonsense, but when I was 12, and a Spectrum owner, I was of course fully on board with such things as only a 12-year-old can be. As a result, this line from Wonk’s letter shook me to my very core….
‘Growing up with a meagre Spectrum meant I never really knew who the rival was. Was it an Amstrad?’
Wait, what? Was it Amstrad? No it wasn’t Amstrad. It was, of course, the C64. That was the great rivalry. Did you have a C64 with it slightly blockier graphics but magnificent colour palette or the Spectrum with its superior sprite definition but potential for colour clash that made your eyes bleed. These were important playground issues.
More so even than whether Maradonna’s worth in your Panini World Cup sticker collection was diminished after the Hand of God incident.
I obviously stuck up for the Spectrum through thick and thin. But there was one thing that united us Speccy and C64 owners… the stick we would give the poor sod whose parents had bought them an Amstrad, so I suppose in a way Wonk was right. The Amstrad was a uniting force. And let’s face it, Sir Alan had the last laugh when he bought the rights to make the Spectrum.
Anyway, such things are behind me now, but I do remember how big a deal Speccy vs. C64 was. I was genuinely surprised someone who had one of these machines can’t remember this key playground rivalry.
Anyway, down with format wars, enjoy gaming y’all!
The Dude Abides
Inbox also-rans
John Wick Hex is only £1.57 on the Xbox store. That’s a crazy low price, I paid double that.
Chaosphere616
GC: We love that game; we wish we weren’t the only ones.
I guess I can’t talk about it in detail because of spoilers but I still don’t understand how the thing with Link’s arm actually worked. When exactly was he meant to get the new arm and how? The game was very vague on that point.
Dristrum
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The Wednesday letters page tries to predict what will be at today’s Nintendo Direct, as one reader recommends John Wick Hex.