Episode 644: Nintendo At It Again

Jonah considers Elden Ring too grind-y, and talks about the name of an infamous handheld console.

News items include:

  • PlayStation 5 owners report online issues following system update
  • Mass Effect Trilogy co-creator returning to science fiction
  • Bungie says last week’s Destiny 2 video takedowns were ‘fraudulent
  • Nintendo takes down scans of 1996 Super Mario 64 Strategy Guide

Let us know what you think.

0 thoughts on “Episode 644: Nintendo At It Again”

  1. Hi guys.

    As usual: thanks a lot for your effort and work to bring us this and every other episode 🙂

    I am not able to say so much to this episode because I don’t know all the games you talked about ?
    I played a lot of Magic Arena as usual, some WoW and since it is released some days ago: Itorah, a hand drawn Meteoidvania Indie Game.
    But some things I can say sth about:
    Dorfromantik: I own this game and it is really relaxing and I can play it over and over again. You can’t loose in some way so it’s not frustrating 🙂 I really recommend it 🙂
    PS5: I am happy i gut a PS5 some months ago, but sadly I did not play so much with it. I only played some hours God of War with the 4K HDR Upgrade.
    Gizmondo: I owned this console and yes it had a SIM card in it 🙂 I never played with it, it was only a nice upgrade for my retro gaming collection. I sold
    It for way to much money in my opinion, but because of the fact that it is rare and I owned the packaging box, manual and all that stuff it was a nice catch when I bought it 🙂
    Super Mario Guide: why is this a topic? Such an old game and now it is a topic? ? but I think some collectors or hardcore fans are really interested in this thing. The game is still played a lot by speedrunners, afaik?
    Switch Topic: I really love my switch. It doesn’t need any upgrade, because the games for this console should not be such graphical monster games in 4K HDR… I like it for the simplicity. You can play the games even if you don’t have that much time, they are easy to understand, easy to solve or finish and you can can get back to them after weeks and are in to it after some minutes. No need for an epic storyline which is hard to follow. But for sure that’s my opinion and I understand every person who wants complex storys, hardcore mode and complicated as hell 🙂

    Sorry for late commenting, but I wanted to drop the lines to make you know, that I am still a listener and follower even if I don’t comment every episode 🙂

    Guys, that’s all from my side. Please keep on the good work, stay healthy and enjoy whatever you do 🙂

    Greetings from Germany,
    Ralf

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Tales of Vesperia: Xbox 360 Outsells PS3 In JapanTales of Vesperia: Xbox 360 Outsells PS3 In Japan

Sony’s been talking about how they’ve overtaken the Xbox 360 here in the States, perhaps this is because Microsoft shifted their attention to pwning them in Japan? Xbox 360 sold 25,000 units to PlayStation 3‘s minor 9,673 units according to Edge Online, that’s 2.5 times more if you’re into that math thing.

Seriously though, Microsoft didn’t really shift any effort, they just got a Japanese style game called Tales of Vesperia from Namco Bandai. Go figure, when a Japanese focused game arrives for a console Japanese gamer will go out and buy it.

The big barrier to the 360 in Japan is the games and their contents. Microsoft is in tune with the needs and demands of the United States gamers, it usually involves FPS titles and excessive killing. Japanese gamers are not exactly huge FPS fans, we’ve seen the Asian community dominate in RTS style games (Starcraft is a great example) and they’ve always had interest in MMO’s, especially micro-transaction based games and we all know that’s the land of Final Fantasy. Is it so surprising the Xbox 360 moves off Japanese shelves when they have a game or two the gamers actually want to play?

This is only partly Microsoft’s fault, Microsoft doesn’t specialize in Japanese games anymore than Square Enix excels at western style games. The big difference? Square Enix doesn’t manufacturer its own console hardware. It is Microsoft’s console and they should have an interest in making games the Japanese people will like, thankfully Namco Bandai came through for them this time!