
The Game Junction Podcast
The Game Junction Podcast was started and is hosted by Brandon Hurles aka Game Junction. Enjoy us geeking out over our passion for video games, pop culture, tech, movies, TV, anime, toys, music, manga, and comic books.
We're covering the latest news & hot topics, as well as nostalgic retro greatness. We discuss the future & past of gaming, diving deeper than most podcasts do.
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The Game Junction Podcast
Nintendo Switch 2 Leaks, Mario Kart Evolution, and Game Pass Debate | Game Junction Podcast #116
What if the Nintendo Switch 2 is more than just a console upgrade? Join us on the Game Junction podcast as our special guests, Thunderstache Gaming and Andre from GameXplain, unravel the mystery behind a stealth-released trailer that has the gaming community buzzing with speculation. From new kickstand designs and larger Joy-Cons to a mysterious button hinting at thrilling new features, we promise insights that even the most dedicated fans might have missed. Prepare yourself for a captivating discussion on how these potential changes could redefine the gaming landscape.
Venture into the world of Nintendo leaks and discover how a mouse-compatible Switch could lure PC gamers into Nintendo's embrace. We reminisce about the fascinating history of Nintendo rumors, drawing comparisons between past and current leak environments. The future of Mario Kart also gets a fresh take, with exciting discussions on transforming the stalwart franchise into a broader Nintendo Kart experience. Imagine tracks that change dynamically and encompass multiple Nintendo IPs, providing endless possibilities for gamers.
As we look forward to the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, we debate the strategic timing of its launch and pricing. Could a summer release steal the spotlight before the holiday season frenzy? Our guests share insights on the potential launch titles that could make or break this new console era, such as Metroid Prime 4, while considering the implications for existing titles and accessories. We wrap up with a critical look at live service gaming, exploring what makes some thrive while others falter and pondering the value of Game Pass for players hungry f
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Bonfire Merch: ...
Hey, what's up everybody?
Mark Trobough:Yeah, Mark. No, I mean you threw me off there for a second, Sorry.
Brandon Hurles:I'm so used to just intro and go ahead.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, no, just welcome everybody back in to episode. What is this? 116 of the Game Junction podcast. We've got two special guests here. We've got Thunderstache Gaming down below.
ThunderStache Gaming:What's up? Happy to be here. Lots to talk about.
Brandon Hurles:I mean this has been a whirlwind week, yeah, so there's, uh, no shortage of topics uh yeah, there's plenty to talk about. And then we've got returning guest andre of game.
Andre GameXplain:Explain how's it going it's been busy, as you probably know only too well. It's a good busy, yeah, definitely.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I've seen the content that you got out and stuff on everything the grandparents' reaction. I loved it.
Andre GameXplain:Thanks, appreciate that. It was fun to see their take on everything.
Brandon Hurles:That was really really cool. So I guess we'll go ahead and kind of start out of the gate showing off the video that everybody got to see and if you didn't get to see it, you can see it now For our audio listeners head on over to the video. Or I apologize for the two minutes that this video takes up, because it doesn't show much, but it shows enough to talk about. So it's pretty cool. We'll go ahead and roll that. Yeah, definitely like the stealth drop that they had on this right shadow.
Andre GameXplain:Dropped it like crazy yeah, poor uh, although everyone who said it was coming that day got destroyed before.
ThunderStache Gaming:It's not being announced in advance, yeah right I think what I really liked about this trailer is that it says nothing. There there's no narration, but yeah, but it illustrates everything, right, isn't that bigger and better? What are those?
Brandon Hurles:little markings above the minus and plus there.
Mark Trobough:I assume some, probably some volume annotation maybe.
Brandon Hurles:Okay, yes, I thought I was pointing something out ancient symbol or something so I mean obviously one point to talk about here is the new kick stand, which it seems to be. So I mean obviously one point to talk about here is the new kickstand, which seems to be maybe a better design. What I find with my Switch OLED is, obviously it is way better than the other kickstand. What I do find sometimes when I'm setting it down is that it does every once in a while if it's not on a direct hard surface, say like I've had it before it before laid up there in bed with me actually using the Pro Controller I've done that before a couple of times that it does end up falling down flat. So I'm curious if this changes that any.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, I will just say, looking at it, it looks better than the original Switch, but I don it doesn't. It looks better than the original switch, but like I don't know if it's better than the oled, that's what I said yeah, it looks.
Andre GameXplain:It looks flimsier. Honestly, it may not be, it's probably fine. Um, it's just. Yeah. I don't see like any great benefit to it right out, right out of the gate. Like I did with the oled, which fixed an obvious problem, it feels more like we need some way for people to know this is a switch to from the back. Let's just cut a hole.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah I thought the same thing because it literally looks like a cut out, cut out of, like how the uh, the oled one is, and it's a little interesting I thought might not be as good of a design as I thought it was. I did a little reaction short to it. That's exactly what I said. So I guess we'll have to see and test it out in person.
Mark Trobough:But yeah, I guess so I guess it's hard to tell. I assume it depends on whether or not it's going to be made of, uh, all plaster. It's going to be part of the metal, same with the frame.
Andre GameXplain:Oh yeah, actually did it go farther? Oh, I guess I'll like to go about that far back too, so all right, so that's it.
Mark Trobough:That's all. All the pillar customization you get.
Brandon Hurles:So obviously we've got the spot here where that connector is going to go in. We've got this little button back here. So C or is that just an O? I can't tell. It may be the way that I paused it, but I mean, obviously the Joy-Con is slightly bigger it. But I mean you, obviously the joy-con is slightly bigger, but pretty much everything on on the base of the the unit is is the same, obviously with the buttons yeah, outside of that, uh blurred out c button yeah yeah, the blurred out c button is the uh yeah, I will say like they found a way to present this very similar looking hardware in a way that still feels a little exciting, which is impressive.
Andre GameXplain:The Joy-Con is still basically the same thing Bigger, magnetic now and that new mysterious button they didn't even talk about, and the mouse feature.
Brandon Hurles:There's got to be a reason they didn't mention that button. That button has me thinking there's there's something special about it. It's got to be some sort of you know new gimmick with the switch to that we don't know about. But a lot of people I mean, um, on past podcasts I've been on and I talked about it on this podcast a couple different times is that it could be like a chat button. It could be people have thrown out like a connect button to some campus.
Andre GameXplain:I've heard as well.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, I just wanted to point out because you said the chat, this they didn't mention there or they didn't mention it, but they showed it that there's an actual what's it? The three millimeter plug-in on the switch to yeah, we know you're not gonna at least have to use the phone. Hopefully it'll also use Bluetooth as well. It's at least one major, obvious flaw with the original Switch.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, having to use the app was a huge one of the biggest I still think downfalls of the Switch, which is pretty unfortunate because you think, like I think, it has a lot to do with it just being Nintendo was the reason they didn't want to do it. But yeah, I guess you know, I don't know. Hopefully we don't have to deal with that anymore. Or, franco, to be honest with you, some people don't care. All right, this is a big deal here. So we've got this laying flat like this Obviously it's like a mouse, it?
Andre GameXplain:what a weird, fun and kind of cute way of teasing it, you know, because they're moving like actual mice, like physical, organic mice, um, but it instantly tells you what it conveys. But they don't linger on it at all and I'm like did I only pick up on it because I'd been following the leaks, you know or you know? But then I watched it with my parents today, you know, in our video that was mentioned earlier, and they immediately recognized what it was. I'm like, well, hats off to Nintendo, they know what they're doing here, apparently.
Brandon Hurles:So yeah, pretty, pretty crazy stuff. I mean definitely an interesting because they've got to have a gimmick of some kind because it is Nintendo. So I mean, what an interesting one to um to have. I guess that's something we definitely weren't expecting, for sure, uh, but yeah, that's pretty neat there I'm excited for it's something different.
Andre GameXplain:You know, even if it's good or not, it's something different all right, so there's the connector we've got.
Brandon Hurles:So this has been a big point of contention with people, people are losing people are losing sleep over this man Unnecessarily.
Brandon Hurles:Quite literally I'm actually going to. I don't know if I can double pull up. If not, I'll just scroll back to where we were. There's an image that I had that somebody made up this here. It's literally just it snapping with a sad Kirby there saying oh no, I've seen this all over, all over x. That's funny. Um, what do you guys think? Obviously, we just talked a couple of minutes before, uh, me, mark and and thunderstache. But what do you think? As for this with, like, kids, is this going to be a big problem with kids?
Andre GameXplain:I, I'm personally not not too worried. I mean I don't want to give nintendo too much credit these days after the whole joy-con fiasco with the you know joysticks drifting within weeks sometimes. But with that being said, I'm sure they've done multiple tests, tons of testing on this. There's no way they would have that be a major failure point. I say that knowing it is still possible. But I, I'm not too concerned, especially because I got a, um, uh, a, like a, a, a mock-up of the switch to you know, a, a printed one, and like I've just been playing around with how it disconnects and it seems like really it's been designed in a way that you probably can't really apply any pressure to that Sure, with natural disconnected, disconnected the Joy-Con. So I'm sure it's fine. It looks, I agree it looks weird, but I don't think it's a concern.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I'm kind of. I'm kind of with that. I think people are just finding something to complain about a little bit. Yeah, Mark, you said the same thing.
Mark Trobough:I mean even on the original Switch, because I don't have the OLED, I just have the OG one with the rails. It's not like it's the most sturdy. It's like the few times I play it on handheld. Sometimes you put a little bit of pressure on it. You feel it start to bend a little bit. But I think with it snapped into place, the magnets is probably obviously you have to take this into consideration. If someone's kind of forceful with it, it's just designed to come out, not necessarily the bend up and the front and the back, how you'd actually snap it 100%. You could snap this but you'd have to put a lot of force. I don't know how many people just take the switch like I don't know. Let me just slam it on the ground like I would.
Mark Trobough:I'm going to take my pliers right to this little connector like you have to go really out of your way to probably do damage to this somebody comments said I have an eight and seven year old.
Brandon Hurles:Everything is a problem with kids, nothing is safe. I mean that that was one of the reasons I said, because my daughter drops everything, drops everything, but I I don't. I don't know, I don't know if this is really going to be end up being like a big issue or not. I just I don't think it is.
Andre GameXplain:I think it is more of people find something to complain about, even assuming they dropped it without the joy cons attached or even with them either way, like it feels like that connector is probably pretty well insulated beneath the plastic. You know where. It's not exposed like it's hidden, it's the shell protects it. So you'd really have to go out of your way to damage the thing.
Mark Trobough:I think now watch me be horribly wrong, but I mean zero concern whatsoever the question is, do they come out later and kind of do what they did with the switch, where they have the uh, the undockable mode, where it's just one solid piece and that obviously would be better for for more kids and stuff like that on the go and with it weighing one solid piece, less likely for you to just straight damage it?
ThunderStache Gaming:so like a switch light yeah, the switch.
ThunderStache Gaming:I don't know why I'm on the road, yeah I mean I, I expected, I'm sure you guys expect the switch light and eventually a switch to oled. Uh, that obviously seems to work very well. Sure, they'll emulate the same thing again. But yeah, I mean the thing is, is that, how many times are you taking the joy cons off? And once you take them off, what are you doing with the unit? You're setting it up on the kickstand and playing it if you're playing in tabletop mode, which, again, I don't think this is a a hugely popular mode but if you are playing in tabletop mode, you're just setting it down in your plan, right? So it's really no different than any other. You know, nice piece of uh electronics that you have. You know, handle it with care, don't drop it right. They're all gonna break the same way.
Brandon Hurles:I'm not worried about this piece right here yeah, I I can happily say I've never, uh, had any issues with. I've had five different switches. Never had any issues with it. Definitely never did with the Wii U gamepad. So I don't know, I don't think it's going to be a big thing. Mr Coffee in the chat said gotta ask the big question do people play with the Joy-Cons or with the Pro Controller Pro?
Mark Trobough:Controller all, pro controller all day, yeah, all day too.
ThunderStache Gaming:I, I don't know that I ever, honestly, I don't know I ever used just a joy con and I wouldn't do that to anybody that comes over. You know, like back in the day, like you give someone the mad cats controller yeah, this feels similar, like I'm not going to give someone just a joy-con to play against me a mario kart while I use the pro controller.
Brandon Hurles:Like that's not right fair, you just don't um what, yeah, yeah I, uh, I just don't use the joy so I show you can barely see, obviously with me on the side, but like I've got the Hori ones on mine. But even then, like I don't know, I still, even when I play it portably, like I said, I do set it down in tabletop mode and play with a pro controller If I'm playing that way, if not, obviously it's playing docked and it stays docked like 90% of the time. I would say, but yeah, I mean, I think it'd be awfully hard to break that. Then somebody did bring up a point and said something about the. He said at Thunderstache assuming this is mouse functionality, how do you think this will be utilized in fun and unique ways, or is it just a?
ThunderStache Gaming:new version of the IR Blaster underutilized a niche. Oh, as far as this being used as a mouse, I mean I think this is gonna really attract the pc market like big time. I think about all the games, right, like I, I bought my girl a uh switch a few years ago actually it was when the animal crossing bundle came out, right, yeah, of course she loved it, but like anything it eventually it gets a little old. And well, first question she asked is is the sims on switch? And I had to think about it for a second. I'm like you know it's not, and this was as of a few years ago. I know, know, my Sims is on there now because I got that for yeah, so I had to fire up the PS4 to download Sims 4. But you think about something like that. Think about how wildly popular the Sims could be on Switch 2 with a mouse.
ThunderStache Gaming:Now, yeah, there's so many games that could like greatly benefit. You know, diablo. Think about all the Microsoft games, baldur's Gate yeah, cause I expect a lot of those Microsoft games to come over to switch to, which I'm sure we'll get into later. But yeah, the first person shooters, I mean this guy's the limit. This is really. It's very smart because you're you're doing something where you're not reinventing and trying to change something that works right. Yeah, it's just because, which we've seen Nintendo do, obviously numerous times throughout the years. So, adding something like this that doesn't change the form factor but changes the way you can play it in a way that really actually doesn't feel gimmicky, yeah, this legit could be very useful and, as you guys know, games like Mario Maker, mario Paint, obviously the sky's the limit, man Bring back Mario Paint.
Brandon Hurles:That would be awesome, bring it to.
ThunderStache Gaming:NSO.
Andre GameXplain:Bring over the Mario Artist games from the 64 disk drive.
Brandon Hurles:Why not Make a collection there? Yeah, make a collection there. Make a collection, that's perfect. That'd be awesome if they.
Andre GameXplain:They did that, yeah, I'm. I'm also way too excited for the mouse feature like it just looks like a fun new way of using joy cons and uh yeah, I think so, to open the door to new types of games.
ThunderStache Gaming:Oh, yeah, for sure, and I do expect nintendo to show us new ways to use the mouse that we've probably never thought of before and other companies too.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think so, with other companies as well.
Andre GameXplain:So you can see, I'm obviously inserting there yeah, that's pretty slick like that is way sleeker than you know using the rail from the current joy con yeah, yeah, it absolutely is.
Brandon Hurles:One thing I wanted to point out is obviously that logo was legit, that was going around there for quite a while. Um, I kind of wanted to point out that it seems like, you know, some of a lot of the leaks, a lot of the big stuff talked about was not inaccurate. No, so it's a little crazy because I can't think of anything, even with the Switch 1, or I mean, you know, with the follow-up, because the Wii was so big with the follow-up, with the Wii U, which you know, whatever, obviously a failed project. But I can't think of another system dating all the way back with Nintendo home consoles or handhelds, where there's been this many either leaks or rumors with a console. Do you guys agree or disagree with that?
ThunderStache Gaming:I would say. Dating back to, I would say let's start with, like the dolphin, right? Yeah, because that's when things really start to kind of take off on the internet, as far as the, the various internet forums where we get kind of news and get excited about the dolphin Sure and I don't recall and I follow that stuff daily, I mean.
Brandon Hurles:I think I've told you I was on like I mean, I got every issue from 2000 till the last issue, Never, never missed an issue.
ThunderStache Gaming:So yeah, I was. I was in the IGN uh forums back in the day. I was constantly on like planet game, cubecom, refreshing that, you remember. Yeah, yeah, nintendo dojo all the nintendo websites from back in the day, like I was there following all this stuff, so I don't recall it there.
ThunderStache Gaming:I think with the nintendo revolution there, there was a really good leak that came out early, but everyone and I'll say I didn't, but everyone was calling BS on it back then, yeah, and that was when the patents came out for there being built-in gyroscopes and sensors in a controller, and everyone's like what would this be for? There's no way. And then that turned out to be 100% accurate. Outside of that, no, I mean, but this be a hundred percent accurate. Outside of that? No, I mean, but this is a different time we're living in. Yeah, completely Like. Even from when these leaks would have happened, which would have been the end of 2016, right, early 2017, the world's changed a lot and the way everyone communicates also, the way people just seems to like be that they don't care as much what the repercussions might be, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if some people literally applied to work at one of these factories in china, just to leak it, just to do that?
ThunderStache Gaming:yeah, because they don't care we see that they're just chasing, you know, I guess. Well, clout, which is a thing, apparently, and, uh, you know, they want to be the next, yeah, leaker, which I didn't know that anyone aspired to be. That I thought you know what I'm saying. It's just, it's a different time we live in than when we were growing up. So I I understand why we're getting all these leaks, uh, but, andre, what do you think man, do you remember any time like this?
Andre GameXplain:not like this. No, because even with the switch, which you know, it was almost a decade ago at this point, you know, there was still social media around. There was quite different, but even that didn't leak. You know there were rumblings that it would be a hybrid, but we didn't have anything like full. You know full we didn't leak. You know there were rumblings that it would be a hybrid, but we didn't have anything like full. You know, full we didn't have this.
Andre GameXplain:You know, weeks before the system was revealed and when Nintendo showed off, you know what we're looking at on screen right now. I'm like that's straight up, as you know, a render I'd seen. Basically Someone had basically made, created that. But I think also it's because we're operating on tighter timetables than we ever have before. Maybe Nintendo got lucky with the Switch and how that didn't leak to the original Switch and how that didn't leak to this extent or anywhere near.
Andre GameXplain:But now that this thing presumably is out within the next six months and with them seemingly manufacturing at larger inventories than before to ensure that they can sell as many as possible at launch, it just may be like. You know, it was a losing battle and uh, and I almost feel like they just announced it just to get out of the way. You know. It's like, hey, finally, here you go. Stop using those render, those renders, use our official images. Because, yeah, it's just kind of crazy that everything was known like literally this trailer. It didn't really reveal anything but mar Kart, it just affirmed everything we already knew if we followed the leaks.
Brandon Hurles:Right, yeah, I mean, it felt like a shadow drop that they had to do.
Mark Trobough:It's kind of like you all ruined it, we wanted to wait. They obviously gave us the date later on, at the very end of when they're going to come out and say it in about two and a half months. It was kind of like, well, you all ruined it, come out and say it in what? About two and a half months? This was kind of like, uh, well, y'all ruined it, we'll give you this so you can leave us alone. It's more is coming now and then just be like whatever the leakers ruined it.
Mark Trobough:But I guess the question is, uh, when it comes to the leak of this, just I guess you know andre said it did they get lucky or going from the what the? Essentially the failure of the wii u to the switch? They were just less overall hype around this because you're coming off of the heels of the Switch, which is realistically about to be the best selling console of all time. I think it's going to surpass the PlayStation 2. So it's just a whole different environment with Nintendo, as far as a failure to an eventual success, to a massive success. Now the next one. Now everyone's hyped.
Andre GameXplain:That's a really good point. Actually, everyone cares now, whereas no one really cared. Well, relatively no one cared back with the original switch because, yeah, that's like nintendo was doomed, you know yeah, that was it for nintendo.
Brandon Hurles:People thought that they were. They were going to be done for pretty much after the wii.
ThunderStache Gaming:U like how many times have we heard that in our life? Oh, yeah, yeah, if you're a nintendo fan, that's just constant.
Andre GameXplain:You know this is actually the first time they've kind of like defied that for a little, for some period of time at least yeah, yeah, no, no doubt I.
ThunderStache Gaming:I definitely feel the same way, all right now these colors here too, by the way, yeah, like I gotta show you this picture. So, looking at the blue and the, I would call it maybe a coral or a yeah, maybe a salmon. Look at this. I'm going to share this picture. Tell me if those colors look familiar. So I, I had this color right here when they did the salmon, but I I'd wanted to get it because in the original pictures it looked orange and I want to get it for phoenix suns. You know, phoenix suns color purple and orange. And when I got it, obviously it did look more like this. But immediately when I saw the trailer and I saw that it was confirmed that it is those colors that we did see in the leaks, I was like, dude, it's right there, it's right there, it's so funny because Nintendo has like a history of this.
Andre GameXplain:It's actually surprising I don't get like this doesn't get mentioned more often. But, like you know, nintendo had the fun colors for the Nintendo 64. Shortly after Apple had their translucent Macs you know, 64. Shortly after apple had their translucent max. You know, the wii, obviously, and ds light, especially, were heavily influenced by the apple tech of that era. Um, and yeah, it's. And now, of course, this again. I mean, it's not nearly to the same extent, but I just think it's funny that color wise they tend to follow apple's design pretty closely at times yeah, it is.
ThunderStache Gaming:And even if you look at it with the game boys like the, you had to play it loud series back in the day where you had all the different colors of the, the og game boy, the game boy pocket. Yeah, obviously, the atomic purple for the, the game boy color being that launch model of that color. Yeah, I do too. I mean, it'd be a dream if they brought it back that whole fantastic series of Nintendo 64's.
Brandon Hurles:I legit would actually like to get all of those, just because it's so cool. I'm not gonna lie, I mean not cooler than the Pikachu ones, the orange and blue Pikachu ones. But you know we don't get that anymore. Like we we get they've done the different joy kind of colors. So I guess you can mix and match the way that you want you want to do. But as far as like the actual console shell, I've seen plenty of people that have modded their, their switches for those clear shells. They look beautiful.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, you know so that's actually what I'm planning on doing. I think I want to do that myself?
Brandon Hurles:I think I think so too. I've got got an extra um regular switch one that I can do some stuff with, and I think I want to do that this. I told you about the super oled screen. I ordered for the yes switch light too, so I'm excited to see that.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, that'll be cool.
Andre GameXplain:I do like the accented colors. You know the subtle.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I like that too.
Mark Trobough:It's overall more sleek, a more streamlined design from the original Switch, ideally more power, but oh yeah, it's a new Mario game, okay so here we are with Mario Kart.
Brandon Hurles:One game, the one game that we get to see. So, based on just this visual here, if this is all you saw in this image, what are your guys' thoughts? Right there, first off, right off the bat.
Andre GameXplain:I mean, the first thought I had was that this looks like more of the Mario Kart we've been playing for 10 years. What I said it looks like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Is this like a new booster course track? Like what's going on?
Brandon Hurles:Like right off the bat. When I look at it it looks exactly the same. But obviously I mean we can just go and dive into the Mario Kart now. But right here, just where I stopped, there's a couple of pointers. Here We've got the little things in front of the carts that are supposed to be like spikes or something. Like a bumper or something yeah, I'm not sure. And then you see an awful lot of racers there in the back, more than usual, I think.
Mark Trobough:I think we're probably looking at what 24 maybe yeah, double 24 yeah, based on the start thing so is this something that you'd expect them to continue with the fire cart 8 deluxe? But fundamentally they want to do more than make the game bigger and the base code just couldn't handle what they wanted to do. So we're just going to make a new game. It's going to have overall, you know, larger tracks, larger online, if that's like really what they want to push with this game. Uh, that I would assume that makes sense probably going to be 70 at launch. I guess the question is like how much content we're going to get because there's so many tracks in deluxe. At this point it would be. It would suck to go back to a standard 32 track layout and have to continue to get more, more content that's why it kind of feels like they're hitting the reset button.
Andre GameXplain:I say this is one who's going mostly off, speculation off, but little we have seen. But it looks like, you know, we're getting bigger tracks here which may have multiple configurations, if it's not changing dynamically, you know, lap to lap or something, and so what? I'm thinking they're looking to do more with less, maybe where there's like fewer, you know, fewer bespoke tracks, but each one is a ton of variants and I think that's kind of how you can get around that problem, because, yeah, there's no way they're going to top 100 tracks from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so maybe their way of doing so is to have, like you know, I donations or whatever ends up being.
Brandon Hurles:You know, and my guess too is that they're going to support this for all of the life cycle. Obviously we're not going to get a another Mario Kart on the switch. That's that's never happened before. So my guess they're going to continue to support this and do something similar to the the booster pass.
ThunderStache Gaming:But what's this evergreen Mario Kart. This is day one evergreen mario kart right here oh, I think you're right.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, I think it's gonna be a platform.
ThunderStache Gaming:Um, I think it's gonna be a uh, yeah, just an evergreen title now, as you were saying which is great because you can almost look at it as a live service model in some ways, but totally in a nintendo way, which is totally opposite of what a live service game is in that sense, which is good for us, the consumer. But yeah, I would say, if they keep it, the same kind of style tracks. As far as the length, I could see maybe going 48. We have 96 right now. Maybe we get 48 to start, but maybe it is the standard 32.
ThunderStache Gaming:But I would expect dlc is going to be detailed out kind of from the beginning, like a roadmap, so to speak, and I would also expect that to start. It's going to be pretty much the Mushroom Kingdom and the DLC is going to be where it turns into. It morphs a little bit. It'll always be by name Mario Kart, but I do believe it's going to morph into Nintendo Kart, which is going to be fun. Personally, I think that would be a lot of fun. We saw it with the DLC. There's a ton of potential there and by doing that I think it helps increase the visibility and sales of these other nintendo titles, because you got 70 million people playing mario kart and they're going through a f-zero cup or a xenoblade cup for zelda. People who don't know what this is. They're looking at it like oh what is this? I should look it up. Yeah, I'm interested. Now I want to see the rest of this universe, so that would be my guess and on top of that it just it.
Mark Trobough:If you bring it in all the nintendo ips, just the first party, it just gives you a bigger variety of tracks and different. You know designs you could bring into from I don't know you have a metroid track to. Obviously we've had some, some little bit of zelda stuff you could have. I don't know you have a Metroid track to. Obviously we've had some little bit of Zelda stuff you could have. I don't know. I guess they've dealt with Mario Gags. It's a bad example. But you know more. A Donkey Kong-specific track you have whole. You know four, five, eight tracks, a whole cup spaced off. Different you know IPs all across Nintendo and it just it explodes the ability to have you know maybe 80 tracks, 180, the ability to have maybe 80 tracks still 180, I'm just pulling stuff out of my butt.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, why spend money on advertising when you can literally advertise in-game?
Andre GameXplain:It makes too much sense. It's such a good marketing vehicle. When a metric game comes out, you add Samus and her little gunship cart, you know, and that'd be a lot of fun.
ThunderStache Gaming:As we know, that's a franchise.
ThunderStache Gaming:That would really really benefit because we gotta yeah oh my god, nintendo's gotta pull out all the stops, as we know, as far as their marketing team, to try and catapult metroid into that upper echelon of nintendo titles because, as we know, uh, critically acclaimed always, but when it comes to the, the actual sales of it, it's always fallen short. Now, obviously, metroid dread, you know that did better, for sure, but better as the rest of the titles go, yeah, we, we, uh, we need to see nintendo pull out all the stops and this would be a great way to do it I see a lot of people saying on x and obviously we've gotten a lot of comments about it it being like an open world sort of concept.
Brandon Hurles:So I would, when you say I'm like a dynamic course, like that's kind of I get the dynamic course part so like a semi more open Mario. Not it's. I don't think it's going to be like a straight up open world Mario car where you're going to drive location to location, a location for for the single player or whatever. But I do see breaking up the course changes. It's going to be like you're saying, dynamic, it's going to change. One thing I was hoping was this is a great chance for them to bring all the gimmicks of the past Mario Kart Double Dash with the double karts, seven with the gliders and stuff. Mario kart double dash with the double carts, you know, seven with like the hovercraft or the um, the gliders and and stuff like I. I feel like that would be really cool to bring those back in and make the stages more different.
Andre GameXplain:They can make them very, very different, very distinct you know that's a good point, right, depending how they do this. Like you could have routes that are, you know, water-based when there are other are other routes when there may not be any water at all, or maybe you're flying or something all in the same track design. You know. Again, we don't know exactly how they're going to set this up or deploy that, but it it's exciting to think about. Like the, you could have races in the same area and feel entirely differently yeah, well, yeah, I think it would be really cool what I'm hoping for is to see weather mechanics for each.
Brandon Hurles:Yes oh, that's a great point.
Mark Trobough:I didn't think about that yeah, that would be so cool yeah, you could have like snow and rain, but I don't know how, if they get, how well they could do it. But like, if you're able to add not only weather but it changes like the traction, so it's like it's snowy, you have less traction, you start sliding a lot more and stuff like that Adds a whole level of dynamics to the game.
Andre GameXplain:Exactly Touched on that just a little bit with the Animal Crossing stage from Mario Kart 8. We had the four different seasonal variants and they could do something like that for every track where there's, like you know, rain or snow. I think that'd be a lot of fun.
ThunderStache Gaming:That would also put a lot more emphasis on how you're building your cart. Good point what kind of tires you're going to be using, right? So it adds, I think, a lot to the strategy. Right, because if you're playing in a cup, you've got to make sure that, however you're building your cart is suitable for all weather conditions, right? Otherwise you might be in trouble, like on one of these tracks.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, yeah, and like right now, you're just trying to build it just for max speed, and as long my traction's not not terrible, I'll survive, although it is a little ironic that we see, uh what rosalina using what looks to be a snowmobile in the desert.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, like what's she thinking, yeah, yeah, absolutely hilarious, so we're gonna pause it here in just a quick second too.
Mark Trobough:Nintendo. I'm sorry, you failed All right, right here.
Brandon Hurles:So obviously, something very big that stands out is Donkey Kong. Yeah, he's taken the movie appearance and, uh, I've seen a lot of takes on this. So what is everybody's take on this? As as to why?
Mark Trobough:ideally more skin variants for all the characters I've heard.
ThunderStache Gaming:I've heard that take I think this is the the donkey kong movie you know model I think it's from from mario. It's going to be used in a future donkey kong movie. I think they have massive and let me say I'm very thankful that they're finally doing this. But I I think they have massive plans for Donkey Kong, because you've got to factor in Universal with Super Nintendo World. I mean, donkey Kong got an expansion before you put in the Legend of Zelda. You've got to have huge plans that are connecting with the movie, right? Yeah, obviously the Mario movie, the sequel, is coming out first, before the legend of zelda movie, so that makes sense as well. But I I think there's a new direction and I I want to hope, I want to believe that this further solidifies my belief and hopefully your guys's, that we're finally gonna get a, a 3d donkey kong game. It Donkey Kong game. It's been a long time since we got a new one, a real new one?
Brandon Hurles:I really hope so. I've heard the take two that they're like okay, we're doing away with the rare design of Donkey Kong, which I can see. I feel like this has a lot to do, just in the trailer alone, with them wanting to promote Donkey Kong Universal in the movie, right like I think they have big plans to expand because Donkey Kong has like such a sort of vast universe there with you know all the different various characters that could be very humorous, very funny, like you think of Cranky Kong and you think of just all these hilarious characters, right Like the, especially that would appeal with kids. But I do wonder it makes me wonder is could this be like a skin choice thing or no, we're just doing away. I mean, why just Donkey Kong? That's's what I wonder. I just don't understand that part. Why, why just don't keep going for the movie design?
Andre GameXplain:yeah, I mean they're, they're. I think skins are a possibility or maybe, more likely, costumes. I don't know if they'd have completely different character models available. I mean it'd be awesome if they did. Um, I don't think they will, though I think nintendo still wants to have like hey, this is like our vision for how donkey kong appears in this game. Um, so to that point, I mean, I actually really like this look.
Andre GameXplain:I'm a big fan of the mario movie and, uh, and I thought that movie finally brought together, like mario, donkey kong in a cohesive way, which the games haven't really done, you like, they've been largely separate entities since you know the donkey, since the original arcade game. So what? I think this, I if this is necessarily a new direction for the character, but maybe more just a direction for how he appears when he's in Mario's world, whereas if you play the Donkey Kong games you'll continue to use the more classic Rare look. But I think it's cool that they updated him and did something different, and in a game where that looks so much like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe initially, I'm like I will take it. That looks definitely unique and different to me than it did before.
Brandon Hurles:So, yeah, definitely interesting to see there. There's a few other pointers too, obviously, as we come along here.
Mark Trobough:I think 2025. I feel like we already knew that.
Brandon Hurles:All right, so backwards compatibility confirmed, but with an asterisk that says certain Nintendo Switch titles won't be supported. Do we have any guesses? I've got some guesses, I think, and I think it's really going to be a very small amount of.
Mark Trobough:Nintendo.
Brandon Hurles:Switch games.
Mark Trobough:Is it like the 1-2 Switch? Maybe, because I don't know if it has something like the IR.
Brandon Hurles:It's like a handful of games that use something like that. Do you use HG Rumble?
ThunderStache Gaming:We don't even know that it's similar to the Switch Lite in that when the Switch Lite came out, they had to say, hey, it's not compatible with all Switch games. Does it mean how are you going to play something like Labo when you can't detach the Joy-Cons Right? I think this is very, very minimal. And again, you guys I'm sure saw it all over social media, but a lot of people are deeply concerned and this is not something to be truly not something to be concerned about. It's going to be a very small handful of games, games that you likely don't play. And here's the thing if, if you really want to play those games, you love them that much. It means that much to you keep your switch, keep your switch. Yeah, yeah, case closed, man, problem solved. Yeah, I think it's going. It means that much to you Keep your Switch, keep your Switch. Yeah, case closed, man.
Brandon Hurles:Problem solved. Yeah, I think it's going to be. It's going to be like Nintendo Switch Sports. Could that work?
Andre GameXplain:It depends if original Joy-Cons are. Oh actually, yeah, you know what? Actually, nintendo actually released an image that has very similar to this, but instead of a white backdrop, it actually has pictures of games that are seemingly confirmed to work on, switch to, and switch sports is among them. The only part, the only part that I question is the, the kicking soccer ball mode, because he used a leg leg strap and I don't know if the new George fit into that or not, so that could be the one thing that doesn't maybe translate, otherwise the game.
Brandon Hurles:That's what I was thinking of. And then obviously, somebody said here pretty much listed a couple of things. We thought Labo, once you switch Spring Fit, I mean, it's going to be games like that. I'm sure that there's going to be other ones, but I don't think the list is going to be that big, so it's just going to be one of those things. Just keep Switch around.
ThunderStache Gaming:Here's the thing, if you want to play these games. Keep Switch around and don't sell it off, I think it still works. I think these games will work. I think Nintendo has to be really careful and specific with their wording, because if you just buy a Switch 2, these games won't work. But if you own a Switch and you connect your Joy-Cons to the Switch 2, I believe they will work. But you can't say that. There's not enough room to explain this scenario.
Andre GameXplain:That's my hope. Yeah, I'm hoping that it'll be backwards and compatible with the previous controllers and resolve most of these issues. In that case, the only games I think that wouldn't work would be Labo, because that was dependent on the Switch's screen size. Yep, the cutouts Right. But even in the worst case, even assuming you know the other Joy-Con games don't work, it still does a handful of games to the point that I'm honestly just I just don't understand why they just didn't say that. Just tell us what those games are. They're creating so much more drama when there doesn't need to be. Most people aren't going to give a crap about not be able to play Labo or Ring Fit, though that game's great and 1-2-Switch right. They're creating more drama when there doesn't need to be. I don't know why they didn't say it.
Brandon Hurles:Do you think it's on purpose to keep the conversation going?
Andre GameXplain:I don't know who knows in Nintendo? I don't think it is I think it's awesome to see this coming.
Brandon Hurles:however, Look how long it took for them to say something. These we have been talking about, these rumors. I went back it was something like episode 80, some. We were talking and no joke. The second episode of this podcast we were already talking about. We were talking switch pro.
Brandon Hurles:So yeah, at that point in time it was switch pro rumors, so we were talking about that and we thought, you know for sure that was going to happen and it didn't, obviously, but it's, I don't know. Man, nintendo is interesting right now. This whole thing is just interesting with the, because we got pretty much zero information. They showed the mouse thing, which was pretty cool Not something we expected to see but we just didn't get details. We didn't get the details. I will say, though this.
ThunderStache Gaming:I love this. I was. I was so thankful that at the end of this video cause you know I'm watching it and I could see how much is left in the video and, knowing the amount of information, I got with the information that I already know. I'm like okay, so I got with the information that I already know. I'm like okay, so I haven't learned anything new here. But as it got to the end and this page came up saying that the direct is going to be on April 2nd, right, I was like you know, I really appreciate that. No guesswork, we know what we're building up to now and you know, the hope is that the third parties, the indie devs, can fill in that time up to that date with announcements, which we already I already saw a handful, yeah today yes yeah, which is really cool.
Brandon Hurles:That's cool to see. I mean, we're going to see a bunch. I expect that we're going to continually see a bunch of games that are going to be announced, because we saw it before, where me and you talked about it, steve, on the Nintendbyte podcast, but where they were just showing the Nintendo logo. They weren't showing a logo at that point.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, yooka Replay yeah yeah.
Brandon Hurles:So there's going to be a lot of that, but we pretty much knew about a few before. If it said just Nintendo and didn't have the Nintendo Switch logo, it was that deal. I'm truly excited to see what indie devs do with the mouse thing and just with the beefier hardware, because, like indie games have really, they've really kind of taken over.
Brandon Hurles:They've come a long way. They've come a long way. They really have Like they truly have an impact in the gaming sphere, now more than ever. I mean, I just I got sent a code earlier about this one new game. That's just an 8-bit style game. It's supposed to be like Final Fantasy and stuff and I was like there's just so many of these cool games like this.
ThunderStache Gaming:Which one Is it? 8-bit Adventures? Yeah, yeah, awesome, you play it. Awesome game. Yeah, there's part one and two Awesome game You'll like it.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I like it. Okay, cool, okay, cool, yeah. So I want to check that out on stream and stuff like that. But yeah, I'm so excited, man, to see what kind of happens with this. But from this because we talked about in the past, obviously we know about the DLSS and all that stuff that's obviously going to be a big deal A RAM upgrade from 4GB to 12GB, storage from 32GB to 256GB. One thing I've seen a lot of contention on is we've talked about this probably a couple times in the past too, but the switch from OLED to LCD we knew that was going to happen.
ThunderStache Gaming:Which of your guys' thoughts on that? Lcd technology has come a long way since the original Switch. If you look at your PlayStation Portal, are you happy with that screen? Are you satisfied?
Brandon Hurles:I'm satisfied.
ThunderStache Gaming:I think it looks great, right. So again, that technology has come a long way. If you were to compare the Portal LCD screen to the original Switch LCD screen, you can see a huge improvement. So again, zero concern. And here's the thing, man. You know the OLED's coming. It'll come in a few years. Probably Might be a little bit longer, it might be three years, four years depends. But you know that's coming, ed, if it really really bothers you that much, there's creative ways around that if you want to learn.
Andre GameXplain:Or you can just plug it into the dock and play on your OLED TV or whatever.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I mainly play on that, or like have you guys seen that big I forget what company, so I feel bad. The company that made the big giant screen for the Switch.
ThunderStache Gaming:Oh, G something.
Brandon Hurles:Mike's got one Mike Odyssey has one yeah, g something G Story, g Story. Yeah, yeah, G Story. Yeah, because I've got their Series X portable screen there. Yeah, something g story g story. Yeah, yeah story. Yeah, because I've got their uh series x portable portable screen there. Um, yeah, you know, I think I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal, honestly. Uh, personally, I just I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal outside like your hardcore gamers.
Mark Trobough:I mean, if you're thinking most like your core audience, people that are going to play on tv, or more of the younger audience, it's worth the saving the money for you know, whatever the $50 you might save, put that into the actual hardware. Just your games play better. Yeah, I agree, most people just aren't going to care. I know, I don't care as much.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah for sure. And then I'm going to share A bigger yeah, yeah for sure. And then I'm going to share this that's a bigger screen, that's something to celebrate.
ThunderStache Gaming:It's a much bigger screen.
Andre GameXplain:Again, I'm looking at my. You know the mock-up here and it's hard to tell in pictures, but like when you have it in front of you, it's like that is a substantially, that's a notably bigger screen. It's, you will see, that difference.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So we've got the. We got the announcement for the nintendo switch to experience, which is based on, essentially, a lottery system on whether you're going to get drawn. Has anybody besides me tried to put in tickets for a location?
Andre GameXplain:took like half an hour, but finally I got through. Yeah, I got through. So where'd you guys submit?
ThunderStache Gaming:uh, where are you trying to go? Which one did you I?
Brandon Hurles:obviously had to submit for new york, the closest one I did, I did all three it lets you do each location.
Mark Trobough:Maybe I should do that all I can say is the, the lottery system. That's the most japanese thing ever, and I I both love it, hate it at the same time.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah it doesn't. Doesn't surprise me at all, I mean, and you only get to pick one day in time yeah, I didn't know you could sign up for all of them.
ThunderStache Gaming:So I'm glad you mentioned that because, like that was a prior to it going live. That was one of the things I was thinking aboutre is, like you know, I'm willing to go to whichever one, right? Yeah, like I'm down, I'm down to go do this. This is gonna be fun. Uh, I don't know if you guys remember back in the day, the nintendo cube club. Did anyone go to that?
Andre GameXplain:oh my god, was that there? Like I never got the things they had in different cities. I went to that yeah yeah, I never got to go.
ThunderStache Gaming:No, as an, I went, okay. So we went the first night. We got tickets to it and you know we ended up. We were just chatting it up with the staff, obviously trying to get some like freebies as well. I was pretty young, when I was in high school I think it was a sophomore or junior and they asked us if we wanted to come back again the next day. So they gave us tickets. You know we drove downtown and just hung out and you know we were playing, uh, star wars, uh, was it? Um rogue leader, nba, courtside wave race, blue storm. It was just so fun. There was a bunch of games and we ended up going I kid you not the entire week. They were there. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, they gave us tickets every time and I actually have a Nintendo GameCube Cube Club polo. That's awesome.
Brandon Hurles:Oh, that's so cool.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, and I still have it.
Brandon Hurles:I remember that happening. Unfortunately, they do not do these events anywhere near me at all. Yeah, and I'm in Ohio, so I'm, you know who cares about Ohio, right, but I definitely don't have not had those opportunities close Like they did. The switch hands on experience stuff Never got to do that. I don't remember. Did they do something for the Wii U too? I don't recall. No, I don't. I don't remember Did they do?
Andre GameXplain:something for the Wii U too? I don't recall.
ThunderStache Gaming:No, I don't think they did. I mean I know they didn't. Here in Arizona and similar to where you're living in Ohio, If something comes here, it's like you have to go because you're fortunate that they want to come to your city, right?
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, you've been blessed.
Brandon Hurles:Yes, I don't know, mark. If we both get lucky and get through on it, we might have to plan a little two-day trip or something somewhere. It'd be pretty cool. Where would be the closest location for you? Whatever is out west, I'll take whatever I can get. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that you can do all three. But yeah, it's cool that they're doing that hands-on event. I guess one of the things is let me see if it says it on here. I don't actually see where it says the date that it ends. I thought it was June.
ThunderStache Gaming:I heard, I saw it actually, so I took a screenshot on my phone and, uh, interestingly, like I wanted to do some research on this for our podcast on Wednesday, and so I'm glad you brought this up because I can go over these dates when it ends. Let me get this here. Okay, so the last date is in south korea. Okay, 31st to june 1st, and so I don't know if you guys saw, but everyone um on twitter was like, well, since this is the last day of the experience, right then, it can't come out any earlier than that right but one thing I would like to mention is that the switch 2 will not come out in south korea the same time it comes out in the united states, uk, japan and australia.
ThunderStache Gaming:And I looked it up also, the switch one didn't release in South Korea until December 1st 2017, so quite a, quite a long ways later. And then even get this. So the Hong Kong date as well as right around the South Korea. It didn't release in Hong Kong until December 2019. Oh, wow, yeah, so this is not a worldwide launch. It's going to launch in US, uk, japan and Australia at the same time, but outside of that, the other markets are going to be later. So I to me, that does not 100 signify that we can't get it earlier than june 1st, or at least right at that time. You know what I mean because, yeah, that market has nothing to do with the market that we're living in. It's going to come out later there. It's going to be a staggered release. Uh, ps. Playstation did the same thing. Ps5, you know it. It. It's very tough to scale literally worldwide, but if you hit your major markets, that's about as good as you can get. What do?
Brandon Hurles:you guys think about that I personally don't feel like that signifies hey, this doesn't come out until June or after June I think it still could come out two months before that and still do the events because it just feels like, hey, it's another marketing push, People going out and seeing it in person and having that experience. I feel like the possibility is still there that it comes out before that, even like semi-significantly before that. You know, I don't know how much earlier. We've heard April, May and June. I mean, those are kind of the three, the windows there that we're getting, but I just I don't think that signifies, you know, that we're not getting it until that certain time. Personally, I don't know, Mark Andre, we're not getting it until that certain time. Personally, I don't know, Mark Andre, how do you guys feel about that?
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, I mean you actually brought up some good information there on the whole thing, because I was kind of feeling like that likely wouldn't come out prior to that final event, though this new information might conflict with that a little bit. In any case, though, I was already feeling like June seemed like a good time for it in any case, and I think more that, whatever the final event actually ends up being, I think that more points to when the closest possible release could be, and I wasn't really expecting it early May anyway. Maybe they'll surprise me. So I think more like I think it's actually regardless of what the actual final date for, you know, the relevant markets are for the first release. I'm thinking that that indicates whatever that is like it's going to come out shortly thereafter, within a few weeks. So at this point I'm thinking like late June's the absolute latest.
Andre GameXplain:It will come out, but I don't think they want to hold off too long after these. You know any of these events have happened, um, or the final set of the events or whatever, and yeah, but you know now I guess maize and play again, you know. So maybe that just seems like that just seems a little too soon to me, but I'd be happy to be wrong on that yeah, yeah, how do you?
Brandon Hurles:how do you feel about that? Because you've brought up some points about having like a six month window from the announcement.
Mark Trobough:Is where he's kind of at yeah, I mean, I guess june would fall that because it's technically january, it's not a, not the traditional announcement. They technically you could say it was announced in in, uh, january. So I think a summer release window probably makes sense. You don't want to wait too long into the fall, uh, not only because you're competing with other games. You get into the holiday season. Obviously the big thing everybody talks about is gta6, but I I think the the window they're announcing this, yeah, I think, uh, I think june would june, july make sense realistically. But obviously we're gonna know here, you know, in like two and a half months anyways, so we can speculate for, for content until then. But I mean, yeah, by the time we get our hands on with the Switches we're going to know when it's coming out.
Brandon Hurles:It's interesting because I'm sorry. Go ahead, Andre.
Andre GameXplain:No, I'm sorry, I had nothing to say.
Brandon Hurles:What I was going to say is what's interesting is that Nintendo really has scattered releases, because you had the Wii U in November. A lot of people thought it was going to come out last year before the holidays. There's a lot of that we had that Didn't happen, and then, you know, the Switch came out in March. So I don't think they're necessarily stuck on one date. We're in a pattern of different dates. So I think that you know that signifies something there, that you know the specific month does not matter to them and they obviously want to be separated from any other consoles that might be coming out. I mean even as much as really Xbox isn't necessarily a competitor with Nintendo. We've heard new hardware. We've heard that. We've heard handheld. So we heard that. You know we've heard handheld. So we just don't know when these things are coming out. So them kind of, you know, scattering it out a little bit before anything else might be dropping. It's definitely something they want to do.
Mark Trobough:Can I put on my conspiracy theorist hat for a second? They're putting out a bunch of dates just to throw off the leakers. That's it. That's how they're going to find where the leak is coming from. They're putting out a bunch of dates just to throw off the leakers. That's it. That's how they're gonna find where the lead's coming from. They're gonna put a bunch of fake dates out there.
Mark Trobough:One of them is gonna be real and they're just talking about that too yeah, they're just trying to throw everybody off the scent and find the leaker probably or maybe it would be smart yeah, I can see him doing it too I do think it's better to get it out earlier.
ThunderStache Gaming:Uh, just just so you can have two kind of huge launches in the same year. Right, you have the launch and then you have the holiday both in the same year, and you want to have that spread out enough, right, because once you start selling them, say hypothetically in june, uh, who's going to be helping to sell nintendo consoles? Us, the early adopters, right, everyone who's always going to be buying these? On day one, we advertise pretty much all the way up until the holidays for for everyone. And then you have another buying cycle. Uh, obviously that went extremely well for switch one. So that is my hope that June would be the latest, and I feel pretty confident that June is the latest. And even then you think about schools out beginning of June. It is a good time. The GBA launched in June. That seemed to work out really well. I remember I got the GBA in time for summer school and that was a blotch it probably helped with that summer school.
ThunderStache Gaming:I imagine.
Brandon Hurles:I got it launched, so that must have been the same thing that happened. I didn't have summer school. Actually, that's a lie. I just don't remember what year. There it is. I did have it, but I forget what year.
Mark Trobough:I guess the other question is I I think what you were saying makes sense release it in june, uh, so you get your your first adopters, your hardcore fans, people that want to get it first. It allows you to have that lull in sales so you have the production ramp up and then you can prepare for your second wave in the holiday season where your general consumer, your family, would be looking to probably buy this.
Andre GameXplain:Buy it at least with the first wave yeah, you're almost wasting that launch momentum if you launch it during the holidays. Yeah, regardless.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, you're just kind of missing as well, as you're trying to avoid.
ThunderStache Gaming:You know supply issues as well, so you want to try to spread that out as much as you can in the first year yeah, and people want to know if it's good like they want to be sold on it. I mean, I'm sure you guys know, and you've probably played this role within your, your friends and family group, but when it comes to video games, who does everybody call right?
ThunderStache Gaming:yep, you know, they always call yeah, they call us right to ask about it. Should we, should we get a switch to or should we get this? Uh, so people are going to be looking to always us, the early adopters, for that and uh it, it just makes sense, cause you can only pump out so many If you were to launch around the holiday.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. I mean I think this is on track, so I guess I'll get them pull up real quick. This cause it's just absolutely insane to see you kind of see these numbers We've got here. So currently for the switch to, we were at Almost 17 million views in one day, number one trending for gaming. That's crazy.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, I don't know if you saw some of the numbers, but they, they were crunching. Someone was crunching numbers on twitter with the switch one reveal trailer no, no, it was just about switch two and they were just, uh, taking the numbers from different regions and kind of adding it all up. Okay, the reach that this has had, I mean, it was well over 100 million within eight hours between all different territories and different networks. Yeah, so they did a really good job dropping it like this.
Andre GameXplain:Huge Yeahintendo's got massive momentum on their side right now, which is something they haven't had in quite some time. I mean it's funny because this is one of the longest times they've waited to launch a successor and one of the issues they've run into before is they waited too long, like with the way you transition, and now it seemed like they didn't wait too long, or perhaps it's more that they were able to maintain that momentum for as long as they have. And people are now. You know they're hungry and excited for for a successor, clearly, and that shallow drop paid off for them. I mean it was funny. Just, you know, a little over a day ago people like nintendo would never shallow drop this thing. Why would they do that?
Andre GameXplain:you know they've never done that before and here they are doing exactly that. So yeah, nintendo can never be fully predicted. They gotta keep you on your toes.
ThunderStache Gaming:And even even interestingly, since you know, furukawa came in, became president, uh, the switch light and the switch oled were both shadow dropped too. I mean, I know they're not, they're not new consoles, but both of those were shadow dropped. So maybe, maybe that is a thing going forward.
Andre GameXplain:But then again, at the end of the trailer, then we got the day for the direct, so it's like who knows, man, yeah well, especially I mean to that point too, with the switch to being the first named your numbered successor for nintendo, they might just be looking at it differently. Like this is part of this new line where they shadow dropped every form of it except for the original Right. Maybe they are just kind of looking at it as an extension of the current Switch line and maybe that's. You know, the way they handle that project is just different than they have with console launches in the past.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, how long do you guys think they? Because they obviously want to reach that top Nintendo or console sales. Obviously they want to do that. How long after the Switch 2 comes out? Do you think that Switch will still be sold? Because I'm thinking a good two to three years personally.
Andre GameXplain:Three years at least. Yeah, Yep Gotta agree with that.
Brandon Hurles:Just to reach that number. Drop the price down on the console. Drop it down on the Switch Lite especially, which I think is going to be a big seller.
Mark Trobough:If they drop that down, you know they should do that, drop it down on the Switch Lite especially, which I think is going to be a big seller. If they drop that down, I agree they should do that the same day they announce this or it comes out Clearance on the Switch. You get your sales and you can start clearing out your inventory.
Brandon Hurles:Do you guys remember 2DS XL? They were $99 at Walmart there for a minute. I wish I would have grabbed like seven of them.
ThunderStache Gaming:I was talking about this actually on the podcast on Wednesday, but I do expect price drop to coincide with the Switch 2 launch. When it's going to happen you know, I don't know, it's up to Nintendo, but it's going to be in or around that time and I do expect Switch Lite to go down to 99. That's what I think it's going to be a stocking stuffer, literally, because you will be able to fit it in a fat stocking. It's going to be perfect, man.
Brandon Hurles:I mean I'll buy a couple of them at $100.
ThunderStache Gaming:Just have a couple of color variants and just say I have them, just like when the GameCube went on sale for $99 and then $49. For a brief moment.
Brandon Hurles:Yep, that's how I got my GameCube. I ended up getting a second GameCube, 99 bucks platinum. I was pretty happy. I mean that was awesome. But yeah, I wish I would have grabbed some more of those 2DS XLs and the 3DS XLs because I think they kept. I could be wrong and misremembering, but I think they kept. I could be wrong and misremembering, but I think they kept the new 3DS XLs at 150 and I could do you guys remember?
Mark Trobough:I think so, because when I got my two 3DS XLs, it would have been around what 21, 22, and they were about 150 a piece. Yeah, so I got my 3DS on launch day when it was 250, 21, 22, and they were about 150 a piece.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, so you're taking. Yeah, yeah, I got my 3ds on launch day when it was two 50.
Brandon Hurles:And then I got my my ambassador certificate and my my 20 games. They dropped the price way down.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, I couldn't believe that. Like it was a hundred dollars cut right, yeah, and I didn't mind, I'm like you know, whatever I I guess that's part of being an early adopter, but the fact that they were like, hey, you know what, we're sorry, we want to give you 20 games, what? This is unheard of.
Brandon Hurles:I think you didn't learn from that experience, though, which is, you know, good one thing I wanted to mention. I don't know much about them, so I'm not I don't have a lot of input personally, but Nintendo stocks did rise up significantly yesterday, yeah, and they stayed up until about 4 pm it looks like yesterday and then they dropped way down and they're down today like there was a massive drop off. I does that signify anything at all to you guys? I don't. I don't know anything about. I'm pulling up here on Google the Nintendo ADR.
Mark Trobough:That's just people riding the hype train to make some money and then they're selling off while the stock's high. I wouldn't look too much into it that went to my 4 pm.
Mark Trobough:It's not, I mean, at this grand scale. If you look at the pie, it's still up in the past five days. It's just there's always a for a lot of stocks for a lot of companies. You always see a stock go up before there's like a quarterly or something like that. A lot of people will ride the hype as not as like a pump and dump, but very similar, as they're trying to make a quick buck.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, I don't.
Brandon Hurles:Microsoft is up 1.05%. Sony is down 1.79 percent. Yeah, I don't. I don't put a lot of stock in it, but for, like, I really don't.
ThunderStache Gaming:Uh, you know it, it's gonna, it's gonna change a little bit, it's gonna go up and down up until the investor meeting and ultimately I I think it probably went down because there wasn't a lot shown.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, yeah, it really was just an affirmation of what had been rumored, so nothing too surprising. Mario Kart was the biggest surprise there, which you know is cool and great, but you know, especially for someone just looking at it for a few seconds, it's like it's just Mario Kart again. There's nothing majorly new going on here.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, you have to think about like stocks and the health of a company. While they matter, they're not always a one-for-one and a lot of stock trading is more speculation than anything else and stuff like that. So a lot of people that are going to be in it for the long term are going to be fine with it. The day-to-day or the week-to-week up and downs. I wouldn't think too much like a, you know, like a 30, 40 percent, like something like that's like five percent.
ThunderStache Gaming:that happens yeah, and I would expect it to go up again on april 2nd yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Brandon Hurles:Um, all right, so what? What are we thinking on the price point? Because we're seeing the price point like it's either. The contention is kind of between 350 or 400 is basically what I'm saying and that I kind of thought the 400 is what I thought before they even said any of this is that was my thought all along, because the dlss and new technology is put into this console, I think it doesn't. You know, it requires a little bit more than the switch had, uh, but you know I'm kind of curious on your guys thoughts. Is the price point for this?
Andre GameXplain:400 minimum. I think. Honestly, I think 400 is the floor for this, with impossibly going to, you know, 450. I don't think they'll go 500, but nintendo's operating from a position of strength right now. They know there is demand for this and they could, you know, arguably overprice it and it would still probably sell just fine, and if it doesn't they can, then they can lower the price. Um, so I would be shocked if it comes in anything less than 400 yeah, I.
Brandon Hurles:I just I can't personally see the 350. I don't know what do you think, mark?
Mark Trobough:I mean because I pulled up to verify yeah, the the switch launched at three, the oled 350. I think a four to 450 kind of makes sense for the, for the hardware plus kind of what, uh, what you just said. Uh, andre, you could launch it for the early adopters who are going to buy it at a higher price point and then, based off of feedback, you can either low it or you can do a temporary it's holidays so we can put it on sale some more more reasonable and stuff like that. But I think probably, yeah, 4 450 makes a lot of sense to me I'm expecting 400.
ThunderStache Gaming:if there's two skews, I could see 349 to 400 or, yeah, 399 to 449. I think it could sway in any direction. I think it would probably be better if they just have one SKU, for simplicity's sake. Yeah, we don't want to confuse any of the consumers. We've seen how that's went before. I think $399 sounds like the right number, though and I have for a long time, so we'll see what happens.
Brandon Hurles:We could do a founder's edition, like NVID nvidia, you know possibly.
Mark Trobough:I guess you gotta think you're selling a lot of this is. You're as much as you know a lot of the hardcore gamers aren't? We're not kids anymore. We grew up I know at least I know me and brandon grew up with, you know, nintendo consoles, and that's still the. The family market's what they're aiming for. So you don't want like a 800 ps5 or pro or something like that. They don something like that. That's like their main target. You've got to think the family market. So it still needs to be reasonably affordable.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, and one thing I think right now they are, I feel like, competing obviously with the current handheld market, which is, dare I say, maybe bigger right now than it's hard to say because the Game Boy is absolutely massive.
Brandon Hurles:It's really bigger right now than it's hard to say because the Game Boy is absolutely massive. It's really big right now with a bunch of companies right. So we look at the high end of the Asus ROG Ally X at like $800. And you look at the Lenovo Legion Go, I think is like $650, something like that. But you've got Steam Deck and then Steam Deck OLED.
Brandon Hurles:They are competing, I feel like, with the handheld market. That's where I do feel like there is competition. To what extent I can't personally say, because if it's $400, you're not going to take a $200 loss on there. Nintendo doesn't take losses on their consoles. They don't like to. So you know they don't like to. So I don't know. That's the one thing in the back of my head is like well, how competitive could this be to the current handheld market? We obviously know they're doing Ace's Royal Galley 2. The X's just did a stronger, better version of the current one that's out. We know that these are coming. We know the Steam Deck 2 is coming. How competitive will this be with the handheld market?
Mark Trobough:Do they need to be competitive though? Because you look at first-party games. They've never gone after this high-fidelity, realistic graphics. It's always that stylized that doesn't necessarily need the hardware, but they've got somewhat of a beef up, especially when you look at the uh, whatever their form of dls is going to be, you got ai coming along for the upscaling, and then, even if it's like a ps4 equivalent in power for third parties that want to, you know, port over or make games for this, it's not an impossibility to to deal with that power it.
ThunderStache Gaming:It's not, and I think that, yeah, I talked about this on the podcast. Actually, a lot too is that, you know. I kind of implore everyone to, if you don't know about DLSS, do a little bit of research. Go on YouTube. There's a lot of great videos out there that will literally, you know, give you a split screen view of a game running without DLSS, and then they'll say this is what DLSS is on, and they will have a resolution, digital foundry is great for this.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, and they'll have a FPS counter and they'll show you what happens when you turn it on and it's magic, yeah, right, and we even you've seen with the, the 5000 series, it's just magic what it's doing now. So, uh, I know a lot of people are concerned about the, the power right of it being between what, a ps4 pro and a series s, but it's like, guys, this is without dlss factored in, and once you really study how this works, I think your confidence level will go up considerably and then you won't have any concerns yeah, I've been saying it for a long time, the dlss is a bigger deal than people think it really truly is.
Brandon Hurles:You know, I've used 3.5, I've got a 4090 currently. I've seen what it does turned on, turned off. I've I've seen the difference. It's it's like night and day. It's insane. Um, it's, it's a big deal. But I mean, I guess one of the one of the reasons really kind of to bring that up is these were some of the rumored third-party releases for the Switch 2. Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth which Rebirth would be?
ThunderStache Gaming:insane. I mean 100%. It was just Steam Deck verified yesterday, okay.
Brandon Hurles:All right, so Assassin's Creed, mirage and Shadows Shadows being a brand new game, yeah, still, yeah, yeah.
ThunderStache Gaming:Still, yeah, yeah, if you're asking me, yes, 100%, okay.
Brandon Hurles:Metal Gear Solid Delta, which is an upcoming game.
Mark Trobough:No, I was going to make it mean but what's going to come out for Shadows or the Switch 2?
ThunderStache Gaming:That's a great point. It is a good point. Yeah, a lot of factors there.
Brandon Hurles:Halo, the Master Chief Collection, not worried about that at all. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. You think it's coming right? Do I think it's coming? Yeah, Okay, I just want to make sure.
ThunderStache Gaming:It'd be crazy. I'm expecting it.
Brandon Hurles:I am so sure that I would. I don't. I'm not a betting person, but I would bet that it is coming With what Xbox is doing. I have a very, very strong feeling that this will be coming out, probably pretty early, for the Switch 2 as well.
ThunderStache Gaming:I expect Microsoft to be the biggest third party developer for Switch 2. And you really got to look at it in that you got to look at all the companies they own now too. Yeah, oh yeah, I think people just think about it and conceptualize. Got to look at in that you got to look at all the companies they own now too.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, oh yeah, I think people just think about and conceptualize oh yeah, you know, I know they bought a bunch of studios, but it's like, but no, really pull it up online and look at all the ip and really take a close look and it is. It's wild when you factor all that in, so it would be very simple for them to be the most successful third-party developer on the Switch.
Andre GameXplain:All I'm hearing is we're going to be seeing a new Banjo-Kazooie on Switch 2 at some point.
ThunderStache Gaming:I actually do believe this.
Brandon Hurles:I believe that.
ThunderStache Gaming:I truly do, and I've talked about it a lot on the podcast. There's no reason we don't see that we had Banjo-Kazooie in Smash. Microsoft adores Nintendo. There's a lot of respect there, yeah there is.
Brandon Hurles:You saw that with ori and the different games that came, minecraft obviously on everything um.
ThunderStache Gaming:You know so they had various games and that's just. That's another game too minecraft with the mouse.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah yeah, that's a great point. Easy, that's a great point, easy, that's a great point Excellent.
ThunderStache Gaming:And then I get this last one.
Mark Trobough:Red Dead.
Brandon Hurles:Redemption 2. Oh, sorry, which I think is coming. Sorry, mark, go ahead.
Mark Trobough:No, no, I mean that would be insane, because I guess I had two points. One go back to like 2006 and tell yourself there's a chance that Halo might be on a Nintendo console, and your brain would explode.
Brandon Hurles:I really would. That's a great point. Thank you, Matt. Never would have thought that.
Mark Trobough:I think this is a great possibility, because Get Rare just stopped working on only Sea of Thieves and they have so many great IPs that were back on the mixture of the GameCube, but especially on the N64, and having them start working on new games of all those IPs they used to work on, those games feel at home, or those ips feel at home on a nintendo console, to me like I want to see all their games come back like it's changed a lot.
ThunderStache Gaming:The staff's changed a lot, it's. I think it really changed when the stamper brothers left, uh, but over the years. I mean they're just working on back-end.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, yeah, I guess at least to that point, just let let someone work on the games right Like someone else, use their RP. They're kind of doing that a little bit dark and killer instinct.
Mark Trobough:Before Just give the IPS at least a second shot at life, whether good or bad. Give them, give them a chance to breathe, yeah.
Andre GameXplain:I'll take a bad banjoazooie at this point.
Mark Trobough:I don't care. We already had one. We had Nuts and Bolts.
Brandon Hurles:Andre, did you like Nuts and Bolts?
Andre GameXplain:I actually did. Once it got past the first six hours, which is a lot, I fell in love with that game.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I wasn't a big fan. I was pretty disappointed. I remember playing it. I was just really let down right from the get, the get go.
Andre GameXplain:But your typical banjo, that's for sure it definitely wasn't.
Brandon Hurles:It was interesting. It was kind of like, um, some of the mechanics though that they use with that. It's kind of interesting to see you know how that was kind of expanded upon later with other games yeah, I feel like it was ahead of its time.
Andre GameXplain:You know like had it come out after Minecraft. Am I done better?
Brandon Hurles:yeah, for sure, yeah for sure. I think so too, then we've got, so, I guess, one of the other point for Red Dead, by the way.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, I just want to say that I I'm gonna give you a little prediction. I think Red Dead will be 60 FPS on switch to. You think so? Yeah, I do, and I've. I think I've said this for maybe about a year. I think it's going to come out on switch to. It'll be 60 fps and I think there is going to be a native ps5 version released at the same time. That will be 60 frames per second. That's why Red Dead has not received a PS5 performance patch.
Brandon Hurles:I can see that. I mean that makes total sense, it's on.
ThunderStache Gaming:PS4. It's a PS4 game, I mean.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, good point.
ThunderStache Gaming:With the DLSS, it would not be hard to have that running at 60, which is great, because that's something to look forward to. That's an excellent game.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, absolutely. I would love to see the. I'm trying to think of what else would, because we've heard Square Enix say that they want to bring their properties to everything. Essentially is what they said Yep, so I see Final Fantasy XIV coming over to Switch 2. I see, I don't know what else.
ThunderStache Gaming:Visions of. Mana, legends of Mana. I see that no. Visions of Mana. Visions, yeah, the new one. Yeah, of course, kingdom Hearts. I foresee Kingdom Hearts native releases, not the cloud versions. Nobody wants those Native versions. On the Switch 2 hardware, I expect to get a HD collection and I expect to get Kingdom Hearts 3 and 4.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, and again, like that only makes sense to me.
ThunderStache Gaming:Anything that's running on Series S I expect to come over. You know, like Indiana Jones, expect it, and that's an expensive IP.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, that's a powerhouse of a game.
ThunderStache Gaming:It's an excellent game. I'm almost done with it for review. But nobody's buying it on Xbox. The people who are playing it are playing it through Game Pass and Game Pass is stagnant. It's stuck at 34 million. They're not making money on Game Pass. They need to have 100 million subscribers to make money. It ain't going to get there, so you know they're going to have to figure that out. But obviously that's coming to PS5 in the spring and I fully expect it to come to Switch 2. I'm playing it on my Series S. It runs great. Yeah, no problem. And you got to get that ip everywhere it's. It's it's indiana jones, and you got to make that money back because it's not cheap. Yeah, to uh rent out that ip no doubt, no doubt.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I'm playing it on a game pass your pc. Do you guys remember the rumors a while back I don't even remember how long ago about Game Pass coming to Switch 1. Do you guys remember that?
Andre GameXplain:I do.
Brandon Hurles:What's the possibility of it coming to Switch 2?
Andre GameXplain:Zero. I don't think Nintendo will allow it. I think Microsoft would love for it to be At this point. I don't think Nintendo would want it on it. It would just compete with them for no reason.
Brandon Hurles:That brings up an interesting point. That's a tough one.
ThunderStache Gaming:It's no reason. Yeah, that brings up an interesting point. That's a. That's a tough one. Yeah, you know it's interesting to think about, but I just don't. Here's how I look at it. It's like if, say, nintendo says no, but they ask sony, and sony says yes, and then sony comes out with a portable right, right, which you know that's.
ThunderStache Gaming:It could change things yeah, it could change things, and so I think you have to look at it from that angle a little bit. If you're Nintendo, like well, if we say no, and then you know somebody else steps in and now it's on a different portable device, game Pass, and now we're behind the eight ball right. But if that's not a factor, then I don't think it comes to the Switch too, and I think Microsoft just releases their games physically over here, which is great. I think it's going to do very well.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, yeah. I mean I think the only way you'd see the Game Pass on the Switch would be Nintendo taking a very significant percentage of Game Passes on the Switch to the point where Microsoft would say no. We take all your revenue and then we'll allow it, yeah, at least a 50-50 split, to make sure it's going to be worth our while.
Brandon Hurles:So this is something me and Mark have talked about a lot, but what do we think? So for a couple of games? Obviously we know about Metroid Prime 4. We know about Pokemon Legends, za. What are we thinking about launch titles? And then, what are we thinking about those two games, specifically, pokemon Legends and Metroid Prime 4?
ThunderStache Gaming:As far as cross-gen, yeah, cross-gen, that's a big question.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I mean, are they going to be cross-gen, are they not going to be cross-gen, or huh, yeah, I mean, are they going to be cross-gen, are they not going to be cross-gen, or you know I don't know.
ThunderStache Gaming:Are they going to come? Are they going to play better on switch two?
Brandon Hurles:yeah right is it going to be one of those deals like for launch I'm not even entirely sure like they showed off mario kart 9, but usually I mean, I feel like we've had such a big, long gap from a big 3d mario game, super mario odyssey, like I feel like that's got to be probably I feel like I expect mario kart at launch 100 as well, yeah, they showed off, I think for a reason.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, I do too yeah, I think they may try to mimic you know, not directly because they've already deviated in some ways, but they're kind of largely sticking to the. What worked for the Switch, I think, and what worked then was having Mario Kart early on and then having a 3D Mario for the holiday season, acting for that second launch that we were talking about earlier, exactly.
Mark Trobough:So, a big title for that second round of sales pretty much.
Andre GameXplain:Exactly, which I think could open up a huge opportunity here. If metro prime 4 doesn't end up being cross-gen, I think they could try to pull off what it did with breath of the wild, where you know that is the game that, even if they promote that in upcoming the rumored upcoming february direct for switch one and that also ends up being a switch to title, that all that hype for that game by itself can, you know, help it on switch to and act as marketing for the Switch 2 itself, which they probably don't even need. But the point more is it can really benefit Metroid Because for as successful as Zelda was before Breath of the Wild, breath of the Wild went to the stratosphere compared to the previous game's sales and this might be Metroid's best chance of finally breaking through that. What 3 million sales barrier.
Andre GameXplain:I think, by having this be your big single player focused uh, ip at launch alongside Mario car. They'll cater to literally everyone else. Um, I'm I. I think it just makes sense and I would almost be a little surprised if it's not. But you know, you never know.
Brandon Hurles:That is such a great point. I did not think about the part where veteran prime four jumps up in sales because it is we already. I mean, prime 4 jumps up in sales because it is. Look at the numbers. Just for the trailer, we know it's going to sell like crazy. I feel like they're probably not. I don't even know if they're going to be able to have enough stock out for the Switch 2. I feel like they're trying. I feel like they probably are trying their best, but I feel like for a minute there it's going to be like the PS5 Series X situation that we saw in 2020, maybe for a moment.
ThunderStache Gaming:Proposed numbers look good. You know, over 20 million. Yeah, that looks good. That's what the proposed numbers are to have prepared for the launch for the first year. Yeah, that came out of Bloomberg, I think a day or two ago, and that's a lot.
Brandon Hurles:I mean, people love Nintendo. I was looking and just the Alarmo trailer has 2 million views.
Andre GameXplain:God yeah, Nintendo's done a much better job at increasing their awareness to everyone in recent years. Yeah Well, speaking of that, that larger launch amount, potentially that's even more reason, I think, to have Metroid there. People are going to want games to play on their new hardware and they're going to be more open to new, to newer experiences. Metro is not new, but it will be for a lot of people, just considering how small that franchise is to others. And the metro prime 4, like you know, is, for one, a good game and two is a good showcase for the switch too. Yeah, it might be his best shot do you guys think it's cross-gen?
Mark Trobough:I question right there that's the question.
Brandon Hurles:I. But they have to be really because it restarted development. You have to consider that it restarted development. But I looked at the. I looked at the timetable because I was curious about the dlss and what was being used on that for metroid prime. They're a few months apart. Metroid prime 4 started its development a few months before dlss even came out. Um, so that's one thing to take into consideration. So I I was like, oh, they're just going to maybe do just drop this on the switch one and then use dlss to make it look better on the switch too. Uh, but they did start, which would be a good way to sell.
Mark Trobough:Switch to actually what it does yeah, but it's also the other side of. I think the game itself would benefit from and I'm biased because I'm a huge, huge metroid fan but the game would benefit from only being on the switch to, with not having to worry about old hardware, because I do think you, with a game that you want to not only showcase, but a game that could definitely benefit from it, would definitely be held back by old gen hardware that's like a decade old at this point.
Brandon Hurles:Well, it's like the conversation with PS4 and PS4 games still coming out right Like. I don't personally like that, because it's like I want this made for the native hardware that we are currently at in this current generation. We're already halfway through. We're still getting the PS4 games, meaning those PS5 games are actually just PS4 games, essentially upscaled, and can run a little better.
Mark Trobough:The problem with that is would you want to play it in a subpar way or only play it on hardware that could actually do it justice with a game like that? It's a hard balancing act, I think for Metroid.
ThunderStache Gaming:knowing the history of metroid prime and that the sales history and the struggles, if you're gonna have a game be cross-gen, I think you have to do it with metroid prime 4 because you have to take advantage of that 150 million install base, whatever it's going to be at by the time it launches. I really think you have to tap into that. But I also expect the marketing and promotions team to pull out all the stops. For instance, there's the rumor at February Direct, which I believe is happening. I believe Metroid Prime 2 and 3 will be coming out prior to Metroid Prime 4 in the lead up and if you're a Switch owner, you're going to want to be able to play Metroid Prime 1 through 4 on your Switch. You don't want to feel like you have to upgrade.
Brandon Hurles:Obviously, these people got to have access to these games.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, but if you take advantage of that 150 million whatever it's going to be at the time, and it's a launch title on switch to and it's running performing better on switch to that gives you the best possible opportunity to finally break out and do something special and go up into that upper echelon. So that would be my guess. If we're gonna have a cross-gen game, it's got to be that. But I I think you gotta be really careful after that, you know, because yeah, if you start doing cross-gen with too many games, it can be uh, very slippery slope yeah, I mean because then you got the animal crossing community.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, why can't? Why can't you release this on switch one? It's it's not a graphically demanding game yeah, exactly, yeah but that's how they'll look at it, right, not factoring in anything else. They'll just be like, well, the graphics aren't great, can't this run on? Switch you just I. I think you just want to be real careful and just kind of do things the way you had with Zelda, obviously being a cross-gen game multiple times.
Andre GameXplain:Go that route, what do you think, andre I mean, yeah, you're not wrong. I mean people are going to have those complaints. I think almost no matter what. But especially if there's more cross-gen I mean myself I think it makes sense for Nintendo to continue to support the Switch for longer than they typically do. That's a massive install base. Even if everyone tries to get the Switch 2 right away, they're not going to be able to. That's not going to happen. Some people just bought the Switch in the last year. A good amount of people still are buying the Switch.
Andre GameXplain:They're not going to upgrade the Switch 2 for years to come. I don't think it makes sense to completely turn your back on that market to come. And I don't think it makes sense to completely turn your back on that market. So I think cross gen in some instances will continue to make sense, like the new mart, like marty party jamboree that game looks completely fine. I don't need to look any better on switch too. So whenever next marty party comes out, I'm fine, that's cross gen. You know, when it comes to your biggest, you know your biggest games, like your triple a titles, like the 3d mario or the new zelda, then those probably should be the ones are, you know, locked to uh, switch to um. But I think there's plenty of instances, especially for nintendo, where they can release games. Cross-gen give enough benefits on switch to. That is still clearly better without compromising their original market. But you know, I don't know what to extend.
Brandon Hurles:Nintendo will actually do this or not to me me when I think about this. I think actually that Pokemon Legends EA is a bigger discussion on it, because that game sold great and people loved it, but it for sure. And then you look at Scarlet and Violet that's a whole other story, but it for sure still had issues. It had some problems. It had a lot of pop-ins, a lot of stutters. It was not a lot of pop-ins, a lot, a lot of stutters. It was not a perfect game. It was a good. It was a very good game that I absolutely loved, but it had a lot of problems. And so I wonder if Pokemon Legends EA is exclusive to the Switch too, because it is Pokemon they want to sell the Switch. I just feel like there would be a huge downgrade there. They're not going to be able to make this look that it's not going to perform better really than Legends Arceus.
Mark Trobough:I wouldn't think on Switch 1, unless the. I think the other issue is they're just poorly optimized games. They didn't put a lot of effort into it.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, I think Game Freak will find a way to have a run poorly on Switch 2 even.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, it just felt like the game was designed from the ground up poorly.
Brandon Hurles:As like a big Pokemon fan. I hate that I, if I'm being, you know, kind of greedy here, and obviously we have to consider everybody. We have to consider all the audience. I personally would want to see everything only on Switch 2 and that it's developed for that hardware. But that's just being a hardcore gamer, a hardcore Nintendo fan that's planning on buying this day one and that's. You know, that's that. It's like what Sony has done way too long with the PS4 stuff, like way too long. So many of these games have been developed for the PS4 and then brought over to the PS5 and it's like are you kidding me? We're this long in the life cycle and it's still going on.
Andre GameXplain:Yeah, yeah, no, I get that we're all going to buy the new Switch too, right?
Andre GameXplain:So we all, you know, we want the games to look as good as possible. But you know, in this specific case especially, I don't think I think Pokemon, maybe with an exception, they're usually not too quick to the new generations like they usually hold on. They are yeah, and I think, with this game in particular being announced for you know already for switch one, um, I expect they will, you know, continue to stay on there primarily. I maybe there'll be a, you know, switch to variant, uh or skew, whatever it is, um, but regardless it's going to work on switch to, obviously, yeah and um, and I think they just want to hit the biggest demographic possible. I think, you know, especially with new pokemon fans coming up all the time, I don't think, or else it's going to work on Switch too, obviously, and I think they just want to hit the biggest demographic possible. I think, you know, especially with new Pokemon fans coming up all the time, I don't think they're particularly discerning when it comes to graphical capabilities and I think they'll buy it no matter what it looks like.
Brandon Hurles:For sure. I mean like Ultra Sun, ultra Moon came out when the Switch was out, and what else was there? Black 2, white 2 came out when the 3DS was already out, stuff like that. So I definitely understand that point. So I guess kind of one of the last things here I was sort of thinking of talking about was Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. I think all of us have gotten to play it except for Thunderstache, right, but you've obviously played the Despite the shirt.
Andre GameXplain:You didn't play the new Donkey Kong game.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, you know what? Obviously, I beat it on Wii yeah.
Andre GameXplain:And.
Mark Trobough:That's for me.
ThunderStache Gaming:Very familiar with it. But no, you know what it's been a. I'm sure you know because you just came from a podcast, andre. But it's just been. It just been nonstop with podcasts and news the last couple of days and honestly, I'm at the tail end of Indiana Jones for review and that game is something else, man.
Brandon Hurles:It's good man. I'm going to play a trailer here that while I still talk of Donkey Kong Country current HD. But I have made it to world 3 at the final boss, so I haven't started that boss yet. Mark, did you picked it up right?
Mark Trobough:I picked it up, but I haven't had the chance to play, unfortunately. I'm sorry we're eating up my entire week.
Andre GameXplain:That's understandable uh you've gotten to play it right yeah, I streamed, um, a good chunk of that game actually a couple days ago and you know that this game was a big reason why a lot of people were thinking switch to wouldn't happen this week, because why would you uh, suck out all the air in the room from donkey kong, you know, when you don't have to, but Nintendo works in mysterious ways. Yes, I've been playing it. You know, I've always liked this game. I don't think it's as good as tropical freeze, which is the best platformers of all time, but this game is still good, you know, still holds up, but it also doesn't really add anything new. I guess really add anything new. I guess you know a handful of 3ds stages.
Andre GameXplain:If you didn't play that version maybe did then there's truly nothing new here, except for the visuals. I think, just a yeah and yeah, and I think you know, overall I think it's a. It's a good looking game. Still, it's an art style that holds up. It looks good in hd. Just, you know, as one who is a big fan of, uh, you know, donkey kong in general and um, you know well, and Nintendo of course. But I am a little perturbed, a little bit, by some of the missing effects here, especially when you're charging full price. I noticed in level two, I think, or three. There's a sun that appears briefly in the Switch version and then it just disappears.
ThunderStache Gaming:I don't know where the sun went. It stays there on Wii. I'm like where'd the sun go?
Andre GameXplain:And it's just little details like that. Like, even if the game still looks fine, most people won't even know some. I'm like if you're going to charge full price for this, you should at least have it match the visual quality of the. You know the original version and it didn't, so in principle it annoys me, and if I weren't covering it game before and you don't have any other versions of it, it's fine on Switch. Pick it up. It's still really good, unless you don't own Tropical Freeze, in which case you should buy that instead and play that game.
Brandon Hurles:That game was amazing. Tropical Freeze is fantastic, one of the best platforms ever. It just controls so tight and so well. It just feels perfect. This is great and so well, it just feels perfect it's. This is like the. This still runs. This is great. It still performs good and I mean it still is kind of it's a little looser than it's just looser than Tropical Freeze, if that makes any sense at all. And this is like the unperfected version of that game.
Andre GameXplain:I don't. I need to go back and double check. I don't know if it's just me, but another friend had the same issue too, where in the Switch version I had the occasional issue where I'm trying to either roll or ground pound and then do the opposite thing I want, and I don't remember if that happened on Wii or not. So I don't know if that's a new issue or an original one, but it is bugging me regardless, Whereas I don't recall that issue.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I've had that issue a couple of times as well, and I don't remember it on the 3ds one either, and I just replayed that again, I think in 2021, and I just I don't remember that issue. I definitely don't remember it on we, but I could be wrong. It could have been an issue there, you know, I I don't know, um, but I think, uh, overall, you know, if you haven't played it and if you haven't picked it up before, it's a great pickup, it's a great play. But yeah, I'm pretty irritated. It's a $60 price point. I think it's crazy. Honestly, I, if I didn't plan on streaming this and doing stuff with it, I would not have picked it up yet. I would have waited for a price drop. But I also won the pre-order bonus, which was kind of silly is it the?
Brandon Hurles:GameStop one yeah, I'm a sucker for DK barrels or any kind of barrel but it's like that was part of the reason that sold me like getting in at launch, and it's like that's great, got a DK barrel now, you know that was uh, yeah. Somebody said uh, yes, ground pound can sometimes auto roll, it seems so what's that about?
Andre GameXplain:That's not good, Especially in this game. This game is already hard enough and it is pretty precision-based. You can't expect to be standing still to roll off a cliff. That's a big deal.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, it's a little crazy. I'm looking forward for you playing it, mark, because Mark has not played one since Donkey Kong Country 2. Yeah, way's a little crazy. I'm looking forward for you playing it, mark, because Mark has not played one since what? Donkey Kong Country 2?
Mark Trobough:Yeah, way, way back.
Andre GameXplain:Ignore everything I said. You're going to have a great time.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, no, I've had a lot of fun playing through it again. It's just there's a couple of things that's kind of irritating about that. But I guess the last thing that I kind of wanted to bring up that was non-Nintendo, since we did pretty much cover just Nintendo for this episode was. It kind of came out that a PlayStation executive, shuhei Yoshida, said he would have tried to resist Sony's controversial live service video game push. Yoshida was the president of SIE Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive from 2008 to 2019. They told this to Kind of Funny Games that Sony always knew its investment in live service games was risky. So we obviously knew about the Last of Us thing that got canceled. We saw Concord what happened there, apparently, which this is one one I didn't know at all. I don't think anybody knew about it before. Right God of War being in development from Bluepoint, which is crazy.
ThunderStache Gaming:To me it's a shame, because you could have been working on a Bloodborne remake, right, basically what everybody's been wanting. I kind of had the could have been working on a Bloodborne remake Right, Basically what everybody's been wanting.
Brandon Hurles:Well, I kind of had the thought that they were just going to run through the Dark Souls games again because they're so popular. I mean, they did the Demon's Souls remake, which is fantastic. I just suck at Soulsborne games. I buy and play every single one of them and I've only ever beaten Dark Souls 2. I know I suck.
ThunderStache Gaming:I'm a terrible gamer.
Brandon Hurles:They're difficult. So I guess, technically, elden Ring. I haven't played the DLC yet, so that's two, but yeah, god of War title and development. Would that have been like Ascension? Do you think Did anybody that have been like Ascension? Do you think Did anybody play God of War Ascension?
Andre GameXplain:No, what was that one?
Brandon Hurles:again, it was spinoff on the PS3. Like semi-spinoff, I guess, just based on the game, me trying to think of a God of War multiplayer game.
Andre GameXplain:it's kind of wild yeah, the whole the idea just sounds fundamentally flawed. I I don't know what quite what they were thinking there. Um, I mean, live service games are hard enough to make, seemingly, but especially when you pair it with ip doesn't really seem to make sense. I guess they're just like this is a big ip, it'll do well, but I don't think it's that clear cut which sony eventually started to realize, it seems yeah, it's not like that's a, it's a rich single player driven ip right and that's doing that man, it's doing very well.
Brandon Hurles:Don't screw it up. Yeah, yeah, don't screw it up. Like these last two God of War games have been excellent games. Don't screw it up.
ThunderStache Gaming:I have to say about. I mean, I got to wonder how many developers have live service games in the works right now that are really starting to question if they should proceed or not. Yeah, because probably a lot. Yeah, I would imagine a lot. Yeah, I would imagine a lot too.
Brandon Hurles:Just because, I think, just because of 2020 and COVID, I think because a lot of people picked up consoles because people were home, they had more time to play this stuff, so the user base was just significantly higher and they saw that they were like, whoa, look at all these people who are playing Fortnite and all these other games that we got. We got to take advantage of this and they're stuck there. It seems like PlayStation developers, even Xbox developers at the time, are always like four years behind as far as the trends Plus game development takes forever.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, game development takes forever. That's fair, but it's like they are so behind. That's why you don't chase trends to begin with that.
ThunderStache Gaming:That is why that's yeah. That's why you just try and be creative and make your make your own trend, instead of trying to.
Andre GameXplain:You know, copy formulas kind of to that point. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, you're good. I was just gonna mention how nintendo kind of did their own live service game, but in a very nintendo way, with f099. Yep, you know, and that you know. Obviously that game is no fortnight, it's not blowing up like that, but I think it's doing well for what it is as a dedicated community. They have been constantly updating it for over a year now. Yeah, it's great, which is again unusual, again unusual for Nintendo. And then you know, and it looks like it does, it looks like a 16-bit game.
Andre GameXplain:You know Nintendo's like we're going to make a live service game, but we're going to do it cheaply and it's going to be awesome and people are going to love it.
Brandon Hurles:And they nailed it you know they did it the right way. Yeah, I mean I where it says you got to play an online multiplayer game. So I always choose that as my game, and oftentimes each week it'll be like an F-Zero thing as well, but I replay it and I'm just like this is such a good idea. I mean even Tetris 99 I thought was excellent. Obviously, the Mario game. That got canceled, fortunately.
ThunderStache Gaming:Well, hey, it might be back right, Because we got the 40th this year that's true nice I would like him to.
Mark Trobough:I thought it was great, but I guess I just wanted to say I was interested in your thoughts because I happen to be watching a video today on YouTube. I was driving it was a asthma gold video reacting to another video about talking about you know how live services are the bane. Like live services alone are like the problem. But the idea was brought up that it's not necessarily the live service that's the problem, but a lot of these games that fail they're just bad. Even if they were single player games, they're just bad games Like that's the problem. Like Fortnite, as much as I don't care for the game, it's not succeeding because it's a live service game. It's not. It's not succeeding because the live service game, it's just a good game that so happens to be a live service game. Yeah, I know, like a lot of these games seem to fail, whether it's uh, uh, sorry, I had to pull it for a second.
Mark Trobough:I really thought it was a babylon's fall or concord, like these are. They didn't fail because of the live service model, which obviously plays a role into it, but it's just. They're just bad games at their core.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, no, I agree with that. Well, I mean, we gotta bring up the big winner when it comes to this Suicide Squad.
Mark Trobough:Yeah. It didn't fail because of the live service. It's just a bad game.
ThunderStache Gaming:Yeah, well, I think they're developing games with the live service model front of mind instead of actual good creative ideas to make a good game. So that's what happens when you think about money first, that it shouldn't be about money first, like when you sit down to create a video game. You shouldn't be sitting down saying, all right, how can we get the most money out of the consumer it? It usually doesn't work that way. If you make a really good game, the money will follow.
Brandon Hurles:What I think is like how many of these do you have to do bad before you get one good? Because the last one I think that did, besides Marvel Rivals, which is doing very, very crazy numbers, absurd numbers, helldivers 2 for PlayStation. So how many failed attempts do you have to have for one to be successful and be okay and make your money? Because to me it's like if you fail a five and you get one that's successful, that's not enough.
Andre GameXplain:Probably not. Yeah, no, I mean, you're right, I mean I think it's a complicated issue, I think. But yeah, I mean, I think ultimately, you know, there's nothing inherent about the live service model that is keeping people away from these games. They just often are bad. But I think also, though, there is an element of it where you have to reach a critical mass for these games for it to make any kind of financial sense, and most of them aren't able to. But I think it is a very competitive space where there isn't that much room for all these games to survive, to exist together, you know, and of course, fortnite's a big one and that's sucking up a lot of space, and not every game can be fortnite, especially with so much fortnite success being on. You know, not obviously nothing to take away, anything away from it, but a lot of what fortnite is known for is bringing together all these other ips and how many times can you do that?
Andre GameXplain:right, you know, yeah, dead by daylight's done that for the horror space, but there's only so many unique ways in which you can do that and, uh, I think it becomes even more difficult.
Brandon Hurles:You know, looking at from that angle, as more successful ones do come along, which isn't many like add in hell, divers 2 and marvel rivals. There I feel like the less it can be successful because you've already got people sucked up for those type of games. That's just how I feel about it.
ThunderStache Gaming:I look at the time too, the time investment, how much time?
Brandon Hurles:do you?
ThunderStache Gaming:have to play these live service games.
Brandon Hurles:You've got to dedicate time. They've got daily goals that you've got to do and all that kind of stuff.
ThunderStache Gaming:You might have other games you want to play, like single player games, and if you're if you have like more than one live service game, you're not going to have time to do that. You're going to do the other things in life that you need to do and that you should probably be prioritizing Exactly.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, yeah, for sure, I mean it's, it's, it's an interesting and I think you know it's gonna be interesting to see what playstation does, kind of moving forward, because I think concord really flipped the script for them I feel like you had 200 million dollars on that.
Mark Trobough:Yeah, it's a lot of money, crazy yeah, I've seen a lot of different numbers. A lot of people have to be fired. That's a lot of money the whole thing.
Andre GameXplain:It was around for a week or something before the shutdown. That was quick. That's absurd to me, the fact that those numbers must have been god-awful for them, not even to give it a chance at redeeming itself.
ThunderStache Gaming:I don't know about you guys.
ThunderStache Gaming:But when I saw it same with Suicide Squad, when I saw the trailer both of these games when I saw the trailer yeah, both of these games I said to my girl I'm like I guarantee you this game is going to fail so bad it's going to flop. You can just see it. It was obvious. And even with Concord, like right, remember seeing that first part of the trailer? Right, yeah, I was like, oh, this looks interesting. You know, it's Guardians of the Galaxy, vibes a little bit. And then you see, oh, it's a live service game. Instantly, I'm not interested. This is not what I want.
Brandon Hurles:I feel like with that one too, the weird thing was they were really wanting you to care about the story of these characters With that trailer. Yeah, they were really wanting you to care For a live service game. People do not care. It's like, uh, with call of duty games, I mean, I know people they don't ever touch. They don't touch the campaign.
Andre GameXplain:Yep, you know, yeah, so yeah, I remember I had a friend that used to argue that. You know, maybe he's right, I have no idea, I never looked into it but he used to argue that people bought call of duty mostly for a single player. I'm like, I'm pretty sure they don, I'm pretty sure most people are buying it for the multiplayer and I'm sure there are some that are playing it only for single, but I think they're I love the campaigns but I can tell you everybody I know in my circle of people do not touch the campaign.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, same here.
ThunderStache Gaming:I love the campaign. I played Black Ops 6 campaign, reviewed it, absolutely loved it. But I played it because it's on game pass and I have game pass right. I wouldn't. I would not buy that for $70 just to play the campaign. I would wait till it's, you know, $20 years down the road and play it yeah yeah, I'm glad you have to go before.
Mark Trobough:People actually cared about the campaigns in those games yep, for sure.
Brandon Hurles:Yeah, I'm with you, but, uh, we appreciate having you guys on. Thank you so much, thunderstache Andre, for hanging out with us tonight. Um, thanks everybody in the chat for hanging out as well. Uh, of course, we'll be live again next Friday at 8 PM Eastern standard time, and then, uh, for anybody watching this live sorry audio listeners, you're always late to this, but me and Mark will be streaming tomorrow at 8pm Eastern Standard Time as well, playing Warhammer. Right, we're playing Warhammer. Yeah, okay, playing Warhammer Space Marine 2. So everybody is welcome to a bunch of these streams that we're doing. We're doing community stream stuff that anybody can play and stuff. I've been trying to do that as much as.