Mario Kart World Enough To Drive Switch 2 Sales?

Sometimes, it feels like Nintendo is really milking their franchises for all their worth…


…and sometimes the involvement of a cow is more
literal than metaphorical, thankfully

With gamers still reeling from the Switch 2 reveal, and Nintendo doing their Treehouse Livestream showcasing some of the new software, a lot of sentiments that are the loudest and clearest clogged up the comments section and made people’s opinions abundantly clear.


…something something customer always
right?

A perspective I was guessing would be one of the most commanding after I read about the price following the reveal yesterday, and I can understand why. Living ain’t cheap, and affording anything that isn’t essential right now is a challenging prospect. The US usually lucks out with cheaper prices (relatively speaking) with electronics compared to some other unlucky territories due to regulations, and the $450 USD price tag for the launch day of the Switch 2 on June 5th is still a hard pill to swallow for most, not to mention the reality of the games being more expensive as well, with Donkey Kong Bananza being priced at $69.99 and Mario Kart World at $79.99, respectively.


Truly prophetic words from a woman
ahead of her time

Not that anyone with half a brain didn’t see this coming, especially with global economics being impacted with US tariffs involving materials utilized in hardware components, thus making electronics having prices that have soared sky high recently, and it is not hard for one to imagine Nintendo’s new console was bound to be a pricier affair right from the start. With all things considered, I’m guessing the Switch 2 is barely being sold at a profit, which is slightly off baseline for Nintendo, generally opting for weaker hardware overall for a better profit margin, but they likely knew where they would be standing with the ever increasing prices for hardware specs and the realities of costly materials needed for the hardware production to follow suit. The big N usually has a software ace up their sleeve, but one of the only big titles that will be available on launch day will be Mario Kart World, which admittedly, looks great from early gameplay footage, but does leave that all important question hanging in the air…


Is Mario Kart World enough to drive sales?

I think this is a moment where you have one of those weird forgone conclusions. A lot of people clearly want the Switch 2 to be cheaper, but that was likely to be true no matter what the price point could have been. While I agree that Mario Kart World doesn’t necessarily come off as a bombshell of a launch title per say (real earth shattering stuff, I mean) , based on tried and true gameplay of a tested and vetted series with historical sales data to prove what a power house it is, the series is absolutely a system seller, awesome new open world approach involved or not. The price for the system isn’t going to be a problem for diehards when preorders go up April 9th, and if history repeats itself as I predict it will, the system is likely to be sold out and hard to find for the remainder of the year if trends hold true, which means Nintendo is playing their cards just right.


Seen here: the playing card umbrella Nintendo
will undoubtedly use to shield themselves from all
the money raining down upon them when the Switch
2 launches

The irony for me definitely remains intact that as it stands currently, I have neither the time nor money to really invest in gaming as a hobby on a regular basis, so footage involving a new Nintendo console almost just acts as a quaint distraction. It does feel a bit queer to me that where once upon a time I was always a day one kind of guy, no matter what was going on, I’ve been regulated to the sidelines for the last couple of console launches (PS5 and Series X), and it doesn’t look to be much different with the Switch 2. Tech and video game hobbiysm definitely seems to be a sub-culture ruled by the D.I.N.Ks of the world currently, and they will celebrate mightily come June 5th.

~Pashford

Bait and Switch (2)

There is truth in advertising, they say.


There can also be some underhanded, limp dick
cryptic ass bullshit involved in advertising, as well

Not so much so was the case with Nintendo’s reveal of the Switch 2 earlier today, as they went on at lengths about their new console…and now that Nintendo has done their first in-depth look at the Switch 2, and featured a huge information blow out involving their next console in all of it’s tantalizing glory, I delightfully take a satisfying moment in providing a huge breakdown of just what Nintendo showcased about the Switch 2, in all of it’s delightful glory.

…is what I’d love to be saying. Very unfortunately, due to how my schedule ended up playing out today, I have nearly no time to do any kind of deep dive whatsoever on what Nintendo did showcase today about their next console, the Switch 2, but I can mention a couple of quick details considering the magnitude level of news the event represents.

The two big details, being release date and price, are June 5th respectively, and the price tag, which interestingly enough, was not even showcased during the reveal itself but only after the fact, is looking to be about $450 USD, which I think ended up being the mid point sweet spot between the optimistic low-ballers and the cynical doubters of what the price point of the console was likely to be. Which, to that point, I think Nintendo probably opted not to advertise front and center what the price point would be, due to the number not exactly screaming “good value” within the earshot to the casual audience, while maintaining a relatively consistent historical precedent of Nintendo holding firm on not selling consoles at a major loss. This is all the while dealing with the fallout of very unfortunate but seriously relevant real world economic issues that many tech companies will be facing the rambunctiously negative ramifications of the foreseeable future, with no one who has any real idea of just how positively likely that financial situation will buff out in an agreeable way down the road.


Anyone? Bueller?

One more damning aspect of the whole package is that Nintendo didn’t even flash a quick blurb of official tech specs during the reveal, and I read after the fact they didn’t want to go with the name “Super Nintendo Switch”, so as to not draw attention to the hardware standard involved. I think combined with what could be considered an underwhelming showing of new first party Nintendo titles from the get go, with only Mario Kart World (more of an open world Forza: Horizon take on the MK formula) and Donkey Kong Bonanza (think Red Faction meets Super Mario Odyssey) having substantial footage, and you get kind of a whelmed sense of delivery about the whole thing, albeit one with a glimmer of potential energy about it.

The Joycons being able to be utilized as if a mouse for a keyboard certainly opens up the door of awesome port ideas for not just FPS games, but PC titles in general, and presents excellent opportunity for game design ideas across the board, especially with the amount of third party support Nintendo already has on board in releasing software for their console.

While perhaps not one of the most face-meltingly awesome hardware reveal in Nintendo’s history certainly an interesting one I’m looking forward to exploring in the coming days.

~Pashford

Smash Bros. Creator Moves Finger, Makes Headlines

Another day, another dollar


Always money in the Kirby stand *makes
clicking noise with mouth*

Sleep is important, apparently, and a fact I’m surprised I so lamentably dismiss as a relevant notion on a regular basis. With that in mind, I peeled myself off of my bed with extraordinary prejudice just to get myself geared up to squeeze out the most minor of updates before being reclaimed by the sandman himself. Within that notion, I saw gamers absolutely losing their biscuits over a seemingly innocuous social media post earlier today, and I could do nothing but chuckle as the gears of the online machine started to inevitably move thusly. This instance, when viewed solely in a vacuum, would usually be nothing of note, but one that assessed in a much more macro sense, carries exciting implications.

I speak of course of this tweet, that Smash Bros. creator and beloved father of Kirby sent out earlier tonight in regards to an upcoming Nintendo Direct.


Smash Bros. for the Switch 2 launch CONFIMED?!?

I typed out that caption of course with nothing short of the loudest sigh imaginable shaking my head, as I merely echo the ridiculous sentiments of overly eager gossipers in the online spaces, because Smash Bros. fans are in-fucking-sane individuals who, based on their maniacal online machinations, would lead me to believe they may huff gasoline every single time before posting online, so consider your sources of information.

While I have no doubts Masahiro Sakurai will somehow be involved with the Nintendo Direct that will shed light on some of Ninty’s upcoming projects, the great cynic in me mostly certainly has extreme reservations in justifiably believing the next Smash Bros. game is involved. Sakurai, as previously mentioned, is also the creator of the Kirby series, which makes regular rounds on what seems like a yearly basis as a breadwinner for Nintendo, and most certainly a likely candidate to be apart of the reveal. Others were quick to latch onto the notion that the rumors involving a Kid-Icarus remaster was in the cards, and other obtuse jokers of the most rhetorical variety are crossing their fingers for a follow up to the puzzle action title Meteos 2. The man does seem to have quite a creative touch when approaching any project, so for him to perhaps step away from the Smash series after a quarter century of working on it to act as a mere consultant on the next game, while having the freedom to create a new IP of his own liking, would be a delightful enough prospect for me.

Whatever Sakurai’s involvement with the upcoming Nintendo direct, I’m sure fans will be in for a treat for the upcoming previews of the Big N’s projects.

~Pashford

Raw Dogging the Rough Cut

This photo captures the essence of self-deprecation
involving my sales pitch of this post, but I promise
you the vibes are at least twice as funny and four
times less shitty in execution

In reference to my visual sarcastic aside above, I kept putting off a similarly slapdash attempt at a return to proper writing (about video games) for arbitrary reasons, though I imagine unless I had been kidnapped by a traveling dance theater to perform for them due to their outlandish threats involving being sent to actual hell before I die, outside of that obviously reasonably likely scenario, just about any other reason for a mood being spoiled thus halting the creative process would come off as arbitrary.


Like when family get togethers really spoil the holidays,
for example.

The joke would be on that ill-fated group of stylishly groovy kidnappers regardless, as December does represent a kind of personal hell for me every year, though I refuse to elaborate within any serious context as to why. I do attempt to keep this first and foremost about gaming after all, and the reasons I reference fall far outside the boundaries of the virtual. Now that it is almost February, and I’m in a much better place overall, I will eschew the notion of waiting for my first piece of writing, “the return” if you will, to be some grandiose affair or some amazingly well thought out narrative or brilliant deconstruction of the industry or some title I’ve recently beaten. I’m just going to casually riff about games in general for a bit, if that’s okay.


Just the average Pash like creative noodling for
your idle entertainment, just like old times

I recently gifted myself an Xbox Series X for X-mas, not that I even care about celebrating the event in any serious way, but I’ve been attempting to curtail my more Grinchly demeanor in many small, celebratory fashions to attempt to hold back the cynical tide that washes over me. In a twist of unintentional spiteful reinforcement of my complete apathy towards Christmas itself, I did in fact not even open the damn thing on the day of, and even waited till the New Year to do anything with it. While I have been thoroughly enjoying my experience with said system, as I have always been an advocate of any major platform within the realm as someone who identifies as platform agnostic, the series X is by and far the least substantial jump from one generation to another I have ever seen. It makes sense on some level, as why fix what’s not broken, as the UI for the Xbox family has always been mostly functional, so keep the ecosystem similar, right?

Fair enough, though I do think this among many factors indicative we, as a collective, are starting to come to a head here in terms of sheer innovation for consoles moving forward, and I’m not just picking on Microsoft here. Having seen the PS5 UI in action, and at least glimpsing the very “same-ish” nature that the Switch 2 is bringing to the table, I think the day of the truly new and the innovative, in terms of pure individualized ingenuity, is likely behind us at this point, for many reasons I think is worthy of a much longer winded, well constructed post on the matter, so I’ll save elaborating on that thought for another time.


An example of a well constructed post

The game I chose to be my “launch title” was Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and truth be told, while the experience has been fun, I’m kind of shocked that this console is already four years into it’s lifespan and this is the supposed peak that we’ve hit with it thus far. Like, yes, I realize it runs at a high frame rate while stable, with hi-res textures and a shit ton of enemies on screen moving around, but the fact that it comes off as kind of a derivative Gears of War third person action romp comes off as a little underwhelming. Much like the Series X; yes, its fun and I’m enjoying myself quite a bit, but I certainly wouldn’t advocate to anyone to rush out and drop several hundred dollars on picking up the new Xbox offering or upgrading their PC just to enjoy this. Both feel like warm greetings to someone who hasn’t just arrived, but is “already there”, if that makes any sense. I know any stans of either MS or 40k are probably just vomiting blood at this point due to my perceived heresy in having reserved expectations about consumer products I interact with instead of trying to be the next big shill in the content creator space, but I didn’t start writing about games to blow smoke up the ass of either developers or fandoms while giving them a reach around with every prevailing thought I have regarding their favorite hobby/industry of choice.


I did not get into this line of work cause
I enjoy gargling wieners mind you

However, one is lucky enough once in a great while to enjoy a come hither experience that runs parallel to a gratifying sexual release, which is where my mention of downloading the Castlevania: Dominus Collection comes in. This would in fact be a double dip, but this is one media allegiance I don’t mind getting undressed for, as we normally have no problem having quite the sexy time together. That is of course, when Konami isn’t being a bunch of shit heels cause they’re too busy putting out low-grade pachinko machines for horny middle aged Japanese business men, and doesn’t leave me high and dry by sitting around with their thumbs up their stubborn asses for a better part of a decade doing absolutely fuck all while Nintendo and Netflix do all the heavy lifting in reminding people how awesome Castlevania is.


So awesome

Good thing I did download it, too, as Warhammer took an astonishing 11 hours to install on day one, and I desperately wanted to actually use my Series X for something on January 1st aside from using it as one of the most gloriously excessive paperweights of all time. Since I had recently just finished Portrait of Ruin on the Switch, and I had not touched Order of Ecclesia since it’s days on the DS, the choice was obvious (sorry Dawn of Sorrow). Such a damn good game that helped to set the ground work for what would become it’s marvelous spiritual successor Bloodstained. If nothing else, I praise OoE for it’s mindful editorialization, as the pacing is par excellence. I mean, everything is about as Castlevania-ey as it gets, so the game is a complete package, which goes on to help further showcase the the mind numbing, head scratching direction Konami would travel forward with after a successful series of three top notch titles on the DS, by going the Lord of Shadows route immediately following, soon after diverting into complete obscurity for the series in total.


Seen here: Konami helping to lay the ground work for
the eventual shift into focusing on their pachinko machine
machinations

Game pass has been sorely missed, and for all of the very reasons I love it, I also ironically can’t really utilize it. The value involving the content available with the sheer number of titles is astronomical, and definitely helps to continue to set the tone for what most platforms should have moving forward, but my problem is time, not access. To wit: I happily picked up Rare Replay once again after so long away, to continue my long and arduous trek to get the end all be all equivalent of a “soft” 100% of the title by finally acquiring the achievement “Stamper Brothers Forever”, which is essentially mastering like, 30 games. I double checked, and come this August, it will have been a decade since I started this insane quest, and I do not plan to slow down any time soon. Though, referencing my point about time being my problem, not access, outside of the last couple years where I was in a purgatory of sorts in a myriad of ways that prevented me from having an Xbox full stop, time is not on my side when considering the excessive standards, beefier offerings and ridiculously overstuffed with content that modern day gaming represents.


Surely, we must stop and ponder what might be
considered too much of a good thing?

I have many more thoughts to share, and even ones mentioned here deserve far grander elaborations, but this is my first post in months, so I’m going to give myself a Pash on the back and let this small victory breath for a moment while I muse what and or how I may continue to write with consistency in the near future.

Till next we meet…


~Pashford

Spilled Tea: Switch 2, Warhammer, and AI…

…Oh my!

The Principle of Credulity is a philosophical axiom by Thomas Reid that suggest we have “a disposition to confide in the veracity of others, and believe what they tell us”.


Everyday on the internet leads me to believe this is very true

Today is all about about gossip and rumor here on ATE , as there seems to be quite an awful lot of it swirling around gaming news sources as of late, so what the hell? Let’s spill some tea. Before we begin, I just wanted to mention that throughout my day, I always have a hundred little conversations with myself that I think “hey, this would make an interesting aside for one of my ATE articles”. I think that share is possibly one of the first times I actually remembered to retain said kind of conversation, and we are all technically worse off for it. Not because the share was inane or valueless, mind you, but as a reminder of all the times I was unable to remember the rest of them. I really got to start carrying around a tape recorder ala Coop from Twin Peaks to record my thoughts, as every time you read a write up, it is only one of a very large number of permutations we both could have delighted in, had things just turned out differently.


Strange how it all works out

With multiversal shenanigans now in play as a relevant topic of interest, we shift our focus to a peculiar happening that timeextension brought to revelatory light, with a delightful little article going in-depth about how some Capcom staff were initially resistant to the whole idea of crossover fighters involving the Street Fighter crew from very early on. Apparently, due to the lack of sales of X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes in Japan, many at Capcom were silently hoping X-Men vs Street Fighter would die a quiet, quick death. This gave the team a lot of wiggle room to over deliver when the time came, and the break out success of the title would go on to eventually spawn the Marvel vs Capcom series, which has stood the test of popular time, as evidenced by the recent release of Marvel vs Capcom: Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics release.


As I always say: set lower expectations and then over deliver

Continuing on with the theme of what is old is new again, it looks as if Nintendo’s lawyer have finally caught wind of Palworld, an open-world multiplayer survival game, which has designs reminiscent of the big N’s own critically acclaimed Pokémon series, and are ready to mount a legal battle over copyright infringement claims. I’m surprised Nintendo’s legal ninjas took so much time getting around to this one, as this sucker has been making lots of noise since earlier this year, and is even an official release on multiple platforms, and not even a fan made dealie. Ultimately, time will tell if Nintendo wins out with the legal disputes involving the developers of the game Pocketpair, but Nintendo has historically been quite grumpy about this kind of thing for a long time now, and regularly geared towards legal actions in the course of their own history. They even took Blockbuster to task for copyright infringement over their manuals for Christ’s sake. I might love their games, but the Pokémon company has had a stick up their ass over petty frivolities for awhile now, so I hope this just blows up in their face.


How Chinpokomon flew under the radar all these years I
will never know

Staying on the topic of Nintendo, potential images of the follow up to the Switch have “leaked”, according to a number of rampant shares on the internet, which I surmised were all pulled from the same dodgy ass source on the internet that no one bothered to check the legitimacy of….or at least I thought as much, and then I read a piece from Eurogamer commenting on the whole affair. The article mentions how the models do seem to correspond with data that has leaked in the past about Nintendo’s next console, but they did come from a 3D modeler’s post on a Chinese social media website, who as since deleted the posts. Like most leaks: dubious at best, and what took someone possibly two hours to make is now going to be discussed for two weeks with endless pissing competitions involving the veracity of the claims themselves. No news from Nintendo on the matter (big surprise).


Everyone knows the Switch 2 is just going to be 16 Gamecubes
duct-taped together, what are we even speculating for?

In another moment of interesting hearsay, IGN reported about a bizarre happening involving recently released shooter 40,000: Space Marine 2, in a story that allegedly has the CEO of Saber, Matthew Karch, commenting on a Youtube video by user Asmongold about the quality of the title. The gist of the posit which was *allegedly* Karch, has the CEO going on about other devs “imposing morals on gamers”, reinforcing games should be about the design itself and not beating the brow of gamers with some kind of overt messaging muddying the waters. Putting aside for a second just how broad of a declaration that is to even confront, the comment hasn’t even been officially verified as the actual CEO, and a comment which could potentially be some kind of windup from a rando impersonating him, trying to create a fuss in the comments section on a Youtube video in a silly attempt at fanning the flames in the name of some obtuse culture war nonsense. I guess, regardless of whether or not it is actually the CEO of the company hanging out in a Youtube comment section (why would he?) giving praise to their own game (why wouldn’t they?), a good game is a good game regardless of messaging. Don’t worry about what other people are playing, do what you want.


To quote a modern day prophet

And finally, to wrap our daily tea spilling as we are nearing an empty pot, EA decided to remind people why they were voted worst company in the US two years in a row, by deciding to make generative AI as their main talking point in a recent investors day presentation, much to the surprise of no one who is use to EA’s bullshit. They went on to assure onlookers that AI is not a buzzword, and is a core element at the heart of their game development strategy. Read the room guys: with so many negative news stories coming out weekly about foot in mouth comments involving AI, to other very real impacts the practice of using AI has had on workers within the industry, you’d think EA would avoid saying the quiet part out-loud and just keep the fuck quiet about their internal machinations, just to save some face in the name of good PR alone.


A picture of EA’s new PR manager

Cheers for joining me in spilling some tea. Until our next party, then…

~Pashford