 Hey everyone, welcome back to Prime News. I am your host, Nathaniel Rumpful-Jance. We have six really big stories here. We even have a little bit of Xbox and news for PlayStation 5 as well, a major game getting a release date. Xbox potentially having some problems with their acquisition of Activision Blizzard. That could obviously impact the entire industry. But more than that, we have a bunch of updates and news stories for Nintendo. Some news on Splatoon 3. We got some stuff as well on, huh? Nintendo Switch is declining sales. Nintendo's excuse for those declining sales and further discussions on some of that stuff as well. We also had to consider a new event happening by Ubisoft and yes, a major game is now free to play right this moment on Nintendo Switch. So we have a lot to talk about today. Before we get into that news, I will remind you that we are actually on our road to 80,000 subscribers. And when we hit 80,000 subscribers, we are getting a brand new giveaway for a replica Breath of the Wild Master Sword. It's actually a steel blade master sword. So it could do some damage with it, I suppose. We also have a replica Hylian Shield and Deku Shield were given away. So three different winners. But again, the giveaway doesn't begin until we get to 80,000 subscribers. So if you really like this news, I would appreciate if you leave a comment, drop a like and subscribe to the channel. All right, let's get into our first story. You guys remember yesterday, we did a video talking about Nintendo of America removing the Nintendo Switch OLED trailer. And last year when they removed the light trailer and led to the announcement of the Switch OLED. And yeah, yesterday they removed the Switch OLED trailer and it made a lot of us feel like, hey, we're about to get an announcement of the new Switch hardware. And we did, we got that announcement today, except the announcement we got wasn't something that many were expecting. Some of us thought, hey, maybe it would just be an OLED Switch Lite model or something like that. It's not even that. It's technically a new Switch. It is a Splatoon 3 Nintendo Switch OLED model. A special edition, if you were. I think they believe, the official name is Nintendo Switch OLED Splatoon 3 Edition. And that wasn't all they had actually technically announced. Yeah, you're seeing the footage of it right now in our little trailer. They also announced a new pro controller and a little new carrying case for Switch as well. All the end around Splatoon 3, all of this stuff drops on August 26th. Then you might go, Nate, the game doesn't come out till September. Yeah, the game's not included as per Nintendo tradition when they make these special edition switches. The game's not actually part of the bundle. So, hey, it's really, really cool. And honestly, it's very, very Nintendo-esque of Nintendo. It also feels weird that this is what we're getting considering our next story. And that story is that Nintendo saw a 33% decline in Switch sales, specifically in Japan. And a spokesperson for Nintendo talked about this with the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. And they said it's due to a shortage of chip materials and they were having an impact on Nintendo's production line. This period from April through June was about a 10% decline compared to 2020. And this is just supposed to be a 10% decline in materials, but a 33% decline in sales would also sort of suggest that there's a 23% less interest in sales during this period than the year before. So it's really more of like a 10% drop off, at least according to the Nintendo's numbers. And Nintendo is also supposedly having issues procuring parts for Bluetooth wireless communication components, which is used in controllers and the main units, as well as analog chips for controlling currents. There are currently negotiations underway to secure the parts required, but Nintendo spokesperson said the outlook is uncertain. The Japanese companies currently competing for parts against other game companies like Sony, which is also experiencing supply chain disruptions. Then there are other tech companies, smartphones and all of that. They were obviously aiming to sell 21 million units in the current fiscal year, but those numbers haven't been adjusted with these sales data at this point. So I find this to be obviously interesting for, a few reasons. Well, we all know Nintendo spent a lot of money to stockpile raw materials, but here's the thing. Stockpiling raw materials is cool, and it sounds like it should solve all this. You could have a warehouse full of 17,000 pounds of gold that you might need to do transistors and wire traces in a main board, or you might have the silicone needed to, you know, get the boards printed in, I don't know, your analog sticks made and all that. You might have all of the raw materials in the world, but if you don't have anywhere to send the raw materials to actually be made into components, it doesn't really matter. So people were saying that, you know, maybe this is why they were stockpiling raw materials, but that's not the problem. The problem is they can't get companies to make the components for them. So the issue isn't the raw materials. The issue is all these companies are at max volume on their production lines, and they're spread across multiple mediums. And as I said, Nintendo is in negotiations to, you know, procure more production lines. The problem is that's a really, really damn expensive, and is Nintendo gonna commit to that when Switch was already on the downturn in sales, at least compared to three years ago? We were definitely on the back half of Switch's life. So it's a really interesting position Nintendo finds themselves in. By the way, they're still in a position of power. They're still selling more units than everybody else out there, but Nintendo doesn't want to get to the holiday season and suddenly they can't get enough Switches out there to meet their man for Pokemon and stuff like that. They obviously want to make sure they stay on top of that. Plus Petun three's coming out. Yeah, we just talked about the special edition Switch they have coming. That's cool, but more than that, Petun three's gonna blow up in Japan like it does the last two times. They had Petun, Petun two, both of those exploded in Japan. I'm sure they're projecting Petun three will as well. Not having enough Switches for that in Japan would be a big problem. Look, there's no easy solution here because the only way to really solve the problem is to do what Microsoft did and that is just throw a piss load of money at the problem and just buy up as many manufacturing lines as you can. That is the only solution Nintendo has right now until new factories open up. But yeah, Nintendo has the raw materials. That's not the problem. It's procuring the companies to actually turn those materials into parts and components. So yeah, it's gonna be a struggle. Then again, Switch is probably still gonna be more readily available than the PlayStation 5. So there is that as well. This next story is the latest wrinkle in Microsoft's bid of $69 billion USD to purchase Activision Blizzard. Now, originally it was going through the FTC and a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo here in the United States to get approval of the acquisition not being a monopoly and thus the FTC saying, yeah, this is a fair acquisition. And while there was some opposition within the FTC it seems to mostly have died out and it does look like Microsoft is going to get FTC approval on the purchase. Now the purchase isn't supposed to go through till 2023. Anyway, so we're still six, seven, eight, nine months away before we're even gonna have this purchase finalized. However, now that it seems to have made it through the United States system there are other governments that are stepping in to be like, wait a second, we wanna double check something here. So yeah, maybe you got through the US and it's not considered a monopoly but the UK government wants to make sure that this is actually a good deal for consumers. This is obviously an interesting point because their efforts are gonna be focused on are you making everything exclusive? Is this actually good for the employees that work there? Is this gonna be good for the end user? And that is the UK's legalese essentially to try to stop this deal potentially. That being said, they're just looking into it and Microsoft has responded and said, hey, we will comply and give you all the documents and all the information and all the interviews and everything just be a massive open book and we'll just give you whatever information you need to see what our plans are, what we are going to do with them, how the company structure is going to be. Microsoft's been very forward about this already because they had to be with the FTC but the UK just wants to take another look at it and probe it and just make sure absolutely that this isn't going to be a raw deal for consumers. UK does believe in protecting consumer rights in many different categories. So it's not too shocking, they're probing but probing by the way doesn't mean the UK government's attempting to stop the sale. They're basically dotting their eyes, crossing their T's and double checking what the FTC looked at as well just to make sure that this is all legit and all their ducks are in a row. If I had to guess, this sale is absolutely going through and I don't think there's gonna be much problems with them moving forward. I think this is just some minor legalese, doesn't really matter since the sale isn't till 2023 anyways. Next up, Ubisoft has announced two events. One of them is actually tomorrow. It is a Skull and Bones Spotlight. I think they're calling it an Ubi Forward Spotlight Skull and Bones Edition or I have no idea the exact terminology. It's happening at 1 p.m. central time tomorrow. There is a potential that I end up live streaming that. It's in a precarious time slot for me just because of when my children get out of their summer school at 12 30 but it's whatever, I can make it work. So we might be live streaming that event tomorrow. If not, oh well. I don't think this is coming this much anyways but I do think that the game looked pretty neat. The last time we saw it many years ago, I would prefer if we were getting like a Beyond Good and Evil 2 spotlight but I mean that game is probably in development hell. That being said, Ubisoft wasn't done there. They also announced an Ubi Forward and Ubisoft Forward. For those that don't know, their forward event is basically their Nintendo Direct, their state of play, their sort of event to reveal news and this is gonna be happening on September 10th at 2 p.m. central time. I definitely are gonna be live reacting to that one. There should be Sparks of Hope stuff in there since Sparks of Hope isn't gonna be out yet and that's a day after Splatoon 3 comes out, I believe, as well so we have a lot to think about and worry about there. Could be a number of announcements, could be see some Assassin's Creed, could see, I don't know, Ubisoft has so many IPs. I'm just really looking forward to see what's gonna be next. So we're gonna do Rainbow Six. Look, again, Ubisoft has a lot of stuff they could talk about. I don't know what it's gonna be. I don't know how many of that stuff is coming to Switch but we will be live watching it together and hopefully it's some good stuff. Our next story is an update on a story we did yesterday for Mario Plus Rabbids, Sparks of Hope. So we talked about Mario Plus Rabbids, Sparks of Hope and how that game is going to be absolutely free to play in the UK. Well, now it's actually free to play right this second in North America and will be available all the way through the 12th. You definitely can beat the game in that time period. So I'm just pointing this out because it wasn't announced at the same time as the European one. So I don't know why they didn't just drop the announcement at the same time, but hey, there you go. It is available right now. Our last story deals with God of War Ragnarok for the PlayStation 5. I know people have been wondering, what's up with this game? It wasn't at the state of play. What's going on? And you know, we have a release date. So let's start with the good news. We have a release date. It is releasing on November 9th and I believe pre-orders go up on July 14th or 15th. Either way, the pre-orders go up next week. So that's good news. That's the good news. What's interesting is that they revealed this release date at the end of a really tiny CGI trailer. Keep in mind, we have seen very, very little of God of War Ragnarok. Now I suspect between now and November, they're gonna have some sort of state of play or some sort of God of War event where they're gonna actually do time and show us the game because, again, we basically have not really seen much of it, but still it's good to have an update on it. I find it interesting that they chose to throw this out there right now. It's also kind of weird because they dropped the news basically at the same time that Nintendo dropped the Splatoon 3 news. It's like everyone's just dropping news at the same time. For Microsoft, the news was the probe on their acquisition, which might not be a positive news, but at least for Microsoft. But then you had the Splatoon 3 Switch OLED Bundle, Switch OLED Edition versus God of War Ragnarok news just like within seconds of each other, dropping on the internet. So I don't know, competing for announcements maybe. Maybe SOTY wants to say, hey, don't forget about us because no one, frankly, has been really talking a lot about PlayStation 5. In fact, a lot of the stories I've seen from other YouTube channels seem to be a little bit negative over some Sony stuff. So maybe they wanted to get some positive press out there. I think using a little tiny CGI trailer, in my opinion, not the best way to go for a game that's supposedly still coming out this year. According to their new release date. But hey, you know what? I think the game's gonna end up being fine. I thought the 2018 God of War was pretty good, and I think that this is gonna end up being pretty similar to that, end up being really, really good. And maybe the most gorgeous looking God of War game to date, but we'll have to wait and see on that. So as I was about to edit this video, a bonus bit came in, and I wanted to add this story because it sort of is a big deal. I don't want people to think that I know anything. I'm telling you right now, I have no idea what Nintendo Switch is, Nintendo Switch. Nintendo is doing with a new model of Switch. I have no idea what they're doing with their games. I don't work at Nintendo. I have no sources at Nintendo. But what we have is some news that went breaking today after the announcement of the Splatoon 3 OLED model. And this news actually just keeps Switch Pro right there in the conversation. That's because the Splatoon 3 OLED model was actually announced by a moderator and head admin on a very popular Chinese forum yesterday. He told us not only was that what was gonna be announced today, he told us the exact time the trailers were gonna drop and that's exactly what happened. So let's get into the story. So this is all discovered over on Reset Era and FamiBoards and obviously made it onto gaming leaks and whatever, Reddit. No one can know for sure if this stuff is legit or not. What we do know is there's a trackable history. So there's two people involved with this story from this Chinese forum. They just kind of use fun little usernames for them because translations are what they are. So they're just kind of using the whole uncle one, uncle two sort of little tidbits with their usernames because this kind of sounds like one of my uncle who works at Nintendo except one of these people actually claims to work at one of the manufacturing plants of Nintendo Switch units. And that person actually said back in April that Nintendo was going to be releasing a new model of Switch that was a special addition for a game. Didn't say what game or whatever, he just said this back in April and he said this would also mean Nintendo's still going to release a upgraded Switch later this year after that model came out. All right, fine, whatever, that was back in April, not too exact, could have been a prediction and it is what it is. Now one of the head admins and moderators of the forum did say this person is legit and does work at the manufacturing. So you're just taking someone else claiming that the person's legit. But here's the funny thing, that head moderator yesterday is the one that said, by the way, because they were obviously talking and buzzing on this forum after the trailer was taken out on the Nintendo Switch YouTube channel here in North America and he said a few tidbits. One of them agreed with Kit Ellis and one of them was, hey, look, Nintendo only took that trailer down because licensing agreements have come to an end. That's exactly what Kit Ellis, former member of Nintendo Treehouse, said yesterday that today was the expiration date on certain music licenses and stuff like that and that's why Nintendo took that trailer down and maybe the license only applied here in the United States. Anyways, that's also what this moderator said yesterday and you might go, well, maybe they saw Kit Ellis's tweet and they're just sharing information. Fine, you can think that. However, this person also said, by the way, here's what they're announcing and they're announcing tomorrow. They will be announcing a Splatoon 3, well, I'm sorry, the exact verbiage was they will be announcing a Nintendo Switch, OLED Splatoon 3 edition tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern time. That's exactly what they did today and this was, he was saying this yesterday. Now, moving beyond that, he said, by the way, they're also gonna be releasing a new upgraded Switch still later this year. Now, the other member that works, the Uncle Juan that works at manufacturing came back into the thread. I got a like from the admin on this post and essentially said, look, here's the details on this new model that's still going to come later this year. Let's get to these details. It says, he says, this model will have the same Switch logo on the back as it did with the light and OLED models, basically inferring that this is within the same family of systems. This isn't like a next generation Switch. It can play Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak in 60 FPS. It supports existing game cards to the current Switch, again, just showing it's in the same family and they estimated that the new model should be announced in September to release this holiday. Now, look, take this for what it is. This obviously just takes, okay, we were just talking about a potential Switch Pro announcement, let's reset the clock and push it back to September. I know, okay, the last two models were announced in July. Why wait till September? Maybe they're gonna release alongside Pokemon. I don't know. Look, I'm just sharing the information. People like to shoot the messenger. Maybe you don't like my titles or my thumbnails. I'm just sharing the information. You guys do with it what you will, but yeah, at least from this roundabout forum Chinese thing that honestly, the Splatoon 3 announcement just confirmed or I shouldn't say confirmed. Confirms the wrong word. I know that word sometimes used inappropriately even at my channel. It should say it, the Splatoon 3 special edition OLED just added credence to what this person said since they are the only people in the entire world that said that was coming at the exact day, the exact time, the exact thing that it is. So that's a lot of exact information to be like, yeah, the person just took a shot in the dark and guessed at the exact time of the trailer, the exact time of the reveal, said this, and by the way, he said it was gonna release on August 26th as well, well, I mean, to have that kind of exact information is, I just, what? So take from it what you will. That being said, I am Nathan here with Jets from the Nintendo Prime. I wanna thank you guys all for tuning in. Fun little note here at the end. How you guys liking the kind of new visual style we're going with for Prime news? I don't know. I think it's kinda cool, but you know, to everyone else out there, maybe you don't. I'm gonna keep doing my thing here at Nintendo Prime. Catch you guys in that next video.