 we doing everyone? Welcome to the Nintendo Prime podcast season 2 episode 56. I don't know where daddy Jake left. I don't know what he's doing. Maybe he needed a private moment. It is what it is. I guess he'll show up when he shows up. We are going to have quite an interesting show for you guys today. We are jam-packed with eight people. It's going to be pretty crazy. We have a lot of stuff to talk about today. We'll be talking about things such as, hey, looking back at the Wii U and 3DS because, yeah, we finally have an end date for when online support is fully ending, which is basically the death of the system, of course. You guys all know that people will modify. You have private servers and all that, but that's just something that always keeps retroalive for a long time. We're going to be revisiting a debate that originated on Andrus Research Channel and bringing it back to this channel for a round two of is Nintendo Switch 2 coming out in 2024 or 2025 or 2026. Yeah. Yes. Can push it out further or exist and or and we will dabble a little bit in the Powell world towards the end as well. So a lot to get into, but first let's go around the room, introduce everyone and what have you been playing lately? We'll just start right next to me. Mr. Mayor may not keep it clean. Daddy Jake, what are you playing? Let's see. I am planning on playing Powell world. I didn't play anything this week because I was in Florida. Obviously, I called into last week's show on my laptop from my grandma's house. So, yeah, you're looking pretty crisp, my friend. What's that? You're looking pretty crisp. Thank you. I know. By the way, I completely forgot about it. I just remembered today. Oh, no, that's what I was trying to say to you before. I was like, dude, I'm so sorry, we didn't connect. No, it completely slipped my mind as well. I'll make it up to you on Valentine's Day, I promise. For sure. Someone's got it. That's an average thing for co-hosts on a podcast to do, you know, make it up to Valentine's Day. We have a special relationship. It's very special. Just don't bring up that zero touchy subject. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No Mario cover. I'll talk today. All right. We got for the first time ever backlog banter here. They're a podcast show, I believe. And I think it's Tucker and Abram. Mike. Hello. Yes. You saw one Mike in one house. Look at that. Nice to meet you, Abram. I think it's my first time talking to you. Yes. I was lurking in the chat for you guys debate. That's pretty much a prime two. I think we're going to have a little Metroid Alliance here, Andre. Let's go. I have to say, I'm on Tucker's side of the whole debate, but we're on the same Metroid side. And that kind of transcends all I think that is. That's all it really matters. And a donut. I'll be right back. It's always a donut with this guy. Where? He doesn't even share the wealth. I've been waiting for a donut for so long. I do love muff. I love a good muff. We know that a good muff with a donut. All right. Especially the donuts with the holes in them. For starters, I want to introduce to you guys are and what you guys do and then tell us what you've been playing lately. Great. You do the intro. Oh, of course. Yeah. I'm sort of the brains and he's sort of the brawn of the operation over here. Backlog banter. Believe it or not, YouTube channel time of video games, but we try to do things a little bit differently. I know. I know. I know. We'll take it easy here. We'll ease you into it. But we don't do just the kind of easy stuff here on Backlog Banter. We try to do topics and ideas that we don't hear people talk about very much. Recently, we just did a topic about what constitutes a dead game franchise because you always hear people like, oh, this series is dead. That series is dead. Yada, yada, yada. And we're like, well, what really does this mean and what qualifies? And so we broke that down. We talked about what made the Wii such a weird system. So these are like really strange off the beaten path topics. They don't get many views because of that. They're not as clickable as what Bell or Andres do. But our next video probably will be a lot more clickable, which is that we are taking the extreme and trying to predict the entire next generation of Nintendo games. We are going over seven years worth of games every month, every title, every developer. People like to predict one year's worth. Oh, let's head on to it next year. We're doing the entire next system. And we're also not doing it alone. The reason why this will be such a clickable thing is not only is it a pretty interesting topic, but we're also bringing in some outside interference here, including friends of the show, guests of the show, friends on the show right now, friends on the show. Andres, restart and Botox games will all be contributing among some other guests, some other names you might have heard at Nintendo Life and Good Vibes Gaming and those kind of places, which is going to be pretty cool. And that's going to be in about a month. So maybe want people to subscribe and get excited and predict alongside us. I'm glad you brought it up because I totally forgot that I owe you a minute. I'll get it. You told me by the end of the month. I got to actually add it to my board. So I think my fear about this is right. I know I'm going to say something that someone else is going to say. Yeah. But I also want to edit it. I'm trying to not just skip or anything. See, that's why you don't go for the obvious ever. You go wild. Oh, yeah. But I think it's a pretty interesting idea. I mean, you see every year, everyone's like, oh, what's Nintendo going to come up with the next year? But I've never once in my life seen anyone try to predict the entire next generation, the entire generation's worth of games. We have a spreadsheet document that goes like 200 deep. And so this is going to be a big insane document. I've seen it. Awesome. And what have you guys been playing lately? We've been playing the same game, actually. We've been playing Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown. I just bit it this morning. The game, can we swear on this program? Yeah. This game is fucking awesome. Yeah, you can. I'm not a big Metroidvania guy, but I love Metroid in particular. Are we allowed to say whatever we want? Look, motherfucker, we got to keep it with me. Holy shit. Well, I mean, I don't know. He will not be keeping it clean tonight. It's out of the system. No, I just had to get it out of the system. You got to get out of the system. But get Prince of Persia in your system. Yeah. Ham fist is segue, but the game is really good. The, I mean, this team from Ubisoft made the Rayman game, so it's no surprise that the movement is very, very, very good. And it's just very, it's very approachable and very cinematic. I think that if you're turned off by these kind of larger Hollow Knight style Metroidvania titles, but you love what Mercury's team does and so much returns in dread like I do, you'll love Lost Crown. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely check it out. Totally loved it. All right. Nice. Yeah. I actually plan to pick up that game myself with the next paycheck. It's going to be, I'm going to have a good time. Oh, yeah. Very good. I've heard everyone who loves Tideswind will love this game. So I'm, I'm, I'm all in. I'm waiting for that. People say that it's 20. The reporting was 25 hours. I beat the game in 13. I think it's not actually that long. It's not that daunting. That's fine. I prefer shorter. Yep. It's a very good life. Oh, that's an emo. What's going on, buddy? What's up? How are we doing, guys? All right. What are you playing lately? It's got to be something over there. A little bit of something. I just not too long ago beat Prince of Persia as well, about 25 hours into that game. Pretty, pretty freaking good. Like Ubisoft pulled it off. They actually cooked this time. So hopefully they continue cooking. I just picked up and shrouded and playing that pretty, pretty great game as well. Definitely one of my favorite survival games this year. I know everyone's talking about power world. And I'm like, bro, we got a shrouded coming out. We got Nightingale. Like these are the games I'm looking forward to. So, you know, you guys can take your Pokemon arc. All right. All right. Botox games. Yes, sir. You're an indomitable bow. You know, the indom is in playing cod. It's always been playing. Nah, actually, I've been taking a break from cod for a little bit here. I haven't played in like two months. I'm, I'm cleansing. Whoa. Wait for that. Or switch to release. I mentioned, well, because I've been like, my PS5 wasn't hooked up. But yeah, once once called it, he's on switch. It's over for me. That's why I bought a portal just to play modern warfare three in bed. And it's, I've been down the team up with you. I haven't played cod in a while. No, it's, it's fun. But yeah. Well, for those that don't know, I also have a YouTube channel, obviously. I cover a lot of the same stuff that Nate and Andre stew. So Nintendo news, but also I go back some more and reflect on other Nintendo lesser known games, kind of like backlog banter does just in shorter videos. In terms of playing right now. Yeah, no, Tucker and Abe are crazy. They'll talk for fucking hours, which is awesome. But what I've been playing this week, power world, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Another code wrecked election. I am close to finishing the first game. I played trace memory for the first time on DS last year after they announced the remake. I like the production value and the voice acting and everything. I think this is definitely a better DS game though. A lot of issues with the camera and stuff. Maybe should have stayed on DS personally. So is it actually a remake or is it a remaster or is it kind of, you're not sure? It's a remake dude because well, the DS versions top down. So there's so well. So I mean, I guess the Wii game is probably closer because that was a Wii game, but the DS one's definitely a full remake. Some of the puzzles are completely different too. All right. So at least half the game is remade. And yeah, the other one I imagined is probably more poor, but I haven't gone to that yet. It's fine. Maybe not. I think the Metacritic is appropriate from what I've played. But that's about it. Just for the game though, how do you feel about it? Like, is it good? Is it really good? Do you feel like they improved the game over the past? Should more people be picking this up? It's good. I was saying the production value and updates and that stuff. The game looks nice. I like the way it looks. But I would probably say just played on DS honestly. I think maybe that's just like my visual novel brain. I'm used to playing visual novels on DS, but as much as the updates are nice, I think the DS version, at least for the first game, maybe not for the sequel. But you shouldn't be worrying about this game at all. You need to play Last of Us part one and part two before you play another code. Yeah, you've got your priorities mixed up, my guy. That's the last of us one. Wait until the other guy. Oh man. Just wait until I start talking about what I've been playing lately. Oh man. All right. Oh wait. Maybe I'm excited. All right. We'll see. No, you won't be. Oh, okay. You're really selling it. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how Jake feels about certain things. So we'll see. Well, what have you been playing lately? Let's hear it. All right. All right. I'll just rob those space here. Is there anything that you wanted to mention about? It's fine. No, that's it. So I haven't played Golden Sun lately. That's kind of sucked me in a bit. I'm done with the world. Completed Monster Hunter World, right? I've actually gone back to Monster Hunter Rise right now. I've been playing with Brandon. So that's been a good time. I actually never finished Rise because I was waiting to play with people. And what happens when you wait for the two to play games you're dependent upon others, right? So but I've been getting back into Rise and so it's been a good time. I actually better now at Monster Hunter Rise because I blissed the world, which is interesting, right? Because like there's certain things I sort of learned playing world is like, oh, all right. So I could do this with great sword. I have a question for you, actually, about that. Are you playing Rise on Switch? Yes. So we're originally released. Let me ask my question. So you played World on PlayStation, right? Sure. Don't you think that it takes the game down a lot by not having like being able to directly voice chat with randoms? Like that's one of the few games where like I actually will like link up with randoms and like talk to them like make friends in World and like not having that on Switch kind of sucks. That's an interesting perspective because I'll just tell you straight up. I actually think Monster Hunter Rise is better multiplayer than World. Yeah, but for different reasons though, right? So I'm not saying what you're saying isn't valid. But for me, I don't like talking with Rando's in games, period. So I never even entertained that future, right? So like, yeah, I'll call. So in World, like I will do like the... Also, I like doing the hard mode thing, right? Like so I will only invite other players in. I'll shoot the flare if I want to get things done quickly. But I try to avoid if I want to challenge myself, right? Because it is harder by yourself, right? So I still did it. And so I appreciated that. But what I don't like about Monster Hunter World, even if the voice chat is probably better because yeah, you know, Switch, that is definitely an issue for sure. You don't have multiplayer like in the actual hub area, right? You have to wait until you get into your mission or expedition. And you can't do the story until you complete a cutscene. But in Rise, you can experience the entire campaign cooperatively the entire time. There's no waiting for cutscenes or anything like that. You're hanging out with each other in the actual town. And it's just weird that they didn't do that in World. They kind of, I think that impacted, because I actually wanted to play World with my cousin. And whenever I did, it was kind of a frustrating experience like waiting for him to get through a cutscene just like a jump in. And so that kind of took away from me, right? So from that perspective, I think the world, multiplayer is actually better in Rise, but obviously, you know, voice chat, you know, if you're looking for voice chat, definitely. Yeah. That's a loss on Switch. I don't think it's harder in single player. I think it's just grindier. I don't think it's any harder. I'd argue, I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I argue just for it. And it does a pretty good job of that. So in terms of damage scaling, right? Yes. But when it's four versus one, the monster only targets one of you at a time, right? So it gives you more energy. Well, I think it do. I still think it's not as, for whatever reason, I still think it's not really harder in single player. Because I don't know when I'm, I guess I'm basing most on World for that aspect, but also World cannot be that's all I played for like a month. So I did a ton of single player and a ton of multiplayer. I didn't do the same thing for Rise, and it's for that reason where the multiplayer didn't like grab me as much. Yeah. I don't know. I've been playing Rise. I'm trying to decide which game I like more because I think World does a lot of really good things, but Rise is also a newer game, right? So I think they actually, they made a lot of improvements. I would say like mechanics wise, I like Rise overall more, but you know, World did introduce some really cool elements that I do appreciate. So regardless, I'm looking forward to Wild. Like Wild is just going to be insane. Oh, okay. But anyways, beyond Rise and Golden Sun, I saw people talking about over the weekend, and I was like, you know what? It's actually discounted on Steam. And you know, I probably should test out my PC. I have a relatively new graphics card. I have a whole bunch of RAM on here. Let's play something on my PC. My CPU sucks, so that's a little bit of a bottleneck. But yeah, so I downloaded Power World. And yeah, I mean, as Nemo brought up earlier, it's Arc with Pokemon. That's what it is. And some Breath of the Wild movement mechanics. And it's fun. I don't know how much more I'm going to continue to play it. I beat the first boss yesterday. I guess it feels like a lot of busy work, right? And so those kinds of games, I like them initially, but after a certain point, I get to a certain feeling where I'm like, eh, I could be doing yours in real life. Why am I doing it in a video game? And so that's why I eventually stopped playing Animal Crossing. That's why I eventually stopped playing Arc. And that's probably why I'm going to stop playing Power World. However, I haven't played it with friends yet, right? So Bo, let's go, right? Let's talk about it earlier. Like, you know, I'm down. I'm down. It'll probably make me interested for a little bit more, but I don't imagine like finishing Power World. But it is neat, yeah. Do we know how long it is? Like, how many bosses? I have no idea. Because I'm still behind you. I tried the first boss and I got obliterated and I was like, okay, well, I'll come back to this another day. I died once and then I tried again. And I just got like crafted like 114 arrows and all my Pokemon died. Yeah, I'm calling them Pokemon. And I just shot it with a lot of arrows. I did, however, something about Power World that I did notice is kind of interesting is that each pal has their own unique ability. And so you can actually craft certain items to combo with them. And so there's like this fox that has like glowing fire. And so it's actually really cool. I throw out the fox and it kind of lights the way at night. Like if you play Arc, it's pitch black, right? And it's pretty much the same thing in Power World. So you need a torch or something. But if you have a Pokemon that glows on its own, that's kind of neat. But with this fox... It also gets cold at night in Power World. Yeah, that too. So it helps keep you warm as well. But with this fox, you can actually create like a little like carrying case. So you can hold the fox with you and use it like a flamethrower. And so I did that. And that was actually very helpful against the boss. Like I used it and I doubt like a, I don't know, a significant chunk of damage. So there are some things that Power World does that are kind of neat. But it's definitely not Pokemon replacement. It's, I mean, Arc is still Arc, right? And it's definitely not Breath of the Wild. And there's not really much of a narrative to it either. So that's, you know, a whole other element. But yeah, it's fun. It's not, it's not going to win Game of the Year. But, you know, people are, people are playing it. It's like, well, I already sold like seven. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. And that's why we're talking about it. Every day we come for a record. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, I'll say the rest of my thoughts later. But yeah, I've been playing it last couple of days. It's good. All right. Eric, you've been playing lately, bud. You are muted, buddy. I just wanted to catch that earlier. Just playing some tears of the kingdom. Shrine hunting still. I think I got about 10 to 15 shrines left. And then it's late routes. And then, I don't know, just finishing up the quests. So, and then eventually beat the game. Eventually. You know, three years from now. Your time will come. Eventually. Grinding for the light routes is one of my favorite parts of Tears of the Kingdom. It's just exploring down there and putting down seas. Oh, I'm so ejecting. That doesn't feel like a chore to me. No, that's sad. I don't know. That's good to know. I mean, I have a few of them. But yeah, there's, I think, quite a few more. All right. All right. I guess that gets to me. Before I get to my games, I just want to get a couple of these super chats. That's how quick we had, you know, Jake already saw it, but just throwing it out there that Fox, Fox over there, letting Jake know that he's a snack. With the doughnuts and the cookies and the cake. You forgot the muff. Um, wait, wait, I think that is what you forgot. You forgot a blueberry muff right there. I didn't say that you forgot it, Jake. I'm so competitive today. Muff forgot it. Anyway, when you put that muffin in front of the camera, like up close, I could not tell what it was. It did not look like a muffin. Like, it didn't look like a muffin. Because he's been devouring it. I just want to try that out. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not a muffin. He is wrecking it. Then Aaron Rass wanted to come in just to let us know that it's his actual birthday today, buddy. And he just wanted to, I just wanted to help me celebrate it. He's excited for some extra this year. And some Metroid Prime 4 news. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah, man. Yeah. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Yeah. Yeah, I'll do a stop for your birthday, man. Happy birthday to you. I love seeing you here every week. I hope you have. I hope you had an awesome day. I hope you get your dick sucked every day. All right. Well, that is the thing. All right. That's a nice thing. And that's what you're into. I hope you're into another person. Sorry. I really hope you don't accidentally say that to like a 12-year-old when you say that. I'll do that on my job interview to my morning. No, no, no, no. I said I really hope you don't. I can confirm that. Oh, okay. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to let you say that. I wouldn't even, like, risky to be a problem. Yeah. I don't know, dude, I'm now suspicious of you. Oh, okay. Because, like, do you really mean that you don't want it to happen? It's like when you see, like, a really hot police officer and you're like, oh, no, don't arrest me. You know what I mean? Like, you want them to arrest you. I still think I don't want you to arrest me. No, man, I'm actually just saying, like, you shouldn't have said that. Okay. Yeah, sorry. Wait, Aaron, did you like that? Did you like my well wishes? I think you like that. That's crazy. Here's the birthday boy. I want to know what he says. See, Jake walks his fine line between being a creeper and being this really cool guy everyone likes. You just go back to the 90s. He jumped from, he jumped ropes that line. All right, well, I love you, bro. I love everyone in this chat. That's why I feel comfortable being myself. You're fine. Aaron Raphs is over 18, can confirm. But still, I have to bullet on that one. Um, so what have I been playing lately? Let's see. Age of Empires 4? I just forever, that's just a forever play game. I love Age of Empires. And they did a really good job with the fourth one. It is Ageless. What? It's Ageless. I mean, all of them are, whether you play one, two, or three, because now they have one on HD, so it's great. And I have Game Pass, although I own all those ones. Then, I've downloaded Power World. So, I've begun my journey. I haven't got to the first boss yet, but. What did you play it on though? Xbox. I ain't paying for it. Yeah, that's what I'm playing too. Yeah, I just heard that it doesn't run well on Xbox. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. No, no, it does not. My friends were sitting and watching me play, and we had, Bo and I had like a little hut, and the wood textures were, I mean, they were basically not existing. It was like a brown smear. Oh, it sounds like Pokemon. Yeah, I was gonna be like, you know, as it doesn't bother me, I play Switch games, right? It literally does not bother me at all. It looks a lot better on PC though. I see PC footage, I'm like, oh, that's what the game's supposed to look like. Oh, it actually has reasonably solid art direction, not like mush playing on Xbox series. Yeah, I'm playing it on medium settings. I have probably because my CPU sucks and stuff, I want to record it with OBS at the same time. It's 60 FPS. My CPU's like I had 100. When both are open at the same time. But it looks like it's an unoptimized game. But that's all right, because one thing that people don't say, like keep talking about power, it's an unfinished video game. Yeah, it is. It's literally like it's an early access game. It's not a complete video game. And on their schedule, they have the Xbox version. It's kind of like, oh, why are we celebrating Baldur's Gate 3 coming out last year? It was an early access for two plus years. People have been playing it for years. Are we seriously going to be talking about Power World in 2026 for Game of the Year? Yeah, probably, because that's when it will have its official release. I'm going to be pissed. Hey, PubG, we won't qualify for anything this year because it's technically not released. Bro, if Power World wins Game of the Year over Star Fox Universe, I am going to be pissed in 2026. It's going to win some. I don't know if it's going Game of the Year. It'll win something. It'll win something. Best Indie Game. Best Pokemon game. Oh, geez. Who won Best Family Game? No, that Game Wars are going to add a new genre. Then it's going to be called the monster catching genre, right? And that's the Year of the Power World. I don't do it every year. Yeah. And because Pokemon technically also a GRPG, it's just not even going to be nominated. The most expensive lawsuit is the award. It's the most likely to win. We'll get into that later. We'll get into that later. Could we actually have some little bit of news on that stuff, including the actual person who used to be the head lawyer for Pokemon talking about it. So he kind of knows a little bit about how Pokemon reacts to this kind of thing. The Pokemon Company. Well, we'll see. We'll see. I guess this is time to get into our first topic. And this first one is kind of a bittersweet. It's a little reflection time because Nintendo has announced the closing date for their online play and online services for the Wii U and 3DS. They are going to be closing up shop on all their services. You still have like another month and a half if you somehow for some reason still have currency on their shop to convert it over to your Nintendo account. I don't know why you wouldn't have done that already because they pretty much shut down the online shop a long time ago. But whatever, maybe for some reason you still have currency. Is it just 3DS or was DS games still have online functionality? And it's just shutting that down too. Was that already shut down? That's already shut down. DS games haven't had online functionality for a long time, I'm pretty sure. That's not shut down right now. That's 24. So we're going to shut this down. April 8th. The Dragon Quest 7 and 8, the remakes, those have online functionality, right? I'm pretty sure there's some walk behind it. So that's like a month and a half. Sorry, that's where my mind goes. Continue. No, it's okay. Yeah. So they're being shut down on April 8th. Obviously we all know that people will run homebrew and keep private online servers going for the games that have enough players. That's fine. It's actually kind of nice to know that some games are kept going by fans in that way. So basically, we just get into what our fondest memories of these platforms are and maybe our favorite games that were on them. And then we have kind of a little bonus question to ask towards the end. I won't worry about the switch topics. Oh, who wants to go first? Got any good memories of these platforms? Wii U, 3DS, games? Oh, Xenoblade Chronicles X. Still only a Wii U game. Still only a Wii U game I haven't played. Cheers there. I'm waiting. You mean the best excuses? I'm waiting. That shit is coming over. I refuse to play it. I mean, I think we're getting started from Molotov by 2025. So yeah, maybe that. But also, maybe it's their new IP. I don't know. Yeah. But hey, maybe watch Backlog Ventures predicting the next generation of Nintendo games. If you want to find out what's coming out. Maybe I just told you what I was going to send over to you. I don't know. Or maybe I should change my thing, Ben, because I don't want to have anything and anyone else is doing. But yeah, Xenoblade X is such a good game. Like 100 games. It's probably one of the ones we're predicting. Damn, I'm going to predict like three then. Can I? Anyway, yeah, no, Xenoblade X, I think it's, to me, it's like the best Wii U game even though Breath of the Wild exists because to me, Breath of the Wild is a Switch game just because that's what I played it on. But Xenoblade X is optimized for the Wii U, right? Like it does have the gamepad features. And what's kind of crazy, Xenoblade X is the largest Nintendo game as far as I'm aware. Like you had to, you mostly had to buy an external hard drive just to play this game. That's how crazy it is. And I mean, it has such a massive world. And what's cool about Xenoblade X, you can play the game for about 20 hours and it kind of feels like an open world Xenoblade game, which is what it is. But at that point about the, around the 20-ish hour mark for most people, you will unlock Skells. Which are basically Gundams, mobile suits. And so you jump into these Skells, right? And so the world is like massive. And when you jump into these Skells, the world is still massive, but all of a sudden you're far larger and you can fly literally everywhere. Like there are floating items you can never reach before. You can travel so much quicker. And also it changes into a giant motorcycle Gundam at the same time. Like so like it's just like really cool. It feels different than other Xenoblade games. It has some online multiplayer features but very subtle passive ones. It's an amazing game. So like when I redownloaded it for my Wii U the other day because I actually made a video about Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition happening in the not so distant future. So I played it for research and to kind of get footage. All that nostalgia came back to me. It's an incredible game, but it's a pain in the butt to play because not only do you have to have a Wii U, you have to have an external hard drive and then you have to download it on there. And that may not even be possible anymore for most people. Almost you already had it, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like I redownloaded it because I already owned it. But yeah, exactly. So it's tough. Yeah, but it's such a good game. I remember getting Xenoblade Chronicles X for Christmas in 2015 and just being amazed by the scale of the world because I was keeping up with basically everything on Wii U through the end of the system's life. But there was nothing like stepping out into Xenoblade Chronicles X as a world. And I still maintain not only is it huge, but I think it has the best art direction in the series. I'm a very casual kind of fan of Xenoblade, but the one that came the closest to fully hooking me with X. I think the X is awesome. When people play it, I think that they'll agree with me that it's among the best. But Andres, I'm glad you brought up that game for this conversation because I think that 2015 for the Wii U in particular is often overlooked because I actually think it might be the best year for the system. Oh, yeah. People always go to 2014. And 2014 obviously had Smash and Mario Kart and the actual crown jeweled Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. But 2015 I think had the games that best exemplified the system and the ones that are actually going to suffer the most from this imminent shutdown. And Splatoon is the obvious one for me. I mean, Splatoon that summer was all I played with one of my really close friends. I just was changing schools and we were saying in touch with Splatoon. And that I think is the game that best realized Nintendo's philosophy of that generation of this big interconnected playground of Nintendo fans. Getting into the lobbies and seeing people's artwork on the walls and actually using the game pattern really unique ways for multiplayer. I think it exemplifies the system spirit so well. And losing that would be a major bummer just because I think in some ways it still plays the best of the three Splatoon games even though I think they do get better on the whole overall. There's a very particular spirit about how Splatoon synchronized with what Nintendo is trying to do with Wii U that I don't think ever be captured again in the same way. I do want to just say, by the way, I wrote a piece last year and I interviewed a group called the Pretendo Network. You guys might be familiar, you might not be. But this is a really cool group of fans right now they're making this thing called the Pretendo Network that basically replaces at like a system level the Nintendo Network. It allows not only for you to get back online in these games but also for Pretendo Network like hosts the guys who run this service to hold Splat Fest again and do a lot of really cool shit and they're working on trying to bring the shop back up too. For what purpose I'm not entirely sure but they're trying to bring back that spirit which I think is good because I don't think the Wii U can properly exist and you can't properly appreciate the Wii U unless you can sort of get back into that 2015 moment of seeing the Miiverse messages and the Inklings and playing online. That was peak Wii U. I think that was the best time I had with the system. No, for sure. You're going to make a great effort too. Well, yeah exactly, great. It's a great one. All 2015 games. It's cool that you guys brought that up. Nice, yeah. Wes, you got any fond memories? So the Wii U obviously was a console. I was joking. Why do you actually hate it? No, I don't hate the Wii U. I think that what they did with Virtual Console at the end of the life cycle was really solid. I bought this machine expecting a new Zelda game. Didn't get that new Zelda game until the Nintendo Switch. But then one of the highlights was Wind Waker HD. Like that game was phenomenal. We love Wind Waker HD. I'd say the other highlight is probably Super Mario Maker. Like that's about it. Maybe 3D World as well. But yeah, that's about it. It was a console, I guess. It was a console. No 3DS memories for you? I mean, 3DS, like, I got my age shop now. So whenever I want to play it, I can play one. It's surprisingly easy to mod a 3DS for you. 3DS was really fucking modern. It was one. I'll go through the two. Beau walked me through hacking my 3DS. It's very easy. Yeah. Dude, plus you can play all the Pokemon ROM hacks. Yeah. Which are like, especially if you played the original Pokemon games to death, those are so fun. I hate to be monopolizing this section, but I just love Wii U and 3DS. I'll give you some 3DS memories too. I mean, because I enjoyed my Wii U a lot, but my 3DS during that time was my core system. And I kind of had this rotation of games. I would basically, I was basically going between Animal Crossing New Leaf into Tomodachi Life, into Fire Emblem Awakening, and just kind of playing those on a circuit. I love those games. I mean, I actually think 3DS is peak. It's hype as hell. We need a new one. I love Tomodachi Life. I think it's one of the top five or 10 games in the system very, very easily. Easily. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. For sure. And I do hope it comes back. I don't know if it will, but that's one of those games that I think would, it's such a, it is a viral hit. It was just on the wrong platform, I think. But that little rotation of games. 3DS was a better platform than the Wii U. You think so? I, in a lot of ways, sure, yeah. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. I mean, I think 3DS is better than Wii U overall. I mean, that just, I think 3DS had a lot more on the 3DS. I'm not saying objectively, 3DS is better than the Wii U in every way, but I'm saying like in terms of what's better for a game in terms of sales, it's probably to come out on the 3DS. Oh, absolutely, of course. I mean, the 3DS outsold Wii U like seven or eight to one. So yeah. What do we prefer more? Street Pass or Miiverse? Street Pass. I love Street Pass. Miiverse. I mean, Street Pass is, for me, the core memories of that era are playing Smash 4 on Wii U was kind of like really all I cared to play on there. But 3DS was, I mean, I was everything to me. I would always bring my 3DS with me everywhere I went. And of course, waiting for that green light and then going to the puzzles and getting the puzzle pieces and seeing those fill out. And it just felt so cohesive because every game felt like a connect to that in some way. Of course, Smash 3DS having Street Smash, that was fun to be able to just like play a little sort of Beyblade-style game on there. But it was really Pokemon for me that dominated the 3DS. And each of those games felt like such an event to me. My first time seeing and holding the 3DS was someone playing X and Y and just seeing riding around on roller skates and the 3D environments and going through that Santa Luna Forest which is the first forest in X and Y. And the Pokemon art being like 3D you can go in the back and go to these shops and customize your characters. I think X and Y get overlooked so much in the legacy of Pokemon, but there are so much there in terms of the culture and locations of Callows, the art direction characters I think are so much fun. And then when that became my thing and I got a living dex in Generation 6, going to the town where they have the long road along the, right by the- The daycare. The daycare, yeah. And just riding on my bike back and forth and back and forth to hatch all the eggs and get a complete living dex. What's funny is I couldn't disagree with you more. I think that X and Y were the start of the downfall of Pokemon. Oh, sure. I mean, I'm not gonna say that I'm sorry. I'm saying, yeah, they peaked. Like, they got better and better and then Diamond and Pearl was kind of a dip, but then Platinum came out. That was good. Black and white. They kept going up and up. Black and white too. And then X and Y was worse than that. Then the Omega Ruby and Sapphire, those were actually pretty good, but then Sun and Moon was worse than that. Ultra Sun and Moon was worse than that. Sword and Shield was worse than that. And then I think they picked it back up with Scarlet and Violet, but I think like X and Y were the start of the downfall. Of Pokemon as a series. When it used to be like top tier, X and Y was like the first one where fans started to complain. This is too easy. Like, game feels incomplete. Where was Pokemon Z? That train in the eastern side of Kalos. It was like, where does it go? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right? There's a lot of questions I can say. You can find the cells. They put that into Sun and Moon. That was totally gonna be four. Of course. Absolutely. The lab that was just off into, yeah, there's definitely like things in there. But I'll, it's not that I disagree with you, but I do want to offer a little bit of counter-argument because I feel like from a competitive multiplayer standpoint, X and Y picked it up. You know, going into 3D, it was a bit more, there's a bit more theater to it, right? And then also introducing the Vega. Well, I think the competitive has gotten better with every game. It's just so few percentage of the whole thing. But story-wise, like does that. As a single-player campaign, I definitely see where you're coming from, though, for sure. It's what appeals to most people, though, right? Like that's the bigger body of Pokemon. And I'm a competitive player, too. So I mean, I do love that. And like, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, not to like trash, not to be like your opinion is trash. I just thought I'd offer more. No, no, I absolutely recognize incredibly unpopular opinion. But it's both 3DS generations of Pokemon games are my absolute favorite. Jake's opinions are all trash. So both are games. I already recognized that. No, I'll trash Jake all day. It's all right. He's still waiting for... He's in the Bucks jersey, and he's not razzing me yet while the Tatum jersey comes over. Do not trash his opinion. He's on our side. You know what's going to be funny? The Tatum jersey will probably be here when we have the podcast on Valentine's Day that you just missed. Oh, dang. Why can't we just do the podcast Tuesday or Thursday? I have a life. Yeah. Wouldn't you want to be with your fiance on Valentine's Day? That's the point. You have a life. So you're going to tell Amazon to give my fiance off? You're going to just tell them, hey, you know what? She doesn't need to work today. So let me get this straight. You're not going to be streaming on Tuesday or Thursday. You're not going to be live streaming either of those days. She works also on Tuesday and Thursday. I will be streaming on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So are you going to be live streaming or not? So if you're already going to be live streaming Tuesday and Thursday... What if I already have guests scheduled for a certain day? This is the only day you'll have guests. You're stealing back because you might have to miss a show. It's like, yeah, it's like it's the first show he's ever missed. It's weird. Strange. All right. All right. Strange. I don't know just how many scheduled people can make. Everyone in your chat is going to be getting laid too. You're going to get like half the viewers. Come on. You'd be actually surprised. My Valentine's streams are actually going to be bigger because it's a holiday stream. It's kind of sad in a way. Or people just have a life and they do it during the day. They don't have to always get them on at night. You know what I mean? Okay. What am I saying? If you say maybe it's because I have a life. That's why I can't be here. Well, see, here's the thing. You don't have... The life that you have is that single life of I just do whatever the fuck I want. See, I don't have that kind of life. I have a schedule. I have children. I have things I have to do. I need to share something. Maybe... Sorry, go ahead. I'm going to post it in the... He's just giving me a shit because I'm going to be streaming on Tuesday and Thursday either way. So he's like, why can't we do it on those days? Schedules. My schedule. I want to talk about me first. I just think this is hilarious. We know you do. I'm busy on the 14th. I do love you, Jake, though. I probably would change my life for you if you ask me. Just put the talk on stream for a moment. It's brief. It's brief. Just brief. Oh boy. You're literally breaking cardinal rule number one on my channel right now. What is cardinal rule? Show Twitter? Anything that involves political figures. It's not political, though. But it's not actually political. He's just like... Nintendo, someone's whispering is here. Another billion people have purchased Power World. All right. I just took a screenshot of that. This is... Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I didn't find Bob. Yes. Moving on. Botox games. Do you got any fond memories we use 3DS? Yeah, absolutely. I mean... Oh, just go like 3DS? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Are you a bigger 2DS fan? No. Hey, 2DS... I get so many comments from people being like, dude, actually this is a 3DS game. Not a 2DS. I love that thing. I use it for doorstops all the time. Oh, the wedge. Yeah, I have the Mario Maker one right back there. Yeah, we got those belts. We got the Zelda wedge around here somewhere. Yeah, probably under the door. No, but I love the 3DS and Wii U because, I mean, they came out during my teen years. So pretty much all my teen years were spent with the Wii U and 3DS, which is when I spent most of my time gaming. The 3DS in particular is really important to me. I actually met my best friend and current roommate through Mario Kart 7. So that's fun. That's a fun story to tell. We met on a form when I was 11 years old. So it has like actual life significance. And he was 36. Surprisingly not. Surprisingly not. Could have been, could have went very poorly. But yeah, I think the 3DS has a really fantastic library. Pokemon. Tucker was talking about. I love X and Y. I think that either that or Black Ops 2 is my most played game of all time. It's one of those two games. I can't remember which one exactly. I know they're both up there in terms of play time. Black Ops 2 on. Andres, you might like this. I played it on Wii U. That's where you play it. Black Ops 2 on Wii U was actually technically better for a little bit because there was no hackers. Because I remember I tried playing it on PS3 in like maybe 2016 and it was just you couldn't play it. But Wii U, people weren't. Also having the two screens. People weren't running them up. You could play co-op in zombies with two separate screens. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, but. That is kind of sick. Yeah, I think the 3DS. In zombie U. I never played zombie U. Zombie U is so good on Wii U. It was just interesting. No ported trash. Oh, zombie. Oh, yeah. Because you need the gamepad to make it really good. I did it around the gamepad. It's a horror game, a horror zombie game. And the gamepad adds so much like environment to it because you're sitting there trying to hack a door or something. And because just like you would be in real life, you're focusing on the door. Next thing you know, a zombie is hitting you from the side. Versus like when they ported it over, it's just all on screen and you can see everything. And it's just not as scary because you already know what's going to happen. It's like playing Red Steel without motion controls. Red Steel sucks. Red Steel 2 is good. Red Steel 2 is good. Well, yeah, both. I meant that. But yeah, Red Steel 2 is definitely better. The Red Steel 1 had some tracking issues with the controls. But yeah. But I imagine playing Red Steel 2 without pointer or motion controls. Yeah, it would be very. Yeah, dude. They actually did that. I imagine they covered board without motion controls. Oh, shit. One of my biggest like what ifs is like Zelda Breath of the Wild for Wii U. You know how like in Breath of the Wild, there's so many menus that you pull up. Apparently like in the that was originally a Wii U game. The Switch version was just a port. And apparently like all that menu stuff was on the gamepad. So you never had to like actually like go into different stuff and like do everything. And apparently it was so much more fun that Nintendo made them take it out of the Wii U game because they didn't want the Wii U version to be the best version. So they made it identical to the Switch version. Even though like the Wii U version does run worse. It was like that part of it was better. Yeah, like like the Breath of the Wild on Switch was 900p versus the 720 on the Wii U. And it had technically better sound quality. But yeah, I mean those are subtle differences. Right. And so people would have been like, oh, but I can do all this gamepad stuff. Right. Yeah, yeah. But also another thing that they did do was my this is my memory. My favorite Wii U game for Wii U was Shimagami Tensei, Sharp FE, which was Fire Emblem and Persona teams combined to make a crossover. And it was awesome. And the coolest part was the gamepad was your character's cell phone. Because you know how like Fire Emblem doesn't really have it. But they did in three houses and Persona always has it. Where you have like social links and like you text characters on your phone. But in this game, the gamepad was your phone. So like you would be playing the game on the screen or whatever. And then like you'd feel it vibrate and you're getting a text message that you can only see by looking down at your gamepad and like going through and who you're texting. And it was so cool and immersive. Yes. And I'm like, this is the one Wii U game they will never port to Switch. And of course they did port it. Yes. And I bought it. And it was so much worse. Yeah. It was designed for the gamepad. Yeah. Yeah. Because that made it so much more fun than what the game was just by itself. It's still a good game either way, by the way. If you guys have never played it, you should just play it. But that's the way to think of it. I got like halfway through. It's a really fun game. Yeah. But anyways, that's mine. Kitty Chris Uprising. I understood. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 4D. Go Fox 3D. Go Fox 4D. Yeah. And 10 YPs. Just one more. Yeah. It's a good one. I think between worlds. 3D land is actually extremely good. 3D land to me. Yeah. So here's the issue with 3D worlds. 3D world is a really good game. But we expected something else. And still, it's going to disappoint. I'm holding no ink copies now. Really? Perhaps by any of the shows. Throw the meme. Throw the meme. Point of the live. Yeah. Yeah, I could, but then they'll be upset. Andres, I got a question for you about that, which one I got a question for you about this whole this whole 3D world wasn't what we wanted situation because I agree with you at the time. Yeah. However, do you think that the existence of Odyssey has, in your opinion, retrospectively made 3D world a better game? Because I know it has for a lot of people. Yes. Yeah. The answer is yes. So I mean, it's kind of like Metro Prime Federation Force, for example, that Federation Force is a better game when we know Metro Prime Force around the corner and we have Metroid Dread, right? So to announce like Federation Force, like, like Switchport, I'd be all about it. Like that would be good. Have you put it because it was always a good game? It was never a bad game. I think it was at the point, though. No, I get the point. The people's opinions change because more Metro games came out or got announced. I understand that. It's just, I remember one of those people that's like, oh, because I'm not getting what I want. It makes the thing we are getting. Can you tell me a Zelda spin-off? Nate, I'm with you on that. Or a Zelda spin-off or maybe a top-down Zelda that you'd like, but you would prefer to play a 3D Zelda instead. A top-down Zelda that I like. Yeah. You're in the mood for a Zelda. You don't want to play a 3D Zelda. What are you talking about? I'm terrified. Literally, all I want you to do is to list off a Zelda spin-off or top-down Zelda that you really enjoy. That's all I want you to do. Just give me one, for example. Try Force Heroes. Try Force Heroes, right? Now imagine Nintendo had never announced Breath of the Wild and we only got Try Force Heroes. That was, then that was for Switch. Okay. And we get Zelda. We get Zelda games way more frequently than we get Metroid. So that's not even a problem. So literally imagine Tears of the Kingdom didn't exist, Breath of the Wild didn't exist, and all we got was Try Force Heroes on Switch. But there'll be other games besides Zelda. There wouldn't be any other Zelda games. So I don't just play Zelda. So I'm not trying to say that I understand you're weird. The point is that fans... I'm weird. Like, we had Other M on Wii. Like, we had a Metro, a recent Metroid game at the time that Federation Force was announced. It wasn't like Other M was like 10 years prior. It was a six-year difference, though. That's pretty big. Other M came out. Yeah, that's not... We had a six-year difference for Zelda games. I don't... What's the problem? But there's also things in between. Anyways. There was just remakes. There wasn't anything new in between. We're gonna save them. I don't... Listen, I'm saving my argument muscles for later, okay? I know you are. You're the one that brought it up. I'm like, you're not gonna get me on this. I love top-down Zelda. They can just keep giving me more of that. I'm giving that to you. Right, but if you never got 3D Zelda, you would be disappointed. So, moving on. Half of my content is top-down Zelda's. Why would I be disappointed? Oh, no, you're making a point in a weird way. Yeah, I am. Let me give maybe a more clear example. I think the great example is Pikmin. Pikmin is a great example to me because we went a long time, obviously, post Pikmin 3 until Pikmin 4. I'm a massive Pikmin fan. Sure. Pikmin Bloom, for instance, especially by the time of Pikmin Bloom, right? I was very, very antsy because we're post 3 Deluxe now. I'm ready for 4. I'm... I would have made you am or antsy. That's a good example too, but I just completely skipped Hey Pikmin to be honest. Good game. Good game. But I think that the importance of what Andres is saying is that especially in the Nintendo community, when we're so tapped into these franchises in their life and we all have our favorite iterations of them and we're anticipating something like a Pikmin 4 or a Metroid Prime 4 for so long. When we get something different, it doesn't feel right. No matter how good the game is, I think that there's two parallel tracks you can walk down. One is the quality of the game by itself, but the other, which is always necessary, I think is the context of the release. And I do think that when these contexts change, we end up with a situation like 3D World where I think a lot of people are more positive on that game now than definitely when they were back in the day. And I know that that is a sentiment and I understand there's a lot of people that feel that way. I just don't understand why they feel that way with franchises that keep getting games. So we don't have a shortage of Mario. No, that's a good one. It's 2, 3D Mario games on Wii. Like we literally had Galaxy and Galaxy 2. Yeah. It was like two years later that we got 3D. Yeah, I want to speak a little bit more on that. I would rather they've saved their best 3D efforts for a system that sells well. But in 2013, we were so far from seeing it. So like more 3D land just felt like a good thing to me. So I just want to kind of add more to this, right? So like I loved 3D world. I literally beat everything in the game. I did every I 100% right. I don't like I feel like you can't say I didn't enjoy the game if I did everything the game had to offer. Yeah, like you just enjoy it more after Odyssey came out. It's a I and so I'm speaking in a generalization, right? Yeah. And I'm putting things in the context here. I Nintendo put out something like Mario Odyssey in that first year of Wii U instead of 3D world. It probably would have sold more systems 3D world 3D world isn't like a big open world game. And as we've seen throughout the switch era, big open world games, what do they do? They break records, right? And so there's a correlation there. And listen, I know you don't feel that way, but you've already acknowledged that sentiment existed. We're talking about the masses. We're not talking about individual opinions here. We're talking about how the general masses feel about these things. And so Federation Force was not actually talking about the general masses. Are you just talking about super hardcore fans of individual IPs? Because the general masses don't overthink things like this. Okay. The general masses just play games and play them. First of all, Federation Force didn't do well. Pikmin Bloom didn't do that well for a mobile game. 3D land, I mean 3D world was the big Mario driver Wii U. Well, Federation Force was a first. No, I know, I know. Metroid sells relatively well compared to other niche Nintendo franchises. Right. It's not a Zelda or Mario for sure, right? But Federation Force was a floppy. I'm going to actually push back on your 3D world things. You were talking about sales for a moment. It literally sold almost half as many games as systems existed. It was the premier title in that first year of Wii U and Wii U had a disaster. No, it wasn't. It was new Super Mario Brothers U was the premiere. No, I said of Wii U. That's what launched the system. No, that's that's the day one launch. I'm talking about the big three was the next game after it in year one. The next big game from Nintendo. I think that Andres is right in the sense that 3D world was the first major post launch game for Wii U. That was that was supposed to be here is the first huge moment for the system and what we actually got was ostensibly in design philosophy a sequel to the 3DS game. And if we remember back to this period of Nintendo history, we're looking at a system in the Wii U that was lacking a lot of identity. It was lacking a coherent vision of its own because a lot of the games we're getting we're getting we fit you and we're getting we sports club and people like party you. Yeah, people like what the fuck is the system even and then the big 3D Mario was a sequel to a 3DS game. I think the problem with 3D world at the time is that it didn't help give the Wii U an identity. When you think about GameCube, sunshine is synonymous with GameCube Galaxy is synonymous with Wii and you can make the same argument for 3D world. But it's so similar to a 3DS title that I just don't think that it was that big showstopping game the system needed and I by it was kind of too late frankly already by the by the holiday of 2013 3DS sales never recovered. They tried their best with Mario Kart 8 and Smash Brothers and when that yeah, sorry. Yeah, when that didn't recover things for Wii U. It was we were already fucked but I think that I think that 3D world at the time was the first indication of the fact that Nintendo strategy tried to get out of the hole they were in was let's make home console iterations of 3DS games. Even Mario Kart 8 and Smash. Yeah, Mario Kart and Smash Brothers are either like parallel versions to a 3DS game or incredibly iterative sequels of 3DS. Yeah. It's almost like the Wii U was tanking before these games even came out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I don't think having a Mario Odyssey and holiday of 2013 would have changed the trajectory of the fact that we went nine months within a brand new game on Wii U. It was definitely I think it would have made a difference. I think it would have made more of a difference. My parents still don't know what Wii U is and they were part of the Wii audience like it like you have to recognize the Wii U is a terrible brand. It was marketed horribly. People wouldn't know what the games were because it would have been Wii U commercials getting hundreds of thousands of views instead of Wii commercials that were getting millions like it just yeah. I don't think it would have made any difference. It would have made a difference for hardcore fans with the hardcore fans were the ones that bought Wii U in the first place. There's two different conversations we're having because one is about commercial success and 3D Mario's always had sold. Yeah. I'm glad Odyssey didn't get set to Wii U to die. But I think it's I think it's a while was never on switch. They left it on. Yeah. Now you know how I feel about the only Chronicles X. Yeah. They left it there and then for some reason won't bring it over. I don't know why maybe switch. Let Eber continue his point. He's yeah. The reality is that a 3D Mario has never outsold a 2D Mario on his respective system and it probably won't ever switch. Did it well right. Sorry. Yeah. One don't know this exception did 25 plus that's an exception. But but if we're looking historically it's always been 2D Mario on top. So Nate I think you're right in that the systems we would be in a totally different world if if if we got a proper 3D exploratory Mario that holiday season I think that like actually Mario maker earlier in the system's life would have done more good for it frankly but I think that the reality is that we're however many dudes sitting in a podcast at like 10 p.m. Talking about Nintendo so for the parameters of our life in the community in the chat we have I think that there's no doubt that the we use fortunes in our community in our space would be very different and it would have been thought about very differently. If so many of the marquee games didn't feel so iterative on 3DS I think that that's a major issue in the we use reputation. Yeah, tell him. That's fine. It's been. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Here's the thing. I think every single Wii U exclusive game except Devil's 3rd is a banger. So I the reputation of we use literally amazing to me. So I don't know. Yeah, I love we imagine that being better. I'm like how all the games rock. Okay. It's fascinating era to look back at. Yeah, I mean it was clear though that you know you look at the games right. Wait, now one worker and Twilight Princess HG to leave the system. Yeah, but the point I was going to make is that it was clear that Nintendo was still adjusting to hg development. We backwards compatibility. Yeah, or are you going to say. I was going to say that since okay. Yeah, I'll agree. Most Wii U games are better than the 3DS counterparts. You have like returns 3D tropical freeze. You have 3D World 3 land tropical for Mario Kart 8 Mario Kart 7 the difference is the 3DS was a cheaper handheld and had Pokemon holiday 2013. You can buy Pokemon X and Y in 3D land or you can just get 3D World 3D lands the worst game but any consumer was going to pick the one that had Pokemon on it and the one that was cheaper. It doesn't matter that 3D land is the worst game. There it was cheaper. So no matter what your consumer or parents will look at the 3DS line at that point for their kids and just think well, I don't as a parent doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I don't examine lineups when I'm buying things for my kids. You don't examine what? I don't think most parents look at overall game lineups when they're buying things for the kids. Most parents look at price then they look at price and that doesn't matter them. Yeah, but also to both point like more kids would have asked for Pokemon that holiday season as opposed to 3D land or sorry 3D World. But I think it's it's fascinating to look back on because when you talk about it in conversation of oh a lot of Wii U and 3DS exclusives are very similar to one another. That's kind of the only time that's ever really happened. I mean you look back at Wii and DS the Zelda games that release on those systems. The Mario the games that release on those systems nothing alike. And so we and 3DS where they're trying to have more like brand synergy and the me's are together and that kind of stuff and in the games are more similar. I think it ended up like stepping on each other's toes until Mario game on we again. Oh, yeah. New super way. Yeah. But obviously Galaxy the one that people associate with the console. But it's just where people associate with it. The hardcore Nintendo fans that buy every system. So like they're not the ones that we're worried about. They don't want Wii U. They showed up to Wii U. I just want to make mentioned that you know just looking at how much copies of a game soul doesn't tell the whole story. Right. Because I think most people here will agree right that a Mario Galaxy is more of a system seller than a Mario Bros Wii right. People who already have a Wii are more likely to buy Mario Bros Wii. It was like a pretty big system seller to me. Yeah, I think you're both right to a certain degree. It's just depends on like it's over a million units. It's sold to like 30% of the Wii's audience. That's like saying we sports wasn't a system seller. I think a million copies in this case a little different. Yes. This pack. We sports it provides a unique experience that the Wii offers. Sure. That's that's the point when we talk about games like Mario Galaxy or Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild. These are offering experiences you can't get elsewhere. Another 2D Mario game is another 2D Mario game, especially when it came out. I'm going to stop you there. If we couldn't get Mario Galaxy elsewhere, then it wouldn't be able to be ported to other systems. No, I'm not sure. I apologize. You're not able Mario Galaxy to exist. It did not enable that game to exist. That game could have literally meant a game cube if they wanted. They just didn't. I think we're getting a little lost in the point because I think that in the specific example of Mario. Andres, I think, unfortunately, the it is true that New Super Mario Brothers Wii was a system seller, especially because that's the game that was bundled with a lot of Wii's in that holiday season. The red was crazy when that game came out. So okay, but I can see this right like Mario. I'm not saying Mario Bros. We didn't sell systems, but what I'm trying to say is it not every get it like it's not sometimes there are certain games that are important because they get people to buy a system and even if it doesn't sell necessarily as much that doesn't mean it was less valuable in pushing system because there are some games you just buy because on the system you don't buy this the other way around. Sometimes my grander point here because like we obviously we're getting the sales data and I'll talk about we which wasn't really the point of this topic. You could already a massively well selling system long before Mario Galaxy hit long before that game came out. We was already a massive hit like it didn't need Galaxy to be a hit. That was my whole point of saying if Odyssey was on Wii U, I wouldn't have changed anything. Wii U was already failing long before the game came out. It was a single game changes the trajectory right but they're all my point though like it we didn't sell better because Galaxy existed on it. We was already literally sold on heart. Let's let's go back to why I went on this tangent though right. It's just kind of like I do kind of feel like Federation forces a little tone deaf right. I do think 3D world was a little tone deaf. There were Nintendo could have made different decisions with some of these games that would have helped. They alone don't change everything right. But if you if they had if they were more savvy with most of their design choices for a lot of their games that we might have had a better life. I think the only way to have a better life and because we got to remember the Wii was lightning in a bottle and it was lightning in a bottle because it grabbed an audience that wasn't your hardcore Nintendo fans. It grabbed the casual audience that likes we fit likes we sports likes the side scrolling Mario's a very casual Blue Ocean strategy that is now your everyday Nintendo consumer. It reached it was great. Yeah. And that led to we being great. But if you look at all their console sales before that 64 GameCube and Wii U they all kind of had the same consistent problem. They only appealed to one very specific audience and Nintendo had a very hard time supporting that while also supporting their handheld and their handheld systems conjunctually next to them we're selling so much more than their home consoles were during those same time periods. They were really putting a lot of their development efforts over those years into their handhelds that we're selling significantly better and carrying the company. So I kind of think it's one of those nothing was going to save Wii U except exactly what happened with switch stops having two systems. Yeah. It's interesting at next point about missing the two systems or not. Yeah. I because I did my homework. I read the little little you know the little run a show and I think I think you're right because ultimately the problem with Wii U and the reason I think you are both right to various extent but I do side with Andres on the whole is that the problem that generation is that Nintendo is walking so parallel with the software of 3ds and Wii U that if you just you if you wanted a 3d stage based Mario game you just went bought a 3ds and played 3d land that Nintendo did not make the value proposition for Wii U very good and that did start at the beginning you're totally right Nate when as soon as the name of the Wii U as soon as the first E3 press event was about the gamepad opposed the actual system it was basically over people didn't understand what it was Nintendo miscalculated the ocean market 3 with Nintendo which was not a very good game to show the system. No I just want to remind you guys that Zelda Tech demo that was not a game at all. Right. I drove more hype than anything else and then the problem becomes not only do you do that but you release games that lack a central identity to that particular system at 3d world has a great is emblematic of the identity of Nintendo at the time but I think Andres is totally right that I think the Wii U would have been an easier product to understand if more of its games were. Distinct and I think the latch happened in 2015 and then 2016 that's why I think 2015 may be the best year of the system because Splatoon and Super Mario maker are just games that only exist because of the unique affordances of Wii U and don't talk to me about Mario maker 3ds it's worse and it doesn't matter so I think that on telling me about neighbor and yes it just shouldn't exist. Oh great I want to say one thing about me verse and I promise I'll talk about these systems. I talked to Kit and Krista last year about me verse and they were talking to me about this really interesting phenomenon with the Nintendo at the time when they didn't really know what was going on the way that me verse was adopted by the community for all of these memes and all this in joke and everything it flew over a lot of people's heads with the Nintendo and they are saying to me that like they would often have to explain to senior members of Nintendo what the fuck was going on in the service and so I think that that is both to the benefit and detriment of Wii U they were talking about like when they are marketing Splatoon they could just do whatever the fuck they wanted because all bets are off we had lost just go have fun and make a cool product and make a cool moment for Nintendo fans and they did and so I think that's part of what's interesting about Wii U ultimately there are these little moments like me verse like Splatoon that were not in the footsteps of either we or 3ds they were very distinct and they are very risky and I think they both paid off I love me a verse I remember me and my friend posting frankly just incendiary stuff saying we could get it in the back of the Smash Brothers move our stage or posting about games I was beating using it in a more earnest way is a great service and finally one that Nintendo themselves just didn't quite understand which I think is kind of I mean for directional says they were with that system kind of funny and emblematic I think yeah it's interesting because those were the best parts of Wii U rights with 2 and DnBX me verse with the wind waker with the me verse integration right like I actually really liked a little user reviews user reviews oh my gosh why do you imagine how that would be on switch the whole shit no friend codes actual just sharing accounts with each other they like a lot right Twitter Twitter I don't know why well we know everything we did on it bad I'm like no everything you did wasn't bad keep the good then check that by the way I am predicting that we will see the return of Street Pass on on switch to I actually kind of feel sad that switch doesn't have it because I every time I see switch sales updated on my damn imagine if Street Pass is on this system how much better would be yeah I will take any system level features anything just to round out the topic does anyone here miss Nintendo being a two system company no nope no not necessarily yeah especially because I love the previous in Wii U it was a rough time well yeah especially because as we were talking about I mean by the end of those systems or for the bulk of those systems life cycles they were kind of stepping on each other of like okay the big game is here the big game is there where's the community at it's kind of hard to tell the marketing was confused I think it was obviously great for for GBA and GameCube those are very different systems Gameboy 964 DS and Wii very very different but it seemed like they kind of started in merging things anyway like they were like hey let's have we in DS be a lot more similar than GBA and GameCube or a lot more cross integration Wii U and 3DS even more similar and so by this point it's like well if the games are starting to get similar and the UI is starting to get similar these are experiences starting to get similar because now both systems have two screens and one's a touchscreen and they both have an e-shop why just merge it and like it just felt inevitable and it makes those a lot more interesting to like look back on especially now that we're removed from them but I think the proof was kind of in the pudding that Nintendo themselves were working towards that from the very beginning and in every generation every generation just came more and more likely that like this needs to be unified because if you have one strong core Nintendo fan base that buys everything on one system and can be all on the same page then this is where you get the switch and it does the same thing that the Wii did in terms of incredible incredible astronomical sales but people actually care about the switch in a way that people like the Wii but didn't care right it's not lightning in a bottle either right like this success which has had from gamers right it's not oh it's not like some sort of casual thing that they just caught no this is something that like the people that are buying games on switch with like what was that like fact you heard like recent like like almost like 90% of switch owners in the last year have logged into online or something like that I'm butchering the data but something to that effect right just strongly suggesting that most people do play their switch and so like if that's the case going into switch to whenever it does come out right like it it does bode well for Nintendo to have continued success they've never failed with a handheld and so they're going to do well and I think I heard are you bringing this up the other day I'm not sure where it comes from but I'm sure it's true that Nintendo has actually made more money during the switch era than prior of gents where they've had two different platforms. Yep. Hmm. That's right. Offers are so strong. I mean also mean the price points are higher on switch right but then you'll see how you'll see the other subscription plan right you have all these other things that tells diversified with with label and merchandising now the movies and the parks. A lot of it is because of the game sales being significantly higher than their other platforms more consistently and the fact that when they would get like big game sales you know like say on 3DS or DS that's a 40 bucks. Target 60 now significantly would have Nintendo select things so over the course of the generation you're making less and less money to give you an idea they ate into their profits and they dipped below their their 10 billion that they had sitting in a bank account and then now they reportedly have like over 25 billion in their bank. Jesus Christ. They've made way more of this generation than they've made. Well they also have some semblance of third party support now. Not much. But it is more than they had. So some are doing bank. I mean Minecraft is doing better on switch than did on 3DS. Grand was only available on new course. I guess it's just a different kind of third party support. Right. It's not the third party support we want. It's existing buddy. Yeah. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. I don't know the Wolfenstein games doom. Come on now. They exist. And they're good. They're good. Wolfenstein 2 is great on switch. It was great on switch. Do you like Wolfenstein 2 on switch. Even the Witcher 3 at the time you know did not play at all mobile version of Witcher 3 in the world and it played decently. Well, they gave us PC graphics settings for a bit so we could try to make it look the way we want. It was nice. But when I were talking about Apex Legends and how that looks on switch though. So it's definitely not. It's a case by case basis. Well, look, look, we're not getting into anything from EA. All right. Let's just say they can't be trusted about the best relationship. The importance of these games ultimately though is on the consumer side. I remember. I'm old enough to remember 2016 when fuck all was coming out on Wii U those games on 3ds. But because there was still support from either Nintendo because their efforts are split well and they're also looking at switch already. But the efforts are split and third parties were not existent. I was off playing PS Vita and PS 4 way more. The switch is not only great because Nintendo keeps the more regular release cadence but because they also have third parties to the point where I basically never put my switch down. There's rarely a week when I'm not playing a game on switch. Whereas for any past Nintendo system that was not the case because I was trying to get from Nintendo release to Nintendo release. So I think they recognize that this added profit comes from player engagement and player engagement comes from everybody zeroing in on one machine. Yeah. And that's how we get what like on average 1314 Nintendo published games a year on switch as opposed to five or six maybe seven and Wii U and they sell really well. Yes. Yes. I mean the other thing too is you know not having to buy two different consoles if you couldn't afford if you can only afford one console and then all of a sudden a banger game comes all on the one you don't have that's that sucks. Now with one console you get all the games and you don't have to worry about missing a missing a game because you couldn't afford that console. That was my friend group Eric because I was one of the Wii U so when people want to play Smash everybody had to come to my house because nobody was buying a Wii U to play that console they're pretty yes you're totally right about that. Yeah. Damn. Got anything to add? There you are. Eric can you let some other people talk. Yeah, I know right. No, no. Oh, I got to take the couple quick thing. Yeah, right. No, I know one one of the game series that I know hasn't been brought up that I will miss or I do miss and then you know think back finally on was the Mario on the Ouija those games that series was freaking fantastic. Um yeah and then obviously street pass was freaking fantastic do I really hope they they bring that back on a completely different note though I have a absolute massive headache right now. Cool. So I think I'm going to actually dip. I apologize guys. You're good. Oh, I can't. It's great. So yeah. I'm careful driving home. Yeah, right. All right. Thanks for coming on guys. Sorry I didn't get to talk to you guys. Yeah. Oh, no, you get to miss the debate. Oh, God. Oh, no. For you. Not taking that. We're going to get it. That would that would really help your headache, Eric. Wait, before you go, Eric, what are you? What are you? Are you going to have sex? No. Okay. Are you team 24 or team 25? No, I'm hoping this year. I really need it. What team? What team? Yes, Alice. What do you think? I wanted to cheer. Well, what do you believe? This year. God damn it. This year. Okay. Oh, God. Okay. Sorry. Hunter, when you said, what do you believe? You're just so serious. What do you believe? Yes. It's a serious matter. Serious topic. Oh, nice. This is a matter of philosophy. I like this. Boom. There you go. We'll scoot you like that. We can do that. You two, you two. We get nice and close. Yeah. Back lock banter. How do my armpits smell? Oh, my God. Oh, there you go. There it is. Yeah. Right up in there. No, no, this side. They're going to do it again. Oh, my God. I think his tongue is on. I'm so glad to take his camera. I just that's fine. Yeah. The tongue was off camera. Oh, wait. What does he do to him? Jake, keep your pants on. Keep your pants on. Okay. All right. Wait, wait, wait. Guys, ready? This is goes to you and today. Ready? Oh, oh. Oh, no. Oh, wait. Oh, all right. All right. All right. Let's get to our second topic. The big debate of the day is Nintendo Switch. You're going to come out in 2024 or 2025 later, etc. Um, I don't know. I don't, I literally didn't know homework. So of course I cover Nintendo every day. Do I need homework? I think I just know you might need homework. I don't know. I don't know what they're going to bring. I didn't watch the debate that you guys had. So I don't know what their evidence and their proof or any of it is you. All you told me about it was that they have good arguments. And I said, cool. Andres, maybe respect your way more. He won't even tell me what the arguments were. I don't even know what I'm preparing for over here. Yeah, bro. I talked about the codename thing. That was it. That's a good argument. That was it. Anyways, that was the only thing you told me anyways. All right. So I think the point is we didn't try to game plan to be like, well, let's get them right now. We're just like, hey, this is a good argument. It would be cool to revisit this. I told Botox games and Tucker. I told them like a week ago, hey, this is going to be a thing. It's like, oh, yeah, we're going to be prepared. I'm like, I'm not doing anything to prepare. So yeah, we got all document here with stats and numbers. Yeah, I'm ready to get owned. It's the same document from the on country. We got fiscal year numbers. We got percent drops in hardware. I mean, this is real shit. I love this. This makes me happy. Even more research going into that predictions video. All right. So I mean, how do we start? How do we start? Like, uh, what should we like go first? As a sidebar, Nate, I'm getting a request for a poll in your chat. If you can run one to see where your community is at in terms of 2024-2024. Oh, yeah. This is an Andres restart idea already on my community page earlier. And I do enjoy the polls during this week. I like doing the polls during the stream. Doge says that we have the most gay Nintendo podcast. And in 2024, that's a flex and a half. So I'm really happy that I can be here to make it extra gay for everyone. Yeah, you are carrying. Thank you. All right. Uh, let's let team 2025 go since I always talk about 2024 on my channel all the time. Right. Let's get some right. Let's clarify. Who's all on team 2025? I know Bulltox games and backlog banter probably based on the debate before. What are you on? Are you on 24 or 25? Uh, 24. 24. Oh, wait, wait. I think last time we spoke, you were on 25. You changed your mind. No, I was always on 24. Maybe he was trolling your ass. Yeah. I mean, I, I did clarify and I said that, um, I could see them waiting until it's past the PS2, which could be, you know, a long time. So he's got, he's, he's kind of a fence rider, but he's, he's 24. Oh, of course. I mean, it's been trying to predict like you're going to go 24 or 25. We got to clarify the sides. Who you asking? I was asking daddy. Jake, the only daddy that's here. I mean, well, the thing is, I'm talking at the same time. Sometimes you don't hear really the only daddy here. I don't know. Hey, Jake, are you 24 or 25? Uh, 24. I was just saying, are you going to hear the argument and the other side? Sorry. Sorry. Nevermind. It's okay. It's okay. So it's kind of like a 4v3, but the three are so prepared. Nevermind. Let me voice something here, right? Cause I don't think I have voices to tuck or a bow before, right? I honestly regret not having a second person, right? Hey, you tried. You tried. I tried, but I think there's a little bit of a psychological. Like, I think you guys were fantastic just for the record, right? This is no, this is no shade at you guys at all. But I do think for the sake of the discussion, right? When it's 2v1, simply by volume, right? Of two people versus one, there's a little bit of a psychological. Well, I mean, if the majority of the people in the show think one thing, I think, I think it hurts my argument a little bit. Yeah. No, but in regard. Yeah. But then in this case, now it's a 4v3. I mean, it's, it's better than a, than a 2v1. No, it is. Abram, Abram, maybe changed because I thought you were 2024. I am, I am somewhere in the middle. I, I, I, I'm going to be a little bit of a fence. He's got the fence post up way up his ass. He might be at the end of this debate. He might no longer be a fence center. That's the thing. It's true. It's a point. I'm going to be probably arguing from both sides. I'm going to do a lot of. All right. I want team 2025 to go first because you can see in the poll, right? Everyone's like saying 2024 from the most ones, a vast majority thought process. So I think it's good to start with a counter rather than go with like the obvious that most people think. I'll point out that when we did our debate, we did two polls, one in the beginning, one at the end. And the beginning one, it was 80, 20, um, first switch to 2024. But when it ended, it was 70, 30, right? So you could argue that, that team 2025 had gained some around during that discussion. It's also a completely different channel. Yeah. And that was also a month ago. And I do want to say this to sort of preface anything before we start getting into our data. Bo and I did minimal new research, uh, after, uh, before today, uh, after, after Andres, yeah, it's exact same information. So we're not necessarily bringing anything new. And that is because on the team 2025 side, not much has changed. No information has come out from Nintendo that has, that would change it, whether that's financial data or reports from investors, anything like that. So we are still working off of data that we mostly gathered in December and, uh, yeah. And I, and I, what I want to say is I'm still convinced that the trends from Nintendo and their financial data, which is very interpretable indicate 2025. However, I do want to clarify. Hello, other person. Hello. This is my brother. Right. He's going to do a shop. Restart dude. You want to do a shop. What? Oh, I mean, do we, I don't think we have shop. Yeah. So anyway, Danny is, Danny is not an extreme gamer like me. I hate that term, but, uh, you're not either. You haven't even played last of us. Who? Who? That's not a game. All right. That's not a game anyway. Did you watch it? Okay. Let's stick. Oh, that's all you need to do. That's all you needed. Exactly. Danny is switched to coming on and 20 he has no idea what's going on switch to in 2024 or 2025. There we go. I love it. All right. I'll see you tomorrow. I'm like the heat. All right. We lost. Sorry to bring that up. Thanks, Danny. Uh, they lost. Yeah, they lost. Bucks. Why do you throw that at me? I'll use this. And we won. How about that? What? I mean, I just, I just, why would you just, why would you do that to me? Like, I was like, oh boy, it's time to, time to drop it. All right. How hard is it that they do it with eight seed and destroyed the one seed? Thanks. Yeah. I know. Sour spot for me. That sucks for the heat. They're going to lose it tomorrow too. I'm sorry, bro. I should not know. I'm sorry. I refuse to pair up with a Celtics fan. I apologize. The heat are awesome. All right. You're going to be wearing a Celtics jersey soon. Yeah. That's cause I lost a bet. Yeah. That's right. We have to get you back with it. I'll see. I'll just. We have to have a bet going into the Celtics Bucks eventual playoff series. Cause that'll be sick. All right. But we'll see. That's got to actually happen first. All right. Getting back to what we were going to talk about here. I just want to verify as well. Cause I don't know where the poll is at the chat. Cause I accidentally closed it. I have to reopen it. But I did do it. I did do it. I did do it. I did do it. I had to reopen it. Um, but I did do a poll five days ago in the community section with over 4,000 votes and it was 76 to 24. So that was what it was coming in. That's wild. 72 votes in. We're 74 to 26. Hey, that's ground. I'll take it. Well, it's actually interesting cause I've got a lot of comments on my videos where people will say like, actually, I think all this data suggests 2026 and like. What? Me maybe. I don't know, but. Well, it would be one of my arguments against against some of the things you'll, you'll sort of suggest, right? Cause you guys are in T 2025, but I think some of the things you've suggested, maybe push it beyond what any of us are hoping. Um, but we'll, we'll, we'll see. I want to hear the arguments cause the only argument I've heard was just the, the one. So yeah. And my audience hasn't heard any of the arguments. So to finish what I was saying in terms of clarifying, going into this, I still think that the financial trends and data from Nintendo, which is very interpretable, indicate a 2025 release and we'll present some arguments here. However, I will admit, as I said, we're working from data that we pulled a month ago and not much has changed on our end. You guys do not have the same worries that we do because a lot has happened in the last month of that 2024 and lots of rumors, lots of reports, lots of stuff. And that means that we have a lot to work to work against here. So I will say, I still think that 2025 makes more sense in terms of financials, but I am, I'm more convinced that 2024 is an option because of all the, like so much nonsense has happened in the last few weeks and all of you guys have been covering it and been doing amazing jobs and been watching all of you. But like my mind is being pushed towards 2024, but I still do think 2025 is a reasonable end. Let's hold on the financial part first. Let's hold on the financial part first. That maybe that gives us a little bit of structure here because there's a lot. We could talk about rumors, right? We could talk about pre-order. There's so many directions. Let's focus on financial stuff, right? Because you talk about financial suggesting 2025 and then I look at the financials and I'm like, no, no, this suggests we need this thing ASAP, right? So like give me, give me your take here. Well, I was, so I watched your video today, Andres. And I think you've mentioned the same thing in your videos, Nate. This idea that Nintendo won't go three years with declining hardware, that seems to be a really big sticking point, which I totally agree with. I'm not arguing that they'll go three years with declining hardware. I'm arguing it comes out the same fiscal year that you guys are. So maybe that doesn't indicate 2024, 2025, but I feel like that's not a great rebuttal when we think it's going to come out the same fiscal year, which is what matters. That is the thing that matters. I want to point something out though, right? And I don't know if you, if you honed it on this part that I mentioned in the video, because it's a 27 minute video, right? There's a lot of different things brought up. I understand where you're coming from, right? So if the switch to just not come out in time for the upcoming fiscal year, we'll have a fourth year of declining sales, which I don't think that's going to happen. Nintendo's going to do everything that they can to combat that, right? But the other thing is that it's more of an uphill battle now because when you have declining sales, as the history shows, it gets worse and worse by year by somewhat of an exponential factor, right? It's not just a steady decline usually. And this previous fiscal year, I mean, we're still in it, right? It ends in March. We had tears of the kingdom in the Mario movie. Those are two big blips. Switch 2 doesn't have that. I mean, rather, Nintendo doesn't have that for this upcoming fiscal year. So if they don't even have Switch 2, they're in trouble. Well, they have Pokemon, which is probably equal. Sure, but they have Pokemon pretty much every year, right? Right, but that, I mean, if you're going to count tears of the kingdom in Mario movie as a blip, Pokemon totally counts as a blip. Yeah, especially counting that last year. My point is that we've seen Pokemon and they still had DLC though, right? So then they also had the bundle. That doesn't generate as much sales even close to the release, obviously. Yeah, but the Mario movie introduced the kingdom or bigger blip collectively. Yeah, all right. But the point I want to make though, right? In terms of the whole, you know, fiscal year thing is that if the Switch 2 comes out say March 3rd, right? The same way it came on March 3rd back in 2017. That's not even a whole month of sales. And so that month alone isn't enough to combat that fourth year of declining sales, right? They're going to need a bigger body of work, several shipments, several waves, and software selling throughout the bulk of the fiscal year to really combat that downward trend. A single month, I don't think is enough. And I'll throw this other little wrinkle a lot at you, right? I also think expecting a March release again is highly unlikely. The thing is for every handheld Nintendo console looks like this. This is a hybrid, so it's a little different. But we also have them on record. The Nintendo executives have told us they wanted to switch out for the holiday of 2016. They didn't because the software wasn't ready. And what is something that we all know right now? This is a very different scenario right now. Nintendo sits on games, probably mastered for a year and a half, fireman engaged for a year. Tuesday King was basically complete back in March of 2022. Metro Prime 4 is now apparently having been in quality testing since March of 2023. Mario Wonder was made without a deadline in mind. Nintendo has games. And so the scenario with Switch where they delayed it into March because they didn't have the games is not a realistic scenario this time. Nintendo sits on games now. They're ahead of the curve. And also holiday sales that's the best time typically, right? So you're not going to intentionally skip the holidays, especially if you have the games ready. And if we're talking about combining that again, that fourth year of declining sales, a single month less than a month is not even remotely enough time to combat that. So that's my take on that. I want to push on the Nintendo has games they're sitting on a little bit because I agree something like 3D Mario Metro Prime are probably just getting polished up right now. But that's all we really would know. With fireman engaged and Metro Prime we mastered and everybody went to switch. I mean, we knew years in advance in some cases. Don't you think we would have heard more? You saying they're ready? They're sitting with ready games for the Switch 2? You don't really have anything to back that up. Honestly, that's just kind of other than track record of a couple of recent games having that. Yeah. And those are games that we heard. Like I said, these games are done. They're already working. We didn't hear about primary mastered officially until the Shadow dropped it. So it was all rumors. Well, if we're going to talk about rumors, then we know quite a lot. For Tears of the Kingdom, we learned about it being basically complete for a whole year after it came out. So just because we're not getting leaks doesn't mean they aren't ready. We see the evidence usually after the fact, but we still have the evidence that those games were done for a long time before release. Okay. So I'm curious what games do you think are ready for Switch 2 right now? What developers, let me say, what developers do you think have had enough time since their last release to potentially just already be ready for a new game to release? Well, Retro Studios, obviously. Okay. Well, that's in the Switch 1 game that's currently announced for Switch 1. It's Cross Jet, right? We don't know that. We don't know. I'm not going to tell you. You cannot count Prime 4. Oh, that's fair. That's fair. Your question didn't clarify. That's fair. Old Mon Company is suing Pal World. Was that the case? They're investigating it. Oh, yeah. We'll get back to this. We'll bring that up in the Pal World segment. We'll get to that. That is a big update for us to talk about. Yeah. The other obvious one is 3D Mario, right? But also there have been several EBD groups that could be working on something, right? There's a whole bunch of different studios there. So, I mean, I think that I've also, I've talked about in the past, I think based off historical precedent, right? Like Monolithsoft is set up to have a game release in 2025. We also know the Mario Kart team, yes, they may have had contributed somewhat to the DLC, but they'll likely have something up and ready to go as well, right? Sure. But multiple of those themes you mentioned end up making more sense for their timeline for 2025, which would mean that if a, that the system did release in March 2025, which is what we're arguing for, then that would get basically the same pattern of release cadence of massive games going through the end of that year. And one thing I will say is that... So, the Mario Kart game, the Xenoblade game, or Monolithsoft, that's, yeah, I think that's 2025, right? But they could have launched the Mario Kart game this year if they wanted to. They could have launched 3D Mario already. And so, like, my perspective is that say Switch 2 comes out like September or August, right? Between Metroid Prime 4, 3D Mario, a Pokemon game which always typically comes out in November, which, you know, if it's backwards compatible, maybe a graphics patch, that's already a really solid starting lineup, right? And, I mean, as both brought up before, like, our arguments aren't that different because I'm thinking, you know, that last four months of the year, right? I've said by the end of summer, I think it's probably September, right? So, basically, I'm thinking probably September, right? But I hope for sooner, right? But that's kind of like the month I've been... They tend to be only at least two big games. Right. So, you know, they don't need to have eight games ready for 2024. They just need to have a couple. If it releases in September, they need to at least have four. Sure. Well, how do you figure? Well, I mean, a Pokemon, that's a given. Yeah. I think they only need really two big exclusives. If we're just going to be completely honest, if they have four months in the year, you need a big launch one, and then you need something to hit two months later, you're going to have Pokemon, which, yeah, that's going to sell mostly for Switch, obviously. People are going to buy necessarily Switch 2 to play the Pokemon game. But the system's going to be sold out at launch. And it's heading right directly into a holiday season off a sellout with another major game dropping in October or November for it. It's going to just be sold out the first four months. And there's going to be third-party games. And they're going to have smaller indie games. And they're going to have a cat. There could be literally a fitness game that drops in there that we're like, oh, that's not a big game. But those games sell really well. So like, if you look, because like, saying that they need more than that in the first four months, that's all they had in the first four months of Switch. It was two big games. And one of them was a port. It was a massive port, though. Sure. Every single month for the first year. And what will we expect the same thing this time around as well? I'm just noting that, like, the Switch didn't have a dissimilar start. It just had a killer first 12 months. That first 12 months was amazing. But it was all front-loaded. We just have to know that games are coming. That's the big thing. We can't go into the launch only knowing about the two big games. They got to let us know what's coming. We had a roadmap heading into Switch. We kind of knew when a lot of that first year was going to, as long as we have that roadmap and we know there's a consistent Cadence in that first year, that's all they need. They don't have to have something every single month. That's like one realistic thing. You're a girl. And your name was Cadence. Consistent Cadence would be the sickest nickname. I'm sorry, I continue. Cadence or Hyrule, that's all I'm going to say. Anyway, what's going on? Oh, that's true. Got it. I think that, because the, again, and I don't know if we've specifically said this, we probably have, but again, we're talking about either holiday 2024 or March of 2025. So we're talking about the same fiscal year. So we're really talking about. A little bit more holiday. Well, I'll get to that in seconds. I don't think there's no precedent for anybody releasing hardware in summer, basically anybody. So you can release hardware in September. Is that your claim? Oh, sorry. When you say summer, what are you ending summer at? By the end of summer is September. It's literally three weeks into September is the end of summer. Okay. Yeah. I have, I have. People think. I love doing this. I love saying by the end of summer. So someone can call me an idiot and I'd be like, really? So by the end of September. And the point is different in different parts of the world too. So like, yeah. Yeah. That's fair. And that's good for me to know, to clarify your guys position, because there is, of course, there's less precedent in September for a new piece of hardware. Obviously plenty of revisions have released in September. So you're totally covered there. But my idea about the software is that if we look historically at modern Nintendo, right? We look at, let's, let's look at Wii, for example, Nintendo published three games on Wii. Oh, sorry. Cameras over here. Three games on Wii. You had your big marquee, hardcore title in Twilight Princess and you had Excite Truck, which was really not a, you know, there's really just a small extra game in a lineup. And then obviously it is a great game. Excite Boss is even better. And then you have Wii Sports for that big casual system explaining a piece of software. Wii U followed, and you also had Red Steel at launch, which is important. And I'll get to that in a second. You had a combination of a hardcore title, a casual title, and a third party exclusive. They replicated this with Wii U with Nintendo Land, you see my brother's U, zombie U, with Switch, you get Breath of the Wild, you get one, two Switch, and you get some fucking random third party games, frankly. I apologize, Daddy Jay. That's a good point about Bomberman. Bomberman was exclusive at the time. He wants you to curse more. So my feeling about the launch games is, it's so vibes-based, because ultimately I think you can make a very salient case for that casual game being made by that one, two Switch team. Yeah. Being ready, because obviously they had finished. Everybody went to Switch a long time ago. We are pretty sure. That's the worst developer. The same developer. Yeah. With the massive success even of Nintendo Switch Sports, I personally think they'll try to launch the next system with the Nintendo Switch Sports, quote unquote, resort, like a sequel. You get your big casual game that could conceivably be ready for this holiday. You get your big 3D Mario game. You'd cut both those bases. And then if Capcom's got that long rumor of Resident Evil, Nintendo exclusive, or whatever, you can fill these sort of tentpole things that Nintendo always have at launch. I think you can make a very salient case for that happening in holiday, or that happening in early 2025. I think it's important to note then that what this conversation really comes down to is when Nintendo will be the most confident and has the least pressure on them to launch the system. Now we've been talking a lot about this three-year decline. The problem with the declining sales, not only less revenue coming in, but most critically, it's your stock price going down and your investor is getting upset. It's important to note that two weeks ago, and it's being reported by the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo's stock price hit its highest. It hit its peak. So I don't think that Nintendo's under a lot of investor pressure right now. Now that could change on a stock price. Did you actually read the complete article on why it's hitting its peak? I might be missing something if you want to fill me in on that. If you read all the analysts when they're reporting on it hitting its peak, a lot of it is because of all the Switch 2 reports. Well, yeah, and the reality of that is if Nintendo comes out in their financial briefing in February, perhaps, and says, we are launching a piece of Switch hardware in the next fiscal year, that stock price is going to go even higher. And again, we're talking about the same fiscal year. So just the speculations in the stock price is high. Them coming out and saying the next fiscal year, which does include March, is not going to tank the stock price. The stock price is not going to fall. You're making the assumption Nintendo is going to give us a year headway on a new system. Correct. And this is the exact piece of data which Andres must have told you before, but just to clarify even more because this is the one area that Bo and I did a lot of research is when not only just Nintendo, but video game system hardware publishers in general, when how far ahead they usually get out to communicate to investors that they have a new piece of hardware coming and the precedent is overwhelmingly at least a year, if not two. And of course, we're not arguing two years. That would put us into 2026, late 2025, which is not what we're arguing for. But there is basically no evidence for these major companies that have lots of investors and need to be informing their investors of this well in advance in order to communicate that their stocks are going to shift in certain ways. There is no precedence for them announcing or hinting to their investors and then just having the system come out within an incredibly short amount of time. I mean, one year is the bare, bare minimum. And especially... It's my problem with that piece of data though, right? Because we go by the piece of data, right? Your expectation for March 2025 also seems dismal. Sure. But again, one year is the minimum. And so I guess my counter though, right? And it's more so countering your argument, not necessarily 2025 as a whole though, right? Is that if you're going to start being flexible on what that trend suggests, at that point it kind of opens the door for, well, how flexible do we want to be? Because I remember that piece of information. Well, my point is... It would be cool if we had that chart so we could go over it again. But I remember going over that chart, right? And there was a back and forth going on there. So some room for confusion and misinterpretation. But my general understanding that I had from what I remember is that if we go by the pattern that was suggesting there, it's most likely suggesting that we're not even getting the switch to, as you guys were expecting by March 2025. And so my point is, right, what you're bringing up, if we adhere to it exactly as the pattern suggests, you guys are also wrong. Incorrect. And I will tell you why. It's because the window that we're talking about here is one year is less common than two years, but it is still something that happens relatively consistently, putting a one-year announcement to release work. Do you have a way to show the data or at least say it? I don't know what the data is. You can send you a message of the image and you could present it, for example. I mean, present it on the computer. I don't think I have the image anymore. Oh, shit. Okay. Well, I mean, I can really... I do have another counter argument for this, by the way. I just don't know. We're arguing about date ranges and I don't know that us in the audience know what we're talking about. Sure. I'm basing this off memory. Yeah, you're basing this on a prior debate that I don't know that anyone knows what the hell you're talking about. Yeah, here. Bo, if you can send him just the document and make it read-only, I guess. Would that be a good solution? I mean, I can just... Yeah, here. I can put the code names in the... Yeah, copy-paste the code names thing. Yeah, that's the easiest thing to do. Oh, yeah. We can actually see it here in the private chat. Yeah, that'd be great. But my point being is that... We're maddening it kind of... With the window in terms of announcing things to investors and then actually releasing the hardware, the window is one year, which happened with 3DS, which happened with DS. That was one year, which happened with... Wii U was 16 months and then some other systems are two years. The window is between one and two years, which means that one year has normal presence that happens relatively often. It also happens with PS5 or PlayStation Xbox consoles. They also do about that one year to 18 months window. So placing it within one year absolutely has solid presence that is totally within the range of investor possibility communication to it. So we're not wiggling it anywhere because that's within the window. I think what I remember is that the more often it was less... It was more than a year though, right? So you guys are going to make the assumption that it's going to be a little shorter. It's going to be leaning towards the short side. Leaning towards the short side. I think we're on the same page now, at least in terms of understanding what you're getting at. I think the difference ultimately is between what Team 2025 is pausing, which is this will be on the shorter end of the established spectrum, whereas what you guys are saying is that this will be off of that established spectrum. It's some precedent versus no precedent. I want to clarify, what numbers have precedent actually? Have you looked at all of these numbers? I'm looking at it right now, unless I am mistaken, Virtual Boy, November 1994, releasing in July of the sixth month. It's not the only one, Game Boy Color as well. Literally releasing the exact same thing. Anything from this century? It is a revision. Nothing from the century? Nothing from the century? Game Boy Color? I don't know what you're talking about, buddy. I was just asking a question. Revisions basically always have a shorter announced to reveal in terms of the set of the hardware. That happened with new 3DS. That was a very quick turnaround. DSI as well. But for new system, new generation hardware, it's never that small. Virtual Boy is an interesting one, because they announced that one when the N64 was not selling very well. That's actually not even quite right. The reality of Virtual Boy, and the reason this goes back to my point before, is Nintendo is going to release this system when they're under the least pressure that they can. The Virtual Boy has such a short turnaround because this was a stopgap project because the then known Ultra 64 was not ready in time. Nintendo did not have anything for the holiday season, so they released the Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy is an every way anomalous for this conversation. It's not a useful data point. I want to replicate the Virtual Boy success. Are you kidding me? That thing is a beast. I want to ask you guys a question, though. I was just bringing up that technically it was two systems. Of course. Great question, but I think very easily you can say, this is why Nintendo Switch 2 or Next in Harbor would not have been either of those camps. Pre-using this information to base what they're going to do for Switch 2? Correct. They're going all the way back. Go on, Wes. I'm just curious how it's relevant. Is it a completely different Nintendo? No, of course. We obviously focused mostly on the modern stuff, which still does support our argument. We just decided to continue the research back so we weren't sure that we weren't just saying, okay. I'll say this. We've been focusing on the modern stuff. The only reason we knew the code name of NX when we knew it was because of their announcement about making mobile games, and Nintendo said this actually publicly, the reason they even told us the code name. Even modern Nintendo for Switch, we wouldn't have known it at that time. That wouldn't have been a thing. Also, I just want to also note, Iwata was the first president after the Yamuchi family. Unfortunately, he passed away. We have a completely different president who does no game-making experience. He's literally nothing but a numbers guy. He crunches numbers. That was what he did at Nintendo. I want to ask you guys a question. This is on territory. It's on territory, for sure. I think we all agree that the Switch 2 is a new scenario. Obviously, looking at history helps us, but it's not the be all end all. But what I want to ask you guys in the spirit of just better understanding, why do you think it matters? We could look at the points of data, but why do you think it matters that Nintendo has to announce a code name this far in advance? Why does that matter? With the investors, it's literally everything. That is confirmation that new hardware is coming without fully revealing it, letting us know the specs, the games. There's no pressure to announce the things that the gamers care about. It's what the investors care about. What they care about is them giving official confirmation that this new piece of hardware is coming within a year window. Of course, it's a very big thing where they just say, it's coming out at some point. Sorry, Nate, yes. It's interesting because we just talked about how the investors are really excited and happy and things are really peaking. Why would they have to say, hey, it's coming out in the next year? Why couldn't they just say, hey, it's coming out in the next three months? What's the difference? Outside of they've never done it, the investors are already really interested and really excited over something that hasn't even been announced yet. I know they could give you that yearly way, but that also was telling investors, hey, for the next year, our sales ain't going to be great because everyone's waiting for the new system and we're about to tank the switch. What did actually be more better for them if they actually had a shorter announcement to release window? Because we're at, Nintendo's not in trouble right now. They're doing really, really well. Zelda movie announcement, theme park revenue, Mario movie revenue, all this stuff. Nintendo's now got more avenues of revenue than they have before as well. I'm kind of like sitting here, talking about, oh, it's all about the investors. Well, the investors are very happy with Nintendo, so why would they need to know a year in advance today versus in the past where maybe they were more worried about it because Nintendo would melt their systems until they weren't selling anymore? Here's what I would say, and I think it's important to note that I went to college for a film degree, so I'm talking mostly out of my ass. However, I think it's important to note that a lot of, yeah, a lot of investor stuff is very fickle, right? We're talking about a stock high on peer speculation, right? It is not uncommon for a stock to plummet on a singular piece of news. This happens a lot in the tech world. I mean, especially with larger tech companies in Nintendo, stocks pivot on a moment. And so it's... I think it's kind of pivot when they have that financial meeting coming up. Right, and February, we might get a codename then. I'm of the opinion personally, I think actually talking about this a little bit, but I'm of the opinion that we'll get the codename in that February presentation because I think it's important to affirm this, right? It's important to affirm that the hardware is coming opposed to your stock trading on a VGC. Didn't they already affirm the hardware back in 2021 when they put up a slide that said Nintendo moved into the next system? Yeah, the next integrated hardware. Technically, if you want to be real, they mentioned the new one in 2021. Not to mention, like, there's the multiple Bloomberg articles stating that, like, LCDs are in production, production is like moving forward. It's all speculation, yeah. They literally already confirmed a new system was coming in 2021. So then it goes back to the question. Is this an iterative hardware? They just didn't give it a codename, but they literally set a system coming and they wanted to assure investors that Nintendo accounts are moving forward to that next thing. Yeah, it's iterative hardware as well. So, like, I mean, we're kind of new territory. I'm also of mind that I don't think the codename thing needs to happen anymore. If you look at the tech space, a lot of people aren't announcing codenames anymore. They just announced the product. Xbox has done it with, like, Project Scorpio, but that's just, like, the hype reasons, you know? Yeah, I think that you guys are not totally wrong. I am somewhere between both teams because I think that the precedent is very important, but I also think, Nate, you make an extremely important point about the fact that Nintendo is currently pivoting into a space they've never been in before, and that they're now a multimedia Disney-like company, which they've always tried to do, but now literally are. So I think it's totally fair to suggest that, yeah, I think it's totally fair to suggest the precedent is important to a point, but we are doing such a new environment that you have to discount that to an extent. That's what you guys is this. And Andres, this is something you talked about in the debate that I would love you to go further on and love your other guys' feedback on this. Let's say that Nintendo is offering a very short turnaround time. We're talking, let's just say for a second, arguments six months until the reveal of the system, reveal in March-ish, release it in September. I am of the opinion that this is going to be very iterative hardware. I don't think anybody here or across the industry would disagree. Now, Nintendo got into a very difficult situation with the Wii U on this same grounds of not giving the time to adequately explain the differences in the hardware. I think that the biggest optical issue for Nintendo Switch 2 is that because it will be such a similar looking device, and the games will be similar in that there's not going to be such a big jump in graphical fidelity from one platform to the other, that you're going to have a lot of your more average player saying, hey, I already have Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch. I'm fine with this. Why do I need to upgrade? I think the more time Nintendo has to explain the differences in the hardware will help them avoid the Wii U pitfall they've already fallen into. And even if you look at 3DS, which is a much more successful piece of hardware, 3DS only sold, we'll call it in the class in a moment, 3DS only sold half of what DS sold. And that was, again, an iterative piece of hardware, but there's going to be a larger jump in 3DS and 3DS, and they will be from Switch 1 to Switch 2, I promise. I feel like, I just got to acknowledge something, it's been going on all podcasts. This is the first time I feel like we've had an intellectual equal match to Andres. We've got two Raven claws on the podcast tonight, and I'm telling you, you're loving it, aren't you? It's enjoyable. It's not very little, but I've been on the show right now. Absolutely. But that's my point, guys. I'm just curious what you think about this. Is there a danger for Nintendo of not having enough time to explain the differences in the hardware? I really want to speak on that. If they convey the message in the right way the first time, then they shouldn't need much time. Something else I want to speak on is that I don't think time was the problem for the Wii U. They showed that thing off in 2011. It came out 2012. It had a year and a half, and they botched it. Switch had a year and a half. The PS4 was revealed in February the next year. That was where it was. Exactly. It's not timing. It's just execution. The other thing, DS to 3DS, we talk about how Switch is a repeatable success. It's not lightning in the bottle situation. DS, we were lightning in the bottle situations, and then Nintendo tried to get that again, but they realized that's not their long-term audience. Switch, I think, they have a long-term audience, and it's not about time it's about execution, but Nate wanted to talk, so I don't want to continue before he loses his thought. I just wanted to... I'm not going to lose my thought. Nintendo rarely tries to sell us on hardware. They sell us on games. As long as the system is named appropriately, that it's understood that this is the next Switch rather than a Switch accessory or another Switch OLED situation. They got to be very clear in the branding of this system. As long as they deliver the games, that's what's going to sell. The consistent issue with a lot of those systems that are brought up, like, oh, look at the 3DS. It had SteelDiver at launch. It's next to the game was a remaster of a Zelda game in the middle of some... They didn't have any... You leave SteelDiver the fuck alone. The world's first single-diverged fender. Look, Switch, obviously, with the four and a half marketing cycle, the four and a half month marketing cycle, yes, we knew about it sooner because we told the NX. Didn't know what it was until four and a half months before it came out. So they had a four and a half month marketing cycle and, yeah, they did a great job explaining that this is a thing you can put in the dock and take with you and go on a walk. Yeah, that was a really great explainer, but they weren't trying to sell us on, like, these, you know, individual features. Breath of the Wild was already the most talked about game of that year before we even knew the system came out. And all Nintendo had to say is, this is launching on our next hardware. Well, that's actually what I'm going to tell the system. They have to have the games. I wanted to bring that up. Breath of the Wild had over two years of marketing and that sold the Switch. We talk about the Switch being announced in October and that's totally fair. Oh, like Metroid Prime 4 I don't think we're marketing. I don't know about marketing. I know technically technically Breath of the Wild was announced in 2014, I would argue it didn't really have that. They knew about it. We knew about Metroid Prime 4 because Metroid sells like shit. Okay, but my point is Zelda, okay, here's the thing. Breath of the Wild sold 30 million, right? Never been done in Zelda history. Not even selling like 10 million. It's unprecedented. And yes, we knew about the game in 2014, this tiny little off-screen demo at the game awards at year as well. And then boom, nothing. Oh, I got to really know what the game was. It was just a bunch of, hey, this looks cool. Oh, well, we have this big world, but what are we doing in this world? This all looks cinematic. It's something really- I think from a casual perspective the promise of Skyrim Zelda is one of the most exciting things for core gamers. I understand. The perfect rebuttal. Is that the marketing really began when they did the demo at E3 in 2016, because from that point forward that's all anyone talked about. They literally went to E3. They were the only company to be- we had one game. But this game isn't just any game and you're about to see. And from that moment forward all the internet could talk about Breath of the Wild trended every single day. It was so crazy that they won E3 with one game. That was unprecedented. That was insane. The marketing did technically start sooner but the hype wasn't like that. It was a completely different level. I got the rebuttal. You ready? I'm piggybacking off you, Nate. This is a one-two punch. You ready? Okay. And listen, I'm a Metroid fan and I believe in Metroid Prime 4 but I'm not even going to use Metroid Prime 4 here. I'm not going to do it. What's he doing? We're going to uncharted territory. Has been marketing a game for some time already. They have. They can do it. Well, act somewhat, actually. And if you think about it, if you think about all the Mario games that have been coming out lately, it's actually quite peculiar. You look at the fundamental financials and how Mario games have been selling a lot better lately. They've been marketing their big premiere title the next 3D Mario with the Mario Damn movie. That's been marketed for a long time already. That actually is a good point. That's actually an interesting point. I like the damn poster for that Mario movie. That first poster, I know it's a poster for the movie. I know it's not going to be a game that's going to look like a movie exactly, but when I saw that poster, my first thought was damn, if this was a game it would be the greatest thing ever. Oh, absolutely. What did you say, Jake? It was Mario first standing in front of the Mushroom Kingdom and was toad shops and pipes going everywhere and peaches castle up on the top of the mountain. Wait, wasn't it like showing Mario from the back? Yes, that's the one. Dude, the one where he has no ass? Yeah, the no ass poster. A game where Mario has no ass? I'll tell you what, that's bullshit. I'm not playing that. No, but you make a very good point. It will sell 30 billion, not 31 billion. Damn. That's actually a good point. That is reported. Before I mess up, it is not reported. It was brought up in a podcast from Andy Robinson. He heard a couple sources. In a podcast in passing, that's not a report from Video Games Chronicle. I just want to make that distinction. He hasn't pulled back on it. He hasn't refuted it. I think most will agree that if Nintendo has a Mario game ready, they're going to have it at least available pretty soon. If they don't have a 3D Mario game ready after going on seven years, that'd be crazy. That's my rebuttal, guys. They have been marketing a big game. It's not a bad point. The reality is that Nintendo loves to launch with Mario. It doesn't always happen, but obviously in the States, NES, SNES, N64, DS even, Wii U, there's plenty of pressing for this. That's my point. Again, comes back to the fact for me of I think you can make an equal case for these launch games being ready in September or in March. That's my thing, because again, it comes back to calling the class in a moment. It comes back to the fact that they hold games, and I think that Andres, it's a very salient thing for you to raise. There's a bunch of people from VGC just giving their predictions, and there's a lot of people on Twitter talking about how they anticipate that Nintendo will replicate the first year of Switch One in that they'll hit all the major franchises back to back to back to back to make sure that people want to be there. And I think that they're going to do that. And again, the important thing is if Nintendo is confident to finish a game and wait for the right time, it doesn't matter what the game is. It matters when that time is. I think the only thing that we need debating is time, because I don't think there's any debate that's going to be 3D Mario at launch. And I don't think that there's any debate that 3D Mario if it's announced one day before release or a year and a half before release is going to be huge. I mean, they sold what, 8 million copies of Super Mario 3D All-Stars, with two weeks head start. That game is going to be massive. Yeah. That too. But Bo, there's going to be a lot of fucking FOMO to get a new Nintendo System at launch. So that FOMO is going to be there. I think you guys are on the money with the game point. And I think the games could be ready in 2024. I 100% believe that they could launch with 3D Mario in September. I would say November. My personal opinion is probably November. But it just comes down to what is the right moment. Is it September? Is it November? Is it March? Yeah. I've argued September, even before, like the rumors. One, because there was another rumor of something happening in March, right? And they just kind of be thinking about, like, you know, I'm not going to reveal a release marketing cycle, but also I'm kind of of the frame of mind that in order to maximize Mario sales, right? You don't want to just come out in November. You want to come in a couple months before, have multiple shipments, iron out the kinks, get the patches in, have multiple games to deliver a really strong, you know, holiday season. And also that kind of bodes, that would also speak to my point about combating against this fourth year of, you know, dropping sales, right? If you come out sooner, that's more time to get more sales out there, right? Because the day one launch is probably going to only be two to three million systems. That's usually how it is, and they always sell out regardless of what the launch line-up is. Excuse me, I have an important related request. Yes, Jay. Thank you. Can we put the Mario poster on the screen so people can see? I just want to be valid. Oh, Mike. You're really going to make me put in the work for that? I have it here. I can share it if you want. Of course you have it on. I already saved. Here we go. I actually do have it saved, but it's easier. But based off the way Streamlabs works, it's better to have it on a website. Tell me that it's on-natural. It's like he's missing part of his body. It's not like getting your flat ass. It's like that it's not there. I would cut it out of his body. Yeah. I'm going to say something about that. Wait, that's why you want me to show it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you wanted to see the match with the poster, not his dick. No, it is a great poster. So it doesn't look abnormal to me. I've seen people with asses just like that. So... Well, I'm sorry for you and for them. Yeah, I'm sorry you got to see it or what. I just kind of... It's wild that we're talking about his butt. I don't know why. He likes asses. It's important to him. I understand. Can I make a boring point? Because I have nothing new. I think you're right. If you want this kind of back and forth, this is all we do in our videos. Just throw shit at each other. I love it. What am I right about? What you're right about is that what Nintendo wants is multiple successive waves of stock. Nintendo has historically had trouble, as every hardware manufacturer has had trouble with keeping up with demand at launch. And if Nintendo has a game as potent as a big 3D Mario, and then something people actually want like Metroid Prime 4, I love Metroid. I'll stand for Metroid on this podcast. I think it's going to have a big moment. People are really like speaking ill of Prime 4, saying it's not a seller. I'm not saying it's going to sell 30, but it's going to be a record for Metroid. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The point is ultimately this, and this is so boring, and it doesn't help the debate at all, but the reality is the right release time for Nintendo is probably when they can already have that next wave of stock ready. Because I think that if there's no point in launching in September to capitalize on the holiday if you sell it in September and can't be ready for the holiday. Oh, absolutely. That I agree with. Yeah. And so that's another wrench that I think goes above game speculation or anything. I think it's going to be constraints of production, which is so boring to talk about. What's saying that they don't have that already? Well, and you're totally right, Wes, they very well could. And I think that's part of where reports are very useful because reports of a production can be verified a little bit more easily because this is happening outside of development rooms and lock and key scenarios. This is in big warehouses and factory lines and assembly shit. So when we start to get more reports and there might be, I don't care about reports super closely, you guys might have some reports from me already reports that these systems are probably already made. Then we got launch locked in. I think the benefit of a March launch is if Nintendo has six extra months to make stock, you have a big stock drop at launch. You've got another stock drop over the summer. You got another one the fall, another one on holiday. And maybe they can get that ready. Maybe they can orchestrate that for September and for Christmas. I don't know. But if I was Nintendo and I had no pressure on me to release a hardware right now from my investors or anybody, I would say, hey, let's stockpile a bunch of units so we're never out of stock next year when people are going to see for Nintendo World and everything. One thing that you have to realize is it is an iterative console. So like they could do a price drop of the original Nintendo switch to another price drop to the switch light and they could continue selling volume of those stock alongside their iterative console. That's the fresh new piece on the market. I don't disagree, but I think there's a danger in that, right? Because if we're talking about the idea that Switch 2 is already going to be really similar to Switch 1 and you're trying to allocate development resources to Switch 2 and you want people over on Switch 2. It's about creating choice. Yeah, but at a certain point you don't want choice. Especially when the Switch is sold so much already that that choice is everyone, basically everyone who wants one already has one. I mean, when you look at the. That makes a really many. Yeah. They're releasing another iteration of a system after they released a new system. They also did that in 2017 after the Switch came out, they announced a new 2DS XL, right? They actually keep selling systems years into it. Yeah, they want access when they actually just stop making it worse. If anything, it's more important for Nintendo to really have a smooth transition here because it's a hybrid system, right? Because they focus on one singular platform. They need to make sure that things are going well, right? So as we transition to Switch 2, it's not going to be a cold turkey like Switch over. I think we all agree with that. Games transferred. We'll have all the games. So it's like. I will also say this. I think the February Direct assuming there is one, we don't know but if there is one will be the telltale for this year next year because if they don't release a single big game in there, it's just their mid-tier and a bunch of ports and remasters. Yeah, I think that's like indication that that's because every big game that's coming this year is being saved. I would agree with that. We're going to get announced either way because the Pokemon Company likes to come late to the party on every new system. Yeah, I do want to say though there is a world and it's not a world I want to live in, right? And because I know some people believe this. I don't, but I'm just pointing it out. We could get an internal Direct in February and it may have no new game announcements. It may just be remastered and all and then there still is no such in 2024. Like some people believe that Nintendo is just going to have a shit year. I mean, 23 wasn't good until June. So I agree that we'll probably worry. Sorry, I'm talking about the second half of the year. You remember all those articles saying here's the last major game Yeah. was going to be completely empty because they had enough anything. So that's well, that's yeah, exactly. Well, hold on. Let me I can clarify. Of course he's saying he's saying that the second half of the year we thought was going to be bad. Yeah. Sure. I agree with this February Direct. We'll probably know for sure if it's this year or next year. But yeah, they could hold off last year. or something until June. I don't consider a side scrolling 2D Donkey Kong to be a game that anyone's thinking about buying systems for. That's like a princess peach level game to me if it's a side scrolling Donkey Kong and I am I saying level is my I'm more interested to be showtimes big deal. Now now Donkey Kong is my boy. He sells like 10 million units in the first three days. I'm arguing that. My process is thrown off with what is a system selling game. I do think it's important to note that the retro studios Donkey Kong games and I'm talking slowly to double check myself and when Donkey Kong Country Returns came out Country Returns. I believe in November. It's important to note that Donkey Kong Country Returns released in November. It was a holiday game and Tropical Freeze was supposed to be the holiday game 2013. It got delayed to February 2014. But especially in the modern era Donkey Kong Country had massive sniffing SNES but if I'm trying to use SNES evidence for what's going to happen to Switch 2 I'm a fraud. That's so far in the past. If we look at modern history Donkey Kong has been positioned as a major release. On Nintendo 2 we're selling platforms for their respective I want to ask you 3DS are both the lowest? 3DS is the lowest. Donkey Kong Country On Wii? I want to be on its way out though. Wii sales were massively declining. It didn't turn around the Wii sales in 2010. I want to ask you both this you're talking about the way Nintendo positioned it. Do you think a holiday with potentially, and this is all speculating, a potential new 2D Donkey Kong game, a Pokemon game and the Switch 1 currently announced a game Metroid Prime 4, do you think that's a bad holiday? For Switch 1 and its final year? Because to me, if Switch 2 was March 2025, if we get those three games, or even if you want to replace Metroid Prime 4 with something like Mario Party, which is a proven sales. I don't want to do that either but I'm just saying for the sake of argument, if it is still weaker than Metroid Prime 4, no one wants to see Mario Party or anyone really cares. Is that a bad holiday? That's not a bad lineup. Let's say that's a holiday. What the hell are we doing until then? Just a bunch of remasters that don't sell systems? They're not trying to sell systems at this point. They're trying to sell software. They can continue to sell systems as much as they want, but as Tucker said, everybody who wants to switch already has one. They can do aggressive price drops in the holiday season. So letting hardware momentum die is what you're saying? Is they're just okay with that? No, not at all. That's why they're releasing a new piece of hardware this fiscal year, or next fiscal year. Yeah, I just think that would be too late. I'm not saying 2026. Give me a recipe. I want to point something out. This goes back to what I was saying earlier. First off, we don't have all the sales data, some sales data from the holidays, right? And Mario Wonder, I think we all agree, would be considered a bigger game than a 2D Donkey Kong game, right? And definitely bigger than Mario Party. The Pokemon game is really kind of the thing that Nintendo would be hoping would push things there. But even with Mario Wonder, and then also still Tears of the Kingdom, because not everybody would have bought the game, and also that boost of popularity from the Mario movie, if that's not enough to give Nintendo a really strong holiday, then that line would be talked about even less so, especially with more time having passed with more people moving on and being tired of the Switch. So, yes, it's a good lineup for me, for us to play, but is it good for Nintendo to maintain strong sales? And I think the answer is no. I am interestingly not that far off of what Andres is saying, but this is where I need that February fiscal report, because one of my really unpopular, one of my unpopular opinions that differentiates me from Tucker and Bo is I don't think that the Tears of the Kingdom sales number is good. Now, I know that's crazy, but hear me out for a second. Tears of the Kingdom as of last reported numbers, almost all copies were sold in the first quarter of that game's release. When they updated those numbers in November, Tears of the Kingdom only added like 1.7 million units. That is ridiculous. That is a ridiculous disparity from selling 16.5 million units to 1.7 million units. That would suggest that maybe people aren't buying a ton of Switch games. Now, we know that Mario Wonder is the fastest selling Mario game, but fastest and best selling are very different. If Mario Wonder's number on February 9th is also soft, I think there's reason to suspect that they want that new piece of hardware out sooner, because what ultimately matters to Nintendo is one thing only, and that is software sales. Nintendo made $70 on 17 million copies of Tears of the Kingdom. That is fucking crazy money. And if that money goes away, then you're going to need the new hardware. So if we get that February report, Mario Wonder has not sold that much more, and Pikmin 4 has not sold that much more, and Tears of the Kingdom's sales really have dried up at maybe right under 20, then there's going to be new hardware in 2024. That's my feel. I want to clarify on something, I think the title of the video about this point was shortly after we had our debate. The title of the video was something like the best piece of evidence for Switch 2 in 2024, something to that effect. It was because we got an update giving us a better picture of the holiday sales and they weren't good. So that was my point there. And then some people combated that in the comments saying, just because Nintendo has bad sales doesn't mean they're going to decide to release a Switch 2 sooner. And I agree with that. And I think that's the ending of how their numbers are going to go than everyone else. They have a strong estimation of how the sales are going to go. So they're preparing ahead of time. And so when we get this information, this is just more kind of confirming what Nintendo expects. So if we do see that the holiday sales are poor, Nintendo probably was already prepared for that as they sort of hinted at in their fiscal earnings. And so what that implies, Nintendo was preparing beforehand in anticipation of these poor holiday sales that's a relative term. It's still good, but just compared to what it could have been, that they would be gearing up for it. So it's not that Nintendo would be... They're proactive about it is what I'm trying to say. They're not reactive, they're proactive. They're anticipating sales and making choices and decisions based off what they're anticipating. And so when we get the sales numbers, that's just kind of further pointing towards what Nintendo may have already been planning. They might change their plan because they're like, oh no, the sales are going badly. Let's just create systems out of thin air that's not... Whatever Nintendo is going to do, it's already planned out. It's already planned. We just don't know what their plan is. I mean, I'm of the... Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, no, you're good. I was going to make a different point. Well, I guess my last thing on that point is I do my personal opinion is that Switch 2 is that piece of hardware is locked in and they have a date range and it's just a matter of when you're going to shoot them out to market at this point. I agree with you, Andreas. They have been making micro-adjustments for probably years now about what's going to happen. And that's why I'm a little bit of a fencer because I do think that this next round of financial data will be clear for the audience to know what Nintendo has already decided. Exactly. I love the way it works. Can we talk about Pal World, please? Hold on, hold on, hold on. We still have so much to debate. We're not done with it yet. It really wants to double Pal World because now the Pokemon company responded. One thing I want to go to buy a couple of things. Tears of the Kingdom is actually officially at $19.5 million as of last September. Yeah. So it's going to be over $20 million after the holiday season. Sure. And just to point out, like when we talk about sales momentum with games, it took six years for Breath of the Wild to get to where it is. Tears of the Kingdom is massive and it's way higher sales base than Breath of the Wild was. Now, granted, there's a lot more systems out there. Yada, yada, yada. But I also think that we had to remember on a per year basis, Breath of the Wild was moving about 3 to 5 million every single year of Switch. It's still right on pace to keep doing that if Switch kept going and kept being popular for years to come. So I don't know that you can ever argue that sales momentum is actually lower for a game that started higher. It is the second fastest one behind Pokémon and Pokémon took two versions to get ahead of it. So like an individual game basis, it's one of the, like, literally fastest selling games I've ever had. I think it's a fair point, but fast is something speed can be taken away. And my point is when Nintendo released their last set of financial data, they put out a really interesting, and I'm sorry I'm talking about a graph without having it, but they had in their last financial report this graph of the couple selected titles what they sold in their first year of release versus what they sold subsequently. They're quote-unquote long tail games. They had a lot of long tail games. Animal Crossing New Horizons is the long tail game alongside Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It's like the big two. And that long tail is critical to how the Switch has succeeded. And my point with Tears of the Kingdom is if Tears of the Kingdom can open huge, that's great, but if Tears of the Kingdom is not selling consistently at high enough velocity, I think that's a problem. What's a high velocity to you? Because right now it looks like it's selling at the same pace Breath of the Wild did after launch. Would you not say that with all those new hardware units in the wild then there should be more It did. It launched higher. It launched significantly higher. In those following timeframes. Breath of the Wild was able to work. That's not how Evergreen titles work. They sell a consistent amount every single quarter. They just keep going. Right, and so a couple things. Typically there is a spike in the holidays and so we don't know what that spike is going to be. And then the other thing is because we're talking about Evergreen sales, we just simply don't have enough data. There's not enough sample size to know where Tears of the Kingdom is going to be. We have to revisit this conversation years from now. Of course, when it comes to predicting Switch 2, that will already have been done. So what is the 2024 debate in three years? How does that sound? That'll be Switch 4. Tears of the Kingdom is probably at least at 20 mil, right? How long did it take Breath of the Wild to get to 20 mil on Switch? Years. Years, right? And it's doing this in less than a year. So we're already seeing the effects that there's more hardware out there. That is a fair point and I can see that completely. I guess my question and what I'm really curious to have answered is we sold 10 million copies in three days. I think it's a number for Tears of the Kingdom now. Obviously you would never expect anything near that. You could never expect that momentum to stay, but my thing is when you go from selling, I think it's about 14 in that first quarter to then you're adding 3 million across the entire of the next quarter. 3 million units is fucking crazy. That's what Street Fighter 6 has sold so far. So to be clear, that's a great number. But I guess my question is is that what Nintendo wanted? Did they think that with more Switches out there, the long tail success of that game would be better quarter over quarter? Do we have enough quarters to predict that? I might be entirely wrong. It's that Tears of the Kingdom and the Moring were more successful than they anticipated in that first quarter. I don't know about after the fact, but they had to increase their software tail projections. Part of that was because of Tears of the Kingdom. I do want to bring something up related to Zelda though. Going back to the whole code name thing, that's a pattern. So I think no matter how you spin it, I would like to see if you guys agree. No matter how you spin it, some patterns are going to break no matter what happens. I think there are a lot of patterns that actually also suggest 2024 as opposed to 2025. I'm going to mention a couple patterns, but again, that's just some. So this is all the pattern. When Majora's Mask came out in the year 2000, what came out the year later? Nintendo GameCube. Majora's Mask was that second main Zelda for the N64. When we take a look at Spirit Tracks, it was the main second Zelda for the Nintendo DS. Spirit Tracks came out December 2009, February 2011. That's like 15 months. We got the Nintendo 3DS. A year to year and a half is what I'm arguing here. It happened again with Skyward Sword. It came out Holiday 2011. Wii U came out Holiday 2012. Now we have Choose the Kingdom. Big Zelda game. There's obviously when we talk about Crossions, those are things that we're talking about. The Zelda game that comes out at the end of a generation is the second main line Zelda for that console. We have the pattern. Three games. That's the pattern. A year to a year and a half later, there's a new console. Choose the Kingdom came out May. So that positions us for a release sometime between May 2024 to November 2024. That's just a pattern. But that lines up with a lot of the memories. Nate? I find a lot of this debate quite fascinating because we spent a lot of time talking about patterns and a lot of time focusing on what Nintendo of the past has always done and all of this stuff. Well, Nintendo of the past has also never been able to release two successive systems that have hit the same success. And this president we currently have one consistent message he's had the entire time is we always get up here and then we go down here and he doesn't want to know what I really like. So that instead of talking about the brand new news story with the game that's like one of the best selling games in the history of the game. We'll get there. And making the same points for over an hour and there's less than 10 like 20 minutes left of the podcast that we've just continued to do that. By the way, I'm going to note I'm not ending the podcast in 20 minutes. You can dip out in 20 minutes. I'm going to have a little bit of flat Pepsi left. I'm just saying, I'm just saying we might be running this topic a little bit long. It's all I think we're doing. We haven't brought up the new information yet. I want to hear what Nate's saying. Come on. I want to hear what Nate's saying. He's making a good point. Jake, we did this for four and a half hours last time. Just to let you know. We could have kept going just for the record. I'm over here trying to get the podcast to be viral and have it get more clicks. Jake Jake Jake, stop. It's not going to go viral. Hal world's not in the title. Halward's not mentioned in the thumbnail. Hal world is not a Nintendo game. And we in the primary topic of this podcast is this topic. Hal world is a very tiny throwaway topic at the end for us. Just so you're aware. It takes 30 seconds to add it to the title and description and thumbnail. Okay. I understand what you're saying. Nate, I want to hear you about the new president. I did want Hal world. We have been talking about Hal world on my channel for four straight days. I'm tired of talking about Hal world. There's a new Pokemon company released a statement during the podcast. That's, I wasn't about Hal world at all until that happened. And we will talk about that statement. If you end up leaving the podcast before we get there, I do apologize. I'll stay. There's still so much to want to get to. I know. This was the primary podcast. President of Nintendo. Jake's just making known that he's tired of this shit and he really wants to talk power. That's all he's saying. We've got to talk about the surveys, Jake. We have to talk about the surveys. So we'll get to that. What I wanted to finish my point was that this president is basically saying all we've done is fuck up for 30 years. We should be on top all the time. Right? We're always up here and then we go down here. He's like, I've been examining. We make the same damn mistakes every damn time. I kind of look at it as all of this president. All of this stuff can also be linked to the fact that Nintendo keeps failing to successfully get to that next system and have it be as successful as even close. Even within shouting distance of the prior system. So I think none of it matters. I think it's all completely irrelevant. And that's not saying the debate is irrelevant. It is that this is a different president who has literally publicly stated several times, we keep fucking up. So the precedence doesn't really matter because this is unprecedented for Nintendo what they're doing. It's all one system now. All their eggs are in one basket when it comes to video games and well correction, they do have mobile games, but most of their eggs are in the one basket and I don't think they're going to do things like tell us a fucking codename. You know who doesn't care about codename? Consumers. They don't get too fine fucks about codenames. The hardcore faithful do. Hardcore faithful are buying the damn thing if it has the games they want to play. Hey, remember Project Scorpio? You're going to get a codename. I don't think they're, oh, it's about the investors. The investors are happy. They don't have to give them a codename. They can just say Oh, you know what we're talking about in this? We're going to talk about our projected end of year sales. We're going to show all the holiday sales are on the client. Okay. Oh, no. Our stocks went down a little bit. Oh, and then they know in the back of their mind. Oh, yeah, but we got a direct in a week. We got a fucking switch to announcement in three weeks. We're not going to worry the stocks dip for a few weeks. And then they're going to give a shit because they know they're about to spike it back up. Didn't they dip during the holidays? They dip, they, they announced the NX thing and their stocks still dipped back when they announced NX. So like it wasn't even like a big thing. Like they don't do these announcements to make the investors happy. They're not actually that beholden to investors like a lot of companies are. Nintendo actually owns a majority of their own company. Them and the founding family own a majority of their own company. They can't get like, like the approval ratings are what they have to worry about, right? If you want to talk about what they got to care about, it's when they're not the investors meetings, it's when they have the voting meetings on who stays in control of Nintendo. All of their approval ratings are in the 95 plus percent and that's not going to change if they don't tease a system you know, a year out. Like none of that's going to change because if they keep delivering record profits that's all the investors are going to see are the dollar signs. And so even though they'll show declining sales and that we didn't make as much this holiday as we did the holiday before blah, blah, blah. Okay. Investors might get nervous for a little bit but we're not even at the end of the fiscal year. We haven't even kicked off a direct and announcements. They know are coming that'll set up the rest of 2024. I think investors are willing to give quite a bit of leeway when they know a Zelda movie is coming. They know the Mario movie. There's going to be a probably a sequel to that at some point. They obviously have heard all the murmur expansion. The Lego Zelda Lego set just announced officially now. Wait, what? Sorry, I don't I don't I should just probably say that out loud. My bad. No, my bad. Let me back that off. Let me reel that back in. Oh, guys screen screen record this and post it on Twitter. Hey, you want to go viral shit. Hey, who it's okay as long as we talk about get out. I'm so sorry. Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I don't mean my mind just kept going. First of all, I don't I shouldn't be enjoying it. It's not like you didn't know it was coming anyways, but it leaked last year. But anyways, yeah. I don't think that this is a bad point on the whole. No, I agree. Yeah, I think it's great. I think this is a great point on the whole. I feel like I disagree with certain dimensions of it, but doesn't really matter because I think you are ultimately right that and I've been saying this a lot to Tucker and Bo and our various videos more in terms of hardware philosophy and terms of game philosophy. There are a bunch of websites tomorrow. I'm going to be so pissed. No, I promise you're not going to get caught. No one watching the podcast. You're not going to get caught. Oh, I'm not going to get caught. Another person that's going to get in trouble. I mean, I mean, this the late images, the Lego set have been leaked. I think you're fine. I think you're all right. I promise you'll be all right. I think what I was going to say, you know what, I'll probably find because my channel does is talk rumors and everyone thinks I'm full of shit. So yeah, you're full of shit. What I've been saying to Tucker and Bo about like game, like hardware philosophy in terms of game design. We've got a lot of younger Nintendo talent contributing ideas. You've got a lot of like Breath of the Wild famously influenced by Ayanuma's enjoyment of Far Cry 4 and various things. I mean, this is a Nintendo that's a lot more flexible and obviously a Nintendo that's working a lot more fields. So I don't think it's a bad point that he that the president just says, you know what, fuck it. I don't really care about any of this stuff. I just want the system to do well. But this is why I ultimately could never be a daily Nintendo YouTuber like you guys because I think that the reality of the of the fact is all that matters is when Nintendo can manufacture enough stock. I think that is frankly the only thing that matters. So I think you're ultimately right. I think fuck the precedent. Fuck any of this stuff. Is 3D Mario ready? Yes. Can we manufacture three waves of stock ahead of time? Yes. Okay. Launch the system. They can launch it tomorrow. Well, I'll I'll say this. It's not going to launch in like March or anything crazy. Like people were, oh, it's going to be, you know, it's not going to launch in March. It won't because of the Chinese New Year. Okay. They would have had to prepare for the Chinese New Year ahead of time that shuts down a lot of factories. It doesn't shut down all the factories in Taiwan, but it shuts down all the factories in China for like two weeks in the middle like at the end of February. So it's not going to launch this spring unless it would have already been announced by now. It's going to launch the spring because they would have already had mass manufacturing last year at this point. We had manufacturing reports last year for November. Those were just part manufacturing, not assembly. There's a difference. Banking up components is not me. All the components are actually put together. Okay. Assembly has, I don't think it's begun yet based on the current reports. A lot of people think it'll start up in March after the Chinese New Year. I think the biggest thing to remember with manufacturing though, we're in a different world today than we were back in 2017. And a lot of it is due to the pandemic. The factories were pushed to the extreme. All the companies were waiting on products. Yada, yada, yada. Well, in response to that, billions and billions and billions of dollars were put in by these companies to build all these new factories. And now there's less demand. So now we actually almost have more factories than we need. So I don't actually think it's going to be that hard for them to be able to ramp up and make more systems remain before. Now, one counter argument I will have about, oh, it matters how many they can get out. You don't want to have 20 million of these things made ahead of time. I know that sounds crazy. Why wouldn't you want that? Because if it doesn't sell well, you're stuck discounting it to 100 bucks and taking L's on all of those systems. They had that problem with Gamecube. They made way too many of them anticipating it to sell at least 30 million and it never did. And they had to literally drop the price down to 99 bucks. So I think that this is a situation where you want a decent amount. You're going to look at your sales history. You're going to look at the projections, look at the hype and have like, let's say you have 10 million ready for the first couple of months. That's an insane number. And I bring this up because look at PlayStation 5. I know it was in the middle of it. Look at PlayStation 4 as well. Look at the system that consistently sells 100 million units. They ain't selling 20 million in the first damn launch month. It's usually 10 million over the first three months. There's some reasons for that. You don't want to oversupply the market for starters. You don't want to make it just easy to get because then people think people must not be buying this thing because it's always on shelves. I agree with you. And Nintendo and I always say this too. None of these companies care if their product is sold out on shelves. That's good news for them. They don't need to have 3 million ready to launch. If it's sold out, it creates demand and they know it. That's where people talk about artificial demand. But these companies don't care. If it's sold out, it's sold out. If our restock doesn't come for two weeks, it don't come for two weeks. You're totally right. I empathize with that completely. I make books for a living. That's my job. When we're releasing a new book, we've got a quantity ready that we know we're going to sell out and then we're primed to make that next quantity of books. But those books aren't made yet. I agree with you completely. I just think that Nintendo is going to want to be in a position where they sell out but they are ready to fulfill that next wave of demand strategically. That's the difference. I think there will be two. Yeah. One thing that was different was Switch. Switch was sold out right away. It was pretty hard to get for the first three months. Nintendo had a backup plan in order to keep that stock. Even though it was hard to get, it didn't feel like the Wii. You could still really get one if you tried. It wasn't like PlayStation 5 dealing with the whole pandemic thing and how hard it was. You could probably pick one up at one of your local retailers if you were diligent enough just to call ahead of time and ask when the stock comes in. The thing is though, the reason they were still able to do that and fulfill some of that demand with Switch was because they had a plan. The plan was, at least in the United States, we'll just fly it in. We don't do this. We put everything on shipping containers. It takes a week to get there. But Reggie came out and said it's going to be in systems, but it gets them there literally right off the factory line in the same day. I think it's one of those things that if they launched in September, they clearly would already have the manufacturer at a point where we have X1 units ready here and we've already got another five coming that's going to be ready to deliver right in November. I don't really think they're going to be that worried about it. Then tell them to do this one time. I don't disagree with that. My point is when they launch, they will have that plan ready. For me, the whole debate at a certain point boils down to Nintendo is going to go when they're going to go. The debate at the end of the Wii U generation was a lot more urgent and I think there was a lot more to go on because Nintendo had to drop hardware. They just had to do it. They literally stopped making the Wii U before they announced the Switch. Right. Manufacturers haven't even announced new systems coming, believe us. It's going to be great. Trust. It did a lot. Forget what we're talking about. Yeah. Those 2016 NX days, all we had to talk about the NX because no one's talking about fucking color splash. All we had to talk about the NX but there was so many reports and there was so much shit and there's like Nintendo has to go. Here's the evidence to why they need to do that. Right now, I think that the ultimate point of this conversation is Nintendo is in such a financially powerful position when they release, when they continue that position. And I don't think we know anything beyond that. I think the games are ready now. I think the games are ready now personally. I think 3D Mario is ready. I actually think the games are ready now too. You just look at the weak line of this year at least in the polishing stages. Yeah. I think even last year, there was Zelda and there was a Mario but that doesn't stop us from thinking that 3D Mario is ready. What the hell is the rest of their dev team has been doing in the last three years? Nintendo has like... It also has been done for two years. They haven't released games. Like, they've got to be making games or something. Okay, well, Princess Peach... Okay, we don't even know who's made Princess Peach Showtime. Do we? He's like, you realize how weird it is that we have this... Nintendo's only brand new game announced for this year comes out in two months and we don't have any idea what developments to do. Am I the only one that, when looking at Princess Peach Showtime, kind of gets Luigi's Mansion 3 vibes? Yeah, I think it's a several games. We're talking about next level, absolutely. I don't know if it's next level but I don't know if it's the same engine. It's like a dioramas-like style and then the animation quality is also comparable. Yeah, I don't think it's next level. But I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying it is. Which team? For Nintendo... I think it's an internal team at Nintendo Unity. I think it's a small team. I think it's probably a really small side project from the 3D Mario team. Because I'm going to tell you right now, I think next level game after Strikers has been working on the next Luigi's Mansion because 3D was such a big seller. Holy shit. They got to get that next Luigi's Mansion ready for this. Let me ask you a question about that though because I remember you reported a while back that you had heard, right? You reported this publicly. Yeah, you had heard it. The thing is if it's a remaster, that doesn't have to be all hands on deck. All I've ever heard is that that Zero GX remaster exists possibly next level games is the one that did it and it's already done and it's been done. Maybe that's what it is. Basically, when I say remaster by the way, don't get super excited guys. The only thing I heard behind the scenes is like it's an HD. Like this isn't something that had a ton of time put into it. F-Zero RX, here we go. And this is assuming they ever even released Occamoreo Quest F-Zero? I'm going to work for Nintendo. These are just reliable sources, but look, Nintendo... People don't apparently realize how many games Nintendo has sitting on a shelf from prior gen's. They just never released. They just didn't fit their schedule. Just didn't think it was going to go well. It's kind of weird. There's probably a lot of game companies. We just don't know. Projects that are just canned even though they might be close to completion. Can we talk about the new information that we have? You just want to really bring up the GD stuff, don't you? No, that but also the excited dev stuff which was I guess something else on Twitter presented me that information so I made a little story on that. I think we have a lot of other stuff to cover on this topic first, but if you want to start going there, we can. Let's talk about sales. Okay. I just feel like we actually have info from developers. Developers giving us some insight into what they may or may not be working on. So I think it's compelling. One of the other ways that our poll has actually increased, it's almost 80-20. The poll has also increased. Obviously continually talking about switch 2 is going to make it bigger, so that's a good thing for you. Yeah, exactly. That's what I want actually. Shall we dive in then? You guys want to go in a different direction before we talk? Okay, cool. So it's a couple different things and maybe we'll have to circle back to the survey stuff. So can you guys see what we're doing to let me actually... No, no, I got it. Cool. So something else on Twitter if you're watching, thank you again. This is a really awesome information that he collected. There are several end-of-the-year interviews from a variety of developers. He dug through and found these developers. So he actually put this information together for me and then I put into a video earlier in the year. But these devs are expressing excitement for something related seemingly to switch 2. So here we have Masao Kawada from Capcom. 2024 will also bring new consoles and more indie titles to look forward to. So bring new consoles. That's literally him saying he thinks there's going to be more than one new console. We've heard of PS5 programmers, but I think most of you would agree that a next generation switch 2 is the most exciting thing. So it's not confirmation, but this does seem to be hinting at what's going on in 2024. Going beyond that, Kenichi Ogasaura from Koei Tecmo, Nintendo's new platform has been the focus of much attention. Again, these are all in the context of excitement for 2024. Also from Koei Tecmo, Fumihiko Yasuda, we look forward to seeing what new game platforms and their titles will bring to the table. Again, talking about multiple gaming systems coming out in 2024. Then Yusuke Katakata from Spike Chunsoft. There are rumors of a new switch, and I am looking forward to seeing what kind of machine it will be. So he's talking about rumors, but he's also saying he's looking forward to seeing what it will be, implying that he expects to see what it will be in 2024. So it's also worth noting that all these developers would be under NDA probably. So they can't just outright say, hey, yeah, coming out in 2024. I'm excited about it. So for me, this feels like compelling evidence, and just to clarify, because I've talked about evidence in my videos, and people are like, well, that's not evidence. Evidence is information that supports your argument. Evidence isn't necessarily proof, but we understand the difference there. Yeah, of course. That helps my argument for 2024. I am curious, because I feel like you can read a lot of these quotes and you could read it as them just saying they're excited to see the news. So in the case of Koei Tecmo Capcom, and probably Spike Chunsoft, you would imagine all of them have dev kits, but none of these, except for maybe the first one, which just says do consoles, none of these, to me, indicate it's coming out in 2024, necessarily just at the very least it'll be announced. Sure, I'll just combat one thing, right? New gaining platforms to me is basically the same way to word new consoles. Sorry, I feel like you're missing the majority of the industry and developers think that Nintendo is going to do something this year. I think I'm missing some context. Like this third one down the second Koei Tecmo one, that doesn't say a year 2024. Is the premise of the conversation things happening in 2024? So these are like end of the year interviews, right? This has happened in the end of 2023, right? And so this is them talking about their excitement for what's to come. That's the context. What's to come specifically in 2024 or just in the future of video games? Well, I mean, they're talking about going into the new year. Sure. I would say like I covered these quotes too. I would say it's more of a it provides an indicator. But I would say that indicator I hardly know her. I'm saying that it's more of like you can interpret it that way, but there's not like a definitive thing in those. Right. And I'm not saying the 100% proves, but it is interesting to see these developers talking about new platforms. Well, yeah, I mean, I haven't gone to the surveys yet. I think I think these quotes are exciting in the same way that that GDC survey that 8% of developers are working on the next piece of Nintendo hybrid are exciting in that it confirms that we already know, right? Obviously, a lot of these big studios have had switched to development hardware for a while at this point, right? So I think just for me my takeaway from those quotes is that the development community is ready to embrace Nintendo's new hardware. I don't think it necessarily suggests a release, but I think it does tell us that generally speaking, we're probably getting closer because devs are ready to say that they're excited about that new piece of hardware. Like if they had said in 2022, like, oh, shit, guys, we just got that new dev kit for Nintendo Switch 2 and we're hyped about it, that would be trouble because they wouldn't be allowed to do that, but the reality is they probably had this stuff for a while. So I think you're right, Andres, in the general sense that I think these suggest that we're getting closer. I don't think that they nail down 2024 though. Okay. I think I mean, I think you could interpret it as, I mean, you could just interpret however you want, right? Yeah. People could interpret whatever they want. I saw someone in my comments the other day say that they believe the random 4-champ post more so than any insider in the industry. Okay. Which by the way, was then debunked by Pioro, the greatest leaker of all time, like an hour after, even before that chat came out. So, you know, people are going to choose whatever they want, but I do think that you can look at those quotes and maybe think, okay, so they're clearly excited. I think it's very, very clearly I'm suggesting that they are excited for Switch 2, right? At least they are going to get their hands on it, but to your point, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's coming out in the year. It could just be that they are working on it in 2024, right? So, they're excited for it, but it's not necessarily saying, oh, consumers should be excited for it. So, I think that's a valid point. I mean, those developers see the headlines as well. Like, Switch 2 was trending every other day, you know, like, they could be basing their, like, that release date off of just a Twitter post. So, I think the game developer conference stuff is actually much stronger evidence of this. I haven't pulled up and ready to all three all three surveys. Because I literally dug all this stuff up and gave me credit for it because I don't know if he must have saw it in my video. I did. I gave you credit for it more than once, just for the record. I stole your content, unbelievable. No, yeah, no, I apparently, no, when people make good points and have good fun. Oh, yeah. Apparently Nate steals my content all the time. Yeah, he has, he has my blessing. Actually, I'm actually usually when I watch a Nintendo Prime video and he's talking about something I talked about already, I'm like, is he going to mention me? Is he going to mention me? Oh, yes. Both steals the information I send to him before he wakes up in the morning. That's when your content is your body, no one else can steal it. Okay, so there's probably context here. The GDC thing, they did this poll for this year and they do this every year heading into the Game Developers Conference of 3,000 Game Developers. Well, it's the same 3,000 every time. We don't really know, right? It's a mix, right? They put out there in the report, it's a mix of Indie, AAA, yada, yada, yada. And it said that 8% of people were working on games for next generation hardware. And that sounds cool and sounds exciting. But also, well, it's 8%, that's not a really low number. This thing could be a ways off. Well, the thing is in context, 8% is extremely high because when you go back and look at 2020, which I think, is this the 2021? I can show you the, you want the 2021 or the 2017 one? Let's go well, we can go with the 2017 one. I guess we'll start with that. Yeah, for 2017 one we'll show that there was 3% of developers and the system was already announced right at this point. New owner was coming out. Only 3% of developers at GDC were working on games or Switch. Now, not surprising come off a Wii U, right? This isn't like a shocking that Switch didn't have all the greatest third-party developer in Indie support at that given time. But seeing it go from 3% to 8% is obviously a big increase in interest for the next system. But still, you could argue, well, that's only a 5% increase. What does that even really matter in the grand scheme? They could still be not making games for years. So then let's jump to the 2020 one. There's also apparently a larger pool of people for a survey here. Yeah, they had a larger pool. The recent one's only 3,000-ish. Well, to be fair, there's a lot of layoffs. I'm just going to leave it at that. Before we move on to that, I just want the future episode as the future of the whole industry on the whole is actually going to be a topic in the future. I just want to add something else, right? The VGC report on the survey mentioned that it's likely that a lot of NDAs could be minimizing or skewing the percentages here. So if anything, the percentage would be higher. Sure. Could you give the other slide again? What? Could we see the other slide again? Sorry. This is the initial slide. This is one for just happening. My thing with this is like, okay, we have an internal switch successor. Where's the Nintendo switch right there? 18%. Those same people that answered for the switch could have also answered for the switch successor. Yeah, they would answer for every platform they're working on. Exactly. So we know that the switch successor is going to be backwards compatible. Like the games are going to be crossover. So I don't know if this is like indication that like, I don't know. Well, let me show you. I think it's also working on any other platforms have backwards compatibility as well, right? So to that point here is this one. Yeah, this is it right here. 2020. PS5 and Xbox were technically announced. Yes. This website's a little weird. So that's why I have it the way it is, but I can just, you know, 6% 80. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. So is this easy to read? Xbox Project Scarlet was technically announced. It was still a code name, but they announced it in December. PlayStation 5 hadn't been revealed, but they did mention in a financial meeting like in, you know, the year before that it was something they were working on. But this is the beginning of 2020 for those two new platforms that we know actually came out in 2020. 9% of developers said they were working on Xbox Project Scarlet and then we have 11% said they're working on PlayStation 5. The next generation switch numbers are basically right in line with that stuff. And we know that switch doesn't get as much third-party support as, say, PlayStation 5. So it being 3% lower before the system comes out isn't really surprising. So also, yeah, these are officially announced already, right? So they were going to sell back by NDAs. PS5 technically was not unveiled yet at the time. When was this? This is 2020. At the same time, Xbox Series X was announced at this point. We knew that it was Project Scarlet. No, we knew it was Series X. That's true. I don't know. I thought it really matters. It doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter. So the thing is, I think this happened before the Game Awards. Okay, sure. They published the polls in January. We don't actually know when exactly they administered them. So it could have been in November or something. Yeah, then it was published as like leading into GDC. If they knew, they wouldn't have called it Project Scarlet. Okay, so the one I'm bringing up here is that if the percentage, because look at how many people are making on Xbox Series X, let me put it on PS4. PC is always really high because of all the indie developers. The interesting part here is that Nintendo Switch successors percentages are right in line with these other systems that launched in the given year. So look at the question being asked. On which platforms are you developing your current project? Their game that they're developing on PS4 or PS4 Pro, obviously that could be on PS5 as well. The format of the question is... Is there any argument you just made for Switch? That they're just planning that back? I just don't know if that's an indication. I mean, we know that the platform, we know that developers have dev kits and stuff, so I don't know if this information is useful. You look at the information in that same context though, right? Okay, the PlayStation 5 had 11% at Project Scarlet, but we know the systems launched that year. Even though the games could have been for the prior systems coming to that platform, right? I guess I just don't. I'm not a fan of polls with vague questions. To be clear, statistics can also be bent to mean anything you want. Exactly, exactly. The statistics are very easy to bend to anything you want. That's one of the first things you learn in statistics class, the teachers always get you. They'll give you something and the whole class will agree on what it means, and then the teacher will make this counter argument in a different way of reading the data, and you're like, oh, we didn't even... and teachers realize I can do this in any direction with this data. I have a question about these surveys. Just to actually enlighten me, I'm not positive. When they say on which platforms are you developing your current project, and I believe the wording is the same on the one that has the switch successor on it, does that imply that they actually have dev kits or they intend to release it? Let's say Yacht Club, for example. It's whatever they're making right now, we don't know. You're asking for... That's the issue, because Yacht Club, for example, I'm not sure if they have dev kits, but they're going to put me into the hollow world. Also to note, the GDC is only polling Western developers. I mean, if we're going to go by... If we're going to do know that it's only Western developers. Here's the thing, unfortunately most people are at different levels of reading, so if we just go by literally what the question asks, are you developing your... What platform are you developing your current project for? That literally means, and again, maybe developers don't adhere to the question perfectly, but are they developing their current project for that platform? So, for example, for me, when I made my video on this, I was careful to say dev kits, because I think there is some wiggle room there. To me, the two takeaways from all these surveys is, one, we're seeing similar response from Western devs to switch to the way devs are responding to the PS5 and Xbox series in 2020, which supports the 2024 argument a bit. And then also we're seeing just an overall stronger response from third parties for Switch 2, which holds well for third party support. I think for me, whenever I see this poll, the first thing that comes to mind is like, okay, Switch 6, are you developing your console on the Switch successor? I'd be like, yeah, I hope these developers... I hope it's more than 8%, and they just answered Nintendo Switch because of the crossover and backwards compatibility and stuff. I don't know. To be fair, I will make a counter to that quick. A lot of companies don't like developing games for hardware that hasn't had any sales yet. For sure. PS5 numbers low, and you see the Xbox series numbers low. Well, yeah, because there's not an audience to sell to yet. You even look at how they handle cross-gen games and when are we just now starting to get exclusive games from any company on these platforms? Because they don't like to rely on a low install base. Yeah, exactly. It's an iterative hardware, though. Well, you look at it a year later, though. If you go from how many people were making it in 2020 and then when you look at the 2021 polls, the percentages on PS5 start to skyrocket because people just now started making games for PS5, they're going to come out years down the road when there's already 30, 40, million PS5s installed. I got a couple questions for you guys. There's not that many developers that actually make games before a system comes out. It's actually a very low number. I don't know if you have the answer to this, but last year's version of this poll, did it say Nintendo Switch successor on it or no? It did not. It did not. So in 2019, did that say PlayStation 5 or next PlayStation or something? The reason I ask is because we're using this as evidence, but it's not necessarily evidence unless this is just the first respective year that this was listed. And that's such a small sample size as well. Yeah. My problem with this data is that I don't think that beyond a one-time case of evidence that this necessarily says 2024. What this says to me is something that is much more important, I think, actually than the release date. What this says is that Nintendo is releasing a piece of hardware that is attractive to not only western, not only third party, but western third party. That's very important. And so my takeaway from this is that when you're looking at a cross-section of western game devs across the industry, across scales of the industry, that is really great to see 8% of them working on this game. But my question is when you're answering this anonymous poll, A, did they have the option? The 2019, you wanted to know if it said anything about PS5? Yeah. No. And so there is a correlation with the platform popping up and it launching in that year. So it does correlate to this coming out in 2024. Obviously, it's evidence. It's not proof, which is why I think it's important to make that distinction. I wouldn't call it evidence. I would just feel curious. There's also been a group of people telling me that hasn't been announced. I'm a little bit hesitant that we only have one previous example of this. But I think that this is important data to show because it shows that to your point from earlier, Nintendo is making the necessary decisions to make this platform a success. And what I've been saying for a while is one of the necessary next steps for Nintendo is to make sure they're courting western game development, western third party. And that 8% number is really good. I think even remove the context, 8% of all western game developers is a huge fucking number pre-release. That's a huge number. So I think this is great news. I'm hesitant based on one previous data point to say this is release data evidence. I think it's just curious. I think that's... I like that one. My argument is simply that we saw these similar numbers. We saw this pop on the poll when the series X and the PS5 came out. Obviously, it doesn't prove anything, but it boasts well for the argument is my point. That's fair. I don't know how far back the GDC polls go as well to get more data on if this is just what's happened every single time. Yeah. That would be great to know. But even let's just... The 2019 poll is not available on their website anymore, so you have to find other websites that haven't uploaded or selected to find this stuff. So I tried to look up the GDC poll for 2011 because I wanted to see if it mentioned anything about Nintendo's next hardware on it, or if they started that poll. Yeah. But I can't find it, so I don't know if the polls go back that far. Maybe you could look up PS4? Because that came out... That would have been... GDC that year? Let me see if there's even a poll for 2012. Because that was when the PS came out the next year. Yeah. No, this is... This is 2013. So they did have a poll in 2013. I mean, I think either way, even if I just... Because ultimately, I want this as the release in 2024, so giving the benefit of the doubt that this has been a trend in the past, my bigger takeaway then release is that Western devs are interested. I think that's a really good sign. They're also bold as well for having a good lineup geared up, right? And it's also interesting, because if you anticipate that Nintendo hardware will always be not mostly, but heavily, supported from Japan, where that's not necessarily the case for Microsoft, the fact that the Western number is at the same position as your Xbox Series X, and when we're not counting any Japanese software, I think we're in a really strong position in games if there came, can run on this new Switch, it's going to run on it. So I think we're in a really good position for third-party support, being less of an afterthought on the next platform, like it kind of is on Switch. And I think that's the most important part is third-party for this next generation, or not next generation, this iterative generation, because you're looking at a piece of hardware that could run allegedly games like Final Fantasy VII Remake and that Matrix demo. It's going to be able to fluff Nintendo's numbers. If they don't have the greatest first-party lineup, they'll be able to supplement that income from just being able to put the new Call of Duty on that platform, the new Final Fantasy game, and other third-party... So I think it's interesting you bring that up, Wes, because you touched on something. You touched on some of the reports we've gotten, and something we haven't really gone over in this discussion is just the different insiders that have made different reports. And so, we have Dr. Circon Toto believes Switch 2 is coming out 2024. Necrophilipe, the editor-in-chief at Universal Nintendo believes Switch 2 is coming out 2024. And also, by the way, has provided some interesting specs, which bodes well for third-party support, by the way. Very well. So that's another one. We talked about Nate to hate. Bo thinks Nate lacks some credibility because of the whole Switch Pro situation. But there are others, right? Even the demo that was allegedly that happened at Gamescom last year, I think that tells me more about a Switch release in 2024 than... Who knows? Jake's favorite buddy, Tommy Bear. Tommy Bear knows. Tommy Bear knows the scam. Tommy Bear knows, sold me a watch that blew up on a date into a... Oh my God. 10,000 springs out of my date soup. Just to get that reaction from Jake, I brought him up three... Sorry. That's interesting. The nose of the bear of the Tommy. Yeah. By the way, I got there. I think you should leave reference. It didn't go in my head. My man. I love it. Finally, some old culture on this podcast. All right, go ahead. Man, the subtle jabs. Or maybe... You got to balance us being cultured. You talked about an intellectual debate. You notice how he never included me in that intellectual part? Oh, the subtle jabs. Or himself. Hey, that is... He's too busy trying to find a way to get common to the conversation. The thing is, Jake's on a higher level, right? Like, we're just like... For him, we're just like these ants in an arena. He's a higher being. Exactly. He's mad at me because I haven't forced us to talk about Powell World yet. He's just fighting his time over there. Okay, I appreciate it. I'm tired. I think we should talk about Powell World. Before we finish, I just want to ask you guys, I want your take on this, right? Like I said, we have different... We have Chris String. We have Andy Robinson. We have Dr. Sir Kantotis. We have these different respected industry journalists and analysts and insiders, right? The different kinds. And across the board, the expectation is 2024. Right? And so I understand maybe thinking one or two sources are dubious with having a spotty record. But when we have all of these different people with that expectation... And just to be clear, right? I'm not saying that just because everyone believes something, that means you have to be right. Einstein combated the scientific community for a long time before his theories were widely accepted, right? That's gonna be me one day, by the way. Just saying. And so my point is I actually respect going against the grain, right? But my perspective is you go against the grain when you have reason to, not just because. And I'm not saying you do it just because. I'm just saying some people go against the grain just because. But if you have a legitimate claim to it, then sure, right? But I guess my point is we have all these different people who are privy to information or at least is believed by me to be privy to information and I can't think of any respected insider or industry analyst that expects beyond 2024, right? So like how do you guys like take that, right? Do you just think everyone's full of it? Do you expect that there's going to be a delay but the plan is 2024? Like what's your thinking on that? I kind of want you guys to kind of elaborate on it. I personally think two things about that. I have three things. The first is, Andres, I don't I kind of think No fucking way! I'm just fucking thinking. A third idea has entered his head. I think that ultimately the volume of speculation from people who are informed to me is one of the many reasons why I've moved closer and closer to the 2024 camp. 100%. So I want to say that to be clear. However, I want to raise two very specific examples that have put a lot of skepticism in me. The first is Star Fox Grand Prix. Star Fox Grand Prix, let's go. Star Fox Grand Prix will all be a this will always be a personal tragedy to me because I love Star Fox and I wanted that game to be real. I love how that got faked and how it spread. It's hilarious. So I think that it's more likely than a new F-Zero. I think I think Hey, wait, we got an F-Zero game last year. It doesn't count. Let's start this debate. It's not a new 3D F-Zero. By the way, you've actually been getting a lot of of that in 3D. Here's what I'll say. I think that Star Fox Grand Prix has permanently shaken my trust in a lot of sources in that we kind of know that Star Fox Grand Prix was a deliberately set rumor to figure out sources. Now, that could be a one-time thing. I'm not saying that every single person in the industry that has inside sources is being lied to. I don't think that that's realistic, but that has put me in a perpetual position of skepticism. Do you know the full story behind that Star Fox Grand Prix thing? It was 100% made up by Roger Space, right? Yeah. Roger Space was 100% made up. A fake logo was made. It got shared to a developer that all of them knew. I see. And that developer then took that logo and this idea of the game shared it with one of their contacts, one of their what we call them insiders or journalists. They were like, whoa, this is like a real thing. And the developer never corrected them on where he got that stuff from. Interesting. And so then it started spreading to all the other insiders and it was completely fabricated the entire time, not even by the... But it was because a developer took it and gave it to another insider that started the whole thing. It's absolutely fascinating how that spread and it does show that a lot of insiders have the same contacts as well. But I do find it fascinating how that spread because it literally was created by YouTubers. Yeah. It's crazy. I just want to say something though, right? And that's what's going to happen with all the games we predict in the video. It's going to have to every single one. There we go. What's your other point? My other point... Just to address why that doesn't take away from my personal skepticism. Sure. It's a good point. And it is reason to be like, hey, not everything is going to be true when you see it reported on a reputable site like IGN. That's one of the big articles that it came from. But when you see info that is iterative, when we see continual consistent updates on something from reputable sites, that's different. It's not a single time they heard something about any updates and then misconstrued it, right? It's... But when you're getting these places that are having several updates over the span of a large amount of time, that's different than the Star Fox Grand Prix situation. No, that's definitely fair. That's definitely fair. And my larger point with Star Fox Grand Prix is it is one example for me of when we have very clearly had insiders come from a position of confidence and be 100% wrong. So what I'm saying is I just have an inherent skepticism against these things, but the other one that's more recent that does stick with me is when I think it was Andy Robinson or it was a VGC guys in general, at least, very adamant that the last big game on Nintendo Switch is Tears of the Kingdom. Now, I think we can take that in multiple different directions, but I do think that the existence of Mario Wonder after that is a pretty clear sign that the information that Andy was working on was out of date in that a new 2D Mario game on the system is a massive, massive, massive deal. And so he was pretty objectively wrong about that. Now, I really like the VGC guys. I have personally worked with them. I do believe that they are credible people. So I think that when you're an insider, you're going to be wrong sometimes. But my general thing is I have a hard time trusting because a lot of the VGC stuff you're also citing, which I found really interesting taking them as like a knowledge base and basing my opinion off of solely what they're saying because they've not been correct in the past, even as recent as last year. To that point though, I believe that was also an argument to a tweet. So Andy Robinson brought up that in a tweet. So there's a difference between tweeting and that versus a report which is then corroborated by other venues that have their own sources. So the switch through reports of 2024 are articles. And then there are other venues that then corroborate that information. This isn't one person who has... We have to trust that they vetted something that just says something on Twitter. We're talking about articles, reports that are corroborated by other places. So I just think it's on a greater level of credibility than something mentioned on Twitter. Sure. Thank you. I'm about to help the argument. We're missing the elephant in the room on why you can make the ultimate argument to ignore all the journalists to ignore every single insider. Switch Pro was even more widely reported and more widely backed up and never happened. Now, we think we know why it didn't but it doesn't matter because it was never announced by Nintendo. We have even less people talking about Switch 2 than we did then. And it's the same people that were all wrong about Switch 2. Until Jason Schreyer starts poking around and saying, hey guys, something's about to happen and then it happens the next day. I know I'm seeing 2024 but I'm just saying that literally we don't have to go back that far with Nintendo themselves to show that all of them were wrong. Nintendo Hardware, which is an even bigger thing than a single game title, especially Star Fox, which isn't big at all. Star Fox supports the fair game ever for the record. Two insiders. That's all the way he looked at you when he said that. What did you say? With two insiders specifically, with Nate Drake, he was saying that there would be we all understand that the Switch Pro was probably revealed. We all agree that because of COVID it probably became the Switch OLED and a lot of that information did line up. Yeah, I don't think most of us could reasonably deduce that there probably was something in there. Right. That's probably that recently, by the way. Right, exactly. I remember specifically Nate Drake said there would be exclusive games for the Switch Pro. I don't think that's possible to be completely honest with you. I will give you the I remember hearing from the blue card report that talked about the hypothetical system but why? Because there was exclusive games in the new 3DS. So I think if the Switch Pro existed it could have happened but at that point when he reported it he was actually doing an OLED because he reported that I believe in March 2021 so unless this information was from years prior developers were not making exclusive games for a hypothetical Switch Pro three or four months before the Switch OLED was announced. Well, I would argue that unless Nintendo had recalled the dev units that could have been the plans because these sources had to be developers so developers literally could have still been doing it because they still had dev units and the expectation was that Nintendo was going to announce the OLED as the Switch Pro and those plans changed because I want to note something very clear here these systems are not manufactured a year ahead of time. They're manufactured months before they actually are on store shelves so they even started manufacturing for that holiday for Switch Pro until summer in the first place. So there was plenty of time in there for Nintendo to decide we can't get the parts to make this like we thought we could. So, and with the pandemic and obviously all of that you would think Nintendo may be still kind of like well let's just see what happens maybe demand dies down, maybe we can get some more lines and we still might and then by summer they're like we're clearly not going to be able to do this let's start recalling dev units I don't know if I completely sold that idea though because that would require a complete hardware redesign then to go into production within a couple months span it would have already been done. The fact that they had dev kits means they already had the design it was just literally a parts problem we don't know if they had dev kits I mean the ultimate reality and I think you said it Nate is that this is all hypothetical and the only thing that matters for the parameters of this conversation is that there was never anything other than Switch Pro is coming and it didn't come in I can't say anything other than that I know some developers that had dev kits that's all yeah I mean the reality is most insiders are they recall them weird by the way I'm sorry I'm stuck at this whole thing and if you guys remember when Digital Foundry talked about it literally they recalled them well after Switch Oleg came out it was so weird I almost wondered if Nintendo like forgot they even handed out dev units like what it's a year later and we're clearly not releasing this thing let's recall these I think the important point there is ultimately that a lot of that Nintendo is a fast-paced environment right so things are going to change and leakers even sources are not able to keep up with that stuff and so it's just not it's not verifiable in my opinion there's no reason to suspect that since that last official report came out Nintendo ran into a chip shortage or they had a change of heart and they pushed the release or a game ended up not being ready I think that this is a more fluid I just think it's a more fluid situation and so I'll say because it's fluid it's conceivable that maybe Nintendo does change their mind and Switch 2 doesn't come out in 2024 so where I will maybe meet you guys a little bit is that I think the plan is 100% absolutely Switch 2 comes out in 2024 and to me it's not deniable but plans are something to change that's part of the reason why insiders get things wrong it's not because they're full of it it's because they're talking about things that haven't been officially confirmed yet and so regardless of how credible source may or may not be you have to take everything with a grain of salt to that end I'm so convinced that Switch 2 is coming out in 2024 but I'm mostly deathly ascared that Nintendo is going to turn around but guys there was an earthquake we have a chip shortage we should push just to April it's like that's I think possible you know I'll say that but I don't think that's going to happen alright are you kind of wrapped up now? I think so there's always like more than there's a tone difference it's a new thing and it's something you mentioned and so I actually want to ask you more about it publicly we recently got news of Mekka Japan and online retailer pre-order page for Switch 2 it's just a retailer we've seen people open a pre-orders before so that alone isn't much right so that alone isn't much but what's interesting about this story and what a lot of channels and venues didn't publicize because they don't speak Spanish this was discovered by Nintendo leaks that's where it was actually popularized and so people saw that but because they didn't understand Spanish didn't actually hear what they had to say they didn't understand Spanish and listen to it they actually talked about how they themselves they're in Spain heard from two Spanish retailers so it's a rumor something they heard so if this goes off you have to trust Nintendo leaks that's up to you to decide but they heard that a couple Spanish retailers have been debriefed on Switch 2 and are gearing up for it and what makes this more interesting recently Mike Odyssey put out a video where he said he went to GameStop and it feels weird to me that this is how it works but Mike Odyssey went to a GameStop he apparently knew the supervisor that was working at the time and asked him about Switch 2 and he got a no comment implying that they've been debriefed on Switch 2 which is then suggested and an accident could be happening in a month or two where they may open a pre-order at GameStop and then Nate you made a video reporting the Mike Odyssey thing but then said you also went to GameStop and got something similar elaborate I mean there's not really much to it I just literally walked in when I knew the manager was working and I just said hey I got a friend of mine in a completely different state that kind of heard something from another GameStop I don't really want to go further than that can you like confirm or deny that Nintendo is about to open pre-orders for new hardware sometime soon and he just said he literally was like you know I can't tell you I'm like is there something to tell and then he just said I'm not saying that something's happening and he left it we really think the GameStop manager is making $21 an hour to know because if they knew we would have way more reports about this so and just for the record my current roommate we went to GameStop and he said there is no switch too here's the thing I don't think what I was told is proof of jack shit maybe that's just what they're told to say regardless whenever someone asks about potential new hardware they're just always supposed to say no comment the only thing that I'm aware of and this is just because I've had conversations with the manager just about old things instead of new was that they do have these monthly meetings with corporate they don't really get to talk they've just got to be in the kind of a rundown and a lot of it is all about marketing materials that are going to be arriving at your store to prepare you for things and so that's where a lot of their knowledge comes from and they also instructed that you can't say anything to anyone so it's kind of interesting how that kind of works I always say that here's the thing neither one of the managers the one that talked to Mike and the one that talked to me told us that there's new hardware coming that's not what they said deny it they could just be fucking with us number one maybe they're all up on the rumors and stuff too and they're just hyped and they don't want to crack your dreams so it's a lot of this like they probably do get a lot of questions for random kids all the time and a lot of people think it's coming this year here's my thing if the manager were to just straight up tell me Nintendo Switch 2 was coming I would be shouting this from the mountaintops that's not what they said I literally only covered it because Mike said something and I bothered to ask my local manager where he just said exactly what I just told you guys I don't really think it's that big of a deal I think it's only a big it only was even notable because of nintendo leaks apparently hearing stuff in their area in a different country I'm just kind of like I guess if you add all this together it might mean something it could also mean bullshit because metro prime 4 has been available to pre-order every fucking retailer forever I generally have a hard time taking this as any sort of pre-order for like 6 years it's definitely not proof or even even even in that coherent of evidence I think it's the weakest argument I mean GameStop sells Funko pops bro what do they know I told you I still don't think it's the biggest deal I think the GDC polls more interesting than we think West Nebo thinks not that's fine and outside of that I think it's all just timing I just look at the facts of everything Nintendo Switch sales declining is notable I think for Nintendo themselves not the consumers but I think the fact that this is one of the few years we've entered where there hasn't been a major game known about coming this year heading into the year I find that to be extremely extremely interesting because I looked back at the history we knew about a major system selling level game that was supposed to come and I know people get mad because oh 2022 we didn't get Tears of the Kingdom though but it was announced for 2022 heading into 2022 so there was this supposed exciting game on the horizon to get you excited about the future of the platform what are we excited for Princess Peach or is it a thousand-year door are we just matching two four I don't know but the point is we didn't have to wait for a direct in the past we already knew heading into the year about one major exciting game for that year this time we don't and it's very weird that we don't let us get to this point it was always the September direct they would drop a major game for us to be excited about and they didn't do that this time it's possible that they do think Metroid Prime 4 is that it maybe Metroid Prime 4 doesn't do the following but it is a game that's looming and obviously fans were aware that it's like I love Metroid Prime 4 and I really hope it comes out this year but all the other games were actually changed for the following year this game isn't but I will also point out this as well that one thing that I find fascinating is a now retired leaker Emily Rogers and yes she was caught up in the whole F-Zero Grand Prix thing or the Star Fox Grand Prix thing easy to dismiss her she said one thing now two years ago right before she retired my final thing I'm throwing out there they're ending of GameCube remasters and we didn't know what was going to happen at the time right we had no idea it hadn't happened yet and we're kind of been getting last year and now heading into this a lot of Metroid Prime Paper Mario is a remake but you know Luigi's mansion 1 getting announced in June I believe that everything is just kind of like what she said how the generation was going to end is kind of what's happening she's also like the most reliable insider she's been outside of what Mother 3 Grand Prix thing and Mother 3 were like the two ones that people get her to report Grand Prix yeah she was one of the people but if you actually look up all the things she's gotten right it's insane obviously she just has conversations with people she was a reliable insider until Pioro came around Pioro only gets Pioro Burney a little redder on Twitter is not like the best leaker of all time I actually think I have a theory that Pioro is actually a former reddit leaker that also had a 100% track record was it Mystic Brush or something yeah that brush guy he's also got a 100% record and also he just vanished and I wouldn't be surprised if he came back to his Twitter user because he's so pissed off at all the fake leakers out there and he's like fuck all of you guys you guys don't know shit I think it's interesting he's never commented on switch 2 though has he he doesn't talk about things that are happening in our term he only talks about things that are imminent yeah he talks about things that are just about to happen or happen within a week or two and then he will if you tag him on something he actually is very good about responding that's like what happened with hey he wasn't going to say anything about that 4chan post he wasn't going to talk about it but someone tagged him and said what do you think and he just responded with a fake okay he will respond but he'll also sometimes if you tag him on something for a question he's just going to give you a one word response and so there's not a lot of context behind it and so like so if I say hey switch 2 coming in 2024 Pioro what's your thoughts on this he'll just probably drop a emoji and leave it at that like he's not going to tell you unless it's imminent here's the thing Pioro is probably going to be the one to tell us when the switch 2 reveal is happening before Nintendo even reveals it's happening he's going to say like the thing you've been waiting for all this time is about to happen like he's going to say something like that like we'll be like oh maybe he needs Mario sluggers too right like well if you look at the way he does the leaks it's always a reference to the thing sure but it's going to cover way when you actually understand the reference remake of a DSM Wii game no what he'll do is maybe he'll reference the name right so maybe so like for example you know my dumb idea that the switch 2 will be called switch nova it's just a fun idea right like what if he says like he just puts like a sun emoji he didn't hit that for wonder basically right exactly exactly one of those things we won't know it's a leak it's a leak for anybody else probably says anything at least anything that we could substantially trust well I mean there is the financial earnings release so we might get something there what is that for? February 6th yeah okay that's pretty soon right and by the way many believe myself included that the 7th is when we're getting a direct oh yeah it's just based off historical precedent right literally the last two years could be on Valentine's Day it's more so I think it was a reference I might have been on family wars where Necrophilipe mentioned middle of which that's why I was like oh middle but then he never clarified the insiders that no never clarified till it's like the week of so anyways we'll know because Pioro is going to start letting us know days before it's even announced you start seeing him put a bunch of cryptic tweets out he's leaking some games from the direct that's just yeah so have any of our minds changed or we're all on the same page? probably all on the same page I will say that I'm more convinced of 2024 I think that as I said at the beginning a lot of this current new information is obviously overwhelmingly that side there's basically nothing that has come out that is indicating 2025 in the last month until we get there yeah exactly the nail in the coffin on either side is when we actually get information from Nintendo which has not happened in the last two months that's going to be very interesting we need proof do you even have it in you anymore to talk about this power world situation what is happening? come on bro he's like no fucking way we're finally doing it eight hours later I thought you were going to ask me about we'll talk in your game in the world at the moment power world I thought you were going to ask me what year the switch see was going to release and to be honest we didn't spend enough time talking about it so I haven't been able to no that's why I just jumped to power world can you explain why power world is a launch title let me bring up the statement why your pocket pair I want to say I want to say no hire of this dev team the pokemon company announced 1043 which was over two hours ago at this point not for me it wasn't it was an hour ago to me it was still over two hours ago for you I know I was just the action gear chain 1043 that wasn't that long ago okay fair I got the pokemon company regarding power world and it says we have received many inquiries regarding another company's game released in January 2024 we have not granted any permission for the use of pokemon intellectual property or assets in that game we intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the pokemon we will continue to cherish and nurture each and every pokemon and its world and work to bring the world together through pokemon in the future alright few things right off the top um first of all the biggest thing that I'm going to circle back to is this is nothing but the greatest pre-marketing that power world could have ever received they should be thanking the pokemon company for this yeah now pokemon company thinks that this is going to scare the developers of power world and have been shaking their boots but honestly like if they could do shit they would have done shit this is like when you ever seen pineapple express you remember when he gets like really really mad and he's like it's the guy that plays it's Gary Oldman right the guy that plays Will Ferrell's dad and Tal Danganite he's like we're going to come after you with everything we fucking have and then he hangs up the phone and the cop like do you realize how weak you just made us look like it's that complete vibe and also it's so funny to be like we intend to investigate any acts that infringe intellectual property rights and the assets like what did power world use like trees that look like pieces of shit are you scared that they they stole your assets like come on and like to cherish and nurture each and every pokemon in its world why don't you apply a performance update to your marquee game that clean out like this is about power world this is about making pokemon better we all know pokemon's got problems so from the statement what this tells me is they're like hey guys could you please stop asking us about this please we really don't look into it it doesn't it doesn't say that there's going to be legal action because they're going to investigate I think this just shows how vocal the pokemon community I think I have a I think that and I'm probably putting too much stock into kitten crystal what they said on their show about this but they noted based on their experience at Nintendo that they seem to do a lot of this Nintendo and the pokemon company just overlooking everyone else's games they don't pay attention to any of these games that might infringe or have anything to do with their stuff unless they get popular like they just don't care they think their games are vastly superior so what I took from that and they sort of said this is could people bring up the excuse well this game's been known for months why didn't they take legal because they didn't give a shit they don't think the game was going to be popular enough to warrant the acknowledging that would give them more popularity so to them there was nothing to investigate because they weren't even worried about it because there's a dime a dozen of these damn things all the time and then the lawyer that used to be their primary like the fence was reached out to by Stefan Tatillo former CEO Kataku who now runs his own his own outlet the lawyer is like I don't my only concern is I don't know why the legal team didn't do something sooner because if the Pokemon company is ignoring it but it's up to the legal team to not be and under him they didn't ignore these it's a dime a dozen but we never ignored them we always paid attention and he feels like this is kind of a blatant everything just kind of got ignored they just assumed this game was going to bomb so bad it wasn't even worth their time to look at it and then on top of that Chris said well they also released it on a weekend everyone at the Pokemon company all the people that matter ain't working weekends so they're not even preparing responses yet over the weekend meaning that when they release like it's a Tuesday right they all just got back in on Monday they had their meetings with their legal teams they had their meetings with everyone they got all these inquiries from all the online people tagging them and everything they drop a response on Tuesday the response is hey we're looking into it if we find something we'll take care of it if not so I think this legitimately isn't like them trying to dismiss it it's them going like yeah we're already looking into it we're pissed off about it we shouldn't have ignored it are bad did they steal any of our shit from our Pokemon designs we don't know we're going to try to figure it out and on top of that figure out if it's actually stolen or if it's derivative and if it's derivative then they can't do anything about it if it's actually stolen then yeah they can and they have to prove that in court so it's all of a are they going to press and I've been saying this this whole time about Hal this isn't our concern you can be mad about the game why don't you bitch it about the fact that it has the exact same climbing mechanics as Breath of the Wild and has a fucking paraglider what survival evolved not coming out and basically saying all the pals are are dinosaurs from our game the menu system is pretty much carving a copy of Ark the menu system is literally like a copy of Ark what about the boss health bar font that is actually just Xenoblade like they not even not even like you're the thing the people who made this game and this is nothing nothing away from how fun the game is to play they blatantly took things from other games in terms of the ideas that's what all games are yeah but it's very blatant exactly this developer the menu system is Ark some of the pokemon have the same facial features their pokemon pals have the same features as some of the pokemon I just look at this as what you can do that legally if it's derivative enough and that's not for any of us as gamers to decide if it's derivative as gamers there's one thing we can have opinions though and I don't think yeah there's one thing we should care about is the game fun or not would you say Jake what's your opinion my opinion is that they haven't copied anything enough for it to be considered yeah that's kind of what I think and Jake I said you didn't agree with you but it's a legal matter and ultimately if the pokemon company thinks there's a case and they file a case and they win it we don't get to the truth I don't think they're going to have a case I don't think they're going to do anything I don't think they're going to do anything and I think the reality is that and Kit and Chris have said this that pokemon companies probably pissed off absolutely they're pissed but can they do anything the best thing they could do is make their games better so it's not people wouldn't be fucking good at it I don't even think that the games are I'm so frustrated with the arguments about making their games better coming out of this these aren't even the same type of video game there's no way to make them learn from this game to make their games better it's a completely different type of game I'll push back a little bit just a little bit on that I don't think it's Arceus maybe yeah well the thing is if there's any game it's copying from pokemon it is like the catching mechanics I agree a lot I actually kind of I think there is something I kind of mentioned at the beginning of the show I kind of like this mechanic in pow world where you can create equipment and then use your pokemon kind of like an interesting tool or ability that's unique to that well I said pokemon but pow so it would be kind of cool if it's legend art they're pokemon but they can get away with it it's obvious what inspired so we kind of have that in pokemon already like you have like the it's the evolution of the hens the ride pokemon and we have them in forms of some of them in legends as well I would like to see them build on that and you know another thing even though I don't want them to copy arc I do like some survival mechanics in legends because it is kind of like that so I wouldn't mind some light survival mechanics give us a little bit more to do in the world build that and have our pokemon start doing with things more than just running around and fighting things the only thing that the pokemon company might actually have a case for is pow world does pretty much have no story so that is kind of a direct ripoff of pokemon the only thing I think would matter and this is something that look none of us can prove this would be up to the team to prove is the only case that there may ever possibly be is if they can ever prove they used AI to make the designs because if they did the AI might have taken assets from the pokemon things themselves but that is not something that is proven that is not something any of us can say actually happen they also have to say that they put AI like they would be violating steam there is a whole bunch of stuff and by the way you pokemon fans that have been absolutely disgusting and looking into the credits of the game and attacking the artists stop that is just no you don't know what they worked on you don't know what part of the game is what if we were character models and like for the actual NPCs in the game you're attacking them because of that that none of that looks like me I actually want to just add something to what you just said because as someone who's self admittedly a pokemon fan that buys all the games whether they're you monster or lazy you buy them all I do think that scarlet and violet was a great game despite like the performance issues not a good idea it's a good game diamond pearl remakes terrible still bought them people are always like how is what one sells so much when they're so lazy with certain games but like now we're kind of seeing people are kind of outing themselves millions of fans that would just how world is a totally different game I agree like if you play it it can't really compare it in terms of gameplay it's a survival game but it's like all these fans are like defending this billion dollar company and trashing this game and not letting another game exist it's like these are the people that are buying both versions of every release there's like it's crazy and it's weird because the Pokemon games are some of the most heavily criticized games there are but there's so many like it's almost like to try to counter balance just like the blind fandom of it too and again this is all coming from someone who loves the franchise and loves those games and it's just I don't know I guess it's a constant when something's did you guys see that tweet I did where I posted my power world Pokemon video and it was like 50% dislikes in the first five minutes and it was a 13 minute video and it's like wait so there's just a lot of people out there that are just jumping to conclusions and I use the words intellectually disingenuous I even like really big name people they're like oh what's that people shit AI garbage before we jump to AI and I understand that the main person behind the studio and behind the game is gonna pass about how much he loves AI fine I get it he's supportive of AI tools AI tools are being used in everything I'm a YouTuber I use AI tools it helps me come up with my descriptions helps me come up with titles I literally pay for access AI tools to help me do what I do artists are using it with generative fill in Photoshop right like it is something that the YouTube is ran by artificial intelligence getting a hold of an actual person like doesn't happen because the entire platform is ran by a computer it's one of these things an algorithm and an artificial intelligence that they built years ago that they keep trying to add more and more ability to the thing is AI is not going anywhere the only concern with AI when it comes to this game would be if they did use it for the pals and in the base imageries that the AI used to base what it was making it included Pokemon models that is not something any of us know that is not something any of us can prove all we know is that there's a couple things that look similar to some of the other Pokemon but that's allowed legally there's nothing against that legal Nate you saw the thing where that was debunked right like the the person that literally the models are the exact same proportions and like no they're not you like play the fucking game they're not but like yeah when that video went up when viral it was such bullshit it's like you didn't even fucking turn the game on shut the fuck up anyways it's just not a useful conversation because ultimately it is people using POW world to make an entirely unrelated point what's happened with the Pokemon company is entirely different and I don't I frankly do not think that POW world is a game worthy of much discussion by its own merit my feeling on POW world is that it makes its success makes complete sense to me because it is an amalgam of other already successful popular successful games and what I've been saying to my friends is that that we should not be surprised that games like this are successful because we live in a world where everybody plays Fortnite custom games and they play Minecraft hunger games and they're in Roblox and they're all they're consuming is user generated content and when that is your audience they do not give a fuck about the artistic integrity of the game and it's a non-factor all that matters people is are they having fun are their friends playing it and are their favorite youtubers playing it and POW world checks all through the boxes and that's what I argue that gamers should most care about because here's the thing all this outrage it is a legal matter if there is anything and that is not we don't own Pokemon okay it is not ours to protect we are just gamers we are consumers we choose what we spend money on and you can have opinions but at the end of the day if there's actually something legally wrong the Pokemon company is going to take care of it yeah absolutely and if they can't it's because they got the money to do whatever they want literally they put out this statement to basically say hey we're good we are looking at it and if we can do something we will and if nothing happens they won't I read that letter as them basically saying hey guys we did pay attention to POW world so don't you try to do what POW world is doing get even closer all that letter says is that our eyes are open I would I wish I would have mentioned POW world by name probably would have instantly sold another 10 million copies of POW world yeah I think it's ultimately just silly it's like I that game came out in January yeah Pokemon used to be one of my favorite franchises I've never really enjoyed a Pokemon game in a very long time so when I see when I understand why people like me who love Pokemon would see POW world and say okay man I wish that the game I wish that Pokemon could be this but it's completely apples and oranges it's applying a discourse onto a game that does not deserve it and that's not me saying you can't have fun with POW world I think that if you have fun with POW world that's great it is a game designed to be fun it's not what it is I just feel like the conversation sword and shield the conversation is just so far away from what POW world actually is we're having a completely different discourse the devs are just over here rubbing their hands together to get more and more press and more and more people play the game and ultimately in my opinion more power to them I would rather a couple little indie devs make a shit ton of money than Pokemon I don't really give a fuck ultimately I just think that POW world is not a very interesting game to discuss I think it is an obvious trend game the same way only up with a trend game the same way that Suika game was a trend game these are always around so I just don't think that this I think this is just another one of those and people just as a trend game it is trending significantly higher than almost every game we're talking about it's almost like a popular game in steam history that's what I'm saying wait you're thinking similar to what games I was saying only up is a good example what is a good example sorry only up something's going on with your mic your mic is really quiet you might want to move your something change on your end something change the only up thing okay how's that I got you now I was saying only up only out only up did that sell 10 million copies or it did not but it was a similar viral hit obviously not to the same echelon that's not similar at all like it's 8 million right now so I think it's safe to say 10 million it could be like upwards like I don't even know we don't know when it's going to stop and this is a beta game final form comes out on ps5 and xbox series x it could hit like 50 million like that's xbox okay yeah I meant I bet Nintendo switch actually well here's the thing that's the only debate I have with this game is like let's say Chris are right they ignore this game now they're looking at legal action they might not be able to do anything fun let's say they they get it where they just there's no legal action right nothing illegal happened not only does it have the sales it has the concurrent players which means it's not the only question I have because the game is going to be on switch this game will not be on switch it runs pretty poorly xbox series x it's not going to be I will say this my only question is if kick and chris are correct and it kind of looks public statement is all you know wishy-washy but if the pokemon company is actually super pissed about this that's the only question I have is would Nintendo allow the game to come to their next platform if the pokemon company was like hey we don't want this shit here I mean that's an interesting question that ultimately my understanding of Nintendo's policies is that they don't curate like that they wouldn't stop that game from coming but it's also important to remember that this is a conversation for many years down the line when this matter is going to have been resolved because the only reason it's on xbox right now is because xbox allows game preview on their platform playstation doesn't as far as I understand so the game can't be on playstation well it's actually officially on game pass so Microsoft actually it's still called early access that's what I mean it's the principle is the same playstation doesn't allow early access or whatever brands on their platform yeah I'm just noting that also Microsoft actually helped on the game sure that's a good point I think it's interesting I think that this is a very interesting social experiment at this point because we've known about power of the soul type people only got pissed now because now we've seen all the power designs and now we see how popular like if this game didn't get popular people Pokemon fans or certain Pokemon fans I want to clarify this isn't all Pokemon fans but the loudest ones wouldn't be bitching so much and making up shit taking our Pokemon fans we don't hate power world like yeah it's just a game like I kind of like it it's really popular maybe it's going to start a whole new power world super popular franchise moving forward and that's totally fine maybe that's what's going to happen what's the name of the studio that made this made power world I don't even hear pocket hair pair pocket pair par I've got a pocket pair for you fascinating they are the game freak game freak they're not hiding where all their inspirations all from like the three games that we're borrowing from the name of the company that they're basing it on the old pocket monster name of Pokemon it's very obvious what they're doing it's just none of it unless something happens legally then none of it was illegal so if it's illegal then it's not our problem it's not our problem anyways because we don't own any companies that were ripped off and in the end it's just a game you play it you have fun if you're twisting this into the Pokemon company needs to do better and make better games okay well we've already been saying that and Pokemon fans have been saying this is not news this is not a surprise we've been saying this for decades the only thing that's going to force them strong arm them is if tens of millions of Pokemon fans stop buying Pokemon games and that's not that hasn't happened so until that happens they have no reason to really care about making superior Pokemon products like you know like wait wait Nate unless they just wanted those to sell even more you know what I mean the whole like trying to hit that next threshold of sales that they think is possible if they think it's not like if they think they can regularly sell 40-50 million of a game then they would want to hit that but I don't know we don't know obviously if they think we don't know what they're thinking internally if they even think that's a new height that Pokemon can get to I think I think one thing that's interesting for them just one thing I think they do believe it can hit that but as we've talked about on this podcast before getting them out on time so they can release the next set of anime cartoons the next set of Pokemon cards is I think their number one priority because that overall gives them the most net amount of revenue and also the Legend series is a fascinating experiment because of how well Legends sold as a solo release instead of a duel so many things going against it and it's right there with the best of them and it's one of those I wonder if that to them is their experiment to see if they can reach that upper echelon because if the next Legends game sells 20-25 million now you're showing growth of this different style of Pokemon game and then that's growing exponentially more than your standard Pokemon games and you're going to keep making the standard ones but I think it might just be one of those that might be their experiment for the potential to reach a whole new level but we got to right now it's right off the one off game that we don't even have confirmation they're ever making another one of same thing that happened let's go let the let's go game sold decent too but then we're about a month away from finding out yeah month away from finding out it's midnight here I got to go to bed soon I hate to tell you you guys you had a fun game and I was going to leave it at that if there's anything legally wrong ain't my problem and all I'm going to say is the next Legends games has some type of co-op or multiplayer that's a W yeah dude for anyone that might know this does anyone know how how world runs on steam deck? probably pretty well okay cool I'm going back to Florida going back to Florida yeah I mean Avery if you have to step out now you're welcome to step out Nate right? yeah you can always leave us out unless you want to stick 5 to 10 minutes I'll stay for the end it's up to you yeah yeah we're almost done here yeah West Neville's internet literally they have a full on outage right now in his area he didn't leave on purpose anyways we're going to probably go ahead and wrap this up the power of one wasn't meant to be a super long topic it's just like a lot of us seem to pretty much all seem to be in agreement anyway so unless there was somebody on our show that was vehemently like fuck power world I didn't really think any of us thought that West Haydn was what he left and then he destroyed the internet and he's tired he broke his router he went out there and found where the wire was coming into the transponder for the internet for the whole neighborhood and took a baseball bat to it hopefully he didn't have to be here for this alright we're going to go around and tell people where they can find you which got going on and the upcoming content people can look forward to etc etc we'll start with the backlog banter folks because I know we want to get out of here we're tired it's okay Abrams a sleepy boy it's alright I gotta be with my kids in 4 hours to get them ready for school so like with a parent I live being tired that's why this doesn't bother me I don't know what not being there yeah we're not quite there yet yeah I mean you can find us on YouTube at Backlott banter for our movie coverage if you want our game stuff which would probably be more interesting to people here back log banter check out our channel like Tucker said our next big upcoming project is predicting the Nintendo Switch 2 we're also working on a cool collab video right now about actually Excite Truck and Excite Bots as a very special guest that we're looking forward to so that's us I'll do a personal plug for myself I also work for a company called Lost in Cult we just released a book with Sam Barlow and half-mer made an official book for the immortality if you're familiar with that it's almost sold out so you should go check it out Sam is a sick guy so yeah go subscribe to Backlott banter go buy my book goodbye I'm curious of five people that have subscribed to Backlott banter since it started we are now at 137 subscribers how about we get 140 let's get the 140 here yeah yeah you know what that's doable yeah we already watched it I'd be saying let's get the 180 I'm curious on Backlott banter what's the reference is it related to the Sandlot movie by any chance it's more like a film Backlott's or where you shoot a movie okay alright I got it it's clever that might be the most unintelligent question I've seen he didn't understand that they're like movie people and what a Backlott is can't be an expert in everything Andres it's cool I like the Sandlot reference though that is a good movie 140 there we go 140 by the way so keep it going Botaskin you got anything going on just the same old same old Nintendo news coverage I do have a video that I already pre-recorded coming out on Friday talking about the sentiment that there's way too much Mario this year so that's coming out on Friday other than that I talk about Nintendo news pretty much each and every day I do a lot of shorts and I do a lot of collecting stuff as well so go check me out at Botox games sick let's get Botox million subscribers right now let me pass Andres right now he's getting to a mill please bring me with please what is happening just give me a $100,000 all three of us together connections to million subscriber channels tell them to drag our asses give us a shout out drag them hardcore by the way I'm Daddy Jake you can find me on YouTube at Jake Randall you can find me on twitter slash X at Jake Randall and you can finally at onlyfans.com slash two inch destroyer to the number not spelled out just two inch destroyer that's where I'm focusing on content for right now we just gotta get it monetized I love that I hope did you throw on an accent there that was quite I just wanted to wrap it up I was going to be like quick kind of content you can look forward to it two inch I hope that don't bother you knowing that I did that I don't care just a while alright alright alright um Andres we got going on where can we find you um well I'm not sure what I got going on I talk about Nintendo every day um Andres restart is my YouTube channel and I will point out thank you Captain Doge for sending me this message apparently an Instagram video just came out from Universal Studios Orlando for Epic Universe and Aegeanuma has been spotted and I'm looking at the photos and that is definitely Aegeanuma where? Universal Studios Orlando Epic Universe literally he's wearing it wait is that Miyamoto as well I think it is well Miyamoto doesn't surprise me alright well can I share this Miyamoto goes to all the places they're building this is literally them yeah this is them I know their faces but I'll just share this image gotta get that Zelda world ready oh they're building oh I see I think that's it no one's talking about this being um Miyamoto but I'm pretty sure that's Miyamoto yeah I can see that yeah yeah and this is this is 100% Aegeanuma there's like no Miyamoto is next on stealth's post Zelda world hasn't been announced yet they're mapping out yeah there was a rumor that they might have like a few rides so a few single attractions or something so maybe they put the Donkey Kong park and just add a few different like single attractions isn't the one they're building there overall gonna end up being the biggest of all of them regardless that's the plan yeah it's gonna be way bigger I've been to them I heard that like like what they're doing there is what they wish they could do everywhere else if they had made this deal years ago where they had the land to do it so like they're actually like legitimately building out like an entire Nintendo world like long haul like that's the whole plan this is gonna be like their biggest Nintendo part yeah sorry to add a whole other topic which would be kind of shocking to me because I'm like dude that means like I always knew they were gonna add a Zelda eventually but then like he's there imagining that like sooner than later maybe and it's gonna be badass maybe the next year what are you gonna do with the tech sounds about right? Zelda there, that'd be sick yeah now I know why I did not go out to California for the Nintendo world there because you know what the good one saving it for the good one several years and you know what I mean hey look if it wants to open this June that's cool I'll be in Florida this June briefly while I'm going on a cruise so we'll see alright I am Nathan Noble Jance also known as Nintendo Prime of course you guys know what's up if you're listening to the audio version I do have a YouTube channel should check that out so where most of my stuff happens we just have one super chat thing I wanted to get too quick because we didn't really have a Q&A section for it but this was a question does it leak before the reveal so that's what they're asking about the switch to well the system will leak before the reveal how much are we talking here in terms of like we will know when it's happening before reveal we actually saw the damn backplate for it from the manufacturer I don't think it'll leak to that extent I don't know I think that that Eurogamer thing from 2016 where they had the joy I'm about to leak that right after this podcast I gotta say you have this whole debate and then literally breaking news tomorrow entire system just got leaked from the factory and we're like wait a second what is going on and then Nintendo we're aware of an ongoing leak about a potential new system coming from I was just kind of saying that I had to be you guys don't know what this is we're aware of a set of guides on the internet doing a video discussing the release date we are approaching this very cautiously yeah they do like taking care of these people I can't tell you are you leaking the mold for the new controller I cannot tell you anyway let me see it's actually like I think a charging dock for a razor well it might be for the switch too or maybe I'm leaking my water bottle all I need to know to end the show daddy Jake daddy Jake do you find do you finally feel seen I do finally feel seen okay let me make sure thank you guys so much for tuning in we will be back same time next week at least I'll be back I don't know I don't know about all these crazy people we have a full show next week as well it's gonna be a lot of fun you guys are awesome and no I will not tell you who the guests are this time you guys just have to be surprised later guys