Coming out of the Switch Event from last Thursday night, I have some additional thoughts about the Switch. I shared my first impressions back in October after the switch teaser trailer. My initial impression was that while I liked the system idea in general, I found it hard to think of ways its unique feature set fit into my lifestyle. Now that we have more details on the system and the games, I am still slightly cool on it. Andrew and I talked about the Switch at considerable length on our Molehill Mountain podcast this past Saturday. However, I want to share my own thoughts in a nice bite sized article for you. Let’s break it down to the good, bad, and ugly of the system.
Last week, Nintendo spent an hour telling us all about its upcoming portable console, the Nintendo Switch. So naturally, EZK and Andrew spend two and a half hours talking about Nintendo talking about the Nintendo Switch!
I don’t know if we were speaking the truth or speaking bollocks but somehow we attracted a lot more live viewers than usual. Hope to see all our new friends next week!
No topic time stamps this time but we do talk about the new Switch info in the same order it was presented during Nintendo’s event.
This is the last Molehill Mountain for 2016 and Andrew was away again. We will not have a podcast on Christmas Eve nor New Years Eve, so you will be on your own for entertainment those nights.
I open the show talking about Arc the Lad, a very short precursor to Arc the Lad 2. I follow it up with some discussion about a Ludum Dare game called Monolith by Rocketdad, as well as a game jam game of my own called Glug Cave. At 18:35, I talk about Facepunch telling unhappy Rust players to just stop playing. At 24:51, I look back at some of the big stories of the year such as Nintendo making multiple headlines, Blizzard launching Overwatch and the closing of GamePolitics. At 47:45, I talk about what I want to see in 2017, specifically the launch of the Switch, the release of Cosmic Star Heroine, and some personal and business goals.
That’s it for the last podcast of 2016. Andrew and I will both be back on January 7, 2017 with episode 31.
I don’t have the time nor inclination to write up a full blown 800 word article on this, but I still wanted to share my thoughts. So introducing the first Random Tower Quick Thought. These are meant to get something that is nagging me off my chest and to spark a conversation. You don’t have to confine the whole conversation to the opening topic either.
On Monday, December 12, Niantic dropped its latest update on Pokemon Go players. Many people, such as myself, were expecting Gen 2 Pokemon to arrive. Well, they kind of did that. Instead of dropping the entire Gen 2 catalog on us, they gave us just the baby pokemon, minus Tyrogue. However, you can’t catch these new pokemon in the wild yet. You can only get them from hatching eggs. Sounds cool at first.
Andrew is away for the next two weeks, so you lucky ducks get to spend some quality time with EZK. This week, we enjoy some DRM chat. Nintendo’s Super Mario Run for iPhone is reported to require a constant data connection to play and several game developers have decided Denuvo, the supposed unhackable DRM, is not for them and have patched it out of their games.
It may be all EZK, all the time in this episode but Andrew does make an appearance in the chat, which we’ve transcribed below. Next week, he’ll be on a plane where he can’t watch the podcast or play Super Mario Run.
Andrew returns to chat with Zachary about the NES Classic Edition supply shortage (1:14), a rumored launch game for the Nintendo Switch that crosses Mario RPG with Ubisoft’s Rabbids (30:03), the price of Nintendo’s upcoming mobile title, Super Mario Run (36:55), and Sony suspending a gamer’s PSN account for sharing a screen of a naked NPC in Watch Dogs 2 (55:42).
Andrew had to work last weekend so Zachary took the show’s reins and spent most of the time discussing Nintendo’s, um… interesting choice not to open pre-orders for the NES Classic Edition in North America as well as the console’s limited supplies bolstering scalper culture (in other words: Do you want an NES Classic Edition right now? You’re probably going to have to rely on re-sellers who are asking over five times its retail price.)
EZK also spends some time talking about Trump’s policies.