I think that a new Zelda is years away, but the Switch’s successor will come out next year or early 2025 at the latest.
I do expect Mario Kart 9 and a new 3D Mario at launch.
I think they’ll release a Tears of the Kingdom “Deluxe” a few months later (similar to what they did with Mario Kart 8 on the Switch). Enough people want a higher-res TotK that it’s worth making, but banking on an upscaled port as a launch title isn’t something they’d do.
There was also a leak about a year ago that claimed that this game was done, playtesting results were awful, and they were trying to figure out what to do with it.
When they silently dropped a trailer 2 weeks before release and a few days before a Nintendo Direct, I was convinced the leak was true, and that this would be a disaster.
“Okay” reviews are a huge surprise.
The weird thing is that it seems late for Nintendo to still be working on R&D for the Switch 2. This is probably less than a year from announcement. At this point, I would expect them to be hammering out agreements with suppliers, so the hardware should be more-or-less done.
Then again, I have no idea what the timeline is like for console development.
Assuming any of this is legit:
Is it possible that the “Switch 2” has a hybrid version like the Switch, a handheld version like the Switch Lite, and a home console version? (Or even just hybrid and home console versions, with a handheld to come later?)
These could all run the same software with very similar hardware, but the home console would either be cheaper or offer higher resolutions and/or framerates than the docked hybrid console.
Customers might get confused, but this is arguably more straightforward than the current lineup.
The downside is that developers would need to handle 3 different configurations (handheld, docked, and home).
Some of the changes in GPLv3 seem to address this type of behavior. There might be some narrow gaps that Red Hat is taking advantage of, but the folks at GNU at least made things harder.
Got it.
I don’t see how that could comply with the terms of the GPL.
They might also be banking on GPLv3 contributors being unable/unwilling to take them to court. The Linux kernel is GPLv2, and its contributors are probably more of a legal threat than anything else in RHEL.
Frankly, I’m more concerned about the precedent this sets for the GPL.
If Red Hat can do this, then there’s nothing (legally) preventing every other megacorp from ending public contributions to Linux and other GPL projects, forking them, and releasing them under restrictive contractual terms.
Granted, not everyone would take their code private. Microsoft and Apple make some contributions to BSD/MIT/etc. licensed software even though they are not required to. However, I think we’d miss out on quite a lot of FOSS development.
What stops one person with a free account from mirroring the source?
It’s also against the spirit of the GPL if not the letter. Red Hat isn’t just required to release source code to its customers upon request; that source code comes with GPL rights and restrictions attached (including the right to distribute).
Is it legal for Red Hat to require customers to waive their GPL rights? I don’t think it should be, but I don’t think courts are particularly friendly to copyleft holders.
A lot of the third-party compilations for Switch include one game and allow you to download the rest (Assassin’s Creed is one).
On the plus side, Nintendo is good about releasing revision cartridges with updates. I think that new copies of Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey have been fully patched for years.
The Switch is turning Nintendo franchises into sales machines.
The top selling Zelda games are Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Nothing else comes close. The Link’s Awakening remake and Skyward Sword remaster also outsold the originals.
Animal Crossing New Horizons outsold the rest of the series by a factor of 3.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 sold more copies than the previous two combined.
Metroid Dread is the best-selling Metroid game of all-time.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the best-selling Kirby game, and Kirby Star Allies is #3.
Fire Emblem Three Houses is the best-selling Fire Emblem game.
It’s not unreasonable to think that Pikmin 4 could be a breakout for the franchise.
When I played it a few months ago, it felt complete enough to get a full release. I didn’t run into any major issues, and there was plenty to do.
Microsoft also owns Windows, so it’s debatable whether a game for PC and Xbox can truly be considered multiplatform.
Utopia is a must-have.
Leviathan and Distant Stars are good for their prices.
Beyond that, get what sounds interesting. If you want to play as robots, get Synthetic Dawn. If you want planet-destroying weapons, get Apocalypse. If you like playing diplomatically, get Federations.
This far exceeded my expectations:
But the bad news:
Right. People who grew up with video games as a normal thing (30-35 or younger) think that video games are socially acceptable at any age.
People above that age probably have a “cutoff” of teens or 20s.
The Colorado decision was explicitly for creative works. Signing off on a certificate wouldn’t count, even under the insane far-right decision of SCOTUS.
I’m afraid because of Dobbs.