Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

As soon as I saw Fuck Konami and heard castlevania I thought "It's gonna be a pachinko machine, isn't it?"

Turns out Jim had to worry about Konami first; they content claimed the newest Jimquisition.

Yeah, it being a pachinko machine was business as usual.

I don't even really care about them making those honestly, it's more just that they don't seem to treat the franchise with any respect like not acknowledging its anniversary.

Let's face it, Order of Eclesia will continue to be the last proper game in the franchise for the foreseeable future.

Godspeed you, Bloodstained.

Yeah, basically.

Konami might as well be dead for all it matters.

Escapist, probably. I don't know if we ever got the full story for why he quit the Escapist and struck out on his own. He had this to say on the subject back in the day:

Reading that, I can understand why. Review scores are the bread and butter of the industry and we seen how nasty fanboys get when their game doesn't get a perfect score. Reviews media want to stay safe and Jim is not the kind of guy to sing a tune that is not his own.

The Saga of Nintendo Empty Stock continues, as there are rumors that the they are gearing up to produce a SNES classic this coming holiday season.

Jim's Twitter response:

But yeah, this kind of indicates that they were always aiming for extreme artificial scarcity - and will probably do so here too.

And rain makes you wet! More at 11.

Which is stupid since they actually make no money out of it, only scalpers do.

As a lot of people speculate, if Nintendo sees themselves like a toy company first, they can brag and boast to their business partners that their NES Classic sold out in record time and turned a profit. Technically true.

Nintendo has the one thing no other video game company quite has, a fanbase so loyal they'll be all but certain to buy anything they turn out.

With its sheer size and customer loyalty, they frankly don't have to worry about fucking up, because they have so much money they can afford to keep throwing things at the wall until it sticks. Simple as that.

It kind of makes me wonder if Nintendo has fallen victim to a twisted version of Believing Their Own Lies.

In the NES and SNES days, they specifically were trying to avoid being labelled as a video game company after the crash of '83. That's why the NES and SNES were commonly stocked on toy shelves, and why they got names like "Famicom" (family computer) and "Entertainment System". It worked then, obviously - but video games absolutely don't have the stigma now they did back then. And yet, given their approach to Amiibos, the Virtual Console, and the NES Classic - they certainly are acting like a toy company in these areas. Hmmmmm...

edited 19th Apr '17 10:44:54 AM by TotemicHero

When talking about software developers, I'd say you have a point. Nintendo has very strong, marketable I Ps that others don't. Nintendo can afford to rely on stuff like Mario and Zelda, much like Sega can rely on Sonic and Football Manager. Even if that doesn't apply to niche titles like Starfox, they do have safe brands that they can use to test new ideas, like in spin-offs and the like.

But in regards to Hardware, I strongly disagree. Sony and Microsoft have other business ventures, videogaming isn't their main branch. They can actually afford to take business risks, because their videogame branch doesn't need to sustain itself in the short—to-mid-term. The PS 3 sold at a loss for years because Sony as a company could afford it, but Nintendo could only take a loss with the Wii U for less than a year, and even then, only because their previous consoles (Wii, DS, 3DS) did so well. And when that failed, they decided to rethink how their entire console division presented itself, because the Wii U's failure was that major of a blow. Their fanbase alone doesn't sustain their main business at all.

The big thing with Sony and Microsoft is while the consoles were sold as a loss for years they were still making money via third parties buying licenses for their games and the hardware eventually evened out into the black.

Third parties abandoned Nintendo so they didn't even have that.

Through their own incompetence, it must be said. I mean, Earth Bound was one of the Virtual Console's biggest successes, Bayonetta sold fairly well, especially as it was Nintendo-exclusive, Freedom Planet was one of the top fifteen digital downloads, and so on. Even their first party biggest hits were either remakes, sequels, or reboots, aside from Splatoon of course.

There's other examples, but that console was by and large a failure.

It's great that they're trying to include third party and indie titles more consistently for the Switch, but also pathetic. Zelda's their big trump card, and pretty much nothing else. They should've waited for their own franchises to be ready.

I don't think the Switch's current library gameplan is a bad one by any means, though that's just me.

By its first Christmas there's going to be a decent chunk of big-name games to pick from, and the slow-burner method until then gives early adopters breathing room to move from one game to the next. As long as they manage to nail both marketing and stock issues by then, I see it paying off well. (But if there's criticisms to this style I'm unaware of I'd be happy to hear them.)

Not going to deny the launch has some issues though, be it stock or the ridiculous markup on certain accessories. But they've shown they've learned a lot since the Wii U and its two biggest issues are nonexistent now.

I think the Switch will have a relatively stronger third-party showing, in the form of strong indie support.

Digital Foundry did a video on the tech behind the platformer Snake's Pass, an UE 4 game. According to them, the devs were given tools by Nintendo to port their game on the Switch. To cut the technical jargon, the devs said the process was real easy, and the result is a fairly solid port.

Zelda's currently the only real "killer", i'll concede, but there's a few B-to-A-tier indie games that seem to fit right at home with the thing. Binding of Isaac Rebirth's port is apparently good, Snake's Pass is a really interesting mascot platformer, also Mr. Shifty's coming soon. Mr. Shifty is basically Hotline Miami mixed with Nightcrawler. It looks super cool.

edited 20th Apr '17 5:06:16 AM by mrsunshinesprinkles

Apparently Jim stumbled onto someone who was mirroring his videos (I'm not linking to them, since I don't want to draw too much attention). And less than five minutes after he posted about it on Twitter, they took all the videos they stole from him down. Emphasis on "from him", as their remaining videos are other stolen videos.

The best part? According to him, their response was "I won't get views otherwise, so fuck off".

/headdesk

Why would he even care, though?

Why Jim would care about the mirroring, or why the other guy cares about views?

The former because Jim is a professional, and this kind of bullshit fucks with his metrics. The latter because they're teenage shitheads, presumably.

It's also literal copyright infringement and not the kind you can dance around. Not only is Jim Sterling's content available, it's available on the platform the copier is using.

Jim is well within his rights to request that they take it down. And they did, so he doesn't really have any recourse against them now, which I doubt he would take anyway.

edited 22nd Apr '17 6:34:19 PM by Zendervai

Fun fact, "Juicy Slots" is actually a real casino app.

You probably should have included a NSFW warning (for the oni art).

Anyway, I wonder how long it's going to take for the actual "Juicy Slots" maker to complain about this.

edited 24th Apr '17 1:39:33 PM by TotemicHero