Super Mario 3D All Stars Can Piss Right Off

 

Since I know how much Nintendo fans will froth at the mouth at the sight of anyone badmouthing their fat, mushroom addicted mascot allow me to start with a clarifying statement.  I like all these games.  Mario 64, despite it's wonky camera is still a ton of fun to play, I've always loved Sunshine despite what everyone else says about it and playing Galaxy the day it came out is still a fond memory of mine from my university days.  The games included in this collection are not the problem.

Ironically, despite the title saying that 3D All Stars can piss off, it's the pissing off which is the problem.  When Nintendo announced this collection of 3D Mario classics for the Switch they also dropped the fact that this game comes with a time limited purchase window.  It is scheduled for a September 18th release date but then it is only available until March 2021.  By that, I don't mean it's a limited run release and you you can only get a physical copy until March 2021, I mean it's vanishing from store shelves AND from the online store in March.

I cannot for the life of me imagine why this would be the case and quite frankly it is one of the dumbest decisions I've ever seen for a game in my entire life.

The first problem that this is going to cause is that scalpers are going to be just scooping up physical copies like crazy and selling them at inflated prices.  Hell, it's not "going" to cause, it already has caused scalpers to start going nuts.  Just google "3D All Stars Scalpers" and the top results are stories of people pre ordering copies of the game for $60 and selling THE. PRE. ORDER for anything between $90 to $120.  It's a disgusting practice that takes advantage of people who aren't fast or tech savvy enough and anyone who participates in scalping deserves a big fat slap

The other problem, the one that scares me a little more than scalpers, is the message that this release is going to send out to other companies and will maybe inspire them to do the same thing.  Companies are going to realize that by doing something like this they can force consumers to pay top dollar for their games in and around launch and the people who can't afford or like to wait are going to get completely screwed.  If you're lacking in money, especially in the current corona ravaged climate and you need to prioritize things like food or family expenses, well you better get your sorry ass on your feet because whatever game you were excited for might just vanish from existence if you're not fast enough.  Do you have a massive backlog and want to hold off buying games?  Do you like to wait for a sale so that you can save what little money you have? Are you the kind of person who likes to finish the current game before buying the next one and that playthrough of the Witcher 3 you're doing right now is taking YEARS because you don't have that much time?

Well fuck all of you, either get the game in 12-16 months or deal with it you stupid nerd.  Obvious sarcasm but that's what this feels like

This is the exact reason I hate brands like Supreme.  There's no reason Supreme cant just make more products to meet the demand but they want to keep this image of "exclusivity" and "rarity" so they under-produce and that's why you get droves of twats lining up outside these stores to snap up whatever gaudy bullshit is on sale that week.  That's pretty much what Nintendo is doing with Mario, get in fast or get fucked.

I'm hoping, and the more likely outcome, is that every game suddenly having a limited release window will not happen and this bullshit will only be limited to this stupid little collection title.   

Thoughts on Nintendo Switch

For a long while there have been rumblings of the Nintendo NX but very little details were available on the upcoming system UNTIL LAST NIGHT!  Finally we can stop calling it the NX as it now has a real name, the Nintendo Switch.  While there still isn't a huge amount of information on the thing, there's enough for me to write a little bit about my thoughts on what they've done.

It seems to be a sort of home/portable hybrid where you slot a screen into a stand to play it on your TV like a normal system or you can take the screen out and play it like a portable system.  This is a cool feature that a lot of people seem to be creaming their pants over and while I agree that it is pretty awesome, let's not forget that the PSP was doing that back in 2007.  Also the main screen portable body thing just looks like a WiiU controller and the idea of walking around with that fucking thing and whipping it out on the train even makes me cringe a little bit.

Another cool thing we can take from the announcement is the two little slide in controller thingies can be taken out and shared with another player.  In theory this means that a second controller for a second player will be built into the standard system which is an absolute godsend.  Controllers aren't cheap so the idea that I can just buy the system and immediately start playing with another person seems really cool.  Other features include the thing having a Tegra processor and the games coming on cards like the DS which is cool I guess, it means the games will look pretty good and not take up too much space in my house.

The one thing that really piqued my interested are the number of studios that have pledged involvement with the thing

ATLUS, Spike Chunsoft and Grasshopper ALONE are enough to get me interested in the thing.  It's cool to see the amount of 3rd party support for the thing so hopefully the Switch will have a really cool library of games.  Right now the games we know about are a bit meh with things like Skyrim and some Basketball shit alongside obvious stuff like Zelda and Mario.  I am getting the general impression that Nintendo are trying to market this thing for a more core gaming audience rather than trying to make it all family friendly.  Obviously the family friendly stuff is there but I'm getting the feeling they want that core crowd back in a big way.

This is is set to launch in March 2017 so only time will tell if it's any god or not.  I'm not going to get my hopes too high just because I'm a bit jaded but it is looking to be something worth picking up as of right now.  It would be really nice if it was region free....