Everything Everywhere Once a Week (8/04/2023)

Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This may be the most old man thing I’ll ever say, but is it me or are there just fewer types of candy bars at the fronts of grocery stores these days? Like, if you don’t like Reese’s, then a fourth of the entire endcap is worthless to you between the Reese’s Cups, Sticks, Big Sticks, Big Cups, Pieces, etc. I feel like this is where candy you’ve never seen commercials for that have cartoon characters from Sweden or something used to live.

Quarterly Nintendo Sales Strike Back

It’s that time again! Nintendo has given their quarterly sales numbers and this time around it includes what is likely their biggest release since 2020, Tears of the Kingdom. The newest Legend of Zelda title had been in development for six years, far longer than the average Nintendo development cycle, and commanded a higher $70 price point because of it.

It has sold 18.51 million copies so far.

There’s a lot you can probably attribute that to. Breath of the Wild was a transformative experience for a lot of Switch owners and far less divisive than internet commentary would have one believe. There’s probably a large segment of the audience that had simply been waiting for the sequel as soon as it was possibly available. Add to that, I think it’s fairly proven now that mass consensus of good reviews absolutely contribute to sales. You might argue that those good reviews, complete with Metacritic attention to embargoes dropping, only ever happen with much-hyped games to begin with and I can’t really disagree, but it’s rare to see a game from a major publisher getting high scores and not cleaning up at retail as well.

The rest of Nintendo’s numbers are not exceptionally interesting. Fire Emblem Engage did not really set the world on fire compared to Three Houses, indicating that there’s a much stronger appetite for satisfying characters, story, and relationships in the series over gameplay. Ideally the two concepts could marry, but that seems to be one type of shipping that we aren’t getting in the Fire Emblem series.

The Switch has officially hit 129.53 million, which means it’s likely at 130 million by the time of writing. That also means that it’s time for the occasional assessment of whether the Switch can catch the DS (154 million) and PS2 (155 million) in consoles sold. My own estimation is that, no, probably not. Assuming a Switch successor at the end of next year, there’s about a year and a half left of sales, and not a lot of presumed console-movers in that time to get it up another 25 million units. It’s not impossible for sure, but I’d imagine Super Mario Wonder has to really take off to get it there.

The PS2 and DS largely got up to that number for different reasons, including being cheap entry points and having annual sports games, neither of which really apply to the Switch. To some extent, it is probably its own accomplishment that the Switch can even sniff those numbers without ever getting a base-version price cut (depending on what you consider the Switch Lite, but it certainly never hit the mainstream $200 threshold). Having multiple units per family is probably a big reason why, but the same could be said for the PS2 and DS as well. The race will probably be a squeaker either way, but it should be interesting to see how it turns out.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Delayed for Xbox Due to Policy Decisions

I’ve been excited for Baldur’s Gate 3 ever since wrapping up Divinity Original Sin 2. The newest title for Larian seems to hit it out of the park based on the early access impressions and the little bit I played on PC release date, with a PS5 version coming a bit later this month. While Larian has stated they intend to bring the game to Xbox, it will seemingly be in 2024 due to an issue with the game’s local co-op and feature parity with the Xbox Series S.

Baldur’s Gate 3’s local co-op allows the party to spit up and just do their own thing across the entire game world. Essentially, this requires that the game be playable four times, which is not really a problem online but is a pretty big drain on resources when playing locally. The feature works fine on PCs within spec and seemingly also on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, but isn’t quite doable on the Xbox Series S. Xbox engineers have been working with Larian on crossing the finish line, but they don’t expect it to be done until next year.

In response, some fans have suggested that Larian simply axe the mode on Series S, which is against Microsoft’s policies. What wouldn’t be against Microsoft’s policies is to remove the mode on both Series S and Series X, but that’s also bad for Microsoft for different reasons. The second you differentiate the gameplay experience on Series S and X beyond, like, resolution and framerate, you sell the former out as an also-ran console. Considering that it appears to outsell the Series X, you’re not going to suddenly just convert a bunch of people to the higher-tier system, you’re going to sell fewer consoles period.

There’s no good answer here that doesn’t make the Xbox seem like a less desirable place to play the game — or by extension, any multiplatform game, and that’s a bad reputation to start. The thrust of the Series S/Series X dynamic is that gameplay is identical with only graphical differences. Once you start undermining that, the idea of “Play Anywhere” becomes more of a shrug than a statement with a presumed “Probably” appended.

I think the best time for a solution to this was years ago, when Larian could have sought Microsoft help on this issue before a time crunch. But that’s not always possible and almost assuredly wasn’t realistic in this case. There’s no good answer here except for Xbox owners to take the lumps, because any policy change will be harmful to the business beyond just this one game.

Rumors of a New Switch

This week, VGC reported on a host of different Switch rumors, including among them that devkits are in the hands of third party partners, a 3D Mario is likely to launch alongside the system, and that it boasts an eight-inch LCD screen. While I don’t know what to make of these specific rumors, some of them make sense either due to taking a wild guess who these devkit sources are or just thinking about development timing as a whole.

All this does suggest that a new Switch is imminent, engaging in Nintendo’s least favorite activity: putting the ball back in the air for a generational transition. The platform holder has never really nailed how generational transitions work, succeeding sometimes and faceplanting others. There’s a laundry list of reasons why, including allowing the previous console to wither on the vine or mismarketing the successor, but handoffs have never really been Nintendo’s chief talent. Credible rumors starting a year and some change before the expected release at least mean that Nintendo is planning pretty far ahead of time for the new console’s release.

I’d expect at least one major title from Nintendo and a fair few older ports, but that’s pretty much what I’d expect from all console launches at this point.

Other Stuff

• I am working on writing a Final Fantasy XVI review as the longer I sit after finishing that game, the more baffled I am. Expect that in the coming week.
• I named my Druid in Baldur’s Gate 3 Drew-Id.