E3 Wishes and Predictions 2020

Wishes- for it to not be cancelled

Predictions- it's cancelled

RIP Electronic Entertainment Expo 1995-2019 Adam Koralik is fuming

Wii U > Switch

The Wii U is a highly underrated machine, as I've stated many times in the past. The Nintendo Switch is also a great machine. I have both and I love both very much. However, I think I like the Wii U more. There are a few reasons for this, and I'll go over that here.

The Controller

The Wii U and the Nintendo Switch have comparable control schemes in 3 ways- with a big screen in front of you via the GamePad or Switch handheld mode, with a regular controller via the Wii U Pro Controller or Switch Pro Controller, and with 2 controllers via Wii Remote & Nunchuk or the Joycons. Each control scheme has its fans, but I think the Wii U has better control schemes than the Switch.

If you want a big old screen in front of you, Wii U is absolutely the way to go. The GamePad is soft in the hands and bulky enough for you to get a good grip. It doesn't feel heavy, but you can tell it has a lot of features. One thing the Wii U Gamepad does right that the Switch handheld does wrong is, the charging port is on the top of the GamePad. I understand why the Switch has the port on the bottom. However, playing while charging is much easier with the GamePad. The GamePad has a stylus as well. The Switch has a capacitive screen as opposed to a resistive screen, but I don't really mind the Wii U screen. It works really well and it seems more durable.

If you want to use a regular controller, this is where it becomes a close call. The Wii U Pro Controller and the Switch Pro Controller are both very good controllers. However, I like the Wii U controller just a bit more. The Wii U Pro Controller is what the Xbox 360 controller should have been- it has a great form factor and it fits into my hands great. The soft, yet responsive buttons are very comfortable, and the triggers feel very comfortable to hold down whereas the 360 triggers get to be painful. The Switch Pro Controller is closer in feel to the Xbox One controller. While the Xbox One controller is much better than the Xbox 360 controller, so is the Wii U Pro Controller. The controller itself is very comfortable, but it's not without its flaws. The triggers are slightly stiffer, but it's barely noticeable. The D pad on the Switch Pro Controller is not as good as it is on the Wii U Pro Controller. Pressing the center buttons on the Wii U Pro Controller is easy because of the position of the thumbsticks. However on the Switch Pro Controller, pressing the Home button becomes more difficult because the right stick is in the way. Overall both are great controllers, but the Wii U Pro Controller feels better to use.

If you're using separate controllers, it's no contest. My Joy Cons have stick drift. Need I say more? The Wii Remote and Nunchuk have the disadvantage of being tethered together by a cable, and the Joy Cons provide much more freedom with their separation. However, there are disadvantages that come along with this. Like I said earlier, the Joy Cons get stick drift eventually. The motion controls aren't as accurate, because Joy Cons use gyroscopes instead of infrared pointers. So while the sensor bar is cut out of the equation, it doesn't work as well. It's not terrible, but in a lot of games the Wii Remote Plus is better.

Online

I  don't play too many online games, but I play a few. I've put a lot of online hours into 2 games- Splatoon on Wii U, and Mario Kart 8 on Switch. I think it's fair to assume that I've put a near equal amount of time into the online gameplay of both of these games. Back in my Mario Kart 8 online days, network errors were common. At least once an hour, I would get booted out of the lobby and I'd have to rejoin. Sometimes it didn't let me join again for some time. In Splatoon on Wii U, this is rarely a problem. I have been disconnected maybe 2 or 3 times in my time playing the game. I've never been disconnected from an online game in Super Smash Bros, and Super Mario Maker has never given me trouble. So what happened to Switch Online that made it so much more faulty? I can't tell for sure what the problem is. I know that there's a problem though. You guys should play Splatoon.

Friends

The Switch friend system can maybe be considered robust, but it dropped the ball in 2 very important areas. The Wii U does one of these correctly, and the other one is okay even though it also didn't do a great job.

Nintendo Switch, just like the 3DS, uses friend codes to add buddies to your buddy list. Why? Everyone knows how bogus this is. Why can't everyone just have a username, like every other platform that exists? Why do we need these pointless codes? Remembering "Storm9CP" is much easier than remembering whatever my friend code is.

Nintendo Switch Online voice chat is a mess. To chat online in many first party games, you must have their dedicated cell phone app. The Wii U doesn't need this app! Voice Chat on Wii U and Switch could stand to be improved. The Wii U needs an overhaul in this regard too, I'll admit. Voice chat should be based on the Wii U system, not the game. This is the system that Xbox Live uses. That way everyone can play different games and still be in the party. They could be doing whatever they want on the unit while this happens. As it is, voice chat is based on the game, so all people must be playing the same game. The Switch also needs a voice chat overhaul. They can make it part of their online service, but voice chat should be part of the system. A cell phone app shouldn't be required to run voice chat. My cell phone cannot install any apps, so I can't even use this service that would otherwise be available. Another thing that Switch needs to work on is Bluetooth headset support for docked mode. Sitting really close to the TV is not comfortable, and Bluetooth adapters aren't something I've ever seen at my local big box store. This solution would solve the problem that the smartphone app solves, but in a more graceful and convenient way. 

Nintendo eShop

The Nintendo eShop has been a great place to find some of the lesser known games for the Wii U and Nintendo Switch. However, one of these stands above the others. 

The Wii U eShop is clean, neat, and well-organized. Everything is categorized and easy to find. The homepage is well designed too. The music is dope too. The homepage does a great job of showcasing the wide variety of stuff available on Wii U. Navigation is easy, and discovery is easy.

The Nintendo Switch eShop needs a revamp. Everything is very loosely categorized, and discovery is difficult. It looks very bland and uninteresting. Discovery is very difficult as well. There's just too much stuff on the Switch eShop, and finding games of quality is very hard in the eShop's current state. Things need to be categorized better so it's easier to sort out exactly what you want.

Other online features

Some of this is Nintendo's fault, and some of it isn't. Either way, the Wii U has better online features than the Nintendo Switch. The Wii U has a web browser available from the home screen. It works pretty decently too, even though it may be a bit outdated. Switch just doesn't have a web browser, or at least not one that's reasonably easy to access.

Nintendo Switch has a strange lack of media streaming software available for it. Switch has Crunchyroll, Hulu, and YouTube. This is nothing compared to Wii U. While it no longer has access to Hulu (stupid Disney), Wii U still has access to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Crunchyroll, Youtube, and even Napster. That's a better selection than Switch, I'd argue.

I think now would be a good time to mention Miiverse and all the other online features that have been discontinued. There's no need to go in depth here because they are not around anymore, but Miiverse was awesome while it was still around. We also have Wii U Chat (a Skype-like calling platform), and Nintendo TVii (a live TV service).

Virtual Console

I'm not going to say the Wii U has the best Virtual Console out of all Virtual Consoles. That honor would go to the Wii. I can say Wii U Virtual Console is better than Virtual Console on Nintendo Switch, though.

For some, the Switch Virtual Console is quite a good deal. Pay 20 dollars a year for a few NES and SNES games. This includes save states and online play for multiplayer. I don't like this deal though. As users have pointed out, online multiplayer for these games doesn't work well. Why is it limited to NES and SNES games? Wii U had Virtual Console games for NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Wii, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and TurboGrafx-16. No Master System, Genesis, or GameCube for some reason, but I think we had an alright selection as is on Wii U. Switch's Virtual Console library is severely lacking. Was anyone asking for Smash Tennis or Eliminator Boat Duel? Is there anyone excited to try out Eliminator Boat Duel? Wii U had save states as well, so save states are nothing special. The part I dislike most about Switch Virtual Console is that it's subscription-based. It may not be a lot of money for a subscription, but I'd rather just pay 10 bucks for Mario 64 and be done with it just like on Wii or Wii U. I hate having to pay for the same thing multiple times when I could just buy it once forever. The fact that these are only available through Switch Online is disgusting and ridiculous.

The User Interface

To some people, what the User Interface is like isn't important. As long as the games are good, then the games are good. But I like me a good UI. UI happens to be one of the biggest problems with the Xbox 360- the home page is filled with ads and garbage that could easily be removed. The Wii U has a great user interface, as I've discussed previously on this site. The Switch does not have a good user interface.

The Wii U's interface looks great. Once the home menu shows up and you're signed in, everything is neat and detailed. 20 boxes line the screen for each application. 3D models of the controller buttons float in the background. On the TV the Miiverse plaza is displayed. Everything is at a high resolution and it looks fantastic. When pressing the home button during a game, the same thing can be said- everything looks great. Everything you need during the game is organized along the bottom of the screen. The digital manual is readily available. Controller settings are easy to access.

The Nintendo Switch user interface looks awful. I don't understand our modern culture's shift towards minimalism. This has ruined many great things- the Patreon logo, the Google logo, the Cartoon Network logo.... a lot of logos. It's all so terribly boring. The Nintendo Switch is the epitome of bland. Everything is so squared off. Nothing has any gradients or borders; everything is a flat color. The Home menu, friends list, eShop, and settings all need a revamp, or at least some new themes. I understand that the menu was designed to work quickly, but couldn't it work quickly and look nice at the same time? All that can be said before bringing up how clunky it is. Only 12 games appear on the menu at a time, and you can only see 4 of them on screen before scrolling. Why can't I be shown 12 or 16 at a time? The 3DS could do it, so why can't the Switch?

Conclusion

I'm not going to argue that the games on either system are better or worse. That's not my call to make, because I'm not super well versed in Switch games since 2018. Based on just the consoles themselves, I stand by my opinion that the Wii U is much more fun and interesting than the Nintendo Switch. If you wanna fight, reach out to @Icystorm9 on Twitter. Goodnight.

E3 Wishes and Predictions 2018 - Nintendo

So Nintendo has a 45 minute long Direct this year. We got a 34 minute Direct in March with Okami, Crash Bandicoot, Undertale, Dark Souls, South Park, Sploon 2 DLC, Mario Tennis, and Smash 5. Imagine what we could get in a 45-minute E3 direct, even if 10 minutes or so are dedicated only to Smash 5.

First off, I hope we'll get something from Activison. Crash and Skylanders are the only Activision games on the Switch, and I think CoDBlOpsIIII will be on Switch. I would really appreciate if CoDBlOpsIIII would be cross-platform with Xbox One and PC. I gave up hope for crossplay with PS4 last year.

I didn't make this picture. I stole it off the internet.

I might have said this in my Square Enix post, but I have a feeling that Square is going to announce a new Switch game because they have a new division devoted entirely to the Switch. What I want them to announce is Shadow of the Tomb Raider for Switch. Maybe it's in the Direct, maybe not.

You know what I want announced during the Direct? I want Nintendo to announce that the Wii U Pro Controller is compatible with the Switch. The only things the Switch Pro Controller can do that the Wii U Pro Controller can't are reading amiibos and motion controls, which aren't even used in a majority of games. The Wii U Pro Controller is cheaper than the Switch Pro Controller, better than the Joy Cons, and more compatible with the GameCube controller. The GameCube controller isn't great for some games that use the ZL or - buttons, or games that map the jump button to anything other than A. It works fantastic for Mario Kart and Minecraft, though.

This controller feels really great. The GameCube and Saturn controllers are the only controllers better.

I want Nintendo to announce a new F-Zero game. Or they could announce that Fast RMX is getting a physical release. I would be fine with both. Fast Neo got a physical release in Europe, but I can't run it, so I'm not getting any Fast Racing games.

Amazon UK has low-res images.

And finally, I hope Snake, Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Bayonetta, Ryu, Cloud, Bayonetta, Pichu, and the Ice Climbers are back for Smash 5. I think all the first-party characters from Smash 4 will return, but the 3rd-party characters and cut characters are not as likely.

Ubisoft will have a Switch game to announce. I guarantee it. Ubisoft is one of Nintendo's biggest 3rd-party allies, if ZombiU and Watch Dogs and Mario Rabbids are anything to go by. In March, they announced South Park for Switch. At E3 last year, they announced Steep and Mario Rabbids. I think it's safe to say that Ubisoft will have a big title to announce for the Switch during the Direct. I can't say that it will be an exclusive, but I would be shocked if it wasn't.

Nintendo is going to talk about Smash. I don't think Solid Snake will be back. Sonic will. Mega Man will. Bayonetta will. The rest might be back as DLC, but I'm not counting on it.

There will be some crazy announcement that nobody was expecting. Eternal Darkness? Probably not. Timesplitters? Probably not. Sonic Unleashed? I would love that, but probably not. But I'm not expecting them to announce it, so there is even more of a chance that we'll see it.

We might see more of Pokemon Pikachu/Eevee. I hope we do. That game sounds like fun, considering I really enjoyed LeafGreen.

So this whole time I've been going in order of the conferences. But Nintendo is the last conferences, and I still have companies like Sega and Activision to talk about. So what I'll do from now on is what I did last year- just pick the companies in a random order. See you later when I make a post about whatever company I decide to talk about.

Minecraft for 3DS: Update 2

So Minecraft for 3DS is finally here. I'd like to talk about what I'd think of it.

First off, let's start with the home screen. It looks nice. The logo is on the top and the menu is on the bottom.

Top Screen on the Home Menu - pic by YouTube user CharzBall

The bottom screen doesn't have a "Singleplayer or Multiplayer" menu because there is no multiplayer at this point in time. They plan to add that. I think that should be in the game from Day 1; multiplayer is a big part of the game. I hope multiplayer doesn't require an update in the physical version. Anyway, this game does have a menu similar.

Anyway, that's how I would have done it exactly. Well, not exactly. DKC Returns 3D has a digital manual that can be accessed from the 3DS Home Menu and I think that would have been a better way to do it. I actually did make concept art that looked similar, but I didn't post it for some reason. At least not that I can find. Oops.

Press Play and you can begin the game. After it reads the SD card, you arrive at the World Menu.

Does this look familiar?

So far Minecraft on 3DS is hitting all the right notes except for multiplayer. Other Ocean even added new features that mine didn't have; the ability to rename worlds from the menu. Smart.

Anyways, tapping a world will bring you to that world. And that's where we talk about the controls. I made a chart comparing the current controls to the sets I made back in December.

So as you can see, Other Ocean did a good job adapting my new 3DS controls to their version of the game. I also heard that there's a set of touchscreen controls, but I couldn't find anything about what they might be. I assume they're similar to mine (which is based on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare DS) or to the Club Penguin games on Nintendo DS.

So now I'd like to talk about how the touchscreen was utilized.

If you take a look, you can see that the touchscreen has the hotbar, XYZ coordinates, and map, as well as a set of buttons for inventory, crafting, and armor. XP, health, and hunger are on the top of the upper screen. This is similar to how I designed mine, but with a few changes.

Mine, for comparison.

On mine, there are 3 tabs for inventory, crafting, and armor instead of buttons. Health and hunger are on the bottom screen and XP is on the very bottom of the top screen. Mine doesn't have XYZ coordinates. I should add that to the pause screen. And in my version, the map is accessed by pressing Select instead of it being available all the time. I think my map system and touchscreen OS is better; but Other Ocean did a good job using the 2 screens to their advantage. Take notes, 4J Studios. A quick update allowing access to my inventory/map system would be greatly appreciated.

And now, exclusive features.

Minecraft for New 3DS has a few unique features that are as follows:
1) World sizes are bigger than they are on the Wii U, but smaller than they are the Switch.
2) The game comes with 5 free skin packs preinstalled.
3) The map is not an item; it is available from the start.

World sizes being bigger may or may not be a good thing. Minecraft for New 3DS is in the middle in regards to world sizes on game systems. Above it are the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. Below it are the Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, and PS Vita. I think the world size on Wii U was perfectly fine. If the 3DS had the same size of worlds, Other Ocean and 4J could have worked together to make a cross-save feature, similar to how the Vita and PS3 can.

The skin packs are cool, but it would have been much more worth it if they had used my idea to create custom Nintendo skin packs exclusive to the 3DS.

The map being available from the start is something all console versions have, but it takes up an inventory slot and can be lost. In my Minecraft for 3DS post, I remedied this by making it accessible by a button instead. Other Ocean seems to have read my site and implemented it in a similar manner. Now the map is always displayed on the touch screen. This is useful, but like I said before, I think my design is better.

So I think that covers it all. I think Minecraft for 3DS is a good version of Minecraft, but definitely wait for a physical version; the digital copy takes up something like 3600 blocks of storage. (That's 3.5328 GameCube Memory Card 1019's.)

What The Wii U Should Have Been

I'm not going to act like I'm smarter than the dozens of people that were working at Nintendo from 2011 to 2014. But now that I have history to reflect on, I think I have a few ideas that would have helped the Wii U not only sell better, but have a better library in the long run. I also got these ideas from other people that I know.

First of all, bundles.

What they should have done is have 3 bundles. The Basic, Standard, and Deluxe. The Basic Set is red and comes with just a Wii U Pro Controller, AV Cable, HDMI Cable, and Mini-USB Cable. It would cost $250 at launch.

Couldn't find a good image of a custom red Pro Controller online, so this will have to do.

Because it doesn't include the GamePad (which cost either 60 or 80 dollars to make, I don't remember), the price could be reduced significantly. But as a result, all games would need to do one of two things.
1) All games need to support the Pro Controller in one way or another.
2) All games that require the GamePad need to be clearly marked.

I think the second one is the best option, so the games requiring the GamePad won't be restricted because of the Pro Controller requirement. And if the second one were the case, I'm sure many more games would support the Pro Controller from the start.

The Second Bundle is the Standard Set. It costs 300 dollars and comes with everything that the current Basic Set comes with. It comes in 2 colors- white and red.

Nice looking console, isn't it?

The memory would be 16 gigabytes because I said so.

Then finally we have the Deluxe Edition. That's the same. It comes in either Black or White, just as the already-existing Deluxe Edition.

So those are the 3 bundles. I'm gonna go make some grilled cheese and come back to talk about the next part, reaching out to 3rd party developers.

Ah dang, I'm out of cheese slices. Oh well. So as I said, this section is about reaching out to 3rd party developers. They had a good start by getting SEGA games Bayonetta 2 and Sonic Lost World as exclusives, but they needed more. If they funded more exclusives or ports of 360 games, then the Wii U would have had the same advantage the Dreamcast would have had. If they had given companies like Rockstar and Activision money to make exclusives and port their older games, then the Wii U would have not only had the new games, but the best versions of these older games, as well as exclusives. And I think that would have pushed a good amount of people over to Nintendo's side this previous generation.

Some ports they could have had if they paid a small amount to the game developers:

Madden 25 (Electronic Arts)

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision)

(i honestly got lazy w/ this one) Dishonored (Bethesda Softworks)

Battlefield 4 (Electronic Arts)

(Didn't actually design this, blame someone else) Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games)

Resident Evil 6 (Capcom)

So now that I've touched on ports that they could have funded, I'll talk about exclusives that they could have funded.

Yakuza 1 & 2 Remastered technically already exists and is an exclusives, but it's only available in Japan.

Jet Set Radio 3, boiii

Another LEGO game, like LEGO City Undercover, such as a LEGO Pirates-type thing, would be greatly appreciated. I would buy that.

Why don't they pay EA to be competent for once? That would be a sight to behold.

And finally, the thing that everyone whines about - marketing.

If they had advertised it correctly, then the Wii U could have been saved, even without the previously mentioned changes. I remember for Thanksgiving 2014 or 2015 (I don't remember), I went to my cousin's house. He has cable, so I watched The Simpsons on FXX. And do you know what I saw? I saw ads for the PlayStation 4. I saw them all the time that weekend. Do you know how many ads I've seen on TV for the Wii U? None. And that's dumb. The Wii U has many features that are unique to it, too. Like full backwards compatibility. And 5-player support. The Pro Controller, the best controller of the 8th generation. All of the great 360 games that are best on the Wii U. And most of all, all of the great exclusives like Pikmin 3, Splatoon, Sonic Lost World, and Runbow Pocket. With all of these great things, you'd think they'd advertise a lot, and you'd think they'd advertise smart. But that didn't happen.

But what's done is done. And the Wii U is done. Nintendo is likely not making any more Wii U things ever again. But that's okay. Because of the Wii U, we now have the Switch. Nintendo had to fall to learn how to make the Switch such a great platform. And I'm glad that they did.

E3 Wishes and Expectations - Capcom

Hey, here's a pic that I stole from the trailer for the Mega Man Legacy Collection, which makes sense, because that game is in this post.

I hope Capcom can bring some cool things to the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

First of all, I want more info on the Mega Man bundle that's coming out. I'm hoping they announce ports for the Wii U, Switch, Vita, and 3DS, with the 3DS being the least important to me of the 4.

This smart fellow right here agrees with me.

I also hope Resident Evil 7 is announced for the Switch. That would be great. I don't expect any extra features, but just being able to play that game wherever would be great.

Speaking of Resident Evil, if Nintendo talks about the Switch Virtual Console, Capcom should announce that Resident Evil 2 for the N64 (or possibly even the GameCube version) will be available. That would be neat.

Also, they need to announce a new Capcom vs. SNK game, for all 3 major platforms and the Vita. That would be amazing. I would buy that 50 times over. Actually, no I wouldn't; but you get the point. Capcom, make a new Capcom vs. SNK.

I actually have no idea what to expect from Capcom. There's so much they could do. I think they'll talk about the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 a bit, but other than that, I don't have a clue. I guess I'll just wait to find out.

E3 Wishes and Predictions - Electronic Arts

I wish Electronic Arts would go out of business, but that's not happening, so here's what I want from them at E3.

Electronic Arts should clarify if Fifa 18 on the Switch runs in Frostbite or not. That's very important information to state. I hope it does run in Frostbite, but I don't know.

Then I want more information on Star Wars Battlefront 2, so I know if it's worth buying or not. I also want a port to the Switch, but we'll see.

Here's the cover of Battlefront 2 from the Battlefront series that people actually like.

And finally, Mass Affect Andromeda for the Wii U. Even if it's a cut down version, it's at least something. And the Wii U can definitely run graphics like that; heck, the OG Xbox probably can.

But what do I expect from Electronic Arts? Well, let's see.

The Switch version of Fifa 18 is running in the Xbox 360 engine. Battlefront 2 is only on Xbox One and PS4, not the Switch, and it's not as good as the original Battlefront 2. Mass Affect Andromeda is being forgotten; nobody will even mention it.  They'll probably talk about Madden and some other boring sports games or something. That's about it.

I don't like Electronic Arts; but I hope they can at least have an interesting show.

E3 Wishes and Expectations - Ubisoft

So Ubisoft is going to be at E3. What do I want from Ubisoft?

First of all, I want to know more about Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition for the Switch. I want to know what's different from the original for the Wii U and the Vita. 

I also want to hear if there's a new Just Dance game coming out. I probably just disappointed a bunch of hardcore gamers, but they're fun at parties. They shouldn't be 40 bucks, though.

I also want Ubisoft to announce the Switch version of Fractured But Whole. I wouldn't buy it, but the more games on the console, the better. Wii U and Vita ports wouldn't hurt either.

And I hear the company is making a brand new series, and that game is going to be announced at E3. I hope it's a story-heavy adventure type game, like Uncharted or The Last of Us. If it is, I hope it's on all 3 main platforms, like I do with a lot of 3rd party games. If it's a reasonable price and on the Switch, I might buy it.

But what do I expect from this company? Well, it turns out that there's already a lineup that looks something like this.

I have never heard of The Crew, much less The Crew 2.

So it looks like there's a new Assassins Creed game (which is easy to predict). Those are released every year.

I've never heard of The Crew 2, so I don't know what that is.

Far Cry 5 will have more details released. I personally don't care too much about that game, but a lot of people do, so I see why they include it.

I still hope that Mario + Rabbids crossover isn't real.

There's Fractured But Whole information being released. I don't think it will be on the Switch at launch, but maybe a bit later.

And there's the untitled new IP. I think it will be pretty cool and interesting, but I frankly don't know at this point.

So it sounds like Ubisoft will have a pretty neat show. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Come back to this site later to read about what I want from Electronic Arts. Yuck.