Giant Bombcast 776: Mario Mommy

it still says 2022 on that image up in the corner

just an odd fact, take it as you wish, but in japan there are physical nintendo switch games that range from 40 to 90 USD, and there doesn't seem to be a real reason behind it besides whatever the publisher wanted to charge, unless the expensive ones are a smaller run of games and that means nintendo charged them more for printing them.

Also notable, while I agree with Grubb that Nintendo can write off the more expensive carts, it does have some aditional cost to make a run of larger capacity carts only for ONE game, since it does mean an exclusive end to end production cycle, but yes, they could have totally absorbed that cost, or offset it by other sales, dlc, etc.

@monkeybot9k: Is that incorporating the current yen to dollar conversion rate? Over the past year it's been its worst in 20+ years and a 9,000 yen game, $90 two years ago, is now roughly $70USD.

@chamurai: Sorry I forgot to qualify my comment: I went there in 2020 right before the pandemic was declared as such and those were the prices, not sure what they are right now, but I did find it interesting that they seemingly didn't have a hard standard price set for physical copies at least

If you guys are looking for underrated GameCube games to play on stream, check out Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. It’s a surprisingly good third person shooter that I remember loving back in the day.

Also, Kirby Air Ride’s City Trial mode is insanely inventive for the era - it was like an early racing battle royale, where you have to hunt down upgrades in an open world to prepare for a racing challenge. It’s wild to think of playing this sort of game on a GameCube - it would have been an incredible weird online game if Nintendo knew how the hell to do online, but instead it’s this bizarre underplayed gem that is absolutely wild at parties if you can get people into it.

Oh boy, I hope they follow through the a Gamecube stream. I've always had a weird fondness for Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.

Super Monkey Ball might be a bit obvious, but if Jan has missed out on any of the sequals or rereleases, this is the original and best.

@monkeybot9k: Oh yeah, two years ago the yen was basically equal to the dollar but...yeah, the last year's been rough.

Probably no one really cares, but it was driving me nuts after it was said and it doesn't sound like it's addressed on the pod (I'm still in the middle of listening):

Clueless is an adaptation of Emma by Jane Austen, not anything by Shakespeare. I can confirm they were not step-siblings in the book, but were kind of in-laws (Mr. Knightley's brother married Emma's sister before the events of the book start).

As a host of a podcast, I am glad to hear that "my wife" cannot go unfettered by the Borat impression. Good job, Jan.

@libb: I second both of these. Big time. Metal Arms is low key one of my favorites on the system and I think I bought it for ten bucks.

Glad I'm not the only one who loved Wario World despite reviews at the time.

Are y’all not going to cover Hogwarts Legcay?

Grubb has me wanting to take the plunge on Wild Hearts, but it sounds like it’s really repetitive and has large difficulty spikes. Hope he keeps at the game enough to hit a make or break point for his own interest. I ended up bouncing off Monster Hunter Rise fairly quickly, so I kind of wonder if I should just stick with World even with this new release.

Edit: Did Grubb reference fucking Blue Streak during the talk about Pokemon???

Sorry guys, but that conversation about Activision-Blizzard and asking employees to return to the office has to be one of the most tone deaf things I've ever heard. The pandemic forced companies to learn how to do things remotely. And absolutely we learned a lot about how just doing things the way we've always done things isn't necessarily the best way. And from that came a lot of innovation and change in the way we do things.

However to make the leap that that now means nobody has to return to the office is naive. And while I do feel for anybody who finds their life changed because they have to return to in person work, if they moved or sold their car without an agreement from their employer that they wouldn't be expected to return...well that's on them not AB.

Also to make assumptions about how a video game developer can or cannot function remotely is just arrogant. There are plenty of functions and activities that indeed are better accomplished in person, but I can't say how that relates to AB...and neither can you...because we don't work there or understand how their business functions. To just blame the decision on "the suits" or say a completely different company (Bungie) is completely remote so why can't AB is just childish and shows a completely uninformed understanding of how business works.

Anyway, rant over. Carry on.

02:16:17 I am amazed how off Bakalar's perception of Dan is sometimes. There's no way Dan is going to search the answer.