Well, everyone, we have a bunch of stories for you today. Uh, dealing with the Nintendo Switch 2. We have kind of a blowout here on Donkey Kong Bonanza. Don’t worry, no spoilers. We’re not going over any leak stuff. This is all official information coming from Nintendo because they dropped an Ask the Developer today. So, we learned a lot of really cool things. We saw some concept art and we even saw them compare what the game used to look like on Switch One compared to what it looks like now when they move development over to Switch 2. also learned this game may have been in development as far back as 2017. Wait a second. How is that possible when the director for the game wasn’t even hired till 2020? Well, that’s because there’s a co-director. We’ll talk about that in a moment. The reason there was a co-director, by the way, was they were trying to train the new director. So, anyways, we’ll get into that. But more than that, we also have to talk about how Nintendo is finally attempting, at least in Japan and Asia, to get rid of eshop slop. This is maybe one of the biggest things Nintendo has done in a long time, to make the eShop experience better. Uh, I can’t wait, especially if this stuff is working out as intended because it’s going to spread to all the other regions. if you don’t know why this isn’t everywhere at the moment. You always test these features in test regions before you make it a worldwide policy. So, really excited about that. Uh, we have some news about why third-party games are choosing not to be announced on Switch 2, which is very weird cuz some of them, as we talked about the other day from the Nate the Hate podcast, is because they are being told by Nintendo, you need to wait and we will reveal it in a direct. But other companies, it turns out, are literally just choosing not to show their games right now, despite having several in the works for Switch 2. We got to talk about that and more. There’s so much going on in this video that I want to remind you that, hey, we are actually doing a brand new giveaway beginning today. So, our Donkey Kong Bonanza giveaway for five copies has come to an end. The winners have been drawn and will be contacted today. But that does mean that I want to start a new giveaway. And I talked about in the last video how I was racking my brain on what to do. And I kind of came to a conclusion that I think satisfies anyone. I don’t care if you play on PlayStation, PC. I don’t care if you play on Xbox, Switch, Switch 2. Everyone’s going to enjoy this giveaway. We’re going to give away two copies of a video game of choice. That’s right. Any game you want for any platform you want. Obviously, we presume people want Switch 2 games. Hello, it’s the new hot thing. But, uh, it could be anything. Now, I will note that it does need to be a standard version of the game because those digital deluxe versions and some of these collector’s versions are getting crazy expensive and sometimes don’t even include the game, which kind of defeats the purpose of giving away a game. It’s getting really weird out there. So, we’re going to stick with standard versions of games, but hey, two people are going to get to choose any game they want for any platform they want. So, I think that’s pretty cool. The giveaway will be running for about a month. I may alter the end date as after that Nintendo Direct happens because we might want to spin up a new giveaway for some sort of game that’s from that Direct. Uh but we’ll worry about that uh later. For now, we’re giving away those two copies. Winners will be chosen in the month of August. Let’s go ahead though and get into the news. And we got to start with the bevy of Donkey Kong news. We’re just going to make one giant Donkey Kong section because there’s so much to go over. Uh first up is this. This is actually just good news about Switch 2. It is being restocked at all Best Buys. Every single Best Buy in the United States will have stock of Switch 2 on launch day in store for Donkey Kong Bonanza, not online, unfortunately. Again, this thing is still sold out pretty much nationwide. But according to Best Buy’s website, a Switch to restock is planned for this Thursday, July 17th, 2025, specifically to coincide with the launch of Donkey Kong Bonanza. The announcement states that all Best Buy stores, that’s right, we said all of them, will have limited quantities of stock on July 17th. However, it also says store availability may subject to change. So, this may not be a 100% guarantee depending on your location. Uh, this restock won’t be available online, so you need to visit your store in person. Uh, so there you go. Uh, if you’re looking for when the next major restock is happening, besides these random drops at random stores, July 17th. This might be true at other retailers, but they aren’t announcing anything at this time. Now, this next part of our Donkey Kong Bonanza story uh actually deals with the game itself, and that’s because work began on Donkey Kong Bonanza immediately after Mario Odyssey was completed. I don’t know if this headline’s 100% correct. You’ll see why when we read the quote. It’s translated. So, it says in a recent interview, it has been revealed that work began on Dun Bananza immediately after completion. I don’t think that’s what it says it because here’s the the question. When did development of Donkey Kong Bonanza start? And the answer from Modokuro was although it cannot give you precise details I can tell you that we started developing it after finishing Super Mario Odyssey. That to me doesn’t sound like immediately after. That just means hey I can’t tell you exactly when we began but uh a it was sometime after Mario Odyssey was done. Remember they did make Bowser’s Fury as well. So it wouldn’t shock me if development really began after Bowser’s Fury. We already know the story about how Koisumi uh went to the 3D Mario uh developers and said, “Hey, we need to make a 3D Donkey Kong game and that’s why this game exists.” Now, there was an Ask the Developer, and we’re going to get this the ask the actual Ask the Developer interview here in a moment. I want to go to some excerpts that Stealth 40k put up just because it’s a little bit smoother to get through than reading through the entire Ask the Developer. We’ll be here all day doing that. Um, and this first one is that Waturu Tanaka is the co-director of Donkey Kong Bonanza alongside Kazuya Takahashi. We’ve talked about Kazuya before, but it’s important that we note about Tanaka because if development began before 2020, which it looks like development of the game did begin before 2020. Well, Takahashi wasn’t working there until then. And Tanaka worked on Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario 3D World, and Super Mario Odyssey. Kazuya Takahashi joined Nintendo in 2020 from Square Enix. they weren’t going to let him handle the project of this magnitude by himself. Uh, and it says if anything, Kazuya Takahashi not just got the best Nintendo training of his life and now can direct future games knowing how Nintendo does things, he let the somewhat dysfunctional situation at Square Enix being part of Luminous Productions before they shut down. So, I’m very happy obviously for Takahashi and obviously getting to train alongside one of the best at Nintendo. Uh, so I’m very very happy about that. Uh, and here’s where we get into some cool stuff directly from the presentation. And this first one I want to look at is a graphics comparison. This comes from the Ask the Developer. I really encourage you read the Ask the Developer if you want to know all the nitty-gritty details about how Donkey Kong Bonanza was made. We’ll link it below. But this was really cool cuz remember the game was originally in development on Nintendo Switch One. These are not the highest quality image assets to be clear cuz they’re really small and I had to zoom it in. But it says graphics assessment for development of the Switch 2. You can kind of see this is what it looked like on the original Switch. And then here’s what it looks like on Switch 2. You can obviously see the big thing that stands out is outside of some UI changes is man there’s a hell of a lot more foilage. Uh you have all these particle effects going on back here. Uh you have light shafts coming down that just aren’t even on the original one. You can see the fidelity of the uh liquid uh red whatever purple stuff back there uh obviously has increased. You see a little bit better textures on the back walls. The draw distance also being better. And yeah, I look even I wouldn’t say like, you know, this light has been toned down, but I think it’s more realistic compared to uh the lighting on this enemy or whatever right there. Yeah, everything just looks more detailed. The textures look more detailed. Donkey Kong himself knowably doesn’t look too terribly different. There’s a bit more texture on the pants, but it could just be a lighting situation. But it is interesting because this was a Switch One game. And one cool one that’s cool about this, they talk about how 30 FPS was obviously what it was targeting on the original Nintendo Switch. And it it it’s kind of crazy cuz this is like frames per second, you know, 30 FPS is this. So, as well as running at a smooth 30 FPS, the core gameplay of Smashing got way more satisfying. The physics of Smashing involve lots of things all happening at once. Donkey Kong throws a punch and the terrain and objects break apart. The visual effects show debris flying outward. All this is packed into a single moment. At 30 fps, we couldn’t fully capture everything that happens in that instant. But at 60 fps, we saw the sense of destruction coming through much more clearly. We thought to ourselves, now we’ve got something seriously satisfying. Not only did the Switch 2 enable the game to run well, it unlocked the game’s full potential. No, it actually made the game possible. So, their actual vision for the game really wasn’t realized until then. And they decided about uh up here it says about in 2021 uh is when they decided to uh move this over to Switch 2. And so, yeah, they also about how it runs at a pretty smooth 60 fps, which is kind of ironic because we know from another interview that they kind of mentioned, hey, it does have some frame rate drops, but they also think it runs pretty smooth. So, is it a smooth 60 fps or does it have a ton of frame rate drops? Obviously, we will get some analysis coming up with the reviews and everything probably beginning tomorrow if we’re completely honest. Uh, and again, I know that there’s gameplay and stuff out there. We’re not going to be interested in going over any of that, but what I am interested in going over is some official art. Uh, this is also in the Ask the Developer. And you can see some of this concept art. It’s pretty cool. You see this island? What is it? Like a giant burger in an amusement park or something. Kind of wild. You can see these giant mushrooms. And I guess it looks almost like a watermelon tower. I don’t know. You can see like the oceanic stuff and him flying through the air. Donkey Kong there. Come down here. You can see him obviously doing that rock surfing stuff. uh in this kind of world here. You can see this sort of more industrial world with the uh the tracks and all of that. These are obviously probably different worlds that are in the game. Also, this one here I thought was kind of cool. Also, New Donk City. I know you guys might not want spoilers, but this is official Nintendo. So, New Donk City. So, uh if you’ve been having theories about there being something about New Donk City going on, uh I would say this kind of confirms that. Also, I love this just this general art of DK. There’s a little bit more in here. Obviously, this is the official art that we we know and love. But as we scroll down, we can see this concept art for the zebra. Uh I think that’s pretty hilarious. Uh and they talked about how the zebra actually inspired like uh uh some changes in some of the music in the game. Uh and then yeah, you can see this art of Pauline, which just looks incredible. So that’s kind of it for showing off the art from the game. But I look, I love looking at concept art, especially before a game comes out. uh it adds a lot of context. And then uh we have this final message uh from the producer of the game again who was the director of Mario Odyssey. Here’s what he had to say to just end the interview. He says, “I think the strength of video games in general is the player’s ability to spark interactions in previous 3D Mario games. Two, we created gameplay based on those kinds of interactions. But I think we were able to take that to a whole new level in Donkey Kong Bonanza. We devoted ourselves to creating a game that feels instinctive to play no matter how many times you played it. We developed this title with great care and an awareness that Nintendo wouldn’t be where it is today if not for the original Donkey Kong game. As well as building on the series so far, Donkey Kong as a character continues to explore the unknown in movies, theme parks, and other new experiences. We took a bunch of new challenges with Donkey Kong Bonanza and has shaped up to be a game that we’re proud to present to the world. So, please do give it a try. will strive to keep on delivering a Donkey Kong game that’s fun for everyone. Again, obviously, uh we don’t know what’s going on there, but I do like that they seem to be indicating there’s going to be more DK stuff going on in the future. Look, Donkey Kong Bonanza is shaping up to be incredible. The reviews drop tomorrow, so you know, we’ll have even more to talk about tomorrow. Plus, we have the podcast where we get to discuss all these development things for the game and also the reviews and everything else uh and get our hype level check right before we’re all about to play Donkey Kong Manza. So, really excited for that. Now, we got to turn things a little bit and get to some confusing news. This comes from the Nate the Hate podcast that we didn’t cover yesterday. Uh, and it’s posted over at Go Nintendo. Says, “Rumor third party developers holding back Switch to announcements release the flood.” Earlier today, they reported on all these direct rumors and all the stuff coming from uh the the uh Nate Hate podcast as you can see linked right here. Uh, but here’s the actual quote that matters. And I did re I did listen through that section again just to kind of make sure that there’s no missing context. And there is no missing context. This is independent of the games that are being held for directs. So Capcom, Sega, Ubisoft, and Namco aka Bandai Namco and many others are just waiting. They have games they want to announce. Switch has a lot of support coming. And what he means is they are holding back on announcing games and they wouldn’t give him a reason why. They didn’t say it’s because of a direct. They didn’t say because of anything. some earlier in the stream he talked about how some people were telling him that hey uh we have to hold this back cuz Nintendo is putting it in a direct but these specific companies here he’s like they didn’t tell me anything they just kind of said hey we have games we want to announce but we’re not announcing them at this time uh they could be taking a wait and see approach uh some people are speculating this has to do with game key cards they could be seeing hey we haven’t decided yet if we’re going to use game key cards for these games or if we’re going to use cartridges and we’re kind of waiting to see how the market responds to that stuff so we can make a decision and then when we make that decision then we can announce the game. That could be it. Uh it also could be that they also are holding off for a direct but because these are bigger companies they don’t want to reveal that information in Nate the Hate or any other reason. Speculation is going to run wild on this but those companies are huge. Capcom, Sega, Ubisoft and Bandai Namco. Those are bigname companies. Uh they have bigname games coming. So, yeah, I can’t wait to see uh when these games do get revealed cuz I think uh just as a Switch 2 consumer, as again, Switch 2 is right here. Uh we just want to know what the game lineup is going to look like for like the next 6 months. We’re not asking for years of information here. So, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Now, we get to a story that’s really unfortunate that this even exists, but it’s very important. And that story is about Nintendo finally trying to clean up the eShop. We’re going to go through the important aspects here because it’s a pretty long article on IGN. Uh the context uh for this article is that the eShop sucks. There’s lots of hentai games and all this other stuff flooding. Uh people taking advantage of different marketplace ideas. Um so let’s get to the new rule section. So it says the guidelines which took effect on June 5th. So again, these guidelines are for Switch 2, and this applies to Japan and Asia, uh, the day of the Nintendo Switch 2’s launch, cover a wide range of topics, including how game bundles can be sold, restrictions on sensitive content, prohibitions on inaccurate product descriptions, and when and how product information can be updated. First, regarding bundles, the restrictions state that in the first year of a game’s release, only a maximum of five game bundles may be distributed. After the first year, that number goes up by one for each year the game is available, up to a maximum of eight different bundles. This seems to be a direct response to developer concerns in our previous reporting that some companies were simply creating bundle spam and offering deep discounts on new bundle after new bundle to keep their game at the top of the eShop listings. Many of the new guidelines discuss sensitive content and include specific rules for what qualifies as sensitive content in the first place. Listed criteria that would be considered damaging to the Nintendo brand. That’s a quote there include sexualization of children, overly sexual content, discrimination and hate, exploitation of social issues, aka content that clearly exploits a topical and/or controversial social issue, tragedy, or catastrophic event, instructing criminal activity, and political statements, aka content that overtly supports or criticizes real life countries, organizations, or ideologies. Nintendo states in the guideline that it reserves the right to not distribute a game, but claims it offers the guidelines to help developers understand its reasoning in certain situations. Quote, “We encourage you to take this information into consideration when developing content for potential release on our platforms and before submitting such content to Nintendo.” The guideline states. It also disclaimes that guidelines are not an exhaustive list and that sometimes determinations may be made on a regional basis. This is a way to clean up hentai games and some of that stuff going on. Uh kudos to Nintendo for this. By the way, all of this information comes from the developer portal backend. So, this is literally stuff they are telling developers for Switch 2 specifically in Asia and Japan. Another new guideline includes a prohibition against inaccurate descriptions of games. It reads in full, it is prohibited to provide inaccurate descriptions of the contents of a product. It is prohibited to provide descriptions of the content of a product as under development if it’s not expected to be implemented in the product. Other guidelines prohibit changing the name of the product without good reason, aka a drastic update, or to make it consistent with the game’s name on other platforms or with other games in a series. Developers are also prohibited from changing information on the product page after the page is live. And developers are asked to contact Nintendo representatives if they intend to distribute an application that does not include game elements like a calculator, stuff like that. Uh, in this section concludes the following. In the even of any violation of these guidelines, Nintendo may refuse to sell the product, request revisions, limit scope of disclosure by not displaying it on various pages, including the Nintendo eShop homepage, or suspend distribution of Nintendo platforms regardless of the reason. Notwithstanding these guidelines, similar measures may be taken if Nintendo reasonably determines that there is a violation of laws, regulations, and other contracts. So, as we were working on the story, an article came to our attention that seemed to evidence at least one of the new policies being enforced. Last month, Automation reported that a game series called Henti Girls, a game about compiling jigsaw puzzles of anime women in various states of dress and undress. Per the report, Henti Girls, which was historically been criticized for having some of the hallmarks of slop games previously discussed, will be renamed to Kuwait Girls. going forward. A as Automation reported, Henti Girl games are currently very easy to find in the Nintendo Switch eShop, but are challenging to find on the Nintendo Switch 2 eShop, only showing up as search for directly by publisher name. What’s more, this issue doesn’t seem to impact the US eShop, suggesting that Nintendo Switch 2 ehop in Asia is restricting the word henti in a way that isn’t being enforced in the US or on the Switch One. While there’s been no official confirmation of why this is happening, this development appears to be in line with the new guidelines. That is amazing. That is exactly what we want to see Nintendo do. They’re not saying, “Hey, you can’t have these hentai games on our shop.” What they are saying is, “We are no longer going to allow these games to be on the homepage, to be on the recent release list, all of this stuff. The games could still be there, but you have to specifically want to look for them rather than actually just have them shoved in the front of all consumers. Honestly, this should apply to Switch One, but it being cleaned up on Switch 2 is important. It’s not cleaned up here in the US yet. But again, they usually do this stuff in test markets. They gather data. They see what’s working, what’s not working. There’s a lot of automated filters and stuff. The deal with this stuff, are is it catching all the games they want to catch? Are there games being caught in these filters that don’t apply to this stuff? So again, this is one of these situations where Nintendo is trying to crack down on this stuff and make a better eShop experience for all of us. You got to test it. You got to collect the data. You got to make adjustments before you launch it worldwide. Uh so there you go. Uh I’m happy Nintendo is doing this. Uh hopefully that this ends up getting activated in the United States, Europe, and everywhere else in the world fairly soon. Now, we do have to turn back around to a little bit of I don’t know if you call this negative dudes. It’s just unfortunate because we’ve seen games like Hogwarts Legacy offer upgrade paths to the Switch 2 version and uh unfortunately Dragon Quest 1 plus 2 HD will not be doing that. Square Enix details Dragon Quest Oneplus 2 HD 2D remake Switch and Switch 2 differences. No upgrade path is planned. If you buy the Switch One and then you get the Switch 2 later and you want to upgrade, you’re going to have to buy the whole game again. It literally says in this image, “The Nintendo Switch version of Dragon Quest OnePlus 2 HD 2D remake cannot be upgraded to the Switch 2 version, and there are no plans for such an upgrade path in the future.” They’re just telling you, “We’re not changing our mind on this. This is our hard stance.” So, Square Enix previously confirmed that Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD 2D remake will be released on October 30th, 2025 on both Switch and Switch 2. Following that announcement, they shared an FAQ page answering a number of questions about the two console versions. Unfortunately, some of those answers may disappoint fans who are hoping to be able to upgrade their games to the Switch 2 version. And again, this matters because not everyone can get a Switch 2 right now, right? Uh, according to the FAQ, there is no upgrade path currently available or planned. Instead, Square Enix encourages you to buy your copy for whichever system you like to play it on. To be clear, both versions of the game will be treated entirely separately and won’t be compatible in any way. That means the save data and download codes for in-game items will be specific to one version or the other and not transferable. And there won’t be any enhancements when playing the Switch version on a Switch 2. They’re literally going to say it ain’t going to play better. It ain’t going to run better. It ain’t going to have higher resolution. Nothing. You want the best version, get the Switch 2 version. As a reminder, the Switch 2 version of the game will be released as a game key card, which is another key version where people might want the original because it’s a full physical one. This is a key card. So, that’s even more reason that people might want the Switch One version, but uh yeah, they’re they’re not doing the consumer friendly thing here. Uh the one silver lining here is that you have save data from Switch One version of Dragon Quest 3 HD 2D remake. You will be able to use that to unlock save data bonuses in the Switch 2 version of Dragon Quest 1 plus 2 HD remake. But you of course you can’t. This is just it’s so confusing. I mean, I’m glad they’re doing that, but still, it’s always nice when publishers make it easy for consumers to upgrade. Um, yeah, and I don’t even know what the key differences are between the two versions. I assume higher resolution, maybe higher frame rate. I’m not 100% sure. I haven’t done my research on this, but man, it it’s just really unfortunate after we’ve seen so many other companies offer upgrade paths that Square Enix is deciding, you know what, we’re not going to do that. And I get that they could be two entirely different versions of the game. That’s what Hogwarts is, right? Hogwarts uh legacy on Switch One is not the same version, not even the same ported version as the Switch 2. They’re entirely separate, but you still could one port your save data over. That’s number one. Uh and number two, uh you could just upgrade. And I know it’s not an upgrade. You’re actually just buying the Switch 2 version, but they’re offering a steep discount because they already got your money once. They’re just they just want a little bit more if you’re going to put it on the news. I I don’t know. Anyways, time to move on. Uh we have to get to this next point here because we know next week there is a Pokemon presents. Yes, all the buzz is about a direct this month, but we know next week Tuesday, Pokemon presents. Well, there’s a tease for the presents. The Pokemon Company teased the upcoming Pokemon presents with this image. Pikachu is preparing something. I don’t know what this something is. Um, this kind of looks like music. Like you have like discs here. Is there going to be like a Pokemon music app? Some DJing going on? I don’t really know. It’s all speculation. You guys let me know what you think about that. Just kind of a quick hit. And speaking of music, uh Nintendo added Mario Kart 64 to Nintendo music. Consider this like a little music section. I don’t know. Do with this information what you want. Uh I don’t use Nintendo music that often. I use it occasionally when I just want to relax. But uh yeah, that’s what we have for you today. So that’s our episode today. I hope you enjoyed that. Uh I hope to catch all of you guys at tonight’s live stream. And please check out our podcast coming up. We’ll be talking about the Nintendo Direct, Donkey Humbanza, and so much more. We have Rogers base coming on Favlam and N64 Josh. It’s going to be a really big episode. Also, I want to remind everyone that we do have a full audio version of every single episode of the Nintend podcast. It’s everywhere podcasts are heard such as Spotify, iTunes, etc. So, uh, go ahead and look up the Nintend podcast if you prefer audio, which is understandable. We have a long show. Those excellent for when you’re at work and need to kill some time or just have background noise or hell when you’re working out or whatever. So, long drives, commutes, great way to to check it out. You don’t have to waste all your bandwidth on the video version. Just listen to the audio one. All right, guys. Thank you so much for being here. I’ll catch you tonight. [Music]