What’s up, guys? Welcome back to Newsweave. This week, Nintendo is And we’re going to start today with a handful of popular ROM sites that have been taken down by the FBI. In fact, there was an entire statement that was released. You can see this posted up over on their official X account saying, “Today, we’re announcing the seizure and dismantlement of several elicit video game marketplaces from February to May of this year. There were approximately 3.2 million elicit downloads, and these downloads caused an estimated loss of 170 million. Why are they trying to estimate a a loss here and announce that in terms of 170 million? Well, it’s mostly to justify what they’ve done here, which the idea with the FBI is they have an entire department that is around like like copyright infringement and protection. So, they deem it necessary when it’s like severe economic damage or potential damage. That’s why you’re getting a really what’s a madeup number because the idea is wow all these downloads would then trans would have translated over to a full price sale and we know that’s not the case. Now the sites in question here include a very popular switch distribution site also stuff for Sony with like what PS4pkg.com so there are a handful of them in there and the obviously the big blowback here is is this really what the FBI has to be worried about? I I mean look clearly a big accomplishment here for them. and they’re patting themselves on the back. Maybe they should make like a get a piece of paper, start writing down all the accomplishments. I I guess you’d call that like a list. Maybe give nicknames to all of them so you have like a list of names that you can then release to the the public, you know, just just public information with that kind of stuff. Just transparency from the the government, which that’ll be the day probably around the same time Beyond Good and Evil 2 comes out. Also, it looks like we could have a new stunt man game coming out. Now, we can see this was posted. This is over on X from Driver Madness saying exclusive a new stuntman video game is in development at Saber Interactive. Now, they also linked a video here. All this will be linked down below in the sources you want to see a bit more, but most of this comes down to a trademark agreement between THQ Nordic Embracer and Saber Interactive last year where they just flat out say that there is a Stuntman game in development. And I think back to oh gosh, this would have been 2007 or 2008 when the last one I remember came out and it was it was okay. Stuntman isn’t necessarily a franchise that I look back on with a ton of nostalgia super fondly, but I do know that there are people out there who really liked the that that franchise when really games were coming out for it. So, if nothing else, it’s at least interesting to see what a new take on Stuntman would be. No word as to when it would be coming out. This is something that was just kind of discovered in paperwork for the most part. So, I guess we’ll keep an eye out for the potential of a Stuntman announcement at some point in the near future. Today’s video is sponsored by news out of the way, let’s get into the bigger stuff. Let’s start right away with Donkey Kong Bonanza. It is out this week. I’m very excited to jump into this game because I mean it’s coming from the Mario Odyssey team and Mario Odyssey is super high quality. It was great on the Switch One. It looks even better, runs even better on the Switch 2, but we haven’t had a brand new 3D Mario game since then, and it’s been quite a while. So, seeing this game come out with, I think, some very interesting mechanics that we saw in that direct, it’s going to be a lot of fun when it releases here in a few days. But naturally, the game has broken street date. Now, this is different than when games would leak out for the Switch One because we know if a game breaks Street Date and is out there, you’re probably going to hear about it completely leaking online to where people are downloading it, playing in an emulator, or on their hacked Switch system. Not the case with the Switch, too. Doesn’t mean necessarily there aren’t spoilers floating around, but like you can see some of the box art here, which at least was pretty cool to see just the game box itself because while we have the front here, we also have the back. and it was showing up on eBay where we have full images of this and there’s also the cartridge that’s being shown with some reverse cover art. So, it is indeed out there. Multiple people have copies of this game now. It’s on sale on eBay for $110. I don’t really know why you would buy that now considering you probably won’t get it until release day anyway. May maybe you’d get it the day before on what, like Wednesday. But really, I just don’t think that the extra money on top of it, like $30 or $40, it’s really worth going into there. Still though, we do have people now who are streaming it online. And in fact, there are spoiler threads popping up on different forums. So, I want to make you aware if I guess if you see those. I mean, it says spoiler stuff in the title, but yes, there are people who are even watching some of these streams that have popped up online of people playing it and they’re just kind of throwing around right now some of the earlier game stuff, but it does seem like one example, you know, those transformations we’ve seen for DK in the direct, well, there might be some other ones that haven’t been revealed. So, just want to put that put that out there uh in case you’re wondering. Yes, spoilers are indeed floating around and they are legitimate currently, just actual information being pulled from people playing it on stream. Now, there were some other bits of information that I don’t know if it confused people or what exactly here, but we did get word that Donkey Khong Bonanza, as you can see, this is posted over on Nintendo Life from the producer and directors. There have been a bunch of interviews here that the game itself started its development cycle on Switch One. So, we can see this over on Nintendo Life. This game originally began its development cycle on Switch One. And at the time, we were still using Voxil technology and thinking of lots of different ideas for applications. But when we learned about the Switch 2 development, we realized that the best implementation of these ideas and technology would be on the Switch 2. Now, this has led people to wonder, is this really a Switch 2 game? Because it sounds like it was a Switch One game and then they just moved it over to the Switch 2 because it’s just it’s more powerful. It’s more capable. Well, so I look at Mario Kart World as a Switch 2 game, but it sounds like they could have got it on the Switch One. It would just been heavily compromised. And in fact, that’s how it is for a lot of games that we’re seeing right now, even on the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series. Yes, they have SSDs versus like the slower mechanical drives for like the PS4 and the Xbox One, but for how long CrossGen has gone on for, it’s pretty obvious. Yes, they can cut these games down quite a bit. And even Ratchet and Clank, which is touted as really leveraging the SSD, it’s completely required. Once came out on PC, people were loading it on mechanical hard drives and it worked, but it was compromised. And that’s sort of what I’m looking at here with Don Kong Bonanza. Maybe they wouldn’t have been able to do so much destruction. Maybe there were legitimate gameplay sections they weren’t able to do on the Switch One because it would have run at like five or six frames per second or something like that. here with Don Kong Bonanza. While there are frame drops, which they’ve also discussed and said, oh, we went for playability and fun over, oh, it dropped to 40 some odd frames per second or something for a few seconds. That’s just kind of how the way it is. It’s the way they’re looking at it. But yes, it probably would have been capable of being run on the on the Switch One, but how would it have actually run, right? That that’s the big thing. And then, for example, you look here, this is another part of an interview. And here they mention same same director producer and everything. Although it cannot I cannot give you the precise details based on when Don Kong Bonanza started development. I can tell you that we started developing it after finishing Super Mario Odyssey in 2017. You know before the Switch 2 was really put together like formulated behind the scenes at Nintendo. So yes, that would that would have been the platform they would have started development on. To me, this seems pretty straightforward. Don Kong Bonanza is a Switch 2 game. Just obviously they’re releasing it on the system. It’s not a crossgen game on the Switch one. Would it have been possible? Probably in some form. But would you have wanted to play it? Probably not. Next up, let’s talk about a planned release that Microsoft seems to be setting up for the 25th anniversary of Xbox. That being at the end of 2026, it makes sense that you would go back to the well, the thing that really launched Microsoft into the gaming space with consoles, that being Halo. In fact, you go back to Halo Combat Evolved, that legitimately the original game that released for Microsoft way back in 2001, and now we’re starting to get more information around their strategy for this release, and it hasn’t gone over the best online. So, let’s take a look. This is posted up over on Insider Gaming where they are citing Reb’s gaming their their YouTube channel where they do have good sourcing and really talk a lot about for example Halo here saying source have revealed the development of Halo Combat Evolve remake began in 2023 with a planned anniversary project set for release in 2026. It’s also been noted that the Halo CE remake will feature only a campaign mode potentially be released on PlayStation as well. Now they also go on to talk about some of the other projects. Halo Studios does work with other studios outside of them and they’re trying to have multiple projects at once. Saying in terms of multiplayer plans, Revs Gaming has reported that 343 Industries canceled battle royale mode for Halo Infinite known as Project Itanka has been handed over to certain affinity. The game development studio has rebranded it as a separate multiplayer game using Unreal Engine 5, which is currently codenamed Project Eker. Reb’s Gaming then refers to a recent post from a Halo data miner named Grunt.api API that teased a title ID code for a game. When asked about its significance, the source claimed that it pertains to Eker and indicated that the game has been receiving updates approximately every 6 hours in the past few days. And it does make me wonder if that’s a game that could shadow drop or just be announced and it’s out quickly. And yes, so a battle royale game, all right, it would have to be very, very different. like there would have to be a number of things to make it feel completely new compared to what we have in the battle royale space which has become I say it’s tired yes but basically if you have a battle royale game that you play and like that’s all you’re like Fortnite Apex Legend anything like that like you’re set PUBG whatever you’re not really looking necessarily for something to take time away from those games because like you’re kind of all in on it now and it’s what you know in fact it’s become kind of a social platform for you so I do sort of look at this as they better have something good to to really want to do a battle royale game in the Halo universe. Halo CE though just being campaign. I mean, I would love to see the multiplayer being redone as well. And I do wonder if they look at this and go, “We’re trying to utilize Unreal Engine 5 more and more, but we have to learn how to use it. this is a project that has a a narrower scope for us to really hone in some of these details and like the the workings of it and logistics. So, let’s just remake that campaign. I would only hope that it would be priced accordingly or of course be put into Game Pass as we’d expect. Just with the multiplayer stuff is a shame because Halo 1 multiplayer, I still look back on it with rose tinted glasses. I understand. But it was a ton of fun and it’d be cool to see it have somewhat of a resurgence because there would be excitement around it if it came out at the end of next year for like the big 25th anniversary around Xbox and Halo. Uh, and it would be fun to see people jump back in with a bunch of those levels being completely remade and stuff. It’d be really cool. We’ll see, I guess. But at least for now, I think one of one of my favorite campaigns with a firstperson shooter does seem to be at least getting a remake. And naturally, I’d be playing all the way through it all over again on the 25th anniversary at the end of next year if indeed all these plans do actually hold up. Next up, let’s talk about Nintendo issuing surveys for those Game cards. Now, this seems right now to be specific to Japan, and it kind of makes sense when you look around. In Japan, it’s Nintendo first party games on cartridge, and then just about everything else, I I think almost everything else completely game key cards. In the US, we we do have other games. Marvelous being one that’s really tried to put games on full cartridges, which is great. And then naturally have Cyberpunk, which is a big part of their marketing campaign currently. But we can see some of the questions Nintendo has for gamers for the Switch 2 in Japan. This over on Go Nintendo with the first one being prior to the survey. Were you aware that there is a type of game card called game key card among the different types of Nintendo Switch 2 physical releases? Second question, are you aware of these particular features about game key cards? Please take everything that you know. So really what they do here is they sort of explain what game key cards are and then ask, “Hey, you’re you’re required to connect to the internet. Download the game data. When you insert and use a new game key card for the first time, you can also download game data on another system by simply inserting the game key card.” They’re trying to figure out right now if people know what a game key card is outright and what the steps that are required to then play the game after you buy it. Okay. And then the last question after reading the explanations above, if there is a game key card and a digital release for a game that you wish to buy, which will you choose? Please select the option that aligns with your thinking. And it really comes down to, hey, if a game comes out and it’s a game key card and then there’s a digital version of it naturally on the eShop, which one are you more inclined to buy just with game key card? And I will admit, I myself I’m kind of looking at that going, you know, I maybe I just buy it digitally because I have to download the game anyway. I know the idea is you can trade it to to a friend, trade it into a GameStop or wherever secondhand shop. Um, and naturally, you could you could also just sell it say on eBay, that that’s all an option. But, uh, for me, I I don’t necessarily resell much of my collection at all. I kind of I kind of just collect and hold on to it. So, when it comes down to that and then the digital side, having that convenience factor and I’m already taking up the the space anyway, just the game key cards at they still just are very off-putting to me as someone who like Don Kong Bonanza out this week. I’m buying it physically because it’s all on the cartridge. That’s just it makes sense to me that way. Um, but with some of these other ones like I I think I’m good. So, it makes sense Nintendo maybe trying to figure out if this is something that will push people more digitally. They they could get to the end of the Switch 2 generation, look around and be like, “Wow, we’re 8020. 80% digital, 20% physical, and then they have to re-evaluate completely going to next generation because cartridges are not cheap.” And data like file sizes for these games with all the data that’s being packed in, they’re not getting smaller. So that it sounds crazy, but game key card could be one of the final things that really pushes Nintendo and the rest of the industry’s kind of been lagging behind just into all digital era. So we’ll we’ll see. I guess Nintendo if they decide to issue a survey elsewhere in the world. Right now though, just in Japan. And in our last bit of news, we have an update for Stop Killing Games. Some backing, some much needed backing. All right. In this case though, from from a representative, from an official there. So, we can see this is posted up. This is over on the Tribune who says European Parliament Vice President. Okay. Nichols Stephanato Stephanato. It was shared on a I gave him a shot. shared on Instagram said, “I stand with the people who started this citizen initiative. I signed and will continue to help them. A game once sold belongs to the customer, not the company.” He also stated that despite concerns raised by industry groups regarding development costs related to game preservation, the focus should remain on consumer rights and ownership of purchased products. So again, this is sort of what the movement has needed and it’s pretty clear just based on the number of signatures that have been coming in. I think this is going to pass the initial validation check as they push up more and more to like 1.4 million signatures. Even removing a large number should have crossed the 1 million mark in terms of just signatures and interest in the idea of stop killing games. And I mean we see what’s happening right now with the the the publishers currently who have banded together and they’re like, “Yeah, we really don’t want any of that kind of regulation or the idea that we have to keep these games up. We’d prefer to be able to take these games away out of these libraries of gamers if we if we wanted to. If that’s how we want it to be. We want to shut the games down. That’s it. We should be able to literally just act with impunity when when it happens. Think about, you know, I was thinking about the other day. If this had happened and like this had gone through and there was a a a universe where it all happened before Sony released Concord, even though they took it back in less than two weeks, they would have had to have left the game up in some regard. You would been able to still play somehow. I I you sign in and see your character there, be able to run an offline server or something or set it up to where someone could host their private server and connect. There would have had been some record of Concord right now that you could play. So you think of that and you go, okay, yeah, I get why some of these companies do not want that because that is kind of just a stain on Sony in general. I don’t really know how many people are going to hold up private service for Concord, but the option should be there. We talked about Anthem. Not a great game necessarily, but it should still be there if someone wants to go back in 10 years and do a retrospective. Instead though, it’s shutting down in January. So, it’s good at least to see more backing come in here from representatives and people who would maybe have a bit more poll when it comes to this. And I’m curious if we hear from other representatives and different people here as we go along because it seems like Stop Killing Games has uh has passed a lot of the initial tests. We just have to see really how much momentum it has and if it can make any kinds of notable changes here going forward. And before we go to the comment of the day, we’ll take a look at the poll that I posted up yesterday where I ask, “Are you picking up Donkey Kong Bonanza this week?” Okay, 42% say yes, 19% say no, and then 39% say I don’t have a Switch 2. I mean, this is clearly one of the the big releases for the Switch 2 right now. I understand Mario Kart World is a is a big game for people really really into Mario Kart. Sure. I will admit though, if you put in front of me Mario Kart World or Don Kong Bonanza, I probably would have gone towards Donkey Kong Bananza, it just it looks like a more interesting game to me personally. And look, again, you tell me the Mario Odyssey team is behind it, it’s like, all right, yeah, I’m I’m in. So, I’m picking up that I’m picking up that game this week. And maybe I’ll do like a a video where I play the first hour or so. We just sort of check it out with some of my initial reactions to it because the nice thing typically about a lot of these Nintendo games is they they get moving quickly. like you don’t sit around and watch 20 to 30 minutes of an opening cutscene necessarily for some of these games. So, I’m thinking Don Kong Bonzan will be the same way. So, it might be a more more compatible or friendly game to a video like that. So, let me know if you want to see it and we can try that maybe Wednesday night or Thursday or something when I pick it up and we’ll finish up with the comment of the day as you’re seeing here. This is from otaku says, “I pray Sony allows Sucker Punch do something else after Ghost. I don’t want them turning into Naughty Dog and forget their roots and make pure fun games.” And so like Ghosts Tsushima awesome game. I think Ghost Yote is going to be a very good game. But I get what you’re saying here to where okay are they going to then after Yote go to another point in feudal Japan. Are these games going to start feeling a little too similar? I think you can do a sequel. Obviously you can go okay we’re going to do this then we’re do another one and then it’s like do you do it again or do you do something different? I’d like to see them do something different and then maybe come back to the idea of a a game set in feudal Japan to follow that up like I mean with how long game development is like eight years you know after Yote or something I I would like to hear about Sucker Punch maybe moving on and doing something else just brand new even like new IP what else do they have in mind in the back burner that they have up on a whiteboard somewhere that they can tackle after Ghost Yote because I again I I had these conversations with a few people. These sorts of sequels were more accepted, I think, when they took two to three years to make rather than four to five years to make. And that’s kind of where Yote falls in line. It’s like, oo, yeah, that’s five years after Ghost Tsushima came out. So, it’s going to literally be Ghosts Tsushima, Ghost Yote, and it’s going to be like a 10-year cycle basically from Tsushima to whatever their next thing is going to be. And it it starts to feel like that’s just what Sucker Punch is now. It’s like this ghost of and feudal Japan. and I’d like to see them with um other ideas maybe in terms of new game releases. And ladies and gentlemen, that’s going to do it here for Newsweave. If you enjoyed this