Sportsmates are customisable, but Nintendo wants to remind you Miis are available in Nintendo Switch Sports

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Miixed messaging.

Last month (April), Nintendo Switch Sports released for the console in its title, and according to Nintendo, sales are off to a very good start. In Europe and North America, a big purchasing group are 20 or 30-somethings with Wii nostalgia. That's important to note.

When we first saw Nintendo Switch Sports in the February 2022 Nintendo Direct, I did notice that the avatars, the Sportsmates, aren't Miis. But that was far from the first thing I noted. I mean, yeah, it's on the Nintendo Switch, which has definitely deprioritised Miis. But Miis are still an option for Nintendo Switch Sports, though some people still don't know that. But Nintendo really wants you to know that right now, very recently releasing articles about how you can use your Mii characters in several Nintendo Switch games, top of all Nintendo Switch Sports. They're even making themselves look goofy by opening themselves up to embarrassment with polls with results like these, all for the sake of letting you know that you can use Miis:

Memorial to the Official Pokémon DP Sound Library; we barely knew ye

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Well that was practically no time at all!

Some people claim not to have known about this, but at least KoopaTV readers should remember that The Pokémon Company approximately four months ago made the Pokémon DP Sound Library available for streaming and download for select uses—that's the soundtrack and sound effects from the DS releases of Pokémon Diamond Version and Pokémon Pearl Version. It's a good soundtrack and I like it a lot, and as I've noted in that article, I've used it (for non-select uses) in the past.

Too bad we're not gonna have our hearts filled with courage anymore, because this playlist will cease to exist!

Since I published that, they also uploaded HYADAIN'S Gyarados! sampled song, and Matt Cab's sampled song Stay Shining!. I recognise HYADAIN as the guy who made those extremely popular Mega Man 2 vocal remixes back at the end of the 2000s (though Gyarados! doesn't compare to those)... I have no idea who Matt Cab is, nor do I particularly care for his work.

However, in a VERY undermarketed message left on the site (haven't seen one word about this on The Pokémon Company [International] social media or the main pokemon.com site, and I went looking), they're about to pull the plug VERY imminently. Read:

Dragon Quest Day 2022: Come Back in June

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is kind of a dud article, ain't it?

Last year's Dragon Quest Day—for the 35-year anniversary—had a big stream with lots of action and tons of announcements. This year, we get Yuji Horii at Dragon Quest Island, which is a theme park in Japan's Awaji Island, talking for two minutes (with English sub-titles if you turn them on in the settings):

There's... not much of anything in that video, I guess. Big drop-off from year 35 to year 36. But he implied that this year they'll release the mobile version of Dragon Quest Builders (out already), as well as Dragon Quest X Offline and Dragon Quest Treasures. We actually got a very short trailer for the latter. It's so short that the Dragon Quest theme didn't actually get to play. (And that's not because they're avoiding playing it because they think it's scandalous.)

The trailer has sub-titles for all of the text written in the trailer,
but the one voice-acted line, “Let's go!”, doesn't get a sub-title? What's the point of sub-titles?
(Okay, “Dragon Quest Treasures” is also voiced at the end, but the screen says that anyway because it's the game's logo.)

The end of the trailer says to “Find Out More in June 2022!” If only E3 2022 would exist. Well, why even do anything for Dragon Quest Day if y'all aren't ready until June? Dang announcement of an announcement of an announcement again. We still don't even know what platforms those games are coming out on.


Ludwig spent much of the day listening to Dragon Quest music. How about you?


You had to wait until June 28, 2022.
The next dedicated DRAGON QUEST TREASURES article comes in September with a new gameplay overview trailer.

Panda Cup FINALLY revealed! First officially licensed Super Smash Bros. North America circuit

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - You've been waiting, so here it is.

If you are interested in competitive Super Smash Bros. and look at the news (or KoopaTV), then perhaps you remember eSports organisation Panda announcing that they would launch a North American circuit for Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate—but not just any circuit: this would be the first ever officially licensed circuit by Nintendo of America! And then we heard nothing. Even April 2022 passed with the official Nintendo-sponsored and competitive NintendoVS North American Open April 2022 for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (not featuring Panda in any way).

Of course, the fact I'm writing about this again now means that it's finally time to reveal the Panda Cup. Website with more details here, but you can also watch a produced trailer:

There will be a series of already-scheduled events ran by other tournament organisers in the community that count as qualifying tournaments for the games, as well as a series of Panda Cup Online Qualifiers from July to October for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The online part is to be inclusive, especially considering the regional biases that go into the physical tournament events. ...Sucks for Super Smash Bros. Melee that doesn't have official online capabilities.

The actual Panda Cup Finale is from December 16 to December 18 in Los Angeles, California... with a $100,000 prize pool. That's certainly a lot of money. However, it's important to note the disclaimer: Nintendo of America is not a sponsor, co-sponsor, or administrator of this tournament. This is different than the tournaments that they hold on Battlefy for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and other games (see above NintendoVS North American Online Open, as well as last weekend's Splatoon 2 Turf War May 2022), where they explicitly are the tournament sponsor and fund the prizes. So as far as I can tell, Panda is footing the prize pool.

There are several unannounced details (like anything about those online events... besides that there will be 40 of them), but they did publish the rulesets for Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. I don't think I need to say this, but I've seen people ask this: These are competitive rulesets. There aren't items. There are competitive stages. Nintendo licensing the event hasn't impacted the rulesets at all and they are what you'd expect. Wobbling is banned in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Lylat Cruise is smartly allowed as a Counterpick in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

It's not clear what the full extent of Nintendo's involvement is (besides retweeting that the Panda Cup exists) or it's just going as far as giving it a legal blessing and letting the community handle the rest. I'm sure SOME people in said community will find reasons to complain about this, but I think it's exactly what people have been dreaming of for many years. Panda insists Nintendo is an actual partner in this.


Well? Are you excited over this? Or are you still holding out for some extra information? The first event will be at CEO in Florida on June 24 if you feel like travelling there, for both games. ...You sadly won't see Ludwig there.


Here are the full details and the schedule for the forty online qualifier events across eight regions.

Ludwig Took COVID-19 Rapid Tests, and...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - ...Well, this isn't total clickbait. It's negative.

I had some recent business last week on the planet Earth. I don't announce these trips ahead of time for obvious reasons. (I don't want to have my fans—or my enemies—know where I'm going and when.) Specifically related to our Sierra Leone office (which no one at KoopaTV has physically been at for years because of the coronavirus, travel restrictions, and wanting to work from home) and being able to keep our name associated with it. Unfortunately, after my visit (and I'll get to keep saying KoopaTV's headquarters on Earth is in Sierra Leone thanks to my visit), I was alerted that I was in extended, close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, otherwise known as the Chinese Communist Party Virus (CCP Virus). It was suggested to me that I needed to be tested for it, which I haven't done since the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games.

Back a year ago, there were no recorded cases of the CCP Virus on any Koopas. As of now... there still aren't. And there continues not to be, according to my second iHealth COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test result:

A line only at C is good! A line at both C and T is bad.
...A line only at T, or no lines, means you screwed up and wasted a test.
I don't actually know what the letters stand for. (...Then I looked it up—it's Control and Test.)

I've passed the test with a flying colour! And I think this article deserves to exist at all because you shouldn't just forget that the CCP Virus is out there. I know there are other, more new current events going on—like wars, mass shootings, and monkeypox—but the CCP Virus is most likely to affect you more than any of those. While I don't think it's likely to kill you off, there is this concept of non-lethal “long COVID8 that has a significant potential of giving you a poor quality of life for a long time. You do not want that!

As for monkeypox, that's been a thing in Sierra Leone for years. But right now, it's just a western media fascination and unlikely to affect you unless you like intimately touching people with skin lesions. Normal people with self-control don't do that. Right now, it's mostly impacting a group of people who don't have that kind of control of those urges and/or aren't very smart (men who have sex with men and people who touch diseased animals without protective gear). It's very much unlike the CCP Virus where anyone can get it just for being in the same room as someone else conversing with them.


Remember, all of the health practices you developed in 2020 and 2021 should still be followed in 2022 and beyond. That'll keep you safe not only from the CCP Virus, but all sorts of other inconvenient or fatal disease and illness. The particular test Ludwig took doesn't require putting the nasal swab very far up his snout. That being uncomfortable was his biggest fear, but it was fine. At least it wasn't an anal swab.


Ludwig tested positive by the very end of 2022.

Mario Got Smashed in the Face by a Strike Ball

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - He deserves a fate far worse than this, of course.

As part of the promotion for the upcoming Mario Strikers: Battle League for the Nintendo Switch (releasing June 10, 2022), Mario's face got smashed in by a Strike Ball. Apparently the theme is “so much fun it hurts!” I don't think the ball was as hard on him as I'd like it to be, since he still has a face left over.

It's important to note that Mario Strikers: Battle League is marketed as “soccer-like”... but it's not soccer. Still, being close enough to soccer has always made me prefer Mario Superstar Baseball to Super Mario Strikers when they both released on the GameCube in late 2005. Unlike Samus Aran, I'm not a fan of just anything with a ball.

I do specifically like the balls that get jammed into Mario's face, though.

It's unclear why in the commercial that Mario turns against Peach (or vice-versa)—she was resting next to him; clearly she wasn't the one who kicked the Strike Ball into his face. And based on the facial expressions, I think it's clear that Mario is the angry guy, declaring his battle cry of “LET'SA GO!” ...Princess Peach kicked Mario into an electric fence out of self-defence.

You might also wonder about the Mushroom Kingdom Princess being on the same team as King Bowser and Wario. Well, clearly she feels more safe with my father than Mario with fire in his eyes going on a rage-fueled tantrum. King Dad was merely helping protect her. I'll do my part as well in my own way.

But I don't need to buy another game to smash Mario's face in with a soccer ball while Peach is napping!
Besides, I'm not even in Mario Strikers: Battle League... neither are a lot of other characters, I hear.

This isn't supposed to be a “Ludwig doesn't care about Mario Strikers: Battle League and there's nothing you can do about it!” article, but rather a “let's show some pictures of Mario being hurt by a soccer ball because that's in an advertisement” article. He wasn't sure if this should be an Artistic Corner article or an Enlightenment Movement article, but upon examination that Princess Toadstool sided with King Koopa against Mario's berserk rampage, then it became clear that this is yet another example of how Mario is a danger to society.


Ludwig didn't get a chance to hit Mario with a Strike Ball during the Mario Strikers: Battle League First Kick demo.

What Got the Maddest Turtle of All Time so Mad

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Is it a happy World Turtle Day... or a mad World Turtle Day?

Did you see this clip that has hundreds of thousands of views?

some dude posted a vid of a turtle mad at him and i have to agree.

this is the maddest turtle of all-time 🐢😡😡😡😂 pic.twitter.com/U6UTaw9VCO

— Allan Bell (@AllanBell247) April 8, 2022

It portrays a tortoise on Earth slowly walk over to a human for about the first quarter of it. Then the tortoise repeatedly headbutts the human's leather shoe for the rest of the video. Why?

The reason is that the tortoise is protesting and taking initiative against humanity's oppressive boots: shoes used for evil. Attributable directly to the Mario Brothers, stomping on the heads of animals is a top method of death for turtles and several other animals, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

About Authority in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and why Micaiah should've gotten Authority Stars

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Gameplay-story integration! ...Except in this case?

One relatively underlooked mechanic in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is the Authority stat. It doesn't help that the stat is mislabelled in the American localisation of the game. What it actually does in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is provide 5 points of hit and avoid to every unit in the commander's army for every one Authority Star on the commander—a buff that can matter a bit, especially with several Authority Stars. (What the description claims is that the unit can have as many Bond Supports as the number of Authority Stars they have... but that's not the case.) In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, every unit on the field belongs to a given faction. Sometimes, red enemy units (or green other units) will consist of multiple factions, and these may have different commanders or no commanders at all. An example may be the Volunteers and the Bandits in Chapter 2-1 (Winds of Rebellion), as opposed to the Rebels under the Authority of Yeardley and his one Authority Star. There are many instances where you command yellow partner units in the story that appear to share the same affiliation as your lord (such the Crimean Royal Knights NPCs), but they do not get any Authority boosts because they aren't literally in your direct command.

If a given faction has several units with Authority Stars, only the commander's Authority Stars matter. This comes into play a lot in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and it differs from how the last game with Authority (you might see it called Leadership Stars there), Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, did it. In Thracia 776, any unit with Authority—not just Leif, the lord—contributed to that faction having additional hit and avoid—this all applies both to your own units and enemies. For your own units, that added an element of strategy where you might field units (and you have limited deployment slots) JUST because they have Authority, so they can support all of your units. While units with any stars are... rare and far and few between, that might be why you might field Finn or the only reason you'd use Glade. Thracia 776 also has a Fatigue mechanic that is designed to make you not use the same units every map, which increases the complexity of your strategic decisions on whether or not to bring someone just because they have Authority.

Leif starts the story off with zero Leadership/Authority Stars, but as the game progresses, he'll have up to two. Micaiah starts her story off with zero Authority Stars as well... and ends the game that way, too.

Micaiah is her own Commander, but she has no Authority, so no one in the Daein Army, including her, get boosts.
Note the incorrect Help tip about bond supports.

And by the way, this article is going to have end-game spoilers for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, so if that bothers you, you should turn away now. (And if it doesn't bother you because you don't think you'll ever play it... well, perhaps one day it'll be ported/remastered/remade, and be more accessible and cheaper, and then you'll want to play it, because Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is fantastic.)

Interesting additions, definitions, and omissions from PlayStation's "ultimate list of popular, gaming-related terms"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - What do you think?

In a move that maybe KoopaTV should've done a long time ago if we wanted to fish for a lot of page views and clicks (but now we never will), the marketing team at Sony Interactive Entertainment (and it looks like someone in their UK office? Cheers to you!) put together and published this editorial glossary of PlayStation's ultimate list of popular, gaming-related terms. They claim that these are “the definitions of some of gaming's most popular words, terminology and slang phrases.”

That right there is a contradiction. If it's really an ultimate list, then it shouldn't merely have “some” of gaming's most popular terminology, but all of them. After all, surely we know that “ultimate” ought to mean “everyone is here”... so it SHOULD be an exhaustive list. Ultimately, it's not (though there are some words I didn't expect would've appeared), some of the words have... strange definitions (likely because this is a major corporation publishing the list), and some phrases that you think should legitimately be there ain't on there. I'll give you my thoughts on all of those areas in this KoopaTV article!

Interesting terms that made it to the list

I've never heard of some of the terms they've used—and I believe that in my decades in the gaming scene, that if a phrase was popular, I'd know about it by now. These include “ADS” (or Aim Down Sights), though it's exclusively a first-person shooter term and I don't play those or lurk discussions on them, so alright. I can see, when searching for it, that it's fairly popular and I'm just ignorant. Moving on...

I've never heard of the term “judder.” I've heard jank. I know people say a game might stutter. Or shudder. It's not a term that gamers invented, at least. That either means I'm culturally ignorant, or it means that gamers don't all use that loanword. As for something interesting in the glossary—that I DO know the meaning of already—they put in “T-pose”... I just didn't expect that.

Pokémon HOME NOW Links to Pokémon Legend Arceus, Brilliant Diamond, and “Shinning Pearl”

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm arguably a fake Pokémon fan (lol), but I can at least point out typos no one else will.

After The Pokémon Company International announced last week that players will “soon” be able to link Pokémon HOME (their cross-platform cloud subscription service that allows for transferring Pokémon across games and generations) with Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond, and Pokémon Shining Pearl, they surpassed people's patience expectations by making that available... as of publishing. (Not counting people's expectations this should've been done right at those games’ launches.) Version 2.0.0!

That means that you can transfer Pokémon from Shining Pearl, Brilliant Diamond, Sword, and/or Shield to Pokémon HOME... and then trade them to any of those, or to Pokémon Legends: Arceus. If they go there (back in time), they'll be put into a Strange Ball, which is this minty colour Poké Ball. Pokémon from Pokémon Legends: Arceus can also go to any of those games too (and may also appear in Strange Balls... when transferred to a Galar game, it's a normal Poké Ball)—though it won't work out if they're exclusive to Pokémon Legends: Arceus or not in a game's Pokédex. Pokémon moves and levels may also be changed... They aren't deleted though; if you put a Pokémon in, move it somewhere, and move it back to where it was, it can still have its original info (including moves, ball, and Alpha status).

Spinda cannot be transferred to/from Pokémon Shining Pearl or Pokémon Brilliant Diamond to Pokémon HOME.

Activision Blizzard King's "Diversity Space Tool" is weird, and has a cover-up involved

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Plus, my thoughts on the tool itself.

Last week, someone or some several people at Activision Blizzard King (usually I'd say Activision Blizzard; today King gets to be included because they're a big part of the story... and hey, we're inclusive at KoopaTV) published this piece titled “King’s Diversity Space Tool”. Note that I linked to an archived version of what's currently (as of publishing) live on Activision Blizzard's “news room”, where it remains the predominant and top story. THIS archive link is what they originally published, which is far longer and more extensive, titled “King’s Diversity Space Tool: A Leap Forward for Inclusion in Gaming”.

The gist of it is that there is a greater appetite for inserting “diversity in game content” among game developers around the world, according to the unscientific, unrandomly sampled 2019 IGDA Developer Satisfaction Survey. (KoopaTV published an article about a similar report from the International Game Developers Association back in 2016 about how they portrayed diversity in gaming to be the industry's biggest issue, which I disputed and deemed a myth. Obviously, people at Activision Blizzard King disagree with me.)

I guess I should note that the survey itself didn't really define what “diversity in game content” means. I think you can easily define and interpret the word as “not every game should be a first-person shooter”. Y'know, that kind of diversity. That said, the respondents typically thought “racism among gamers” and “sexism among gamers” (and in their workforce) is on the rise.

Anyway, with that greater appetite, some employees working at the King part of Activision Blizzard King, at their own time, started making this Diversity Space Tool, which is supposed to be used during the character concept phase of character design. Its purpose is to measure your group of characters among several demographic metrics and see where your blind spots are. This is apparently supposed to reduce “tokenism, stereotypes, and exclusion”, although that objective is only in the original story and not in the sanitised current version. For an idea of how it works, check out these screenshots of the tool being used for Overwatch characters. Note that these screenshots are only available in the original story; there is no visual indication of how this tool works in the currently published edition:

Join the Splatoon 2 Turf War May 2022 (May 21)!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I don't have much commentary, but I like that it's happening.

There probably isn't enough content here for its own article. But I did want to document this.

Nintendo of America is once again teaming up with eSports platform Battlefy to bring a new competitively minded Splatoon 2 event... the Splatoon 2 Turf War May 2022! Taking place this Saturday (May 21, 2022) at 13:00 Eastern. Register here.

Ngyes!
Also, this is as-of-yet unused artwork for these official Splatoon 2 tournaments.

The ruleset for this tournament is the exact same as the Splatoon 2 Turf War February 2022, which I've already explained in another article. The entire event is a four-hour ladder on the Battlefy platform. You matchmake with your team (you need to register with a full team of four to five members [allowing for an alternate] before the event begins) throughout the four hours whenever you feel like it on the Battlefy platform and report scores on it, which could be constantly or maybe you want to allow for minor breaks. The top four teams by the end of the period get some kind of prize, with placing determined by match wins minus match losses. One match is a best-of-3 against another team. Every game is Turf War. Stages are set to random. No Splatfest Tees allowed, but feel free to use any other gear and weaponry.

Third and fourth place get $50 in My Nintendo Gold Points plus a Nintendo Switch Carrying Case. Second place gets $75 in My Nintendo Gold Points and the Nintendo Switch Carrying Case. But the Grand Prize winners (everyone on the team) gets $100 in My Nintendo Gold Points, the Nintendo Switch Carrying Case, a backpack, a Splatoon 2 jacket, and a Splatoon 2 Turf War May 2022 Trophy!

I'm told that everyone (who filled out their prize paperwork) except the most recent official Nintendo event participants have been awarded their prizes by now. That's good, because there's been complaints about that in the past. Personally, I'm happy that the competitive event output in this first half of 2022 is basically equal to the entirety of Nintendo's competitive event output for the whole of 2021. It's a good trend!


Ludwig hasn't joined a team and he's not sure how interested he is in doing so. He's X-ranked in every ranked battle mode (not that it matters) but he's not actually good at competitive Splatoon, since the majority of his time with the game is just Salmon Run, and the skills in that don't come close to the skills required to be successful against other Inklings or Octolings. He really wrote this article because a Battlefy employee told him this tournament was happening, and he felt compelled to write something about it.


There's a new sponsored tournament series happening through July 2022! Check out the Inkopolis Showdown 2022!
There's another Turf War coming—the Splatoon 3 Turf War December 2022, on December 30!

Nintendo's Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ended March 2022 Q&A Analysis!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - These actually aren't that thrilling.

If you looked at some FAKE NEWS media stories over the past week, you might have heard very juicy things about Nintendo and their Q&A to analysts and investors over their fiscal year ended March 2022 financial results (that KoopaTV analysed here with TWO charts).

Of course, KoopaTV—as a responsible website—waited until the official Nintendo translation of that question and answer session, which lacks juice. Erm... I'd still like for you to read my thoughts on the seven questions, of course. I mean, I'm not just here to tell you to ignore everything below this part of the page! I put some effort into it!

Question 1: Why are you assuming sales declines and these foreign exchange rates?

I wonder if this is the same person that asked about Nintendo's foreign exchange rate assumptions at the 81st Annual Meeting of Shareholders last year. Or maybe Nintendo just has an on-going record of mispredicting foreign exchange rate assumptions to make their numbers look better. (Nintendo had to revise their initial assumptions last year later on.) Anyway, Nintendo president Furukawa acknowledged that there are many supply issues with semiconductors (something Nintendo foolishly dismissed last year) and things are just really uncertain. They also said accurate forecasts are hard in general. As for exchange rates (assuming 1 USD = 115 JPY and 1 EUR = 125 JPY), while Nintendo doesn't make much purchasing in Euros, they do spend a lot of American dollars, so currency shifts with that can effect profitability. Really not that thrilling of a discussion, as someone who slept during finance class (though I still got an A). Moving on...

KoopaTV's Nine-Year Anniversary, and a Free Speech Commitment

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - KoopaTV's free speech values!

Today, KoopaTV is nine years old! Woohoo!

Can... can that be the whole content of the article? No? You want something with some production values and effort? Well, fine.

Since it's on people's minds lately (more than usual, with certain billionaires dabbling in social media platforms that we've previously derided as echo chambers), let's talk about FREE SPEECH. A concept that KoopaTV loves and regularly defends.

Why Free Speech for a Nine-Year Anniversary Article?

There are two things that come to my mind when I think about the number nine, which I've already made clear years ago when I wrote, “Should The Number Nine Be Nixed?” (That was in response to several product lines skipping the ninth version of something. Clearly, KoopaTV isn't skipping this one.) AND I associate both of those things with... FREE SPEECH. (I don't know why I keep capitalising that—I promise it's not something I always capitalise like I do with FAKE NEWS.)

Herman Cain, Nine, and Freedom of Speech

Herman Cain was a former Republican presidential candidate in 2011, famous for his 9-9-9 tax plan that would've replaced the current tax code. That's a 9% personal income tax, a 9% corporate income tax, and a 9% federal sales tax. He loved the number nine in other aspects of his life as well. His website, CainTV (which opened July 4, 2012—because real American patriots purposefully delay things until the next July 4), is the website that KoopaTV is a parody of. When he died, his staff decided to keep the site going, in his name. That site dismantled March 16, 2021, because it got way too weird. The last staffer there remarked about how it was “nine unforgettable years”—but people who know how to count know that it wasn't exactly nine years. It was eight years, eight months, and thirteen days, or 3,178 days total. Our article to commemorate that moment was this one in January of this year about a CAPCOM Lunar New Year Sale, because that's fitting, I guess. (And, what do you know, the CAPCOM Golden Week Sale is STILL going on as of publishing.)

Anywho, KoopaTV has very officially outlasted the website that we were founded to be a parody of. If we just stopped now, I'd feel pretty good about our run. And I wouldn't even have to die to make that happen. Ah, but, back to free speech...

As a political candidate and a commentator on both the web, as well as on the radio, Herman Cain welcomed diverse points of view and free speech. He railed against the lack of free speech on college campuses, and certainly employed freedom of speech of his own, to the point that callers came on the show and accused him of “verbal fellatio.” You can hear that in this clip:

Nindies May 11 2022 Put Me To Sleep, and CAPCOM's Poverty-Busting Philosophy

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'd say it's cringe, but we did the same thing.

It's a good thing I didn't try to do a live reaction log of today's Nintendo Indie World Showcase, because I literally fell asleep as a result of it. Therefore, the log would have very, very little content. I'm also not the kind of person that falls asleep on their keyboard, so you wouldn't even get strings of nonsense. (I fall asleep backward, not forward. Just like my political philosophies.)

I... embedded that not with the expectation you'd actually watch it, lest you fall asleep too. (It's a problem because I didn't watch this live but in the evening, in other words, when I'm supposed to be writing articles and putting thought into them. Guess you won't get thoughtfulness today!)

With regards to what little commentary I can offer, skip ahead to the Another Crab's Treasure section. To be honest, when the screen said “A BRAND NEW SOULSLiKE” I read “SOULSLiKE” as “Silksong” and was confused. But, yes, the developers at Aggro Crab specifically want it to be like Dark Souls. Here's a real quote from Nick Kaman of Aggro Crab in this video:

Nintendo's Results For Fiscal Year Ended March 2022

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Okay, NOW we're at the hardware declining point.

Cool news—the long-awaited Nintendo financial results for their fiscal year that ended March 2022 has been released. See their explanatory material here and consolidated financial statements this way. Top line results are that from April 1 2021 to March 31 2022, they sold 23.06 million Nintendo Switch consoles across the family, and 235.07 million software games in that same time period (across all publishers). That makes for a lifetime total of 107.65 million Nintendo Switch units, and 822.18 million software units.

Nintendo is super excited that they will have restricted stock units now for their executives. That basically means their executives will have stock-based performance rewards that will encourage them to remain with the company and have it do well. They are also excited for a 10-for-1 stock split vote they are having this fall, as well as stock buybacks—which some investors asked them to do a year ago. That'd make 10 times as much stock in the market, so it should have the effect of dividing Nintendo stock price by 10. Why are they doing this? I have no idea. Companies do stock splits to make their stock more attractive/affordable to non-institutional buyers, but Nintendo's stock is already pretty cheap, I think.

Anyway, here's how some games sold. ...Oh, and I have one never-before-seen data table to add to this series after that, too!

I think it's accurate to say that Ring Fit Adventure is very much slowing down.
And it might even get knocked off the top 10 by Pokémon Legends: Arceus at 12.64 million and rapidly growing.

The 2021 and 2022 20th Anniversary Ace Attorney Orchestra Concert Differences

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Two different 20th Anniversary Ace Attorney concerts... on different years!

Remember that Ace Attorney concert I mentioned at the end of that article about Maya Fey calling Phoenix Wright an attention whore? Well, that concert happened, and it was called the Ace Attorney 20th Anniversary Orchestra Concert. However, there was also a 20th Anniversary Orchestra Concert that took place in 2021, the year of the actual 20th anniversary.

That means... there are TWO concerts in the span of a year for Ace Attorney. That's very impressive and very appreciated attention. But now we're in a scenario where we need to be able to tell the two anniversary-timed concerts apart—2021 and 2022—and they actually do have different sets of music! To which my friend (and KoopaTV reader) Samantha Lienhard messaged me and said that the 2022 concert, unlike the 2021 concert, “had a big section devoted to Investigations 2. ...I want this to mean something.” (She's referencing what could be named Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Miles Edgeworth's total lack of being localised and how we've been asking CAPCOM for years to make that happen.) But I told her the differences required more investigation, and in Ace Attorney fashion, I was granted one additional day of investigating after pleading with the judge. THEREFORE, in that day... I MADE THE FOLLOWING EMBEDDED TABLE.

TAKE THAT!

Why isn't Bungie suffering the blowback that Tripwire Interactive did over abortion commentary?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I think there should be equal treatment, you know.

You don't have to imagine how you'd be treated if you are a pro-life individual working in the videogame industry. Just think about what happened in 2021 to former Tripwire Interactive boss John Gibson. The keyword there is “former”—he was ousted because he supported pro-life positions that about half (give or take) of the United States population generally supports. To get him removed, there were Twitter mobs and videogame journalist mobs going after him. Awful publication Kotaku described him as supporting “evil” and being against “basic human rights.” They had a whole paragraph basically saying he should shut up about his moral beliefs. Even Tripwire's business associates and other companies that work with them were threatening to pull out of contracts because they thought it was so awful that Tripwire's boss would have a mainstream moral viewpoint.

Skip ahead to this week. Game developer Bungie, which is currently in the process of being acquired by Sony but is reportedly facing unexpected regulatory scrutiny, decided to put out a statement expressing that they are in favour of human rights and freedom and are a pro-choice company. (Nevermind that, like so many other people, they are very one-sided in who they believe deserves freedom and human rights.)

Did Kotaku publish an article admonishing Bungie for speaking out about its moral beliefs? Well, they published an article basically congratulating Bungie, and admonishing the ordinary “angry” and “disturbed” gamers on Twitter that were upset and “ugly” about Bungie articulating its political stance. Why doesn't Kotaku describe itself as angry, ugly, and disturbed when it wrote an article attacking John Gibson for expressing his moral beliefs on the same issue, similar to how the gamers in the comments section did with Bungie?

Reggie Fils-Aime vs. Shigeru Miyamoto: The Wii Sports

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Now we get to learn even more about Miyamoto's bad judgment!

This week, former Nintendo of America executive Reggie Fils-Aime released his book, Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo, where he shares his business and life experience and lessons, including his rise at Nintendo and really his American dream story as a disruptive marketing executive. I see a lot of sites gushing over many stories that Reggie shared in his book. If you look at Nintendo Life, for example, the whole site for the past couple of days has been almost nothing but Reggie Fils-Aime stories.

So I'm hoping for KoopaTV, this'll be the only Reggie Fils-Aime article as a result of the book and the stories there—I have a mixed opinion on Reggie. Well, unless I actually go buy and read his book, which I'm mildly interested in despite not reading books (despite me saying books are a good medium). I want to focus particularly on the story around Wii Sports where Reggie Fils-Aime had to lobby former Nintendo global president Satoru Iwata, as well as Shigeru Miyamoto, on bundling the Wii with Wii Sports.

Check out his book's rave reviews, featuring Geoff Keighley, the man with the unknown title; and Geoff Keighley, the creator and CEO of The Game Awards.
Very different folks who happen to share the same positive thoughts. Look how broad the support is for Reggie's new book!

Coca-Cola Japan Going Mario? (And LGBTQ[A] Pride)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I mean, still better than Pepsi...

It didn't cross my mind, because anniversaries aren't important to me (I write that as I've been agonising about what I'm supposed to do for KoopaTV's nine-year anniversary next week and I don't really have many ideas), that Super Nintendo World has been open for a little over a year now. You can't make me excited about this. But in spite of me and the several times the park has had health concerns, it's still open for business and your (or a Japanese version of you) visit.

To celebrate, Coca-Cola Japan has made these Super Nintendo World-themed 250 millilitre slim bottles that look a bit cooler than the standard plastic Coca-Cola bottle you might otherwise encounter. They otherwise taste the same and have the same ingredients. These are extremely similar to other 250 millilitre slim bottle designs that Coca-Cola Japan has done for other occasions. They are available now.

On the left bottle is Princess Peach's castle with balloons and fireworks.
On the right bottle is that plumber jumping to open a ? Block and revealing a Super Mushroom, with a Piranha Plant stretching out of a warp pipe.
Unfortunately, it appears that there is safe ground beneath the plumber.

Coca-Cola Japan has also had a Coca-Cola Peach flavour for years, but it doesn't seem directly related to Princess Peach, besides something she'd probably want to drink. I didn't find a Coca-Cola Daisy.

SQUARE ENIX Divests Crystal Dynamics and Eidos and some IP to the "Embracer Group"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - There are some odd conceptions swirling around I want to clear up!

Yesterday, SQUARE ENIX had announced they sold off Crystal Dynamics (USA) and Eidos Interactive (Canada), two of their Western subsidiaries (oh, they also sold Square Enix Montréal also in Canada, but they're not really relevant because they're a small group that makes mobile games), to the Swedish gaming collective Embracer Group AB for a mere 300 million USD. What is the Embracer Group? According to Phil Rogers, Square Enix America and Europe CEO (well, not for much longer!) in a press release, “Embracer is the best kept secret in gaming: a massive, decentralized collection of entrepreneurs whom we are thrilled to become a part of today.” In other words, Embracer seems fully aware in their own press release that they're a secret and no one knows what they are. They are a parent company with over 12,500 employees dedicated to game development across 10 operative groups (and over a hundred internal studios within those)... and all of those numbers will go up with this acquisition.

You might be familiar with companies like Koch Media / Deep Silver (think Saints Row... and I guess they published Mighty No. 9 and that dumb trailer), THQ Nordic (...you can think of a lot of things, like Destroy All Humans), and Gearbox Entertainment (think Borderlands). These are all children of the Embracer Group, which has... embraced them. Yeah. (That's their explanation for the name, not mine.) With so many brands and franchises under the group, they say they give a lot of creative, decentralised freedom to the companies under them, and Embracer funds them. Embracer's studios also do a lot of work-for-hire for other publishers and companies, and they've said that despite their existing large capacity, they are already at capacity and need even more, talented resources that can make AAA content. Seems like a nice problem to have.

SQUARE ENIX has specifically also sold the IPs to Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and other franchises—but they're keeping Just Cause, Outriders, and Life is Strange because SQUARE ENIX still has some remaining overseas studios...? They said that SQUARE ENIX's studios are all the ones in Japan, the Square Enix Collective (which is a Square Enix Europe project) and Square Enix External Studios (also a Square Enix Europe initiative). So while a lot of people North America will move to work for Embracer, there will still be some people in “Square Enix Europe” publishing and working on things with the Western IP that SQUARE ENIX wants to keep around for whatever reason.

All of those words are probably confusing, so here's an image I edited that relies on me knowing Earth's geography; not really my strong suit as someone not from Earth:

KoopaTV's April 2022 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The many going-ons of April 2022!

We got through another month together, KoopaTV fans and readers! And I thought April 2022 went by super quick. I mean, I gotta make decisions on what to do for the next round of the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program ALREADY? It felt like I just gave the prize out for the last one, and now I gotta do that again.

But along with KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program-related stuff, we have other things to review in this newsletter reviewing April 2022. Starting with...

New Comments Form Experience

Added to the list of “so-called improvements that Google has made across all Blogger websites that no one asked for”, the comments section form to submit a new comment has been totally changed as of... sometime later in the month. (Sometime April 25?) I think it's worse. It used to be a box but it's just expandable white space now. But I'm also more concerned about if it actually works for everyone or not, since some folks in the support forum are saying that their comments section is now just broken and people can't actually comment things anymore.

If that applies to you, I ask that you email me at ludwig at koopatv dot org and let me know. (Obviously, if the comments section is really broken, you won't be able to use it to comment to me that it's broken.) For your information, there's no opt-in or opt-out to the change. It's forced upon me. ...Well, as far as I know. Maybe if I was more TECH-Y I could do something. Let me know if you actually like this more.

Top Five Recommended Experiences of April 2022

What kind of new articles were there to reply to? Check out this chronologically ordered list of experiences published in April 2022:

1. Humour Under Assault and Battery — When people believe that words are violence, you get things like Will Smith slapping comedians. Ludwig even got banned from somewhere for laughing at someone else's joke!
2. Censorship? Contrived Chrono Cross Controversy — Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is a new victim of the drive-by anti-censorship squad that reflexively moan about social justice warriors ruining games. But if you objectively look at what happened... there's no censorship and the whole outrage is laughable.
3. In a WEIRD (but real) Tweet, Miyamoto/Illumination Delay the Super Mario Bros. Film to Spring 2023 — There were a pair of tweets from Nintendo and from Illumination about the untitled Super Mario Bros. film. Illumination's was normal... and Nintendo's was strange. I dissected the Nintendo tweet line-by-line in this article.
4. Yes, Maya Fey Did Say Phoenix Wright is an Attention Whore — It's been a question in the Ace Attorney franchise—does Maya Fey have that much of a mouth on her that she's saying the phrase “attention whore”?
5. Don't Fall for Yuji Naka Trying to Redeem Himself or BALAN WONDERWORLD — Yuji Naka is trying to revise the commonly acknowledged development history of BALAN WONDERWORLD... but if you read between his lines like I did in the article, you can get to something closer to the real truth.

OF COURSE, everything on KoopaTV is worth reading, so be sure to... read everything!