Kimishima is out; Furukawa is in: Nintendo's Done with Fiscal Year Ending March 2018!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - They're not only done (since March ended a while ago), but reported some information about it!

It's Nintendo financial reporting time! This time, the fiscal year that went from April 2017 to March 2018 is over, and now we begin a new fiscal year of April 2018 to March 2019. Nintendo is projecting some mighty fine numbers for that. They have sold 17.79 million Nintendo Switch consoles so far... and now they plan to sell an additional 20 million by the end of March 2019, along with 100 million Nintendo Switch games.

Super Mario Odyssey has sold an astonishing 10.41 million units, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has sold 9.22 million. By comparison, Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U has only sold a lifetime of 8.42 million units, and it was by far the best-selling game on the Wii U. My favourite, Splatoon 2, now has 6.02 million sales!

Here is a chart I made of the “bottom-tier” million-plus sellers:

Featuring 1-2-Switch, ARMS, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Kirby Star Allies.
Somehow, 1-2-Switch got a boost from the holiday season, so people bought it for Christmas.
Fortunately, no one bought or received ARMS as a Christmas gift.

Here's hoping Kirby Star Allies overtakes ARMS three months from now!

So, Nintendo and the Switch did very well. The 3DS still lives on by all of those remakes and ports announced in that March 2018 Nintendo Direct, though its forecasts are reduced significantly.

Before I discuss the new president of Nintendo, I have to make yet another comment about how Nintendo uses the word new, because Super Smash Bros. fans think that current (for now) president Tatsumi Kimishima's financial presentation proves that the Super Smash Bros. for Switch is a brand-new game built from the ground up. It doesn't prove anything. Take a look:

What's New in Splatoon 2 Version 3.0.0?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - As much as was promised.

A month and a half ago, we were promised Version 3.0.0 for Splatoon 2 in the March 2018 Nintendo Direct. It has now arrived as of last night, as promised. The Direct said there would be...

• Over 100 pieces of new gear (fresh looks in time for spring)
• New stages, such as Piranha Pit and Camp Triggerfish
• Rank X
• Callie's appearance in Octo Canyon 

All of those things are in this update (here are the patch notes). Not much else is a part of it besides bug fixes and weapon balancing. I'm not sure if it warrants a jump from 2.3.3 to 3.0.0. The second decimal is for bug fixes. The first is for new features, such as revolutionising Salmon Run (2.2.2 to 2.3.0 — I wrote about it recently and will refer to it in this article, so read up on my thoughts by clicking), or adding a whole new mode in Clam Blitz (2.0.1 to 2.1.0).

I guess the non-decimal number goes up when there is new gear in the update. I don't know why Splatoon's developers put that as a greater priority than new features, but there you go.

Let's talk about Callie. She appears if you've completed the story mode.

End the “When Do The Developers Work On It?” DLC Purity Test

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - When you apply LOGIC to it, the purity test makes no sense.

Alternative sub-title: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

When I read comments sections on forums and the like (but I haven't seen this on KoopaTV's comments section, either because I don't talk too much about it and you're on-topic, or you guys are smart), I read a fair number of gamers complain when game companies start working on post-launch downloadable content (DLC)... before the launch of the game. That's apparently a no-no to you gamers.

But if a developer starts working on DLC the day after launch? Suddenly, that arbitrary distinction becomes very meaningful to you... even noble.

Why? It makes no sense.

Good-bye, Puzzle Fighter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Not that I really know anything about it, but now I don't ever have to!

Two months ago I wrote about CAPCOM's mobile-only game, Puzzle Fighter, in the context of Phoenix Wright becoming a playable character for it:

“CAPCOM has this mediocre free-to-play mobile game called Puzzle Fighter where you have to do gacha stuff to get the playable character you want. Phoenix Wright is now in the game! He looks absolutely hideous[. ...] Honestly, I have no idea how Puzzle Fighter works in terms of gameplay or if characters make a difference.”

Meanwhile, three days ago, CAPCOM Game Studio Vancouver announced on Capcom Unity that they are sunsetting Puzzle Fighter, with them shutting down the servers on July 31. (Three months and a week!) All the content after the 20th, including the game's soundtrack and Dr. Wily, are FREE! ...And in-app purchases are disabled today.

For music, here is Dr. Wily's Castle (part 1). ...There's no Ace Attorney in the soundtrack, which I guess is a disadvantage of being a DLC-only franchise in a low-budget game:



(Dr. Wily himself may be DLC, but not the Mega Man franchise.)

The reason that Jeffery Simpson, the CAPCOM Vancouver community manager, said that they would be ending Puzzle Fighter is so they could focus on Dead Rising. That's admirable, since that's what CAPCOM Vancouver was working on before becoming a CAPCOM studio. Perhaps they were just stuck with Puzzle Fighter and never wanted it.

The less of whatever this art style is, the better. Good news! (And maybe it'll signal a strategy for CAPCOM to focus less on mobile? ...Or is that too hopeful?)

“Mia! You've made our client cry!”
“Let him! That ‘P’ on his chest doesn't stand for [puzzle] anyways!”
(Picture source: Demonflip84)

Ludwig hates writing articles about when CAPCOM games put a focus on mobile, so he's more than happy to spend some article space on KoopaTV writing about the opposite occurring. If you have any experience with Puzzle Fighter, perhaps enough experience to actually be upset about it shutting down, feel free to comment about it. Just expect the KoopaTV response to be incredibly unsympathetic. As for Phoenix Wright's pink sweater, do YOU know what the P stands for?



Compare this mobile game end-of-life to Miitomo, which has had substantially more time to end than Puzzle Fighter in-between announcement and end.

DON'T BUY THE NINTENDO LABO: What you NEED to know!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The Nintendo Labo has released today. Don't fall for its trickery.

Today, Nintendo released their build-it-yourself-peripheral-toys-to-play-shoddy-software combination, the Nintendo Labo.

By... sheer coincidence, of course, today KoopaTV formally declares war against Nintendo Labo and urges all readers to not purchase it. Anyone who has already bought a Labo is urged to return it to your retailer and get a refund. 

Don't buy the Labo. It's as simple as that. That isn't... much of an article, so let's review what got us to this point, and why exactly the Nintendo Labo endangers the lives of you and (your?) children.

Planes are still SAFER than cars!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Don't let horrific recent events bias your opinions.

Since KoopaTV, and specifically by yours truly, is literally the only place and person on the Internet that wrote an opinion article discussing why planes are superior to cars for the Splatfest on that subject from the first Splatoon, some people are blaming me for the tragic plane death with Southwest Airlines Flight 1380. There was an engine failure that somehow cracked a cabin window, resulting in “uncontrolled decompression” that nearly sucked Passenger Jennifer Riordan out of the airplane. (This is why I never sit in the window seat, along with me being afraid of heights.)

She didn't fly out the plane, but she did die anyway.

This is understandably spooking people who would want to fly planes. Then people think about United Airlines and that guy being dragged off the plane even though he paid for his seat already. These scared people are turning to long road trips by car as an alternative... or even worse, by train. (If you're worried for your safety and sanity, DON'T RIDE TRAINS!)  Or... even worse than that... BY BICYCLE. PLEASE DON'T RIDE ONE OF THOSE!

While I can't address customer service in this article (there aren't statistics on how rude taxi drivers are, or how many Uber drivers are rapists and murderers), I can address safety. Planes still beat cars in that regard, and are still better than cars for all the reasons I discussed in that Splatfest article in the first paragraph.

Life as a Salmon Run Profreshional after Version 2.3.0

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The Splatoon 2 version that changed the Salmon Run experience forever.

Almost six months ago, I received a request from an anonymous reader asking me to write about Splatoon 2's most fun mode, Salmon Run. Obviously, I didn't feel a rush to take the request, but eventually I realised it was worth commentating on the topic, especially my thoughts on the difference between Salmon Run before Splatoon 2 version 2.3.0, and Salmon Run after Splatoon 2 version 2.3.0.

If you don't remember or know what happened with 2.3.0, look here for the change log. In terms of Salmon Run, here is the notable change:

“Made it so that more Rank can be carried over at the start of the next job when the player has the title of Profreshional and a Rank of 100 or higher.”

Basically, if you reach Profreshional rank 100 to 190, you start at 100. From 200 to 290, you start the next time at 200. Etcetera until Profreshional 400 to 999, where you start at 400. As shown before the update in this article, if you were a Profreshional of any caliber, you'd start at 40. (For the uninitiated, Profeshional is the highest rank you can get (and it's trivial to achieve), and the number is the difficulty level. 40 is pretty easy. 400 isn't.)

So if I ended Saturday's Salmon Run at 400, then next time I play Salmon Run, I'll start at 400. Beforehand, there was mandatory scaffolding where you'd start at 40 and you'd get used to the unique weapon set for the rotation and how that goes with the map. Now, you better be ready from the first time you play that rotation, or you'll drop in rank. You might drop to 380 and never win again, so you'll start the next time at 300. It creates pressure to keep playing past the DAILY SUPERBONUS.

A Way Out Outsells Expectations

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - We discuss the Friend Pass, and why EA is even funding this game.

I remember two things about Hazelight Studios, but they are the most important two things:

1. Their founder, Josef Fares, is a coarse jackass, judging from his appearance at The Game Awards 2017.
2. They were making and have now released their two-player mandatory co-op game, A Way Out.

A Way Out was actually very memorable from the Electronic Arts E3 2017 press conference. I cited it as the “most cool, innovative concept from EA's conference”. Usually I don't remember random games from E3 conferences I don't care about, but I remember A Way Out. Well, it released at the end of March, and has since sold over ONE MILLION COPIES.

HOLY SHIT, this means that 2 million players have played the game. Thank you so much❤️ https://t.co/W8WP6HI44Z

— Josef Fares (@josef_fares) April 13, 2018

I take issue with Mr. Fares's math, claiming that two million people have played A Way Out.

Let Tax Day 2018 Be The LAST Tax Day, EVER! Enact the FAIRtax!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - An income tax cut is great and all, but no income tax altogether is even better!

Just in case you're confused or not American — the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (President Donald John Trump's substantive tax cuts bill passed at the end of 2017) applies to next year's taxes, or Tax Day 2019. Tax Day 2018, which covers the taxes for calendar year 2017, isn't changed by the legislation.

If you look at the KoopaTV article on that tax cut legislation, you'll read in several places me bemoaning that it's not the FAIRtax, which is a national retail sales tax that replaces the income and payroll taxes. For a little more information, take a look at this quick video:
 

For a lot more information, including FAQs, lots of research (the FAIRtax is said to be the most researched tax legislation in the history of humanity), and more, check out the FAIRtax website at fairtax.org. (Note their use of the best top-level domain.) Meanwhile, I'm going to spend this article telling you why I think the FAIRtax is the best tax plan and what America needs — and if implemented, there will never be a Tax Day ever again.

Update April 17, 2018: The IRS payment systems glitched up and people couldn't actually pay the IRS money today, so they're extending Tax Day to April 18th. I mean... they're making our argument for us that they should be abolished. /end update

Yooka-Laylee isn't Half-Bad...or is it?

By RAWKHAWK2010 - And is this seriously KoopaTV's seventh Yooka-Laylee article?

As someone who weathered the Yooka-Delaylee storm so that I could experience the game on Nintendo Switch, I'm at last prepared to provide my thoughts. Do I really want to? Well, not really. Reviews aren't really thing. It's why my Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney "review" is a gaggle of Miiverse screen captures. It's why my Paper Mario: Color Splash review hasn't happened and never will. But in this case...I suppose I must oblige:

It's me! (Six paces above "Ray and the Family Dickinson".)

And with that,

Rawk's Review of Yooka-Laylee: