Two Medieval Ages: Great Ace Attorney Chronicles Instrumentals and Afghanistan

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Let's see how well I can force these two completely different topics into one article!

There is a lot of talk going on about what the United States is doing (or not doing) with evacuating Afghanistan. That's interesting and all and probably what people want to read commentary about, but there's something that's much more on my mind than that: how botched the Instrumentals selection is for The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.

I can enjoy “various” tracks... but far from all...

There are similar problems behind both situations, so I'll try to... cover both things simultaneously. In terms of Afghanistan, the President Donald John Trump administration really wanted to pull out and end America's role in that endless war. His successor and the current American leader, President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., said much the same thing. Now it's happening and people are upset. No matter who would be the leader in charge, it'd be a messy, imperfect exit. But Americans shouldn't lose heart and want to decide to re-invade that country. I'm generally supportive of what the current American president is doing right now with Afghanistan, and happy he has the courage to follow through with it. (I might disagree with some specific executional details, but...)

Now the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist Taliban, which the Americans have been fighting off for two decades, have basically recaptured the whole of Afghanistan, already undoing whatever “progress” America supposedly accomplished. This is pretty similar to what's going on with The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and its in-game soundtrack. Observe:

Xbox Game Pass, Windows 11, and Non-Nintendo/Sony Open Platforms

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Pretty obvious to anyone besides some “journalists.”

At the end of last week, gaming media outlet GamesRadar+ had an interview with Microsoft's Chief Xbox executive, Phil Spencer. They talked about Xbox Game Pass. What else would they talk about? Xbox Game Pass is the only thing to really talk about when it comes to Microsoft's gaming efforts. It's their big differentiator, and “available on Xbox Game Pass” became a very familiar phrase during their E3 2021 presentation. Specifically, Phil Spencer wants to work with getting Xbox (Game Pass) to “open platforms” (not ones controlled by an ecosystem owner... AKA not the Switch or the PlayStation, but things like mobile (but I guess not Apple's) and PC) with the power of the cloud. So it's like what Google is trying to do with the Stadia, except not being a huge failure because Microsoft understands the videogame industry (and they're willing to make massive acquisitions to support it), unlike Google.

People in the Nintendo-focused media are talking about the interviewer's insistence that Phil Spencer answer the question about an Xbox app on the Switch, which, according to terrible websites like Game Rant, was “all but confirmed” a few months ago. (Presumably, an Xbox app would let you use the Switch to access your Xbox Game Pass library via streaming.) And even though Phil Spencer was a little dodgy initially, I'll still give him credit for providing more insightful answers than, say, Nintendo's Doug Bowser. (And credit to the interviewer for pressing the issue.) He said, again, his focus is on the open platforms, but if a platform holder wants to have the discussions with Microsoft, he'll gladly have those talks.

The Dragon Quest Overture at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics Wasn't a "Scandal"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Manufactured outrage.

While there were many reasons to not like the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Opening Ceremony (especially as presented by NBC), the presence of videogame music during the Parade of Nations was a legitimately happy highlight that everyone should appreciate. (Unfortunately NBC's selective editing also meant the soundtracks were cut up and sometimes skipped.) The very first videogame song was the Dragon Quest Overture theme, as originally composed by franchise musician Koichi Sugiyama. Although, at least on the NBC stream (who knows what happened in reality?!), it wasn't part of the soundtrack loop—which made its one appearance at the start very special. And according to many of the commenters on Dragon Quest YouTube videos, the song made a very positive impression. (I'll give a screenshot of just one screen's worth of comments later in this article.)

“This tune's a banger!” is how the vast majority of people must've reacted when they heard the Dragon Quest theme at the Opening Ceremony.
It's the NORMAL reaction.
Anyway, note the white text at the top:
Sugiyama's rights management to his compositions is so strong he gets to appear in every screenshot exported from Dragon Quest XI S.

I would include a video clip of the Dragon Quest Overture at the Olympics, but unfortunately, NBC is on a mission to copyright strike any uploads of that. You'll have to take my word for it (or read my live reaction log linked in the opening sentence, where I was talking about the Overture many times throughout). Here's the song itself (or one version of it anyway):

Tencent-Backed Ex-Google Stadia Indie Attacked by Shallow Game Journalists for Hiring White Men

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'm going to explain that... loaded headline as the basis of the article content.

Recall half a year ago I wrote about Google shutting down Stadia Games and Entertainment, which was supposed to produce Google Stadia-exclusive games. That never actually happened before it was vanquished. (The Stadia is still around to this day, by the way. I'm not sure why, though I also wasn't sure why it ever existed to begin with.)

One of the acquisitions Google did to prop up the Stadia was of Typhoon Studios, developer of Journey to the Savage Planet. ...That was their only game. You may remember (but hopefully you don't) that they talked about it at The Game Awards 2018—before the Stadia was ever announced. That means that Google allowed it to release as a multi-platform game as intended (you can get it on the Switch or any other console. It seems like a quirky exploration-based adventure game), so again, it was never Stadia exclusive. But it does mean the next game in the series would be owned by Google... had Google not ended their first-party development because it's way too much effort and Google didn't anticipate that making games is hard and risky. Anyway, the Typhoon Studios people went and regrouped to make a new studio called Raccoon Logic—with the help from investment from Tencent, who owns a minority stake in the Montreal-based company. They even got the rights to the Journey to the Savage Planet intellectual property back from Google according to this Gamasutra interview so they can make a sequel or whatever.

Let's talk about Tencent real quick. I mean, I already wrote about them just last week and the nefarious activities going on with the Chinese Communist Party that somewhat directly controls the company. Here's what Typhoon Studios/Raccoon Logic co-founder Alex Hutchinson has to say about Tencent, per that Gamasutra interview:

Dragon Quest 35th Anniversary Survey

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I won't just tell you to take it... I'll tell you what I said and the significance of it.

On the official Dragon Quest Facebook page (but not on Twitter, which I'll explain what's strange about that in a moment), SQUARE ENIX posted this survey solicitation:

This article's call-to-action will be irrelevant in under two weeks, so hurry!
(Though the article's commentary shall be eternal.)

You can take the survey directly over here. It's thirty questions, but it's faster to fill out than it sounds. Besides asking basic demographic information (and you can even say you're non-binary or gender non-conforming!), SQUARE ENIX wants to know how much of a Dragon Quest fan you are by listing all of the games and asking you to pick which you've played. They also want to know your favourite game genres and consoles you own and how much money you spend. They wanted to know if you follow their Facebook and Twitter (despite the survey's lack of presence on Twitter). It's... pretty similar to the recent Ace Attorney survey CAPCOM devised (that you can still take) for The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.

But by the end, there's a difference (and I don't mean the fact there's no free wallpaper background waiting for you—you get no extrinsic reward for filling this survey out)... a free text field, asking what you'd like to see for the future of Dragon Quest. Here's what I wrote:

Live A Live — The best game you’ve never heard of

By CAPTAIN STITCH - Step aside EarthBound, this game is even more underrated.

Even if you have heard of this game, there's no doubt that Live A Live is an obscure title. Live A Live is a Japanese exclusive RPG for the Super Famicom released all the way back in 1994 by Square. That’s quite a long time but the game still holds up, unlike some of the more recent Square games.

So what's so special about this game anyway if they didn’t even bother to localise it? Well unlike other games with a single story, this game features 7 different storylines with 7 different characters. These 7 characters also come from 7 different time periods. Cavemen, robots, cowboys, psychics, old people, it’s all here. Thankfully, a nice group by the name of Aeon Genesis went and translated it so that none of us have to learn Japanese, how kind!

KoopaTV's Live Reactions to Tokyo 2021's Olympic Closing Ceremony

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Featuring traditional and modern Japanese song/dance, Kamek getting triggered, and Ludwig still not recognising Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Over two weeks ago, KoopaTV spectated the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Opening Ceremony! Then various Koopas competed (including myself) in the Olympic Games. ...And now they're over, so we're spectating the Closing Ceremony, except thanks to the regulations put in place for athletes, we're no longer physically in Japan during them.

I'm watching from Koopa Kingdom, as is Kamek, though from the notoriously awful and super-biased NBC United States stream. We're commentating on whatever happens, be it lack of Earth cultural knowledge, making fun of proceedings, or sometimes actually liking them. Check it out:

[7:55 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: https://stream.nbcolympics.com/nbc-primetime-closing-ceremony
To watch from terrible United States stream.
[7:59 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: Koopa Kingdom doesn't have our own native stream so we gotta take another country's.
[8:00 PM] Ludwig Von Koopa: (Let's not draw too much attention to the fact we didn't win a single medal...)

Tencent vs. China's Gaming Restrictions

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - ...And you're going to see this in the Western world, too.

Medium-time KoopaTV readers know that I like to write mean things about the Chinese Communist Party at every opportunity. KoopaTV is banned from mainland China as a result, because their government is really sensitive to criticism. Among all of that criticism, I might not have been nuanced in how I've described the business-government relationship in China, so I'll go into some detail in this article.

Corporations in China often are naturally at odds with the Chinese Communist Party. Companies want to maximise their profit. The Chinese Communist Party wishes to make sure everyone is being a proper ideological communist mind servant with high social credit. Those come in conflict. In China, the government will always come out on top.

We can see this in a story from this week: A state-sponsored media outlet in China (the Economic Information Daily) referred to Tencent's game Honor of Kings, a China-only mobile game (re-adapted as Arena of Valor outside of China), as “spiritual opium” that's ruining the childhoods of millions of Chinese kids because of how addictive it is. (Opium has a special place in Chinese history where you really don't want to have an association with it.) Other gaming companies and games took notice as well, as did investors, who see this government-affiliated media publisher as a sign the government is going to be pushing some regulations that will hamper Tencent's (and the whole industry's) profitability.

June 30, 2021 Nintendo Quarterly Financial Update

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Ring Fit Adventure has ASCENDED!

While I'm not currently making Ring Fit Adventure based on fitness logs, I still will name-drop it at any opportunity. And today Nintendo has provided the perfect opportunity because they announced their financial results for the quarter that ended June 30, 2021.

I could've put New Pokémon Snap on this since it's reported to sell 2.07 million... but that's non-Japan only.
Because The Pokémon Company is the publisher in Japan, Nintendo apparently doesn't get to report on the Japanese numbers.
So me not wanting to under-report New Pokémon Snap has made me not include it entirely.

Ring Fit Adventure has now sold a total of 11.26 million units, knocking out New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe or whatever that game is named out of the Nintendo Switch top 10. Now Ring Fit Adventure is in that 10th spot, and it deserves it. The Switch as a whole has sold 89.04 million units, meaning a good number of Switch owners also own Ring Fit Adventure. You might think that a notable percentage of all households in Japan own Ring Fit Adventure, so I really think it should've shown up in the indoor fitness short montage at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics Opening Ceremony. (I haven't kept track of the exact number of which of those 11.26 million are from Japan, but I guess I could if you ask me to in the comments section.)

Yes, the above chart is dedicated to Ring Fit Adventure for this quarter, though other games not selling much contributes to that. Year-to-year, Nintendo's profits and sell-through are down... which Nintendo continually attributed to Animal Crossing: New Horizons being extremely overpowered back from April 2020 to June 2020 because it went and sold over 10 million copies by itself back then.

Somehow, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe keeps selling a lot, and now it's sold a grand total of 37.08 million copies. Meanwhile, Mario Kart Wii sold a total of 37.38 million, so it'll turn out that this Deluxe version is soon to be the highest-selling game in the whole Mario Kart series. The original Mario Kart 8 only sold 8.45 million on the Wii U.

Nintendo isn't directly talking about games sold by third party publishers like Monster Hunter Rise, which is basically the Animal Crossing: New Horizons of 2021. ...Except it's sold only 7 million copies while New Horizons has sold triple that by this time last year.

Nintendo has also finally decided to make the guy who keeps asking them about stock buybacks happy by... agreeing to start doing stock buybacks starting now. They plan to repurchase up to 100 billion yen (using their 1.1 trillion yen in cash and deposits) and cancel the repurchased shares. This reduces the quantity of stocks in the market, which should increase the value of the remaining stocks. Investors should like this, especially that one guy. It basically means that Nintendo has cash in excess of their excess and they really have nothing better to do with it. How envious.


Do you think Ring Fit Adventure will outsell Splatoon 2, which sits at spot #9 (12.45 million copies) of the Switch's top 10? Splatoon 2 is no longer selling a million copies every quarter while Ring Fit Adventure is, so it's definitely gaining ground as time passes with apparently no sign of stopping. That would be... very interesting.


For the last Nintendo financial results article, see the year ending March 2021.
Since a lot of the points Nintendo made was to compare to June 30, 2020, here's Ludwig's article from back then.
Next quarter's financial update has some more interesting content, but Ring Fit Adventure is still at #10.
How about June 30, 2022? Nintendo has worse results than in 2021, too.

I Don't Trust Rosen Law Firm's Activision Blizzard Class Action Lawsuit

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Not after what I wrote a year ago!

You probably already know about the lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing against Activision Blizzard for company-wide anti-women discrimination that the company knew about but did little to stop. KoopaTV hasn't discussed it at all because I like taking a wait-and-see approach to how it plays out. I do loathe the company in question (I've already been boycotting Activision since 2001), and it's easy to believe the allegations against it. The head of the Blizzard side, J. Allen Brack, has even just resigned from the company. There are many moving parts to this. Company walkouts too.

There's... not a tremendous net effect on Activision Blizzard's stock price, but Rosen Law Firm has decided to file a class action lawsuit (that isn't yet certified) against Activision Blizzard on behalf of what it hopes are thousands of investors. (You can read the lawsuit text here.) The gist is that, in Activision's financial disclosures, they've been generically stating that they may be or are the subject of legal proceedings and investigations into all kinds of matters, including employment-related ones. Rosen Law Firm claims that Activision knew that with California investigating them for the past couple of years, that they would get sued, and this would have a materially bad impact on the business and they should've specifically disclosed this and done things to take workplace harassment and unequal pay claims much more seriously. Rosen believes the stock price has been “inflated” by undisclosed policies of treating women employees poorly, and that investors would avoid investing in Activision stock if they knew about it.

I don't think the class action lawsuit will go anywhere, and the reason for this is because I already covered the antics of the Rosen Law Firm last year when they filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of CD Projekt's investors. That went absolutely nowhere and they've hidden the references to CD Projekt from their website. I emailed them months ago asking what happened and they've ghosted me, so I don't think that lawsuit threats from Rosen Law Firm are credible or go anywhere.

Activision did say in their disclosures that, upon hearing from their own legal team, that the on-going lawsuits aren't significant, and I don't think reasonable people should believe the sincerity of that. It's far more likely that Activision Blizzard's management really didn't think anything would come of California's then-investigation (and it's unclear if anything WILL come out of California's lawsuit, since they still have to prove their claims in court, and that's tough!) than Activision is choosing to engage in a massive cover-up conspiracy to defraud investors. Personally, I still think CD Projekt was trying to defraud people by covering up how bad Cyberpunk 2077—the basket they were putting the majority of their eggs in—was on the most popular gaming platforms. Activision should be held accountable for what bad and illegal stuff goes on in that company (to the extent it's provable), but this class action lawsuit won't be the avenue for that accountability.


Ludwig has re-reached out to Rosen Law Firm regarding the CD Projekt lawsuit. He'll update this article if he ever gets a response. Or he might even write a new one! ...And this probably won't be the last you hear of the Activision Blizzard lawsuit on KoopaTV. There's just so much going on in a short period of time that the site doesn't want to dedicate itself to covering just that one story.


While Rosen's lawsuit is unsurprisingly going nowhere, there is government vs. government drama with their anti-Activision suits.
Ludwig was wrong, and Rosen's class-action against CD Projekt was a success. Well, it got a settlement of above zero from CD Projekt.