tjalian

@Milf Biggenson You're kidding me, right? No franchises that can mature? Metroid, Kid Icarus, Zelda, Fire Emblem and Baten Kaitos all ring a bell which are franchises ripe for maturing (although I feel Zelda will stay in that "not kiddy, but not mature" stage now. Also, anything from Monolith Soft pumps out mature titles.

Unless of course you mean BLOOD AND GORE like Manhunt 2, in which case, that's not Nintendo's style. Nor should it be, I mean, what's the point?

@xFSUxBatman Apart from, you know, the higher quality visuals, master quest, revamped UI, widescreen support, boss challenge mode, (rumoured) additional side-quests, yeah, it's just like the original.

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi actually, I'd say the bulk of it IS R&D - the sales declination doesn't help, granted, but I can guarantee you a large sum of that is R&D. Think of it like this, sales haven't dropped 66%, it's more like 20% (ball park, I don't know the actual figures off the top of my head). Combined with the fact that Nintendo had an awesome Fiscal 2009 (gg jph89, good to see someone else with an elephant memory) and in 2010 they had R&D costs for 2 consoles at once, and it's fairly easy to see why profits slumped 66%. I can forsee in Fiscal 2012 profits will be up by a decent margin, and Fiscal 2013 will make Fiscal 2011 look like a footnote.

-OF COURSE- profits have slumped ridiculously. Go back to 2002/2003 - their profits slumped like mad. Why? Because of R&D and manufacturing of the Nintendo DS ramped up all the while the then unreleased DS wasn't making any money because it wasn't on the shelves. Same applies here - Project Café has been burning a pocket through Nintendo's pockets without any return because it's not on shelves making money. Usually their handheld segment backs up Nintendo, but this time around the DS was slowly declining (probably because the damn thing is now 7 years old) and the 3DS was also in development during 2010 which also contributed to burning pockets.

It all makes sense when you take a look at the broader scope of what Nintendo's doing rather then just taking a look at the "declining" sales (it's now only selling usual numbers instead of the sky rocket numbers it has been previously).

Of course, it's much more exciting for the dramatics to assume that Nintendo's now a sinking ship because the other two now have motion sensing and presume "Café needs to come out soon or Nintendo's doomed!".

These leaked pictures of the console are almost certainly dev units, for you see, lack of the disk drive probably means it's running everything off the hard drive (which dev units usually do) and by the fact that the system looks like it was made by some kids in a sweat shop.

Sounds great! The only thing the review didn't mention (as I've been hiding under rocks while this game was made) was whether you needed to have played the original for this sequel to make sense, so does it?

Also, the ODSTs have always been pansies. John 117 took out a group of them when he was merely a tween!

Sounds great! The only thing the review didn't mention (as I've been hiding under rocks while this game was made) was whether you needed to have played the original for this sequel to make sense, so does it?

Also, the ODSTs have always been pansies. John 117 took out a group of them when he was merely a tween!

I'll wait until they discount them to £100 and then I'll be nabbing myself one, and then hacking it so I can shove my UMD games on there. Sorted.

That tune is surprisingly catchy.

I gotta say, BitF and EBS was almost a tie for me, EBS seals the deal though as it pretty much solidifies why I didn't buy a 3DS at launch. That, and the revolutionary feature "Mains Tethering", enabling you to play for longer then 3 hours, didn't sucker me into a purchase.