The PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Darksiders Warmastered Edition won’t really bring anything new with them since the remaster’s 2016 release across PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Wii U. As such, the trailer gives us quick glimpses at the ruined Earth that serves as much of the game’s primary setting, as well as a few of the several combat encounters that players will get to fight their way through.

Darksiders puts players in the shoes of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who also happen to be survivors of a legendary war between heaven and hell. The protagonist, War, is accused of having started the End War too early, before the Seven Seals were broken, and has been tasked by the Charred Council to hunt down those truly responsible for kicking off this war. War’s siblings – Fury, Strife, and Death – couldn’t help him out at the time, since they were busy with their own stories, as could be seen in other Darksiders games.

War, as one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, travels to Earth in his hunt for those responsible for the End War, which in turn leads to him coming face-to-face with various archangels as well as denizens of hell.

While primarily revolving around hack-and-slash combat, the original Darksiders was also quite inspired by older The Legend of Zelda titles like Ocarina of Time, complete with “dungeons” where the player could unlock new tools and weapons which often had to be used to solve puzzles and gain access to further parts of the game.

The announcement of Darksiders Warmastered Edition coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S comes less than a year after THQ Nordic, along with developer Gunfire Games, officially announced Darksiders 4. While not too many details about the title have been revealed, one of the key aspects confirmed is that all four Horsemen will be playable, complete with the ability to play the entire title in co-op or solo.

Darksiders Warmastered Edition coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S could be an indication that we are going to see more Darksiders 4-related news in the coming months. While THQ Nordic is yet to make any confirmation, we could also see the other three titles – Darksiders 2, 3 and Genesis – making their way to modern consoles as well.

Gunfire Games is known for its work on Remnant: From the Ashes and Remnant 2, which showcased the studio’s experience with co-op modes and challenging gameplay. The team is also already familiar with the Darksiders universe thanks to it being founded by David Adams, who worked with many of its other developers at Vigil Games, which was the studio behind the original title.

Rather, Harada spoke about how the spin-off series is likelier to return in the form of a game mode for either the current game – Tekken 8 – or a hypothetical mainline sequel. “It’s quite difficult because, you know, Tag is something I’ve always thought of more recently, and [I feel] like it should be some kind of mode within a Tekken 9 or 8 or whatever you want to call it,” said Harada through a translator.

It largely comes down to the fact that the tag fighter sub-genre has become quite popular these days, and Harada isn’t sure if there is room in the market for a new standalone title. He said that “if we start now [to make a Tekken Tag Tournament 3] by the time that they’re no longer popular, that’s when Tag Three would come out.”

Harada went on to note that, if a new standalone Tekken Tag Tournament were to be developed, it would be more likely to be worked on by a new generation of game developers, saying that it probably wouldn’t happen in his “working lifetime”.

“We have so many more moves than a typical 2D fighter,” he explained. “So much more work is involved in trying to do that with a 3D game…It’s probably a ways off if it were to happen, and so probably not in my working lifetime. So that’s something that the next generation can decide.”

Interestingly, Harada also spoke about a crossover game that was long believed to have essentially disappeared – Tekken X Street Fighter. The game would have been Bandai Namco’s follow-up to Capcom’s own Street Fighter X Tekken from all the way back in 2012. While the title was confirmed to be in development at the time, work on it had seemingly been quietly dropped.

“It’s hard to say if that’s even a thing,” said Harada when asked about Tekken X Street Fighter. “I mean, it depends on what people are wanting as well. That said, I would like to show people what we already have. That would be cool if we could do that. We were 30 percent into development, so fingers crossed.”

It is worth noting that Tekken 7 did get something of a crossover with the Street Fighter franchise thanks to Akuma being one of the core parts of its roster. Since then, the Tekken franchise, and especially Tekken 8, have featured several crossover characters from across various other franchises, including Fatal Fury and Final Fantasy.

As for Tekken Tag Tournament, the last game in the series was released back in 2011 on the PS3, Xbox 360, and eventually the Wii U. In the meantime, check out our review of Tekken 8. Also check out the details of the next additions to the Tekken 8 roster, Armor King and Miary Zo.

Spotted by a user on Reddit, documents recently filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office reveals that PlatinumGames has acquired the trademark for The Wonderful 101 from Nintendo. The former did previously hold the rights for The Wonder 101 Remastered and the sidescrolling run and gun spinoff, The Wonderful 101: After School Hero, but this now means the Japanese developer has acquired the full trademark for The Wonderful 101 as a whole from Nintendo.

Whether that means PlatinumGames intends to do more with the IP remains to be seen, but at the very least, it does mean that The Wonderful 101’s future is now going to be decided by PlatinumGames, not Nintendo. Whether it will have a future is anyone’s guess at this point.

If taken together with the original Wii U release, Mario Kart 8’s lifetime sales sit at a whopping 70.43 million. Other noteworthy milestones include Animal Crossing: New Horizons at 45.36 million sales, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at 34.22 million and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at 31.85 million.

As for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it’s sold 20.61 million since launching on May 12th for the Switch, up from the previous quarter’s 20.28 million. Check out the top ten highest-selling titles on the Nintendo Switch as of March 31st, 2024, below.

Perhaps the biggest highlight here is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. As of December 31, it stands at 60.58 million units worldwide. That’s up from 57 million units as of the end of the preceding quarter, with Nintendo attributing its boosted sales in part to the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Combined with the sales of its original Wii U version (which has sold 8.46 million units), Mario Kart 8’s total lifetime sales now stand at 69.04 million units. 

Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold 44.79 million units (up by over 1.4 million units), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has hit 33.67 million (up by over 1.2 million), and Super Mario Odyssey has sold 27.65 million (up by roughly 500,000 units). You can check out the full top 10 below. 

Top 10 highest-selling first party Nintendo Switch titles (as of December 31, 2023):

This means that all online services, which includes functionality like friends lists and online multiplayer on the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U will stop working on April 8. Aside from the lack of online services, the platforms will still be usable, and games will remain playable.

It is worth noting that the ability to redownload purchased games and update data will still be available even after the online services have been shut down. Other features, however, like SpotPass, will cease functioning, since it makes use of online communication. The two online services that will still work on the Nintendo 3DS are Pokemon Bank and Poke Transporter.

The Nintendo 3DS will still be able to make use of its StreetPass functionality, since it doesn’t really rely on an Internet connection to work. Interestingly, games that support local multiplayer on the 3DS, like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, will still retain some semblance of multiplayer functionality. Online multiplayer for most titles, however, will be completely shut down.

Piscatella goes on to provide some context for the single Wii U sold this year, which is the first Wii U sold since all the way back in May 2022. Piscatella also shares a similar fact about another long-dead platform—the PS Vita—which was last sold all the way back in November 2021.

It is worth noting that the Wii U is well on its way out; production and distribution of the console has been stopped for quite some time now, and as of March this year, you can’t even buy digital copies of games through the eShop anymore.

Earlier this month, Nintendo also revealed that the online services for the Wii U, alongside the Nintendo 3DS, will be shut down in April 2024. This means that, after April, players will no longer be able to download any of their previously-purchased games, nor will they be able to play games online or take part in any other online activity.

1 new Wii U was sold in the US in September. First time a new Wii U sold since May 2022. Last time a new Vita unit sold was in November 2021, when 3 (!!) were purchased.

Is any of this at all meaningful? No. Sales fun facts that do not matter.

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) October 13, 2023

Phil Spencer’s remarks in this context actually stand in stark contrast to the kind of remarks we have heard in the past from, say, legendary Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, who insisted that even the worst performing of Nintendo consoles could see its trajectory change because of the launch of one successful game.

Mr. Iwata was, of course, an executive who cut his teeth on game development, and loved everything about the medium – he loved making games, he loved playing games, he loved watching others play, he enjoyed thinking of new ways to expand the medium, both on terms of its reach, as well as in terms of design and mechanics. His perspective was uniquely grounded in the context of his background. However, at the very least as far as the Wii U (the worst performing Nintendo console in question) went, his faith did not bear out. Nintendo released a stream of shockingly high quality games on the Wii U for over three years, but the console limped to a miserable 13.5 million units sold worldwide, before being unceremoniously killed and shooed off the stage on the eve of the launch of its successor, the Nintendo Switch – which outsold the Wii U’s entire lifetime sales total in one year.

The argument here could be that the view that major game releases can change the fate of a system is wrong, as evidenced by the Wii U – but that argument misses the end of the story, the part where the Switch did well. And it did well off the back of one game. Not even an exclusive game, mind you – just one incredible game that it had available for it right at launch. Launching the Switch with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild instantly conveyed and communicated the system’s appeal to millions across the board, and set it off on a trajectory of rapid sales success to the extent that today, the Switch is the third highest selling video game system of all time. It has sold more than the PS4, it has sold more than the Wii, it has sold more than the Xbox 360; the only things it hasn’t sold more than are the PS2 and the DS (and the system still has a couple of years left in the tank, so it should at least end its run fairly close to those two, even if it can’t quite unseat them).

The Switch, today, is six years old, and still continues to outsell other hardware on the market on a routine basis. The PS5 and the Xbox Series X are both newer consoles with significantly better and more sophisticated technology (they are, put plainly, very literally two whole generations ahead of the Switch in terms of pure hardware prowess). They are both consoles that are now past the initial shortages that plagued the early few years of their life cycles, in the wake of COVID-19, a global economic recession, a supply chain crash, and a war, all of which made it harder for them to be made and shipped than either Sony or Microsoft had ever wanted. They are readily available, and the PS5, at least, is in the midst of an incredible, record breaking run thanks to a slew of great game releases and savvy marketing.

In spite of this, in April, the NPD Group (er, Circana now, I suppose) reported the Switch outsold the PS5 and the Xbox Series X – and the Switch outsells the other two systems fairly frequently still, in spite of its age. It’s not because it’s much cheaper (the Switch OLED is only $50 cheaper than the cheapest PS4, and is actually $50 more expensive than the budget priced Xbox Series S). It’s not because of shortages anymore (as mentioned, shortages for all consoles effectively ended towards the end of 2022). It’s because of one thing, and one thing only – the Switch continues to get an inspired slew of great game releases that keeps interest in the system high. The system, which launched with outdated hardware, a not inexpensive asking price, and no functionality or features other than the ability to play games, stands as the ultimate manifestation of Satoru Iwata’s long held belief – what sells game systems, in the end, are games. The Switch keeps selling because it has amazing games, existing catalog and new releases alike. If you want to play Pokemon Legends Arceus, you’re not going to be able to play them on your PS5, no matter how much better the hardware on that console might be, the Switch is the only way to play those games. And so, the Switch sells.

The Wii U, of course, was not so lucky, but the Wii U suffered from multiple other factors – it was poorly marketed, poorly understood, its central hardware value proposition was unclear to everyone (including, seemingly, Nintendo), it got abandoned en masse by third parties just months after release, causing the cadence of new game releases to slow down to a trickle, and all of those factors came together to just make the entire value proposition of spending a few hundred dollars on a Wii U completely undesirable. At that point, it does not matter how many great games you have, if the only way to play them is to do so via a machine that people simply do not like using, they will forego playing the games, and the machine will continue to flounder. Nothing was going to save the Wii U.

I bring this up not just to draw the contrast with the Switch (where the hardware itself remains perennially appealing due to its simplicity and flexibility, which remains unmatched in spite of a slew of imitators rising in its wake, and where the marketing and branding has been on point; not to mention the historic best for Nintendo third party support the system has enjoyed as well), but also to point out that… none of this is true for Xbox Series X. The hardware is fundamentally appealing and well priced. Third party publishers are continuing to support the system with most or all of their major games (albeit some, like Square Enix, are a bit shakier with their support). The system itself has a ton of appeal and value proposition, with powerful hardware, great multimedia functionality, and innovations such as Game Pass. And while the branding is… okay, the branding sucks, but it also does not matter because the Xbox at this point is an entrenched brand, to the extent that it almost doesn’t matter what a new console is called, people just think of it as “the new Xbox”.

All of which is to say – the Series X does not have the deck stacked against it like the Wii U did. It very well could sell, and sell very well. But that requires a concerted effort to release an ongoing cadence of mass-market appealing hits, and that is where Microsoft has been failing (and where, seemingly, they seem to have given up on even the idea of competing). The Series X had a lot going in its favour – positive momentum from customer friendly moves made by Microsoft coming into the generation, having the more powerful console, Microsoft beefing up their first party initiative by acquiring the beloved publisher Bethesda, and Sony continually putting their foot in the mouth with their messaging in a lot of ways. All that was needed was for Microsoft to seal the deal with the games, and they… didn’t.

2021 was a great year for them admittedly, and the back-to-back punches of Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite injected the brand with some renewed momentum, which… then dissipated because Microsoft had the brilliant idea of following up on them with absolutely nothing for months. After Halo Infinite (we’ll come back to this in a minute) in December 2021 (we’ll come back to this in a minute too), their first major new release was Redfall in May 2023, and Redfall is a catastrophe (but I don’t feel like picking on that game any more, everything that could have been said about it has been said so let’s move on).

Let’s return to that “after 2021” point for a minute. After that, Microsoft released on Xbox Microsoft Flight Simulator six months later (which is a great, amazing game, but it was also a late port of a fairly niche title to begin with); Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo (belated ports of games by Bethesda studios that had been PS5 exclusive for one year, thanks to contracts in place from before Microsoft acquired Bethesda) – these, by the way, weren’t great, and Ghostwire is actively worst on Xbox of all the platforms it is available on (so much for the “most powerful system ever”); a late port of Age of Empires 2 (look, I love Age of Empires 2, it is one of my favorite games ever and also one of the best games ever made, but it is 25 years old, already widely available and played on PC, and in a genre that’s not even popular on consoles to begin with); and, of course, Pentiment and Hi Fi Rush, both great smaller scale passion projects that are undoubtedly worth playing with no caveats whatsoever – except that they aren’t the kinds of games that you can sell a console on the back off, they are the kinds of games that fill in the gaps between big blockbuster releases.

Blockbuster releases like Halo (I told you we’d get back to this). What happened with Halo Infinite? That game launched with little to none of the expected features and almost no content, and got rave acclaim at launch because it was mechanically so sound and well designed everyone was sure it would be fantastic when the content and features inevitably came. And then they just… didn’t. In what might be the most spectacular instance of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory long after you have already won, content kept getting delayed, features kept getting canceled, and more than a year out from launch (with promised functionality like the long awaited co-op mode scrapped), Microsoft gutted developer 343 Industries and confirmed that no single player content was really going to come.

So, in this all important period following the console’s launch, with some momentum finally going their way, Microsoft:

• Proceeded to not release any major new games for 17 months, with the game breaking that dry spell being an utter disaster;
• Proceeded to release a bunch of cool titles, which took the form of late ports of niche stuff, or late ports of not niche stuff that somehow played worse on their console than the competition’s;
• Proceeded to only release two new good games, both of which were small scale, digital only releases with no marketing, and no ability to push console sales like a tentpole would;
• Proceeded to somehow retroactively make the tentpole game they did have out worse.

Of course sales fell behind! They didn’t fall behind because people will buy PlayStation blindly no matter what – in this same period, Sony released Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Forbidden West, and God of War Ragnarok, they made sure to market their games, they made sure to market their console, they made sure to get branding and marketing deals for most major third party titles to ensure PS5 would remain top of mind for customers no matter what game they were thinking of.

So let’s come back to the original statement – Phil Spencer thinks it doesn’t matter what games are released, it won’t matter because people won’t sell their PS5s to buy an Xbox for Starfield, and that seems… awfully short sighted, and almost entirely missing the point? Your immediate goal shouldn’t be to sell Xbox at the expense of PS5 or Switch, it should be to also sell it. Right now the goal should be to get the Xbox selling, get it out there in the hands of as many millions as possible. Sure, for now, many (or even most) might continue to treat their PlayStations as their primary consoles, but that’s okay. Right now you want a foot in the door – once you have that, a steady stream of great releases (yes, it can’t just be a one and done, you need a steady stream of good releases to keep the momentum going, or we just end up with a repeat of what happened in late 2021 again) and some great ecosystem value adds like Game Pass can (and inevitably will) start siphoning players away from the competition to Xbox as their primary platform.

Do you know how I know that? Because this is almost exactly what Sony did in the PS3 era. When the Xbox 360 was clowning them, they didn’t throw their hands up and say, well, nothing can be done, they doubled down and started to put out banger after banger after banger, all exclusive to PS3. They started revamping their console ecosystem, with great innovative initiatives such as Cross-Buy and PS Plus offering free games for a subscription to keep people engaging with PS3 beyond just the exclusives. And slowly, slowly, but surely, they managed to unseat the Xbox brand as the de facto brand again. And they haven’t let go since.

So with all due respect to him, Phil Spencer is missing the point here. Yes, Starfield could be an 11/10 and that might not cause people to sell their PS5s and buy Xbox, but it will cause them to buy Xbox. And once they have an Xbox, you have your foot in the door. You have an appealing machine that these people own – if you can keep them engaged with great games and great ecosystem initiatives, you will make inroads. And you will gain the marketshare you want.

Sony understood this. Nintendo understands this (they just saw Switch sales spike again, more than six years after launch, thanks to the release of their newest masterpiece in Tears of the Kingdom). Microsoft, for some reason, refuses to entertain the idea for now, at least going by what Spencer said.

I hope that Starfield comes out is a great game that does well, which causes a spike in interest for the Xbox brand. Because if that happens, Microsoft might yet understand the value a single game can have in changing the course of a system’s life. I sincerely hope that, after 23 years in the console industry, Xbox finally understands the importance and primacy of one thing above all else when it comes to selling game consoles – games.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

As of right now, these consoles are the primary consoles PlayStation and Xbox sell; their supply issues, which were protracted and lasted for almost two years, in no small part due to the global supply chain and production disruptions in the havoc wreaked by COVID-19, are beginning to recede. They are, finally, almost thirty months after first being introduced, beginning to get some great, next-gen exclusive titles.

This means that as of right now, these machines are in the full swing of things. Or they should be, but Xbox is struggling, in part due to a lack of supply for the higher end Series X console (which seems to be what the market wants more of, rather than the cheaper, lower end Series S), and in part because Microsoft has thus far failed to make a convincing case to buy the Xbox Series consoles that has resonated with the broader market (this comes down to the lack of must have games, but that is an oft had discussion that this is not the place for).

But the PS5, the PS5 is now finally hitting its stride. As Sony’s flagship console at the moment, it is selling with all the momentum, volume, and pace that a successful PlayStation console in the prime of its life does. We are, finally, past all the caveats of generation transitions, launch shortages, and the COVID disruptions, and we can finally start to assess PS5 sales on their own merits, and ask the obvious question: is PS5 going to outsell PS4 in the long run?

Every company obviously wants every new system to do better than the last one, but that situation is inherently unrealistic – there are only a finite number of customers in the addressable market, and only finite resources. Just because your previous product sold a certain amount does not mean that the follow up will match or exceed it. And, in fact, the games industry is filled with such examples – Nintendo went from 154 million units of the DS sold to 75 million units for 3DS; Sony went from 156 million PS2s, to 80 million PS3s. And, on the flip side, we see reversals in the opposite direction, such as the Switch selling more than 120 million units (and counting), coming right after the Wii U, which sold under 14 million.

Put simply, each console’s sales are ultimately a product of the circumstances and broader market conditions that it finds itself in, and the performance of a predecessor, while certainly instructive, has limited use in informing discussions about how successors or subsequent follow ups might do. In other words, just because the PS4 sold 115 million, it does not necessarily mean the PS5 will do that as well.

There is a reasonable (though not overwhelmingly likely) chance that the PS5 ends up falling short of the PS4’s final tally. If this were to happen, it would come down to a fair few factors – the PS5’s higher entry point will serve as a barrier for the broader mainstream to adopt the console, once the enthusiast rush dies down (the broader mainstream market is what takes a console from being reasonably successful, like the Xbox One or Nintendo 64, to being a 100 million plus massive success, like the PS4 or Nintendo Switch, so it cannot be ignored in this discussion). Especially given the context of the broader global economy, and how it continues to circle the drain with more impending recessions, and runaway inflation, the PS5’s price could end up being more and more prohibitive as the mass market constitutes a larger and larger portion of the system’s sales.

Of course, Sony will by then reduce the price – but by how much? The PS4 never got a major permanent price drop (it went down from $399 to $299 and then stayed there), and in general, it appears the broader strategy across the market right now is to hold console prices to the extent possible, outside of some smaller, limited time promotions or offers. In fact, one could even argue the industry is likelier to increase prices rather than drop them right now – just in the last two years, we saw Nintendo increase the price of the Switch $50 via the OLED model, and we saw Sony go one step further and raise the price of the PS5 by $50 in all markets around the world except the U.S., without revising or updating the hardware.

Assuming, however, that at the very least a PS4-style cadence of price drops and discounts is possible, the PS5’s price should not be a significant deterrent in the long run. It will certainly be a factor for some proportion of its would-be buyers, but on the whole, it shouldn’t factor in as much.

What does factor in is that the PS5 is fighting in a far more crowded field than the PS4 ever did. The PS4’s competition was the Wii U, which is one of the worst selling consoles of all time, and the Xbox One, a console that fumbled its launch so badly, the brand is still trying to recover from the aftereffects to this day. Eventually the Switch launched, and the PS4 did have to content with it, but the Switch launched three and a half years after the PS4 did; it had a clear playing field for almost half its life.

The PS5, on the other hand, is facing… well, it’s still not facing any meaningful competition from the Xbox side of things, to be fair, but it is facing far more credible and meaningful competition from Nintendo and the Switch. Now in its seventh year, the Switch is putting forth an unprecedented run of sales, and continues to routinely divert customer spending towards it over the PS5 in most major markets even now. Without getting the chance to be the only console there is any meaningful customer spend towards in markets such as Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, or even the UK, the PS5’s sales pace is naturally impacted to at least some degree by the presence of the Switch. Assuming the Switch can maintain its momentum until whenever Nintendo decides to launch the successor, the PS5 may never get a totally clear playing field to itself, which by definition reduces the slice of the addressable market that it gets to sell to for itself.

And while some nonsensical classifications by the CMA in the UK may have ruled that Switch is not really competing with the other two, ultimately that’s not really true, especially not at the broader level of mainstream sales necessary to achieve the kinds of scales we are discussing here. Millions of people bought a cheap PS4 to play Minecraft and Fortnite and FIFA; right now, if they can, instead of a $550 PS5, get a $200 Switch and still get to play those games, plus other mass market friendly games such as Mario Kart or Animal Crossing or Pokemon, then they absolutely will pick that cheaper option with more games that appeal to their segment. Yes, the Switch versions look or run worse, but they obviously don’t care about that. If the performance or graphics were a consideration, the Switch would never have sold that much to begin with.

There is also the fact that there will certainly be some level of “spillage” of the customer base for PS consoles with the PS5; put simply, with Sony porting their games to PC with a frequent regularity now, and third party PS exclusives increasingly available on PC and Switch, there may be many who decide they simply don’t…need the PS5, and that what they do want from it can be addressed with a PC; the PC getting an increasingly console-like experience thanks to innovations such as the Steam Deck also means that PC gaming is no longer as intimidating or friction inducing as it once was. While the broader console market is never going to be swayed by PC gaming, no matter what Valve or anyone else does, a small but significant chunk might be – and that might be what keeps the PS5 from reaching PS4 numbers

All of this might make it sound like the PS5 is not going to match or exceed the PS4, but as I mentioned, it’s likelier that it does than not. At the very least, I think matching the PS4 is a given. Fundamentally, I think this will come down to one reason – while the factors I mentioned previously all hold true, I think collectively, they won’t actually impact the PS5’s final tally that much. I can see it shedding some 10-15% of its audience from the PS4, which would still bring the console in the 100-105 million units sold range; and that difference, I think, can be easily covered up for by the fact that I think this is going to be a longer generation than the previous ones.

While the past two PlayStation generations have both been seven years long each (eight and seven years for Xbox), I think this generation is going to go on a bit longer. The aforementioned geopolitical and global circumstances, such as the economy, the supply chain and shortages, the pandemic, all of that, I think, means that Sony, Microsoft, AMD, and Epic will all want to keep this generation going a bit longer than usual so they can recoup their investments and R&D costs better. This is not at all unprecedented – we already saw this happen in the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, which went on eight full years before their respective successors were introduced (as opposed to the 4-5 year window for new console generations that had been the norm until then), because of the 2008 recession severely impacting and disrupting market dynamics globally. Sony very literally just needs to keep the PS5 going for 1-2 years more than the PS4; meaning, not introduce the PS6 until 2028 at the earliest, and maybe even 2029; and that 10-15 million projected shortfall compared to the PS4 is easily accounted for right there; in fact, that is probably enough for the PS5 to mount a small lead over the PS4 of its own.

All of which is to say, while the PS5 faces a far more challenging environment than the PS4 ever did, I think its broader success is assured, and that it will manage to at the very least match the PS4’s final numbers, if not exceed them, regardless. This comes down to a longer generation for it, yes, but also because of the sheer brute force of its success, and the success of the PS brand as a whole, where even with so many difficulties, the PS5’s sales pace has not been blunted nearly enough to have any real impact. While it is unlikely the PS5 will match the PS2, DS, or Switch, we can, at the very least, expect it to end in the same tier of sales as PS4 and the Game Boy – and that’s a very great success for it regardless.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

"The alarming thing about Metroid Prime is that it simply refuses to age."

Metroid Prime was a total, thorough, comprehensive, unmitigated truimph in pretty much every possible way. It looked so stunning, so gorgeous, that it was among the best looking games ever (and it the tech and art underlying it all was so far ahead of its time that even today, the original Metroid Prime holds up. No longer the best looking game ever, but a good looking game regardless). The sound design was incredible, and thoroughly grounded you on the lost, alien, lonely planet you found yourself isolated on. The world design was a true 3D translation of the dizzying labyrinths of Super Metroid, but now in full 3D, seen through Samus Aran’s visor.

The storytelling went above and beyond most other games in the medium, presaging the rise of passive, interactive, and environmental storytelling techniques that future games such as Shadow of the Colossus, Prey, the Dark Souls games, as well as Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, would take cues from. And the overall structure, design, and gameplay of the title was legendary, and ended up influencing countless games to come in the years and decades since. I brought up From Soft and Dark Souls earlier – playing Metroid Prime Remastered shows us just how much of its DNA was present pretty much wholesale in that, and so many other games.

The alarming thing about Metroid Prime is that it simply refuses to age. In terms of gameplay, world design, music, storytelling, and even the graphics as already mentioned, it still holds up on par with, or beyond, most other modern games. You can turn it on right now for the first time and within a few minutes, you may completely forget that you are playing a 21 year old game. In other words, Nintendo and Retro Studios could have quite simply taken the original Metroid Prime as is, maybe upscaled the resolution, made it widescreen, and make it run in 60fps, and it would still hold up. But they chose to go above and beyond, to deliver a truly definitive version of one of the most definitive games ever.

"Metroid Prime Remastered almost feels like a misnomer. The game’s visual facelift is so massive, so immense, that pretty much every single visual asset you can see or interact with in any capacity has been redone from the ground up."

Metroid Prime Remastered almost feels like a misnomer. The game’s visual facelift is so massive, so immense, that pretty much every single visual asset you can see or interact with in any capacity has been redone from the ground up. Environmental geometry, lighting, particle effects, alpha and transparencies, textures, resolution, frame rate, meshes, everything is rebuilt to make Metroid Prime Remastered look like you remember the original game looking, but brought up to modern standards. So overzealous is the update, in fact, that in the process, Metroid Prime Remastered ends up becoming one of the best looking games on the Switch, while being an update to a 21 year old GameCube game. It is a very thorough, very comprehensive, very extensive visual remake. We’ll come back to this in a second.

The remarkable thing about it all is that while the visuals are updated to an absurd degree – this game is closer to Bluepoint’s Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls, or the just released (and excellent) Dead Space remake in terms of the visual facelift it got – all of that happened without the original art style or atmosphere or aesthetic being compromised at all.

Usually, at least some of the original aesthetic ends up being diluted or compromised once more detail is added to an image (in part because very often, the original aesthetic exists the way it does because of the technical limitations of its time). In this case, somehow, that did not happen. It just serves to reinforce just how incredibly ahead of its time and future proof the core art style of Metroid Prime really was all that time ago to begin with. 

I’ve called the game a visual remake a few times already, and I want to explain that terminology, at least the way I see it, a little. In terms of the graphics and visuals, this game goes far beyond a simple remaster. Every asset is either touched up and updated beyond recognition, or outright redone from the ground up. But the actual core game here is identical to what you played in 2002. With one critical exception which we’ll get to in a second, this is very literally the exact same game that it was all that time ago.

The maps, level design, enemy design, AI, even the HUD and UI, nothing has changed at all. You would think that this would be hearing, particularly given the game’s age, and the efforts made to bring it up to modern standards in the presentation related areas, but it isn’t. As I mentioned, Metroid Prime was so far ahead of its time, and so bonkers in terms of being great at what it set out to do, that it manages to not only hold up as a modern game today, but ends up being better than most other modern games in the process too. 

"The one area where the game makes changes – a lot of them – is the controls."

The one area where the game makes changes – a lot of them – is the controls. Well, changes might be the wrong term to use, because what it does is add things. Options, really. The game allows you to not only play with the original GameCube controls (in case you never played the original release, the GameCube release was not dual analog, and instead had a very unique and specific control scheme that people love to this day – so it’s good that they brought it back), but also the excellent Wii controls (the pointer based aiming from the Wii release has to be emulated using gyro on the Switch.

It’s more accurate, but also more sensitive to drift, and requires you to reset the cursor fairly frequently), and a fully fledged, modern dual analog control scheme. The game includes gyro assist for aiming, it includes a toggle for the lock on, allowing you to have a full lock-on, a “soft” lock-on that air you in the right direction, but lets you make specific adjustments, and no lock on at all. You can customize individual axes for the camera, sensitivity, and you can even mix and match these options on the fly. What’s most impressive is that each of them feels well balanced, and the game somehow lets you switch between these completely different control styles (that all lead to very distinct and unique flows and gameplay loops from one another) on the fly.

Other than the control options, Metroid Prime Remasted also includes some new accessibility options (there is a color blindness assist filter that I am reasonably sure is new, and that I was happy to see, given how much the world gating and UI and HUD in Prime rely on colors to convey information), all the extra content that the game ever got (including everything in the original concept art gallery, from models, artwork, and music, to other unlockables), and even the narration that was added in the European and Japanese versions of the game. 

"In literally every way possible, this is the best, most definitive, most comprehensive release of Metroid Prime."

Really, in literally every way possible, this is the best, most definitive, most comprehensive release of Metroid Prime. It includes all the content from all the different versions. It includes all the control schemes from all the different versions (including some of its own). It includes this game looking the best it ever has, veering on being a full on remake, without diluting or compromising on the look and atmosphere of the original.

And at its core it is the same game from 20 years ago untouched, except that 20 year old game is so ridiculously ahead of pretty much everything else on almost every single front that matters (and certainly every single area that it puts up a fight in), that even with the core being untouched, 20 years later, this game ends up being better than most other games released today regardless. Like, literally, on every possible level, big and small, this represents the best possible version of one of the best possible games you can buy today, in any genre, on any platform. 

And all of this for only $40 is absurd. It’s a steal. Metroid Prime Remastered, just by existing in the form it does, becomes one of the best looking, playing, and just best in general, games of this year, of the Switch, and of the generation in general. You must try it, whether it will be your first time (win which case you are in for a treat) or your umpteenth replay.

And you can join me, and the other long suffering Metroid fans, in hoping that Prime 4, whenever it does end up coming out, actually lives up to the absurdly, unreasonably high bar set by this 21 year old game.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.