Backlog: The Embiggening – July, 2025
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/28/25 at 08:24 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! We are, once again, right smack in the middle of the Summer Games Drought, with only the miserable offerings of various non-E3 digital game showcases to keep us looking toward the future. It’s no wonder publishers are so hung-up on porting and remastering old games, when there’s next to nothing truly new to look forward to.
Of course, the Summer Games Drought doesn’t prevent shovelware from raining down upon us. We’ve got Licensed Swill coming based on the ancient ‘The Phantom’ superhero, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in “Tales of the Shire,” an OLD anime in “Hunter x Hunter x Nen x Impact,” and a newer anime in “Edens Zero.” In Swill that is 2 Cazual 2 Exist, Nintendo is christening the Switch 2 launch window with a ‘Mario Party’ game. Lastly, in Annualized Swill, EA is pooping out a ‘College Football’ game for 2026.
In new multi-platform releases, there are… a few titles, but nothing to get …
The Ghost of Consoles Future
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/21/25 at 09:37 PM CT
I saw a random video essay the other day that went into detail about how the PlayStation 5 feels like a console that doesn’t really exist, even though it was released 5 years ago. Yeah, FIVE years in, which, in the days of Moore’s Law and the rapid progress of microchip potency, would have been an entire hardware generation. Consoles like the NES, Sega Genesis, and even Sony’s first PlayStation had lifespans of about 5-6 years – maybe a tad longer – before their eminently-more-powerful successors would arrive on the scene. The video essay in question, produced by small-time YouTuber, Save Slot, suggests that, as the PlayStation 5 reaches the end of what would have been one of its predecessor’s lifespans… it really has nothing to show for itself.
I can’t help but agree, and foresee a similar problem in the Nintendo Switch 2’s future. Both the PlayStation 5 and the Switch 2 are platforms that, at launch, are basically glorified port machines, allowing Sony, and …
Without E3, Summer Game Hype Feels Dead
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/15/25 at 03:04 PM CT
It always used to be that around this time of year, E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Exposition – would dump an incredible amount of info about upcoming releases into the Games Journalism pipeline, drowning the public in cinematic trailers and giving special access to playable demos to trusted members of the press. Sadly, we don’t have much of any of that anymore – as neither E3 nor trusted members of the press exist in 2025.
This is the second year of E3’s official death, after two additional years of “temporary” cancellations and postponements, with promises of returning, “better than ever.” Originally created by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) as a trade show, E3 quickly became the pivot point upon which print journalism magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly balanced an entire year’s worth of coverage. When E3 was at its best, we saw the big platform holders competing for Gamers’ attention in a fierce marketplace of ideas, where dumb …
There’s a New Nintendo Console, and I Couldn’t Care Less
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/08/25 at 03:44 PM CT
Nintendo just released the Switch 2. It’s such a mainstream commercial product release that the legacy media networks all deemed it worthy of mentioning during their evening World News broadcasts. Yet, as someone who cares about gaming more than most other topics, I just can’t get excited about this thing.
We all know the “Cons” list going against the Switch2: It’s $450 without a game. New first-party games are $80. Most physical third-party games are digital downloads tied to special key-cards. Nintendo opted out of adding Hall Effect joysticks to prevent a repeat of the infamous Joycon drift issue.
None of those would really be deal-breakers for me individually, or even when piled together. The thing that’s preventing me from exuding even a fragment of interest in the Switch 2 is the complete and utter lack of compelling game releases. It’s been proven as objectively as possible over the last decade-plus of Gaming Economics that buying multi-platform titles …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2025
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/01/25 at 01:46 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
I finished the second of my 3 Backlog Ablution picks… and was sorely disappointed by it. Other than that, Chris and I got through two pretty good couch-coop ‘Vania-style games, and I splurged on a new Switch game that was good, but could have been better.
“Gal Guardians: Demon purge” – 3.5/5
“Pentiment” – 2.5/5
“The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom” – 4/5
“Pampas & Selene: The Maze of Demons” – 4/5
Chris’ Review:
Chris is STILL playing “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” feverishly, and insists that he’s “almost done.” On my advice, he’s waiting to set up his new gaming PC until he actually IS done, so Uplay’s cloud save feature doesn’t accidentally send him back to square one. Even more disappointing, in spite of completing 2 couch coop games with me this Spring, he only submitted a …
Backlog: The Embiggening – June, 2025
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/25/25 at 03:52 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! May was surprisingly Spring-like as it brought the first season of the year to a close. With Spring in the rear-view mirror, it’s time for us to watch the Games Industry go into its annual state of spastic catatonia known as the Summer Games Drought. With our mild Spring, is there any hope for a mild Summer as well? Or are we doomed to be confronted with our existing backlogs instead of coveting something novel that might get us fired up?
Sadly, the scourge of Shovelware will never go away, no matter how hard we ignore it. In June, we’ve got two bits of Licensed Swill coming: A “Smurftastic Collection” based on the 1980s’ favorite tiny, blue, Communists; as well as an anime game based on one of the OLDEST mech shows, “MACROSS: Shooting Insight.” (Does anyone even remember or care about EITHER of those IPs? Enough to fund new game development?!) In Cazual Swill, there’s the “100-in-1 Game Collection” hitting the …
Nintendo’s New Draconian EULA Gives THEM Perpetual Ownership of ALL Switch 2 Handhelds
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/18/25 at 01:08 PM CT
Oh, dear. We’ve gotten used to the status quo of Nintendo living in the past and constantly waging a losing war against Games Preservation of ROMs of games from their ancient and obsolete consoles. Meanwhile, Sony has been on the cutting edge of terrible DRM that can prevent even physical games from working without a persistent Internet connection.
This past week, Nintendo took a page from Sony’s playbook (instead of the usual situation where it’s Sony cribbing off Nintendo’s notes) when they updated the Legalese soup of their blanket End User License Agreement with wording that includes the ability to permanently render Nintendo devices unusable in the event that a user does something that provokes the corporation’s ire.
Sadly, Nintendo is well within their rights to do this kind of thing, after the Japanese government revised their policy on modding electronic devices. This is the type of corporate misconduct that spurred me to leave my original Switch permanently …
You Want Console Price Drops? Have Some Price Hikes Instead!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/11/25 at 04:35 PM CT
Oh dear, it looks like Trump’s idiotic tariffs (import taxes that he still doesn’t understand how they work) and trade war are already hitting gamers in the wallet. Hot on the heels of Sony’s overpriced PS5 Pro announcement and Nintendo announcing an egregious new price point for the Switch 2 and $80 first-party Switch 2 games, this past week, Microsoft rolled out price hikes on… OLD hardware that already exists!
It seems that the Xbox Division doesn’t want to maintain its status as Loss Leader, and with new tariffs on all of their made-in-China junk, they’re jacking up prices across the board, as IGN has helpfully laid-out in list format. We’re seeing jumps of anywhere from $10-20 on controllers and $80-100 on Xboxen themselves as the 9th Generation grinds to a close, whereas we used to see consoles and peripherals DROP by that much in the same general time frame, often accompanied by re-releases of “Greatest Hits” reprints of high-selling physical …
Bye-Bye Polygon: The Latest Victim of the “New” Media Collapse
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/04/25 at 05:26 PM CT
News broke this past week that the second-worst site for gaming news, reviews, and information, Polygon, had been sold by parent company Vox Media, and faces a 20% staff layoff and potential shuttering in the near future. The new owner is Valnet, an Arab-owned Canadian media conglomerate known widely for its low-quality content and contentious click-bait headlines… so Polygon should fit right in!
As the Big Tech monopolies continue to consolidate their power with the help of AI driven tools, it seems that traditional media, new media, and even social media no longer have a relevant place in the journalism landscape. Where Google used to give small sites the ability to support themselves and even grow into big sites through its reasonable – or even generous – advertising rates, that has changed over the years to the point where the only way for news sites – of any kind, not just gaming-related or nerd-related – to keep the lights on is to charge a subscription or get …
Backlog: The Embiggening – May, 2025
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/27/25 at 05:14 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! We got quite a few April Showers (and hailstorms, and tornadoes…), but will they bring May Flowers? They always do… but that doesn’t mean the Games Industry will benefit any! Let’s see what the Corporate Suits at the big publishing houses and platform holders have deigned to spurt forth as the last hurrah before the inevitable Summer Game Drought.
Well, the good news is, there’s no Licensed Swill slated for May. There’s only a little bit of Casual Swill that could have gone under “PlayStation Exclusives,” but I don’t want to be that mean: Two “Hidden Object” games with “Hidden Object” in the title. Wow. In Annualized Swill, we’ve got a new entry in the ‘F1’ series. Finally, in Notable Ports, the ‘Super Mario RPG’-inspired “Born of Bread” will be leaving PC exclusivity behind to live on PlayStation and Nintendo (LOL, Xbox).
In multi-platform releases we’ve got half-a-dozen titles to look …
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