This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Xbox Is Not Dead, Y’All Lied To Me!
• TSF Showcase 2024-07 Bocchi de Shinda Ore ga Bishoujo Nurse ni Natta Hanashi [The Story of How I Died Alone and Became a Sexy Nurse] by Oden Ohgan (TuriSasu)
• ***SCRAPPED*** Nintendo Direct 2024 – 1 of 3 (Don’t Be Glad The Switch Happened, Be Glad It’s Over)
• Nintendo Switch Successor Delayed to Q1 2025 (Bad News Broke Friday Afternoon)
• Gacha RPG vs. JRPG (A Tangent For Cassie)

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Xbox Is Not Dead, Y’All Lied To Me!

…Well, that was underwhelming. They say that where there’s smoke, there’s fire, but Microsoft is such a big company that it is entirely possible that misinformation can spread within their ranks, or discussions can be seen as confirmations of fact. Which are then fed to insiders, who tell all the children of the world about the grand revolution.

This past week, Microsoft released a 23 minute business update, which they called a ‘podcast’ despite being a video, and addressed many of the concerns people have been throwing around. Not all of the concerns, and not in the most direct manner. Everything they said clearly went through a PR filter, and they only said the things that they wanted people to hear.

The big takeaway is that Microsoft is not planning on upheaving everything they build up over the past 20+ years. They are not going third party and are committed to Xbox as a brand. They are not giving up on hardware, have something to share “this holiday,” and are working on a next generation roadmap. They still value having exclusives, at least to some degree, as seen by them saying that neither Starfield nor Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will come to other platforms… in the near future. Though they left the door open for them being ported, eventually. And they will continue to pour all their eggs into The Xbox exclusive Xbox Game Pass, including more Activision Blizzard titles into it, starting with Diablo IV on March 28. …I actually thought they already added all of ABK’s catalog to Game Pass, but staggered launches like this are a common tactic to get new subscribers.

However, they did concede and state that they are planning on bringing over four games to platforms other than PC and Xbox. They did not say what games, just that there would be two bigger titles and two smaller ones. Which people have guessed refers to Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, and Pentiment. All titles that would work perfectly well on more platforms. The first two are big online platforms that need more blood to keep going for a few more years. While the other two are niche $20/$30 productions that wouldn’t drive subscription sales and would make more money if ported to other platforms.

…However, they did not discuss the physical games matter, and when confronted with the subject of preservation, Phil Spencer only mentioned the concept digitally. Though he did comment on how he wants to “respect the investments that people have made in Xbox.” Which could just mean going all digital while having a disc drive for legacy content, or mean respect only for digital buyers… for as long as it makes sense to respect them.

Overall, this was disappointing after how much I let people hype it up for me. This was a veritable nothingburger of a presentation. Though, the worst part is that if there was a Nintendo Direct planned for today, this presentation probably delayed it into next week.

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TSF Showcase 2024-07
Bocchi de Shinda Ore ga Bishoujo Nurse ni Natta Hanashi [The Story of How I Died Alone and Became a Sexy Nurse] by Oden Ohgan (TuriSasu)

Okay, I need to take a break from these longer multi-chapter affairs and cover something smaller, more recent, and more… bloody weird, if only due to how it manages its transformation.

The Story of How I Died Alone and Became a Sexy Nurse begins with the death of 32-year-old Midori Makunouichi. A pervert who has just been trying to get by in life until it was cut short by some unexplained happenstance. However, as he recalls his life flashing before his eyes, he wakes up to find himself in the body of his nurse, Yumena Ishikawa. Midori’s naturally shocked by this and, seemingly realizing he is in a hentai comic, he bum-rushes his way from the mirror scene to fondling to rushing into the men’s room to explore his new body.

I’ve read way too many TSF comics to not roll my eyes at… everything that happened here, and I was half ready to write off the comic here. …But then TSoHIFAaBaSN has its protagonist go full nymphomaniac seven pages into the comic, becoming overwhelmed by ‘a woman’s desire’ and ‘female instincts’ and gives the eyeless man before him a bathroom blowjob. It’s brazen, shameless, nonsensical, and gives Midori access to Yumena’s memories for reasons that make… some sense.

This is a semi-common element of body swap, possession, or miscellaneous takeover story. Where the act of sex or performing actions as a person grants the ‘operator’ of the body access to its memories. It works as a narrative tool for impersonation, makes sense as the memories would be stored within the synapses of the brain the ‘operator’ is using, and has some reason to be tied to sex. Sex is something intimate and unique to each body, and there’s a reason why terms like ‘post-nut clarity’— or kenjataimu if you wanna be spicy— exist.

Anyway, despite getting Yumena’s memories, Midori returns to his apartment, where he panics, has a crisis that kicks his libido into high gear, and is interrupted by Dr. Ryo Nagura. An elderly doctor who developed one of the most wack possession methods I have ever heard of. A drug/medicine that is to be injected into a deceased person and later a different drug is injected into a living person in order for the deceased person to possess the living person. It is not like the person’s soul is being extracted and turned into soul juice. Instead, I think that both targets are just injected with the same specific drug to bind or link their souls, allowing the deceased one to become dominant. Kind of like a pair of matching artifacts that facilitate a soul transfer, but in the form of a chemical slurry that takes the memories and persona of dead people.

I don’t know if that’s just sloppy writing, or a creator being on some next level concept, and I don’t think either answer would satisfy me.

Anyway, Dr. Nagura explains that he roped Midori into this because he wants to steal the body of the young son of the hospital director, Shuu Kataoka. Dr. Nagura needs Midori to inject him with his magical science soul drug after he is dead, and then inject Kataoka with a drug, stored in a different bottle, so he can possess him. In exchange for doing this, Dr. Naura promises to put Midori back in his body. …Which makes no sense, as Midori’s body is supposed to be dead. …I think.

I skimmed over it, but the comic is not clear with how its timeline of events play out. Things begin with an introduction to Yumena and her little sister, Rina, who is also a nurse, and then Dr. Nagura pronounces that Midori is dead before he dismisses the other staff from the room. Then Dr. Nagura injects Midori with a drug with his name on it, with him listed as the subject, asking him if he prefers older or younger sisters. This is a bit strange, as Midori is supposed to be dead, and then we see a fade to black transition followed by a flashback collage on Midori’s life. Only then does Mirodi wake up in Yumena’s body. …Except he later refers to meeting Rina at the hospital as if he was possessing Yumena. So, what happened? How did Dr. Nagura inject Yumena’s body? Because it looks like Yumena was injected while in the hallway, only for Dr. Nagura to just… vanish? I’d like to think I can follow a gosh darn comic, but the more I look, the less sense this makes!

Anyway, the rest of the comic is pretty easy to summarize, so I’ll just get through it. With Yumena’s memories mostly in his head, Midori returns to his temporary home and fantasizes about raping Rina because she has the audacity to flaunt her boobs and butt. The following day, Midori comments on how he’s treated better as a woman than a man, which might have some weight if we saw more of his past life than a single panel and lewd apartment. All before Midori is called into Dr. Kataoka’s office after getting snitched on for the bathroom blowjob the other day. And not by a camera or anything. The guy told his mom that he was bathroom raped by a sexy nurse. Dr. Kataoka uses this as an opportunity to get his dick wet with the loose woman under his command, and Midori gets traded around until he becomes… the proud hospital nympho. For the record, this sex festival— sextival if you will— lasts for 14 pages, or a third of the comic.

Then Dr. Nagura dies and Midori goes on to execute his end of the bargain. Not because Midori wants to go back to his old life. He loves being the proud hospital nympho, loves “being treated like an onahole,” and loves all the attention and love brought his way as he takes three dicks at once. He intends on staying as Yumena for life! …But he does owe Dr. Nagura a solid, so he takes the drug and stabs Dr. Kataoka. Except Midori, like a dumbass, uses the wrong drug, one that was labeled with Yumene’s name and was “meant to be injected into Yumena.” I assumed that this meant it would transfer Yumena’s consciousness into Dr. Katoka’s body. Instead, it transfers a copy of Midori’s consciousness, upon death, into Dr. Kataoka’s body… wait, what?

So this drug can not only transfer the soul and memories of dead people into the living, but it can be used on multiple people? And if it was Midori’s consciousness, then why was the bottle labeled with Yumena’s name, and not the one with Midori’s name? It’s not a transfer or copy of Midori’s current consciousness, so… can a consciousness be transferred infinitely? How does this work?! I feel like I’m trying to solve a Japanese adventure game mystery with only half the clues! 

…Oh, and the story ends with proud hospital nympho Midori going home and injecting Rina with the same drug he injected Dr. Kataoka with. Thus causing Rina to become Midori’s proud hospital nympho little sister, who he can… fuck while fucking men. Like… I sorta get that, but why is that the ultimate goal? Whatever happened to the Midori in Dr. Kataoka? I don’t know, and nobody seems to care!

What I keep going back to in this comic is the fact that I cannot determine if its complications and likely plot holes are somehow intentional, or just an accident. Clearly the creator had some reason to create such a roundabout medical possession premise, and while I could accuse the unofficial translator, TIFTL, for misinterpreting things… I don’t think that’s the case. 

I struggle to believe that this narrative complexity is anything but intentional as the production values for this story are… pretty high. This is not some growing amateur of an artist still getting to grips with storytelling. They are seasoned in their craft and the comic looks both clean and professional. Sure, it struggles to really distinguish the two sisters and men in this world suffer from Youngblood’s Disease don’t have eyes, but the comic does not take any visual shortcuts or look like the artist was cutting any corners.

I thought that this was just going to be some blasé nurse fetish comic— which, as someone who worked for a urologist group for four years, I do not like, and for all the obvious reasons. (Nurses don’t dress like that, hospitals are full of sick and old people, hospitals are less sexy than circuit courts, hospitals have strict ethics guidelines, etc.) Instead, it has managed to burrow into my head for weeks now. It could have taken the easy route and been a fine, if sex-heavy, TSF possession comic, only for it to drift off the road. And even now, after airing my grievances and spreading this brain curse… I don’t really know what to think of it.

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***SCRAPPED*** Nintendo Direct 2024 – 1 of 3
(Don’t Be Glad The Switch Happened, Be Glad It’s Over)

…Just to clarify, I’m joking with that parenthetical subtitle. Nintendo has had a great run with the Switch, one of their best, and the system has been, for most intents and purposes, really bloody good. However, I have had to sit through so much shit from people who don’t understand how to accept that something is good, that it is going well, and just… enjoy that. I’m inclined to believe that this is due to some defense mechanism they learned, some latent trauma and dissatisfaction with being invested in Nintendo during the Wii and DS era and then sinking to the bottom of yo momma’s wet ass with the largely retconned Wii U and 3DS era. 

Akumako: “…How do you retcon real life events?”

Uh, they just act like history worked differently. If you do that and get enough people in on it, then history can effectively change. The 20th century was full of that and it’s a cornerstone of fascism.

Point is, Nintendo fans have been doing a terrible job of enjoying the Switch in its prime, and have been positively eager to wish this thing a goodbye and embrace A New Kind of Sexy since… 2018. I’ve complained about how fickle they are before, and it is a mixture of algorithmic paranoia, clout chasing, and a desire to focus on something that affects a large population, over something game specific. At this point, I just want the Switch 2 to be announces so people can finally shut the fuck up about it… before talking about the Switch 2 Pro in a year, like a bunch of—

Akumako: “Who do you hate more? Nintendo the publisher and domineering company, or Nintendo fans?”

…That’s a really good question.

Ahem. The point is that this will be the last Nintendo Direct for the Nintendo Switch. Probably. So let’s cut the foreskin and wrap our lips on this fat hog!

Akumako: “…Do you think most Nintendo fans are uncircumcised? Maybe that’s what’s wrong with them. They don’t got a real man’s dick.”

…Hold up a minute. Akumako, we’re gonna have to cancel this segment. There was no Nintendo Direct this week, and apparently the Switch isn’t dying yet.

Akumako: “Wait, what?”

Lemme start a new segment…

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Nintendo Switch Successor Delayed to Q1 2025
(Bad News Broke Friday Afternoon)

I swear, the worst part of following this industry is getting roped along in the rumor mill. People have been reporting this as the year the Nintendo Switch will end for… over a year. There has been word about a successor launching early 2024, then mid-2024, and then late 2024. And now there’s another wave of rumors saying that the Switch successor will launch in Q1 2025. With multiple sources saying that this was a recent delay that Nintendo just announced to their partners.

This would make sense, as a delayed launch gives developers more time to develop games. Holiday launches could lead to shortages, even if they were going to manufacture 10 million units for launch. And Nintendo might be sufficiently satisfied with Switch sales from Q4 2023 that they don’t think it would hurt their bottom line that much if the system is on shelves for another year.

…But this also means that Nintendo could wait until, say, October 2024, to announce the bloody thing. Like they did with the Switch. And you know what I don’t want to deal with? That. 2016 was one of the worst times to be into Nintendo games, as there was nothing to get excited about, except for Pokémon Sun and Moon, which were completely spoiled before their release. I do not want to dredge through that discourse again and… it looks like I’ll have to.

Akumako: “Get used to it, fucker!”

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Gacha RPG vs. JRPG
(A Tangent For Cassie)

…Well shit. I planned on a Nintendo Direct stuffing things out, and the Xbox kerfuffling being a big thing, instead of ain’t being no thang.

So… here’s a tangent based on something Cassie brought up with me while I was playing Palworld with her. We were discussing JRPG tropes (the term is too ingrained to be removed, has a purpose, and refers to Japanese-style RPGs) and in trying to find a common ground for discussion, Cassie asked an interesting question. Why would a game developer make a packaged JRPG rather than a live service gacha RPG? After all, a live service JRPG would be more attractive to investors and make more money, right?

It makes some sense, especially for someone as ingrained in online games as Cassie is, and it is a conclusion made by many investors and executives. However, the thing about live services is that they are a highly competitive market and rather than relying on a product with a development deadline, development doesn’t really stop until service ends. This means that the game needs to bring in enough revenue to pay for the initial stages of development along with covering the offering costs of the game as the service is active. All of which is all highly variable depending on the game in question, what scale the developers are operating on, and how costly new content is.

If one only looks at widely successful games, they may get the impression that these costs are insignificant next to the high revenues. However the live service sector of the industry is dominated by the services that… survived. A frightening number of games are only around for a year or two before they are shut down, with many never receiving a true global launch. This is because the live service industry is fiercely competitive, as it is designed around not only encouraging players to pay for resources, but to consume their time. The games are often grindy by design and make progression artificially slow to increase engagement time and boost the size of the active community of players. It is why dailies, weeklies, seasons, and battle passes are so common. Because they want players to dedicate both time and money to their projects, thus creating a thriving playerbase to draw in more players.

This creates a finite ceiling on how many live services can succeed in the market at any given time, as there are only so many people with the desire or ability to become invested in a live service. Admittedly, this pool of players might encompass hundreds of millions of players, but that is still a finite figure and unless a game can find or create a niche, it won’t be unable to succeed. …And gacha RPGs are just a sizable slice of the live service pie.

Now, compare this to the packaged JRPG. A stable of the game industry for… almost 40 years. A genre that has been thriving within Japan for pretty much its entire existence, and has maintained a good level of popularity in the west, despite some vocal critics over the decades. In regards to sales, it is easy to view the success of gacha RPGs and view them as being far more profitable than a packaged JRPG. Why do I say that? Well, while it is common to hear about big gacha RPGs bringing in tens or hundreds of millions in revenue, JRPGs tend to view success in more modest terms. A lot of lower scale modern JRPGs are considered successes while selling less than a million units. With games like the recent Shiren the Wanderer revival being a landmark success for selling… 200,000 units. And when it comes to bigger titles from more lavish series, it seems like the games only need to sell a million units to be seen as a success. At least that seems to be the case with GranBlue Fantasy Relink, Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth, or Persona 3 Reload. All of which were released this past month, sold a million units within a matter of days, and were interpreted as successes.

While profitability might be more obtainable, there is a cap on the potential sales of most titles belonging to the genre. With even tent pole titles like Dragon Quest XI only surpassing 6 million units after an enhanced re-release and 4 years on the market. And culturally relevant behemoths like Final Fantasy VII Remake only selling 7 million units after 2.5 years and re-releases on both PS5 and PC.

 However, these figures all indicate there is a very real and active market for JRPGs. A market that does not demand the same levels of a player’s time as a gacha RPG— there are no dailies and there is a definitive ending in most of the genre. A market where monetary gains are measured by units sold up front— and by marked up collector’s editions— be sold perpetually and ported to new platforms. A market where mid-sized developers, ranging from Falcom to FuRyu to Idea Factory to Nippon Ichi Software can all find success. A market where development has an established timeline, and there are little to no costs related to online infrastructure or development. Most packaged JRPGs are single-player or merely feature some form of co-operative multiplayer. Neither of which require a server, or the routine release of new content.

…Okay, so what am I trying to say here as I pump out these words at the cusp of midnight? Well, I’m saying that while it is impossible to make a packaged JRPG that generates as much revenue as a live service like Genshin Impact or Fate Grand Order, the costs and risks are often lower. Gacha RPGs exist in a highly competitive environment where games can become smash hits or fail miserably. While packaged titles are in a less competitive environment, where it is easier to make a modest profit, or at least not lose as much money.

Now, I will admit that this is a simplification and generalization of a highly complex industry, and actual developers probably know the math on this balance way better than I do. Though… there is at least some truth to my words here. Sure, you can cut a lot of corners on a gacha RPG, but you gotta put things out every month or so, and don’t need to when you can just ship a game.

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Progress Report 2024-02-18

…Okay, what?

Sorry, I just saw this in my Pixiv feed this past week (of course I follow Kuratsuka Riko) and it has ingrained itself into my mind. What is going on here? A balding man has a pet turtle, and then the turtle becomes a young attractive man and the balding man becomes a young blonde woman. Like, that makes sense, that’s just shifter fiction with some TSF thrown in but… how? Why? Apparently this is for a requester’s novel, Uncle Princess and Kameoji, but just seeing the art, divorced from anything, was deeply baffling to me..

2024-02-11: Wrote about 6,000 words, wrapping up Ch 6-24 of VD2.0. It felt good to finally get some real writing done after dragging my non-existent ass, balls, dick, and titties through the dirt last week. …Look, if your balls are put in a medical waste bin and sent to be disposed of, then they no longer exist. That’s how facts work!

2024-02-12: Went through my TSF comics inbox before deciding on the subject and writing about 1,500 words on it. Wrote the 900 word intro for this Rundown. Wrote 300 words for the Nintendo Direct intro, because I felt like venting. At that point, it was past midnight, so I didn’t start VD2.0 CH 6-25, the GamerGate chapter.

2024-02-13: Wrote 2,400 words for VD2.0 CH 6-25, the GamerGate chapter, and got far enough into it that I’m writing alternate universe dystopian fanfiction. Sometimes I question how people perceive my political views, as while I am super left leaning, I also fuck around in the margins more than I should. Real fascism is insidious, and whenever I depict it, I go full systematic genocide of enslaved children. Because I hate fascism too much to not crank that shit to 37.

2024-02-14: Damn it. I worked until midnight tonight because I had to recreate crypto activity on a new platform after a client’s crypto activity disappeared from another platform. So no work was done on Natalie.TF stuff today, as I read the latest act in CapCap’s CaptainCaption’s autobiography. It’s sad to see them go through all of this stuff, and I do think they have a great capacity for kindness. But they are also home to a litany of personality flaws and hearing their hurt is getting hard to read. …Because they format their paragraphs like I did when I was 17 and fill it up with run-on sentences.

2024-02-15: I was busy reading Cap’s lore, busy with work, and then had to spend… 3.5 hours attending a family gathering. So I only wrote the 500 word Xbox segment, remixed the prior Rundown header into a new one. The actual work took five minutes, and I spent ten minutes futzing around to see what I wanted. Then I finally grabbed the screencaps for TSF Showcase. I was sleepy so I called it a day after that.

2024-02-16: Wrote 3,400 words for Ch 6-25 of VD2.0, wrapping up the main chapter and starting work on The Posse Logs. God DAMN were these Posse Logs a bad idea. I WILL NOT bring them back in Part 3

2024-02-17: Wrapped up Ch 6-25 of VD2.0 with another 3,000 words. I would have done more, but Saturdays are my chore days, I had a meeting with my boss, and I wound up goofing around with Cassie for a couple hours. We played Palworld and then switched to Google Maps, the best video game, while she freaked out about how grid-based American cities are and we took a tour of Herscher, Illinois. A town with 1,500 people and 7 baseball fields.

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Verde’s Doohickey 2.0: Sensational Summer Romp
Acts 1, 2, and 3 Progress Report:

Current Word Count: 312,336

Estimated Word Count: 350,000

Total Chapters: 33

Chapters Outlined: 33

Chapters Drafted: 29

Chapters Edited: 0

Header Images Made: 0

Days Until Deadline: 101