Rundown (11/09/2025) Natalie Goes International!

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Natalie.TF Goes International!
• A Quarterly Nintendo Sales Segment (Somehow, The Nintendo Switch Kept Selling)
• NetEase Says NO to North American Game Companies (It Was A Bad Idea Anyway!)
• Pokémon Legends: Z-A Mega Dimension DLC Was Properly Revealed (It Looks… Alright?)
• Grand Theft Auto VI Delayed to November 19, 2026 (Because of Attempted Unionization)
• Student Transfer Version 9 is Coming Out This December! (Oh Joy!)
• Cassie Gushes About Honkai: Star Rail’s Latest Update (Presented in the Language of the Fox)

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Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Natalie.TF Goes International!

Well, this past week has been a veritable whirlwind for me personally. For those just joining the infestation, I am a homebody, don’t like going on vacations, and have not traveled for recreational purposes in nearly 20 years. My family basically stopped vacationing after my father was laid off from his newspaper (delivery) business in 2007. I was too focused on accruing college credits and cash during my 20s to really consider travel. Plus, you know, the pandemic happened when I was 25.

Despite all of this, and knowing my country is in a murky situation, I decided to travel to England for two whole weeks, meaning Natalie.TF is INTERNATIONAL for the first time ever! Why England and why now? Because Natalie.TF Special Friend Cassandra Wright was undergoing surgery and needed someone to care for her. I decided that I would be the one to do so, booked a flight, and, well, things got very messy very quickly.

The travel started pleasantly enough. I took a taxi to the airport, and everything went swell there. O’Hare is a pretty good airport by all accounts, and I got through customs pretty quickly. A bit too quickly, as I had hours to lounge around outside my gate, wandering around aimlessly as I was not in the mood to try writing anything. Then I got on the flight, and it was… not so good.

I had not flown in almost 20 years, so I did not recall any part of the process in detail, but I was shocked by how narrow the seats and rows were and how teensy the tray was. I understand that flying is expensive on a technical level, but for a round-trip flight that cost me over $1,000, this felt frankly insulting. However, the tightness would be bearable if not for the sound of the turbines. They are so incredibly, oppressively loud that it is virtually impossible to do anything productive on a plane. The fact that people work on them, and service people on them, is a feat in and of itself. Also, the food was mediocre. Not offensively bad, except for the spicy turkey egg maple waffle sandwich. Because what the hell even is that?

Still, I did not bitch or complain— even as my darn charging port did not work, so I was barely able to do things on my phone. I just tolerate it and moved on, unable to sleep for more than a few minutes, if that, and eager to just get outta here! I was released into some offshoot in Heathrow, with little direction or guidance on where to go or what to do, but after bopping around and getting yelled at for security for not understanding a passport reader I got out into the many halls unifying this airport.

…But I had two problems. One, there were nowhere near as many concession places to grab food as I expected. Two, there was no obvious place to charge my phone, which was a problem. Eventually, I asked an employee about this, and he informed me that people were expected to jack in their power outlets into any random outlet and charge their devices that way. Even though these outlets were scattered haphazardly, and not near any sitting area. Very confusing.

Once charged, I spent several hours waiting in the Central Bus Station, feeling like I had fallen into a damn time vortex given how dated everything was. If you took a photo of this and told me it was from 1999, I’d believe you. I then boarded a bus for the next leg of my journey, and that was actually quite pleasant. So pleasant that I fell asleep once the bus entered the streets of London proper and fell asleep until the trip was almost over and the bus was in Portsmouth.

From there, I had to take a ferry to Gosport, my main destination. The ferry was a short walk away from the bus station and the ferry itself was only a few minutes, but it was still quite calming to be on a boat, see the sights of a historic port town, and finally reach the final leg of my journey. Or so I thought!

I was planning on staying in Cassie’s father’s house in Gosport. I had some issues with the local bus system, not knowing if they had transit cards, but a nice mother told me that I could just tap my credit card for the fare. So I took the bus and arrived at my destination at around 15:00 local time. But there was a slight problem. Nobody was home, as Cassie just left the hospital and would not be back for 1.5 hours. Except it turned out to be 2.5 hours. So I had to stand there, outside a house, shielding myself, and my stuff, from the rain, as I waited and waited for my Cassie to arrive. Needless to say, it sucked!

Then I finally got to enter Cassie’s father’s house and… it was not very hospitable. Not because her father was rude, but because he was one of those men who accepted the bespoke inefficiencies of life and allowed clutter to accumulate within a home fit to house six, but only contained one occupant. …No, I am being too cute in that description. It was a house full of junk. Junk lining the stairs in some instances, junk filling up entire rooms, and creating walls of stuff that made rooms far smaller than they ought to be.

It was the home of a man whose family left the nest, who got rid of nothing, and actively tried to fill this home with stuff. Like wooden planks thrown away by neighbors, or giant pumpkins he grew, or produce he grew and just left on the sofa or kitchen table, so that it could ripen. Oh, and the kitchen? I’m not even going to say what I thought about that.

This home was worse than I could have imagined, and was inhospitable to someone was regimented as me. I have not done a tour of my home since it was fully furnished, but it is a wide open space with very little clutter. The most clutter is in the closet, which is where clutter is supposed to live.

So, what did I do? Did I pussy up and accept that I would need to live here and cook in this claustrophobic kitchen for two weeks? Did I just say fuck it and bail back home? Nope! I decided that I HAD to stay for Cassie and booked an Airbnb with her help. We left the following morning, and spent much of the ensuing day getting situated there.

It is not a great Airbnb. It’s cold and moist in a way that makes drying clothes a pain in the ass. Some of the provided furnishings have problems, like the biohazard teapot that I refuse to clean. Pans whose non-stick coating has decayed through carelessness. A toaster that has been abused. An open shower with no shower curtain by design. But it has a drying rack, a wardrobe, a washing machine, and a big TV for Cassie.

It’s a 7/10 living accommodation for me, and that is good enough!

Now, the bad thing about all of this is that somebody had to pay for the Airbnb, and that person was me. I paid over a 1,500 bucks for this, meaning that it is very possible this whole sorted trip will cost me almost $3,000. The flight, the bus, the ferry, the food delivery that we scheduled for the next day, paying for basic things like toiletries— it’s just a stupid amount of money to spend on something where my only benefit is being able to spend time with a friend in need.

Well, no, not the ONLY benefit. I also got to experience a different culture, visit a new place, and recognize the differences, or lack thereof, between America and America’s dad. I got to walk around a walkable neighborhood with spaghetti-ass street design, and I am acting as THE ADULT in a relationship as I care for my friend. (I love Cassie, but she acts like a 16-year-old sometimes.)

I’m sure I’ll have more to say next Rundown, but I’m only starting this piece on Thursday, when I like to finalize my Rundowns, so I’ll be moving onto the OTHER things I wanted to talk about.

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A Quarterly Nintendo Sales Segment
(Somehow, The Nintendo Switch Kept Selling)

Here’s a quick and easy topic to bang out. Nintendo has released their investor briefing for Q3 2025, and the results are pretty much as expected. The Nintendo Switch 2 has continued to sell very well, clearing past 10 million units. Which is not surprising as, despite not having a gangbusters holiday title, the platform has plenty of safe bet promises and its own share of cross-generational bangers.

Everybody who matters bought Mario Kart World with the system. Donkey Kong Banaza only sold 3.49 million units, a figure that seems low for a Mario game. 84% of Switch 2 buyers “transitioned” from Switch 1, which I’d assume would be higher. Who was holding off on buying the Switch but was gung-ho on the Switch 2? Or how many people just did not bother importing their Switch 1 data to Switch 2? I mean, you can do that, but I would need to ask why? It’s like buying a new phone and not transferring stuff from your old phone.

The Nintendo Switch, despite having seen a price hike in the United States, sold nearly a million units in the past quarter, clearing 154.01 million units sold, nearly eclipsing the DS’s 154.02 million sales records, but far away from the 160 million PS2 units Sony claims they made. A record that, at this rate, will never be exceeded, as consoles are for the dorks and the wealthy.

Also, and this is something I only found by digging through the presentation slides, but Nintendo plans on expanding operations to Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia with eShop and online services on November 18, with a future expansion into the Philippines. Which I find interesting because… I thought they were well established in those regions at this point. They are an Asian company, so they should cater to as much as the Asian market as possible. But I guess later is better than never.

My takeaway when looking over these numbers is that despite the negativity industry targeting Nintendo over the past 7 months, they are doing well where it matters— in their financials. The negativity seen online cannot be taken as representative of a broader public. Especially when, at this point, I think enthusiast outrage merchants are just buying AI bots or automated social media accounts that exist to spread rage and negativity for their own interests. Which could range from financial to ideological. You cannot trust that random people online are real.

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NetEase Says NO to North American Game Companies
(It Was A Bad Idea Anyway!)

Something that I have been following for a couple of years was how NetEase was pouring money into international game studios, first in Japan, before spreading throughout the world, and particularly in North America. In the past five years, or I suppose six years, they have opened the following studios:

• Sakura Studio in Tokyo
• Nagoshi Studio in Tokyo
• Studio Flare in Tokyo
• PinCool Inc in Tokyo
• GPTRACK50 in Osaka
• Jackalope Games in Austin
• Jar of Sparks in Seattle
• Anchor Point in Seattle and Barcelona
• Bad Brain Game Studios in Montreal and Toronto
• Fantastic Pixel Castle as a remote studio
• BulletFarm in Los Angeles
• T-Minus Zero Entertainment in Austin

However, this past year, NetEase has been regretting this move. They shut down Sakura Studio aka Ouka Studios after they shipped their first game in August 2024. They pulled Jar of Sparks funding in January 2025, and the state of the company is currently unknown as far as I could tell. They sold T-Minus Zero to a “small group of veteran directors and founders” in September. This past week, they pulled funding for Fantastic Pixel Castle and shut down Bad Brain Game Studios.

NetEase established studios, invested millions of dollars, and likely led hundreds of people to upend their lives. Yet now, years later, they changed their mind, choosing to pursue short-term gains over long-term growth. Normally, I would criticize them for such a decision, as you need to build studios to create games and build company culture. …And that is the case here as, per what I could tell, NetEase is just cutting jobs and canceling projects around the world. Which I think is dumb. If anything, they should look at the modern global situation and double-down on China.

Chinese game development, like Chinese everything, has been advancing rapidly and nowadays, it seems positively preposterous to NOT be investing in Chinese studios and subsidiaries. So the idea of a Chinese game company shutting down western studios because they can make a similar game for half the budget and in 75% of the time would make sense from a financial, and nationalist, perspective.

Also, while what NetEase is doing is destructive, they are at least allowing these studios, IPs, and games-in-development to be bought. They are not just burning the barn for fun. This worked out for T-Minus, but for everybody else? Uh, good luck. Investor money got a lot rarer after the AI boom started taking off.

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Pokémon Legends: Z-A Mega Dimension DLC Was Properly Revealed
(It Looks… Alright?)

Well, this came up sooner than I expected. Just three weeks after Pokémon Legends: Z-A came out, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company revealed what exactly the $30 Mega Dimension DLC would contain, and it’s not quite what I expected.

Let me start from the top. The DLC is presented as a post-game continuation story where Team MZ and their merry band of friends begins noticing strange space-time distortions across the city. They eventually encounter a young girl named Ashna— who looks a lot like Diantha— and her partner Hoopa, the dimension hopping Pokémon who has really never had a chance to shine outside of effective cameos in ORAS.

With the power of Hoopa, Team MZ can venture into these distortions and wind up in another world. One that could be anything or everything, but instead… they wind up in Hyperspace Lumiose. A bleached out version of the city that, frankly, gets a bit repetitive after 70+ hours. I was hoping for something like the Mirage Spots in ORAS or the Ultra Space Wilds in Sun and Moon, so hearing that there won’t be a significant amount of new environments in this $30 expansion is a bit upsetting.

Okay, so what do you actually do there? What is its hook? Well, that’s where things get interesting. These Hyperspace distortions send the player into battle zones and wild zones to find rare, new, and powerful Pokémon, with levels exceeding level 100, seemingly going up to 200. Though, this does not mean the level cap is being raised. Instead, levels, and various other buffs, are acquired by baking donuts using berries that boost the player’s team’s levels, and voyage time, for each trip into Hyperspace. And the more you explore Hyperspace, the more Hyperspace berries you can acquire.

Once in Hyperspace, players are expected to hoof it, grab as much as they can, complete tasks like battle X trainers or catch Y Pokémon. All in order to obtain juicy rewards that are, likely, specific to each Hyperspace Zone. An interesting concept that builds upon the idea that this is a game about a gameplay cycle, and loops, by introducing a third pillar, or possibly a more efficient endgame grinding spot where you can actually receive things like bottle caps.

Naturally, this adventuring will be paired with things like new Mega Evolutions. Namely, Mega Chimecho— who looks hilarious— and Mega Baxcalibur, who somehow looks even less threatening. A new storyline that sees the Z-A cast reconvene for more banter and possible character growth. And at least one returning face with Korrina, the only memorable gym leader from X and Y, coming back with a crazy new look.

All of this sounds fine enough, but something about this DLC, with its focus on repeatable content and existing assets, makes this DLC feel kind of underwhelming. The choice of making it a post-game adventure is great for story purposes. But it means new playthroughs cannot make use of the new variety of Pokémon, when the game could have stood to be a bit more open and liberal with its distribution. While the fact that this new dimension is just Lumiose again just feels like a budget restriction.

I also worry that this Mega Dimension DLC will in no way respond to criticisms of PLZA, as it was basically finished before the game shipped. It’s due out on December 10, 2025, so there’s really no time to redo things and have it go through a round of quality control. I’d be hesitant to jump in, but I’ve already bought the DLC, so I guess I’ll need to play it and find out for myself in about… four weeks? Grief. This year’s schedule has been brutal, and I’m not being given any grace near the end, am I?

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Grand Theft Auto VI Delayed to November 19, 2026
(Because of Attempted Unionization)

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish. Grand Theft Auto VI has spent the past few years living in the cultural mindshare as a super game. One that will either save or murder the gaming industry given its immense scale and cultural panache. A game that people have anticipated over the span of twelve years. Grand Theft Auto V has been an industry cornerstone since its launch and any follow-up needs to meet the immense expectations in its wake.

However, that means the game requires tremendous amounts of TLC from its developers and that necessitates delays. It was jarring enough when Grand Theft Auto VI moved from Holiday 2025 to May 2026, but now it is being delayed a full year with a new release date of November 19, 2026.

I’d say this seems abrupt, as it is, but the ACTUAL reason for this delay is likely due to how Rockstar Games staff were attempting to unionize, only for Rockstar to lay off the workers leading this charge. Recognizing the staff reduction, and how this would piss off other workers, they likely wanted to save face and buy some time by announcing a delay. Fair enough, but the delay is still going to get people PISSED at Rockstar for delaying a game they have waited over a decade for. Why does everything have to come back to corporate greed?

This all sucks and I hope that Rockstar follows the law and lets its workers unionize, but will they? Who knows!

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Student Transfer Version 9 is Coming Out This December!
(Oh Joy!)

As a last minute addition to this week’s Rundown, I have a bit of good news. Student Transfer Version 9 is coming out sometime this December! Yes, 18 months after Version 8, the dev team has scrounged enough new content for a version release, and one that will double as the 10th anniversary release of Student Transfer.

Now,, there is a lot to look back and reflect upon here, as Student Transfer has been a very important game for me, for this website, and for the TSF genre as a whole. Even if some people seem gung-ho on poo-poo-ing it because the vibes are off, or because they had bad experiences around it. You know who you are!

However, I am writing this before bed, while in England, and still trying to take care of a backlog of stuff while caring for a friend who underwent permanent identity damage thanks to Student Transfer. So forgive me for leaving this segment as a mere stub, as while I recognize the importance of this event— especially after the erasure of Press-Switch and health-related delays of re:Dreamer— I’m not in the right headspace for recollection at the moment.

I’m on my phone for crying out loud, because Cassie is busy playing her boat game!

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Cassie Gushes About Honkai: Star Rail’s Latest Update
(Presented in the Language of the Fox)

KONKONKOOOONNNN! KON! Kon kon konkonkon konkonkon kon kon kon-kon konkonkon! Kon kon konkon konkon kon Konkon kon konkon kon kon kon konkonkon kon kon kon konkon kon kon konkonkon. Kon konkon konkon kon kon kon kon kon Konkonkon’s konkon kon kon kon kon konkonkon kon kon kon kon kon kon kon kon kon konkon, kon kon kon kon. Kon kon kon kon konkon kon kon kon kon kon kon kon!

Kon kon kon konkon konkon kon kon, Konkonkon kon kon konkon kon Konkonkon kon kon kon kon konkon! Kon kon kon! Kon, kon kon kon kon kon konkon konkon kon. Kon kon kon kon kon!

Kon kon kon Konkonkon! Kon’d kon kon Konkonkon kon!

Labu~!

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Progress Report 2025-11-09

Cassie and I have been binging through Yu-Gi-Oh! GX this past week, and I have to say that I think the show works really well. In part because it is formatted as, well, a TV show. Something that I think was lost with the rise in streaming was a fixation on making serialized TV shows, where the goal is to tell a long-form story over the duration of a season. It’s what ushered in the ‘golden age of TV’ and has been a key element in prestige television for nearly 30 years.

However, there is something to be said about the old ways. Where seasons were 20+ episodes, plot progression was slow, and while there was an underlying narrative arc, it was often a B-plot, and you could miss a couple episodes without getting lost.

It’s confusing to me that this structure is on the decline, when it makes for a better casual viewing experience, and generally production experience. Because then the showrunner does not need to write 4 hours worth of scripts every season and the series is allowed to get weird, to have dud episodes, and generally experiment with its identity.

If something is being made as ‘background content’ or the assumption that people will be on their phones, or that the scripts need to be dumbed down, then why not go with this older approach? Instead of making eight hour long episodes, just make 24 20 minute episodes with lower stakes, lower production values, and more dialogue or scenes of characters in familiar established locales? Because people need intense storytelling to be entertained? I don’t think that’s how that works.

Also, on a related note, while the original Yu-Gi-Oh! is more iconic, I think that GX makes for a better show, as it is written for television, with self-contained episodes, and it is not waiting to adapt manga chapters into episodes nor does it feel the need to really engage with filler arcs or awkward pacing. Which I think is always the death knell with long-form anime. Filler episodes are good, if they have the opportunity to screw around, but if it’s an adaptation of an ongoing series, you are just asking for continuity issues.

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2025-11-02: Was busy with final bits of travel prep and general socializing with the Shrinies. Especially Missy. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID! Still managed to wrap editing on PLZA, grab the screenshots, get it ret-2-go, and write 3,900 words for FlipWitch.

2025-11-03: Wrote like 500 words for FlipWitch while trying to prepare for my trip to the UK. I described the process in more detail in the preamble. Basically took a taxi, got on a plane, and then the day changed.

2025-11-04: Travel day within the UK. Went off plane, got on bus, got on boat, went to Cassie’s father’s house, ate eggs, tried to sleep, slept for about 6 hours.

2025-11-05: Today was the transitional day, going from the home to the Airbnb, making sure Cassie was comfy, dealing with her Cassie-isms, and trying to maintain order. Washing clothes, going out to the local shops to grab food for the night, placing a Tesco order, fun stuff! /s

2025-11-06: Wrote about 2,800 words while caring for the Cassie. The preamble, Nintendo, NetEase, and GTA VI bits.

2025-11-07: Looked into and wrote the PLZA DLC bit, only about 600 words somehow. Edited this fish, grabbed some images, made the header. Was busy spending a lot of time with Cassie, watching anime, playing games, chatting, going over logistics.

2025-11-08: Not a great day. Wrapped up the FlipSwitch review with another 500 words, then edited it and grabbed the images. This was followed by a CRISIS as Cassie had to go to a local hospital for an unexpected trip. Then she got back, and Nurse Natalie had to help her recover, while prepping dinner, showering, and all that other stuff.

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