Quick reminder! Today, December 1st, the 2016 Game Awards presentation will be streamed live at 5:30 PM Pacific (8:30 PM Eastern) on these streaming sites. I have set up a chatroom set up for us. Just go to the chatroom, type in your username, and use the password 'vixen'. I'm already online and will be throughout the day.

Hello friends. This is a personal update on me, Mr. Krystal, the shadowy figure who updates your favorite Krystal-related website. I know you've noticed I haven't posted lately. And while I normally would just try and continue posting as if nothing happened (because people hate blog-apology-filler), this time is a bit special.

Long story short, as some of you know, I've been having serious problems with my wrists and hands for a while, probably from typing too much. My day job is programming. Combined with this site and others, that's a lot of typing, which hasn't helped my condition. Fortunately, it is not carpal tunnel syndrome, but instead a related syndrome for the ulnar nerves (which controls the pinkie finger and part of the ring finger, and is what is commonly called the "funny bone" in the elbow). Unfortunately, in the past few months I've been trying just about every type of treatment available for my specific problem with little to no success, and the problem is slowly worsening. That leaves surgery as my only option for now.

It is a very safe procedure, though it might not actually help my symptoms (fingers crossed). However the surgery means I will lose the ability to use one of my arms for a couple days, followed by two weeks of soreness and pain. I'm going to take off time from work to recover and avoid typing, so that also means I won't be able to do much site updating either.

So if I can't type much, I thought what I might do instead is some live video chats with you, the fans of the site. I'll have a lot of time to kill without using my arms, and I haven't done a podcast in forever. What do you guys think? Would you want to hang out online and let me respond to questions or talk about Krystal and Star Fox stuff? Respond in the comments if you are interested and what you'd want me to talk about. Whatever we do, I'll record it and post it permanently to YouTube, so even if you can't make it live, you can still watch.

UndyingNephalim continues his back-burner progress on Star Fox: Event Horizon during breaks from his other work, Hyrule: Total War. Today he posted a video showing new environmental effects like sandstorms and lightning in various stages he's working on.

A month ago, he also posted this video (that I hadn't gotten a chance to post about) showing off some of the new stages he's been working on, like Star Fox Zero's Fortuna, Eladard from Star Fox 2, and Orbital Gate from Star Fox Assault.

Latest posted demo of Star Fox: Event Horizon
UndyingNephalim's Patreon

To complement the Krystal Archive Official Twitter Account, BlueVixenNews, a similar account has been opened on Gab.ai at gab.ai/krystalarchive. For those who don't know, Gab.ai bills itself as a Twitter replacement. It allows 300 characters instead of 140, and has other built-in features, but its main emphasis is an unyielding support of free speech over censorship and hurt feelings. It is currently private, so you must have an account to view the page. I'm looking into making my posts public. For now though, try signing up.

As with the Twitter account, I will be mirroring post content there, and possibly making other posts from time to time.

gab.ai/krystalarchive

You probably already heard some of this, but we've got some exciting Nintendo news in the coming days and months.

On December 1st, in two days, the 2016 Game Awards presentation will be streamed live at 5:30 PM Pacific (8:30 PM Eastern) on a huge number of streaming sites. We already know that Nintendo will be presenting exclusive Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild footage. Who knows what else might show. Certainly it will be interesting to see games from all sorts of developers and producers.

We will be hearing about the details of the Nintendo Switch, including launch games, capabilities, launch date, and pricing, at a special Nintendo Direct presentation live on January 12th, 2017. I don't expect to see much Star Fox, but a lot of other beloved Nintendo characters and series should be well represented. See announcement. As the event gets closer, I will post a link to where the presentation can be watched. The next day, there will be private events revealing even more about the new console.

As always with these kinds of presentations, I want to watch them with you. I will be setting up a chat room so we can chat and comment on the events as they happen. Here's the chatroom for The Game Awards 2016.

Many articles sourced from GoNintendo.

Sculpture_Geek on YouTube posted a video showing the creation of an amazingly detailed Fox McCloud bust from traditional oil-based clay. He even sculpts the fur patterns and eye reflections.

As with the Krystal Captured Theme, LucasJG1994 has generated the arrangement for the Krazoa Palace theme. You can listen to a piano rendition, or download the sheet music and midi forms. The midi file can be used your own creations if you have some music-editing software.

There's even a visualized version!

• Piano Recording
• Sheet Music
• Midi Recording

Hey friends. Mr. Krystal here with a personal quick heads up for anyone planning to attend Nightmare Nights, the Dallas Brony Con, this weekend. I will be there! I plan to cosplay Friday and Saturday. I'll be the one with the HUGE smile. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see me. If you see me, stop by and say hello! I love talking to site readers.

This also means my response to comments and emails will be even more delayed than usual. Thanks for the understanding.

The official title is "Nintendo Switch". It is re-confirmed for a March 2017 release. It's a combination home console and portable device with detachable controllers, standard controllers, and a detachable screen. It has a home dock and a openable stand to allow the console's detachable screen to stand on its own while the controllers are used separately. The detachable controllers can be used individually without being attached to the screen or the detachable controller dock controller. The Nintendo Switch appears to use memory cartridges (a la the 3DS) for storing games. Many of the rumors were spot-on. Games shown playable on the system include:

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• What appears to be Bethesda's Skyrim
• A New Mario Kart
• A Basketball game
• A 3D Mario platformer (looks similar to Super Mario 3D World's platforming)
• Splatoon (probably a port from the Wii U)

Official Page

Update

According to PR Emails (GoNintendo posts: 1, 2), the detachable controllers are each called a "Joy-Con". The controller dock for the Joy-Con controllers to make them like a traditional controller is called a "Joy-Con Grip". The traditional controller with non-detachable parts is called a "Nintendo Switch Pro Controller". The portable display is described as "bright" (presumably suitable for outdoor usage) and that it is "high-definition", which means 720p (1280×720 pixels per frame) at minimum. The focus (or gimmick, if you will) of the console is to allow many different modes of gameplay, from traditional couch-surfing to outside groupings.

The partners listed supporting the Nintendo Switch with software support include:

• 505 Games
• Activision Publishing, Inc.
• ARC SYSTEM WORKS Co., Ltd.
• ATLUS CO., LTD.
• Audiokinetic Inc.
• Autodesk, Inc.
• BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.
• Bethesda
• CAPCOM CO., LTD.
• Codemasters®
• CRI Middleware Co., Ltd.
• DeNA Co., Ltd.
• Electronic Arts
• Epic Games Inc.
• Firelight Technologies
• FromSoftware, Inc.
• Frozenbyte
• GameTrust
• GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC．
• Gungho Online Entertainment, Inc.
• HAMSTER Corporation
• Havok
• INTI CREATES CO., LTD.
• KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD.
• Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd.
• LEVEL-5 Inc.
• Marvelous Inc.
• Maximum Games, LLC
• Nippon Ichi Software, Inc.
• Parity Bit Inc.
• PlatinumGames Inc.
• RAD Game Tools, Inc.
• RecoChoku Co., Ltd.
• SEGA Games Co., Ltd.
• Silicon Studio Corporation
• Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd.
• SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
• Starbreeze Studios
• Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
• Telltale Games
• THQ Nordic
• Tokyo RPG Factory Co., Ltd.
• TT Games
• UBISOFT
• Ubitus Inc.
• Unity Technologies, Inc.
• Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
• Web Technology Corp

Update 2

The Nintendo Switch is powered by a custom Nvidia Tegra chip, providing powerful graphics performance at low power. Not much in the way of specific specs are given, but they talk about how much this is a custom chip specifically for the Nintendo Switch, rather than this being a generic portable graphics chip (as is the standard Tegra and Tegra 2). Even the low level software, physics accelerators, streaming, and audio processing software for this chip is custom-made. More at Nvidia's blog.

Just an hour ago, Nintendo announced via Twitter and Facebook that there will be a special presentation about the Nintendo NX on Thursday, October 20th at 7am PT/10am ET. The reveal will come in the form of a 3 minute trailer, possibly followed by further broadcasted data.

We know very little about the expected format. They will talk about the NX, but what about it? Will they only talk about one aspect of the hardware (as the Wii Remote teaser video did at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show). Will new games be shown? 3 minutes seems like an awfully short time to get a full rundown of the system, so I expect that they just want to give a general idea of the power and it's unique selling point, but won't go into actual specs or specific games. The Nintendo of Japan twitter post indicates the video will mostly be about whatever the NX's revolutionary concept happens to be.

At this point, I don't even know where exactly the trailer will be. But here are the likely locations:

• Nintendo Direct Homepage
• Nintendo's Twitch Channel
• Nintendo's YouTube Channel

I will be there to watch it, whatever it is, in real time tomorrow. I hope to see you there too and talk about it here afterwards.