Category: Nintendo

Steam Deck has sold roughly 4 million units.

As the Steam Deck turns three years old, and many of us laud its praises for allowing accessible PC gaming on-the-go, market research firm IDC has estimated that the handheld console has shifted roughly around 4 million units since its arrival in February 2022.

The Verge spoke to the IDC, which uses supply chains to estimate the amount of gaming systems have been shifted worldwide in order to create spending forecasts (via Push Square). According to IDC, roughly 6 million handheld units — which includes the Lenovo Legion Go and Asus ROG Ally, among others — have been sold, not consoles such as the Ayaneo or GPD, which are manufactured in China.

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“Our priority remains delivering on past commitments”.

With plenty of physical game lovers resisting the shift to digital distribution, the world of boutique, limited-press publishing is booming, with multiple options for anyone desperate to have smaller-scale releases on disc or cartridge rather than a hard drive or SD card.

It’s a risky business, though, with even the biggest players having some major blots on their record, and companies frequently overpromising and underdelivering – if they deliver at all. COVID caused major disruption across all industries five years ago, and while the pandemic may be a distant memory for some, the after-effects are still rippling through the games industry. Pandemic-related issues aside, with small press game companies often relying on overseas production and distribution facilities — not to mention developer issues and other factors — it’s easy to appreciate how a run of physical product can get held up by one issue, and how that issue can clog the entire pipeline.

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Drag me to Skell.

We have a little under a month to go before Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition flies onto Switch on 20th March and Nintendo has today released a new overview trailer, giving us our best look yet at the upcoming remaster.

Fittingly titled ‘Everything you need to know about Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition’, the new trailer dives into the RPG’s story, mechanics and world, providing a fitting introduction to Mira for those who never played the Wii U classic (or a reintroduction, for those that did).

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Though key features are missing.

Given the immense popularity of Balatro since its launch last year, it was really only a matter of time before it was unofficially ported over to other systems via homebrew modding.

Well, that time is upon us, folks. Thanks to Haynster over on Github (via GBATemp), Balatro is now available to play on the Nintendo DS. Installation instructions are available, and you’ll need to make sure you have the MicroLUA homebrew development software.

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Welcome back, Ninja Five-O.

The Switch has a growing library of Game Boy Advance titles and Konami has expanded this with its latest eShop release.

It’s the GBA action-platformer Ninja Five-O (also known as Ninja Cop). This Switch version was originally announced last month and you can download the title right now for USD $24.99 / GBP £19.99 (or your regional equivalent). Physical copies were also announced, but have already sold out.

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“It’s good to have our games reach more places”.

Xbox has shifted to a new strategy where it’s now bringing more first-party IP to other platforms including Nintendo’s devices.

We’ve already heard from Phil Spencer how the plan is to support the ‘Switch 2’ when it arrives, and now Xbox Game Studios’ head Craig Duncan has elaborated on the company’s “multiplatform” approach going forward.

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Keepie uppies.

With Switch entering its ninth year on 3rd March 2025, and with over 150 million units sold and more million-selling games than we’ve had hot dinners, it’s hard to remember a time when Nintendo pooling its portable and home console software teams behind a single system felt like a risky move. As Wii U foundered, it was the slow-starting 3DS that kept Nintendo fans’ candles burning during The Lean Wii U Years™, so putting all its eggs in one basket felt like a gamble.

It wasn’t really much of a gamble, all told. Not only did Nintendo’s vast cash reserves mean it could weather several generations of flops, but by leaning on its IP and investing heavily in non-gaming areas (merch, movies, and theme parks), not to mention its mobile experiments, the company went and got a whole new bunch of multimedia baskets for its eggs. Switch 2 could be a catastrophic failure but Nintendo’s got a long runway; it would multiple catastrophic failures to result in proper Nintendoom.

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Gnarly!

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 has been teased for a good number of months on the trot now, but it finally seems like the skating sequels will be dropping in on Switch soon enough after the as-yet-unannounced title received a rating in Singapore (thanks, VGC).

It’s exciting news, no doubt, made all the more appealing by the inclusion of Switch in the rating board’s console lineup (alongside PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S). And if that wasn’t enough for you, the classification claims that all this will come our way at some point in 2025. Now that’s pretty bodacious.

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Or heck, Switch 2!

During Xbox’s recent Indie Showcase, a new gameplay trailer for Hotel Barcelona was debuted ahead of its release later this year.

From writer and director Hidetaka Suehiro (Swery65) and based on an original idea by Goichi Suda (Suda51), Hotel Barcelona looks utterly ridiculous, and we’re sincerely hoping the team at White Owls Inc. has either the Switch or the Switch 2 in its sights as we get closer to its eventual launch. Neither has been confirmed at the time of writing, but we’d honestly be surprised if this title completely skips a Nintendo release.

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Sequel is finally launching later this year.

It’s been a bloomin’ long time coming, but Level-5’s Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is finally making its way to the Switch on 22nd May 2025 following multiple delays.

To really drive the message that this date is likely final, two new commercials have been released (thanks, Go Nintendo) that highlight some tasty gameplay before reconfirming the game’s upcoming launch. They’re not particularly lengthy, but we get a good glimpse at what you’ll be getting up to during the time with the game, including the various farming mechanics, mining, crafting, and, of course, a sprinkling of combat.

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