Probably the last one of the year for the other Nintendo 99.

About the only puzzle not represented in the original Super Mario RPG was Tetris, and now Nintendo is taking steps to rectify that.

Super Mario RPG will be the theme for the 36th running of the Tetris 99 Maximus Cup, which will run from 2 a.m. EST Friday to 1:59 a.m. next Tuesday. As with other cups, earning 100 "points" via placement in 99 matches will unlock the theme.

Time to load up!

Nintendo has announced their annual Black Friday offers for North America, with some new bundles and a new low.

The headliner is a new Switch OLED bundle from November 19 (a week from Sunday) that will include the OLED model, a download code for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, 3 months individual Nintendo... Read more...

A No-Prize to the first person in Talkback to find a) the game that made Donald pull out the document labeled "FYIO", and b) what that is an acronym for.

Things we missed last week: Square Enix Collective title Little Goody Two Shoes dropped.

As tempting as it was to find out one publisher had leapt on all of the worst elements of the eShop (not even the same publisher, use of AI art) and handing in my resignation, we press on as it appears we will... Read more...

And yet you can still buy the DLC. Go figure?

The first Taiko no Tatsujin Switch game is about to bang its last drum.

Bandai Namco have announced that the 2018 release Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n Fun will be delisted from the eShop on November 30. Two TnT games - the Rhythmic Adventure Pack from 2020 and Rhythm Festival from 2022 - will remain available.

Remind us again why something with similar stats to Lapras needed an evolution?

The final content update for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will land just before the start of winter.

The Pokemon Company International have announced that the update including the Indigo Disk DLC will be available on December 14. Previous promotion has only indicated "winter" for the launch.

Players... Read more...

They're three Rainbow Roads short of a full set

The white flag is waving for the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass, and we have the final added courses.

Launching on November 9, the eight courses include Bowser Castle 3 (SNES), DK Mountain (Double Dash), Daisy Circuit and Rainbow Road (Wii), Rosalina's Ice World (3DS), Madrid Drive, Rome... Read more...

And if you're like most of the staff, you're thinking "wait, there was a Twitch app for the Switch"?

One of the more recent streaming apps on Switch is about to breathe its last.

A notice was posted today confirming that the Switch's Twitch application will no longer be available after January 31, 2024. No reason was given for the shutdown.

The Twitch app was released on Remembrance Day 2021, though recent layoff rounds at Twitch itself have apparently reduced the staff that would support the Switch version.

Several orders of magnitude below Microsoft/ABK, but possibly as damaging.

After dabbling in hotels and cryptocurrency, Atari appears to be re-focusing on games again - as evidenced by an acquisition of the developer of one of their best-received products.

Digital Eclipse, the game historian developer behind 2022's Atari 50 and this years The Making of Karateka, have been acquired by Atari. The deal will cost Atari up to US$20m.

Once again, none of the NES games came out in North America during the original run.

A pair of Famicom games and the story-chronological start of the Castlevania series have been added to the standard tier Switch Online libraries.

Famicom/NES

The home office in Ecumsecum, NS is working on the "Top Ten Reasons Donald Bought A Steam Deck" feature. Last week had two of them.

Things we missed last week: Because of the footnoted releases, North America AND Europe both set new records since the tracking was noted at 71 and 69 (not nice) respectively. Among the unlisted releases was World of Horror, the one-bit eye-stabby RPG.

Well, after that ginormous cluster*bleep*,... Read more...

This is like getting an apple in your Halloween candy.

It appears 1080 Snowboarding is waiting for winter to join the N64 library of the Switch Online Expansion Pack, but we will be getting a game this month anyway.

Mario Party 3 - the last first party N64 release - will be added to the library later this week; although the video indicates a release on the 27th (Friday), it will likely appear in North America on the evening of the 26th (Thursday).

Boy, that escalated quickly.

Although it was Japanese only before, one of the most out-of-nowhere eShop hits has had localized text added.

Known either as "Watermelon Game" or "Suika Game", the mind-blowingly popular streaming smash is now available with English support following its surprise North American launch last Friday. A seasonal (Halloween) theme was also added.

I wish all Ubisoft executives and Bobby Kotick a very f**k you go to jail.

Things we missed last week: Apparently HUGE in Japan, the Suika Game aka "that thing with the watermelons" came out worldwide. It doesn't have English text. Lay on, MacDuff.

This week is abnormally large by most standards - the tracking list has the highest "starting" total of the year, and even... Read more...

Definitely not a cloud version, we can say that.

Hogwarts Legacy releases on Nintendo Switch this November after successfull launches on PS5, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series systems. It is a graphically demanding game so the Switch version has always been a bit of a question mark. Today, thanks to a new pre-order page on the eShop, we have our first look at the Switch version of the game. Take a look at the screenshots below.

It's Sonic's 30th anniversary, and the blue blur is so, SO screwed.

Things we missed last week: Early Konami puzzle (???) game Loco-Motion came to the platform under its Japanese name Guttang Gottong.

Ordinarily this week would be on a down note, which would be due to a game that glorifies drunk driving already being out following up with a game focused on Sonic's... Read more...

Martinet out, a new fresh face in.

We appear to have the new voice of Mario in next week's Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

In a post on Twitter (the site now known as X for some insane reason), voice actor Kevin Afghani confirmed he was the new voice of both Mario and Luigi in Wonder.

Incredibly proud to have voiced Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Thanks to Nintendo for inviting me into the Flower Kingdom!

Kotick goes away in 80 days with a golden parachute instead of today in handcuffs.

After multiple government delays, the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard (King) has finally closed.

The deal, announced on January 18, 2022 closed this morning and saw the Xbox manufacturer acquire the Call of Duty behemoth for US$68.7bn. Integration will begin immediately, and notorious ABK CEO Robert "Bobby" Kotick will leave the combined company on January 1.

Riccitello to Sony (e5)

A recent controversial change to the pricing structure of the Unity engine has apparently led to the ouster of the company's CEO/president/chairman.

Unity have announced in a press release that CEO John Riccitello (ex of Electronic Arts) has resigned as CEO, president, chairman, and member of the... Read more...

Now that Batman is doing the Batusi in December, it's good to know that we still have some heroes left - a whole company, actually.

Things we missed last week: Darius II in the Archives.

I had a whole slew of references to the goddamned Batman lined up for this week's column, but then quality interceded to push those back to the end of November's column. (Good.) Left scrambling to fill the spot, we'll give the honour this week... Read more...

Fully pulling the plug on a generation.

Nintendo will be discontinuing online services for 3DS and Wii U in early Spring of next year.

Announced today at midnight eastern US time, Nintendo is planning to shut down all online communication for its previous-generation systems in early April 2024. A specific end date and time will be announced... Read more...