Nintendo – Page 2

Switch modder owes Nintendo $2 million after representing himself in court

daly, gaming, hacking, legal, mig, mig switch, modding, Nintendo, Payment, settlement / Rejus Almole / September 9, 2025

Daly’s pro se legal representation in the case was notable for its use of several novel affirmative defenses, including arguments that Nintendo’s “alleged copyrights are invalid,” that Nintendo “does not have standing to bring suit,” and that Nintendo “procured a contract [with Daly] through fraudulent means.” For the record, the judgment in this case reasserts that Nintendo “owns valid copyrights in works protected by the TPMs, including Nintendo games and the Nintendo Switch operating system.”

In addition to $2 million in damages, Daly is specifically barred from “obtaining, possessing, accessing, or using” any DRM circumvention device or hacked console, with or without the intent to sell it. The judgment also bars Daly from publishing or “linking to” any website with instructions for hacking consoles and from “reverse engineering” any Nintendo consoles or games. Control of Daly’s ModdedHardware.com domain name will also be transferred to Nintendo.

Nintendo’s latest legal victory comes years after a $4.5 million plea deal with Gary “GaryOPA” Bowser, one of the leaders behind Team Xecuter and its SX line of Switch hacking devices. Bowser also served 14 months of a 40-month prison sentence in that case and said last year that he will likely be paying Nintendo back for the rest of his life.

Switch modder owes Nintendo $2 million after representing himself in court Read More »

Dev says Switch 2’s physical Game Cards were too slow for Star Wars Outlaws port

data transfer, gaming, Nintendo, speed, star wars, switch 2, ubisoft / Rejus Almole / September 5, 2025

A video shows how different storage media can affect Mario Kart World load times.

CD Projekt Red VP of Technology Charles Tremblay has alluded to this same challenge when talking about the Switch 2 port of Cyberpunk 2077. In a June interview with IGN, Tremblay said the data transfer speeds enabled by MicroSD Express were “great,” while streaming data from a Switch 2 Game Card was merely “okay.” Tremblay did go on to say that “all the performance we have on [input/output] is very good on [the Switch 2],” especially compared to the extremely slow physical hard drives that plagued Cyberpunk 2077‘s performance on older hardware.

Slow down, you move too fast

From the outside, it’s a bit odd that Nintendo allowed this loading-speed dichotomy to exist on the Switch 2 in the first place. On the original Switch, read speeds for both SD cards and Game Cards reportedly maxed out around 90 MB/s. But when designing the new Switch 2 game cards, Nintendo settled on a format that would stream data much more slowly than for downloaded games on the same console.

That decision might have been an attempt to minimize hardware costs for the Switch 2’s Game Card interface. If so, though, it doesn’t seem to have done much to reduce the costs of manufacturing Switch 2 game cards themselves. The cost of manufacturing those physical Game Cards has been frequently cited as a major reason many publishers are using cheaper Game Key Cards in the first place, though Bantin said that he “[didn’t] recall the cost of the cards ever entering the discussion [for Star Wars: Outlaws]—probably because it was moot.”

Nintendo could get around this variable loading speed issue by letting players pre-install games from a Switch 2 Game Card to internal or expansion storage, as Microsoft and Sony have either allowed or required on their disc-based consoles for decades now. But that solution might prove onerous for physical game card players who want to avoid clogging up the limited 256GB of internal storage on the Switch 2 (and/or avoid investing in pricey MicroSD Express cards).

As time goes on, many developers will likely learn how to adapt to and tolerate the Switch 2’s relatively slow Game Card interface. But as gamers and the industry at large continue to transition away from physical media, some developers might decide it’s not worth compromising on loading speeds just to satisfy a shrinking portion of the market.

Dev says Switch 2’s physical Game Cards were too slow for Star Wars Outlaws port Read More »

Sony makes the “difficult decision” to raise PlayStation 5 prices in the US

gaming, microsoft, Nintendo, PlayStation 5, Sony, Tech / Mike M. / August 20, 2025

Sony will join Microsoft and Nintendo in raising US prices across its entire game console lineup, the company announced today. Pricing for all current versions of the PlayStation 5 console will increase by $50 starting tomorrow.

The price of the PS5 Digital Edition will increase from $450 to $500; the standard PS5 will increase from $500 to $550; and the PS5 Pro will increase from $700 to $750. If you’ve been on the fence about buying any of these, retailers like Target and Best Buy are still using the old prices as of this writing—for other console price hikes, retailers have sometimes bumped the prices up before the date announced by the manufacturer.

“Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment,” wrote Sony Global Marketing VP Isabelle Tomatis. “As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price for PlayStation 5 consoles in the U.S. starting on August 21.”

Sony says it’s not increasing prices for games or accessories and that this round of price increases only affects consoles sold in the US.

Sony was the last of the big three console makers to raise prices this year. Microsoft raised the prices for the Xbox Series S and X consoles in March. And Nintendo has gone through two rounds of price increases—one for Switch and Switch 2 accessories in April and another for more accessories and Switch 1 consoles earlier this month.

Sony makes the “difficult decision” to raise PlayStation 5 prices in the US Read More »

Not (just) seeing red: Virtual Boy emulator adds full color support

Color, Emulation, gaming, Nintendo, RED, retro, virtual boy / Mike M. / July 30, 2025

With Red Viper’s built-in color support, though, anyone with a 3DS modded for homebrew software can now easily add a bit of color to the Virtual Boy library. And running the emulator on the 3DS means you don’t even have to give up the Virtual Boy’s stereoscopic graphics to do so; Red Viper works with the filtered LCD screen on the 3DS to emulate the visual depth built into Virtual Boy games.

More than just Wario Land

Red Viper currently doesn’t have any “default” palettes to choose from, meaning it can take some manual fiddling to get multicolor games to look halfway decent (you can save your palettes on a per-game basis). Once you do, though, it’s impressive just how much color adds to games that were never designed to be seen in more than a few shades of red.

The higher contrast between the road and the racers helps make homebrew Virtual Boy Mario Kart much more playable. Kyle Orland / Red Viper

We’ve found that high contrast yellow or green can really help sprites stand out from the jet black backgrounds that dominate most Virtual Boy releases. Accent colors in the blue or purple range, meanwhile, can help set off background elements and make them easier to distinguish from the foreground gameplay. Those color enhancements can be more than just aesthetic, too; in a game like Red Viper, distinct colors make it much easier to distinguish enemies from stationary obstacles in the game’s awkward wire-framed 3D.

After you’re done colorizing all the Virtual Boy ROMs you’ve dumped off of your own legitimately purchased cartridges (cough), it’s worth dipping a toe in the impressive collection of homebrew Virtual Boy games created by homebrew coders over the years. That includes impressive ports of games like Street Fighter II and Mario Kart and original efforts like a cartoony fish-eat-fish simulator or a hamburger based shoot-’em-up .

Whether you’re a Virtual Boy aficionado or new to the world, the newly colorized Red Viper is the perfect excuse to visit this odd cul-de-sac in Nintendo’s hardware history. Now if we could just convince Nintendo to release an official miniaturized set of Virtual Boy VR goggles à la the NES Classic.

Not (just) seeing red: Virtual Boy emulator adds full color support Read More »

Donkey Kong Bananza is a worthy successor to Super Mario Odyssey’s legacy

Donkey Kong, gaming, Nintendo, platformer, Switch, switch 2 / Paul Patrick / July 16, 2025

D-K… donkey kong is here!

Cathartic, punch-fueled land destruction is a great showcase for Switch 2 hardware.

Screenshots you can feel. Credit: Nintendo

When the Switch 2 was fully unveiled back in April, we weren’t alone in expecting the announcement of a true follow-up to Super Mario Odyssey—one of the original Switch’s best-selling games and our pick for the best game of 2017. Instead, we got our first look at Donkey Kong Bananza, the big ape’s first fully 3D adventure since the Rare-developed Donkey Kong 64 in 1999.

The fact that Nintendo wasn’t willing to commit its longstanding plumber mascot to its first first-party platformer on the Switch 2 could have been seen as a sign of a rushed, second-tier spin-off effort. After playing through Donkey Kong Bananza, though, I’m happy to report that nothing could be further from the truth for this deep and worthy spiritual successor to Super Mario Odyssey (from many of the same development staff). Donkey Kong Bananza captures the same sense of joyful movement and exploration as the best Mario games while adding an extremely satisfying terrain-destruction system that shows off the capabilities of the Switch 2 hardware.

Beat up the earth

It’s that terrain-destruction system that sets Donkey Kong Bananza apart from previous 3D platformers from Nintendo and others. Three of the four face buttons on the Switch 2 controllers are devoted to letting Donkey Kong punch either horizontally, upward, or downward, often taking out large chunks of the nearby scenery as he does.

Punching through the terrain in this manner forms the fast, crunchy, and powerfully kinetic core of the game. It’s hard to overstate how incredibly cathartic it can be to quickly reduce a well-ordered chunk of dirt and rock into a mountain of valuable, collectible golden rubble (then gathering up all the nearby rubble with a quick tap of a shoulder button). Imagine a 3D Mario game by way of Traveller’s Tales Lego games, and you’ll have some idea of the extremely satisfying combination on offer here.

The semi-persistent changes in scenery also do a good job of highlighting the Switch 2’s hardware, which doesn’t seem to drop a single frame, even as the rubble flies and the ground’s shape morphs under Donkey Kong’s persistent punching. That extra hardware power also lends itself to some nice graphical touches, from the mirror-like shine on a pile of golden rubble to the gentle movement of fur that rustles in the breeze.

I get around

Donkey Kong can also pick up chunks of terrain, using them as impromptu melee weapons or hurling them to destroy far-off enemies, obstacles, or key switches. The aiming-and-throwing controls for this terrain-throwing system are just clunky enough to be annoying—this is a far cry from Gears of Donkey Kong or something. Still, the interactions between different types of hurled terrain end up forming the root of many interesting situational puzzles—throwing some snow to harden sections of a harmful lava lake into a solid platform, for instance, or using a chunk of explosive rock to destroy an otherwise impervious spiky enemy.

When you’re not tearing up the scenery to your benefit, simply getting around in Donkey Kong Bananza is a joy. Donkey Kong Country fans will be happy to know the classic roll is back and can be used to help extend jumps or quickly change mid-air direction (a la Cappy from Mario Odyssey). Donkey Kong can also slide along on chunks of terrain in a zippy, madcap land-surfing mode that’s wonderfully difficult to control effectively. The ability to climb along the edge of most surfaces adds a layer to the vertical gameplay dimension that doesn’t rely on precision jumping and which is utilized well to hide some of the game’s more out-of-the-way secrets.

This Kong’s got a funny face… Credit: Nintendo

As the game progresses, you’ll also unlock a handful of animalistic “Bananza” transformations from a menagerie of gigantic animal DJs (don’t ask). These temporarily grant DK new powers—a quick-dashing Zebra or a fluttering, hovering ostrich, for instance. The game builds some specific gatekeeping challenges around each transformation, of course, but the extra locomotion options become a welcome part of your locomotion toolbelt when simply exploring generic areas.

Running around and smashing up the world isn’t all joy, though. Problems arise when you dig into thick patches of dirt, crafting a narrow, Kong-sized tunnel surrounded by opaque earth. The camera system does its best to deal with these tricky scenarios, making the ground opaque and highlighting only the notable features around you. Still, it’s easy to lose track of where your digging has taken you and how to get back to the surface, especially when the best way out of a jam is to “dig up, stupid.”

Oooh, Banana!

All this terrain destruction and digging is in service of the game’s primary goal: collecting a bunch of giant bananas. These are roughly as plentiful as the Power Moons scattered across Super Mario Odyssey and roughly as varied in their availability. Some sit out in the open, waiting to be stumbled on. Others are hidden in some of the game’s most out-of-the-way underground crevices and practically require the use of collectible in-game treasure maps to find. Many are hidden in elaborate challenge rooms that test your precision platforming, terrain destruction, or combat skills.

Unlike the Power Moons in Mario Odyssey, though, hunting down bananas is largely optional to progress down the succession of elaborate, wide-open, high-ceilinged layers (read: “levels”) on a quest toward the planet’s core. Instead, bananas are primarily used to unlock upgrades in a surprisingly deep skill tree or grant DK more health, more punching power, or longer Bananza transformations. Other collectibles can be used to buy stylish and protective outfits to further increase DK’s endurance.

You’d be forgiven for not believing that these large explorable “layers” are supposed to be underground. Credit: Nintendo

These upgrades provide ample incentive to go off the beaten path for those who like exploring and dozens of hours of enjoyable challenges for completionists to delve into after the credits roll. But the game’s structure also allows skillful and/or impatient players to zip to the game’s conclusion quite quickly, rushing through the visually inventive bosses that guard the game’s major chokepoints.

Those who rush, though, may end up struggling with the game’s final gauntlet of challenges, which quickly ramp up the difficulty while re-introducing some classic DK enemies (that we aren’t allowed to say more about at the moment).

Wait, that kid is Pauline?

Thus far, we’ve avoided talking about the ridiculously convoluted plot the game builds around Donkey Kong’s quest for bananas and the evil corporate forces that want to stop his journey deep into the planet’s core. The game’s underground world is populated with all sorts of talking animals, sentient rocks, and familiar Kong faces to assist DK or ask him for help with various ridiculous errands. They’re cute, but their chatter is more or less ignorable.

The reimagined Pauline is an adorable addition to the lineup. Credit: Nintendo

The main exception is Pauline, the damsel-in-distress from the original Donkey Kong, recast here as a precocious child working with DK to find a way back to her home on the surface. Pauline’s effort to overcome inherent stage fright and embrace the magical power of her singing voice was surprisingly touching. That’s largely thanks to a winning voice-acting performance that forms the basis for some toe-tapping gibberish playing behind DK’s Bananza transformations.

The adorable relationship between young Pauline and the silent Donkey Kong is the icing on a very satisfying cake. Even though Mario is nowhere to be seen, Donkey Kong Bananza seems destined to be thought of in the same category as the Mario games that defined earlier Nintendo hardware launches.

Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper.

Donkey Kong Bananza is a worthy successor to Super Mario Odyssey’s legacy Read More »

Nintendo Switch 2’s faster chip can dramatically improve original Switch games

gaming, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, nintendo switch 2, Switch, switch 2, Tech / Rejus Almole / June 7, 2025

Link’s Awakening, Switch 1, docked. Andrew Cunningham

It’s pretty much the same story for Link’s Awakening. Fine detail is much more visible, and the 3D is less aliased-looking because the Switch 2 is running the game at a higher resolution. Even the fairly aggressive background blur the game uses looks toned down on the Switch 2.

Link’s Awakening on the Switch 1, docked.

Link’s Awakening on the Switch 2, docked.

The videos of these games aren’t quite as obviously impressive as the Pokémon ones, but they give you a sense of the higher resolution on the Switch 2 and the way that the Switch’s small endemic frame rate hiccups are no longer a problem.

Quiet updates

For the last two categories of games, we won’t be waxing as poetic about the graphical improvements because there aren’t many. In fact, some of these games we played looked ever-so-subtly worse on the Switch 2 in handheld mode, likely a side effect of a 720p handheld-mode image being upscaled to the Switch 2’s 1080p native resolution.

That said, we still noticed minor graphical improvements. In Kirby Star Allies, for example, the 3D elements in the picture looked mostly the same, with roughly the same resolution, same textures, and similar overall frame rates. But 2D elements of the UI did still seem to be aware that the console is outputting a 4K image and are visibly sharper as a result.

Games without updates

If you were hoping that all games would get some kind of “free” resolution or frame rate boost from the Switch 2, that mostly doesn’t happen. Games like Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Pokémon Legends Arceus, neither of which got any kind of Switch 2-specific update, look mostly identical on both consoles. If you get right up close and do some pixel peeping, you can occasionally see places where outputting a 4K image instead of a 1080p image will look better on a 4K TV, but it’s nothing like what we saw in the other games we tested.

Pokémon Legends Arceus, Switch 1, docked.

Pokémon Legends Arceus, Switch 2, docked.

However, it does seem that the Switch 2 may help out somewhat in terms of performance consistency. Observe the footage of a character running around town in Pokémon Legends—the resolution, draw distance, and overall frame rate all look pretty much the same. But the minor frame rate dips and hitches you see on the Switch 1 seem to have been at least partially addressed on the Switch 2. Your mileage will vary, of course. But you may encounter cases where a game targeting a stable 30 fps on the Switch 1 will hit that 30 fps with a bit more consistency on the Switch 2.

Nintendo Switch 2’s faster chip can dramatically improve original Switch games Read More »

Why console makers can legally brick your game console

brick, EULA, gaming, hacking, microsoft, Nintendo, PlayStation, Sony, Switch, xbox / Mike M. / May 23, 2025

Consoles like these may get banned from Nintendo’s online services, but they tend to still work offline. Credit: Kate Temkin / ReSwitched

“Unfortunately, ‘bricking’ personal devices to limit users’ rights and control their behavior is nothing new,” Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Victoria Noble told Ars Technica. “It would likely take selective enforcement to rise to a problematic level [in court],” attorney Richard Hoeg said.

Last year, a collection of 17 consumer groups urged the Federal Trade Commission to take a look at the way companies use the so-called practice of “software tethering” to control a device’s hardware features after purchase. Thus far, though, the federal consumer watchdog has shown little interest in enforcing complaints against companies that do so.

“Companies should not use EULAs to strip people of rights that we normally associate with ownership, like the right to tinker with or modify their own personal devices,” Noble told Ars. “[Console] owners deserve the right to make otherwise legal modifications to their own devices without fear that a company will punish them by remotely bricking their [systems].”

The court of public opinion

In the end, these kinds of draconian bricking clauses may be doing their job even if the console makers involved don’t invoke them. “In practice, I expect this kind of thing is more about scaring people away from jailbreaking and modifying their systems and that Nintendo is unlikely to go about bricking large volumes of devices, even if they technically have the right to,” Loiterman said.

“Just because they put a remedy in the EULA doesn’t mean they will certainly use it either,” attorney Mark Methenitis said. “My suspicion is this is to go after the people who eventually succeeded in jailbreaking the original Switch and try to prevent that for the Switch 2.”

The threat of public backlash could also hold the console makers back from limiting the offline functionality of any hacked consoles. After citing public scrutiny that companies like Tesla, Keurig, and John Deere faced for limiting hardware via software updates, Methenitis said that he “would imagine Nintendo would suffer similar bad publicity if they push things too far.”

That said, legal capacities can sometimes tend to invite their own use. “If the ability is there, someone will want to ‘see how it goes.'” Hoeg said.

Why console makers can legally brick your game console Read More »

Nintendo says more about how free Switch 2 updates will improve Switch games

gaming, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, nintendo switch 2 / Paul Patrick / May 18, 2025

When Nintendo took the wraps off the Switch 2 in early April, it announced that around a dozen first-party Switch games would be getting free updates that would add some Switch 2-specific benefits to older games running on the new console. We could safely assume that these updates wouldn’t be as extensive as the $10 and $20 paid upgrade packs for games like Breath of the Wild or Kirby and the Forgotten Land, but Nintendo’s page didn’t initially provide any game-specific details.

Earlier this week, Nintendo updated its support page with more game-by-game details about what players of these older games can expect on the new hardware. The baseline improvement for most games is “improved image quality” and optimizations for the Switch 2’s built-in display, but others include support for GameShare multiplayer, support for the new Joy-Cons’ mouse controls, support for HDR TVs, and other tweaks.

The most significant of the announced updates are frame rate improvements for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the main-series Pokémon games released in late 2022. Most latter-day Switch games suffered from frame rate dips here and there, as newer games outstripped the capabilities of a low-power tablet processor that had already been a couple of years old when the Switch launched in 2017. But the Pokémon performance problems were so pervasive and widely commented-upon that Nintendo released a rare apology promising to improve the game post-release. Subsequent patches helped somewhat but could never deliver a consistently smooth frame rate; perhaps new hardware will finally deliver what software patches couldn’t.

Nintendo says more about how free Switch 2 updates will improve Switch games Read More »

Nvidia confirms the Switch 2 supports DLSS, G-Sync, and ray tracing

Ampere, dlss, gaming, GeForce, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, nintendo switch 2, NVIDIA, Tech / Paul Patrick / April 4, 2025

In the wake of the Switch 2 reveal, neither Nintendo nor Nvidia has gone into any detail at all about the exact chip inside the upcoming handheld—technically, we are still not sure what Arm CPU architecture or what GPU architecture it uses, how much RAM we can expect it to have, how fast that memory will be, or exactly how many graphics cores we’re looking at.

But interviews with Nintendo executives and a blog post from Nvidia did at least confirm several of the new chip’s capabilities. The “custom Nvidia processor” has a GPU “with dedicated [Ray-Tracing] Cores and Tensor Cores for stunning visuals and AI-driven enhancements,” writes Nvidia Software Engineering VP Muni Anda.

This means that, as rumored, the Switch 2 will support Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) upscaling technology, which helps to upscale a lower-resolution image into a higher-resolution image with less of a performance impact than native rendering and less loss of quality than traditional upscaling methods. For the Switch games that can render at 4K or at 120 FPS 1080p, DLSS will likely be responsible for making it possible.

The other major Nvidia technology supported by the new Switch is G-Sync, which prevents screen tearing when games are running at variable frame rates. Nvidia notes that G-Sync is only supported in handheld mode and not in docked mode, which could be a limitation of the Switch dock’s HDMI port.

Nvidia confirms the Switch 2 supports DLSS, G-Sync, and ray tracing Read More »

First-party Switch 2 games—including re-releases—all run either $70 or $80

gaming, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, nintendo switch 2 / Paul Patrick / April 3, 2025

Not all game releases will follow Nintendo’s pricing formula. The Switch 2 release of Street Fighter 6 Year 1-2 Fighters Edition retails for $60, and Square Enix’s remastered Bravely Default is going for $40, the exact same price the 3DS version launched for over a decade ago.

Game-Key cards have clearly labeled cases to tell you that the cards don’t actually hold game content. Credit: Nintendo/Square Enix

One possible complicating factor for those games? While they’re physical releases, they use Nintendo’s new Game-Key Card format, which attempts to split the difference between true physical copies of a game and download codes. Each cartridge includes a key for the game, but no actual game content—the game itself is downloaded to your system at first launch. But despite holding no game content, the key card must be inserted each time you launch the game, just like any other physical cartridge.

These cards will presumably be freely shareable and sellable just like regular physical Switch releases, but because they hold no actual game data, they’re cheaper to manufacture. It’s possible that some of these savings are being passed on to the consumer, though we’ll need to see more examples to know for sure.

What about Switch 2 Edition upgrades?

The big question mark is how expensive the Switch 2 Edition game upgrades will be for Switch games you already own, and what the price gap (if any) will be between games like Metroid Prime 4 or Pokémon Legends: Z-A that are going to launch on both the original Switch and the Switch 2.

But we can infer from Mario Kart and Donkey Kong that the pricing for these Switch 2 upgrades will most likely be somewhere in the $10 to $20 range—the difference between the $60 price of most first-party Switch releases and the $70-to-$80 price for the Switch 2 Editions currently listed at Wal-Mart. Sony charges a similar $10 fee to upgrade from the PS4 to the PS5 editions of games that will run on both consoles. If you can find copies of the original Switch games for less than $60, that could mean saving a bit of money on the Switch 2 Edition, relative to Nintendo’s $70 and $80 retail prices.

Nintendo will also use some Switch 2 Edition upgrades as a carrot to entice people to the more expensive $50-per-year tier of the Nintendo Switch Online service. The company has already announced that the upgrade packs for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will be offered for free to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers. The list of extra benefits for that service now includes additional emulated consoles (Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, and now Gamecube) and paid DLC for both Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8.

This story was updated at 7: 30pm on April 2nd to add more pricing information from US retailers about other early Switch 2 games.

First-party Switch 2 games—including re-releases—all run either $70 or $80 Read More »

What we’re expecting from Nintendo’s Switch 2 announcement Wednesday

c button, gaming, Mario Kart, metroid prime 4, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, nintendo switch 2, switch 2, switch 2 launch / Paul Patrick / April 2, 2025

Implausible: Long-suffering Earthbound fans have been hoping for a new game in the series (or even an official localization of the Japan-exclusive Mother 3) for literal decades now. Personally, though, I’m hoping for a surprise revisit to the Punch-Out series, following on its similar surprise return on the Wii in 2009.

Screen

Likely: While a 720p screen was pretty nice in a 2017 gaming handheld, a full 1080p display is much more standard in today’s high-end gaming portables. We expect Nintendo will follow this trend for what looks to be a nearly 8-inch screen on the Switch 2.

Possible: While a brighter OLED screen would be nice as a standard feature on the Switch 2, we expect Nintendo will follow the precedent of the Switch generation and offer this as a pricier upgrade at some point in the future.

Implausible: The Switch 2 would be the perfect time for Nintendo to revisit the glasses-free stereoscopic 3D that we all thought was such a revelation on the 3DS all those years ago.

C Button

Close-up of the — C-ing is believing. Credit: Nintendo

Likely: The mysterious new button labeled “C” on the Switch 2’s right Joy-Con could serve as a handy way to “connect” to other players, perhaps through a new Miiverse-style social network.

Possible: Recent rumors suggest the C button could be used to connect to a second Switch console (or the TV-connected dock) for a true dual-screen experience. That would be especially fun and useful for Wii U/DS emulation and remasters.

Implausible: The C stands for Chibi-Robo! and launches a system-level mini-game focused on the miniature robot.

New features

Switch 2, with joycons slightly off the central unit/screen. — Credit: Nintendo

Likely: After forcing players to use a wonky smartphone app for voice chat on the Switch, we wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo finally implements full on-device voice chat for online games on the Switch 2—at least between confirmed “friends” on the system.

Possible: Some sort of system-level achievement tracking would bring Nintendo’s new console in line with a feature that the competition from Sony and Microsoft has had for decades now.

Implausible: After killing it off for the Switch generation, we’d love it if Nintendo brought back the Virtual Console as a way to buy permanent downloadable copies of emulated classics that will carry over across generations. Failing that, how about a revival of the 3DS’s StreetPass passive social network for Switch 2 gamers on the go?

What we’re expecting from Nintendo’s Switch 2 announcement Wednesday Read More »

Punch-Out’s Mike Tyson has been defeated in under two minutes for the first time

gaming, mike tyson, Nintendo, Punch-Out!!, speedrunning, yes / Kris Guyer / February 9, 2025

Bismuth explains the unreasonable luck needed for a record-setting Tyson fight at around the 56: 30 mark in this 2024 video.

Summoning Salt says Tyson here gave him a “perfect pattern” during his first phase of endless uppercuts, something that happens only 1 in 1,600 bouts. And later in the fight, the game’s random-number generator cooperated by adding only an extra 16 frames of delay (~0.8 in-game seconds) compared to a “perfect” run. Combined, Summoning Salt estimates that Tyson will only punch this quickly once every 7,000 to 10,000 attempts.

“It’s over,” Summoning Salt said live on Twitch when the record-setting match was finished, in a surprisingly even tone that came over what sounds very much like a dropped controller. “I thought I’d be a lot more excited about this. Holy shit, dude! It’s fucking over… Dude, am I dreaming right now? … I’m sorry I’m so quiet. I’m kind of in shock right now that that just happened.”

Where do we go from here?

With his near-perfect combination of both skill and luck, Summoning Salt’s new record surpasses his own previous world record of precisely 2: 00.00 on the in-game clock. That mark, set just eight months ago, was just three frames off of displaying 1: 59 on the in-game timer for the first time.

Summoning Salt was also the first runner to break the 2: 01 barrier on Tyson in 2020, a feat he has since replicated just 15 times over tens of thousands of attempts. “There’s essentially no difference between all of those [2:00.xx] fights and this one, except I got better luck from Tyson on this fight,” he writes. “Finally, after nearly half a decade, the 1: 59 has happened.”

Summoning Salt discusses the difficulty of beating 2: 13 on Tyson in 2020, months before setting a then-record time of 2: 00 himself

Ironically, just before posting his first 2: 00.xx fight in 2020, Summoning Salt posted a video discussing in part just how difficult it was for speedrunners to beat Matt Turk’s 2007 record of 2: 13 on Tyson. “For years it was just this impossibly fast time that the top players just couldn’t get close to,” Summoning Salt said at the time. “Of course, other top players fought Tyson years later, but their best efforts came up short… they couldn’t touch it. It stood alone.”

Summoning Salt is now just over a second off of the tool-assisted speedrun record of 1: 58.61, which uses emulated gameplay to fight a theoretical “perfect” bout every time. But after spending years on what he writes “is the greatest gaming achievement I have ever accomplished,” Summoning Salt seems ready to hang up his virtual boxing gloves for good.

“I have no plans to ever improve this time,” he writes. “It will be beaten by somebody one day, likely by matching this fight and then getting better luck in phase 3. I have no interest in competing for that but am extremely proud to have gotten the first sub 2 ever on Mike Tyson.”

Punch-Out’s Mike Tyson has been defeated in under two minutes for the first time Read More »