Both Nintendo And Sega Had Oddly Timed Announcements This Week

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A four-way split image from Kotaku's top stories on Pokemon TCG Pocket, The Nintendo Switch 2, and more. — Photo: Michael San Diego, The Washington Post, Image: Hello Games, The Pokemon Company / Kotaku, Nintendo, The Pokemon Company / Kotaku, Sony, The Pokémon Company / Kotaku, SEGA, Screenshot: Xbox / Bungie

Whether you think the art you consume should be a distraction from the real world or a reflection of it is up to you and your capacity for curiosity. While such a divide doesn’t exist for fans of film, music, literature, or television, for some reason, it does for people who enjoy things like sports and video games. As a result, journalists who cover the latter spaces sometimes have the absurd task of calling certain things “news” during weeks when those stories feel like anything but—because not everyone is interested in real news.

This is one of those weeks. So, fresh off one of the most consequential presidential elections in decades, our top “news” stories for the week are, in fact, Nintendo announcing the Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with the Switch, Sega delisting over 60 classic games like Crazy Taxi (sorry, Tim Walz), and more things that definitely most certainly obviously matter right now.

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Nintendo Chose The Weirdest Time To Confirm Switch 2 Backwards Compatibility

Nintendo figures cheer in front of a Switch. — Photo: Michael San Diego (Shutterstock)

A big question around the Switch 2 has just been answered. While everyone (in the U.S. at least) is glued to their TV watching the 2024 election returns, Nintendo officially confirmed that its next gaming console will be backwards compatible with the Switch. - Ethan Gach

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No Man’s Sky Just Got Its Best New Feature In Years

No Man's Sky explorers appear on a strange planet in its marketing art. — Image: Hello Games

Years after the cross-save revolution began sweeping across gaming, No Man’s Sky is finally joining the party. The space exploration sim is getting cloud saves that will let players take their bases, ships, resources, and progress to any platform they want. - Ethan Gach

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Pokémon TCG Pocket Players Already Have A Wild Conspiracy About How To Collect The Rarest Cards

Pokemon cards appear over top of art of a forest — Image: The Pokemon Company / Kotaku

Pokémon TCG Pocket hasn’t even been out for a full week yet, and players have already become obsessed with a conspiracy theory: they believe there’s a way to figure out which booster packs secretly contain better odds of getting some of the game’s rarest cards. That’s because people desperately hunting for an EX Charizard or Misty trainer will take any advantage they can get, even if it’s 100 percent made up. - Ethan Gach

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Mario & Luigi Returns After Nearly A Decade But Not To Universal Acclaim

Mario (left) and Luigi (right) sit on the forest floor while magic emits out of their hands. — Image: Nintendo

2024 might end up being the last year of the Nintendo Switch’s lifespan before it’s replaced by something else. Yet looking at the console’s constant stream of new releases you wouldn’t realize that. In a year that already saw wonderfully charming titles like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Princess Peach: Showtime! Nintendo is now here with the return of the Mario & Luigi series of RPGs. But does Mario & Luigi: Brothership live up to the expectations? The answer is a bit complicated. - Willa Rowe

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Pokémon Fan Calculates How Long It Will Take To Collect Every Card In TCG Pocket

Pokemon TCG Pocket booster packs appear overtop of art for the game. — Image: The Pokemon Company / Kotaku

Pokémon has a way inspiring the completionist within people, setting them up on intense collect-a-thons that either take them to unimagined glory or exhaustion laced with deep personal shame. Pokémon TCG Pocket is no different, situating the long-running mania around the card game into a slick, free-to-play package that’s easy to pickup and hard to put down. One fan did the hard work of actually trying to figure out how long it would take on average to get every card currently in the game. The answer isn’t pretty. - Ethan Gach

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Elon Musk Somehow Became A Top Ranked Diablo IV Player In Between Cheerleading For Trump

Musk jumps in the air on stage at a talk. — Photo: The Washington Post (Getty Images)

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man with over $200 billion in net worth right now. He could go anywhere and do anything and he has apparently chosen to spend an inordinate number of hours grinding for loot in Diablo IV. The Tesla CEO revealed on the Joe Rogan podcast in a surprise, last-minute appearance before the election that he is a top-20 player in Blizzard’s hit action-RPG. - Ethan Gach

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Sony Confirms PS5 Pro Specs And All 50+ Upgraded Games At Launch

A PS5 Pro floats in the dark — Image: Sony

The PlayStation 5 Pro is out November 7 and with just a few days to go ahead of the new console’s launch, we finally have both confirmation on the full specs of the machine as well as all of the 50 games getting PS5 Pro enhanced upgrades in time for release. - Ethan Gach

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The Highest Value Pokémon TCG Cards In Stellar Crown

Five Pokémon cards, arranged on a blurred background. — Image: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Stellar Crown felt like a return to form for the Pokémon TCG, after a fair few sets that have had disappointing pull rates—albeit this time by being an incredibly small set, with many fewer cards to collect. Now, on the verge of the next set Surging Sparks’ release, it’s a good moment to look at which Stellar Crown cards are getting the most love. - John Walker

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Sega Delisting Over 60 Classic Games Next Month

Image for article titled Both Nintendo And Sega Had Oddly Timed Announcements This Week — Image: SEGA

Sega is delisting over 60 games across console and PC digital storefronts next month. The company reassured players that those who already owned the retro games will still be able to download and play them after they’ve been delisted, but that doesn’t make the sudden removal of so many classic titles any better. - Zack Zwiezen

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Halo 2's Legendary E3 Level Will Finally Be Playable After 21 Years

A screenshot shows Halo 2's E3 demo in the MCC. — Screenshot: Xbox / Bungie

Back in 2003, before Halo 2 launched, Bungie showcased a gameplay demo that featured Master Chief on Earth fighting aliens. This level, known online as Earth City, didn’t ship with the retail game in 2004, as it was a highly scripted demo created for E3. But now, 20 years later, you’ll soon be able to play this iconic piece of Halo history. - Zack Zwiezen

Both Nintendo And Sega Had Oddly Timed Announcements This Week

If you're Tim Walz, imagine losing an election and your beloved Crazy Taxi in the same week