Nintendo

There will be a Nintendo Direct tomorrow at 5pm Eastern focused on 3DS and Switch games coming out this year. Nintendo adds that the entire thing should run about 30 minutes and will also include new information about Mario Tennis Aces. And who knows, maybe we’ll finally get Mother 3.

Mario Is Officially A Plumber Again

In September, Nintendo crushed hearts across the world by declaring that Mario was no longer a plumber. This week, the publisher has remedied that horrible mistake, changing Mario’s bio to note that he is, in fact, a plumber. Previously, as translated by Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft, the official Japanese Mario bio had read: “All around sporty,…

The $80 limited edition of the Super Mario Encyclopedia comes in a surprise block slipcase with an actual surprise inside. There are four different holofoil covers—Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, Super Star, or 1-Up—and there’s no way of telling which one’s inside before purchase. How evil is that? At least medium evil.

The Switch Apparently Stops Counting Your Play Time After A Year [UPDATE]

Switch users are discovering that the console has reset their logged playtime a year after purchase. Although the Switch didn’t come out in the U.S. until March 3, 2017, players who received Switches prior to then have been noticing an unwelcome surprise next to their Legend of Zelda “Profile” entries. The Switch tracks users’ playtime…

The State Of Our Switches, One Year Later

On March 3, 2017, Nintendo launched the Switch, the miracle gaming system that’s a console and a handheld at the same time. Let’s see how ours are holding up. Stephen Totilo’s Switch: Safe Inside His Sock Date Acquired: I got my Switch in late February of 2017, directly from Nintendo, a week or so before…

If You Missed Last Year’s Detective Game Subsurface Circular, Play It On The Switch

In Subsurface Circular, you ride a subway full of robots going about their daily lives. Your job is to help solve their problems, but there’s a catch: you can’t ever leave your seat. The game came out on PC last August, but, like most things, it’s even better on the Nintendo Switch. Subsurface Circular is…

This Local Two-Player Mode Looks Rather Silly

Handy Mah-jong for Nintendo Switch is a budget-priced download game with a budget-looking local two-player mode. Developed by Imaginative Technology Land, Hand Mah-jong’s official website has a PDF download for TV mode (above). It looks rather imaginative and goofy, but so does the PDF download for the portable mode. Hey, whatever works! Kotaku East is…

Super Mario Odyssey Players Think They’ve Found New Secrets

Super Mario Odyssey’s latest patch added a highly exploitable balloon hunting mini-game to Mario’s to-do list, but it might have brought secrets as well. Dataminers searching through the new patch have found a handful of hidden images that appear to showcase the location of extra Power Moons. Odyssey’s patch 1.2.0 mostly focused on adding a…

Nintendo Adds User Reviews, Immediately Pulls Them [UPDATE]

Late last week, Nintendo began allowing users to post reviews on the Switch’s eShop for certain games, with ratings and comments also appearing under each game’s listing on the Nintendo website. This morning, Nintendo suddenly pulled the feature, and it’s not clear why. The new feature, which was originally brought to people’s attention last Friday…

As Mario Odyssey Patches Change The Game, Speedrunners Scramble To Keep Up

Super Mario Odyssey speedrunners often use glitches to grab tricky power moons or skip through major portions of the game. A new patch implemented alongside the new Luigi’s Balloon World mode last week blocked some of those crucial tricks, slowing any runner who upgraded their game. Now, the community is trying to figure out what…

You Can Finally Play A Long-Lost Donkey Kong Game

An extremely rare, officially-licensed Donkey Kong game has finally been released to the Internet, and now the entire world can experience the bizarre journey of Donkey Kong 3: The Great Counterattack In the early 1980s, Nintendo licensed some of its properties to developer Hudson Soft, which released versions of Nintendo’s arcade and NES games for…

Mario Odyssey Players Are Breaking The New Balloon Mode

Growing up, you probably played hide-and-seek, and you probably had one friend who was so good at hiding that it felt like they’d vanished. Well, imagine that they could literally phase through walls in order to win, and you’ll have an idea of how Mario Odyssey players are feeling right now. Mario Odyssey’s new mode,…

“Nintendo Guy” Is Excellent At Accepting Nintendo Awards

At today’s DICE Awards, Nintendo cleaned up. The Kyoto-based game company didn’t send their development teams to the ceremony. Instead, it was up to one man to collect all the trophies. His name is Nintendo Guy. Of course, that’s not his real name (it’s Nate Bihldorff), but tonight, it was. Bihldorff, who works as a…

Luigi Will Comment On Your Super Mario Odyssey Outfits

Luigi is finally in Super Mario Odyssey as part of the game’s new Balloon World update which went live today. What strange wind brought him and his balloons to New Donk City is anybody’s guess, but while he’s around he has some thoughts to share about Mario’s clothes. Last fall we wrote about how Bowser…

It’s Good To Be A Kirby Fan

Nintendo's voracious pink blob is on the move again

Tactics Game Lets You Possess Hapless Villagers

Ambition of the Slimes is a tactical roleplaying game where the player wrangles an army of vulnerable slimes. By themselves, these cute critters are squishy and easily defeated but they have a trick up their sleeve: they can possess enemy units. Created by altairworks, Ambition of the Slimes offers a quick blast of tactics action…

Mario Is Getting His Own Fancy Encyclopedia

Having had tremendous success withits trio of The Legend of Zelda reference books, Dark Horse Publishing sets its sights on the Mushroom Kingdom, chronicling three decades of Nintendo gaming in the Super Mario Encyclopedia. The Super Mario Encyclopedia is an exhaustive look at nearly every Super Mario game Nintendo’s made, from Super Mario Bros. in…

Nintendo Labo Packaging In The Wild

Nintendo Labo display kits are starting to appear in Japanese retail shops. The boxes themselves are good sized, which isn’t that surprising if you’ve seen the cardboard Nintendo Labo sheets. It’s up to you to fold the cardboard, not Nintendo! While the boxes are a decent size, they are not that thick. Kotaku East is…

The Smash Bros. Community Is Arguing About Bayonetta

One of Super Smash Bros. For Wii U’s more controversial characters is in the spotlight again. Pros and casuals alike are debating whether to ban Bayonetta. The gun-heeled domme star of some pretty good spectacle fighter games, Bayonetta’s presence in Smash has been a sore spot for the competitive Smash community for a while. She…

Bayonetta 2 Is Too Good To Have Stayed Buried On The Wii U

For years, the Wii U exclusive Bayonetta 2 has been like that amazing restaurant that’s tucked away in a depressing mall on the far side of town. It’s fantastic, sure, but it’d be so much better if it were easier to reach. Originally released in 2014 as a Wii U exclusive, Bayonetta 2 outdid its…