Nintendo

Kirby’s Art Book Is Beautiful, Just Like Kirby

I wouldn’t say what the world needs now is a 272-page book of Kirby artwork, but it certainly can’t hurt. Published by Viz Media in English earlier this week, the Kirby Art & Style Collection is a $30 hardbound tome filled with official art, concept art, box art, and sketches spanning 25 years of Kirby…

How To Lose Friends And Alienate Villagers

The heart of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the friendships you build with your animal neighbors, each with their own quirks, aesthetics, and personality traits. So when Tom Nook announced that the humble island of Bussy Beach had its very first visitor at our brand new campsite, I was ecstatic. I rushed to the campgrounds,…

Latest Cooking Mama Game Was An Unauthorized Release, Say Creators [Update]

The creator of the Cooking Mama games says it pulled the plug on the latest game, Cooking Mama: Cookstar, over quality concerns. Except the publisher went ahead and released it anyway. Controversy has been swirling around Cooking Mama: Cookstar ever since it temporarily went up for sale on the Nintendo Switch eShop at the end…

My Kids Keep Fucking Up My Animal Crossing Island

You should play Animal Crossing with your kids, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. They were, in many ways, very wrong. Like most of you, I got the game at launch, and like many of you, I thought it would be a blast to share the same island with loved ones, who’d be able…

The Nintendo Switch Finally Lets You Remap The Controls

At long last you can customize the button layout for your Joy-Con or Pro Controller on the Switch. The much-requested feature was added last night in a firmware update and means players can now change their controller layouts at the system level rather than only if specific games that allow for it. While great in…

$300 Controller For Hatsune Miku Project Diva On Nintendo Switch And PS4

Hatsune Miku is no stranger to big, expensive controllers. The latest Hatsune Miku games are no exception. Peripheral-maker Hori is rereleasing a dedicated controller for the Switch game Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Mega 39, as well as one for the PS4 game Hatsune Miku Project Diva Future Tone DX. The controller’s original run sold out,…

Nintendo Says Stop Using Alcohol To Clean Your Joy-Cons

You might have heard there’s currently a global pandemic going on. As a result you might be using things like alcohol and disinfect wipes to clean off your stuff, including your Switch. Nintendo says don’t, at least if your priority is not damaging the system’s finish. For many, it probably isn’t. “Recently, customers have been…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Pulled From Some Chinese Stores After In-Game Hong Kong Protests

Listings for Nintendo’s adorable life sim Animal Crossing: New Horizons have been taken down from online Chinese stores Pinduoduo and Taobao. This comes on the heels of some players using the game to share pro-Hong Kong protest messages. Reuters reported earlier today that searching for the Switch game on Pinduoduo and Taobao no longer returns…

Accomplishing Things In Animal Crossing Leaves Me Feeling Kinda Bummed

Earlier this week, my partner quit playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I have continued to incrementally improve my island with new establishments, nicer houses, and a preponderance of glassy-eyed, unblinking gnome statues. But mostly, I just fish and catch bugs. “It’s something to do with my hands,” I say to her in an attempt to…

The Pokémon Company Is Investigating Sword And Shield Cheaters

Pokémon Sword and Shield players recently discovered an exploit they can use to inflate their competitive rankings, and the Pokémon Company is now threatening to ban anyone who doesn’t stop doing it. The exploit revolves around quitting an online match right before you lose by holding down the power button on the Switch. It was…

Lego Super Mario Sets Launch In August, Aren’t Cheap

Nintendo and Lego’s odd amalgam of traditional building set and interactive electronic game kicks off on August 1 with the $60 Adventures with Mario Starter Course, along with the newly announced $30 Piranha Plant Power Slide and $100 Bowser’s Castle Boss Battle expansions. If you want to play with Lego’s weird-looking Mario, with his embedded…

Over the weekend, Nintendo hardware drew long lines in Japan, which, considering the coronavirus outbreaks, was not a good thing. Today, Nintendo announced that, other than hardware reserved by customers, it would not be shipping any Switch or Switch Lite consoles in Japan. 

Super Mario 64‘s Glitchy Smoke Has Been Fixed After 24 Years

For all this time, over all these decades, we’ve all been playing Super Mario 64 with a visual glitch: The smoke that comes off Mario’s butt when you catch fire is broken. Yup, turns out the MS-Paint-lookin’ effect we’re so used to isn’t how the smoke is supposed to look. Rather, after some poking around…

Animal Crossing Update Dials Back The Damn Bunny Day Eggs

Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s Bunny Day event replaced a large percentage of the items players harvest to earn bells and craft cool items with stupid colored eggs. Today’s patch makes the egg drops much less frequent, at least until Easter Sunday. Since the Bunny Day celebration started last week, trying to collect fish or dig…

Bunny Day Sucks

I was excited for Animal Crossing New Horizon’s first big holiday. It sounded fun. But it sucks. I hate it. I want it to stop. Leave my island and take your eggs with you, Zipper. Bunny Day is a holiday that is currently being celebrated in Animal Crossing. During this time players collect different types…

Kotaku Reacts To Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Two weeks have passed since Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out, and almost everyone on the Kotaku staff has poured themselves into trying to make our new desert islands feel like home. It’s been…a process—full of blood, sweat, and a lot of broken axes—and we have some thoughts about it. Hopefully by now you’ve read…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Patch Fixes Missing Balloons Bug

The latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons patch addresses a bug that prevented balloons from spawning in the skies above players’ islands under “certain circumstances.” Over the last week, Animal Crossing: New Horizons players have noticed something funky going on with the balloons that occasionally drift over their islands. Once the Nook Miles achievement for popping 300…

Woman Who Played 4,000 Hours Of Animal Crossing: New Leaf Finally Starts New Horizons

After playing over 4,000 hours of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, 88-year-old Audrey at long last embarks on her deserted island getaway in Animal Crossing: New Horizons The last time we saw her, she was diligently checking in on the villagers of her New Leaf town and tending her huge flower garden. Now she’s returned along…

Animal Crossing Is Letting Me Wear $1,000 Jackets I Could Never Afford

While it’s perfectly expected and cool that people are using Animal Crossing’s design tools to create unique and interesting clothes, some players are simply using them to craft recreations of outfits they already own. Or, in this case, might never own. Outside of video games, I’m kinda into techwear, a style of clothing that’s about…

Ring Fit Adventure Is A Sweaty Ray Of Hope During Self-Isolation

Like most people, I haven’t been moving around much these days. Aside from a daily walk, I only use my body to move around the tight circuit of my house: desk, sofa, microwave, bed. My fingers see the most action. I type emails to friends I haven’t spoken to in years and wash my hands…