Nintendo’s nostalgia-fueled Direct gives the Switch some juice

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Nintendo announced a surprise Direct this week, showing off the games it’s launching in early 2023. It showed several games, including Tears of the Kingdom, and gave a release date for Pikmin 4. Nintendo also this week released its quarterly financial report. It revealed that Switch sales are slowing down. So, in addition to showing off the game, the Direct also showed the six-year-old console still has life in it.

The Direct was dominated by nostalgia fuel, primarily in the form of remakes and remasters of older Nintendo titles. We got the Metroid Prime remaster, the Advance Wars collection we already knew was coming, Baten Kaitos Remastered, a re-release of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, a new Samba de Amigo title and a We Love Katamari remaster. In addition, Nintendo is releasing Game Boy titles on its Switch Online service. This isn’t even touching on the fact that the headliners at the show were new entries in the long-running Zelda and Pikmin franchises.

Meanwhile, Sony and Microsoft — Nintendo’s console-making brethren — are engaged in a nasty war of words. While the legal regulators, such as the U.K.’s Competitions and Markets Authority, have expressed reservations of the deal, the two companies appear more focused on each other. Microsoft recently subpoenaed financial records from Sony as part of the Federal Trade Commission lawsuit. According to Axios, Sony says, “Microsoft’s demand for performance reviews for SIE’s leadership is obvious harassment.” Activision CEO Bobby Kotick told the Financial Times, “I think this is all Sony just trying to sabotage the transaction.”

To cool off this week, I’m going to return to Metroid Prime with the remaster. I’ll also be playing Octopath Traveler II, hopefully getting enough time under my belt to review it. We have a wealth of games to play in the upcoming weeks, even if some of them are

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What to play this week

What’s new:

Hogwarts Legacy
Metroid Prime Remastered

New on subscription services:

Madden NFL 23 (Xbox Game Pass)
SD Gundam Battle Alliance (Xbox Game Pass)
Evil Dead: The Game (PlayStation Plus)
OlliOlliWorld (PlayStation Plus)
Mafia: The Definitive Edition (PlayStation Plus)
Destiny 2: Beyond Light (PlayStation Plus)
Recipe for Disaste (GeForce Now)
Baldur’s Gate 3 (GeForce Now)
Inside the Backrooms (GeForce Now)
Riptide GP: Renegade+ (Apple Arcade)

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