Author: Game Infliction

Nintendo is squeezing sales out of the seven year-old Switch, shifting 13.74 million units in the first nine months of the financial year, a 7.8% decline on the same period a year earlier. But it has revised its sales forecast for the current financial year up, predicting Switch sales of 15.5 million, up from the 15 million previously predicted.

Reporting its financials for the three months ending December 31, 2023, Nintendo said Switch exclusive Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the first side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. in almost 11 years, saw a “solid start” with sales of 11.96 million.

Sales continued to grow for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is now up to an incredible 20.28 million units sold but some way off Breath of the Wild‘s 31.61 million sold. Pikmin 4 is now on 3.33 million units sold, and Super Mario RPG, which came out in November, reached 3.14 million units.

Boosted by the April release of the phenomenally successful The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe shifted another 6.79 million units. The kart racer is now up to an eye-watering 60.58 million sold, comfortably the best-selling Switch game and the best-selling kart racer of all time.

As for Switch, Nintendo said sales of the console “continued to be steady” in its seventh year since launch. The Switch is now up to 139.36 million units sold. It lags behind only the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation 2 in the best-selling consoles of all-time list. Indeed, the Switch has more annual playing users than ever before, with 122 million recorded during the 2023 calendar year.

Switch software sales totaled 163.95 million units (a decrease of 4.7% year-on-year) for the period. Nintendo reported a record net profit of 408 billion yen ($2.7 billion) for the April-December period.

“For hardware, by continuing to convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch, we try not only to put one system in every home, but several in every home, or even one for every person,” Nintendo said. “Another objective is to continually release new offerings so more consumers keep playing Nintendo Switch even longer and we can maximize hardware sales.”

Looking ahead, Nintendo will release Mario vs. Donkey Kong this month and Princess Peach:

Showtime! in March. Splatoon 3: Expansion Pass – Side Order, the second wave of paid add-on content for Splatoon 3, is due out this month.

Of course, expectations of an announcement of Switch 2 are sky high, with the console reportedly due out during the second half of 2024. One of the big unanswered questions is whether this next-gen console will be backwards compatible with the Switch. With 122 million Switch players in tow, is seems unlikely Nintendo will leave those accounts behind to start over.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

An Elden Ring mobile game is in development, but don’t hold your breath — it sounds like this one’s a while away.

Reuters reports that Tencent is working to adapt FromSoftware’s mega hit into a mobile game, but progress is described as “slow”.

Apparently Tencent wants the Elden Ring mobile game to work similarly to gacha game Genshin Impact, with a free-to-play business model supported by in-app purchases. But the design of Elden Ring, which is a single-player, premium action role-playing game, is “at odds” with Tencent’s vision.

News of an Elden Ring mobile game comes amid what fans hope is the imminent release of the hotly anticipated Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. Various changes to the back end of Elden Ring’s entry in Steam suggest something is afoot. So far, however, both developer FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco have remained quiet.

As for Tencent, it appears to be struggling to create mobile game hits based on established PC and console games. Last week it emerged Tencent had canceled an unannounced Nier mobile game.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Obsidian Entertainment has responded to criticism revolving around its upcoming fantasy RPG, Avowed, saying that there is still work to be done before players try the experience for themselves.

This update on one of Xbox Game Studios’ most anticipated titles comes from the Dropped Frames podcast, which recently invited Avowed Game Director Carrie Patel on to talk about how development is going. She says it’s been interesting to work on Avowed while periodically unveiling slivers of content to the public. However, as fans get to peek behind the curtain and critique what they see, she hopes they realize that these demos represent somewhat dated builds.

Avowed has only shown up at events a handful of times, with one recent example being a gameplay-focused demo that appeared at the Xbox Developer Direct in January.

“We’re getting to show more and more, but all of that is while the game is still in progress, obviously,” Patel explained. “One of the heartening things has been seeing fans call out some of the things that we are actively working on, like the sense of hitting and impacts as you’re attacking enemies. It’s like, ‘Yep, what you all saw was still a few weeks behind where we were even when that footage was released just because of the nature of the way these things are put together, and the team’s been working on it.’”

Patel says it’s nice to see feedback like this and know Obsidian has already addressed those concerns or is at least in the process of addressing them. When asked how the studio incorporates online commentary surrounding Avowed, she said that “it’s definitely a point of discussion.”

“We’ve definitely got enough people who follow that stuff closely enough that, if there’s something that’s coming up a lot in commentary, we’re probably talking about it internally,” Patel said.

We recently learned a lot about how Avowed will compare to some of Obsidian’s past titles. Fans familiar with the studio will be happy to know that the adventure will have multiple endings to uncover. However, you won’t be able to romance your companions as you wander through the magical settings, and you’ll only be able to play as either a human or an elf.

Avowed is currently slated to launch for PC and Xbox Series X | S sometime this fall. In other Microsoft gaming news, Xbox head Phil Spencer just revealed that the company will talk about its future in interactive entertainment in a business update next week. This follows swarms of reports that the company is interested in bringing some of its titles to other platforms.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.