Category: Nintendo

The Virtuos team chimes in.

Even now that we’ve got our hands on the Switch 2, there are still developers sharing their thoughts about the power of the system and where it fits in. In the same interview with Wccftech, the Virtuos team was asked how the new Nintendo device holds up in terms of “raw console performance” and if it’s closer to an Xbox Series S or PlayStation 4.

According to Eoin O’Grady, who is technical director at Black Shamrock (a Virtuos studio and subsidiary), it’s a bit of both, depending on what aspect of the hardware you’re looking at. The GPU in the Switch 2 apparently performs “slightly below” the Series S (but does come with some added technologies) and as for the CPU, the Switch 2 is supposedly “closer” to the PlayStation 4.

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“The handheld market is growing right now”.

One company that backed the Switch throughout its life was the port specialist Virtuos – working on games like Dark Souls and The Outer Worlds for the hybrid platform. It might just be the beginning of the Switch 2’s life, but the same team is already sounding confident about the new hardware’s future.

Speaking to Wccftech recently, Eoin O’Grady – the technical director of Virtuos’ subsidiary Black Shamrock (Starlink: Battle for Atlas) – believes the Switch 2 will “surpass” the success of the original system.

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Microsoft axed the studio behind the new project this week.

Although the Perfect Dark series has been under Microsoft’s control for more than two decades now, the news this week about the latest entry by The Initiative being axed has led to a lot of reactions within the Nintendo community.

With this in mind, Joanna’s voice actor Alix Wilton Regan (who was cast in the now-cancelled project) is rallying fans of the video game agent and calling on them to “speak up” on social media and elsewhere online if they want to see this series “survive”. Yes, it’s that grim!

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“More than 100 staff without jobs”.

It’s been another tough week for the video game industry and the fallout from Microsoft’s layoffs led to funding cuts at John and Brenda Romero’s studio, Romero Games.

Now, following some claims the studio had completely shut its doors, Irish publication The Journal has got apparently got an official confirmation about this in a statement from Brenda Romero (thanks, Push Square).

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Go on, tell us.

We’ve now been glued to our Switch 2 for a whole month, and it’s got us wondering how much mileage our community has gotten out of the new game Mario Kart World.

While it might not be the launch title everyone was hoping for, it’s still packed with plenty of things to do. This includes a new Knockout Tour mode, a whole world to free roam, and plenty of classic options like Grand Prix, local and online multiplayer, Time Trials, and Battle Mode.

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FREE WORKS.

Who needs an OLED TV when you have a widescreen CRT TV?

Okay, genuinely, CRT scanlines are gorgeous and we have a huge soft spot for these chunky units. Sitting on the floor, looking up at the screen as we ran around in Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time; pure bliss.

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No one could USB-C this…

With the launch of the Switch 2, accessory manufacturers have been rushing to bring their products to the market in a bid to offer alternatives to Nintendo’s own set, including docks. The latter has been causing headaches for many, and it seems Nintendo has put in place restrictions on the console’s USB-C ports.

The Verge’s Sean Hollister has been looking into the Switch 2’s USB-C port and was told this was the case after speaking to two accessory manufacturers. What should happen is that, when the console is popped into a dock via the USB-C adapter, it kicks off a series of commands that allow the power supply/dock to output video. That’s an extremely oversimplified explanation. That’s not happening when you connect the Switch 2 to most third-party docks, however.

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What the 4K?

Remember all of the confusion around whether the Switch 2 supports VRR? One moment, it did both docked and handheld, before Nintendo started removing wording surrounding docked VRR from websites and then apologised “for the error”.

Well, The Verge (paywalled) has made an interesting discovery — the Switch 2’s dock does support VRR, but it doesn’t work with the Switch 2 itself. How did editor Sean Hollister find this out? By taking inspiration from the SteamDeck subreddit and plugging a Steam Deck into the dock. It’s that simple.

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“Without a fan, you can’t play for long”.

With the addition of a fan in the Switch 2’s dock, we all knew that Nintendo’s new console would probably kick out a bit more heat than its predecessor in order to manage the more technically demanding games.

According to some folks in Japan, however (thanks, Nintendo Soup), their consoles are actually overheating. Multiple users have taken to X to relay instances in which their games have crashed, the consoles’ fans have gone into overdrive, or, in one case, their system simply became too hot to hold.

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“I’m doing my part”.

Yesterday, Arrowhead Game Studios shell-shocked the games industry – announcing it would be bringing its PvE third-person shooter Helldivers 2 to the Xbox. Yes, the Sony-published game exclusive to PlayStation on consoles, is now making its way to Microsoft’s hardware.

Given the timing of all this, there are now (unsurprisingly) some Helldivers calling for a Switch 2 port, with threads on Reddit and social media popping up – asking the folks at Arrowhead to “let everyone in”, in reference to Nintendo players:

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