Nintendo

Google Maps Gets Its Very Own Mario Kart

Google’s already tossed Pac Man into its maps—now it’s Mario’s turn to shine. To celebrate Mario Day, users of the Google Maps phone app can now send their favorite plumber karting around their neighborhood. Leading into March 10th–whose abbreviation Mar. 10 looks like the most l33t spelling of Mario ever–anyone using the Google Maps app…

Japan Is Getting Some Switch Games We’re Not (Yet?)

We just got a whole bunch of awesome Nintendo Switch game announcements in today’s Nintendo Direct, but as usual, Japan got a little bit extra. Here are the announcements you didn’t see if you only watched the U.S. Direct. SaGa Scarlet Grace, the latest in Square Enix’s long-running series of really complicated RPGs originally released…

Everything Announced During Today’s Nintendo Direct

Today, Nintendo officially announced that Super Smash Bros. is coming to Switch. Equally exciting: the original Luigi’s Mansion is getting a 3DS remake! It was a port-heavy Direct this time around, with some cool news tucked in around the edges. Here’s everything Nintendo showed. Super Smash Bros. is coming to Switch. Not the most surprising…

Smash Bros. Is Coming To Switch, With Squid Kids

Rejoice, Switch fans: Nintendo’s iconic platform brawler is finally confirmed for the portable console. Now that we’ve got the obligatory announcement of of the way, we can proceed to argue about what characters should totally fight one another. In the CGI trailer there’s a big new surprise—you can play as a character from Splatoon! And…

Undertale, South Park, And Other Games Are Coming To Switch

A sudden Nintendo Directbrings with it a handful of ports that you can play on the subway or while laying in bed. Here’s a list of all of the fresh ports making their way to the Switch. Okami HD Capcom’s cult classic Zelda-like brings gorgeous art and extremely pet-able wolf gods to the Switch. It…

Praise The Sun, It’s A Dark Souls Amiibo

No really, praise the sun. It’s what the Solaire of Astora amiibo does. Due out on May 25 alongside Dark Souls Remastered, tapping the Solaire of Astora amiibo to your Nintendo Switch while playing the game will cause your character to perform the iconic gesture. I don’t know if that’s all it does—it’s all the…

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is getting a remake for the 3DS some time in 2019. It’ll also include new content Nintendo is calling “Bowser Jr.’s Journey.” Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga got a remake last year which was excellent, but Bowser’s Inside Story was an even better DS game, though 2019 is a…

Watch The Nintendo Direct Right Here

It’s time for some Nintendo news, as the company behind the red-hot Switch holds a Nintendo Direct to talk about what else is coming in 2018. Nintendo says it’ll talk Mario Tennis Aces and offer news on upcoming Switch and 3DS games. Will we see more Metroid Prime 4? A bunch of new AAA ports?…

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,…