Author: Trafficblast

Nintendo is partnering with Illumination Entertainment, the company behind Despicable Me and the Minions movie, to produce an animated film based on the Super Mario series. The project was formally announced last January following a report by the Wall Street Journal, and now Nintendo has revealed when it’s expected to hit theaters.

In Nintendo’s financial results briefing, president Shuntaro Furukawa announced that development on the Super Mario movie is “moving along for an anticipated theatrical release around 2022.” Nintendo didn’t share any other new details about the film, but it has previously been confirmed that Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto will be producing.

This, of course, isn’t the first feature film to be based on the Mario series. A live-action Super Mario Bros. movie released in 1993 and was a critical and commercial failure. Bob Hoskins, the late actor who portrayed Mario in the film, called it the worst movie he’s ever been a part of. Nintendo, likely wary of another flop, has said it may abandon the animated film if it isn’t “interesting” enough.

The animated Super Mario movie is part of Nintendo’s new initiative to leverage its IP beyond video games. Nintendo is also partnering with Universal Studios Japan to build a Super Nintendo Land theme park, which is slated to “open in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.” On top of that, Nintendo has announced it is opening an official Nintendo Tokyo store in Japan this fall.

Despite these new initiatives, Furukawa reaffirmed that Nintendo will remain first and foremost a video game company. “Nintendo’s core business will continue to be the integrated hardware-software video game platform business,” he said in the financial results briefing. The company has a number of big exclusives for Switch lined up for this year, including a new Animal Crossing game and a “core” Pokemon RPG.

Nintendo also has multiple smartphone games on the way. The company recently announced a Dr. Mario mobile game, which is due out early summer. However, its Mario Kart mobile game, which was originally scheduled to launch by the end of March, has been delayed.

As January comes to a close, Twitch has unlocked five new games that you can download for free during February. Once the month ends, you’re out of luck. But if you download them now, you can keep ’em forever. As always, you’ll need a Twitch Prime subscription (which comes with an Amazon Prime membership) to claim them, but at $11 USD a month, you’re actually getting all five titles for less than their combined retail price.

Pikuniku is the noticeable stand-out this time around. Added to Twitch Prime games in late January on the day it released, the adorable title looks like a children’s book come to life, and yet it utilizes a more sarcastic, irreverent tone to tell its story of a town battling a corporate takeover–one that’s sure to resonate with an older crowd. In our Pikuniku review, James O’Connor gave the game an 8/10, writing, “From Piku’s weird wobbly gait and looping jumps in the opening right through to the game’s funny, bizarre ending, Pikuniku is more gripping than its simple aesthetic and playful tone would suggest. It’ll make you feel like a kid again.”

Until February 28, you can also download Dear Esther: Landmark Edition, Downwell, The Flame in the Flood, and Draknek & Co Puzzle Collection. You might remember Dear Esther as the game that popularized the “walking sim” genre, and this special edition of the game comes with remastered audio and developer commentary. Downwell is a fun roguelike for its simplicity, and you can just keep jumping down its randomly assorted pits for hours. The Flame in the Flood is also a roguelike, but one geared towards survival as opposed to fast-paced action. Finally, Draknek is a collection of three puzzle games, the chemistry-focused Sokobond, the building-focusing A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build, and the frustrating but cute Cosmic Express.

Twitch Prime’s Free Games For January 2019

• Pikuniku
• Dear Ester: Landmark Edition
• Downwell
• The Flame in the Flood
• Draknek & Co Puzzle Collection

It’s been something of a rough week for Xbox Live, which has encountered issues on multiple occasions (including one particularly severe incident). That’s again the case today for Xbox One and PC owners, as sign-in issues have emerged on Friday that Microsoft says it’s working to resolve.

While sign-in problems sound somewhat innocuous, that can mean you’re unable to get online to play games like Fortnite or to even access certain content. In a tweet, Microsoft’s support account stated, “If you’re running into errors attempting to sign in or access previously purchased content, our teams are aware and working to identify the cause. We’ll update here when we have more to provide.”

The Xbox Live status page doesn’t offer much more information, except to confirm that both Xbox One and Xbox services on Windows 10 in the “core services” category are impacted. Besides the sign-in problems, you might also have trouble creating or managing an account right now.

There’s no word on exactly when the problems will be resolved; as always, it could be a very short wait or a matter of hours. Some small consolation is that these problems don’t appear as serious as those earlier in the week, which caused some users to receive a black screen when powering the system on. This rendered it completely unusable, though some reports suggested that disconnecting the system from the internet would allow offline functionality to resume.

We’ll report back with any further details as Microsoft shares them.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s first DLC character, Piranha Plant, arrived this week alongside the big 2.0.0 update. Nintendo offered the new fighter for free to players who purchased and registered their games on My Nintendo by January 31, but if you missed your opportunity to get it, you now have the option to buy it.

Piranha Plant is now available to purchase in the Switch Eshop. Unlike the other planned DLC characters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Piranha Plant isn’t included in the game’s Fighters Pass, so you only have the option to pick it up individually. If you do want to add it to your roster, it costs $5–slightly cheaper than the price of other upcoming fighters, presumably because it doesn’t come with a new stage and music tracks.

Beyond Piranha Plant, Nintendo is working on five other DLC characters for Smash Bros. Ultimate. The first of these will be Joker from Persona 5. Each new fighter will come in a pack alongside a stage and multiple music tracks for $6. You’ll also be able to get all of them at a discount through the $25 Fighters Pass. Picking up the Fighters Pass will also get you a bonus Mii costume based on Rex from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

All of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s DLC characters are slated to arrive by February 2020. Nintendo hasn’t officially revealed the identities of the remaining four fighters yet, but during the Game Awards in December, NOA president Reggie Fils-Aime teased they will all be newcomers to the series and characters “who you wouldn’t anticipate.”

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launched for Nintendo Switch on December 7 and has set new sales records for the series. Not only was it Amazon’s best-selling video game of 2018 (and the US’s fifth best-selling game) despite launching near the end of the year, it has already sold 12 million copies around the world, making it Nintendo’s third best-selling Switch game to date.

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Microsoft’s latest Games with Gold offerings are now available, giving you a host of freebies for your Gold subscription. This month’s inclusions offer a few retro throwbacks along with some action games from older generations. As always, some of the games are available throughout the entire month while others will rotate in and out midway, so check the schedule to make sure you don’t miss out on any.

The Xbox One games include Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, an 8-bit style game modeled loosely after Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse. It’s a prequel, both spiritually and plot-wise, to the upcoming Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and we found it rather good. It will be available throughout the entire month. Super Bomberman R also joins the rotation on February 16 through mid-March. It’s an update of the classic Bomberman franchise, best used as a madcap party game so you can curse your friends for bombing you.

On Xbox 360, you get Assassin’s Creed Rogue, a game that came out alongside the widely derided Assassin’s Creed Unity. It was an interesting game in its own right, though, and explored more of the Templars’ perspective. It’s only available through February 15, after which it will be replaced by the original Xbox game Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.

As always, the Xbox and Xbox 360 games offered through Games with Gold are playable on Xbox One through backwards compatibility. You can still grab one of last month’s games for a while longer as well: WRC 6 FIA World Rally Championship for Xbox One is available until February 15.

Check out the full line-up and schedule below.

February 2019 Games With Gold

Xbox One

• Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Feb. 1-28)
• Super Bomberman R (Feb. 16-Mar. 15)
• WRC 6 FIA World Rally Championship (Jan. 16-Feb. 15)

Xbox 360

• Assassin’s Creed Rogue (Feb. 1-15)
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (Feb. 16-28)

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