COMPUTING & GAMES from The Verge - Gaming Posts for 01/31/2019

Excerpts: Nintendo delays Mario Kart mobile game until summer We've heard basically nothing about Mario Kart Tour, the upcoming smartphone entry in the banana-flinging racing game series, since Nintendo announced it exactly a year ago. The game was pegged for a release before the end of March 2019, but it turns out it's not ready — Nintendo is delaying it til summer. The decision has been made "in order to improve quality of the application and expand the content offerings after launch," according to a statement contained within Nintendo's quarterly earnings released today. It's the second major Nintendo title hit with a delay this month; last week the company announced that the much-anticipated Metroid Prime 4's development is being completely rebooted. Worried Nintendo fans might want to remind... Continue reading… Read on » Nintendo cuts Switch sales forecast despite strong holiday season Nintendo had the best quarter ever for Switch sales, with 9.41 million consoles moved between October and December, a 30 percent improvement on a year ago. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokémon: Let's Go were also both massive hits, at 12.08 million and 10 million units sold respectively. Super Mario Party performed well, too, selling 5.3 million copies. Despite the huge numbers, though, Nintendo almost certainly won't be able to hit its self-imposed target of 20 million Switch consoles sold this financial year. The current amount sold since April is 14.49 million units, but last year Nintendo sold just under two million. Accordingly, the company has revised its forecast down to 17 million units for the fiscal year. Switch sales... Continue reading… Read on » Fortnite's next in-game event is a Marshmello concert The next major event in Fortnite will be an in-game concert. Electronic music DJ Marshmello will perform in Epic's battle royale game, with a concert set to take place on Saturday at Pleasant Park, a sleepy Fortnite suburb that features a big football field that should be a good fit for a virtual concert. In fact, the stage is being assembled in the game right now. While the concert hasn't officially been announced by Epic just yet, Marshmello currently lists Pleasant Park on his upcoming tour schedule. The DJ has some history with the game; last year, he teamed up with Twitch star Ninja to win a Fortnite celebrity tournament at E3. This will be the first concert to take place in the world of Fortnite, but these kinds of... Continue reading… Read on » All Xbox One bundles are up to $100 off at Walmart, the Microsoft Store, Best Buy, and other retailers All Xbox One bundles are $50 off at the Microsoft Store, Best Buy, Walmart, B&H Photo, and elsewhere. This includes the new Xbox One X bundle that bundles the upcoming title Metro: Exodus and its prequels, Metro: Last Light and Metro 2033. Most of the bundles, whether you're shopping for an Xbox One X or Xbox One S, come with a different game, ranging from Fallout 76, Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4, and others. Depending on the bundle, there might be some other inclusions. All of the available options (excluding the Metro bundle) at the Microsoft Store include a digital copy of Gears of War 4, though one of the Xbox One S offerings comes with a three-month trial of both Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold in lieu of another game. The... Continue reading… Read on » The AI video game character that influenced an industry The current wave of virtual assistants owes a lot to a sidekick from one of the most popular video games of all time. The release of Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001 introduced Master Chief's AI partner Cortana, popularizing a lot of the common characteristics that are now shared by real-world AI helpers. Cortana was a friendly, helpful female voice in your ear, one who blurred the line between companion and digital tool. She sounded an awful lot like Siri — and she did it a decade before virtual assistants became indispensable features of our smartphones and homes. Halo didn't invent the concept of an AI helper. It's been a staple of science fiction for years, with the likes of the shipboard computer in Star Trek: The Next Generation and... Continue reading… Read on » EA will stop selling FIFA's in-game currency in Belgium because of a ban on loot boxes FIFA is the latest casualty of Belgium's loot box ban, with publisher EA announcing that it will stop selling FIFA points, the game's in-game currency, in the country as of January 31st. In FIFA 19's Ultimate Team mode, players can earn FIFA Points in-game or buy them with a credit or debit card. These points can then be used to purchase packs of players known as FUT packs. The quality of the players inside each pack varies, though as of FIFA 19, EA does now share the odds (or "Pack Probabilities") of gamers finding each class of player. When Belgium introduced its loot box ban last year it defined the practice as an "illegal game of chance." EA was defiant, and said loot boxes were not a form of gambling and that its games were... Continue reading… Read on »

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