Latest news with #AnimalCrossing:NewHorizons
Time of India
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Animal Crossing New Horizons players get ‘good news' as Nintendo Switch launch gets closer
Nintendo's popular life-simulation game, Animal Crossing : New Horizons , has received its first software update in almost three years. The latest update is primarily aimed at ensuring smoother multiplayer experiences between the original Nintendo Switch and the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 console, which is set to launch on June 5. The patch is said to be a part of the Japanese gaming company's broader effort to ensure that some of its flagship titles from the original Switch are compatible and perform optimally on the upcoming console. This strategy is expected to facilitate a seamless transition for players moving to the Switch 2. Animal Crossing New Horizons update: How this will improve the game According to Nintendo's official patch notes, the New Horizons update specifically "improves the compatibility for multiplayer sessions between Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch." While further specific details about the update's content were not provided, its release timing and stated purpose strongly indicate Nintendo's focus on improving cross-platform performance and backwards compatibility features ahead of the new console's debut this week. The previous update for the game was rolled out in November 2022, when Nintendo ended its ongoing support. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released in March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to a rise in its player base. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Mejoramos nuestras tarifas porque si. ¡También en prepago Simyo Prueba ahora Undo Despite its popularity among Switch users, Nintendo has not shared any plans for a Switch 2 version of the game, unlike titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. With the Switch 2 set to launch next week, more information about the console has been gradually released. Nintendo has confirmed that some cross-platform games will receive enhanced editions for the new hardware. For instance, Pokémon Legends: Z-A is scheduled to release in October on both consoles, with the Switch 2 version expected to offer improvements in graphics and performance.
The Verge
5 days ago
- Business
- The Verge
Animal Crossing: New Horizons was a glimpse at Nintendo's online future
Tiger Borgia, a content creator focused on cozy games, has been pulling weeds in Animal Crossing: New Horizons for over five years. Given the current landscape in which game developers constantly release new updates to vie for the attention of audiences, Borgia's dedication to New Horizons can come across as admirable. Nintendo has not released a major update to New Horizons since the Happy Home Paradise DLC in 2021. (Just this week the game was patched in advance of the Switch 2.) The version of New Horizons Borgia plays today — the one where she pulls weeds and fishes each day — is more or less the same game that the company released in the spring of 2020. At a time when seemingly every publisher is trying to capture a piece of the lucrative live-service boom, New Horizons showed Nintendo slowly inching its way into the space with more than a year's worth of regular updates after launch. And that expansion into live service is something that could become an even larger part of Nintendo's future with the Switch 2. Speaking to The Verge, Borgia explains that two years ago she would have said yes to having more content in New Horizons, but her opinion has since changed. 'Now I feel like the game should be left as is,' Borgia says via email. ' New Horizons already had its moment. I would be open to the next Animal Crossing title being a live-service game, but I would be skeptical about paywalls and subscription fees.' Since the release of Fortnite and PUBG: Battlegrounds in 2017, live-service games have become a core pillar of modern gaming. Live-service games — or what some call 'games as a service' — don't have a clear start and end. Instead, developers release a base game and continue to put out updates that add new characters, game modes, and other content to try and get people to play as much as possible. The model has become a massively popular way to monetize games. Industry analyst Mat Piscatella published data saying more than 40 percent of all time spent playing on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles in the US in the month of January was spent playing the top 10 live-service games. And the trend has hit the developer side too: a 2025 survey from the Game Developers Conference found that roughly 30 percent of all 'AAA' developers are working on a live-service game. Despite all the big numbers, Nintendo has been selective with the live-service games it develops. Creating a live-service game isn't as easy as flipping a switch, and even major companies like Sony have struggled to enter the space; it recently shut down development on two such projects. However, some fans are wondering if that could change with the Switch 2. Previous titles like Splatoon 3 have already gotten live-esque service with regular updates and events — even if the earlier entries in the series were ultimately shut down. And New Horizons received a steady stream of updates initially. New features, like the Switch 2's Discord-like social tool GameChat, could benefit live-service games that rely on online communication and logging in with friends regularly to play. Additionally, leaks from an October playtest suggested that Nintendo could be working on some sort of MMO for the Switch 2, which could also fall under the umbrella of a live-service game. But here is the most compelling argument that a shift could be on the horizon: Nintendo has already been investing in live-service games for years. If you look at Nintendo's mobile games, entries like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp already used a free-to-play model with in-game transactions at launch. Some Animal Crossing fans welcome the possibility of adapting the mainline games to a live-service model. New Horizons is really good for people who like to get creative and design an island, but the game can run out of new content after players complete certain tasks and storylines. Tom, an artist who played the game for more than two years, tells The Verge a live-service version of the game could have kept him playing even longer. 'More updates would have made it way more likely that I'd have kept going, especially because it would keep friends coming back too,' he says. Additionally, the gameplay and structure of New Horizons could be the perfect fit for a live-service game, since it has seasonal events depending on the time of year and the region you play in. However, some of the fans I spoke to expressed skepticism. 'I was never expecting to get infinite content from Animal Crossing honestly,' Christi Kerr, a player who spent more than 700 hours playing New Horizons, tells The Verge. 'I was used to old AC games where all the content came out at once, and you play it until you feel like you've done all you want. I thought the updates to New Horizons were fun, but also kind of frustrating as a New Leaf player.' That's not to say that players The Verge spoke to are completely closed off to the live-service model with the next mainline Animal Crossing game; it just needs to be done in a way that feels respectful to players' time, money, and attention. Today, even beloved live-service games are regularly criticized by fans for requiring too much time to level up a battle pass or for poorly designed events. 'If Animal Crossing were to consider a live-service approach, I really hope that they would focus on seasonal events and quality-of-life updates,' Borgia says. 'I would be nervous to say I hope for continuous new content like furniture and clothing, because that can easily turn into a microtransaction nightmare. I'd love to have more seasonal celebrations, challenges, and temporary NPC visitors.' So far, Nintendo has shown a measured approach to live-service games. In the case of Pocket Camp, Nintendo ended up rereleasing it as a standalone game free of microtransactions. Now, people who missed the boat on playing Pocket Camp initially and don't like in-app purchases can still play the same game. For the fans we spoke to, this is good enough. Animal Crossing doesn't need to be some sort of never-ending forever game that trudges on like a zombie throughout the years. As Kerr put it, it's totally fine to have a game start and end, and then get a new one down the line. 'I would've been delighted to see updates like a live service game. [...] But like I said, I'm not bothered if the next Animal Crossing game sustains my interest for a while and then I'm done.'
CBC
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Video games are spotty at getting Black hair right. Black artists are forging ahead to fix that
Black characters were largely missing from the video games Fūnk-é Joseph played growing up — or portrayed as a negative stereotype — and typically depicted in just one or two ways: with an afro or a short haircut. "It was hard to see characters that looked like me," the 26-year-old said in Toronto. It was only five years ago that they recall being able to — for the first time ever — create a playable character that actually looked like them. Their avatar in the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons had freeform dreads up top, fade on the sides and the right skin tone. "I was pretty excited. But then it got me reflecting on, 'Why hasn't this been a thing before? And why haven't other people been doing this?'" said Joseph. The game industry has since made strides in featuring Black characters, but Joseph — now a video game designer and director of indie studio Play Underground Games — still admits to scrutinizing new releases. "Every time a new game comes out with a character customization, I'm looking for those things." Portraying Black hair authentically hasn't seemed top of mind in many video games and digital media productions, but Black-led initiatives helping designers and developers better understand Afro-textured hair and hairstyles are driving change behind the scenes, aiming to expand authentic representations and spark innovation. Like Joseph, A.M. Darke similarly recalls earlier gaming culture defaulting to a handful of Black hairstyles. Since Black representation of any kind was so rare, meagre efforts got a pass, she told Day 6. "They're not quite right, [but] your standards and your expectations are already so low." When she started working on developing digital characters herself, however, she got a shock: not only were 3D resources and imagery depicting Black hair scarce, but harmful, racist caricatures ("straight out of Jim Crow [era], like minstrels and mammies") were also what regularly turned up. That spurred her into action. She's since created a free, open-source database of 3D models showcasing hairstyles created by Black artists. She's also collaborating with computer science colleagues at Yale University to define different characteristics of tightly coiled, Afro-textured hair and create algorithms for animating these features. The team published their work in a recent study and presented it at an international computer graphics research conference in December. "A lot of times games are approximating Black hair, but they don't recognize exactly what details should be attended to fully communicate that this hair was done with care," said Darke, an artist and associate professor in performance, play and design at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Darke pointed to the release of Marvel's blockbuster film Black Panther in 2018 as a pop culture inflection point: "We have that iconic moment where Michael B. Jordan is onscreen and he just looks so cool ... His hair in that film is iconic." She hopes her tools can inspire a better understanding of Black hair overall and open more game designers and digital artists up to creating myriad new possibilities. "Hopefully when people start to see the different features of Black hair, then they start to understand how they can sort of remix things and create different styles instead of just saying, 'Here's one and that's been done right, so let's just copy and paste it everywhere,'" she said. "I have high hopes for what Black hair representation will look like in the next few years." Digital depictions 'the new frontier' In the real world, there's been tangible progress in removing the stigma surrounding naturally textured Black hair, says Toronto professor Cheryl Thompson, so it makes sense the digital world "is the new frontier for this conversation." Since they're programmed by people, "algorithms only do what they know to do ... They're reproducing information that's known," explained Thompson, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and author of the book Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada's Black Beauty Culture. That's why it's vital to have Black people involved as creators bringing their lived experiences and knowledge to producing content, she said, which goes further than simply the inclusion of Black characters. That deeper level of involvement fosters more nuance and authenticity, like knowing a cut isn't complete without keen attention to the edges (or hairline), Thompson noted. Or that if a Black woman wears the same hairstyle as a Black man, the texture will differ since she's more likely to have used a chemical relaxer — which permanently loosens one's coils — at some point. "You're just not gonna know that unless you know that," she said. Thompson believes that over the past decade, we've grown more receptive to recognizing that a diversity of voices contributes to digital innovation. "And creativity — it breeds innovation. It's going to make you better to see what other people are doing," she said. Normalizing Black hair in digital spaces Making games is incredibly hard work, game designer Joseph noted, so access to tools that help artists, designers and developers more authentically animate Black hair is terrific. But creators must know resources like this are available in the first place, they added, and the industry must support them. "Normalizing just the existence of Black people and Black hair, you create a better ecosystem where people are more understanding," Joseph said, adding that video games are a great way to teach people about the world. "It's amazing when you're playing a fantasy game and you see shreds of real life in that — it makes you reflect and you connect those things." However, Joseph agrees that inclusion means more than just a detailed coif. "I'm wary of people just like putting in hairstyles to throw us a bone and for us to not care about anything else," they said. "Hair is just one facet of the wider issue of representation."
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Nintendo's megahit Switch console: what to know
Gaming giant Nintendo is set to unveil the successor to its phenomenally popular Switch console on Wednesday. Here are some facts about its success: - 150 million sold - Nintendo has sold around 150 million Switch machines since the gadget's launch in March 2017. That makes it the third best-selling console in video game history, behind Sony's PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo DS. Nintendo estimates it has sold a colossal 1.3 billion games that run on the console. The biggest hit by far was "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" (67 million copies sold), followed by "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" which became a must-play during Covid (47 million sold). - Initial indifference - The arrival of the Switch -- a hybrid console that can be played on-the-go or at home connected to a television -- revolutionised the video game world. But plans for the console were unveiled in 2015 to overwhelming indifference after the successor to Nintendo's popular Wii device, the Wii U, flopped commercially. The Switch was at first seen as pricey, lacking games and with little to no chance of competing for consumers' wallets with Sony's more powerful PlayStation 4. "Console games had lost ground to mobile games, and were seen by investors, media and the general public as no longer having any utility," said analyst Hideki Yasuda of Toyo Securities. "Expectations for the Switch were very low," he told AFP. "But once it started selling well, opinion quickly changed." - 'Lateral thinking' - The Switch was a high point in Nintendo's creativity over the past 40 years, according to Florent Gorges, a French author of books on the Kyoto-based company's history. On a technical level, the console was anything but cutting-edge, however. But Nintendo's knack for creating appealing games, combined with the console's portability, made it a winner. "The Switch perfectly respects Nintendo's DNA, which is 'lateral thinking with withered technology'," said Gorges. "This means to succeed in making something new out of something old," he explained. It was the philosophy of Gunpei Yokoi, the father of Nintendo's Game & Watch series of electronic games, which sold tens of millions of units in the 1980s. - Reorganisation - The success of the Switch prompted Nintendo to combine its home and portable consoles divisions into one unit. "Nintendo had two activities, with totally different prices, totally different software development," said Serkan Toto from Tokyo firm Kantan Games. But since 2017, thanks to the Switch, "there has been a constant and very reliable flow of games developed directly by Nintendo, and that has helped them enormously," he told AFP. mac/stu/adp/rmb/jfx
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Nintendo's megahit Switch console: what to know
Gaming giant Nintendo is set to unveil the successor to its phenomenally popular Switch console on Wednesday. Here are some facts about its success: - 150 million sold - Nintendo has sold around 150 million Switch machines since the gadget's launch in March 2017. That makes it the third best-selling console in video game history, behind Sony's PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo DS. Nintendo estimates it has sold a colossal 1.3 billion games that run on the console. The biggest hit by far was "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" (67 million copies sold), followed by "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" which became a must-play during Covid (47 million sold). - Initial indifference - The arrival of the Switch -- a hybrid console that can be played on-the-go or at home connected to a television -- revolutionised the video game world. But plans for the console were unveiled in 2015 to overwhelming indifference after the successor to Nintendo's popular Wii device, the Wii U, flopped commercially. The Switch was at first seen as pricey, lacking games and with little to no chance of competing for consumers' wallets with Sony's more powerful PlayStation 4. "Console games had lost ground to mobile games, and were seen by investors, media and the general public as no longer having any utility," said analyst Hideki Yasuda of Toyo Securities. "Expectations for the Switch were very low," he told AFP. "But once it started selling well, opinion quickly changed." - 'Lateral thinking' - The Switch was a high point in Nintendo's creativity over the past 40 years, according to Florent Gorges, a French author of books on the Kyoto-based company's history. On a technical level, the console was anything but cutting-edge, however. But Nintendo's knack for creating appealing games, combined with the console's portability, made it a winner. "The Switch perfectly respects Nintendo's DNA, which is 'lateral thinking with withered technology'," said Gorges. "This means to succeed in making something new out of something old," he explained. It was the philosophy of Gunpei Yokoi, the father of Nintendo's Game & Watch series of electronic games, which sold tens of millions of units in the 1980s. - Reorganisation - The success of the Switch prompted Nintendo to combine its home and portable consoles divisions into one unit. "Nintendo had two activities, with totally different prices, totally different software development," said Serkan Toto from Tokyo firm Kantan Games. But since 2017, thanks to the Switch, "there has been a constant and very reliable flow of games developed directly by Nintendo, and that has helped them enormously," he told AFP. mac/stu/adp/rmb/jfx Sign in to access your portfolio
