Pour another one out for Sony's PlayStation Vita. Despite being a powerful, capable handheld that's great for a bit of fun on the go or as a companion to your PlayStation 3 or 4 when you're at home, Sony's all but ignored the diminutive gaming console over the past couple of years. In 2015, Sony told gamers that they didn't think it was worth making a successor to the Vita.

Fair enough: mobile gaming is Nintendo's jelly. It still hurt to hear, though: I've always had a soft spot for Sony's portable systems (I may well be one of the few people that actually liked the PSP Go). But the death of the Vita didn't feel real to me until today. According to Kotaku, the production of PlayStation Vita game cards will soon be upon us.

From Kotaku:

Sony’s American and European branches “plan to end all Vita GameCard production by close of fiscal year 2018,” the company told developers today in a message obtained by Kotaku. The message asks that all Vita product code requests be submitted by June 28, 2018, and that final purchase orders be entered by February 15, 2019. Sony’s 2018 fiscal year will end on March 31, 2019.

As sigh inducing as this news is, it isn't the end of the world. Vita owners will still be able to download games from the online store baked into the PS Vita's OS. If Sony's support for the Vita is anything like it has been for the original PlayStation Portable, the digital titles that gamers bought should be available to download for years to come. Read the rest

Withdrawn from sale to promote the 16-bit SNES Classic, Nintendo's NES Classic is finally coming back. Pulling it from shelves at the height of its popularity was a canny move by the Japanese game giant, but one that enraged fans and left industry-watchers scratching their heads. All that anguish and pontification is now wiped from the high score chart of history with one fell, swooping press release.

Don't pay $200 for old stock on Amazon's official-looking NES Classic page; the real thing will be $60 when it is out again on June 29th.

Pictured here is "Shaved Mario" by November17 on Twitter. Read the rest

I's been eight years since we last checked in, and Famicase is going strong, both as an exhibition and a social media hashtag. The photo above was posted by @boheme. Read the rest

Everyone is raving about Nintendo Labo, simple contraptions made with cardboard and circuits that turn a Switch into a whole new experience. Read the rest

Super Mario Odyssey producer Yoshiaki Koizumi kindly answered questions about Nintendo's famous characters of the Mushroom Kingdom, such as "Why does Mario have nipples but not a belly button?" and “Is Toad’s head a hat or a head?”

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Nintendo's last game console, the Wii U, didn't do so well. The Switch, though, is doing very well indeed. One key reason: lots of games. Gizmodo:

By day 279, the Switch had 191 games available, a number the Wii U didn’t match until it’s 857th day – as many games in nine months as as its predecessor had in two years and four months.

How to explain this is up for debate. Could it be better support for developers from Nintendo? Could it be smaller games in the e-shop making the barriers to entry lower so games can be pumped out more quickly?

It's not enough to have good launch titles. Quantity is a well-established factor in almost every console success going back to the 1970s -- and nowadays, that means hundreds of games. The Switch is also way ahead of the PS4 and XBone; though both have been out for more than four years, the Switch's curve vaguely suggests it could catch up within two. Read the rest

We have started development of an animated movie featuring “Super Mario” with Illumination, the movie studio that brought films such as “Despicable Me” and “Minions.” For this project Mr. Chris Meledandri, Founder and CEO of Illumination and Shigeru Miyamoto, Representative Director, Fellow of Nintendo will co-producing the film. The film will be co-financed by Universal Pictures and Nintendo, and distributed theatrically worldwide by Universal Pictures.

Further announcements on details such as release dates will be made at a later date. We look forward to providing further information about the release timing for this movie that we hope everyone will enjoy.

As a part of our effort to expand Nintendo IP beyond video games, we look forward to bringing smiles to people around the world through this movie.

Let's hope it fares better than last time.

(via Rolling Stone) Read the rest

Bari S:

My arrangement of the Mii Channel Music for a saxophone quartet. Uses one soprano, one alto, one tenor, and one bari. Video was compiled in Premiere Pro and audio was compiled in Audition. If you like it, make sure to hit that like button and share with friends, family, and strangers alike!

This quiet genius from "SardineWhiskers" returns the sinister potential to Nintendo's love of midcentury charm. Make musak grim again! Read the rest

Tofugu's Kanae Nakamine and Koichi went to a secret bar in Japan (somewhere) called 84. Koichi told me, "Its main customers are musicians, celebrities, comedians, pro wrestlers, game creators, and Nintendo employees. And only vetted members know its location / can get in."

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On Monday, redditor smulz shared this video of himself as a child receiving a Nintendo Entertainment System as a gift in May of 1988.

He writes, "I present to you my greatest shame. When my parents surprised me with a new Nintendo."

Whoa, whoa, hold up. There's nothing to be ashamed of here, sir. Your video is an amazing glimpse into suburban eighties life, from the guinea pig cages to that giant TV on wheels to your striped alligator shirt and thick glasses to your kid brother repeating, "I don't want to play with it." That part where you freak out and cry over getting an NES? Pure gold.

Please thank your mom for us for pulling out the camcorder to mark this important moment in your childhood, if for no other reason that we can enjoy it some nearly 30 years later. Read the rest

Here’s a throwback to a small kid in oversized glasses freaking out about receiving an NES for Christmas. Yes! It even comes with a gun. This adorable little wreck cries as he hugs and thanks his father for the gift. He then goes to his room to find money to pay his dad back. Reddit user “smulz” posted the video saying it was from Christmas 1988. A then-farsighted “smulz” waited two whole months for the gift of a lifetime, his mother says in the video. More euphoric “oohs” are squealed out as he unboxes his new system to the Ghostbusters theme playing on the tv in the background. Oh the number of elves I would sacrifice to ever experience that type of joy. Read the rest

Released in Japan in 1989, Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros is a series of three fairy tale animations starring the Super Mario characters. From the Mario Wiki:

The series contains: Super Mario Momotarō, Super Mario Issun-bōshi, and Super Mario Shirayuki-hime‎. The two former episodes in the series are retellings of fairy tales of the same name, while Super Mario Shirayuki-hime is a retelling of the Western fairy tale Snow White

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Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the hit launch title for Nintendo's new Switch console, is already emulated on the PC, where it's been hacked to house random pop culture stuff. In this video, see Biggie Smalls vs. Thomas the Tank Engine, Minecraft Steve, Spongebob, and Shrek do battle.

There's something so awesomely dumb about this, fascinating and boring all at once. It embodies a trend that looks like it might be punk, or at least a new frontier in YouTube Poop. But this is mostly our novelty receptors getting plugged by a tornado of memes that never change. A flash of accelerant in the embers of web culture, cackling at the hope new things must emerge when the old is mixed. Read the rest

Sadly, the Republican Party has already deleted its article titled What Do The Legend of Zelda and the American Tax Code Have In Common? and any corresponding twetes. But it lives on at Google Cache, at least for now.

Tragically, having equated the adventures of a mute yet heroic elf with the clawing economic deprivations of progressive taxation, the article barely touches upon why beyond simply noting a few coincidental dates. It's the very dumbest boilerplate. Sad!

I had been hoping it would inspire @heerjeet to explain how the communism of elves prevailed over the fascism of aardvarks.

— Rob Beschizza (@Beschizza) August 24, 2017

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Andi McClure's emu-coop is an emulator hack that brings two-player fun to Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Metroid, and Legend of Zelda for the NES. It works by enabling players to share in-game inventory over the Internet.

emu-coop (GitHub via Waxy) Read the rest

Coming on September 29, the Super Nintendo Classic. It will cost $80 and include 21 built-in games, including Super Mario World, Earthbound, Final Fantasy III, Link to the Past, Secret of Mana, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Mario Kart.

From Ars Technica:

Unlike the NES Classic, which sold $10 controllers on top of the $60 base package, the SNES Classic comes packaged with two controllers. Even so, only five of the included titles include true simultaneous multiplayer gameplay, with a handful of others allowing for two players to alternate play. The Classic Controller and Classic Controller Pro designed for the Wii and Wii U will also work on the SNES Classic Edition, much like its predecessor.

Of the 21 included titles, a full 14 were published by Nintendo itself. Three games from Capcom, two from Konami, and two from Square Enix round out the package.

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