Month: January 2019

It was another huge year for Nintendo in 2018, with the company’s Switch raking in the most sales of any console for the year in the U.S. According to a report from analyst firm The NPD Group, Nintendo helped lead an 8% increase in hardware sales, pushing the overall total to $5.1 billion.

Nintendo wasn’t the only console maker seeing gains in 2018, though. Analyst Mat Piscatella wrote in NPD’s press release on its report that Sony’s PlayStation 4, Microsoft’s Xbox One, and other plug-n-play devices all saw sales gains in 2018 over where they landed in 2017. NPD did not reveal any sales totals or dollar amounts in its report.

The Switch was inarguably the winner in hardware according to NPD, though, especially in December. In 2018, Nintendo made more money on console hardware than any company had since Sony took 2015 with the PS4. Nintendo’s December 2018 Switch sales were higher for that month than any year since 2009–the year Nintendo had another huge December with sales of its Wii console.

Nintendo’s big win was reflected in software sales, as well. It had seven of the 20 top-selling games of 2018, which includes December’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which came fifth in sales for the year.

Another big factor in hardware sales, according to NPD: Fortnite. The firm doesn’t track software numbers for the free-to-play game, but Piscatella took to Twitter to remark on Fortnite’s impact on the industry.

Apparently, Fortnite has players buying lots of new gamepads and headsets. Piscatella wrote in his release that 2018 saw a 33% increase in sales of accessories and game cards in 2018, up to an all-time high of $4.5 billion. “The DualShock 4 Black, Switch Pro Controller and the Xbox One S Wireless Controller White were the three best-selling accessories of 2018 in dollar spend,” he wrote, with headsets also contributing.

A huge part of that spending took place in December 2018, when consumers spent $1 billion on accessories and game cards–an increase of 29% over December 2017. The big seller in December: the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller.

NPD also ran down the best-selling software of 2018 and for December, with Red Dead Redemption 2 coming in first for the year.

The December 2018 NPD report is in, and it shows Nintendo Switch overtaking PlayStation 4 as the best-selling console of 2018 in the United States.

Nintendo Switch has reached the highest annual sales (both in dollar sales and units sold) for any hardware platform since PS4 broke the previous record in 2015. Throughout the year, NPD has reported PS4 as the best-selling console of 2018, though in November Nintendo beat it out for a single month. It appears Switch’s holiday success snowballed and ultimately put it above PS4 in the U.S. for 2018.

Nintendo Switch also notably generated the highest hardware dollar sales for a single platform in December since Wii set the previous record in December 2009, and hit the highest unit sales for a single platform since December 2010. After its first year on the market, Nintendo reportedly doubled Switch production.

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Follow its rollout on PC and mobile last month, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds‘ newest map, Vikendi, has now arrived on consoles. Developer PUBG Corp. has released a new update for the battle royale game on PS4 and Xbox One, bringing the aforementioned snow map to both platforms, along with the Vikendi Survivor Pass and other new content.

Vikendi is the fourth map to arrive in PUBG to date. Beyond its snow-covered terrain, its most distinctive feature is its size. Unlike the other maps in the game, Vikendi is 6×6 km large, making it smaller than both Erangel and Miramar, but larger than the 4×4 Sanhok.

Vikendi also comes with an exclusive vehicle: the snowmobile. It can seat two players and is better suited to the map’s snowy landscape than PUBG’s other vehicles, but it doesn’t perform as well over other kinds of terrain. PUBG Corp. has also added two new weapons: the Skorpion, which is available on all maps, and the G36C, which only appears on Vikendi.

Arriving alongside Vikendi is the Vikendi Survivor Pass. Much like Fortnite’s Battle Pass, it gives players a variety of challenges to complete over 10 weeks. Doing these challenges will level the pass up, which in turn will unlock cosmetics and other rewards.

Rounding out the update are an assortment of tweaks and fixes for the game on both PS4 and Xbox One. Among other things, PUBG Corp. has revamped the parachute system and made various performance improvements. You can find the full patch notes on the PUBG website.

The huge success of the first Deadpool in 2016 took many surprise–the modestly budgeted X-Men spin-off was not only the most successful R-rated movie of all time, it made more money than most of the “regular” movies in the franchise. Last year’s Deadpool 2 was also a huge hit, and inevitably a third movie is in the works. Star Ryan Reynolds has now hinted about what fans can expect from Deadpool 3.

In a recent interview with Variety, Reynolds revealed that development on Deadpool 3 had already started. Unsurprisingly he didn’t give many details away, but he did suggest that the film won’t be what is usually expected from the third part of a successful franchise. “[We’re] looking to go in a completely different direction,” he said. “Often, they reboot or change a character maybe like four movies too late.”

It had previously been reported that Deadpool might appear in an X-Force movie ahead of Deadpool 3, with Bad Times at the El Royale’s Drew Goddard directing. However, earlier this month, Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld revealed that X-Force had now been cancelled, due to the impending merger between Fox and Disney. Fox currently own the rights to all X-Men characters.

As for Deadpool 3, the film does not have a release date and it hasn’t been confirmed if director David Leitch will return. Leitch joined the production of the second movie after the exit of director Tim Miler, who helmed the first film but left Deadpool 2 due to reported clashes with Reynolds.

In related news, there are two X-Men movies set for release in 2019. All the main X-Men cast return for Dark Phoenix, which releases in June–check out the latest trailer. This will be followed by the much-delayed New Mutants, which is currently set to arrive in August.

February is nearly here, which means it’s almost time for another Pokemon Go Community Day. Niantic has now shared the first details on next month’s event, which is scheduled to take place on Saturday, February 16, and will feature another Gen 2 Pokemon: the Ice- and Ground-type Swinub.

Throughout the event, Swinub will spawn much more frequently in the wild than it normally does. Based on previous Community Days, players will also presumably have a chance of encountering a Shiny Swinub during the event, and any Swinub that evolves into its final form–Mamoswine–up to an hour after the Community Day ends will learn a special move, although Niantic has not yet confirmed what that will be.

Mamoswine was one of the many new evolved forms first introduced in the Pokemon series’ fourth-generation titles, so to get it in Go, you’ll need to have a Sinnoh Stone–a new evolutionary item in the mobile game. One of the ways these can be obtained is through Trainer Battles, and during the Community Day, Niantic says you’ll have a chance to earn up to five Sinnoh Stones by battling other players. You’ll also receive five rewards per day from Trainer Battles during the Community Day weekend.

On top of that, you’ll receive triple the normal amount of Stardust for capturing Pokemon during February’s Community Day. Finally, any Lure Modules that you use during the event will also remain active for three hours, rather than their usual 30-minute duration. You can read more about the event on the Pokemon Go website.

As usual, February’s Community Day will only run for three hours, and it’ll take place at different times depending on where you live. You can find the hours for each region below.

Pokemon Go February 2019 Community Day Hours

The Americas and Greenland

• 11 AM – 2 PM PT
• 2 PM – 5 PM ET

Europe, Middle East, and Africa

• 10 AM – 1 PM UTC

Asia-Pacific

• 12 PM – 3 PM JST (February 17)