Category: Nintendo News

As part of Pokémon’s 30th anniversary celebrations, Stern Pinball has now officially revealed its new Pokémon pinball machine.

It’s available right now in “pro”, “premium” and “limited edition” models. The limited edition is “limited” to 750 units globally, and prices range between $6,999 – $12,999, depending on the model. If you’re interested, or happen to be a business owner, you can contact Stern on its website to find out about the availability of these machines and more details.

This machine promises to take trainers on an “unforgettable journey” across four distinct habitats as they battle their way through rival trainers and Team Rocket. It also integrates video clips from the original animated series, including the official theme song.

The game begins with the player entering a random biome: forest, water, mountain, or desert. By hitting the ball at the proper targets on the board, you’ll discover, catch, and train new Pokémon partners. Occasionally, you’ll encounter the troublesome Team Rocket, and you’ll need to prevent them from capturing Pokémon during a frantic multiball sequence.

Once you’ve scored enough points and completed specific activities in a biome, you’ll be able to take on a Gym Battle against a rival party of Pokémon. Complete all the biomes’ Gym Battles, and you’ll enter the Pokémon Arena. There’s even an opportunity to face off against Team Rocket’s boss, Giovanni, but only the most skilled pinball wizards are likely to make it that far.

The premium and limited edition versions of the machine also feature an interactive electromagnet that “adds chaos” to the battle arena.

As part of the whole experience, trainers can use Stern’s app to document the Pokémon they catch. Here’s a bit about this:

“Utilizing Stern Pinball’s award-winning Insider Connected, Pokémon by Stern Pinball elevates the experience by connecting Trainers and their adventures across machines and locations. When Trainers play Pokémon by Stern Pinball signed in with their Stern Insider Connected Account, the Pokémon they CATCH will be added to their Insider Connected Pokémon Collection, which can be viewed in the Insider Connect.

If you’re curious to see it in action, YouTube channel The Pinball Company has gone hands on with the new Pokémon machine. The YouTube channel Foxcitiespinball has also uploaded a video of the Stern team explaining the new machine and the design.

What do you think of this Pokémon pinball machine? Would you be interested in something like this? Tell us in the comments.

Ahead of the release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in cinemas this April, Fandango’s streaming service in the US is currently allowing local residents to watch the original Super Mario Bros. Movie for free!

Yes, leading up to the new movie, the first one is now completely “free to watch”. There’s no subscription or membership required, but there are ads. If you haven’t already watched it, here’s what we had to say when the Mario Movie originally debuted in cinemas in 2023:

“Directors Horvath and Jelenic have managed to bring the Mushroom Kingdom to life in ways 8-bit Super Mario veterans never could have imagined, even if the vision does get a little overstuffed in the process. That being said, the cast of familiar faces, Tyler’s clued-in score, and the sheer amount happening in every frame were enough to keep us engaged from start to finish and we are curious to see what lap two inevitably brings.”

So then, if you’ve a spare hour and a half to watch this movie or just want to rewatch it before the second one arrives, now is your chance!

Have you seen the original Mario Movie yet? Will you be watching the second movie in cinemas? Let us know in the comments.

SEGA Sammy has published its Q3 2025/26 financial report, and it’s a pretty mixed bag for the multimedia giant, with losses reported in multiple different areas.

But perhaps the biggest piece of news comes from Rovio’s side of the business. Sega acquired the Angry Bird developer in 2023 Sega reports has fallen “significantly short of initial forecast due to rapid changes in the market environment and other factors”.

The company has reported an impairment loss of ¥30.4 billion ($198.6 million), citing increased competition and the rapid deterioration of user bases. This meant that “Rovio found it difficult to advance its initially planned business development”.

A number of titles haven’t met Sega’s own internal targets, with development delays and cancellations also a factor. Sonic Rumble, the mobile game which Rovio co-developed, also fell short of expectations, particularly around customer acquisition.

It’s not just with Rovio, though — while net sales remain steady and are 4% up year-on-year, operating income and ordinary income are both down, 54.6% and 51.8% respectively. Entertainment Contents has also dropped 31%.

Sega only reports two full game releases for the third quarter: Persona 3 Reload on Switch 2, and Football Manager 26, the latter of which needed “a series of updates to address post-launch bugs, etc. and improved the gameplay environment”. And in general, full game titles have reported “stagnant growth”.

It’s not all bad news, though: Sega is planning to release “four major new titles for mainstay IPs” next financial year, with a continued focus on expanding the trans-media business (movies, TV shows, merch, etc.). Daniel Svärd, once King’s head of live game studios, will be appointed as Rovio’s COO.

All in all, not a great showing for the company, and Sega has revised its net sales expectations to rise slightly — ¥490 billion / $3.2 billion, up from ¥475 billion / $3.1 billion — while operating income expectations have been lowered to ¥40 billion / $261.5 million, from ¥53 billion / $346.6 million.

Of course, Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties has just launched, and that will be included in the final report for the fiscal year ending March 2026. So that may help turn the tides a little. And 2026 marks the 35th anniversary for the Sonic series, so the future should be blue — in a good way.

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Let us know what you think of Sega’s acquisition of Rovio, and its quieter Q3, in the comments.

Hamster Corporation is on something of a winning streak, with the fantastic Arcade Archives series continually dusting off and polishing hundreds of notable games from the annals of history. Well, those wizards are back with the fresh Console Archives brand, and the now 30-year-old ‘radical’ PlayStation sports game Cool Boarders is one of the first. Yes, 1996, three whole years before anything Tony Hawk-related would reach consoles.

Much like the difference between skateboarding and snowboarding, in Cool Boarders, your character feels heavy, and your movements must be slow and deliberate if you want to pull off tricks. All this while carving fresh powder to avoid hitting trees or plummeting to a mountainous death. ‘B’ lets you jump, which will build speed and help you initiate tricks when leaping off heights. Meanwhile, ‘Y’ works as the Drift button, letting you quickly change direction and better handle corners.

Ultimately, you are aiming to either get the highest trick score or the best time on each of the courses. You’ll start out meagrely, shrugging yourself off a ledge and maybe pulling off a 180, but there’s a high skill ceiling waiting to be found. When you ready a jump, the amount of time you press and hold a directional button before you leap dictates how fast you spin. Combine this with a Grab by holding ‘R’, and with a bit of patience, you’ll be hurtling down courses while pulling off sick 900 Nosegrabs.

Thankfully, the stubborn gameplay is accentuated with great and suitably audacious ’90s music, and some silly but nostalgic sound effects and narration. But, compared to its favourably reviewed peer, 1080 Snowboarding, Cool Boarders doesn’t quite compete in either the pure fun of the gameplay or the amount of content.

Hamster has preserved the visuals beautifully, glitches and all. Here, the PS1 original’s 240p pixels are polished and presented faithfully, especially compared to the smooth anti-aliasing sheen found in the 2024 PS5 version, but anyone hoping for any upscaling options is out of luck. You can play around with the aspect ratio, either to fill the screen or condense it to perfect-pixel parity, but there’s not much in the way of borders or other presentation options. However, the emulation seems to run perfectly, with no noticeable drops in frame rate or frame pacing, and thankfully, the CRT filters are gorgeous.

One issue is that while there is Quick Save and Quick Load, I would have just preferred a rewind option, or something as wild as the ability to slow the game’s speed. I mapped the Save/Load buttons to the controller, but it still got things muddled up. Rewind would feel better, especially in a game where one mistake can ruin a run.

Neither the visuals nor the gameplay has aged as gracefully as 1080, but Hamster has done good work in presenting the snowy vistas and demanding gameplay for the modern day. Cool Boarders is a blast to play for short sessions, especially if you loved it back in the ’90s, and while a couple of extra options might have been nice, this is the best way to play this beloved early entry in the ‘extreme’ sports genre.

News that Konami is following up the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 with a Master Collection Vol. 2 was very welcome, but hardly the most surprising reveal of the year. Still, seeing MGS4 available for a system other than a PlayStation 3 feels weird, at least for gamers of a certain vintage.

It’s not quite a Sonic-on-Nintendo-level event; it’s more like when Wipeout came to N64. A brilliant game, a very pleasant surprise, but…is this legal!?

Beyond wondering how this PS3-jailbroken version will handle all the Sony-specific references, we were also struck by Game Boy Color’s Metal Gear Solid coming as part of the package. That tidbit got a little buried, which is understandable but also odd given that it’s the third game in this slim ‘collection’. Odder still, it’s classed as a “bonus” that you only get by purchasing the MGS4 and Peace Walker pair.

Both of those will be available separately for $30 a pop, but $50 gets you the full trio including Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, as it was known in Japan (and which we’ll call it from now on to save confusion).

Metal Gear and Snake’s Revenge for NES were bonus games in Vol. 1, of course, but neither is held in as high regard as 2000’s Ghost Babel, a non-canon, alt-timeline mission that (confusingly, given the MGS name) doesn’t port the PS1 game to GBC but takes the top-down view of the original MG and augments it with newer ideas from the Solid series.

Well, we say ‘series’, but this came out a year before MGS2, so the original and VR Missions were the only entries beforehand. According to Hideo Kojima, the game came about after a request from Konami’s European branch enquiring about a Game Boy version. Co-developed between Konami and TOSE, Kojima himself was on producing duties only for this one, with Shinta Nojiri directing (who would go on to direct Metal Gear Acid 1 and 2 on the PSP).

As the first handheld game in the stealth series, anybody coming to it from the 3D games should temper their expectations appropriately. However, this still stands as a remarkable 8-bit distillation of the Solid series, and one of the very best games you’ll find on Game Boy Color. Take a looksie here if you’ve never seen it in action:

With the Game Boy Advance just around the corner, and excitement focused on the ‘mainline’ PS2 sequel, Ghost Babel didn’t get the attention it deserved despite being a much more than solid (pun, as always, intended) entry.

“The perspective may have shifted back to its 1987 roots, but Metal Gear Solid on Game Boy Color is very much a game of the new millennium,” wrote Jon Wahlgren in our 2012 retro review, where he awarded it 9/10.

“It’s quite incredible just how faithful this portable title is to both the 2D games of the MSX/NES and the later polygonal PlayStation entries in terms of gameplay, tone, and aesthetic. Lengthy, challenging, and rewarding, Metal Gear Solid is far and away one of the best carts you can buy for your Game Boy Color, and a title we can only hope hits the 3DS Virtual Console sooner rather than later.”

It never did come to VC, unfortunately. At the time of writing, Ghost Babel is sitting at #11 on our reader-ranked Best GBC Games list, and at #4 on our Best Metal Gear Games on Nintendo Systems.

Granted, it’ll likely drop down on the latter once Vol. 2 comes out in August, but wherever it places in your personal ranking, it’s good to see it coming back on Switch – “bonus” game or otherwise.

And if you never played it, well, your chance is coming.

The marketing train for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has well and truly left that station, and today, Illumination has revealed a new poster to keep excitement levels high.

As shared on the movie’s official socials, the poster shows Nintendo’s prized plumber in his iconic Galaxy ‘spin’ pose. A heap of enemies soar through the clouds behind him, with Spike, Piranha Plant, Koopa Paratroopers, Lakitu and even Sledge Bro making an appearance.

“Same hero, new adventure. Mario returns in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, only in theaters April 1,” the accompanying caption reads — hey, it’s always nice to have a reminder about that release date moving forward.

We last got an extended look at The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in last month’s dedicated Direct presentation, where we were officially introduced to Yoshi. A handful of smaller ‘teaser’ trailers have since been released, showcasing a little more Yoshi and giving us another look at that Odyssey dinosaur.

What do you make of this new poster? Is it your favourite yet? Let us know in the comments.

27th February marks the anniversary of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, but this year’s event is an extra special one: the Pokémon series is turning 30 years old.

Yes, that little RPG about catching cute and not-so-cute monsters and doing battle with your pals has been going for three entire decades. In that time, it’s evolved from mere gaming phenomenon that rejuvenated interest in Nintendo’s Game Boy seven years after it launched to the world’s biggest media property.

‘If in doubt, stick a Pikachu in/on it’ probably isn’t a mantra at The Pokémon Company, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it is, given the proliferation of that particular ‘mon across every facet of the franchise. The series’ success, though, goes well beyond the near-universal appeal of the electric yellow mega mouse who became its mascot.

Anyone who’s ever been a Pokémon fan has a story that sticks in their mind; a particular Pocket Monster you caught and named, a story moment that stuck with you, a tense, skin-of-your-teeth battle you triumphed in, or a more personal memory about where you were in your own life’s story while playing Pokémon.

Or maybe something outside the games entirely! With the anime, TCG, and the wider world of Pikachu and co., it’s become so much more than just the games.

With the anniversary approaching, we’re asking you to send in your Pokémon memories for a special feature we’ll publish in a few weeks. Over 30 years, we’re positive you’ve got hundreds of memories you hold near and dear, and we’d love to highlight them on the site.

Now, Red/Green/Blue/Yellow recollections are more than welcome, but we want to hear from you whenever you jumped on the Pokéwagon, whether you were there with your DMG-01 Day One, hopped aboard with a dual-screen console, got into the series more recently on Switch, or anywhere in between.

If you’d like to contribute and be in with a chance of having your memory shared, check out the submission instructions below. Remember, short and sweet is the name of the game! (Actually, Pokémon Short & Sweet… y’know, that’s not bad.)

Nintendo Life Pokémon Memories submission guidelines

• 100 words, maximum – We’d like to feature as many as possible in the finished article, so please keep things concise! (Remember, 100 is the max – it can be shorter!)
• Don’t go crazy with multiple submissions – You’ve likely got many, many memories from playing this series, but please just pick the best one.
• Remember, we can’t pick ’em all! – We imagine we’ll have a lot to choose from, so please understand if yours doesn’t feature in the finished article. We will be reading ’em all, though!
• Submissions close on Friday 20th February 2026 – Make sure to get your message sent before the weekend arrives!

How to send a Pokémon Memory

• Head to Nintendo Life’s Contact page and select the subject “Pokémon Memories” from the drop-down menu (it’s already done for you in the link above). Type your name, email, and beautifully crafted submission into the appropriate box, hit send, and boom — you’re done!

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We’re looking forward to reading about your memories. We’ve got lots of things planned leading up to ‘Pokémon Day 2026’, so keep an eye out for Pokémoaaar soon.

Well, Konami certainly had a heck of a State of Play yesterday, didn’t it? We got some big hitting names making their grand return, but also one or two new IPs, one of which we already knew about — Darwin’s Paradox!

Co-developed with French studio ZDT Studio, the unusual octopus-starring platformer is coming to Switch 2 and now has a release date of 2nd April 2026.

But that’s not the big news here at all, oh no. You can download a free demo on the eShop now and experience one of the game’s levels, which is just one big Metal Gear Solid reference.

Yep, a stealthy octopus. Who knew?! And Darwin even gets a Snake-inspired skin in the demo, which will be available in the full game as an Easter Egg.

If this is your first time hearing about Darwin’s Paradox, let’s fill you in. Inspired by big-budget animated movies, Darwin is an octopus who is suddenly swept away from his ocean home by a beam of light. In his adventure to make it home, Darwin will uncover a conspiracy that could threaten the world, meaning he’s the one who may have to save humanity.

Darwin’s Paradox blends platforming and puzzle-solving where you’ll get to explore creative worlds and meet colourful characters. It’s something pretty different from Konami, and we’re excited to check out the demo.

The game was originally planned for Switch 1, but the team moved development over to focus exclusively on a Switch 2 release. Perhaps the right move given the level of detail we’ve seen from the trailers so far.

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Have you checked out the Darwin’s Paradox demo yet? Looking forward to the full release? Let us know in the comments.

Well, what a lovely surprise! Our local Royal Mail representative knocked on the door today and delivered a curious-looking box, and it turns out that it’s none other than the Virtual Boy accessory for Nintendo Switch Online!

Yes, it seems like a whole bunch of people – in the UK, at least – are receiving their retail Virtual Boys early, and so we were lucky enough to get our very own purchased unit.

We’ve already gone hands-on with the peripheral and app over at Nintendo of Europe in Frankfurt, so you should definitely check that out if you want a few thoughts on the experience itself.

Of course, we’ve still got a few days to wait until the Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics app launches (17th February), so we can’t really get a whole lot of use out of the headset just yet. What we have been able to do, mind you, is see what Super Mario Odyssey‘s VR mode looks like, and yeah, it’s pretty wild stuff.

The main point is that it works – to a degree. Booting up the VR mode in Odyssey lets you view stages just like you could with the Labo VR set; just pick up the Virtual Boy and move your head around, job done.

The main issue is that you can’t really control Mario at the same time, so unless you’re willing to fashion a really big rubber band around your head to keep the headset locked in place, it’s not an ideal solution.

It’s also worth pointing out here that Nintendo offered a statement to confirm that Labo VR won’t be officially compatible with Virtual Boy, but given these limited tests, we’re of the mind that it will at least function to a certain degree. We’ll be able to confirm one way or the other when the app itself launches.

As standard, the Virtual Boy comes with a red lens filter, which means that Odyssey had this weird, almost retro-inspired presentation clearly geared toward the upcoming NSO app. It’s actually quite cool in practice, but we should note that you can quite easily remove the red lens from the headset, leaving you with a pair of clear lenses that look remarkably similar to Labo’s.

With the red filter off, Odyssey looks just like it does when played with Labo, but again, moving your head around while controlling Mario unfortunately isn’t really possible with the Virtual Boy.

Otherwise, it’s, well… a Virtual Boy! I never owned the original, given that it never came out in the UK, so I can’t really comment on the feel or heft of the thing, but in terms of presentation at least, it’s a dead ringer.

It’s pretty easy to lift the visor up to slot the Switch 2 inside, and the set also comes with an added bit of plastic to allow your original Switch to fit. Similarly, although removing the red lenses took a little bit of force at first, it was very easy to do once it’s been taken out at least once.

We’ll have a lot more coverage for you when the Virtual Boy app drops on Nintendo Switch Online next week. For now, we’re going to clear a bunch of space off our office desk and display with pride.

Have you received your own Virtual Boy yet? Will you be ordering one anytime soon? Let us know with a comment.

We all saw it coming, but Konami has now finally confirmed that Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2 is heading to Switch 1 and 2, bundling Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel in one package.

I’m especially pleased to see MGS4 finally freed from its PS3 shackles. As the concluding chapter in the chronology (Snake’s chapter, specifically – yes, I see you waving there, Raiden), Guns of the Patriots is an indulgent mess of a game; one that attempts to tie up an overwhelming amount of loose threads. It’s gotten a pretty bad rap as a result, largely thanks to its lengthy cutscenes and numerous scripted gameplay segments.

I absolutely love it, though, warts ‘n all. It’s pure fan service from start to finish, bringing back characters we hadn’t seen since the first MGS while chucking in a load of easter eggs right, left, and centre. Chances are most fans know how MGS4 plays out at this point, but if you’ve only just begun your journey with Snake on Switch with Master Collection Vol. 1, I urge you to go into the fourth entry as unspoiled as possible.

Which brings me nicely onto today’s topic of conversation, so if you’re worried about spoilers, now’s the time to leave!…

When MGS4 launched on the PS3 back in 2008, it really went out of its way to stress that it was a console exclusive – sorry, Xbox 360 owners! As such, it contains a few distinct references to PlayStation that I’m fairly confident won’t be present in the upcoming release on Nintendo’s consoles.

The most obvious reference occurs when (SPOILER!) Snake returns to Shadow Moses Island to stop Liquid Ocelot from stealing Metal Gear Rex’s Rail Gun. As you head through the familiar environments, you eventually come to the point where, in the original PS1 MGS, the game would prompt you to swap discs. Otacon even calls Snake to inform him of this, only for the conversation to specifically reference the PS3, noting that the Blu-Ray technology utilised means that swapping discs is no longer required.

It’s a fun little conversation that, for old-school PS1 owners, brings back some fond memories – something MGS4 strives to do at almost every turn.

So what the heck happens with this conversation on Switch? Is it just deleted entirely? My gut says that this is probably the case, but for the sake of authenticity, I really hope it remains in some capacity.

In an ideal world, Konami would get Christopher Randolph back in to record new Switch-specific lines. Honestly, I’d crease myself laughing if he said, “Oh wait! We’re on a Game-Key Card now! All the data is downloaded!”

Come on, you know it’s funny.

That’s not the only thing. If you look around closely enough while in the game’s Nomad sections, you can spot Sunny playing on the PSP. There’s also a reference to Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner, a title produced by MGS creator Hideo Kojima and, at the time of writing, one that has yet to grace Nintendo platforms. Finally, a Policenauts poster is displayed in the environment at a couple of points in the game. With both titles, however, neither is locked to PlayStation, so I suspect both with remain.

Vol. 1 retained a lot of the quirks from the original releases, albeit with minor alterations. For example, MGS1 still prompts you to change the disc, even though this is merely done through a menu option. Similarly, PlayStation button prompts instructed via the Codec are still very much intact, though the game mutes any accompanying dialogue from the voice actors in this case.

It’s a fascinating conundrum, and I’m curious to see how Konami handles it all. Funnily enough, there’s also a real, branded iPod in the original release for MSG4, and you can use it to play all sorts of music while working your way through the game. Will this be replaced, too?

Nintendo itself probably won’t be too keen on having explicit references to a rival company mentioned in the collection. The recent release of Console Archives Cool Boarders, for instance, very carefully notes that the game originally launched on “a 32-bit home console” in the official blurb. Nintendo putting its foot down, or Hamster not wanting to take any risks?

There’s also the curious case of Hyperdimension Neptunia being barred for the Switch in the West. I’m merely speculating here, but the series’ focus on parodying the real-life ‘console wars’ may have rubbed Nintendo the wrong way.

Granted, there are plenty of direct nods to all sorts of consoles in the likes of Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition and Atari 50, but I’d argue that showcasing these in a museum-like context is a little different, and so they can probably get away with it.

Many questions linger, then, but I’m excited to finally play MGS4 on a not-PS3. It’s been a long time coming, man.

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Are there any other easter eggs in MGS4 that you think might need to be addressed for this new release? How about Peace Walker? Let us know your thoughts with a comment down below.