Nintendo Switch becomes gaming giant's best-selling console in history The Switch is now the best-selling Nintendo console in history, having surpassed 155 million sales since it launched in 2017. It means the device, which saw a huge boom in sales over the pandemic, has now surpassed the Nintendo DS as the firm's most successful gaming hardware. And the Switch is now behind only Sony's PlayStation 2 in the overall gaming charts, which sold more than 160 million units in the years following its launch in 2000. But Nintendo's latest financial report, where it announced the news, also saw shares in the company fall 11% following investor concerns over software sales and memory chip prices. Despite this, the company said its sequel the Switch 2, had got off to a good start since its release in June 2025, selling 17 million units as of the end of the year.

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. It's been a very busy week of fun game releases (next week will be too!), so let's get into some of them after a quick reflection on gaming while traveling. I love my Steam Deck. And yet when I brought it with me on a five-week trip over the holidays, I used it for barely an hour the entire time. That doesn't really justify the space and weight it takes up in my bag.

Recent advances in whole-body robot control have enabled humanoid and legged robots to perform increasingly agile and coordinated motions. However, standardized benchmarks for evaluating these capabilities in real-world settings, and in direct comparison to humans, remain scarce. Existing evaluations often rely on pre-collected human motion datasets or simulation-based experiments, which limit reproducibility, overlook hardware factors, and hinder fair human-robot comparisons. We present Switch-JustDance, a low-cost and reproducible benchmarking pipeline that leverages motion-sensing console games, Just Dance on the Nintendo Switch, to evaluate robot whole-body control. Using Just Dance on the Nintendo Switch as a representative platform, Switch-JustDance converts in-game choreography into robot-executable motions through streaming, motion reconstruction, and motion retargeting modules and enables users to evaluate controller performance through the game's built-in scoring system. We first validate the evaluation properties of Just Dance, analyzing its reliability, validity, sensitivity, and potential sources of bias. Our results show that the platform provides consistent and interpretable performance measures, making it a suitable tool for benchmarking embodied AI. Building on this foundation, we benchmark three state-of-the-art humanoid whole-body controllers on hardware and provide insights into their relative strengths and limitations.

Nintendo made a slew of announcements during its latest Direct event, including details on a new Resident Evil game, a Ditto-centric Pokémon title, and more details on . Nintendo's Switch and Switch 2 release calendars are bulking up. During a packed Nintendo Direct livestream on Friday, the company announced on-sale dates for several games as well as the return of the Virtual Boy, the proto VR headset Nintendo originally launched in the mid-1990s. One of the biggest of Friday's announcements was that of the release date for the sequel to Supergiant's wildly popular . The long-awaited new game,, will also finally launch December 4 for Switch and Switch 2. The news comes ahead of the upcoming holiday season, which will be the Switch 2's first since its launch this summer.

Recent advances in whole-body robot control have enabled humanoid and legged robots to execute increasingly agile and coordinated movements. However, standardized benchmarks for evaluating robotic athletic performance in real-world settings and in direct comparison to humans remain scarce. We present Switch4EAI(Switch-for-Embodied-AI), a low-cost and easily deployable pipeline that leverages motion-sensing console games to evaluate whole-body robot control policies. Using Just Dance on the Nintendo Switch as a representative example, our system captures, reconstructs, and retargets in-game choreography for robotic execution. We validate the system on a Unitree G1 humanoid with an open-source whole-body controller, establishing a quantitative baseline for the robot's performance against a human player. In the paper, we discuss these results, which demonstrate the feasibility of using commercial games platform as physically grounded benchmarks and motivate future work to for benchmarking embodied AI.

The lifespan of a games console has extended a lot since I was a child. In the 1990s, this kind of technology would be out of date after just a couple of years. There would be some tantalising new machine out before you knew it, everybody competing to be on the cutting edge: the Game Boy and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1989 were followed by the Game Gear in 1990 and the Super NES in 1991. Five years was a long life for a gaming machine. The Nintendo Switch 2 will be released in a couple of weeks, more than eight years since I first picked an original Switch up off its dock and marvelled at the instant transition to portable play.

The Switch 2 is nearly here, which means the original Switch is entering its twilight years. It's been eight years since Nintendo released its revolutionary hybrid console, and while many fans have spent the last couple of those itching for the device to be replaced, now seems like an opportune time to look back at what its legacy may wind up being (while acknowledging that it still has some life ahead of it). Instead of bleating on myself, though, I turned to the rest of the Engadget staff to see what comes to mind when they think of the Switch, as just about everyone on the team has played with the console. We've collected our reflections below -- some take a bigger-picture view, some are more personal, some contradict others' experiences entirely. There's plenty more that went unsaid. But I think that's part of the Switch's beauty; it's a device that's resonated with so many, in so many different ways, in its near-decade on the market.

Happy Monster Hunter Wilds week to all who celebrate: Capcom's thrilling action game has sold 8m units in three days, which means that quite a lot of you are likely to be playing it. I'm a huge fan of this series and am delighted by the latest entry, but after filing the review last week, I've barely had a minute to play it since it came out. Regular readers will know that this is a familiar problem for me: I have two kids, so my gaming time is tight, and the living room TV is very often in use. I anticipated this, so in the run-up to Monster Hunter Wilds' release, I spent 200 on a PlayStation Portal – essentially a screen sandwiched between two halves of a PlayStation 5 controller. I can't decide whether it's one of the most unwieldy things that Sony has ever come out with, or one of the most elegant.

When we think of Nintendo we picture serene and cosy cartoon adventures filled with cute creatures and lovable Italian stereotypes. But while there is plenty of Mario on the Switch, the console offers a diverse range of delights for newcomers and longtime gaming veterans. Here are the 15 essentials. The cosy life sim returned with new characters, chill activities, and endless knick-knacks with which to decorate your own virtual paradise. Create a dream island and then invite friends over for tea.

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. The Nintendo Switch is undoubtedly a less powerful games machine than the PS5, Xbox Series S/X, or a top-of-the-line gaming PC. But for Nintendo, power has never really been the point. Games developed for the Switch series never lacked for visual innovation or the artistic flourishes necessary to create inarguably beautiful worlds whose visuals fully justify playing on a really large TV. From 2.5D to watercolors, living animation to sci-fi universes, the Nintendo Switch can easily be a feast for the eyes. Almost three years ago, the Nintendo Switch OLED upped the aesthetics ante for handheld gaming. Now, with the Nintendo Switch 2 (and its backward compatibility) officially confirmed for a 2025 release, you're revisiting the age-old question: What are the best Nintendo Switch games that justify playing on your big screen? Well, we've collected the best games to buy now right here. Nintendo's first-party games are legendary for their quality and often take advantage of their respective consoles better than most third-party titles. The Switch has no shortage of games designed by Nintendo, and most rank amongst the best this system offers.