After failing to unveil a new console at the E3 video game conference in June, Nintendo finally announced the long-expected Switch (OLED model) on Tuesday. The new console, available starting on October 8, will be priced at $349.99, $50 more than the base model Switch. Long rumored to be called the Switch Pro, the new console will have a seven-inch OLED screen, 64GB of internal storage, a wired LAN port and it comes with a kickstand for tabletop mode, similar to a tablet. It will come in two color schemes at launch: a white set that has white Joy-Con controllers, a black console and a white dock; and a neon red/neon blue set, that has neon red and blue controllers, a black console and a black dock. Nintendo finally announced the long-expected Switch (OLED model) on Tuesday.

Nintendo fans will soon have to start paying for the privilege of playing video games online with their friends. The video game company has finally revealed when online functionality, which has been free to access for all players since the launch of the Nintendo Switch last year, will become a paid-for extra for owners of the console. Switch Online will launch on September 18 2018 and cost £18 ($20) for an annual subscription, or £3.49 This marks the first time Nintendo has charged players to access online multiplayer features, which were available for free on the Wii and the Wii U. A free seven-day trial will be available to all Switch owners at launch. Nintendo fans will soon have to pay for the privilege of playing the online elements of their favourite games.

In Nintendo's financial briefing, the Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company revealed that it has sold about two million copies of "Super Mario Odyssey" just three days after the game was released. According to Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima, the estimated sales of the company's newest Super Mario installment have already exceeded 2 million units. This is an impressive feat considering the 3D platform video game was released on Oct. 27. Kimishima also expects the figure to go up when the holiday season goes into full swing. "Last Friday saw the release of'Super Mario Odyssey' in Japan and in overseas markets. This newest title in the Super Mario series received many awards this year at the largest game shows in Western markets, such as E3 and gamescom, and consumers had high expectations leading to its release," Kimishima said.

Over the weekend, you might have missed Nintendo's attempt to refresh its first major smartphone game, Super Mario Run, and the smart planner by Moleskine that requires a little too much mental investment. Even after it's set up, the app probably won't recognize your chicken scratch. Moleskine's smart planner requires too much effort to use Moleskine's latest product is a smart planner that builds on its existing connected writing set by letting you jot down appointments and have those meetings show up in your online calendar. But, as Reviews Editor Cherlynn Low found out after a few days of testing, the effort required to get the system up and running ultimately isn't worth it. Self-aware algorithms and flexible joints help them move more like humans.

It appears Link is poised to follow Mario on to the smartphone. Nintendo is developing a mobile game based on its popular adventure series The Legend of Zelda, reports The Wall Street Journal. The report did not provide details on the specific timing of the Zelda game's launch, or how much it might cost. The report says it could launch after a mobile game based on the property Animal Crossing, slated to arrive later this year. Nintendo could not be immediately reached for comment.

We could see Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda on smartphones and tablets as early as next year, the Wall Street Journal reports, referring to the Kyoto company's pledge to release a few mobile games based on its bestselling franchises per annual fiscal cycles. The report, if correct -- it's sourced vaguely to "people familiar with the matter" -- would be no great surprise. The Legend of Zelda is a cornerstone Nintendo property, far more recognizable to general audiences than something like Fire Emblem, a turn-based strategy roleplaying series that Nintendo brought to smartphones in early February. Or Animal Crossing, its next smartphone game, delayed but currently due by the end of March 2018. That's to say nothing of the whirlwind success of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a novel take on the fantasy adventure series that at last check has sold nearly 4 million copies between the Wii U and Switch.

A little over a year ago, TIME engaged Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima in a wide-ranging conversation about the company's fledgling mobile strategy, its struggles with the Wii U, the rise of its toys-to-life Amiibo figurines and a mystery-cloaked next-gen platform then known only as "NX." Three mobile apps and a sold-out "classic" version of its 1980s NES console later, with a $299 hybrid/TV games console dubbed Nintendo Switch due on March 3, TIME caught up with Nintendo's principal figure to talk Switch, mobile profitability, how he's liking the job so far and more. Here, following our recent chats with Nintendo EPD director Shinya Takahashi and Nintendo Switch general producer Yoshiaki Koizumi, is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation with Kimishima. Tatsumi Kimishima: Mr. Takahashi started out as a designer, and then as far as his career at Nintendo, he really worked with various development teams, where he worked as a coordinator for different environments. He was the guy they would bring in to pull all of these disparate things together. That was his main job while working with development teams. One thing that's a little bit different between [Donkey Kong and Mario creator] Mr. Miyamoto, say, and Mr. Takahashi, is that Mr. Miyamoto is of course known as the father of Mario, as well as for the characters and games he's helped develop. Mr. Takahashi, by contrast, is someone who really covers everything.

While Amazon only just recently started delivering to real customers via drone, it has even bigger ideas. A patent filing reveals a system where they take off from floating blimps stocked with commonly requested products. The adult industry and CES have a longer relationship than you might know. From 1984 to 1998 porn was a part of CES, until AVN split off for its own concurrently running show. Now, the two expos take place weeks apart, and porn has almost no presence at the electronics show.

The days leading up to the holiday have been a real roller coaster ride for Cyanogen fans. Yesterday, Cyanogen Inc. unceremoniously pulled the plug on its support for... Read more ... Tim Curry will read you'A Christmas Carol' from your Amazon Echo It's the time of year when we find ourselves together with our loved ones, gathered around the warming seasonal glow of our smart home devices. And for those who managed to... Read more ... Google has been talking about your living room for a long time. We imagine any new tech thing takes a lot of planning, a lot of money, and a lot of time. The push to get Google... Read more ... This video shows what Super Mario Run would look like in... Super Mario Run may have only been out for a week, but that hasn't stopped fans from making Nintendo's automatic runner a reality thanks to cheap costumes and impressive... Read more ...

Of course I'm not the first to look at the physics in Super Mario Bros--there was this interesting paper looking at the optimal jump to get to the highest point on the flag at the end of the level. There is also a nice page looking at the acceleration of jumping Mario in the different games. This is a great chance to take another look at the physics of Mario. The best way to get data from a video game is to first capture the action and then use video analysis. With video analysis, I can get position-time data by looking at the location of the object in each frame.