Nintendo's fired off a new volley of legal notices against the Switch emulation scene. Close to a dozen GitHub pages were hit with DMCA takedown requests over the weekend. However, while several of the Nintendo Switch GitHub pages have given in to Nintendo's demands, the development team behind the Eden emulator has boldly refused. Instead, they proceed with publishing a new v0.2.0 build of the Eden Switch emulator on GitHub just days later.
It's another edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku's daily roundup of gaming news, rumors, and culture. I'm still bummed about yesterday's report that The Outer Worlds franchise is essentially on ice after last year's entry struggled to sell. It's an exceptionally solid immersive sim RPG that feels like it's on the verge of being something truly special. But those 30-percent profit margins on games given away for free on Game Pass are a killer.
Google has just started rolling out access to its new "experimental research prototype" Project Genie, an AI tool powered by Genie 3 and Gemini that allows users to create interactive, explorable worlds with a simple text prompt. Unsurprisingly, someone has immediately used it to generate a bunch of playable Nintendo knock-offs, including a The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild clone, complete with a usable paraglider.
Nintendo, a company that regularly brings in billions of dollars each year , could have easily afforded to set up a real photoshoot to promote its upcoming line of coming to its New York City and San Francisco stores in February, but it looks like it might have used genAI instead. At least, that's what people think after looking at the photos of parents playing with their kids and the toys.
Indeed Nintendo has largely sidestepped the graphics arms race that has bedeviled both its hardware and software competitors, instead focusing on what Game Boy designer Gunpei Yokoi affectionately termed "withered technology": Using well-established technology and focusing on making something fun instead. That strategy has also allowed Nintendo to avoid the high costs and constant retraining that are hamstringing its competitors.
Nostalgia has become one of the most powerful drivers in the tech and collectible markets. From miniature consoles to pixel-perfect Lego sets, the formula is well established: take a beloved cultural touchstone and re-engineer it for a modern audience. Nintendo, more than almost any other company, has mastered this to the point of it being an art (remember the Pok e9mon Tamagotchis from a few months ago?) Hallmark's Keepsake line has long been a partner with Nintendo, translating iconic characters and scenes into physical ornaments for collectors.
Let's start with which deals the Nintendo Black Friday 2025 sale does include. First, Samsung MicroSD Express Cards for Switch 2 will be $20 off at select stores starting November 30. Second, a handful of Zelda and Street Fighter 6 amiibo will be $10 off. Finally, here are the Nintendo games that will be discounted starting November 23: Princess Peach: Showtime! - $40 (33 percent off)
In total, Nintendo has sold 154.01 million Switch consoles worldwide through September 30, and that's just 10,000 units short of passing the DS to become Nintendo's best-selling platform of all time. The Switch is still millions of units short of catching up to the PS2, which is the best-selling console of all time with an estimated 160 million units sold. At least one expert believes the Switch will not catch the PS2.
If you're like us, Nintendo holds a special place in your heart thanks to iconic characters like Mario, Peach and Donkey Kong and multiple generations of best-selling consoles. But little did we know that outside of gaming hardware and accessories, there's an ever-growing assortment of Nintendo-themed toys, clothes and decor. And it's kind of a problem because we want all of it.
According to a new Games Fray report, the new head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), John A. Squires, has ordered a reexamination of Nintendo's Patent No. 12,403,397. Filed in January 2023, granted to Nintendo in September 2025, and dubbed the '397 patent, the listing is oftentimes oversimplified to "summoning characters and making them fight." It's for this reason that Squires's office is seeking to determine if such a feature is even patentable.
Nintendo's lawsuit against Palworld just hit a snag. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has ordered a reexamination of a key Nintendo patent expected to be wielded in the case. Games Fray reports that the office is reviewing the Switch maker's patent regarding "summon subcharacter and let it fight in 1 of 2 modes." If we view Nintendo's Palworld lawsuit as a test bed for monopolizing game mechanics, the development can only be seen as a good thing.
The Court issues an injunction preventing Defendant from infringing Nintendo's copyrighted works, including by streaming, and from trafficking in Switch emulators, Nintendo's proprietary cryptographic keys, or other software or technologies that circumvent Nintendo's technological protective measures," U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher wrote in an order issued earlier this week (via TorrentFreak). The only thing the judge didn't grant Nintendo was its request to confiscate and destroy any tools Keighin had used to pirate Switch games.
While it's true that people had been wanting Nintendo to do a low-cost Netflix-like retro service for a while, much of that was due to constantly needing to re-purchase the games across non-backwards-compatible devices. With the Switch 2, that's no longer an issue. Personally, I'd prefer to just buy the original Luigi's Mansion again instead of pay $50 a year to play it.
Nintendo released a 3D model of what the balloon will look like, and yep, that's Mario. The real thing will be 51 feet long, 37 feet wide, and nearly 44 feet tall. He's wearing his iconic blue overalls and well-known red cap. His body is positioned in such a way to be a callback to Super Mario Galaxy. Nintendo is doing this in 2025 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. game, which launched in Japan back in 1985.
