Shuntaro Furukawa, president of Nintendo, has shut down any prospect of a Switch Pro -- or indeed any other new model -- in 2020.
During a financial briefing following the platform holder's latest results, Furukawa said the focus is on driving both of the current versions of its console-handheld hybrid.
"Regarding Nintendo Switch, we believe that it is important to continue to communicate the appeal of both Nintendo Switch systems and expand the installed base," said Furukawa.
"Please note that we have no plans to launch a new Nintendo Switch model during 2020."
He also noted that while the Switch Lite is off to a good start -- selling almost two million units in less than two weeks, and helping to boost overall Switch sales above what the device managed in 2018 -- there is still room for growth.
"We feel that we have not yet fully communicated the special features and appeal of Nintendo Switch Lite, so we will continue to address this going forward."
The news shatters any hope of the long-rumoured Switch Pro, first reported to be in production last year.
Originally it was expected that Nintendo would release both the Lite and Pro by Christmas 2019. But the platform holder instead opted for a September launch for the Lite, with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser saying in July that there were no plans to launch another model in 2019.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...ch-pro-in-2020 ...

Nintendo has increased its Switch sales forecast to 19.5 million for the financial year, up from the previous expected 18 million.
The company sold over 10.8 million Switch machines during the Christmas sales window, which is up over the 9.4 million it achieved in 2019. By the end of December, the firm had sold in 17.74 million during the first nine months of its financial year, a 22.5% increase year-on-year.
In total, Switch has sold in 52.48 million consoles, which means it has eclipsed the Super Nintendo. It sits behind the Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo Wii as Nintendo's third most successful home games console so far. Its sales are tracking slightly ahead of PS4 and PS2, although is currently lagging behind the Wii.
Software sales have also improved significantly. The company has sold in 123.13 million games over the financial year so far, which is 30.1% up on a year-on-year basis. Over Christmas, this was driven by Pokémon Sword and Shield, which together sold 16.06 million copies -- putting it narrowly behind the entire sell-in of its predecessor, Pokémon Sun and Moon.
Another significant hit over the period was Luigi's Mansion 3, which has sold 5.37 million copies -- making it by far the fastest selling game in the series so far. Super Mario Maker has also sold just over five million copies. Other key sellers have been The Legend or Zelda: Link's Awakening (4.19 million), Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2.58 million), Ring Fit Adventure (2.17 million), Astral Chain (1.03 million) and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 (1.02 million).
It's Nintendo's most succeessful Q3 in terms of revenue since 2009.
Nintendo now expects to sell 140 million Switch games over the course of the financial year, up from the previously estimates 125 million.
For the nine months ending December 31st, Nintendo delivered sales of over ¥1 trillion ($9.2billion), and delivered profit of ¥262.9 billion ($2.4 billion).
Digital has been a big driver of that. Digital revenue has risen 48% year-on-year for the first nine months. Digital revenue is also 28.6% of its software and services revenue. That number was 21.8% for the same period last time. It's worth noting that Nintendo Switch Online was only switched on in September 2018, which has helped drive these figures.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...ses-52-million ...

Sega Europe is abandoning plastic packaging for its physical games, after it today announced the introduction of recycled cardboard cases for all its PC products.
The news comes just months after Sega subsidiary Sports Interactive revealed it would be using specially designed recyclable cardboard cases for Football Manager 2020.
Studio director Miles Jacobson said at the time that he hoped the wider industry would soon follow suit.
Now, three months later, Sega Europe has expanded upon the work done by Sports Interactive to deliver recyclable packaging across its entire PC portfolio, starting with Total War: Rome II - Enemy at the Games Edition, which is set to release next week.
Much like the packaging used by Sports Interactive for Football Manager 2020, the new cases are more expensive to produce, but are made from 100% recycled and recyclable materials.
This increase is partially offset by savings in shipping costs, thanks to the reduced weight overall. Sega Europe quoted Jacobson's initial statement on the additional cost, saying it's "a price worth paying to help secure the planet's future."
"This initiative underlines Sega Europe's commitment to reducing its plastic waste and its ongoing efforts to implement environmentally friendly business practices," said Sega Europe president and COO Gary Dale.
It was estimated that the decision to go green with Football Manager 2020 would prevent up to 20 tonnes of plastic waste. Sega were unable to provide figures on how much waste this portfolio-wide move could prevent, but suggested it would be exponential.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-all-pc-titles ...

Minecraft is the biggest new games IP of the past ten years, based on UK retail sales.


That's according to GfK Entertainment, which tracks UK retail sales, and factors in the various console versions (published by their respective platform holders), plus the Telltale-developed Story Mode.


Minecraft appeared third in the overall best-selling games of the decade. The rest of the top ten was taken up by Grand Theft Auto V, three Call of Duty titles and no less than five FIFAs -- something we discussed at length last week.


In that article, we lamented the lack of new ideas and properties in the upper echelons of the chart. There were, of course, plenty of innovations and new franchises launched over the past ten years, including the toys-to-life genre (which rose and fell within the same decade) and the arrival of virtual reality, but these were overshadowed by the usual AAA blockbusters.


Curious as to how well any of these emerging franchises fared, GamesIndustry.biz reached out to GfK Entertainment to gauge which new IP had been the most successful. For the sake of clarity, we defined new IP as a property that debuted in the last decade, unconnected to any previous existing brand (e.g. Forza Horizon, while a new series, is still part of the Forza IP).

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-of-the-decade ...

SSF PreviewVer R14 is released. SSF is a Sega Saturn emulator for Windows systems using DirectX 9.0b. The current version claims near-complete implementation of the Sega Saturn hardware (not counting emulation bugs), and can emulate the Saturn based Sega Titan Video arcade hardware too. As with most emulators, CDs or disc images are not included and have to be owned separately. The BIOS is also not included; as of 0.07 Beta R3, games run without the BIOS however. The usage of BIOS files is optional but recommended for better compatibility, and needed for tasks such as management of the contents of the internal memory of the Sega Saturn, or setting the system clock.

SSF Changelog:
Windows version changes LLVM to 9.0.1
What happens when you directly rewrite the registry
Others shouldn't have changed ...

Fixed bug that Android version does not start on Android 10
Fixed a bug where bilinear filtering was not working
Others shouldn't have changed ...

https://twitter.com/fessx

http://www.emucr.com/2020/01/ssf-previewver-r14.html ...

Vvctre v6.5.0 is released. Vvctre is a Nintendo 3DS emulator based on Citra.

Vvctre v6.5.0 Changelog:
Added RPC server port option

https://github.com/vvanelslande/vvctre

http://www.emucr.com/2020/01/vvctre-v650.html ...

Cemu v1.17.0d is released. Cemu is a Nintendo Wii U emulator that runs commercial games. Highly experimental software to emulate Wii U applications on PC.

Cemu Changelog:
# New in 1.17.0d:

general: Further improvements to patch parsing (better error handling, new minor features)
general: Patches can now be unloaded & loaded again while a game is running
general: Various internal tweaks (optimized settings.xml format, fixed cache file name in log.txt)

# New in 1.17.0c:

vulkan: Use vkCmdSetDepthBias instead of fixed state to reduce the number of Vulkan objects (fixes 'Failed to allocate descriptor sets' error)
vulkan: Fixed a bug where texture memory would never be deallocated

# New in 1.17.0b:

general: Fixed a bug where Cemu would not remember previously enabled graphic packs if they don't have any presets
general: Improved error handling for graphic pack patches and added more descriptive error messages

# New in 1.17.0:

general: Added new graphic pack features
Version 5 adds new UI features:
- Support for multiple preset categories per pack (aka multiple dropdowns) (#225)
- Preset categories can be shown/hidden based on preset selections (via condition expressions) which allows to fit even more options into a single pack
- Force line breaks in the description field with |
To accommodate these changes the internal handling of preset variables has been updated:
- Added a [Default] category for defining preset variables and their initial values
- The default value of a variable will be used if no preset overwrites it
- If multiple presets set a variable then the visible preset categories will be prioritized over the non-visible ones
All of these features are optional and Cemu 1.17.0 remains fully backwards compatible with v3 and v4 packs

general: Added native support for Cemuhook patches.txt
Cemu will only load patches.txt if Cemuhook is not present. Otherwise Cemuhook will take over patching
A huge shoutout to Rajkosto for originally adding patch support to graphic packs and for designing the format!

general: We also saw that larger patches might benefit from some extra functionality. Therefore we added our own flavor of a patch format
It introduces several new concepts:
- Automatic codecave sizing
- Optional write cursor instead of having to preface every instruction with an address
- Labels and variables
- Can be split into multiple files and patch groups
A wiki article with format explanations and examples can be found here: https://wiki.cemu.info/wiki/Cemu_patches

We also created a demonstration gfx pack to showcase the new features. Available here: https://cemu.info/files/FPS++AIO.zip

general: Fixed a crash if the meta information of a game was missing
general: If Cemu is started for the first time and no graphic packs are installed, it will recommend downloading them to the user

general: Gamelist fixes
- Fixed that custom game titles would reset when switching display modes (#254)
- Fixed an exception that could occur when installing update/dlc while having the icon mode active
- Icon modes also use the custom titles of games now

general: Added drag & drop support for game files and NFC files (dragging the file into the Cemu window will launch/scan it) (#256)
general: The automatic updater can now handle a renamed Cemu.exe and will also preserve the custom name after the update

vulkan: Fixed a softlock that occurred when failing to compile a shader from the cache
vulkan: Fixed a bug where textures larger than 128MB would cause a crash (could happen with high-resolution shadow graphic packs)
vulkan: If VRAM is full and the device supports it, fallback to RAM for texture memory allocation
vulkan: General robustness improvements in the memory allocator

input: Due to issues with bad drivers libusb, which is needed for GameCube controllers, is now only loaded when the API is actually selected

http://cemu.info/

http://www.emucr.com/2020/01/cemu-v1170d.html ...

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot holds No.1 in the UK physical chart by just 400 units.
The RPG beats out Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (which remains at No.2) despite a 63% drop in sales week-on-week.
January is quiet even by January standards, and the only new release this week is Rugby 20 by Big Ben Interactive, which makes its debut at No.13. The game performed much better than its predecessor managed, as Rugby 18 (released in November 2017) didn't make the Top 40 at all. Of course, November is a far busier release window and where physical retail sales are typically far stronger. Even so, this latest game has sold around 25% more than the previous one.
One title to keep a close eye on is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The game continues to jump up the charts. It was No.38 two weeks ago, rising to No.20 last week and the RPG now sits at No.12.
The game has had renewed interest following the popularity of the new Netflix TV show based on the IP, which has attracted 76 million viewers worldwide and was one of the biggest shows in the UK last year. Its success comes at a good time for its developer CD Projekt Red, which has delayed its next big release -- Cyberpunk 2077 -- from April to September.
Elsewhere, there has been severe stock shortages of Nintendo Switch consoles in the UK, with certain retailers advertising every time they have more machines in stock. A recent increase in Switch hardware last week had a positive impact on Mario Kart 8: Deluxe, which rises six places to No.6.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...all-holds-no-1 ...

Console manufactures can breathe easy after tension between China and the US cooled earlier this month.
Following a recent agreement between US president Donald Trump and Chinese vice premier Liu He, a number of trade tariffs have been taken off the table indefinitely.
Among them was the proposed 25% import tax on consoles, the overwhelming majority of which are produced in China. According to figures from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, over 96% of consoles imported into the US in 2018 came from China.
In response to the threat, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all reportedly scaled back console production in China.
With the the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launch scheduled to launch later this year -- along with rumours of a Nintendo Pro -- the news is well-timed for manufacturers and consumers alike.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...n-us-and-china ...