Dr. Mario World Racks Up Two Million Downloads In Its First 72 Hours
Early this week, Nintendo released its fifth mobile game, Dr. Mario World. The game modernises the classic action puzzle formula with a unique touchscreen twist and online multiplayer. So, how has it been received by the general public?
According to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data, there were more than two million installs within the first 72 hours. In contrast, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp had 6 million downloads in the same period, Fire Emblem Heroes had 4.9 million downloads and Super Mario Run had just over 4 million downloads. Dr. Mario, however, did rack up seven times as many installs as the brand-new IP, Dragalia Lost. In saying this, the Cygames-developed title had a rather limited launch.
In terms of in-app transactions, players have already spent an estimated $100,000 on Dr. Mario World since it launched. This makes it Nintendo’s lowest grossing mobile game release so far. In contrast, Fire Emblem banked a cool $11.6 million over the same period of time, and even Dragalia Lost managed to pull an extra $150,000. Still, Dr. Mario World has done quite well when considering the series it is based on and the limited amount of marketing it received leading into its release.
Were you one of the people who downloaded Dr. Mario World in the first 72 hours? Have you made any in-app purchases yet? Leave a comment below.
Prime Day Switch Deals: Best Nintendo Switch Deals Available Now (US)
As Nintendo fans, we're used to shelling out more than average for our games and accessories, but luckily, Amazon Prime Day is nearly here to save us some cash while giving us an excuse to spend even more money on Nintendo products. Whether you're looking to pick up your first Nintendo Switch, have a specific game in mind, or are just curious what kind of discounts will actually be available, you've come to the right place.
While Amazon Prime Day doesn't officially kick off until Monday, July 15, the retail giant is already starting to discount many products in preparation for Prime Day. Plus, Amazon's biggest competitors are getting in on the deals action by throwing their own anti-Prime Day sales, including Walmart, Target, and GameStop, to name just a few. All that competition can only benefit shoppers, as Prime Day has gradually become the equivalent of Black Friday in the summer with record-low discounts on high-cost items (like game consoles). Even though the Nintendo Switch sells for $300, a lower price point than the Xbox One or PS4, its games and accessories get quite pricey, with Switch Pro controllers selling for $70 and first-party titles often remaining at $60 long after launch. That's why finding good deals on Switch products is even more exciting, and Prime Day is likely your best chance to find a ton of Switch discounts until Black Friday.
Prime Day comes with an overwhelming amount of deals shoved in your face, so we're here to help make the experience a bit less stressful. Here are the best Nintendo Switch deals for Prime Day available now (and note that this story will continue to be updated as Prime Day really gets started next week).
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - on sale for $20 at Amazon
Best Nintendo Switch game deals
From GameStop's huge Summer Sale to Ebay's Hot Deals for Hot Days, there are plenty of discounts floating around already in anticipation of Prime Day; plus, Amazon itself already has some pretty notable price cuts available. Check out some of the great game deals you can snag already below.
Everyone's still buzzing about the announcement of a new $200 Switch model, the Switch Lite, but with it releasing in September, we wouldn't count on it getting discounted any time soon. If you're in the market for a Switch, your best bet is to grab the OG model during Prime Day. While listed at $300 normally, we've seen the Switch as low as $240 in the past, and we're willing to bet it drops steeply again over the next week.
Of course, if you're willing to get a slightly used or refurbished model, you can already find the Switch cheaper at some retailers. But if you're holding out for a brand-new Switch to drop below $300, you may have to wait until Prime Day. When we start spotting deals, we'll include those here. It's worth mentioning there is a small perk for getting the console at GameStop right now, and that's a free Starlink: Battle for Atlas starter pack. Plus, you can get a bundle with the console, Crash Team Racing, and a Switch steering wheel two-pack for $300 at Ebay, if that's something you're into.
FastSnail Grips, 2-pack - on sale for $10.95 at Amazon
Best Nintendo Switch accessory deals
As we said earlier, Switch accessories are almost as notoriously expensive as the games themselves. But if the Switch is your primary gaming system, it definitely doesn't hurt to invest in at least a few essentials: a Pro controller, a hard-shell travel case, a microSD memory card, etc. More deals will start going live as Prime Day starts, but here are some of the best accessory deals available now.
First 4 Figures Reveals Its Fourth Sonic The Hedgehog Resin Statue
First 4 Figures has announced the fourth resin statue in its Sonic the Hedgehog diorama statue line.
Pre-orders for the Combo, Exclusive, Tropical Jungle and Standard Editions will be available until 16th August 2019 and you’ll need to return to the F4F website before then, on 19th July, to validate your order.
Here’s the breakdown of what you’ll get with each statue, along with the price:
Sonic the Hedgehog – Sonic and Tails Combo Edition includes the Sonic the Hedgehog – Sonic and Tails EXCLUSIVE edition as well as Sonic the Hedgehog – Sonic and Tails TROPICAL JUNGLE edition for the ultimate Sonic fan.
Although Godot gained C# support with the release of Godot 3.0, it was missing support for key platforms, specifically mobile and browsers. News from the Godot website indicates that Godot will receive C# support on the Android platform starting with Godot 3.2, thanks in a large part to a funding grant by Microsoft.
From the news entry by Ignacio Roldán Etcheverry:
Today I’m glad to announce we’ve finally made it happen. Godot 3.2 will ship with support for exporting C# games to the Android platform.
The process of exporting a game for Android with C# is the same as it would be if you were using GDScript. Godot will make sure to add all the assemblies and dependencies to the exported APK. No extra steps are required from you.
It supports all target ABIs Godot does (armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86 and x86_64). Currently, we only use JITed code, with AOT support coming in the future.
If you want to try Android C# support with Godot you need to build it yourself until the 3.2 release occurs. Details of building with Mono support are available here.
They also discuss the future plans:
The next step in the roadmap is integration with the MonoDevelop IDE. More details will come in the next devblog, in a bit less than a month. You can expect much awaited features like debugging as well as better experience for opening files with this IDE (currently we use the command line with bad results). Thanks to the editor re-write, this will be a much easier task.
If you’re wondering about support for WebAssembly and iOS or integration with Visual Studio and VS Code, don’t fear. Those are all on the roadmap. You can expect to hear more about them in the future.
Old-School Platformer Phantom Gear Hoping For A Sega Mega Drive Release
Retro indie publisher Mega Cat Studios and Bits Rule Games are hoping to launch a new, but very old-school platformer called Phantom Gear on the Sega Mega Drive. New games for old consoles sure are popular at the minute.
The game is made up of a mix of elements from your favourite classic action platformers – you’ll find multiple weapons, permanent upgrades, boss fights, animated cutscenes, skill progression and more all present here. You’ll need to lock ‘n load to power your way through levels and use your abilities to search for collectables along the way.
To make this possible, a Kickstarter campaign will be going live in just a few days’ time on 16th July. The Kickstarter aims to cover the cost of the game’s development for the Mega Drive, manufacturing the cartridges, and creating the box. You can keep an eye out for that going live by checking out the game’s official website.
Zack Manko, “Lead Cat” at Mega Cat Studios, has shared the following in a press release:
“We’re blast processing our way to something special here, and I couldn’t be more excited for people to play Phantom Gear. Playing it is like the first time you put your hands on classics such as Ristar or Dynamite Heady.”
Do you have an old Sega Mega Drive knocking about? Do you still pick up retro games to this day? Let us know your thoughts on this one in the comments.
You Can Now Get 90% Off All Atooi Games On Nintendo Switch (North America)
Jools Watsham, the owner and founder of Atooi, has announced all of the company’s existing Switch eShop games are currently on sale on the North American Switch eShop.
Unfortunately, this offer appears to be limited to North America, so if you live outside of this region, don’t expect to make any savings. This sale will end on 26th July.
Will you be taking advantage of this sale? Do you already own all of these games? Leave a comment below.
Steam Labs is Valve’s new home for experimental Steam features
Valve is rolling out a handful of new experimental features for Steam, but those additions won’t be headed right to the storefront’s homepage.
Instead, the company has launched a home for toying with new and potentially interesting features called Steam Labs, and opened up access to the first three additions to the general public.
The tools and tests found within range in size and scope, but each is a potential peek at solutions Valve has pitched and mulled over internally to address some of the shortcomings of its massively popular game platform.
The Interactive Recommender is among these, and has been gathering no small amount of buzz from developers curious about the neural net-powered game recommendation tool. More about that specific experiment can be found here, but, in short, the tool uses play data, machine learning, and other interactive criteria to create compelling and personalized game recommendations for Steam users.
Aside from that, Valve has also launched two video-focused creations in Steam Labs that each highlight new games on the platform in their own ways.
Micro Trailers generates short, six-second long trailers for games on Steam, an experimental feature Valve says attempts to give Steam users a way to quickly get their eyes on titles they might be interested in. Valve has generated a handful of these already, broken down in slightly different presentation styles over ono its Steam Labs page.
The other video-focused creation, The Automated Show, aims to act as a sort of daily digest for new Steam releases. That experiment features a half hour long show (generated by a bot) that quickly runs through new additions for the day across categories like ‘new and popular’ and individual genres.
“Right now, the automated show bot is a black obelisk that sits in Boston, Massachusetts, and will only generate an episode when someone speaks a complex series of prime numbers into its electronic ears,” explains Valve. “It’s mostly-automated, but requires a human to kick it off. Should we continue with this experiment, we’ll want to make it something that runs daily or weekly without human intervention.”
Riverbond Brings Co-op Craziness to Xbox Game Pass
Ahoy, friends! We’re proud to announce that Riverbond, a voxel shoot-and-slash dungeon crawler is available now on Xbox One and with Xbox Game Pass for Console and Xbox Game Pass for PC. We invite you and your friends to explore the eight hand-crafted worlds in your adventure down the River of Light towards your heroic destiny.
Watching Riverbond players at events like at E3, GDC, and PAX is a pleasure to see fans young and old come together as they play. We designed Riverbond with this core experience in mind. And with an arcade-like pacing and drop-in and drop-out couch co-op, everyone is free to join in on the fun! We hope that Riverbond captures your imagination as it did with ours, and that you will form sweet memories with your friends and family as you play it this Summer.
Oh! And before we go. If you’re fans of indie games like us, please don’t sleep on the playable guest characters that are hidden in treasure chests throughout the game. You will uncover these crossover skins from classic games like Psychonauts, Guacamelee!, Shovel Knight, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Enter the Gungeon, and more.
So, gather your crew to suit up and shoot-and-slash your way to glory!
Linux May Gain Protection Against Hyper-Threading Attacks
Oracle security researchers have been working on security feature for Linux kernels that could protect Linux-based systems against attacks that affect Intel’s Hyper-Threading (HT) feature. Multiple side-channel threats the feature’s vulnerable against, including L1TF/Foreshadow and the MDS attacks, have been revealed over the past few months. [Souce: Tom’s Hardware]
Coast Guard paramedic Jack Ballard, recently reincorporated after the death of his wife, responds to an emergency call from an offshore structure in high seas. The place seems to be abandoned, so who sent the message? Are you afraid of deep water? You will be.
