Famitsu’s Japanese chart figures are now in for 13th May – 19th May, revealing that eight out of this week’s top ten games are on Nintendo Switch.

It’s a familiar story as a new PS4 game enters the chart at number one this week, followed by a Switch-heavy list full of Nintendo-published titles. The game to secure number one this time around is Ys: Memories of Celceta – Kai, which managed an estimated 13,895 sales this week.

Here are the top 10 (first numbers are this week’s sales, followed by total sales):

1) [PS4] Ys: Memories of Celceta – Kai (Nihon Falcom) {2019.05.16} – 13.895 / NEW
2) [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo) {2018.12.07) – 8.507 / 3.085.499
3) [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} – 7.258 / 2.302.993
4) [NSW] Minecraft (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} – 6.954 / 783.332
5) [PS4] Days Gone (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2019.04.26} – 6.276 / 166.459
6) [NSW] Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Let’s Go, Eevee! (Pokémon Co.) {2018.11.16} – 5.991 / 1.530.747
7) [NSW] New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Nintendo) {2019.01.11} – 5.087 / 616.477
8) [NSW] Splatoon 2 (Nintendo) {2017.07.21} – 4.524 / 3.067.711
9) [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo) {2017.03.03} – 4.518 / 1.319.464
10) [NSW] Yoshi’s Crafted World (Nintendo) {2019.03.29} – 4.068 / 134.812

On the hardware side of things, Switch remains at the top of the pile, albeit with a slightly lower sales tally than usual. Here are this week’s figures, followed by last week’s in brackets:

1) Switch – 32,564 (41,736)
2) PlayStation 4 – 5,572 (8,823)
3) PlayStation 4 Pro – 3,988 (6,179)
4) New 2DS – 2,160 (4,420)
5) New 3DS – 369 (756)
6) PlayStation Vita – 290 (544)
7) Xbox One X – 60 (98)
8) Xbox One S – 52 (93)

< Last week’s charts (actually 29th April – 5th May)

Any surprises this week? Let us know in the comments.

Our nation’s Veterans have contributed to our country in so many ways, in countless locations around the globe. When they return home, many Veterans who reside in rural areas are not able to access broadband internet which is critical to using telehealth services, gaining educational opportunities, and growing a small business or running a family farm.

There are 2.7 million Veterans enrolled in Veterans Affairs (VA) who are living in rural communities, 42% of them do not have internet access at home which could support their use of VA telehealth services, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’, Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Rural Health. These rural Veterans live in areas where access to fast, reliable internet service may be limited or inaccessible and are facing higher rates of unemployment, longer drives to reach the nearest clinics and medical centers, and lower levels of educational attainment compared to their urban counterparts. Connectivity has the potential to improve this reality — with broadband, they can access telehealth services offered by the VA, identify and compete for well-paying jobs, improve and grow their own businesses, and take advantage of online education classes.

Microsoft and VA have been strategic partners, working together to improve the lives of Veterans, for more than 20 years. Today, I’m excited to share that Microsoft will begin expanding that work by helping VA to help bring connectivity to many Veterans living in rural towns and communities. Microsoft and its partners will be working with VA to provide capital, technology expertise, and training resources to bring broadband access to people in these underserved communities. Our hope is that this effort will unlock new economic opportunities, while also enhancing quality of life.

Through the partnership, we’ll help VA identify communities with Veterans in need and work with our internet service provider (ISP) partners across the nation to bring broadband services to those regions. Following our Airband Initiative model, we’ll also provide the Veterans in these newly connected communities with digital skills training so they can take advantage of the tools and services connectivity enables, including critical telehealth services provided by VA.

In the past 22 months, through the Microsoft Airband Initiative, we have seen firsthand just how many communities lack connectivity at broadband speeds and how this can hinder growth and new opportunities. We’ve also seen that partnering with ISPs to serve those most in need is an effective strategy to make progress quickly on this important issue. Our work with VA builds on those lessons and approach, which has resulted in partnerships that will bring connectivity to 1 million unserved rural residents in 16 states to date, with a plan to reach 3 million by 2022.

This also builds on our commitment to the military and Veteran community. We’re passionate about our work with this community and take a holistic approach to helping Veterans gain the critical career skills required for today’s digital economy through career training and re-training, soft-skills support, and hiring. The company’s cornerstone Veteran program, Microsoft Software & Systems Academy (MSSA), provides the Veteran community with an 18-week (or two nine-week terms) training for high-demand careers, with graduates gaining an interview for a full-time career at Microsoft or one of the company’s more than 400 hiring partners. We’re also proud of our strong network of partners, all of whom champion our same vision to assist the community.

We owe it to the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our nation. Veterans living in rural communities deserve to have the broadband internet access enjoyed by many who live in urban areas. Addressing the broadband gap across the country requires innovative solutions from both the public and private sectors, and we hope this partnership will help us make significant progress toward closing the connectivity gap for the Veteran community.

Tags: broadband access, Microsoft Software & Systems Academy, MSSA, rural broadband

In this 2019 GDC talk, Monomi Park (Slime Rancher) founder Nick Popovich explains how you can make your game stand out and survive amongst the thousands of games released every year.

Key to Popovich’s strategy is the idea that selling your game is just the starting point: to help it survive and thrive, you need to give it a “pulse” (through updates, etc) that makes players feel engaged with a living game.

He also delves into what makes a game feel like “home”, and why cultivating that sort of appeal is so key to ensuring players keep coming back to your game — and talking it up to their friends.

Popovich’s talk was rich in practical examples and lessons learned from Slime Rancher’s development, and now you can watch it (completely free!) over on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Newsbrief: Sony Santa Monica’s God of War has sold over 10 million copies in a little over a year’s time.

The game’s sales were briefly mentioned in Sony’s recent presentation to investors, alongside information on PlayStation’s next-generation platform goals.

It’s a sizable milestone, and one that other Sony flagship games like Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us have also reached in their lifetime. Back in 2018, God of War managed to sell 3.1 million copies in just its first three days on shelves, and, according to Sony’s data, has now managed to surpass its predecessor God of War 3 in lifetime sales as well.

Rage 2 is what you get when you bring together two gaming studio powerhouses, one gigantic asteroid to wipe out 80% of the planet’s population, and a lot of turning things up to 11 (and in some cases, 12). One of our most hotly anticipated titles is here and we hope you’re ready to embark on the wildest adventure of the year with Rage 2 on Xbox One. It’s time to party hard.

The culmination of taking as many crazy ideas as possible, and then throwing them into an open world first-person shooter blender, Rage 2 from id Software and Avalanche Studios brings us back to the wasteland established in the Xbox 360 classic, Rage (available now with Xbox Game Pass).

With a massive arsenal of modifiable weapons as your disposal, the ability to traverse the open world in a variety of vehicles from monster trucks to gyrocopters, and upgradeable powers that let you execute some truly ludicrous attacks, the “shooterverse” is ready for you to discover this wild adventure on Xbox One.

This time in the wasteland you’ll play as Walker, the last ranger who’s seeking revenge and to deliver his own lethal brand of justice. Having been robbed of his home and left for dead, he’ll seek to destroy the tyrannical Authority who desire to rule the world of Rage 2 with an iron fist.

Standing in your way are a variety of tyrannical factions and bloodthirsty gangs, each with their own group of madmen, monsters, and mutants that you’ll need to dispatch. Thanks to the wide variety of weapons and extraordinary Nanotrite powers, and Overdrive tech that lets you push your guns beyond their limits, you’ll have all the tools necessary for you to restore freedom in the apocalypse.

You can pick up Rage 2 today for Xbox One on the Microsoft Store. And as an Xbox One X Enhanced title, you can experience crisp 60fps gameplay on the world’s most powerful console, Xbox One X.

Team Sonic Racing is now available on Nintendo Switch and other platforms, finally letting us blast around a variety of race tracks as our favourite blue blur and friends. As a matter of fact, we’ve just shared our full review of the game if you’re interested in learning more, but there’s something mysteriously absent that we want to investigate before you go.

After spotting a number of online users mentioning the lack of an opening movie on Switch, we decided to fire up our own copy of the game to take a look. Sure enough, sitting on the main menu for a good ten minutes presented us with nothing more than said menu, yet copies of the game on other platforms treat their players to a super-duper movie to get you all pumped before hitting the track.

You can see it for yourself below.

So why on Earth can’t an opening movie be present in every version? We can understand a slight dip in performance or visual spiciness thanks to the Switch’s lesser power, but plenty of games feature gorgeous cutscenes on Nintendo’s machine all the time. Surely this is no different?

A quick survey around Nintendo Life HQ brought up a couple of suggestions. The game’s full size on Switch just so happens to be around 7GB, which means that it would just about fit on an 8GB Switch cart. As we’ve explored before, upgrading to a larger Switch cart costs a game’s publisher more money, so did Sega remove any data-heavy scenes to squeeze the game onto a smaller and cheaper cart?

If this is the case, should we expect the movie to be patched in digitally in the future? Just last month, Mario Tennis Aces received a brand new opening movie. We thought it was an odd choice to add a new movie after the game had already been out for months, but this tactic could make a lot of sense in this particular case, especially if space needed to be saved at launch.

We don’t know the answer to this particular puzzle for certain, so we’ve reached out to Sega for comment. We’ll make sure to update this article if Sega chooses to provide us with a statement.

Does it seem strange to you that such a feature would be missing from one version of the game? Are you annoyed at all that it isn’t available to watch on Switch, or does the inclusion of a movie not bother you at all? Make sure to let us know in the comments below.

PQube and developer Corecell Technology have revealed that AeternoBlade II will soon be playable on a Nintendo Switch near you. It’s expected to launch across multiple platforms this autumn.

A press release for the game describes its gameplay as “pure poetry”, which is a pretty bold statement to make. Players can expect to come across jump ‘n’ run sections, puzzle-platforming elements and dynamic combat which will combine to challenge your creativity as you play. We’ve got a little more info for you below:

Harness the AeternoBlade and play as three unique characters, including returning heroine Freyja and newcomers Felix and Bernard. Each equipped with an individual set of skills, they journey across dimensions in a desperate struggle against the destruction of the Dark Abyss. The power of the AeternoBlade must be returned or reality, as they know it, will face total collapse.

The first game – AeternoBlade – left us a little frustrated when we reviewed it last year, not because anything in it was irreversibly broken, but because brief glimpses of excellence showed what could’ve been. Hopefully this sequel will deliver on the hopes we had the first time around.

Did you play the original game on Switch? Will you be looking forward to this one’s release? Let us know with a comment below.

The App Store doesn’t lack for deck-building games these days, but in a sea of dungeon crawlers you may be missing the tabletop classics inspired by the likes of Dominion. I don’t know what a ‘shard of infinity’ is, other than a great new card game in that traditional mode—but with some cool new ideas to set it apart.

Shards of Infinity comes from former Magic: The Gathering champion and designer of Ascension, Justin Gary. So as you might expect, the design is tight. The game has clearly been playtested to hell and back, because it never feels like it runs out of new strategies to try or new challenges to overcome.

Shards has a lot more player interaction than some deck builders, since your objective is to break through your opponent’s defenses and reduce their health to zero. That means you need to pay attention to what they are up to and watch for ways to disrupt their strategy. Are they grabbing a couple champions that are invulnerable to attacks? Pick up the allies that let you remove them anyway. Then they’ll grab the one that brings their champions back from the dead. You’ll be doing a lot more than just attacking back and forth. Drain their Mastery points. Block attacks. The one thing you don’t do is force them to trash cards, which actually makes the game a lot less chance-based and frustrating compared to other deck-builders.

Card interactions are also interesting. Cards frequently work well within suits, where you’ll get a bonus for playing another of the same type or having one in your discard pile. They also complement each other across suits. The purple cards frequently stack up damage, but they are also the best way to trash useless cards. A card that boosts your draws will help with any strategy. The fun part is spotting these synergies from the center row and building your deck appropriately.

Shards’ big innovation is Mastery—experience points you can build over time that make the cards you have more powerful. That makes the late game less of a race to trash useless cards and more thrilling as your power levels ramp up until even one of your starting cards can insta-win. Another cool feature is the ability to fast play some cards straight from the center row. That way you don’t waste extra credits, but you also don’t stuff too much dross in your deck.

The game can be played with up to four, but it really shines as a two player fight, quite similar to Star Realms. It only takes 20-30 minutes to play this way. So if that sounds up your alley, or you’re already a fan of the tabletop game, the real question is: how is the mobile version?

The app version of the game is polished like chrome and clearly built for mobile (just play the desktop version to see what I mean). On a tablet, you get the original card artwork, but you can easily switch to Jumbo text on a smaller screen.

The interface has a lot of thoughtful features that smooth gameplay. A nice big button right where your thumb goes changes function depending on where you are in your turn. It starts as “Play All” so you don’t have to swipe five cards onto the table every turn, serves as the pass button when you want to skip a card function, lets you use your last crystal to Focus for a Mastery point, then finally changes to Damage or End Turn when it’s time to hand the reins over to your opponent. Then the game also reminds you when you have unspent crystals or when you can target Champions instead of your opponent directly. That said, an undo button would be nice for when you accidentally swipe the wrong card from the center row.

Because the design is focused on the center row, it can be difficult to keep track of what your opponent is up to. To see their Champions you have to pull down a menu. Likewise, it takes experience to recognize what your opponent is up to on their turn since the cards and tokens rapidly fly around the screen. In time, you’ll know all the card capabilities at a glance, at least broadly, and can pick up on the strategies you are facing.

The AI is smart and challenging at all levels. The Easy level is appropriate for beginners, not too much challenge once you understand the game, but still cunning enough to take advantage of any mistakes you might make. Medium and Hard have clear differences in abilities, with Hard being quite tough.

The game has basic matchmaking for online play that works perfectly. You can set a match to have a 30 min (per side) time limit that makes it basically real time, or go up to days or weeks if you prefer a correspondence game. There’s no ranking system, but I found lots of people to play with, who were usually quite a bit more challenging than the Hard AI. The online play is cross-platform too, which should help with keeping the number of online players high, and you can add friends to keep track of your regular partners. This game is full of fun innovations on the classic tabletop deckbuilder model from a master of the genre.