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Nintendo Switch has now outsold the Wii

The Nintendo Switch has become Nintendo’s best-selling home console ever.

• Nintendo added 10.67 million Switch sales in its most recent quarter, from October to December.
• That chalks up total lifetime Switch sales to 103.5 million, beating out the Wii’s 101.6 million.
• Now, that includes the new $350 OLED Switch, which sold 4 million units, and Nintendo said it “got off to a good start.”
• Remember that, comparatively, Sony sold 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in the same timeframe.
• As for forecasts, Nintendo projected fewer sales again, and said “challenges around semiconductors and shipping may persist,” which is putting it lightly.
• As for games, Nintendo said that its Pokémon remasters of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were the leaders, with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Party Superstars, and good old Animal Crossing still selling well, too, with a bunch of numbers supporting that.
• Otherwise, the new Pokémon Legends: Arceus should sell well, and upcoming games The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 and Splatoon 3 should be bright spots sometime this year…

Anyway:

• It all confirms that the Switch remains a wildly successful little console, which is no great surprise.
• The OLED version has given things a little kick-along too, but the lack of additional processing power given to the console with the new version seemed a little short-sighted.
• I’m still interested to know when Nintendo might put out a Switch 2 or a Switch OLED Pro with a lot more under the hood, so that games like Breath of The Wild are much more visually complex.

Roundup

• 📈 Google actually tried with the Pixel series and it’s working (Android Authority).
• 👉 Leak: These might be your official Samsung Galaxy S22 case options, with 20 or so options (Android Authority).
• 📉 History made: Facebook daily use declined for first time ever last quarter, with fewer daily users on the platform (Android Authority). Meta’s business is up 20% YoY, but TikTok is eating Instagram even as Reels grows, Apple’s ad privacy moves will cost it $10B in revenue in 20222, and Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is the metaverse part, saw $10.2 billion spent on it across the year, up from $6.6b in 2020. Anyway, with growth faltering, the stock tanked an enormous 20% overnight, which changed Zuck’s paper wealth by $24 billion. But the actual market opening later today will be interesting…
• 🍎 More on Apple’s privacy measures that’ll cost Facebook $10B in 2022 (MacRumors).
• 🥽 Microsoft has reportedly killed off its plans for the HoloLens 3 (Engadget).
• 🏎️ Gran Turismo 7 preview: A return to expansive, grindy, car-collecting roots (Ars Technica).
• ⭐ Google Maps explains how it tackles review bombing (Engadget).
• 💻 DeepMind says its new AI coding engine called AlphaCode is “as good as an average human programmer,” though in a limited way. Still, it opens the door to making programming easier for non-programmers. Google owns DeepMind, in case you forgot (The Verge).
• 🔥 Welcome to the Burner Phone Olympics(Wired).
• 🎸 The world’s best Guitar Hero player was a cheat (though he’s still really, really, really good…) (Kotaku).
• ☄️ Mars meteorite ‘Black Beauty’ hints at red planet’s past habitability (CNET).
• 🤔 “ELI5: How do modern dishwashers take way longer to run and clean better yet use less energy and water?” (r/explainlikeimfive).

Throwback Thursday

Tomorrow marks 22 years of The Sims! First released back on February 4, 2000, The Sims through all of its generations and DLC and fan-made content and everything, fully captured the minds and hearts of plenty of adults and kids.

• I remember my sister, as a kid, being completely terrified of the thief that would come and steal your stuff in the night.
• Then there was the problem when your Sim set the kitchen or house on fire with bad cooking skills.
• But a lot of problems can’t be blamed on your Sims: people invariably experimented with their Sims by taking away the ladder in the pool…
• Anyway, it’s still wildly popular, The Sims 4 continues to get new content, and EA officially confirmed The Sims 5 will emerge at some point, with multiplayer, though remaining “a safe space” that “enables people to freely create their own world”.

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor.