[ad_1]
It’s the weekend again, which means its time to crown another winner and loser for the week.
This week was a busy one for a handful of companies, with the obvious attention-grabber being Samsung.
The brand unveiled its latest slew of flagship mobile devices at the February Unpacked event, including three Galaxy S22 phones and three Tab S8 tablets covering various specs and design features for different price ranges.
Nintendo also held its first Nintendo Direct keynote of the year, covering loads of major titles coming to its Switch console in 2022.
Incoming releases coming (or returning) to the Switch showcased at the event include Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, No Man’s Sky, Chrono Cross, Splatoon 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Portal 1 and 2, Front Mission 1 and 2, The Advance Wars 1 and 2 and more. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is also getting some new features, as is Metroid Dread, and Nintendo Wii game Wii Sports is getting an update with Nintendo Switch Sports.
However, none of the above quite made the cut for this week’s winner or loser.
Winner: Super Mario fans
Our winner this week is Super Mario, along with anyone who has been waiting for new Switch games from our favourite Italian plumber.
Nintendo announced two major updates coming to the franchise, including a sequel to the GameCube’s Super Mario Strikers and the Wii’s Mario Strikers Charged for the Nintendo Switch titled Mario Strikers: Battle League.
As in the other games in the series, Battle League calls Super Mario characters onto the pitch for a 5v5 game of football.
Though unlike any other football match, players can sabotage their rivals by throwing shells and dropping banana peels and win double goals by picking up an orb and scoring with a tricky Hyper Strike.
There will even be Online Clubs, allowing up to 20 players to team up with their own shirts and stadium and climb the virtual ranks with a Switch Online subscription.
The second big announcement came in the form of a major update to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
While this one was bittersweet news for anyone hoping to see Mario Kart 9 confirmed at the event, it’s exciting to hear nonetheless – especially considering how many new tracks the game is getting.
Nintendo will be introducing 48 new tracks over the course of 2022 and 2023, with them rolling out to users in six batches of eight. Notable additions include classics such as Coconut Mall, Choco Mountain and Tokyo Blur.
Both of the above are fantastic news for any fans of the Super Mario franchise. The two multiplayer games also seem perfectly timed as we begin to head closer to normality and parties and gatherings become a thing again.
Loser: Nvidia
Nintendo wasn’t the only major name in gaming to take the spotlight this week. Nvidia also garnered attention, though in this case it wasn’t happy news.
It seems the company has officially given up on its plan to acquire chipmaker Arm in a deal that could have been worth over £29 billion.
Arm has been around for a while and currently supplies chips to the likes of Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung, making it a big name in tech. A year and a half ago, the company made headlines once again when it was announced that Apple would be ditching Intel in favour of using its own Arm-powered M1 chip across the Mac line.
An acquisition would have been huge for Nvidia, a company that has already seen massive success from its GeForce GPUs.
Nvidia and Arm owner Softbank had been in talks regarding the acquisition since 2020, but were forced to put the brakes on the deal by the Competition and Markets Authority and the Federal Trade Commission several times throughout the process.
Now, it appears these concerns have won out as both Nvidia and Softbank announced that the deal had been terminated.
Nvidia was forced to pay out $1.25 billion for the failed bid, cementing its title as this week’s loser.
[ad_2]
