GoKawiil
Tech News
Nintendo's ongoing "Customer Appreciation" sale, running through September 26th, has dropped the digital price of Metroid Prime Remastered for Switch and Switch 2 to $27.99 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, down from a physical retail price of about $42. The sale also includes the Metroid Prime 1-3: A Visual Retrospective hardcover book, cut from $49.99 to $28.50 at Amazon and Walmart.
Amazon is selling Samsung's P9 512GB microSD Express card for $99.99, a $50 discount off its usual $149.99 price and matching its original MSRP before flash memory shortages pushed prices up. The card offers sequential read speeds up to 800 MB/s and is compatible with the Nintendo Switch 2's storage expansion needs.
With Switch 2 now offering Handheld Mode Boost and free or paid upgrades for older titles, the original Switch is increasingly being outpaced as more major games go Switch 2-exclusive, including Splatoon Raiders and upcoming titles like Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and Metroid Ravenous. The original Switch OLED still holds advantages in battery life and screen contrast, but its $399.99 price looks weak next to the base Switch 2 model for anyone who mostly docks the console.
Walmart is offering a $10 discount on physical preorders of Metroid Ravenous, the upcoming 2D side-scrolling entry in Nintendo's Metroid series for Switch 2, bringing the price down to $59.88 from $69.99. The game, a sequel following the events of Metroid Dread, is set to launch January 28th, 2027, though it's unclear how long the discounted preorder price will remain available.
Nintendo has released Fortune's Weave, a new Fire Emblem title that adopts the open-ended structure recently seen in Zelda, Mario Kart World, and Donkey Kong Bananza. The game lets players choose between four hero routes before converging into a final act, allowing them to switch storylines freely and even combine character stats across playthroughs to build powerful hybrid units.
Nintendo disclosed a security flaw affecting original Switch consoles that exploits the QR codes used by the Send to Smartphone feature and Super Mario Kart: Home Circuit's wireless pairing. If someone scans the QR code before the owner does, they can connect to the console and run unauthorized code or steal stored account data. Nintendo fixed the issue, tracked as CVE-2026-82079, in firmware update 23.0.0 released September 9.
A homebrew project called Wine-NX ports Wine 11 to the Switch's Horizon OS, letting it run x86 Windows games via Box64's ARM64 translation and Mesa's nouveau graphics driver. Demonstrations show Need for Speed Underground 2 playing at 20-45fps, OpenTTD hitting 60fps, Quake III Arena running around 37fps at 720p, and WarCraft III partially functional with menus and cutscenes working.
Nintendo is holding a Customer Appreciation Sale from September 13-26, offering 30% discounts on games, DLC, Amiibo and accessories across the eShop, Nintendo Store and retailers. The company says the promotion is funded partly by roughly $300 million in tariff refunds it recovered from the US government, rather than passing those refunds directly back to customers.
Nintendo has enabled variable refresh rate output for Switch 2's TV mode through a new firmware update, requiring an updated dock to work. The feature was originally promised at launch, then quietly removed, before a job listing hinted Nintendo was still developing it for TV play. The same update also adds a handheld boost toggle, Mii editor changes, and full system transfer between Switch 2 consoles.
Nintendo has released firmware update 23.0.0 for the Switch 2, finally enabling variable refresh rate support when the console is docked and running in TV mode, a feature promised before launch but missing at release. The update also adds a handheld boost mode toggle in quick settings, nostalgic music options in the Mii editor, and full system transfer between two Switch 2 consoles.
Preorders for Nintendo's limited-edition Switch 2 Zelda 40th Anniversary console sold out within minutes at Target, Best Buy, and GameStop, prompting scalpers to relist units on eBay for close to $1,000, nearly double the $519.99 MSRP. Amazon and Walmart have listed the console but haven't yet opened preorders, leaving a narrow window for buyers to secure one at retail price before launch on October 29.
Nintendo's second Direct this week detailed a wave of upcoming Switch 2 releases, including a Monster Hunter Wilds port arriving December 4 and Final Fantasy 7 Revelation launching April 8, 2027 alongside other platforms. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion and the viral hide-and-seek game Meccha Chameleon are both available on Switch 2 immediately, while a remastered Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity – Definitive Edition arrives February 25 with upgraded visuals and all prior DLC.