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Daily Authority: šŸ“ˆ Switch up, Meta down

So here's the tech news from A to Z: Nintendo Switch up, Facebook down, and more news you need to know today!
By
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Published onFebruary 3, 2022

ā˜• Good morning!

Nintendo Switch has now outsold the Wii

The Nintendo Switch has become Nintendoā€™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 Wiiā€™s 101.6 million.
  • Now, that includes the new $350 OLED Switch, which sold 4 million units, and Nintendo said it ā€œgot off to a good start.ā€
  • 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 ā€œchallenges around semiconductors and shipping may persist,ā€ which is putting it lightly.
  • As for games, Nintendo said that its PokĆ©mon 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 PokĆ©mon 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 yearā€¦

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.
  • Iā€™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

  • šŸ“ˆ Google actually tried with the Pixel series and itā€™s working (Android Authority).
  • šŸ‘‰ Leak: These might be your official Samsung Galaxy S22 case options, with 20 or so options (Android Authority).
  • šŸ“‰ History made: Facebook daily use declined for first time ever last quarter, with fewer daily users on the platform (Android Authority). Metaā€™s business is up 20% YoY, but TikTok is eating Instagram even as Reels grows, Appleā€™s ad privacy moves will cost it $10B in revenue in 20222, and Metaā€™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 Zuckā€™s paper wealth by $24 billion. But the actual market opening later today will be interestingā€¦
  • šŸŽ More on Appleā€™s privacy measures thatā€™ll cost Facebook $10B in 2022 (MacRumors).
  • šŸ„½ Microsoft has reportedly killed off its plans for the HoloLens 3 (Engadget).
  • šŸŽļø Gran Turismo 7 preview: A return to expansive, grindy, car-collecting roots (Ars Technica).
  • ā­ Google Maps explains how it tackles review bombing (Engadget).
  • šŸ’» DeepMind says its new AI coding engine called AlphaCode is ā€œas good as an average human programmer,ā€ 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).
  • šŸ”„ Welcome to the Burner Phone Olympics(Wired).
  • šŸŽø The worldā€™s best Guitar Hero player was a cheat (though heā€™s still really, really, really goodā€¦) (Kotaku).
  • ā˜„ļø Mars meteorite ā€˜Black Beautyā€™ hints at red planetā€™s past habitability (CNET).
  • šŸ¤” ā€œELI5: How do modern dishwashers take way longer to run and clean better yet use less energy and water?ā€ (r/explainlikeimfive).

Throwback Thursday

The Sims FreePlay best life simulator games for Android

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 canā€™t be blamed on your Sims: people invariably experimented with their Sims by taking away the ladder in the poolā€¦
  • Anyway, itā€™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 ā€œa safe spaceā€ that ā€œenables people to freely create their own worldā€.

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor.

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