Nintendo Switch 2 launches globally with shortages expected
'The level of demand seems to be sky-high,' said Serkan Toto, founder of the Kantan Games consultancy.
The Switch launched in 2017 and followed the underperforming Wii U. The home-portable device became a juggernaut with games including two Legend of Zelda titles and COVID-19 pandemic breakout hit Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The Switch 2 bears many similarities with its predecessor but offers a larger screen and improved graphics and debuts with titles including Mario Kart World.
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'The much larger audience of Switch users should translate to stronger adoption in the opening part of its lifecycle,' said Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst at Ampere Analysis.
'Nintendo is better prepared this time around' to deal with the high demand, he said.
The launch of the $499.99 Switch 2 is a test of Nintendo's supply chain management during US President Donald Trump's trade war.
Nintendo last month forecast sales of 15 million Switch 2 units during the current financial year.
President Shuntaro Furukawa said Nintendo will strengthen production capacity to respond to strong demand and focus on sales promotion in an effort to exceed the forecast.
The company, which is known for conservative forecasts, also expects to sell 4.5 million Switch units.
Nintendo said it received 2.2 million applications for its Switch 2 sales lottery on its My Nintendo Store in Japan. Pre-orders at Target sold out in less than two hours.
'You are looking at weeks or months until you can walk into a store and buy a Switch 2,' said Toto of Kantan Games.
Investor expectations for the new device are similarly lofty.
Nintendo's shares are trading near highs and have gained almost 30 per cent this year.
Concerns include whether momentum for the Switch 2 will be sustained after hardcore gamers have upgraded.
'The volume of first-party games on offer at launch isn't as strong as it could be, so some more casual users may wait and see how the games available build over the next one to two years before making the leap,' said Ampere's Harding-Rolls.
Ampere forecasts Switch 2 sales to exceed 100 million units in 2030. Nintendo has sold 152 million Switch units in total. - Reuters
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Irish Times
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Macron expresses ‘very strong disapproval' of Trump's tariff threat as EU leaders react
US president Donald Trump 's threat on Saturday to place a 30 per cent tariff on goods from the European Union caused outrage among European leaders, with some urging retaliatory tariffs while others said they hoped a deal could still be worked out before the new levies went into effect. The European Union has been in deep negotiations with Washington in the hope of reaching trade deals that would avert such punishing levies and a wider trade war. But Trump's threat to impose a 30 per cent levy on European and Mexican goods on August 1st upended months of deliberations in one fell swoop, and European leaders are threatening to strike back. Ursula von der Leyen , president of the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, said her administration was ready to keep working toward an agreement before the August 1st deadline. 'At the same time, we will take all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests, including the adoption of proportionate countermeasures if required,' she said. The European Council president, António Costa, said on social media that the EU 'remains firm, united and ready to protect our interests.' READ MORE The European Union had been frantically pushing for an agreement right up until Mr Trump announced the new tariffs Saturday morning. Many in Europe had been expecting at least a 10 per cent baseline tariff, with some possible exemptions. President Emmanuel Macron of France suggested the 30 per cent rate came as a surprise after weeks of negotiations that he said were 'made in good faith'. He voiced 'very strong disapproval' of the tariffs in a social media post. France has been one of the loudest voices in Europe calling for retaliatory tariffs against the United States if a deal isn't reached. Macron reiterated a plea for the European Commission, which is negotiating on behalf of the EU countries, to mobilise 'all the instruments at its disposal'. Others calling for retaliation include Brando Benifei, chair of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the United States, and Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade. Benifei said the EU's executive branch should 'immediately put on the table a series of new credible countermeasures on goods, services, and intellectual property rights that would take effect August 1st without an agreement, and let's no longer postpone those that are due to come into force next week.' Lange called the tariffs an 'outrage'. 'We should no longer wait and see, but use our economic strength to make it clear that these unfair trade practices are unacceptable,' he said. Prime minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, one of the few European leaders Trump likes, struck a more cautious tone. Her office said in a statement that it would make 'no sense to spark a trade war between the two sides of the Atlantic', and urged negotiators to avoid 'polarisations that would make reaching an agreement more complex'. Mr Trump threatened to meet any EU tariff retaliation with an equal increase in US tariffs. Experts said that would increase the chances of a wider trade war between the United States and Europe. Dan O'Brien, chief economist at the Institute of International and European Affairs, said on social media that a 30 per cent tariff on European goods exported to America would have 'a significant trade destruction effect'. The new tariffs also prolong the economic uncertainty weighing on various exporters, including German carmakers, Italian wine exporters and Irish pharmaceutical companies. Hildegard Müller, who heads VDA, the main lobby group for German carmakers, called the latest tariffs 'regrettable' and urged negotiators from the European Union and the United States to find a solution 'as quickly as possible'. Müller said that the 27.5 per cent tariffs already in place for cars imported to the United States were hurting German automakers. It remains unclear whether the threatened 30 per cent tariffs would apply to imported cars, since Trump's letters said the latest tariffs would be 'separate from all sectoral tariffs'. If they did apply, European carmakers such as Volkswagen would be among the hardest hit. Almost all major carmakers also manufacture vehicles in Mexico. Mexico is projecting confidence that it will fend off a new set of tariffs threatened by Mr Trump, with talks already under way to avert the worst. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum noted in speeches that every country has been getting a letter from Mr Trump as he implements global protectionist policies. Her team had already begun discussions with the US on Friday and she was confident Mexico would get a deal. 'We've had some experience with these things for several months now,' Sheinbaum said at a clinic opening in Ensenada, Baja California. 'And I think we're going to reach an agreement with the United States government.' – This article originally appeared in The New York Times , additional reporting by Bloomberg
Irish Times
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Scarlett Johansson has set a box office record. But could the movie star be out of a job?
Somewhere out there, a Statler or a Waldorf is arguing that Scarlett Johansson is no Clark Gable. She's not even a Myrna Loy. They don't make them like that any more. Blah-blah. We will get to the relevance of those particular veterans in a moment, but, whatever one's feelings about Johansson, it cannot be denied that she has claimed one high-profile record all for herself. This week it emerged that she is now the highest-grossing lead actor of all time. This is not to say she is the best-paid actor. (Last year that was Duane 'the Rock' Johnson.) But movies starring Johansson have made more than movies starring anybody else. The co-lead of the current smash Jurassic World: Rebirth passes out Samuel L Jackson with her lifetime total of $14.9 billion, or about €12.7 billion. Robert Downey jnr , Zoë Saldaña and Chris Pratt complete the top five. [ Jurassic World: Rebirth review – the plot is mid-level dumb but 'good film' belongs among its keywords Opens in new window ] Words can scarcely express what a flawed metric this is for establishing the biggest – not to mention the greatest – movie star of all time. Inflation strips the figures of some relevancy, but, when it comes to the all-time box-office charts, the unadjusted number one remains something worth fighting over. Avatar, the current champ, is, astonishingly, still number two when you tweak for inflation. READ MORE No, the real issue is to do with the withering potency of the movie star. Almost none of the films that got Johansson to the top was sold on her name. This is no slight on an eminently likable and charismatic actor. The same can be said of the four who complete that top five. Scar-Jo gets there thanks to her role as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and, now, as gun-toting team leader in that Jurassic World movie. The stand-alone Black Widow film, released as we were coming out of Covid, is the lowest-grossing of her MCU flicks. Jackson and Downey jnr are also Marvel alumni. Saldaña registers for the MCU and the two Avatar films. Pratt scores for the MCU and the previous three Jurassic World films. So registering on this list is all about getting yourself signed on for the biggest franchises of the day. It has been said before; it will be said again. The intellectual property (as we grandly label familiar source material) is now the real star of the movie. What the hell is the name of the guy in that new Superman flick ? Dirk Cornswoggle? Doug Clangpiglet? Never mind. It's Superman, baby. At the risk of encouraging Statler and Waldorf, let us note that it was very much not this way in the old days. In 2000, TLA Releasing set out to tabulate the stars who had sold the most tickets at the box office through the decades. This is obviously a better model than highest grosser, as inflation has no bearing. [ Scarlett Johansson: 'I had a very formidable grandmother who I was incredibly close with' Opens in new window ] The results bring us back to a whole different universe. If you wished to be cynical you could still see this as a chart of brands, but the brand – honed and primped by the studio system – is the actor, not what then was not called a franchise. Gable, star of the annihilating Gone with the Wind, is at number one with 1.2 billion tickets sold. John Wayne is there at number two, with 1.1 billion. Everyone in that top 10 had an easily summarised type – avuncular Bing Crosby, homely Jimmy Stewart, suave Cary Grant and so on – and each knew not to swerve too far from that template. The only one who points towards our current compromised future is Harrison Ford, at number nine. True, he had already clocked up a bunch of Star Wars and Indiana Jones flicks, but, even in those, he felt like a craggy visitor from the golden age. The bad news for sentimental old fogeys is that no woman makes the top 10. It is, indeed, Myrna Loy who scrapes in first, at number 11, a few places ahead of Bette Davis and Judy Garland. All recognisable brands. Each the most saleable aspect of the films in which they starred. For all that sighing towards a supposedly golden past, one would have trouble arguing that Johansson is an unworthy candidate for stellar elevation. If not her then who else? True, she can't open a film like Bette Davis once did. But nobody can do that any more. Everything else about Johansson radiates vintage glamour. When she graduated from juvenile roles to adult lead, with Lost in Translation, in 2003, it was immediately apparent that we had a movie star on our hands. The worry is that the job of movie star is now as redundant as that of lamplighter, crossing sweeper or court jester. That Superman guy's name will come to me in a minute.
Irish Times
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Austin Taylor: ‘I found it so fascinating and poignant how we portray women in the media, especially powerful women who make mistakes'
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You're surrounded by professors who are doing amazing research and teaching, and your peers who have amazing ideas and are working on really cool stuff in addition to taking five classes a semester and doing really well. There's a sense that if you're not doing something absolutely incredible, you're falling short or failing. I certainly felt that way.' It's something she wanted to explore in Notes On Infinity, particularly around the 'move fast and break things' culture that exists at the nexus of scientific research and venture capital-funded biotech start-ups. The book tells the story of Zoe and Jack, two brilliant Harvard students whose breakthrough scientific discoveries prompt them to drop out and set up a biotech company that claims to have found the cure for ageing. It's a classic Icarus tale of young idealism warped by greed and ambition. 'The dollar amounts are just unimaginable,' she says of biotech VC funding, 'especially for really young people. I think the incentive structures that that amount of money creates are often problematic and scary, especially in science, because science is fundamentally such a slow, iterative, uncertain process and business, especially in pitching a start-up, is all about positive spin. And that's a fundamental tension. And sometimes that creates awesome innovation and other times it creates fire and broken glass and damage.' You can probably guess which of these paths her book follows. READ MORE [ Rethink needed on meeting the demand for Stem graduates Opens in new window ] The novel was somewhat inspired by the scandal surrounding Elizabeth Holmes and her blood-diagnostic start-up, Theranos. Holmes, a brilliant and beautiful scientist, was the face of the company but was eventually jailed for defrauding investors in a spectacular fall from grace. In Notes On Infinity, Taylor's protagonist Zoe is a beautiful, brilliant young woman who also becomes the face of her and Jack's start-up. 'One of the things I was interested in exploring was the obsession with women in [ Stem ] spaces and the tokenisation of women in these spaces. Elizabeth Holmes was lauded for her gender during Theranos's rise, then after its fall she was demonised for her gender. I heard a disturbing number of comments about how she must have used her sexuality to manipulate male funders. That fixation on gender and self-presentation and hair and clothes and make-up, I do think it's heightened by the fact that women are such a minority in science. Former Theranos chief executive Elizabeth Holmes leaving court in San Jose, California, in March 2023. Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP/PA 'I did consume a lot of the reporting on the Holmes case because I found it so fascinating and poignant, particularly on issues of gender, how we portray women in the media, especially powerful women who make mistakes.' Taylor's path from growing up as the only child of a dairy farmer in rural Maine to taking a double degree at Harvard to becoming a sought-after debut author about to embark on a legal career is remarkably grounded. 'I had a pretty idyllic, rural childhood. I rode horses and worked on the farm in the summers, milking cows. But I was also very invested in school and I played a lot of sports and I had access to lots of great opportunities.' Her decision to go to Harvard was motivated by the pursuit of academic excellence, but when she arrived on campus, she felt out of place. 'That transition was pretty jarring, which is something that comes out in the novel. I didn't realise the extent to which most people at Harvard would have already been embedded in that sort of community of people who will go to Harvard. There are lots of ways that you can be in that pipeline, so I'm not talking about legacy or family connections, but people had gone to the same summer camps, or done the same competitive academic things like debate or math olympiad, or they had played sports together, and I truly had no connection to the institution at all, so when I showed up on campus for the admitted students weekend it was like everyone else already had friends and they knew how to act and they knew where things were and what parties were going on, and I was like how am I already not a part of this? " Her choice of degree – chemistry – reinforced that feeling of being an outsider. 'I was convinced I needed to do something practical with my college time. There were lots of people questioning my decision to even go to Harvard. I think this is really common in rural areas actually. You can go for free to your state university so people are like, why would you choose to go to this elite university that feels very other to our community, particularly when you're going to be paying an amount of money, that seems silly? That divide and that perception is only worse now, given all of the things that are going on in America. I think that and coming from a farming family gave me this fixation that I needed to do a hard science, be practical and have a skill.' When she took some English classes, it reignited her childhood love of writing. 'If you had asked me when I was 10, 'what do you want to be when you grow up?', I would have said 'writer'…but I came to realise that was a not a particularly stable or likely career path. In fact, I think it seemed like a total pipe dream, so I turned away." After college, she worked for a non-profit in New York for a year before returning to her family home to take a year out in an attempt to recover from debilitating migraines. 'I had some time and I thought, what I've actually always wanted to do was to be a writer, so let me try.' But it wasn't all smooth sailing. She wrote a novel, and submitted it to publishers but couldn't find a home for it. 'Which was very upsetting,' she says. But even as that first novel was dying on submission, she had already moved on to Notes On Infinity . Where did she find the determination to push on with another book in the face of that early rejection? 'I think it was mostly that I was really compelled by the idea for Notes. And I was really convinced that it could be special. Then there was a degree of stubbornness, which is part of my personality for better or for worse, and also a degree of naivety, which was necessary for me to do the whole thing. I think if I had thought too hard about how likely any of this was to work out, I simply wouldn't have done it because the odds are so low.' [ Pat O'Connor: 'Why would girls study Stem if they have no career path afterwards?' Opens in new window ] The book deals – in addition to the American deal, the book has sold for six figures in the UK, and at auction in Germany – have changed her life, she says. They've given her the time and space to get better at writing, although she says she has not yet touched any of the money. 'I don't think I've ever had a phone call where there was a 'you-should-sit-down' moment. Even the first payments are more money than I've ever seen in one place, ever.' She is planning on working as an attorney with an interest in the interface between AI and media and arts. 'I recognise we must make space for AI's vast potential but, as a firm believer in the power and importance of good storytelling, I am concerned that existing legal frameworks provide inadequate protection for writers and the publishing ecosystem.' She has no plans to stop writing – a double concentrator in life too, it seems. In fact she has already finished a draft of her second novel, which will centre around a similar subculture of very powerful young male tech founders and a young woman's relationship with an older, more professionally powerful man. But she is very excited to be going to Stanford – to study law, and for the weather too, which is balmier than the northerly climes she is used to, but also for another reason … 'I've started drafting my third novel…" she says. 'And it's going to be set in Silicon Valley.' Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor is published by Michael Joseph.
