Switch 2 Preorders Open To Pure Chaos And More Of The Week's Top Stories
This week saw a few massive happenings in the world of games. First and foremost, after being delayed to allow Nintendo to take stock of the potential impact of President Trump's chaotic implementation of tariffs, the company finally kicked off retail pre-orders for the Switch 2 here in the U.S., and the results were chaotic. People struggling to place orders on sites like Walmart's and Target's encountered all kinds of errors, confusion, and sometimes even cancelation of orders they thought they'd successfully placed.
Elsewhere, Bethesda finally released The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered after years of rumors and speculation, and Marvel Rivals support players are going on strike. Read on for these stories and more.
Switch 2 preorders went live online at 12:01 a.m. ET and were every bit the mess some fans feared: pages timing out, error messages that weren't real, and email cancelations being received just moments after it seemed like orders had gone through. There must be a better way to do these. Not in time for the Switch 2 launch, unfortunately. - Ethan Gach Read More
After many reports, leaks, and rumors, Bethesda officially unveiled The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. And the $50 remaster is launching today on Xbox Series X/S, Game Pass, PS5, and PC. - Zack Zwiezen Read More
Though we've known it's coming for a few days now, today Bethesda showed off its fancy new remaster of 2006's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it looks spectacular. It's also out, like, right-friggin-now! If you want to check out the whole reveal, you can do so here. But if you just want to peruse some lovely screenshots we nabbed during the reveal, read on. - Claire Jackson Read More
Being a support player in a hero shooter is a thankless job. You keep everyone alive, and then your bad teammates still blame you when they run off and die trying to 1v6 the enemy team. Things have gotten so bad in the eyes of some Marvel Rivals' Strategist mains that a group of them are going on 'strike' by refusing to play the role and instead queueing up to play as tank and damage heroes instead. - Kenneth Shepard Read More
After years of rumors, leaks, and speculation, Bethesda has finally confirmed the worst-kept video game industry secret of 2025. Yes, we are getting an Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster. - Zack Zwiezen Read More
The worst-kept secret of the year, Bethesda's current-gen remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, finally shadow-dropped yesterday and the Xbox-360-era open-world RPG has wasted no time in reminding fans why it was such a hit nearly two decades ago. Complete with refreshed graphics, updated gameplay, and cherished memes intact, Oblivion Remastered is already topping Steam charts and taking players on an Unreal Engine 5-made trip down memory lane. - Ethan Gach Read More
Switch 2 preorders don't begin in the U.S. until late tonight (12:01 a.m. ET on April 24), but they've already been underway in other parts of the world and even Nintendo has been shocked by the level of demand so far. The company said that, with over 2.2 million fans seeking to preorder a Switch 2 directly from My Nintendo in Japan alone, the demand already 'far exceeds' its ability to fulfill shipments to that country at launch. - Ethan Gach Read More
Just an hour after Switch 2 pre-orders went live on April 24 in the United States, Kotaku has spotted over two dozen eBay listings for the upcoming Nintendo console. Some are real. Others are actually people making fake listings to throw off bots and scalpers. - Zack Zwiezen Read More
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The 4X strategy sequel just got a ton more highly requested features
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It seems like Goofy's son Max is a fan of his dad's multiverse adventure
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The Verge
9 hours ago
- The Verge
Print your own Switch 2 modular accessories.
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Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Let's Talk About Why Some Folks Are Really Unhappy With The Switch 2's Screen
Ever since we learned the Switch 2 would have an LCD screen instead of a fancier OLED panel, discourse around Nintendo's latest console has often turned sour when it comes to its display. Of course, once folks were able to get the new hardware in their hands, the Switch 2 revealed itself to be packing an impressively bright and vibrant LCD. Those do exist; they're still not as great as fancy as an OLED, but liquid crystal display tech is still more than capable of meeting and exceeding expectations for producing a quality image in 2025. But now a new controversy over the Switch 2's display has emerged, this time wielding scary terms like 'ghosting' and 'refresh rate,' as critiques spread asserting that fast-paced games look blurry in motion and concerns rise from some arguing that the HDR display packed in with Nintendo's new hybrid console isn't really HDR. Are they right? Kind of, yeah! Should you regret your decision to buy a Nintendo Switch 2? Probably not! Let's talk. I'm sorry to tell you that video games are an illusion. Mario isn't actually moving when he jumps. As you probably already know, GPUs crunch out one image at a time and these images, when played very fast, create the illusion of motion. We're seeing several images of Mario, with each image showing him in a slightly different location. And our screen needs to display those images cleanly, at a rapid, matching pace. That's a very brisk and incomplete explanation of how video games deliver the visuals we know and love, but it's more or less how it all works. The way the image gets delivered to your eyes relies on coordination between how fast the GPU can pump out images and how often your monitor refreshes, which is measured in Hertz. Should those things be out of sync in some way, you'll spot some screen tearing, which is when there's a mismatch between how many images the GPU spits out per second and how many times the monitor refreshes too (in case you didn't know, all monitors are actually turning on and off at very fast speeds that give the illusion of staying on). But we can also measure the refresh rate in milliseconds, and that's where we can really lock into some specificity and understand what's going on. The lower the millisecond response time, the cleaner the motion of something moving across the screen looks. Ratchet that response time up and things start to look a little blurry in motion. 120Hz is a swell refresh rate for a gaming display. The problem with the Switch 2, however, is that the millisecond response time of its screen is a bit slow compared to those of many other gaming displays on the market. Compounding the problem is that we actually can't fully test the Switch 2's screen as efficiently as we can other displays. The Switch 2 doesn't allow for external video input. So, as PC Mag's Will Greenwald discusses in his breakdown of the latest Switch controversy, folks have been taking to measuring how quickly pixels change color on the Switch 2 screen using optical sensors and cameras, among other tools. This is technically not the same thing as measuring the refresh rate as mentioned above, but it does offer insight into how fast the screen performs. Objectively, the Switch 2's screen might have some shortcomings, but your experience with it is subjective. The results of these tests revealed a 17.1 millisecond response time on the Switch 2 in a best case scenario, and a 33.3 ms response time at worst. As Greenwald mentions, gaming displays should ideally aim for below 10 ms. So no, it's not just in people's heads. Maybe they're being picky! But in reality, the Switch 2's response time isn't great compared to other gaming displays. Knowing that fact, though, shouldn't keep you from having fun with your console. By 2025, many are likely familiar with what High Dynamic Range is: an expansion of how just how bright or dark a screen can display colors. An HDR display (with a signal to match) looks far more vivid and lifelike than an SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) screen does. And it's awesome. To my eyes, HDR is more of an upgrade than 4K resolution could've ever dreamed of being. But comparing the Switch 2's HDR to a fancier HDR screen is sort of like comparing organic food to certified organic food. Technically speaking, the Switch 2's brightness range at less than 1,000 nits falls short of what is needed to portray a true HDR image. So it's got a Higher Dynamic Range than SDR, but is arguably not true HDR. Yeah, you know what? Nothing's ever good enough for you. Let's just burn the whole thing down—sorry, I dunno where that came from. Silly me. No, as anyone who's seen a Switch 2 in person can attest, the screen looks great! Games look bright and colorful as we'd expect them to. Sure, if you have a serious eye for detail and you're a numbers nerd, you may feel the screen could've hit higher benchmarks. And sadly, hooking your Switch 2 up to a better display via the dock doesn't seem to fix the problem as, according to PC Mag, external display output of the Switch 2 seems to stay true to what its internal screen can display. Coming from someone who has formative, joyous memories of GTA IV, Halo 3, Mass Effect, and BioShock from my old Xbox 360 hooked up to an old, tiny, somewhat faulty CRT in the corner of a basement, inferior tech doesn't always mean an inferior experience. Objectively, the Switch 2's screen might have some shortcomings, but your experience with it is subjective. So tune all the noise out if it upsets you, enjoy another lap on Mario Kart World and stop thinking about all this ms-time and HDR nonsense. . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Los Angeles Times
12 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
In new indie flick ‘Ponyboi,' River Gallo sheds light on an intersex experience
'How the f— does this baby know if she loves her father?' asked River Gallo one day at Walmart, maybe 10 years ago, when they saw an infant sucking on a pacifier emblazoned with the words 'I love my daddy.' 'That started the ball rolling about my own issues with my father and with this compulsory love that we have with our families, specifically with our parents, specifically in this instance with my father, her father, our fathers, and with masculinity in general,' says a radiant Gallo during a recent video interview. The spontaneous moment of introspection planted the seed for what became a 10-minute performance piece while studying acting at NYU — then their USC thesis-turned-short film 'Ponyboi,' released in 2017, which Gallo wrote, starred in, and co-directed with Sadé Clacken Joseph. That project ultimately evolved into 'Ponyboi' the feature, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024, became the first film produced under Fox Entertainment Studios' indie label, Tideline, and was released June 27 in theaters across the United States. A consummate multihyphenate, Gallo again wrote the screenplay, served as producer and stars as the titular character: an intersex, Latine sex worker in New Jersey who is desperate to escape their pimp (played by Dylan O'Brien) and the world of crime and violence that surrounds them. Flashbacks to Ponyboi's childhood, made difficult due to the medical procedures forced on them and the temperament of their classically macho Latino father, fill in the viewer on the protagonist's past. Meanwhile, dreamy sequences with a handsome, cowboy hat-wearing stranger named Bruce (Murray Bartlett), an idealized embodiment of a positive masculinity, construct a rich world both visually and thematically in Ponyboi's present. '[At] face value, 'Ponyboi' can seem like, 'Oh, it's just a person-on-the-run kind of movie,' but upon a closer look, it's about someone finding freedom in the acceptance of their past and the possibility that, through transcending their own beliefs about themselves, perhaps their future could be a little brighter,' Gallo explains. Gallo is the child of Salvadoran immigrants who escaped their country's civil war in 1980 and lived undocumented in the U.S. Gallo grew up in New Jersey and showed interest in acting from an early age. It was a strict teacher's unexpected encouragement, after Gallo appeared in a musical during their sophomore year of high school, that convinced them to pursue a life in art. 'My biology teacher, Mrs. Lagatol, came to see my musical, and the next day I was waiting for her to say something to me, and she didn't say anything,' Gallo recalls. 'Then she gave me back a test, and on the test was a little Post-it that said: 'If you had been the only one on stage, it would've been worth the price of admission. Bravo.'' Gallo still keeps that Post-it note framed. Though their parents were supportive, Gallo admits feeling frustration in recent years that their family has not fully understood the magnitude of what they've accomplished as a marginalized person in entertainment: an intersex individual and a first-generation Latine. 'Not to toot my own horn, but for a graduate of any film program, getting your first feature to Sundance is the biggest deal in the world,' says Gallo. 'There hasn't been a person like me to do what I'm doing. There's no precedent or pioneer in my specific identities.' This desire for a more informed validation is even stronger in relation to their father. 'I don't think my dad has seen any of my films. My mom has; she was at the premiere at Sundance, which was really beautiful, and so was my sister,' Gallo says. 'But I wouldn't be surprised if my dad never sees my movies. That's hard, but he's supportive in other ways.' Halfway through our conversation, Gallo realizes they are wearing a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt. That's no coincidence, since 'The Boss,' a fellow New Jerseyan, influenced multiple aspects of 'Ponyboi.' As they wrote the screenplay for the short version, Gallo was also reading Springsteen's autobiography, 'Born to Run,' and that seeped into their work. 'I remember taking a trip to the Jersey Shore that summer and then looking up at the Stone Pony, the venue where [Springsteen] had his first big performance, and just being like, 'Stone pony, stone pony, pony, pony, pony boy, ponyboi. That's a good name.' And then that was just what I decided to name the character' For Gallo, the emblematic American singer-songwriter represents 'the idea of being working class,' which Gallo thinks 'transcends political ideology.' As a child of immigrants, Springsteen's work speaks to Gallo profoundly. 'My dad, who is more dark-skinned than me, was an electrician, and he was a union guy who experienced all this racism in New York unions,' Gallo says. 'There's so much of what I see in Bruce Springsteen in my father and also just in how Bruce Springsteen describes his relationship with his dad, who was also a man who couldn't express his emotions.' For the feature, Gallo enlisted Esteban Arango, a Colombian-born, L.A.-based filmmaker whose debut feature, 'Blast Beat,' premiered at Sundance in 2020. But while Gallo believes Arango understood the nuances of the narrative, it admittedly pained them to relinquish the director's chair. But it was a necessary sacrifice in order to focus on the performance and move the project along. 'It was difficult because I went to school for directing,' Gallo explains. 'But I just don't think the movie would've happened on this timeline if I had wanted to direct it. It would've taken much longer, and we needed the film at this moment in time.' Arango brought his own 'abrasive' edge to the narrative. 'I felt the story needed more darkness,' the director explains via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. 'The hypermasculine world of New Jersey is constantly trying to oppress and reject Ponyboi, because they have a much softer, feminine energy they want to project.' The contrast between the tenderness of Ponyboi's interiority and the harshness of their reality is what Arango focused on. Though Arango hesitated to take on the film, given that he is not queer, his personal history as an immigrant functioned as an entry point into this tale of shifting, complex identities. Still, throughout the entire process, Arango was clear that, first and foremost, 'Ponyboi' was a story centering intersex people — and all those who don't fit into the rigid gender binary. 'Their plight should be our plight, because they are at the forefront of what it means to be free,' he says. 'When somebody attacks them or doesn't understand why they present themselves as they are, it's really an attack on all of us, and it's a reflection of our misunderstanding of ourselves.' Back in 2023, Gallo was one of three subjects in Julie Cohen's incisive documentary 'Every Body,' about the intersex experience, including the ways the medical industry performs unnecessary procedures in order to 'normalize' intersex people. Gallo confesses that for a long time they thought being intersex was something they would never feel comfortable talking about — something they even would take 'to the grave,' as they put it. 'There's no other way that I can explain the fact that now I've made so much work reflecting on my identity other than it being an act of God,' Gallo says. 'Because I just had the feeling that the world needed it now, and also that I needed it now. I'm glad that 'Ponyboi' taught me about the agency that I have over my art and myself and my life.' Anti-trans legislation, Gallo explains, includes loopholes enabling doctors to 'normalize' intersex bodies and continue the medically unnecessary, and at times nonconsensual surgeries on intersex youth. 'The intersex narrative in [trans legislation] is invisible and not spoken about enough,' they say. 'These are also anti-intersex bills.' To fully understand Gallo as a person and an artist, one should watch both 'Every Body' and 'Ponyboi.' The doc shows the bones of what made Gallo who they are without symbols, just the raw facts of how their intersex identity shaped them. 'Ponyboi,' on the other hand, exposes their interior life with the poetry that the cinematic medium allows for. However, what happens with 'Ponyboi' now isn't as important to Gallo as the fact that the movie exists as a testament of their totality as a creative force. 'Love my movie, hate my movie, I don't care, because my movie healed something deep inside of me that I was waiting a lifetime to be healed from,' Gallo states fervently. 'Intersex people are still invisible in this culture, but I can at least say that I don't feel invisible to myself anymore. And it was all worth it for that.'
