The Nintendo Switch 2 is functionally similar to its predecessor. Sure, the detachable controllers can now each be used as a mouse (on your pants, no less), the screen is bigger, the hardware is more powerful and there's a built-in mic for voice chat. But otherwise the company isn't rocking the boat too much. At least not outside of its business model, as it may be preparing to sell the console at a loss.
For most countries, President Donald Trump has paused the harshest tariffs that he announced last week. Still, he increased tariffs on imports from China to 125 percent on Wednesday, while imports from elsewhere will still be subject to a levy of at least 10 percent.
Per Bloomberg, Nintendo may be looking to make as many Switch 2 units as it can in Vietnam (it's manufacturing about a third of the consoles there) during the 90-day freeze on higher tariffs and ship as many as possible to the US. The US is a critical market for Nintendo as it accounts for about a third of sales.
Still, with a 10 percent tariff, Nintendo may reluctantly eat that cost, even if that means losing money on each sale. "We believe the Switch 2s bill of materials is around $400, meaning Nintendo would still be selling consoles at a loss in the US with the 10 percent tariff but the loss would be something Nintendo would be able to absorb," Hideki Yasuda of Toyo Securities told Bloomberg. "Sony is in a tougher situation as most of its PlayStation production is in China, and it may be forced to hike PS5 prices in the US in the near future."
If the Switch 2 has about $400 worth of materials, that means Nintendo will also be taking a hit on a Japan-only edition of the console in its home country. It's selling that variant for under $350.
Another analyst, Robin Zhu of Bernstein, also suggested that Nintendo will take the hit and keep the price at $450 if the tariff on Vietnamese imports remains at 10 percent. However, "At 46 percent Vietnam tariffs, I expected them to raise [the Switch 2 price] by $50 to $100."
Unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has not historically sold its consoles at a loss with the aim of making up for that with sales of pricey software. The gaming side of the business is far and away Nintendo's largest source of revenue. It's diversifying more these days with things like movies and theme parks, but it still needs a thriving base of Switch and Switch 2 players. With the consoles critical to the company's success, the suggestion that Nintendo may sell the $450 Switch 2 at a loss is somewhat surprising, even if it's because of tariffs.
Nintendo formally revealed the Switch 2 just hours before Trump announced higher import tariffs on every country. Soon after, Nintendo delayed pre-orders for the console in the US (it later did the same in Canada, perhaps to reduce the risk of secondary-market price gouging) to assess the impact of the tariffs. With those now on hold, the company surely wants to get the ball rolling on pre-orders so it has a better sense of North American demand and can accordingly adjust its manufacturing plans if need be.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-may-sell-the-switch-2-at-a-loss-in-the-us-due-to-tariffs-175857327.html?src=rss
DoorDash has started robot deliveries in Los Angeles and Chicago. This is thanks to a partnership with the company Coco Robotics. Eligible customers will be able to receive sidewalk deliveries sourced from over 600 participating merchants.
Coco robots have been making deliveries for DoorDash in Helsinki since late last year through its international sub-brand Wolt. DoorDash says that Coco robots completed over 100,000 deliveries during this initial pilot phase.
Robots take humans out of the delivery process, which is bad for gig workers, but this method is better for the environment. Coco robots are free from emissions. Harrison Shih, Senior Director of DoorDash Labs, says that not every delivery needs a two-ton car just to deliver two chicken sandwiches.
This is part of a larger push by DoorDash towards what it calls multimodal deliveries, which combines human workers, drones and autonomous robots to meet increasing demand while lowering costs and emissions. To that end, the company has partnered with Wing to provide drone deliveries in the US and Australia.
Were expanding our partnership with @DoorDash to the United States! Kicking off in Christiansburg, Virginia, customers can now order @Wendys within the DoorDash app for speedy drone delivery. #DroneDelivery #Wing #Wendys #DoorDash pic.twitter.com/QQr1qzZBvv Wing (@Wing) March 21, 2024
DoorDash isnt the only delivery company in town experimenting with robots. Grubhub recently started bringing delivery robots to college campuses and Uber Eats expanded autonomous deliveries to Japan.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/doordash-starts-robot-deliveries-in-la-and-chicago-172358704.html?src=rss
Slocaps next game Rematch will be available on June 19. Itll cost $30 and will be playable on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. The announcement was made at the The Triple-i Initiative indie showcase.
Rematch is a soccer title, which may seem surprising for the company that made the brawlers Sifu and Absolver. However, it looks to be an arcade-focused affair instead of a serious sim. There are both 5v5 and 4v4 matches and the action looks fast-paced.
There are no fouls, offsides or anything like that, as the title has been designed for nonstop competitive play. The game even has a Rocket League-style boundary wall, so the ball never goes out of play. Rematch offers a number of quickplay modes to get started with and a variety of backdrops for matches. There's even an underwater field.
Preorders are already online and theres an open beta set to kick off (get it?) on April 18. Players can register for this two-day event right now. There are also a couple of other editions of the game that cost extra. The Pro Edition costs $40, but allows people to play the game a few days early and offers cosmetic and gameplay upgrades. The Elite Edition includes the contents of the Pro Edition, but offers even more upgrades. These include sneakers to give your footwork the dazzle it deserves." This version costs $50.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/sifu-devs-soccer-game-rematch-arrives-june-19-170031959.html?src=rss
Amazon is running a sale on its Blink home security devices. Among the items that have seen a price drop is the Blink Video Doorbell, which is available for a record low of $30. That's half what you might otherwise pay for it.
The doorbell allows you to answer your door using your phone. You can see who rang your doorbell via a 1080p video stream (there's an infrared night vision mode) and chat to them using the two-way audio feature. You can also receive alerts when the Video Doorbell detects motion.
The Video Doorbell can operate wirelessly on two AA batteries (it comes with a pair). Alternatively, you can hook up the device to existing wiring and it can trigger your existing in-home chime when the button is pressed.
Wiring the Video Doorbell or pairing it with a Sync Module (which is sold separately) will allow you to use Alexa to answer your door or bring up a live view of what the camera sees. Other features include privacy settings and custom alerts. However, a paid Blink subscription is needed to save and share video clips on the cloud after a free 30-day trial.
The Blink sale also includes a discount on the Mini 2 camera, which is similarly half off. It can be yours for $20. The camera can operate as a plug-in chime for a connected Blink Video Doorbell. It's also our pick for the best budget security camera. Meanwhile, a bundle with the Outdoor 4 cam (our top pick for the best security camera for Alexa users), Video Doorbell and Mini 2 is $100, which is also half off.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-blink-video-doorbell-is-on-sale-for-a-record-low-price-of-30-162649933.html?src=rss
The absurdist romance sim Date Everything! has yet another release date. After two delays, creators Sassy Chap Games and Team17 said on Thursday that the cheeky sandbox dating game will launch on June 17.
Date Everything! is an appropriate title for a game that lets you woo human personifications of household objects. (Shut-ins, rejoice!) Each datable item offers three paths, determined through dialog branches: love, hate and friendship. So, for example, you can fall in love with your cabinet (the dashing Cabrizio), forge a friendship with your wisecracking water heater (Winnifred) or create a bitter rivalry with your wall (the Spartan-looking Wallace).
You can even encounter Doug, your (shirtless and jacked) sense of existential dread, who lurks in a dimly lit hallway.
Sassy Chap Games / Team17
The game offers multiple endings for each character, so it should provide plenty of replayability. It has 70,000 dialog lines and some recognizable actors on its cast list, including Felicia Day (Supernatural, Fallout) and Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle).
After blowing past its previously planned release dates (October and February), Date Everything! is set to arrive on June 17. Assuming there aren't further delays, digital versions will be available that day for PC, Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with physical versions arriving sometime after that. There's no pricing info yet.
You can get a better sense of the game's surreal premise in the new trailer below.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cheeky-household-object-romance-sim-date-everything-is-now-arriving-in-june-162554080.html?src=rss
A pair of studies analyzing the effects of AI on our planet have been released and the news is fairly grim. Greenpeace studied the emissions generated from the production of the semiconductors used in AI chips and found that there was a fourfold increase in 2024. This analysis was completed using publicly available data.
Greenpeace
Many of the big chipmakers like NVIDIA rely on companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and SK Hynix Inc. for the components of GPUs and memory units. Most of this manufacturing happens in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, where power grids are primarily reliant on fossil fuels. This accounts for some of the increase in global emissions. The organization also says that global electricity requirements for AI could experience a 170-fold increase by 2030.
Greenpeace
Greenpeaces estimates have led some to worry that the AI race could derail global decarbonization goals, according to a report by Bloomberg. The nonprofit recommends that governments in eastern Asia transition to renewable power for chip manufacturing, but the opposite seems to be happening. South Korea recently announced plans to build plants for four gigawatts of gas-fired power generation. Taiwan has used the increased power demand related to AI as an excuse to expand liquid natural gas projects and grid infrastructure.
Another study by The International Energy Agency (IEA) took a look at the US. The analysis suggested that power consumption by AI-adjacent data centers could account for half of the growth in electricity demand by 2030. As a matter of fact, the US economy could be on track to consume more electricity for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined. This includes aluminum, steel, cement and chemicals.
IEA
Electricity demand from global data centers could more than double by 2030 to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh). Thats more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan. Its a whopping 30 times more than the electricity consumption of Ireland.
Proponents of AI say that the massive energy needs will eventually abate as the technology leads to scientific discoveries that accelerate innovation in fields like batteries and solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. However, thats a big fat maybe.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/global-emissions-due-to-ai-related-chipmaking-grew-more-than-four-times-in-2024-160304017.html?src=rss
Bungie is set to take the wrappers off Marathon this Saturday and reveal gameplay from its first non-Destiny project in many years (and its first new one since joining Sony in 2022). Before that though, the studio has confirmed one detail about the multi-platform extraction shooter that PC and Xbox gamers may like to hear. The game wont force players to log in with a PlayStation account on those platforms.
The Marathon team confirmed on the games official Discord server that "Marathon will not require a PlayStation Account for players on PC and Xbox." The developers said this in response to a user who was concerned that they might not be able to play Marathon on PC, since PSN wasnt supported in their country.
This is relevant considering the Helldivers 2 mess from last year. The PC version of that Sony-published game was going to require players to connect to a PSN account. That wasnt enforced during the first three-ish months Helldivers 2 was available on Steam due to network issues, but it was later going to come into effect. The shift would have locked out players who had already bought the game in countries where PSN wasnt available.
Sony quickly backtracked on the PSN requirement for Helldivers 2 following a backlash but the situation tarnished the reputation of a great game. The company later dropped mandatory PSN logins for many of its single-player games on PC, though it tried to incentivize players for linking their Steam account to PSN by offering in-game goodies.
Bungie hasn't said much about Marathon since announcing its revival two years ago, but the gameplay showcase this weekend will shed much more light on what the game's all about. For what it's worth, streamer DrLupo claims to have been playtesting Marathon through various iterations over the last six years, and said it's gotten better each time he's tried it.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/bungies-marathon-wont-force-xbox-and-pc-players-to-log-in-with-a-playstation-account-144127907.html?src=rss
The last decade or so has seen schools and governments alike working on a substantial question: To what degree should students be allowed access to their phones? France has been among those leading the charge, requiring smartphones to be turned off during school hours since 2018. Now, the country is taking things a step further, insisting that students leave their phone in lockers or pouches, The Guardian reports.
France's education minister and former prime minister Élisabeth Borne announced the new regulation, which will go into effect in middle schools come September. "At a time when the use of screens is being widely questioned because of its many harmful effects, this measure is essential for our childrens wellbeing and success at school."
The decision follows two key events, a pilot program reported on by multiple sources and published expert recommendations. The former involved 180 middle schools comprised of over 50,000 students. Over the last six months, participants have done a "digital pause," putting their phones in a locker or pouch that is unlocked when they finish the day. Borne announced that the trial was successful in improving school's atmospheres. She added that schools will choose whether to use lockers or pouches, costing them up to a few thousand euros (3,000 equals $3,331, for example).
The 2024 report, commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron, issued recommendations including no smartphone use for children under 13 years of age and no "conventional" social media access until they reach 18. The recommendations, led by a neurologist and an addictions psychiatrist, additionally pushed for limited to no screen-time for children, depending on their age.
The UK and the US are among the other countries exploring similar school-based measures to France. In 2024, the UK government released guidance for schools on banning phones in educational spaces. Both New York and California's governors have also supported measures to limit smartphone use in schools. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/france-to-ban-students-from-keeping-smartphones-in-schools-140053272.html?src=rss
This infographic looks at the top 10 LinkedIn skills on the rise in the US for marketers, media and communications professionals, and salespeople. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
CMOs face mounting pressure to make martech deliver. Learn how to realign tech stacks for strategic, revenue-driven impact. Read more. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
