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Wii U

This week’s Switch/ Wii U/3DS-specific UK software sales are as follows:

Switch

1. Super Mario Odyssey – Nintendo
2. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Nintendo
3. Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo
4. 1-2 Switch – Nintendo
5. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle – Ubisoft
6. Splatoon 2 – Nintendo
7. Just Dance 2018 – Ubisoft
8. Rayman Legends Definitive Edition – Ubisoft
9. FIFA 18 – EA
10. Sonic Forces – SEGA

Wii U

1. Just Dance 2018 – Ubisoft
2. Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo
3. Super Mario 3D World – Nintendo
4. LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens – Warner Bros. Interactive
5. Minecraft: Wii U Edition – Nintendo
6. New Super Mario Bros. U + New Super Luigi U – Nintendo
7. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze – Nintendo
8. Splatoon – Nintendo
9. Mario Party 10 – Nintendo
10. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – Nintendo

3DS

1. Pokemon Ultra Sun – Nintendo
2. Pokemon Ultra Moon – Nintendo
3. Mario Kart 7 – Nintendo
4. Super Mario 3D Land – Nintendo
5. New Super Mario Bros. 2 – Nintendo
6. Miitopia – Nintendo
7. Tomodachi Life – Nintendo
8. Luigi’s Mansion 2 – Nintendo
9. Mario Party: The Top 100 – Nintendo
10. Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D – Nintendo

Source: Chart-Track

The Zelda timeline has always been something of great interest for fans of the series. On the other hand, Nintendo tends to be a bit timid when talking about it. Although the series has been around since the late 80’s, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that Nintendo published an official timeline in Hyrule Historia.

With the arrival of the latest Zelda game in March, fans are curious as to where Breath of the Wild officially stands. You won’t get much of a concrete answer out of Nintendo concerning timeline placement, but its developers are aware of interest from fans.

Nintendo eShop

Update 4: All of the eShops are back up.


Update 3: Hearing reports that the Switch eShop may have gone down again, or is still down for some. Will continue to monitor.


Update 2: Switch is back up. So currently, Wii U and 3DS are the only systems impacted as of 1:40 PM ET.


Update: Bumped to the top. Wii U and 3DS eShops are now down as well.


Original: Since early this morning, the Switch eShop has been offline. Nintendo hasn’t said what the cause is, but one possibility is an influx of traffic. It’s Christmas after all, and there could be a whole lot of people receiving the system as a gift today.

Nintendo has only said the following about the situation:

Minecraft added a new Norse Mythology Mash-Up Pack on both Switch and Wii U this week. Check out a trailer for the DLC below.

Famitsu published a new interview this week with Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma. It was pretty interesting, with Aonuma talking about Breath of the Wild winning “Game of the Year” at The Game Awards, including his mindset at the time and why he started out by saying “Thank you America!” He also spoke about The Champions’ Ballad DLC, and confirmed that development on the game has concluded.

We’ve prepared a translation with the most notable parts from Famitsu’s interview. You can read it below.

Breath of the Wild was a complete reinvention of the Zelda formula, and many past staples were either discarded or reworked. One example of this is the dungeons. Whereas past Zelda titles featured long, unique dungeons with and a particular item to obtain, Breath of the Wild instead mostly has a ton of smaller Shrines scattered throughout the world and a few Divine Beasts that are thematically similar.

Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and Breath of the Wild directed Hidemaro Fujibayashi commented on Nintendo’s approach to Shrines and dungeons in the debut episode of the Nintendo Power podcast. We’re first able to hear from Fujibayashi, who explains that big dungeons would mean that players would spent too much time there.

GamesIndustry has provided new information about gaming sales in the UK this year. The site breaks down the top five publishers by UK sales as well as sales by platform.

In terms of publishers, Nintendo ranks third when it comes to boxed sales. That’s behind EA (16.8%) and Activision Blizzard (15.6%), but ahead of Ubisoft (9.7%) and Sony (8.3%).

GamesIndustry also has the following breakdown of sales by platform in 2017:

Source

Nintendo Network

With the insane amount of online maintenance scheduled for the coming week, something even more has just been added to the pile: Wii U and 3DS Image Share. The full schedule is below.

Wii U and 3DS Image Share
– 6:00 PM PT (December 21) – 9:00 PM PT (December 21)
– 9:00 PM ET (December 21) – 12:00 AM ET (December 22)
– 2:00 AM in the UK (December 22) – 5:00 AM in the UK (December 22)
– 3:00 AM in Europe (December 22) – 6:00 AM in Europe (December 22)

People have been saying that all this coming maintenance may be a precursor to new online methods from Nintendo.

Source

A new Minecraft update will be going out soon on Switch and Wii U. On both platforms, the game will be adding in a Birthday Skin Pack, Norse Mythology Mashup Pack, and more. There are also the regular features and changes.

We expect that the patch will be going live around the following times:

– 5:50 PM PT (December 19) – 7:30 PM PT (December 19)
– 8:50 PM ET (December 19) – 10:30 PM ET (December 19)
– 1:50 AM in the UK (December 20) – 3:30 AM in the UK (December 20)
– 2:50 AM in Europe (December 20) – 4:30 AM in Europe (December 20)

For the full patch notes, continue on below.

Nintendo Network

There isn’t much time remaining in 2017, but Nintendo is gearing up for its busiest week of maintenance this year. A ton of different maintenance periods are planned, affecting individual games, the eShops, and Nintendo’s systems in general. Over a dozen sessions are currently listed.

Here’s the schedule as things stand now:


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