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Nintendo hints at release date for its long-awaited Switch 2 video game console
Gamers who have been waiting for years for Nintendo to release a successor to its popular Switch console finally got a clue on when to expect an upgraded device.
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said Tuesday in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the Japanese technology giant will announce the new switch within its current fiscal year, which ends in March 2025.
Nintendo offered no additional details, including a launch date for the Switch 2, as the console is called. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment. In February, Nintendo told video game publishers the device will be delayed until early 2025, Bloomberg reported.
Unveiling a new Switch system would bolster Nintendo in a fiercely compettiging video game market that includes Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox. The global video gaming market is expected to grow to $583.6 billion by 2030, according to business consulting firm Grand View Research.
The Switch became an instant hit for Nintendo when it debuted 2017 thanks to its unique design and plethora of games. The device resembles a tablet and has detachable buttons on each side that a player uses to control game play. It can also be docked on a charging station, enabling the user to continue playing on a television screen — a-first of-its-kind feature at the time.
Nintendo’s first ever handheld gaming system — the Game Boy — was released in 1989, but the company didn’t release another handheld system until 2004, when the DS reached U.S. stores. Another 13 years went by before Nintendo introduced the Switch. In major cities across the U.S., customers camped outside in long lines the day before Switch consoles went on sale in 2017.
In 2019, Nintendo introduced the Switch Lite, a less pricey version of the gaming system. Switch sales skyrocketed in 2020 during the pandemic as homebound Americans turned to gaming to pass the time.
Some of Nintendo’s best-selling video game titles — including the Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Minecraft, Super Mario and Super Smash Bros. — are all available on the Switch, making the device even more enticing to gamers. Nintendo will announce new games available for the Switch next month during a company event, but the upcoming presentation will not include details about the Switch’s successor, Furukawa also said Tuesday.
Today, the Switch is Nintendo’s second-best selling console behind the DS. Nintendo has sold more than 141 million Switch consoles, according to company data.
By comparison, the company has sold 154 million DS consoles along with 76 million Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo has sold 101 million Wii units and 13.5 million Wii U units.
Nintendo reported $3 billion in profit for the fiscal year ended in March 2024, up from $2.8 billion in the prior year.
—The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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China school knife attack kills at least 8, wounds 17, days after fatal car attack killed dozens
Eight people were killed and 17 others wounded Saturday in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China, and the suspect — a former student — has been arrested, police said.
The attack took place in the evening at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu province, police in Yixing said in a statement, confirming the toll.
This was the second incident of fatal violence in China in a matter of days.
Earlier this week, a 62-year-old man killed 35 people and wounded more than 40 more when he rammed his small SUV into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai. The suspect was discovered in the car with a knife, with wounds to his neck thought to be self-harm injuries, according to the police.
Police said the suspect in the knife attack was a 21-year-old former student at the school who was meant to graduate this year, but failed his exams.
“He returned to the school to express his anger and commit these murders,” police said, adding that the suspect had confessed.
In Yixing, police said emergency services were fully mobilized to treat the wounded, and provide follow-up care for those affected by the attack.
Violent knife crime is not uncommon in China, where firearms are strictly controlled, but attacks with such a high death toll are relatively rare.
In recent months, there has been a spate of other attacks.
In October in Shanghai, a man killed three people and wounded 15 others in a knife attack at a supermarket.
And the month before, a Japanese schoolboy was fatally stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.
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Oklahoma attorney general says state schools superintendent cannot mandate students watch prayer video
The Oklahoma attorney general’s office responded after the state’s education superintendent sent an email this week to public school administrators requiring them to show students his video announcement of a new Department of Religious Freedom and Patriotism. In the video, he prays for President-elect Trump.
Ryan Walters, a Republican, announced the new office on Wednesday and on Thursday sent the email to school superintendents statewide. The new department will be within the state’s Department of Education. Walters said it would “oversee the investigation of abuses to individual religious freedom or displays of patriotism.”
“In one of the first steps of the newly created department, we are requiring all of Oklahoma schools to play the attached video to all kids that are enrolled,” according to the email. Districts were also told to send the video to all parents of students.
In the video, Walters says religious liberty has been attacked and patriotism mocked “by woke teachers unions,” then prays for the leaders of the United States after saying students do not have to join in the prayer.
Sue Ogrocki / AP
“In particular, I pray for President Donald Trump and his team as they continue to bring about change to the country,” Walters said.
The office of state Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued a statement Friday saying Walters has no authority under state law to issue such a mandate.
“Not only is this edict unenforceable, it is contrary to parents’ rights, local control and individual free-exercise rights,” said the attorney general’s office spokesperson Phil Bacharach.
Multiple school districts have also said they had no plans to show students the video.
Walters, a former public school teacher elected in 2022, ran on a platform of fighting “woke ideology,” banning books from school libraries and getting rid of “radical leftists” who he claims are indoctrinating children in classrooms. He already faces two lawsuits over his June mandate that schools incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for students in grades 5 through 12. Several school districts have previously stated that they will disregard the mandate.
One of the lawsuits also notes that the initial request for proposal released by the State Department of Education to purchase the Bibles appears to have been tailored to match Bibles endorsed by now President-elect Donald Trump that sell for $59.99 each.
Earlier this week, Walters announced he had purchased more than 500 Bibles to be used in Advanced Placement government classes. The education department that the 500 Bibles are “God Bless the USA Bibles” and were ordered Thursday for about $25,000. They will arrive “in the coming weeks,” the department said.
