Sensitive details of about 160,000 Nintendo Network ID accounts have been compromised since the beginning of April, Nintendo confirmed.
The Japan-based video game company says login ID and password information of these profiles were obtained “illegally by some means other than our service” and in response, it’s freezing the ability to log into a Nintendo account through Nintendo Network ID (NNID).
Nintendo began looking into a potential breach after several players reported suspicious logins and fraudulent transactions for digital items like Fortnite VBucks through linked PayPal accounts earlier this month.
Nintendo’s investigation revealed intruders may have accessed personal data such as nicknames, dates of birth, country of residence, and email addresses.
Plus, for users who used the same password for an NNID and Nintendo account, it’s warning that their “balance and registered credit card/PayPal may be illegally used at My Nintendo Store or Nintendo eShop.”
In addition to halting Nintendo Network ID (NNID) logins, Nintendo is reaching out to affected customers via email and resetting their passwords. It’s also recommending enabling two-factor authentication to everyone. Despite this, Nintendo is asking users who have discovered fraudulent transactions in their accounts to contact the company so it can cancel the purchases and possibly for initiating refunds.
The NNID system is a legacy platform that was mainly employed for older 3DS and Wii U devices. Until Friday, gamers had the option to link the older accounts to their new Nintendo Switch accounts.
In the last month or two, Nintendo sales have skyrocketed as people across the world scramble for ways to keep themselves entertained while sheltering at home. Nintendo’s latest Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the top-selling game of March and on top of that, has become a social media phenomenon.
Gaming hardware sales themselves are up 63% from last year with the Nintendo Switch at the pole position. At 2x year-on-year growth, it was the best-selling console ever in March, beating its own March 2017 performance record. But the company’s products have also been targeted, with price-gougers sending the Switch’s price soaring on Amazon.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.