If you are undecided on the Nintendo Switch, or just want to see what all the fuss is about, there’s a number of ways to try the console before you decide to invest in the console. Nintendo will bring a Switch demos to a select number cities, though we also expect major retailers to start integrating demo kiosks to storefronts in the coming months.
Nintendo is offering a chance to not just play the console, but also a selection of upcoming games through its 2017 “Summer of Play” demo tour. Each stop on the tour will let fans get hands-on with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Arms, Splatoon 2, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, as well as a few upcoming 3DS games. My Nintendo members who scan their QR code will also receive a free gift. The full list of dates and locations is below.
Nintendo’s has partnered with six major retailers — GameStop, Best Buy, Buy Now , Toys “R” Us, Walmart, and Target — to sell the Switch. Of those six, only GameStop has started receiving Switch kiosks in stores across the country. From speaking with multiple GameStop stores, the kiosks only let customers interact with the Switch’s touch display to play game trailers. We’ve reached out to GameStop to find out if and when it expects to receive playable demo units.
The other five retailers don’t have Switch kiosks in stores… yet. We spoke with Target and Best Buy, and will provide updates as we hear more. We also contacted Amazon, Toys “R” Us, and Walmart, but have yet to hear back.
If you don’t want to go to a retail store to try out the Nintendo Switch, you can always bring the experience to you, instead. Nintendo has partnered with GameTruck, a mobile gaming party service, to add Nintendo Switch consoles and games such as 1-2 Switch and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to its fleet of rental demo stations through June 20, 2017. The stations will also feature Mario Kart 8 Deluxe once the game launches at the end of April.
Each GameTruck will be accompanied by “game coaches,” who can provide tips to those unfamiliar with the system. Each truck will have multiple Switch consoles, so no one will have to wait very long, and party guests can try out the system in its docked, tabletop, and handheld configurations.
GameTruck is currently available in 30 U.S. states, with locations limited to major cities thus far. You can enter your location information on the company’s website to find the closest GameTruck-supported area right here.
Updated on 3-20-2017 by Gabe Gurwin: Added information on GameTruck parties in 30 states.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.