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Mystery of Nintendo NX Returns, Fortnite Season 3 Delayed

TODAY: It’s okay to cheat in online games, as long as you apologize afterwards — Cooking Mama expected in court after Cookstar vanishes from eShop — Epic Games delays next season of Fortnite Chapter 2

New Nintendo Switch Model

Firmware hints at new Switch model

Dataminers have already dug into the new 10.0.0 firmware for Switch, and have found evidence of a new hardware model, the fourth to date.

The new ‘nx-abcd’ model seems to be a whole new form factor according to dataminer Mike Heskin. Switch firmware supports five different hardware models, with the following codenames: Icosa, Copper, Hoag, Iowa, and Calcio.

Lighter than Lite: Icosa, Hoag and Iowa are the original Switch, the Switch Lite and last year’s updated flagship model. Copper has not been launched, allegedly due to a hardware bug, and Calcio appears to be its successor. There has been a lot of speculation about a Switch Pro supporting 4k resolutions, but it looks like Nintendo might be headed in the opposite direction instead.

Could be digital-only: The Calcio model “…lacks support for game cards, suggesting a digital-only device,” according to the report. “If my speculation that a TV-only device would be positioned as a sort of super-economical option (even cheaper than the lite) is accurate, that would make some sense.” Nintendo previously stated that there are “no plans” for a new Switch model yet.

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

Who starred in the first of Valve’s Meet the Team promos for Team Fortress 2?

  • The Spy
  • The Pyro
  • The Soldier
  • The Heavy

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Daily Fact

DayBreak demanded public apologies from banned H1Z1 cheaters

It’s not a completely new idea, but the developers behind zombie survival game H1Z1 still raised some eyebrows by demanding public apologies from cheaters. In exchange for a suitably sincere mea culpa, banned players could get their accounts reactivated.
You might survive zombies, but not the banhammer

It’s safe to say H1Z1 had a bit of a cheating problem: nearly 24,000 players were were banned in May 2015. Daybreak Game Company president John Smedley called out “these dumbasses” and did go on to unban three cheaters who uploaded public apologies to YouTube. These days, H1Z1 goes by the name Z1 Battle Royale and is still going strong.

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

Cooking Mama owner prepares legal action against Cookstar developer

Last week Cooking Mama: Cookstar suddenly vanished from the Nintendo eShop, sparking rumours that the developers had embedded a cryptocurrency miner in the game.

Japanese company Office Create Corp owns the Cooking Mama brand, and they have just announced that they cancelled Planet Entertainment’s license on March 30th this year because the “quality of the game builds failed to meet the standards that our customers expect and deserve.” Planet Entertainment were “contractually obligated” to fix these issues but “failed to do so”.

Better to ask forgiveness: “Office Create rejected a wide range of deficiencies affecting the overall feel, quality, and content of the game,” but Planet Entertainment launched the game on Switch anyway. The European PlayStation 4 version is also unauthorised.

Officially unofficial: “Planet continues to advertise and sell the unauthorized version of Cooking Mama: Cookstar on its website in willful violation of Office Create’s rights,” according to the statement. In short, Cooking Mama won’t be back in the kitchen any time soon.

Fortnite Seasons Delay

Next Fortnite season has been delayed

The current season of Fortnite has been extended with over a month, moving the last day from April 30th to June 4th. Epic Games promise “lots of content coming in the current season.”

“We have multiple game updates on the way that will deliver fresh gameplay, new Challenges, bonus XP, and a couple more surprises up our sleeve!” according to a short blog post. No information yet on whether and how events will be extended.

Crowd-sourced notes: The community is busy uncovering and documenting changes since Epic Games has not been publishing full change lists for Chapter 2. For example, the Midas Challenge will last for another two weeks.

Epic silence: Epic hasn’t said much about the upcoming third season of Fortnite Chapter 2, so keep an eye on their social channels.

What Else Happened Today?

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

Who starred in the first of Valve’s Meet the Team promos for Team Fortress 2?

Answer: The Heavy!

In Meet the Heavy – released on May 14th in 2007 – the titular Heavy Weapons Guy introduces himself in an informal interview while clips show him in action.

Meet the Heavy was pretty straightforward compared to the increasingly wacky later videos (culminating with the extraordinarily bonkers Pyro video), but it did a great job establishing the game’s irreverent tone.

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest and Jamie Davey.