Technologies

Nintendo Direct: How to Watch, What Games to Expect from Wednesday’s Livestream

We’ll get 40 minutes about Nintendo witch games coming in the first half of 2023, so you can expect to see The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Nintendo will offer a taste of the games coming to Switch in a Nintendo Direct on Wednesday, it said in a tweet Tuesday. The Feb. 8 livestream will include «roughly 40 minutes of information» about titles launching in the first half of 2023, a lineup that includes the highly anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

When does the Nintendo Direct start?

The Nintendo Direct livestream starts at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, which converts to 10 p.m. GMT or 9 a.m. Thursday AEST.

How to watch the Nintendo Direct

The event will be streaming from Nintendo’s YouTube channel. We’ve embedded the YouTube link above, so you can watch right here.

What games will Nintendo show during its Nintendo Direct?

The majority of Switch owners are eagerly awaiting The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel to 2017’s Breath of the Wild, which got a trailer during last September’s Nintendo Direct. It’s out on May 12, so we can expect details about that game’s story and gameplay mechanics.

Pikmin 4 is scheduled for release in 2023, so Nintendo will likely give us a look at the colorful real-time strategy game and narrow down the release date.

Nintendo will likely reveal the new release date for Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, the remake collection featuring two Game Boy Advance turn-based strategy games. It was originally scheduled to come out last April, but got delayed due to the war in Ukraine.

It could reveal details of an expansion or update for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, since those games are expected to add compatibility with the Pokemon Home mobile app soon. That might be held for Pokemon Day, Feb. 27, since the company typically announces something big in a livestream celebrating the game series’ anniversary.

Other upcoming titles include Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe (an enhanced port of the 2011 Wii game) and Octopath Traveler 2 on Feb. 24, as well as Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon on March 17.

We’ll probably get hints about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s next batch of downloadable tracks, since wave 4 should be arriving soon, as well as updates about when Mario Party 3, Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2, 1080 Snowboarding and Excitebike 64 will be added to the N64 retro library in the Switch Online subscription service.

It’s also possible the company will look at upcoming non-Switch projects: its first US Super Nintendo World theme park opens next week and the Super Mario Bros. movie hits theaters on April 7.

People anticipating Metroid Prime 4 probably shouldn’t get their hopes up though — it’s been nearly six years since that game was announced and we have yet to see gameplay. At least we got Metroid Dread.

Could a Switch successor be revealed during the Nintendo Direct?

It’s unlikely that Nintendo will take the focus away from Tears of the Kingdom and other upcoming games, but we’ll likely see the company’s next console soon. The Switch will be six years old in March, and the technical issues of games like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet highlight the aging hardware (along with Sony and Microsoft’s technically superior PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X competitor consoles).

The Switch sold 122.55 million units overall as of the end of 2022, the company announced its latest earnings report on Tuesday, putting it ahead of the PS4 and making it the third best-selling console of all time. It’s now behind only the DS (at 154 million) and PS2 (155 million).

Despite hitting this milestone, Bloomberg noted Nintendo missed console sales targets toward the year’s end. Company boss Shuntaro Furukawa didn’t answer questions about its next console, it noted. Last year, VGC reported that Furukawa said that a smooth transition to the next generation of hardware is «a major focus» for the company — we can expect to get a firmer sense of its plans this year.

Technologies

This Transformable Electric Truck Could Become the Cheapest EV in the US

Merging retro touches with a high-tech electric platform, the Slate Truck offers a customizable, budget-friendly alternative to traditional EVs.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for April 27, #686

Hints and answers for Connections for April 27, #686.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections puzzle might make you hungry — especially if you spot the four words in the blue category. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Do the math.

Green group hint: Tresses.

Blue group hint: Munchies.

Purple group hint: Think Stockholm.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Calculator buttons.

Green group: Amounts of hair.

Blue group: Salty snack unit.

Purple group: Swedish ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is calculator buttons. The four answers are equals, minus, percent and times.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is amounts of hair. The four answers are lock, shock, thatch and tuft.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is salty snack unit. The four answers are Combo, Goldfish, Ruffle and Taki.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Swedish ____. The four answers are Chef, Fish, massage and meatball.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for April 27, #420

Here are hints — and answers — for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 420 for April 27.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Sleep used to be so simple, but now it can be complex, as we try to add in extra things to help us get that good night’s rest. Today’s NYT Strands puzzle highlights sleep assistance, and a few of the words are tricky. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Sleep tight

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Zzzzz…

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BEDS, MINE, TAKE, TAKES, TAKER, STAKE, LATS, EARL, PLUG, PLUGS, ROUT, MIKE, DATE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: