Daily Briefing: Thursday 6th May

Returnal's latest patch walked back due to a save-corrupting error

Patch 1.3.3 released yesterday and was abruptly pulled two hours later when a number of players reported a game-breaking bug wiping save files. Developer Housemarque apologised on Twitter and confirmed that work on a new patch was underway. They also advised players not to boot up the game until that patch was deployed.

• This issue is particularly pressing because Returnal doesn't have a mid-run save system in place. Wednesday's patch wasn't set to add one but the intention was to reduce the number of issues that led to crashes and lost progress - it looks to have done quite the opposite for many players. Error CE-100028-1is the one to look out for.

Nintendo report record year, Switch selling very well

According to Nintendo's recent earnings call, lifetime Switch shipments were 84.6m as of the end of March this year - up nearly 5m from the end of the previous quarter. The company also confirmed that hardware sell-through broke the already record-high posted in Q4 last year, so the Switch is really on the move.

• Nintendo posted annual revenue of $16.59bn - a 34.4% year-on-year increase and the highest total in over ten years. Operating profit was also up 81.8% to $6.04m - a new company record. The company shipping nearly 29m Switch units during the last full fiscal year and expect to ship a further 25.5m units during the current one. Doing so would see the Switch overtake the Wii to become Nintendo's highest-selling home console ever.

A lot of ex-Stadia staff have joined Jade Raymond's new studio

Raymond, of course, left Stadia herself a few months back following Google's decision to axe all internal development. She set up a new indie outfit called Haven Studios, which looks to have attracted at least half a dozen wandering ex-Stadia devs.

• The newly-rehomed talent includes Corey May who spent 12 years working on the Assassin's Creed franchise and Stadia's former general manager Sebastien Puel. ResetEra users have also determined that four more ex-Stadia folks - artists, engineers, and UI staff, have also made the jump to Haven. We'll have to see how the studio gets on.

Outriders has finally started giving players back their lost gear

The looter shooter has had a rough time of it since it launched early last month, encountering a number of issues including a rather damning one that deleted players' inventories. At the time devs People Can Fly pledged to both find a solution and reinstate players' lost items, and they've now started to do the latter.

• The new fix will only address those players in what People Can Fly call Group A - i.e. players who can't even log in as their affected characters. Anything equipped at the time of deletion should be returned, as well as any legendary items and the 20 most recent items. Group B will come at an unspecified later date.