It’s that time of the week again, time to look back on the Handheld Gaming News that stood out to me this week. It’s an important week here in the Netherlands because of another event: Sinterklaas arrived in our country yesterday. You see, Santa Claus can skip our little country, after all, it’s just a blip on the globe. Sinterklaas does the job for him.
He doesn’t come from the North Pole, he comes from Spain and is assisted by his Pieten. Anyway, children all around the country are super exited that he has arrived. Leading up to December 5 (when the actual day of gifts has arrived) they can put their shoe out at night, filled with goodies for Sinterklaas’ horse Amerigo. And if they’ve been good, Piet will fill it with a little gift.
The tradition is best celebrated with younger children, but we still make it a cozy family filled night of giving each other gifts!
It’s an important time in gaming too, with some major releases. Not a handheld game, but my daughter is super exited for the Sims 4 Cats & Dogs expansion pack. The Sims is her first choice in gaming, and this expansion pack had been on her list since it was announced. She only remarked that she hates seeing so many stray animals, begging to be fed but that she can’t because she has no bowls to put the food in. The Sims 4 has been released on PS4 and Xbox too this week, a pity it isn’t available on the Switch. But then, EA games and Nintendo isn’t always a good combination!
The Switch got many new games, like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, RIME, LA Noire and Ittle Dew 2+. Interesting titles to look into, although RIME didn’t do well in the Metacritic scores. The 3DS got Mario Party: the Top 100 and of course, there’s Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon on the 3DS!
Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon released
Here’s a chance to revisit Alola and find a new adventure waiting for you. In this game, the greatest villainous organisation in history will make your life as a trainer difficult! Team Rocket Rainbow is headed by Giovanni, who was also the boss of the villainous organization known as Team Rocket in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue, the first games in the Pokémon series. This is the ultimate handheld Pokémon game, read a bit more about the features here. 
Mario and Luigi to become movie stars?
With the collaboration deal in place between Universal and Nintendo to make a theme park, the news we had this week makes sense.The movie is said to be an animated collaboration between Nintendo and the Universal-owned Illumination Entertainment. Neither Nintendo or Universal have made an official statement about this though.
It would be made by Illumination Entertainment, is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures. We know them from hit movies like Despicable Me and Minions. it would be an animated Super Mario Bros movie.
Rumor for a release date for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
This week we got the mini-game Pocket Camp: Friend Finder in our internet browser. The game let’s you find your animal alter ego (although the questions you have to answer are extremely limited). And after that, you can try to collect various items through social media. Clever move, as tons of people are tweeting and posting about it. (Read how it works here)
This Friend Finder mini game ends November 21/ November 22 (depending on where you live) and it has given rise to rumours about a Western release for the main mobile game. Let’s see if Pocket Camp really will be in our pocket on November 22! The fact that I saw a review of the European version on NintendoLife seems to confirm it: we are close to a release!
Game of the Year Awards: BotW and Super Mario Odyssey nominees
The prestigious nominees for the event have been announced and you can check them out below. The Game Awards takes place on December 7th. Y
Game Of The Year nominees are:
– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
– Super Mario Odyssey
– Persona 5
– Horizon Zero Dawn
– PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
Most nominated games with six nominations are:
– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
– Super Mario Odyssey
– Horizon Zero Dawn
– Destiny 2
If you want to vote too, you can find the website here. 
Big update coming for Stardew Valley on the Switch
The next update for Stardew Valley on the Switch is close, it has been submitted to Nintendo. And not only close, it’s huge too. Tiyuri of Chucklefish Games detailed the upcoming patch on Twitter.
”The SDV Switch patch has been submitted to Nintendo. Faster saving, crash on sleep fixes, fixed prairie king controls, fixed static sound from left speaker, fixed some UI issues, video recording and more. “
Of course, it’s the ” and more” that interests me! 
That’s it for this week. Enjoy your gaming weekend, thanks for reading and I hope to see you again next week!
Game of the Year… What a crazy award! There’s no way I can choose between Persona 5, Breath of the Wild, and Mario Odyssey!
Haha, glad I don’t have that problem. I can see my game of the year very clearly..There have been years that it was more difficult!