Nintendo announced last month that they were planning to expand the Nintendo rewards system by allowing you to use gold points – points specifically gained as a percentage of money spent on games and associated content – to make purchases on the eShop. Today, that system went live.

If you buy a game or DLC for the Switch, you then earn a percentage back for your Nintendo account which amounts to one cent per gold point. So if you wanted a brand new $60 game for free, you'd need about 6000 gold points. Considering points expire after a year, by and large, the gold points will mostly be used for discounts rather than wholly free titles.

The rewards system is heavily geared toward transitioning customers to digital purchases. You get a higher percentage back when using digital (5 percent versus 1 percent for physical) and physical games can only earn points within a year of the game's release. I imagine that rule has exceptions, however, as the Switch just turned a year old and launch games seem to be eligible. That limit is two years for Europe, but one year for everywhere else.

Some months ago, Ubisoft announced that dedicated servers will be coming to For Honor, the publisher's weapon-based fighting game. Last month, dedicated servers launched for PC, but it's coming to consoles tomorrow March 6.

The change makes it so there's no host advantage in multiplayer matches. A match with multiple people used to only be as strong as its weakest connection, but now it should theoretically not affect everyone connecting to Ubisoft's servers. Users on PC have been reporting a marked uptick in the quality and consistency of matches since the patch.

The Age of Wolves expansion launched for For Honor last month to coincide with the PC patch. For Honor is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

After the whirlwind last week where the White House announced a meeting with video game leaders, and the Entertainment Software Association subsequently stated that none of its member companies have received invites, the ESA has now announced that they will be meeting with the president this Thursday, first reported by Kotaku.

It was unclear a few days ago when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the meeting who exactly the president would be meeting with for his discussion on violent media, but the invites have seemingly made their way to their intended recipients and the ESA has stated that they will be attending.

The stated focus of the meeting is to discuss the effect violent video games have and any possible contributions to mass shootings.

With the release of the bonus episode of Life is Strange: Before the Storm, both Deck Nine Games and original Life is Strange developer Dontnod are closing the book on Max and Chloe's story. However, it does seem like news on a new season of Life is Strange is coming soon and looks to be making a fresh start with the story.

In a blog post about the Before the Storm episode titled Farewell, some details about the new game come through. 

"But when a door closes, a window opens… or, something like that," the post reads. "We now look forward to the coming months, when Michel Koch and Raoul Barbet’s team at Dontnod returns to present the new story and characters of the next Life is Strange."

Iron Galaxy, a studio known for lots of mercenary work on ports and also titles like Killer Instinct and Extinction, has publicly offered their services to Capcom to help port Monster Hunter World to Switch.

Capcom has previously described the process of porting Monster Hunter World to Switch as "difficult," which is about as nice a way you can say unlikely as you can get. Enter former vice president of developer relations at Sony Interactive Entertainment and current Iron Galaxy CEO Adam Boyes, who has taken to Twitter to ease that process.

"Dear @monsterhunter team at Capcom - we understand that porting the game to Nintendo Switch is challenging," Boyes wrote and included a URL to a Kotaku article, "but this is exactly what @IToTheG does. Give us a shot & we won’t let you down ;)"

As of the Switch's one-year anniversary, it had become pretty apparent that something was wrong with the activity counter. Now, Nintendo has acknowledged the issue and promised to fix it down the line.

A lot of fans were angry when they discovered that the Switch's playtime counter reset after one year and have been haranguing Nintendo's social media accounts with questions of how permanent this problem is, or whether the games being played now are being tracked. Some fans even insisted that they would not play their Switch if their playtime was not being tracked.

Today, Nintendo tweeted out assurances that playtime is indeed still being tracked.

The team at Xbox has announced the return of Inside Xbox in the form of a new monthly show. The show, which was canceled in 2012, brings back Larry Hryb aka "Major Nelson" as one of the hosts, and promises behind-the-scenes looks at games on the Xbox platform.

Joining Hryb in hosting duties are Graeme Boyd, Jeff Rubenstein, Alex Hebert, Lydia Ellery, and more. In addition to interviews, news, and exclusive looks at upcoming games, Inside Xbox will also highlight feedback and videos from the community.

The first episode features an inside look at Sea of Thieves and its developer Rare, an interview with the developers at Ubisoft about Far Cry 5, an interview about PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, news about the Xbox Game Pass, a look at the retro-styled Duke controller for Xbox One, and more.

The Swords of Ditto takes heavy inspiration from the Legend of Zelda franchise. This is true not only in the gameplay style, but in the story as well. Rather than focusing in on the tale of one hero, however, it tells a multi-generational story about a chosen hero who emerges every 100 years to face evil.

In the Zelda franchise, you typically wait a several years to step into the shoes of a new hero when the next game releases, but with The Swords of Ditto, it's instantaneous. If you die in The Swords of Ditto, you don't try again; you simply awaken 100 years later as the next "chosen hero" and try to pick up where the last hero left off. Of course, with the passage of time comes changes in the world based on how the previous hero did. You can even seek out fallen heroes and resurrect them for a second chance to save the world.

The title also deviates from the classic Zelda games by allowing for cooperative play, and giving players outlandish and powerful special attacks.

Each Monday, come here for a rundown of all this week's big events that we know about, from game releases, to betas, to recapping the biggest continuing news stories from the previous week. If there's anything we missed, feel free to let us know! This week covers the dates from March 5 to March 11.

Bravo Team (PSVR) – March 6Final Fantasy XV: Royal Edition (PS4, Xbox One, PC) – March 6
Frantics (PS4) – March 6
Scribblenauts Showdown (Switch, PS4, Xbox One) –  March 6
Fear Effect Sedna (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC) – March 6

The official Twitter account for popular Netflix show Black Mirror posted a video today with the tagline "Be Right Back," possibly teasing new episodes in the near future. The video begins with 12 small windows showing clips from past episodes, but ends with 12 blank screens displaying the series' opening sequence.

The obvious guess is that Netflix is bringing 12 new episodes of the hit show sooner than expected. Since acquiring the series in 2015, Netflix has produced new seasons in 2016 and 2017. However, both of those seasons released late in the year, and each only contained six episodes. If Netflix follows this pattern, fans should expect new Black Mirror near the end of 2018, making March a little early to begin teasing something so far off. It would also be surprising for Netflix to double the number of episodes on such a quick turnaround, seeing as how the last season just released in late December. Maybe it's just teasing that all new seasons of Black Mirror will consist of 12 episodes going forward.