Nintendo fans wished for new hardware, the monkey's paw curled, and they got an alarm clock

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There's a lot of merch out there for the Nintendo Adult in your life. You want a heat-changing GameBoy mug? Animal Crossing-themed Monopoly? A Mario Kart T-shirt that says, "Do you even drift, bro?" All of these things exist. And now, so does an official Nintendo alarm clock that parps out official Nintendo music and official Nintendo sound effects until you rouse your lazy carcass and finally start your day.

Alarmo lets you select music from games like Super Mario Odyssey, Pikmin 4, Breath of the Wild, and Splatoon 3. But it doesn't just play these jaunty tunes when it's time to wake up. It also includes a motion detector so it can add appropriate sound effects as you shift, turn, and try to jam the pillow over your head, like Mario's coin-collecting ding or the splat of gunshots from Splatoon. When you finally get up, it plays a triumphal finish and then turns off automatically.

But wait, there's more. Alarmo also plays game-themed "sleepy sounds" when you get into bed, has animations of Nintendo characters that appear on its screen each hour, and tracks your movement and sleep patterns like a little bedside creep. Between this and Pokémon Sleep, Nintendo's database of nerd sleeping patterns is going to be worryingly complete. But to what end?

You can also connect Alarmo to the internet of course, which will let you download additional alarm sounds and updates—because in 2024 what we really need is DLC for an alarm clock. If you were hanging out for Nintendo to announce anything about the Switch 2 in October, keep waiting I guess.

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.