Smash Bros Wii U screenshot shows Kid Icarus stage

January 30th, 2014, 00:34 Posted By: wraggster

A new screenshot for Nintendo's upcoming entry in the Smash Bros series has been released, showing one of the stages players will get to trade blows in.
The image of a Kid Icarus themed stage was posted on the game's Miiverse by series creator and director Masahiro Sakurai along with a message: "You can find this statue of the Goddess of Light in one of the stages. She's watching over the arena."
Nintendo recently revealed that King Dedede will be returning as a playable character in the game.
Other confirmed characters include Capcom's Mega Man and Animal Crossing's Villager and Wii Fit Trainer, as well as Rosalina and Lumafrom Super Mario Galaxy.
Nintendo has also offered an update on gameplay changes it is making, stating that the development team is rethinking edge-hanging, a high-level strategy expert players could use to make battles a little bit harder for their opponents.
"There are many changes being made to attack and defence options for grabbing edges," said Sakurai.
Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS are being co-developed by Namco Bandai. The games have not yet been given release dates, though they are expected to launch in 2014.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...-icarus-stage/

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Nintendo boss Iwata halves pay, Miyamoto's wage cut too

January 30th, 2014, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has announced he will take a 50 per cent pay cut in response to the company's continued financial problems.Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and another director, Genyo Takeda, will both take a 30 per cent wage reduction. The seven other members of the company's board will all take a 20 per cent pay cut, AFP reports.
The changes will take effect in February and last until June, at which time the adjustments will be reviewed based on the company's ongoing progress.Today's announcement comes just over a week after Nintendo significantly reduced its predictions for company's performance this financial year, based primarily on poor sales of its struggling Wii U console. Overall, Nintendo now expects to make another loss.Iwata previously cut his pay for a time after the company's wobbly launch of the 3DS - although that machine's fortunes were restored by a quick-fire price cut and the double-punch release of Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7.Nintendo last night published its financial results for the four months ending 31st December. Tonight, Iwata will face investors for its regular quarterly earnings presentation.The company now reports that it has shipped 5.86 million Wii U consoles and 29.37m units of disc-based Wii U software (including sales of digital copies and packed-in games).Wii U titles Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U and Zelda: The Wind Waker HD have all now passed the 1m sales mark.For 3DS, the company has now shipped 42.74m hardware units. Software stands at 152.29m. Pokémon X and Y sold a whopping 11.6m copies - roughly equal with the series' last few DS instalments. Animal Crossing: New Leaf sold another 3.5m worldwide (for a total now north of 7m), while Zelda: A Link Between Worlds currently sits on 2.18m since late November.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-wage-cut-too

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Donkey Kong Country ignores the GamePad screen during regular play

January 30th, 2014, 00:19 Posted By: wraggster

Nintendo's next big Wii U game Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze lacks any kind of GamePad functionality when playing the game on your TV.
The title still supports Off-TV play, allowing you to move the image onto the GamePad for portable play. But, under regular play conditions, the GamePad screen will simply go black.The ommission of any in-game use for the GamePad was first spotted by Nintendo World Report, but has been independently verified by Eurogamer.Few Wii U games require the GamePad for specific controls, and recent tentpole release Super Mario 3D World only utilised its features in a handful of select levels. Many other titles can be played using only the traditional Pro Controller, or even just a Wii Remote (such as Pikmin 3, Wonderful 101, or Zelda: Wind Waker).Mario Kart 8, the next major Wii U title after Donkey Kong, displays a map on the GamePad screen. Pressing it will let you sound your horn.Justifying the GamePad has always been an uphill battle for Nintendo. The concept has failed to capture consumer attention in the way that motion controls did for Wii - and this has been reflected in the system's comparatively uninspiring sales.Wii U is already being sold at a loss in Europe and North America - a factor preventing further price cuts, Nintendo reiterated in today's latest round of financial briefings. Perhaps the company might consider a version of the console sans GamePad to ensure a cheaper price point, similar to how the 3DS' stereoscopic 3D was removed for the 2DS.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-functionality

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3DS reaches 15 million sold in Japan

January 29th, 2014, 01:06 Posted By: wraggster

Combined sales of 3DS and XL give Nintendo a reason to celebrate
[h=3]Nintendo[/h]nintendo-europe.com


The Nintendo 3DS has now sold more than 15 million units in Japan.
According to Famitsu, the 15 million is a combined total from both models of Nintendo's market-leading handheld: the 3DS and the 3DS XL.
The size of its installed-base in its native market is one of the few positives Nintendo can look to in its current predicament. Nevertheless, the company's disastrous Q4 financial report showed that even the 3DS is not meeting expectations, with Nintendo cutting its fiscal year projections from 80 million units to 66 million units.
Yesterday, the Nikkei reported that Nintendo was preparing its entrance into mobile gaming, by using smartphones as a way to distribute demos, videos and information for the games on its own hardware platforms.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-sold-in-japan

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Sony to acquire Nintendo's DRAM manufacturer - report

January 29th, 2014, 00:22 Posted By: wraggster

A Japanese news channel is claiming that Sony is lining up a ¥7bn acquisition of a Renesas Electronics semiconductor plant.
This is of note because the site currently produces the DRAM chips found in Nintendo’s Wii U.
DualShockers reports that Sony is prepared to invest a further ¥20bn into the site following completion of the deal and will absorb “an unspecified percentage” of the existing staff.
The factory will be used to manufacture CMOS sensors for smartphones, meaning Nintendo will have to find an alternative source for its DRAM – although it is understood that it has “sizable stocks of the component” and had already readied for the closure of the plant prior to Sony’s proposed move.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/sony-...report/0127292

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A Deep Dive Into NES Tetris

January 29th, 2014, 00:20 Posted By: wraggster


Back in 1989, Nintendo released Tetris for the NES. This detailed article first explains themechanics of how Tetris works, then builds an AI to play the game.
To understand the mechanics of the game, the ROM source was explored. Since the NES was based of the MOS 6502 microprocessor, this involves looking at the 6502 assembly. The article details how the blocks (called Tetriminos) are created and how they move across the screen. The linear feedback shift register used for random number generation is examined. Even details of the legal screen and demo mode are explained.
After the tour through how Tetris works, an algorithm for the AI is presented. This AI is implemented in Lua inside of the FCEUX NES/Famicom emulator. It works by evaluating all of the possible places to put each new Tetrimino, and choosing the best based on a number of criteria. The weighting for each criterion was determined by using a particle swarm optimization.
The source for both the Lua version and a Java version of the code is available with the article. Everything you need to run the AI is available for free, except the Tetris ROM. If you’re interested in how 8 bit games were built, this dissection is a great read.

http://hackaday.com/2014/01/28/a-dee...to-nes-tetris/

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Nintendo to introduce playable mobile ads

January 29th, 2014, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster

The move aims to attract non-Nintendo gamers to the Nintendo platform.
We cannot deny that we are eagerly awaiting the day that Mario hits our mobile screens, however this is unfortunately not that day.
Japanese business paper, Nikkei has reported that Nintendo is planning on launching free mini-game demos on iOS and Android devices – which will have to do for now.
The newspaper also stated that the games company aims to reach out to potential users by spreading news on releases via different platforms getting in front of audiences that would have previously been missed.
Dr. Serkan Toto, who reported on the news, said: “The playable demos of console games are a means to give smartphone-only players a taste of the experience without making the actual game available on non-Nintendo devices and convert these users into Nintendo customers.”
Nintendo are expected to make this news official on Thursday.
In other Nintendo news, ZeptoLab and Activision announced the launch of Cut the Rope: Triple Treat on the Nintendo 3DS.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/games/nint...ile-ads/042828

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Nintendo: No plans to offer mini-games on smartphones

January 28th, 2014, 23:53 Posted By: wraggster

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What Nintendo needs isn't smartphones, but surprise

January 27th, 2014, 21:13 Posted By: wraggster

The industry's top company only succeeds when it does the unexpected
[h=3]Nintendo[/h]nintendo-europe.com


Nintendo blew it. That much is clear, and even Satoru Iwata doesn't debate it - Nintendo blew it. The financials could be much worse, but the unit sales? Way, way below targets, and in the case of Wii U, way below sustainability. Nintendo blew it! Shout it from the rooftops, if you can find space on a rooftop next to all the people who are already shouting it, with altogether too much peculiar jubilance in their snide, told-you-so voices.
Nintendo blew it. Blew what, though? That's a tougher question. The company's year has been a lot more complex than anyone is giving it credit for. In 2013, Nintendo was proud owner of the best-selling console in every major territory worldwide, and launched an enviable range of first-party software titles that sold over a million copies each - more than any other publisher out there. The company retained its crown as the biggest platform holder and the biggest software publisher in the business.
Yet, Nintendo blew it, because it also had a platform that utterly under-performed even the most conservative of estimates - a console that, on its current trajectory, is set to undershoot the low bar set by the GameCube and become the firm's worst performing home console ever. Moreover, Nintendo blew it in a subtle but crucially important way - with startling incompetence for a company of its size, the firm predicted sales figures for both the 3DS and the Wii U which were absolutely ludicrous and then failed to revise them as the year carried on, meaning that even the solidly performing 3DS has undershot its targets, while the Wii U looks even worse than it ought to (which is pretty bad to begin with).
"Nintendo's stock didn't tumble too badly after it revised its guidance, largely since nobody with a clue actually thought the firm was going to hit its targets anyway"

This latter aspect has made the coverage of Nintendo's situation even more negative than it would already have been (and there are plenty of people waiting to pile onto the company at the slightest provocation), since it covers up the success of the 3DS and its software line-up - seriously, 3DS has had an amazing year for software and is now set up with a library that effectively secures the console's future - in a heavy smearing of corporate incompetence. It has also, understandably, deeply annoyed shareholders, because they rely on companies making accurate predictions to figure out whether or not to pick up stock in a firm. That said, Nintendo's stock didn't tumble too badly after it revised its guidance, largely since nobody with a clue actually thought the firm was going to hit its targets anyway. Incidentally, the company's stock price is about 50% higher today than it was 12 months ago, in line with the rise in the Nikkei 225 index - which means that Japanese investors, at least, are rating the company as broadly neutral rather than actually negative.
Still, Nintendo blew it, and that means lots of people are making angry noises. Iwata must go, say some; Nintendo must exit hardware, say others; time for Mario on smartphones, say still others. The owners of all of those voices are going to be disappointed - not least, I believe, because very few of them actually understand Nintendo as a company or the Japanese corporate environment in which it operates. They don't understand that activist shareholders don't mean a tuppenny damn to a company whose shares are largely held by a combination of the founding family, the senior staff and (more significantly still) the complex web of interrelated share- and debt-holdings that connects Nintendo with Japanese banks and other corporations, none of whom have the slightest concern in being "activist" except in the most extreme of circumstances. An earnings miss? Pah! Japanese corporations routinely missed annual earnings every year for decades after the Asian Financial Crisis of the early 1990s, but shareholder pressure to change top management never materialised then, and it won't materialise now. Iwata is secure until he does something sufficiently wrong to have a taint of scandal around it, and that's deeply unlikely to happen.
Exiting hardware? Absolutely no chance. Nintendo's primary view of itself is as a toy company and its core business model is selling hardware (generally profitably) and then selling software that runs on that hardware (extremely profitably). The synergy between the company's hardware side and its software side is legendary, as is the extent to which each Nintendo platform is designed with the requirements of planned first-party software in mind. For that reason alone, it's likely that the Wii U will eventually have a clutch of startlingly excellent games, matching last year's critically acclaimed Super Mario 3D World in quality - although whether that will actually do anything to resuscitate sales is another question entirely. The point is that this approach isn't going to change; the inertia behind Nintendo as a hardware company is immense, and moreover, despite this year's earnings miss, it's largely working. Nintendo is, pretty much every year, the largest and most successful game software company in the world. Would it retain that crown on someone else's hardware? If you rush to answer "yes!" to that question, either your crystal ball gazing skills are excellent or you haven't thought about it hard enough; I don't think there is a good answer to that question right now, and I know Nintendo will be eyeing Sega's post-hardware decline and thinking about its own potential fortunes as one-among-many on a smartphone app store. Right now, Nintendo has around 40 million 3DS owners who are keenly anticipating future first-party releases from the company - keenly enough that they start to agitate and make noise if there's ever a gap in the release schedule. Would that be true on iOS, or Android, or even on a competitor's console platform?
"one of the company's failings, in some regards, is that it still doesn't really have a global outlook, with Nintendo of America and Nintendo Europe being rather stunted"

How about a limited engagement with smartphones, then, even if they wouldn't make the leap entirely? That's plausible. Nintendo's primary point of reference for its product decisions is Japan - one of the company's failings, in some regards, is that it still doesn't really have a global outlook, with Nintendo of America and (even more so) Nintendo Europe being rather stunted local offshoots whose actual contribution to the firm's planning and success is pretty obviously minimal. In Japan, smartphone games are a huge sector, and interestingly, there's seemingly more of a market for premium-priced games than there is in the west, where free-to-play is increasingly the only show in town (although premium-priced games are carving out an interesting niche there too). There is, I believe, some potential for Nintendo to start putting Virtual Console titles on smartphones, perhaps initially through a tie-up with one of Japan's carriers. However, I'd expect this roll-out to be slow and careful, with Nintendo incredibly mindful of the possibility of damaging its core brands by launching Mario or Zelda games tainted by emulation problems or crap touchscreen controls. Still - it could happen, and is by far the most likely of the "demands" being made of the firm to actually be met in some limited form.
If Iwata isn't going to go (he's not), Nintendo isn't going to exit hardware (they're not) and the company's future isn't on smartphones (it's not, although some cautious toes in that water may be seen in time), then what is Nintendo's reaction to its present situation going to be?
I've stated this before, but it bears repeating - Nintendo has incredibly, insanely deep pockets. The firm has set aside a vast war chest over the course of its successful years, and it can easily ride out even the complete failure of a console platform, supporting that platform sufficiently to satisfy consumers while quietly working on a replacement. That's what Satoru Iwata told me Nintendo would do if the Wii failed completely - they'd make something else and try that instead - and I see no reason why that logic would have changed. If anything, the firm's financial position is even stronger now than it was then.
What will Nintendo make? There's a lot of speculation around that, but most of it is evolutionary. A faster, more powerful DS / 3DS style handheld. A Nintendo tablet, capable of handheld gaming and being hooked up to a TV. A full-spec next-gen console built to rival the PS4. All of these are options for the company - the tablet computer one is even an interesting one, combining as it does the handheld market (which Nintendo always dominates) with the home console market (where it's hit and miss). However, they all miss the crucial ingredient which Nintendo actually requires to bring itself back to success - surprise.
"Nintendo needs the element of surprise. It surprised the hell out of everyone with the DS, it surprised everyone with the Wii"

Nintendo needs the element of surprise. It surprised the hell out of everyone with the DS, a daft, stupid idea for a handheld console that everyone expected to be trounced by the much more comprehensible PSP. It surprised everyone with the Wii, a weird, tiny, underpowered system with a controller that looked nothing like we expected - so odd that it led me to rather bluntly ask Iwata what he planned to do if everyone hated it and the system flopped, hence his comment above. The DS is the best-selling console in history (or at least, tied for that honour with the PS2); the Wii trounced the Xbox 360 and PS3 in the last generation of hardware. Nintendo does exceptionally well when it surprises people. It creates a clear gap between itself and the competition and makes "the Nintendo Difference" into more than just a silly slogan. Even those who own a more "mainstream" console end up wanting a Nintendo one too, because it's so interesting and different, while those from outside the core gamer market find themselves intrigued by the very peculiarity and curiosity of the devices and their software.
3DS and Wii U fail the surprise test. They're practically indistinguishable from their predecessors, both in appearance and in branding. 3DS suffered terribly from being mistaken for a new version of the original DS hardware; the Wii U, I suspect, is doing even worse, with many consumers not realising that it's a new console entirely and not a new controller for the Wii. There's been a disastrous failure of communication, branding and marketing, which has compounded the more basic error - assuming that the success of the Wii meant people wanted more of that kind of thing. Nintendo's strength is providing people will surprises, things that look daft to begin with and then turn out to be precisely what we always wanted and never realised. If it's to successfully come back from its present mess, it needs to do so by surprising us, not by following along the dull path analysts would now demand of it.
That, I earnestly hope, is what the company is working hard on in Kyoto right now. I don't want Nintendo to abandon the Wii U, and I don't think that will happen. The installed base is small, but big enough to be worth caring about, and the console still has the makings of a profitable platform, albeit a niche one. However, alongside continued support for the Wii U (and hopefully, a drastic change in marketing and branding), Nintendo is hopefully also working on something else; something more important and simply more Nintendo; its next big surprise.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-but-surprise

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Rare NES cart auction ends at $100k, but winning bidder retracts offer

January 27th, 2014, 21:07 Posted By: wraggster

A rare NES cartridge has 'sold' for nearly $100,000, but the winning bidder has withdrawn the offer.
The cartridge, one of only 90 Nintendo World Championship games in existence, was listed on eBay and received a high number of bids despite the worn condition of its label.
In the past, mint copies of the cartridge have sold for up to $18,000, so when the price went beyond this some began to question the validity of the bids.
When the auction ended at $99,902, the seller contacted the winning bidder, only for them to retract their bid, claiming their two-year-old had made it "by mistake".
"I'm now offering the item to other bidders in the auction to see if any of them are honourable individuals," the seller told Destructoid.
"It may take me a while but that's about all I can do for now. It would be nice if eBay were more seller-friendly, rather than 100% buyer protection focused."
The highest price a NES game has ever sold for at auction is $75,000, for a sealed copy of Family Fitness Stadium Events, which is believed to be one of only two sealed copies that exist.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221357006206

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NES-Nintendo...-/400510582399

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EU eShop update: Own one Wii U indie game, get others for 60% off

January 27th, 2014, 20:58 Posted By: wraggster

Nintendo has detailed this week's European Nintendo eShop update.
The free trial version of Wii Fit U is removed on Thursday and will be replaced by a £29.99 version. Meanwhile, the only new release this week is 3DS game Brilliant Hamsters.
The main highlight, then, is Nintendo's new 'Super Indie Connection Sale', a deal involving five different indie studios.
Any Wii U owner who owns one of the five listed indie games in the sale will be able to buy the other four at 60% off. If you don't own any of the games you can buy one at full price, at which point the others will then be available at the lower price.

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Iwata isn't Nintendo's problem. It's Miyamoto

January 27th, 2014, 18:12 Posted By: wraggster

Satoru Iwata's job is on the line. You can tell that it is, because he's been forced to say that he's hanging on to it. Not long ago, this situation would have been inconceivable. Nintendo's president and CEO since 2002, Iwata turned the drifting company around with the explosive success of the DS and Wii consoles, innovating in touch and motion control, exploring new markets, and outstripping the sales of his megacorp rivals at Microsoft and Sony.Forget smartphones - what Nintendo needs now is something like this.

But now Nintendo is facing a situation even worse than it did in the early 2000s. 3DS is underperforming, Wii U is a flop, the company is predicting its third annual loss in a row and its stock has slumped. Commentators are calling for Iwata's head, pointing to Nintendo's quixotic strategies, tattered third-party relationships and ineffective marketing.But perhaps - to think the unthinkable - there is another famous figurehead at Nintendo who is holding the company back; a man regarded for decades as its most valuable asset. I'm talking about the legendary game designer, the creator of Mario, and general manager of the famed EAD development teams: Shigeru Miyamoto. Lately, he hasn't been doing his job so well.Much of the rhetoric surrounding Nintendo makes the mistake of treating the Kyoto outfit as a platform company, like Sony and Microsoft. It is, of course, but that's only a by-product of Nintendo's true calling. Nintendo is a games company. It has absolutely no vested interest in the console business beyond selling video games - primarily its own video games. It is, really, a developer-publisher, an autonomous premium games label, like Blizzard or Rockstar. It happens to make its own consoles as part of its development process - because, on both a business and a philosophical level, I don't think Nintendo believes you can separate hardware and software. (Which is why it dismisses out of hand the argument that it should develop for other platforms, however compelling.)Or this.

So it's helpful to look at Nintendo's situation not from the perspective of a technology company, but as a maker and publisher of video games. And Shigeru Miyamoto is its game-maker in chief. Nintendo's internal workings are opaque at best, but we know that Miyamoto consults across a very wide range of projects, occasionally gets hands-on as a designer and producer, and alongside his longtime collaborator Takashi Tezuka, holds managerial responsibility for all games development. Anecdotally, the impish, youthful-seeming 61-year-old is an exacting boss with a sharp, analytical mind, firmly held opinions and a quick temper. And he is Nintendo's chief PR asset - the most widely recognised and adored game creator ever, an icon who embodies the company's values and its peerless record as the maker of the best-loved, best-selling video games on the planet.Yet right now, creatively, Nintendo the game developer is in a rut.This is nuts, you might be thinking. Didn't you just give Super Mario 3D World 10/10 and anoint it your game of 2013? What about the incredible... run... of... quality... titles on 3DS over the last 12 months? Nintendo still makes great games!Of course it does. In fact, Nintendo's commitment to quality in its games is so impressive, across so prolific an output, that it all but obscures its creative malaise. Artwork is never less than polished and charming. Design is refined and inventive. Engineering is excellent, too - something the company doesn't often get credit for, since its priorities are different from those at the bleeding edge of games technology, but over on Digital Foundry's YouTube there's which argues that 3D World was one of the best-engineered games of last year. Review scores are buoyant (and I freely admit that we critics, trained so effectively to love Nintendo and judge it by its own high standards - many of us since childhood - are part of this problem).

"Every one of the brilliant games Nintendo released in 2013, it had made before in some form"

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Saving Nintendo's bacon

January 27th, 2014, 18:11 Posted By: wraggster

As we all know, things aren't too rosy at Nintendo Towers at the mo. A point that was well and truly hammered home recently when the company announced that it had reduced its 2013 earnings forecast by £605 million. This mind-boggling shortfall is due to Nintendo's original FY2013 forecast significantly overestimating 3DS and Wii U sales from April '13 to March '14.Before we go any further, I should make it clear that Nintendo is in no great danger of going out of business any time soon. Its prior successes has enabled it to amass an Uncle $crooge level of wealth, to the tune of (depending on who you talk to) around £5.3 bn in cash. But unless it wants to divide that fortune up amongst its investors and go home, something clearly needs to be done to remedy its tenuous situation, and that's what we thought we'd have some fun with in our article entitled “How would you save Nintendo's bacon?”Basically, it's a semi-serious collection of ideas that we think could help Nintendo regain some of the appeal it seems to have lost of late. I'm sure you have ideas of your own, and I'd love to hear them. And if you don't care, why? Nintendo makes great games, but what is it about them - or the hardware they run on - that doesn't appeal to you any more?If I was a betting man, I'd put money on Shadows of Mordor winning the Stabbiest Game of the Year Award. Indeed, I'd place a double on Most Decapitations.

While Nintendo is known for its bright, colourful and cutesy games, I saw the antithesis of that earlier this week in the form of Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor. The thing I hate about doing previews is sometimes you can get fooled by and/or overly excited about a well-crafted demo, and look like a right old chump when the final release is a shambling mockery of the seemingly glorious game you described some months prior. But here I am, ready to look like said chump, because I found it hard to contain my excitement over this slicin', dicin', stabbin', throat-slittin', eye-skewerin', face-melting mashup of Skyrim, Batman and Assassin's Creed. So far, it's looking like a hugely violent, hideously gory Mordor theme park o' fun where you can do things like mind control massive wolves and use them to munch enemies, or enjoy the simple pleasures in life like tossing an orc into a fire and watching him run around while he turns all crispy. What's not to like?Our Bob was a little more cautious in his assessment of the upcoming Thief makeover. While Shadows of Mordor is a face-stabbin' man's action adventure, Thief is more of your thinking man's type, and he pondered that, and how it's going to affect the way the franchise is being rebooted.Bob also had a butcher's at Yoshi's New Island, the long-awaited sequel to an eight-year-old Yoshi game whose name I'll leave you to guess. But I'll give you a clue: it's bereft of the word "New." It looks typically bright and cheery, though if you read the article, you'll get the distinct impression that cheeriness didn't rub off on Bob.One final preview comes in the form of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Kat reckons it's "lovely to look at," but recommends you bring a friend. I'll let her explain why.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...intendos-bacon

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Wii U development negativity is 'needless', claims indie dev

January 26th, 2014, 23:34 Posted By: wraggster

An indie developer has come out to defend the Wii U, claiming that suggestions of difficulty working on it are "needless".
Dakko Dakko's Rhodri Broadbent, who is currently developing platformer/shooter hybrid Scram Kitty And His Buddy On Rails, recently told Official Nintendo Magazine that working on the Wii U is not as troublesome as some developers claim.
"We've found Nintendo to be tremendous to work with, and very supportive of Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails right from the start," he said.
"In recent weeks there has been a bunch of concerned chatter online about out-of-date information and needless negativity around Wii U development. I think it comes down to approach and expectation as to how much fun (or otherwise) a developer will have making games on any platform.
"To me, bringing your game to a Nintendo system should be about taking advantage of the toybox of possibilities they provide you with in terms of the controllers, the two screen setup, Miis, and so on. There's so much to use, learn from, and build on."
He continued: "Some developers quite understandably simply want an easy way to bring their established game over to a new platform. In that case, the more similar the system and the development tools, the happier they'll obviously be.
"Those developers make up an important and sizeable chunk of the industry, but it shouldn't be the dominant one and it shouldn't be the only voice we hear. As both consumer and developer I want unique systems, and games tailored to those systems, playing to strengths and mastering the quirks and charms of the target hardware. If that has to necessarily mean that certain elements won't be the same as they are on another games machine, then so be it. In fact, that's better. Choice is always good."
"What is disappointing to me about the recent online chatter hasn't been the not-at-all surprising revelation that some developers get unhappy that games development isn't always easy on pre-launch hardware. We've all been there at some point.
"What's disappointing to me is that there appear to be so few of the larger publishers interested in making things specific to a platform any more. We'll be much poorer off as gamers if cross-platform homogeny sets the agenda for platform holders. A platform's individuality and its exclusives are what you'll remember in 20 years time. And Nintendo has already ensured that Wii U will be fine with regard to those."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ims-indie-dev/

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Rare NES game sells for nearly $100,000, even rarer one appears online

January 26th, 2014, 23:12 Posted By: wraggster

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Monster Hunter 4G announced, MH4 Ultimate coming west in early 2015

January 26th, 2014, 22:59 Posted By: wraggster

Japan's favorite wildlife activity is getting a followup in Japan - following last year's Monster Hunter 4 for the 3DS, Monster Hunter 4G will plan more hunting excursions on the same device in the fall. Siliconera reports that the news was announced during the Monster Hunter Festa 13 event, the participants of which presumably responded with a gentle golf clap and reserved nods of approval.

Monster Hunter 4 data will transfer over to 4G, so if you've imported last year's entry, you can keep slaying beasts without worry. Unlike Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which reached the 3DS and Wii U and supported multiplayer between the two versions, 4G was only announced for the 3DS. A Western release was not mentioned.

Update: In a video message to fans, producer Ryozo Tsujimoto announced thatMonster Hunter 4G will receive an early 2015 Western release called Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. Tsujimoto confirmed that 4 Ultimate will support online play in addition to local play.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/26/mo...fall-in-japan/

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Level-5 registers US trademark for 3DS game 'Yo-kai Watch'

January 26th, 2014, 22:57 Posted By: wraggster

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Wii U version of Watch Dogs has been cancelled - report

January 26th, 2014, 00:55 Posted By: wraggster

A European retailer is cancelling pre-orders for the Wii U version of Watch Dogs.
Wiitalia reports that the Italian arm of GameStop has informed customers who have pre-ordered the SKU that it will no longer be released.
The site says that specifically GameStop is telling customers that Ubisoft “has scrapped this version”.
It remains entirely possible that something may have been lost in translation, however, and perhaps the retailer is simply no longer carrying the SKU. It will remain a guessing game until Ubisoft confirms something one way or the other.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/wii-u...report/0127164

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Another opinion piece telling Nintendo what it should do

January 26th, 2014, 00:55 Posted By: wraggster

A slew of analytical features and opinion pieces sprung up in the wake of Nintendo’s worrying profit warning last week.
Editors, analysts and journalists the world over seemed to know exactly what the company should do, or shouldn’t have done in the first place (always easy to say in retrospect, isn’t it?)
There’s no disputing the fact that Wii U is in crisis, but Nintendo is unlikely to listen to any of these articles, and perhaps they shouldn't.
It’s true that if Iwata and his team had listened to the media about Wii U in the first place (it’s too expensive, confusing, not enough games, underpowered) then they might have avoided the situation they find themselves in now. But likewise, if they paid attention to the media then they probably wouldn’t have launched the Wii in the first place, or even the DS for that matter.
Nintendo is a company that moves to its own beat and takes creative gambles with its products – which don’t always come off. It is a company that has a CEO that stars in unboxing videos and reportedly designs Kirby characters in his spare time. It would be a crippling shame if they started to behave more like the corporate giants of the US and Europe.
The last thing Nintendo should do is what is expected of it.
Upon saying that, it certainly needs to do something, particularly when it comes to Wii U. Whether that’s cut the price and ramp up game production (a risky strategy when trying to return to profitability), scrap it and start again (an even riskier strategy) or perhaps become a third-party publisher (riskier still).
Yet if there’s one positive Nintendo can take out of 2013, it’s with its software. Zelda (3DS and Wii U), Mario 3D world, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Fire Emblem Awakening, Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Pikmin 3 were all amongst last year’s highest rated titles amongst critics. Nintendo may have lost the magic touch with launching big consoles, but it still knows how to make a fantastic game.
And you’d hope that it’s that last factor that will prove crucial in turning the good ship Nintendo round.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/anoth...uld-do/0127167

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Mutant Mudds developer Renegade Kid reveals Moon Chronicles for 3DS

January 25th, 2014, 23:56 Posted By: wraggster

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