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December 3rd, 2015, 21:57 Posted By: wraggster
Tatsumi Kimishima has big shoes to fill as the new president of Nintendo, following the unexpected death of Satoru Iwata earlier this year. Kimishima laid out his winding path toward leadership to Time, noting his involvement in the Great Wii Shortages of the mid-2000s and painting himself as a silent puppet master pulling strings across Nintendo for decades. He also laid out bits of his vision for the future, including some insight into Nintendo's mysterious new console, the NX.
"I can assure you we're not building the next version of Wii or Wii U," he told Time. "[NX] is something unique and different. It's something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal."
Nintendo hasn't said much else about the NX, aside from the fact that it definitely doesn't run on Android. A US patent filed in February offers a whisper of detail, mentioning a "stationary game console" that doesn't include a disc drive.
Alongside his company history, Kimishima recalled a moment he shared with Iwata around 2007, when Nintendo was struggling to keep enough DS handhelds and Wiis on shelves in the US. Kimishima apparently worked behind the scenes to organize Nintendo's international businesses and keep US stores stocked for the holidays.
"At one point even Mr. Iwata was saying, you know, he sort of whispered to me, 'Mr. Kimishima, that's impossible, that's not a realistic goal.' And I said 'No, I think it is.' And that's again, saying it and repeating it and getting everyone onboard, that's sort of the style that I adopted," Kimishima said.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/03/n...ii-u-nx-iwata/
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December 3rd, 2015, 22:05 Posted By: wraggster
The Quality of Life aspirations of the late Satoru Iwata remain in development at Nintendo.
That’s the message from Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima, although the exec remained relatively cagey on the subject in what was an otherwise pretty frank interview.
“Mr Iwata had, when he previously talked about the quality of life initiative, I believe he had talked about it being related to sleep and fatigue,” Kimishima told TIME. “And the only information I really have now is to say that the quality of life initiative is still under development, and I have no further information to share.
“It’s just not at the point in development where I feel I can make any announcements at this time.”
Quality of Life was revealed back in January 2014, with the first QOL product outlined in October. Analysts had speculated, however, that the entire strategy was under threat.
Elsewhere in the interview, the platform holder boss also admitted that while Amiibo has been a big sales hit things haven’t quite panned out as the company expected.
“A challenge that we’re facing right now is, our earliest goal for the Amiibo was to have these connected to software and have them enhance the play experience for the consumer and increase that attractiveness of that combination,” he added.
“What we’re seeing instead is that the Amiibo are being picked up more as a collection item at this point, rather than, say, as an interactive item with software. And so we haven’t really established them as an enhancement for all of our software at this point.
“I think again that challenge is, how can we connect that IP to our software in general, and using the Amiibo to further enhance the play activity will allow us to get more people looking at, they see the Amiibo, they tie it back to the game experience, and then we’re creating a stronger connection with general knowledge of our IP and that fun experience they have.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ninte...tended/0159938
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December 3rd, 2015, 22:06 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo’s NX console will not follow the path laid out by either the Wii or the Wii U.
“I’ve said it’s different and obviously a new experience,” Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima told TIME.
“If you look back to the beginning of our conversation today, we talked about the transition from Wii hardware to the Wii U hardware and how difficult it is to explain to the consumer base what is different and new about the new hardware. It’s difficult to convince them to switch from their current platform to the next platform.
“That being said, I can assure you we’re not building the next version of Wii or Wii U. It’s something unique and different. It’s something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base.”
Kimishima also vowed to support existing Wii U owners with ongoing software releases.
“As you know within the game business momentum is key,” he added. “When you have momentum, whether it’s a platform or software, sales increase. At this point in the Wii U lifespan, we’re looking at 10m sell-through for the hardware itself, which is just about a tenth of what we sold overall for Wii.
“What I want to do, I think our first job right now is to make sure that the customers, those 10m customers who have a Wii U at home have software to play. And we need to make sure that they are satisfied with their purchase and continue to enjoy playing on this platform. So we can’t just abandon them.
“Of course we are working on NX and looking at the experiences we can bring to that platform. But first our job at this point is to support the consumers who have purchase Wii U and make sure that they have software experiences available to them.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/nx-is...-wii-u/0159933
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December 7th, 2015, 21:09 Posted By: wraggster
While it might feel like Minecraft is available everywhere, gamers have had to look on as the popular franchise launched on every other company's platforms bar Nintendo's. Today, however, we have some good news: after months, nay years, of waiting, the Japanese game maker confirmed the sandbox game is finally coming to the Wii U on December 17th. As expected, Minecraft will come with a multitude of add-on packs, giving budding builders the chance to get festive ahead of Christmas or play with characters from popular movies and TV shows like Star Wars, The Simpsons and Dr Who.
Mojang is also taking advantage of the Wii U's Off-TV Play feature to let players transfer their worlds over to their GamePad controller and allow other members of the family to commandeer control of the TV. When it launches on the Nintendo eShop in North America next week, Minecraftwill cost $30 -- there's currently no word on how much it'll set back UK and European gamers.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/07/m...december-17th/
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December 7th, 2015, 21:17 Posted By: wraggster
When researchers from ETH Zurich and Disney get together, they tend to conjure up fascinating creations, such as Beachbot -- a turtle-shaped robot that draws in the sand. This time, they've turned Super Mario Bros. into a huge eight-player game for a one-night event at a Swiss night club that happened to have a 360-degree projection system. According to Ars Technica, the team used an Arduino-based multiplexer in order to connect eight controllers to an unsullied Nintendo Entertainment System. Since they wanted a supersized retro gaming experience, they fed the video output to an upscaler, and then to a computer with custom software that can stitch frames into panoramas.
That computer also has a GPU algorithm that can correct distortions in real time, enabling the projectors to beam crisp, clear images on the club's walls. If you're wondering how the game accommodated eight persons, the researchers tweaked it to switch gamepads after a certain amount of time and to transfer control to the next in line once the previous player reaches a particular point.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/03/s...s-multiplayer/
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December 16th, 2015, 22:24 Posted By: wraggster
Pokken Tournament, the Pokémon-infused fighting game hitting the Wii U worldwide in the spring, will get a dedicated controller in Japan, as spotted by Tiny Cartridge. It's wired and doesn't include any analog sticks, instead opting for a directional pad, four action buttons, and "ZL" and "ZR" buttons on its face. Those final two buttons are traditionally placed as "triggers" on the backside of a gamepad.
The controller is meant to mimic the arcade version of Pokken Tournament, according to Pokémon-news website Serebii. It's due to launch in March in Japan -- a puts the Japanese release date for Pokken Tournament on March 18th.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/15/p...-u-controller/
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December 16th, 2015, 22:37 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo has said precious little about its plans for the NX (other than that it won't be like a Wii U), but it might have hinted at what's coming through some recent paperwork. The console maker has filed for a patent on a gamepad design where a touchscreen would cover the entire front panel. You'd still have familiar elements like analog sticks (poking through the display) and shoulder buttons, but the usual front-facing buttons would be replaced by context-aware touch. The move would give you the adaptability of a smartphone interface with the primary controls you're used to in a TV system -- you could even use the controller on its side, or get visual effects when you press buttons. It wouldn't require a gigantic body like the Wii U's gamepad, either, and a card slot could take game data directly.
This is just an application, and there's no certainty that Nintendo will use this design any time soon, if at all. However, as The Verge notes, the would-be patent does line up with rumors that Nintendo will use Sharp's free-form displays in a future product. Theoretically, this could be the technology behind the NX's standard-issue gamepad. Moreover, the Wall Street Journal has heard that the NX would include a "mobile unit" that could be used separately from the main console. Given the presence of that card slot, it's possible that you could play titles solely on the gamepad and take it with you -- who needs separate TV and handheld consoles when your NX is both at the same time? The finished machine could be far less exciting, but it's evident that Nintendo has at least been thinking about non-traditional hardware.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/13/n...amepad-patent/
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December 16th, 2015, 22:42 Posted By: wraggster
Nintendo will host the last "Direct" presentation for Super Smash Bros.(SSB) on December 15th at 5PM ET. As those that follow Directs will know, this is the third presentation dedicated solely to the brawler, alongside frequent SSB announcements through the regular Nintendo Directs. It's been a refreshing year of experimentation and additions from Nintendo; we've seen eight stages and five characters announced as DLC so far, and it's likely the final show will give us a couple more surprises. This slow but steady dripfeed of content wasn't a fresh idea -- games like Call of Dutyhave been doing similar things for years -- but Nintendo's adoption of the technique broke new ground for the company.
Nintendo's released a smattering of paid DLC before, of course, from its early experiments with New Super Mario Bros. 2 up to the large level and character packs for Mario Kart 8. But it's never looked after and engaged with a game's audience in the same way it has with SSB. It's all representative of the company's attempts to rethink its practices and keep pace with the rest of the video game industry.
Over the past couple of years, Nintendo has caught up a lot. It learned fromSkylanders to introduce the wildly popular Amiibo figurines (which arrived with SSB); it agreed to let another company with more experience in online gaming design its version of Xbox Live or PlayStation Network; it released heavily online games in the form of Splatoon and Mario Maker and it introduced free-to-play titles. Nintendo has even embraced the idea of mobile games. And now it's proved it can do DLC and fan engagement with the best of them.
If you're a Nintendo diehard, you probably might not appreciate all of the above achievements. But Nintendo needed to change a little to survive, and it's done all this almost entirely without compromising on its core values. Sure, there have been a couple of missteps with free-to-play --Pokémon Shuffle is just the worst -- and some icky Mercedes-Benz tie-insfor Mario Kart and Mario Maker, but its DLC add-ons have for the most part been just that: add-ons. SSB and Mario Kart 8, for example, are both rich, full games with enough content to make gamers happy from the offset.
Building on what SSB started, Nintendo released the online shooterSplatoon back in May. It's seen fresh game modes and new arenas added even more regularly than SSB. There's even a web portal for gamers to check on their stats. Nintendo's also making good on its promise that Amiibo are a platform, a kind of physical DLC. Activating AI companion fighters in SSB is great, but adding new levels and challenges in Splatoon is even better. Nintendo has said on more than one occasion it will continue to build on the Amiibo conceit with new features.
So as sad as it is to see the end of SSB's update cycle, it's worth applauding Nintendo for doing this well. It certainly took its time to get the ball rolling -- the thought that it would support games with online updates for this long was unthinkable even two years ago. But this hasn't happened by accident, and the company's careful and considered approach is starting to pay dividends. Releasing good DLC and supporting your games properly sounds so simple, but so many get this wrong so often. Nintendo, with its first real attempt, has got it right.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/09/n...h-bros-direct/
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December 16th, 2015, 22:45 Posted By: wraggster
A new ESRB listing indicates a Virtual Console release of the original Super Mario Galaxy is on the way.
VG247 reports the new listing provides the expected E rating, with Wii U listed as its platform.
While Super Mario Galaxy 2 received a Virtual Console release on Wii U outside of Japan, the original release never made it outside of the territory as a digital offering for Nintendo's current-gen console. The game hit shelves worldwide for Wii back in 2007, with the sequel arriving in 2010.
Nintendo has yet to announce anything related to the listing, nor has the company provided any comment on it to this point.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/super...onsole/0160484
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December 16th, 2015, 22:54 Posted By: wraggster
A new US patent from Nintendo seems to suggest that a new system from the company – presumably the NX – can draw on other computing devices for additional processing power.
Patent application 20150343306 describes a system where a unit described as the ‘game console’ can then connect – either via wire, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi – with what are described as ‘supplemental computing devices’ to “increase the speed or quality of a user’s gaming experience”.
What these upgrades are, however, is a little more mysterious. Are they N64 Expansion Pak style console-specific upgrades, or does it mean more general processing units such as PCs?
Furthermore, the patent suggests that users can connect to multiple supplementary devices via either wires, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The implication is that as well as being able to connect to several devices of their own, users can also set up their own hardware to be available to others over the internet.
It even points to a possible reward for those who do this, most likely in the form of some sort of digital credit.
The idea is that a user’s system will connect with all available resources – be they local or further afield – and having tested their connection and latency then assign suitable processing tasks to that system, freeing up resources and increasing overall power.
While such a design would certainly introduce a number of complicating and variable factors into the user experience, it would also potentially allow Nintendo to ship a relatively low-power, and therefore low-cost unit, to gamers with additional power coming from the total user base’s overall pool.
More news on the NX has been promised for 2016.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/paten...adable/0160187
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December 16th, 2015, 23:05 Posted By: wraggster
The Wii U had a tough 2015. Nintendo can boast that it has released some of the most excellent exclusives of the year, yes, but with their next console looming in the horizon, it’s hard not to feel like 2015 was a transitional period.
Let’s go back in time to near the start of 2015. February saw the release of Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, a solid game with a distinct visual style. Nothing ground-breaking, par for the course for a Nintendo console. By now, we all know that Nintendo hardware means playing Nintendo-developed games, be it new iterations of classic franchises, or virtual console re-issues of fan favourites.
The start of the year was anchored almost entirely by Nintendo’s continued support ofSmash Bros. That game may have come out in 2014, but 2015 was the year Nintendo invested heavily in updates. That support, in combination with the ever-growing fighting game scene, made 2015 feel like it was the year of Smash Bros. Smash Bros. broke records in 2015. One of the biggest bombshells of the year was fromSmash Bros.. Some of the most inspirational stories of 2015, eSports-wise, were forSmash Bros. A Wii U game from 2014 became one of the most talked about things in 2015!
The flip-side is that this demonstrates how weak 2015 was for the Wii U: one of its stand-out games wasn’t actually released that year.
The kid-friendly competitive shooter Splatoon also came out in 2015, and it was great. Leave it to Nintendo to find a way to make shooters feel fresh again. While the launch of Splatoon was kind of rocky thanks to a number of bizarre oversights and a lack of content, Nintendo kept updating the game throughout the year with a number of maps, modes, and gear — all of which were free. In 2015, the Wii U felt like an advent calendar for Splatoon owners, especially with the constantly rolling events known as “Splatfest”. While it took Nintendo a while to catch on to the whole games-as-services thing, now it feels like they’re showing everyone how it should be done.
More than anything, though, 2015 felt like the year that Nintendo went overboard with Amiibo. Nearly every game they released this year came packaged with a little plastic figurine or in some way connected to them. It was hard not to get the sense that Nintendo is as interested in selling figurines as they are in developing games. Sometimes, it can even feel like a cynical cash-grab that capitalizes entirely on the cuteness of Nintendo characters. Oh, I shouldn’t talk shit. I bought a bunch of Amiibo in 2015. Nintendo’s ‘Amiibo problem’ only exists because people like me have enabled it.
http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2015/12/11/t...-wii-u-in-2015
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