Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King devs on the game’s origins
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii Shop Channel | 0 comments
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King was one of the notable titles to have been released on the Wii Shop Channel as a WiiWare download. Siliconera now has an interview with developers Fumi Shiraishi and James Margaris, who discussed the game’s origins. Here’s what the two shared:
Fumi Shiraishi, Co-founder of Dark Roast Entertainment: My Life as a King started with trying to come up with a cool game that would still work within the downloadable size limit. I think we’ve seen RPGs before that had elements of city and hero management, especially Romancing Saga 2, so thinking about how to make the game work came very naturally to everyone. I remember when I pitched the idea to Tsuchida-san, our producer and creator of Arc the Lad and the Front Mission series. He loved the idea right away, saying he had wanted to work on a game like this also.
A side story is that I was sitting next to Kawazu-san, the creator of Romancing Saga 2, during the launch party for My Life as a King… and I didn’t have the guts to tell Kawazu-san that his game was the original inspiration…
Aonuma on how Nintendo makes Zelda dungeons, Majora’s Mask’s melancholy tone, Anju and Kafei quest
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments
Kotaku has gone live with a new interview featuring commentary from Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma. Aonuma touched on how Zelda dungeons are made, and shared more on The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Find a breakdown of the interview below. Also be sure to check out Kotaku’s full feature here.
GameStop claims the GameCube Controller Adapter for Wii U will be back in stock stock
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 6 Comments
If you missed out on the GameCube Controller Adapter for Wii U when it came out last year, then you’ll be pleased to hear about a new update from GameStop. The retailer claims that the adapter will be in stock once again soon. No word on when exactly, but keep your eyes peeled!
The Apprentice Witch and Fluffy Friends trailer and commercial
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Videos | 0 comments
Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Budoten – full, translated scan
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images | 4 Comments
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate – review scores trailer
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Videos | 0 comments
More: Capcom, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
Nintendo’s Damon Baker on why North America doesn’t have the standard New 3DS, engaging with the community
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in New Nintendo 3DS, News | 49 Comments
Damon Baker, Nintendo of America’s senior manager in marketing and licensing, has offered further comments regarding the company’s decision to only release the New 3DS XL in North America. Unlike other territories, the standard model that supports cover plates is not being sold in the states.
Baker told Nintendo Life:
Yeah (laughs). Look, the face plates are super cool, but we’re a different market. And now we have clear differentiation between those three systems. Before, there was a very limited difference between the 3DS and 3DS XL: other than size. It was the same resolution, same functionality… now, there’s the 2DS, 3DS, and New 3DS XL, all of which have their own functionality and features. The different price points give it a clear message for consumers. The core audience… we weren’t going to win with them on that decision. But we had to think about expanding the user base, we had to be able to market it and make it easy to pick up for consumers.
Baker also commented on the topic of community feedback online. Regarding this, and how Nintendo’s social media accounts tend to avoid direct engagement with consumers, he said:
I’m there daily, multiple times a day. You have to go there with an open mind. I’d love to get to a point where we have marketing channels where we can promote direct communication with the community, where people comment on stuff and Nintendo can communicate back. That’s my dream. Right now, PR is driving our social media, we’re not actively engaging the community, or very rarely. People have a fascination with Nintendo and want to be close to it and we feed off that excitement. We need to be more active there.
More: Damon Baker, interview, top
Original Zelda: Majora’s Mask dev team was made up of 40 people
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments
The original team behind The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was rather small. Series producer Eiji Aonuma, speaking with Kotaku, revealed that just 40 people worked on the game. He didn’t say how that number compares to Ocarina of Time, but Aonuma did mention that it’s much smaller than the teams Nintendo has on Zelda games these days.
Inazuma Eleven Go Chrono Stones: Thunderflash/Wildfire screenshots
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Screenshots | 1 Comment
Iwata on Nintendo’s digital business, steady progress being made
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News, Wii U eShop | 13 Comments
Now, I would like to explain the progress in our digital business, which will play a very important role in our efforts to expand our business.
These graphs show the download sales transitions in the recent three financial years.
Our download sales as of the end of the second quarter of this fiscal year were a bit lower than those in the previous fiscal year. Yet, the most recent nine-month download sales showed a year-on-year increase of 17 percent to reach 21.1 billion yen.These are the regional download sales breakdowns for the nine months of this fiscal year and the previous one.
You can see the decrease of the ratio of the Japanese market, where there were some hit titles including “StreetPass Mii Plaza” and “Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball” in the last fiscal year. In contrast, the Americas dramatically increased its proportion, followed by Europe.In the U.S., purchases of digital products in general have been widely accepted by consumers. As a result, the ratio of people who purchase and download digital game software is high. As you can see, when we focus on the Americas and create a chart of the download sales percentage of the total software sales, the ratio of the download sales has been increasing largely in the most recent three fiscal years.
Of course, there are some gift-giving opportunities such as holidays and birthdays when packaged software is preferred over the digital version. Yet, as we have been continuing our various efforts in this field, I hope you can see that Nintendo’s digital business is making steady progress. Specifically, not to mention the increased purchasing at Nintendo eShop on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, our efforts to increase digital purchasing opportunities, such as via online e-commerce sites that we mentioned during the previous Corporate Management Policy Briefing, have been showing results.
