Nintendo completes buyback initiative, obtains shares from Yamauchi family
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments
Nintendo has officially announced the completion of its 11.4 billion yen share buyback. In total, the company acquired 9.5 million shares for 12,025 yen each, representing approximately 7.4 percent of its outstanding stock.
Nintendo’s purchase includes the 10 percent stake previously owned by the Hiroshi Yamauchi family. Yamauchi served as president of Nintendo for over 50 years.
The amount of shares sold by Yamauchi’s heirs is unclear. Moreover, it’s uncertain which member of the family sold stock in the buyback.
More: Hiroshi Yamauchi, top
Sony UK boss: Nintendo decline “could be detrimental to the market”
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
Sony UK boss Fergal Gara, in an interview with Trusted Reviews, made note of how Nintendo declining “could be detrimental to the market”. Gara believes that the company caters well to the younger demographic – something Sony doesn’t focus on in a major way.
He said:
[The decline of Nintendo] could be detrimental to the market, unless people like us raise our game and help tap into the younger consumer group that they serve rather well. That is the challenge to us. We need to bring maybe more family-friendly, more casual experiences into the market. I think there’s a big market segment there that we should take the challenge to engage and I see lots of potential to do that.
Gara went on to mention that the 3DS and 2DS family of systems were collectively the best-selling piece of hardware in the UK last year:
The DS family was the bestselling format last year, despite the stellar sales of the PS4 for the last four or five weeks, it was still the best selling console or console family.
More: Fergal Gara, Sony, top
Watch Dogs trademark abandonment was a fraudulent request
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
Although an application had been filed for the abandonment of one of Ubisoft’s main Watch Dogs trademarks in the US, it turns out the request was fraudulent.
Ubisoft says that it never filed the original inquiry. To follow up on the situation, the company has now filed a petition to the director of the USPTO claiming the initial request was submitted fraudulently. Furthermore, Ubisoft has asked for the Watch Dogs trademark in question to remain untouched.
A statement published by Ubisoft reads:
More: trademark, Ubisoft, Watch Dogs
Update: Not confirmed – Ubisoft says Watch Dogs is still coming to Wii U, trademark abandonment likely not a big deal
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 3 Comments
Update 2: Polygon has modified its story to indicate that it received confirmation from GameStop as opposed to Ubisoft.
Update: As it turns out, we do not have an official statement from Ubisoft. Polygon sources a Reuters article which does not specifically mention the Wii U version’s status.
Original: Despite Ubisoft’s relative silence on the matter, Watch Dogs is indeed still slated for Wii U.
The publisher first reconfirmed its plans to release on Wii U following talk of pre-orders being cancelled at some GameStop locations in Italy and the US. And after the title wasn’t included in Nintendo’s third quarter financial report, Ubisoft said for a second time that the game was set to launch in the first quarter of Ubisoft and Nintendo’s fiscal year. This period kicks off in April.
And as for Ubisoft’s plans to abandon one of Watch Dogs’ trademarks in the US? It doesn’t sound like it’ll be a big deal, especially with Ubisoft confirming that the game is still being polished.
Jed Wakefield, intellectual property litigation specialist at firm Fenwick and West, told Polygon of the trademark situation:
More: top, Ubisoft, Watch Dogs
Even more Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze footage
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
Ubisoft: “Watch_Dogs is still being polished as we speak”
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Ubisoft may have filed an application for the abandonment of its main Watch Dogs trademark in the US, but the game is very much in development.
On Twitter, Ubisoft Montreal confirmed that the project “is still being polished as we speak.”
The tweet reads:
@griffmeister69 @gooner4life_uk I can assure you that Watch_Dogs is still being polished as we speak. cc. @Ubisoft
— Ubisoft Montréal (@UbisoftMTL) February 3, 2014
More: top, Watch Dogs
Wall Street Journal says Disney Infinity will see the release of Marvel and Star Wars figurines
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Disney is working on Marvel and Star Wars figurines for Disney Infinity. A timeframe for their release was not provided.
The Wall Street Journal also claims that Disney’s interactive-media unit will be laying off “several hundred people”. You can find more in The Wall Street Journal’s article here.
More: Disney Infinity, Disney Interactive, Marvel, Star Wars, top
Nintendo of Canada teasing something in the form of… a box
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Random | 9 Comments
Not quite sure what this is about, though I can’t imagine it ending up as something too important. In any case, we’ll be hearing more about what this box is within the next few days. You can check out the video in full here.
Another round of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze videos
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
Development of The ’90s Arcade Racer on Wii U discussed, likely 60FPS at 720p, out in mid-2014
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 5 Comments
Over on its blog, Nicalis provided an update on the Wii U version of The ’90s Arcade Racer.
Bringing the game over “from PC/windows environment to Wii U has been a straight forward process since the project is being built on top of Unity and the team porting Unity to Wii U have obviously been doing a great job,” it was explained.
And regarding the game’s technical aspects:
Without getting into minutia that we’re probably not allowed to share in great detail, some things that worked on PC couldn’t be ported exactly Wii U without having affecting how the game performs on the Nintendo console–and probably other consoles, too. However, we’re very happy with the results. Fidelity, image quality and a smooth framerate are our priorities. Detractors note, Wii U is proving very capable of running the game at 60fps at 720p with 4xMSAA and FXAA resulting in a crystal clear image. It’s simply beautiful.
The lead programmer on ’90s Arcade Racer has been busy working on the game’s AI, among other elements. Ultimately, the goal is to support 30 cars in each race.
The ’90s Arcade Racer doesn’t have a release date at this time, though mid-2014 is currently targeted.