Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

Yet another round of Kid Icarus: Uprising AR card packs are available in Japan. Two more rounds can be bought from Nintendo’s online store starting today – volumes 17 and 18. Packs cost 263 yen each.

Source

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 0 comments

Scribblenauts Unlimited has been delayed in Europe, Nintendo has announced. The company said that the game requires “some changes” before launch. Nintendo apologizes “for any inconvenience this may cause and we hope to make further announcements on the European launch of these games very soon.”

Source: Nintendo PR

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Screenshots | 0 comments

Update: Bumped to the front page with art and more screenshots.

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 3DS launch copies will be branded with a “Limited Edition” label. Metal Sonic and his Mod Pack vehicle, an additional Outrun Bay Track, challenges, time trials, and stickers for players’ in-game licence are included. The Limited Edition will be available while supplies last.

Consumers can purchase Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed in North America on February 12. Europe is getting the game on February 8, a few days earlier.

Source

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Videos | 0 comments

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

Some retailers have Fire Emblem: Awakening in stock today, which is technically the game’s release date. Others, however, may not have stock available until later in the week.

A few retailers have indicated that Awakening is seeing shipping issues/delays/errors. Nintendo’s response to the situation is that sellers “receive their shipments on different days” due to “the variables of shipping”:

“Nintendo makes every effort to make sure its games and systems are available at retail stores nationwide on launch day. Sometimes, because of the variables of shipping, different retailers receive their shipments on different days. Fire Emblem Awakening can be purchased right now from the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo 3DS.”

Source

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 0 comments

Nintendo has seen great success with digital releases thus far. In Japan, almost 800,00 copies of Animal Crossing: New Leaf were sold through the 3DS eShop.

Now, even though Nintendo is experiencing positive growth in the digital space, the company has no plans to ditch packaged games. Iwata did, however, acknowledge that there are issues at retail during the company’s latest financial results briefing.

Iwata noted that there are difficulties in forecasting sales. In the end, retailers are typically left with a surplus of stock “which ends up being sold at a huge discount or, in contrast, software shortages could cause lost sales opportunities for retailers.” This unfortunately leads to hesitation on the part of retailers since they are “less willing to accept the inventory risk.”

This shows the digital download sales transitions. For the current fiscal year, we have just finished the third quarter, but the digital sales have already reached 11.1 billion yen so far, and it is certain that in this fiscal year we will see our largest digital download sales. Another peak in digital sales you can see around the center of this graph is when Wii was widespread and Nintendo DSi had just been launched. In spite of the fact that the current installed base of Nintendo 3DS is still much smaller than how popular Wii was back then, we are already seeing the growth in digital download sales mainly for Nintendo 3DS, which, I believe, is an encouraging trend. I have no intention of simply replacing the packaged business with the digital download one, but it is also true that there are several issues with the current packaged software distribution business. For example, before launching a software title, no one can precisely forecast how many units of software will sell in the market. Everyone develops and launches a software title with the hope to make it a smash hit, but when it comes to the actual sales in the market, even the most seasoned marketers cannot forecast the figures accurately. As a result, retailers are often left with surplus stock, which ends up being sold at a huge discount or, in contrast, software shortages could cause lost sales opportunities for retailers. With these kinds of issues becoming increasingly challenging, retailers are less willing to accept the inventory risk. In this situation, even when a developer has created software with high potential to become a smash hit, it is likely to fall short of its real sales potential. Or, even though a quality software title can successfully attract the interest of potential fans, making and shipping just a little more than the actual demand can lead to a big discount in the marketplace and, thus, destroy the game’s brand. We have seen repeated cases of these. When I discussed with Shinji Hatano (Senior Managing Director, General Manager of Marketing Division) the company’s endeavors with the POSA card to expand our digital download sales outlets to retail shops, he stressed that it would provide distributors with a huge opportunity to solve the existing issues. A fairly large volume of “Animal Crossing: New Leaf” for Nintendo 3DS was sold in the form of a POSA card, which is activated only when it goes through POS registers at retailers and therefore the retailers do not have to shoulder the physical inventory risk. The growing sales of the POSA version of this game must have helped retailers see the business opportunity for video games with such a business structure. We therefore expect that our publishers may be interested in selling POSA cards for some titles they are publishing as download-only titles and that they will want to make more games available in POSA card format. Although convenience stores have limited shelf space to spare for a number of video game POSA cards, retailers with more shelf space might expand the areas designated to the video game POSA cards. They might even educate their customers who are not familiar with digital download software. We can expect to see a number of new possibilities. We expect our digital distribution to increase in importance and become an important revenue source.

Source

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

During Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing, an investor told president Satoru Iwata that he believes Animal Crossing: Wild World “was not so well appreciated” in the west in terms of sales. This isn’t so, Iwata said.

Wild World sold at least five million copies overseas. This may not seem like a huge figure compared to Japan’s success, “but there are already some core fans of the Animal Crossing series overseas too.”

Iwata explained:

You mentioned that the reception of “Animal Crossing: Wild World” was not so good overseas. The sales of this game have reached no less than five million copies overseas. There are few companies whose result of selling more than five million copies of a product is considered not up to scratch. It is true that the sales figure overseas, meaning in the U.S. and Europe, is relatively small compared to the fact that the number of sales has surpassed five million copies only in Japan, but there are already some core fans of the Animal Crossing series overseas too. When we announced “Animal Crossing: New Leaf” through our Japanese Nintendo Direct presentation, many consumers worldwide viewed it on the Internet and we received a lot of requests from overseas consumers who wanted to play it as soon as possible. We would like to first promote the attractions of this game to such a core fan base.

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 0 comments

The latest Wii U/3DS-specific UK software sales are as follows:

Wii U

1. New Super Mario Bros. U – Nintendo
2. Nintendo Land – Nintendo
3. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed – SEGA
4. ZombiU – Ubisoft
5. Assassin’s Creed III – Ubisoft
6. Rabbids Land – Ubisoft
7. Sports Connection – Ubisoft
8. Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth – Ubisoft
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Activision Blizzard
10. Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013 – Ubisoft

3DS

1. Paper Mario: Sticker Star – Nintendo
2. New Super Mario Bros. 2 – Nintendo
3. Mario Kart 7 – Nintendo
4. Super Mario 3D Land – Nintendo
5. Angry Birds Trilogy – Activision Blizzard
6. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask – Nintendo
7. Sonic Generations – SEGA
8. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games – SEGA
9. Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion – Disney Interactive
10. Virtue’s Last Reward – Rising Star Games

Source: Chart-Track

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

Japanese publication Dengeki published a new interview with Dragon Quest series producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto and ArtePiazza’s Shintaro Mashima. In it, the two discuss how his ArtePiazza and Square Enix tackled the 3DS remake of Dragon Quest VII.

Read on below to find out what the two had to say:

– Fujimoto always wanted to remake Dragon Quest VII for a handheld
– Dragon Quest VII was originally made right before the digital era
– All development documents were written on paper
– Dragon Quest VII had an insane amount of documents used for development
– All old documents are kept from the previous series
– Dragon Quest VII has its own section because the game has so much
– The Dragon Quest VII 3DS team had to brace the face that they’d be going through each file
– There couldn’t be a much longer wait for a remake of VII since it has already been almost 10 years since the game’s first release
– Waiting any longer could be too late
– When ArtePiazza and Square Enix met up, they would haul about 40 books of documents, consisting of the scenario texts alone
– Almost a year was needed to copy everything from paper to stored data on PC
– While this was taking place, Square Enix and ArtePiazza thought of new remake ideas
– A lot of planning was involved on how to give it a new presentation while keeping the same Dragon Quest feeling to it
– The team was focusing on how to best utilize the 3DS graphics and its features
– Fujimoto actually sat down and played through the PlayStation version of Dragon Quest VII with Yuji Hori, the creator of the Dragon Quest series
– Hori noticed that the game was difficult with its various problem solving aspects and puzzles
– When they made the original version, the idea was to make a “riddle solving adventure” game
– Hori pointed out the change of era during their recent play
– Fujimoto: “Solving some of the puzzles felt very exhilarating at times. Whenever you got stuck in the game, the frustration would build up.”
– With that in mind, they’ve decided to add features such as the stone shard radars
– Overall tempo improved and smoother gameplay
– From the starting point of Estard Island to the number of puzzles and overall difficulty, they’ve revised many things for the upcoming 3DS version
– First fight will be introduced earlier so players can enjoy their adventure while participating in heated battles from start to end
– Originally took around an hour until the first fight
– Leveling pace increased to match other Dragon Quests
– The addition of the visual encounters was meant for that purpose, allowing players to have the choice to fight whenever they want
– The team wants to make it easier to play rather than easier overall
– Better tempo stems from allowing players to have more decision making instead of forcing them to fight or solve puzzles
– Tough enemies will still be tough
– Useful spells including Evac will be available at earlier levels in the game
– Evac: escape from a dungeon
– Exclusive costumes added that visually correspond to each class
– Prior to that, the characters always looked the same regardless of any class changing
– Dragon Quest has been known for having an in game menu window, rather than screen
– For Dragon Quest VII on 3DS, they’ve made it an even better experience to provide smoother game play
– Camera work improved
– Players have two different angles to play from
– Can adjust this at any time

Source 1, Source 2