If you haven’t read the last post on the site, you probably aren’t aware that Nintendo Power spoke with Eiji Aonuma. We provided one interesting bit already, but there’s much, more more to read up on.

You can find a ton of information about Zelda: Skyward Sword below. Aonuma discusses Zelda’s harp, Lord Ghirahim (and how he isn’t Vaati), the game’s soundtrack, where it falls in the timeline, and much more.

Aonuma on how development has gone over the past year…

“Skyward Sword, in that year since you last played it, has really come along nicely. We’re at that point where we’re applying polish and really trying to bring along the Japanese version, so it’s in its final stages. Over the last two months or so, [Zelda series Creator] Mr. Miyamoto has been working with me and my group to help put the finishing touches on the game. We want to continue working on it, and refine and polish it even further, so…I intend to be fully involved in that work for awhile. And also, localization is obviously going to be underway soon.

“Additionally, in regards to your question of what’s changed and what sort of things happened in the past year, I think we have succeeded in making a game that uses the Wii MotionPlus to provide some incredibly satisfying sword combat. I feel that was a great success, but once we achieved that, it became a matter of saying, “How many other ways can we enrich gameplay? How can we continue to flesh out gameplay experience?” So a lot of our work has also focused on increasing the variety and richness of the gameplay, especially in this past year.”

The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Concert trailer

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

Nintendo of America reveals The Legend of Zelda concert details, more anniversary news to come

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

NINTENDO CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA WITH SYMPHONY CONCERT
First Concert Will Be Oct. 21 in Los Angeles, Followed by Full Tour in 2012
REDMOND, Wash., July 21, 2011 – Nintendo is celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda™ video game series in style. The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Concert will be held Oct. 21 at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, and will include songs from the iconic series hand-picked by Nintendo composer Koji Kondo and his team. A full concert tour for The Legend of Zelda will launch in 2012. Ticket prices for the Los Angeles concert start at $35 and will be available starting Aug. 1 at http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0B0046F3F2235ED2.
“The Legend of Zelda has few peers in the pantheon of video game giants, and the games and their music have always shared a deep connection,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Through these concerts, fans nationwide will be able to gather and show their love for the quarter century of action, adventure and excitement that The Legend of Zelda games have brought to their lives.”

Nintendo UK launches Metroid hub

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Mario received an anniversary compilation. Zelda is getting concerts, a special Wii MotionPlus accessory, two soundtracks, and three games. Metroid is the last of Nintendo’s “big three” to turn 25 this year, but Nintendo isn’t doing anything special as far as we know.

But, hey! At least there’s a hub site for you to explore over at Nintendo UK. You can access it right here.

Let’s pray that there’s more in store than just this website…

Sonic Anniversary “Through the Ages” video

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

Quite a few video game icons are celebrating significant anniversaries this year. One such character is Sonic, who turns 20 in 2011. To celebrate, SEGA released the video above.

Unlocalized: The Nintendo games we didn’t see (Part 1)

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Features, General Nintendo | 0 comments

There has been a lot of fuss lately about Nintendo —specifically Nintendo of America— slacking off when it comes to localizing Japanese games like Xenoblade and The Last Story. This made a lot of game-centric websites, including IGN, compare Nintendo-published titles that were exclusive to either Europe and America in an attempt to pin the blame on Nintendo of America “dropping the ball.”

That’s all well and good, but what about the games we never got to play in English? What about all the games that neither international branch attempted to translate? That’s why I thought it was worth taking a look at all the weird and wonderful games that never left Japan at all. Obviously there was a ton of stuff that was never translated, but I’ll be limiting it to Nintendo-published games released over the last ten years and leaving out a few unremarkable games (unless you really want to read about virtual Japanese dictionaries). As well as a brief overview of each game, I’ll speculate as to why they were never officially translated and then weigh up how much of a loss it really was that the game was never localized. This will be measured in the only unit that can accurately portray an amount of distaste towards Nintendo of America: Reggies.

Microsoft believes the quality of their first-party titles have been “superior” to Nintendo, Sony offerings

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

This information comes from Xbox CFO Dennis Durkin…

“I would ask you to go and look at some of your data, just to compare first party performance over the course of this lifecycle, because I think our first party performance in terms of quality bars and units per title this shift has been superior to our competition’s.”

Look, I’ll just be honest here. Personally, I wouldn’t say that Microsoft has the best exclusives… this generation at least. I much prefer the offerings on Nintendo’s console and I absolutely love some of Sony’s first-party games. Microsoft has had its fair share of fantastic titles as well, but there aren’t a ton of games that come to mind.

Again, that’s just how I feel! Perhaps you guys would like to weigh in as well.

Source

What is the “Nintendo Difference”?

Posted on 13 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Features, General Nintendo | 2 Comments

It’s a pretty simple question, but for those of us who have been with Nintendo games for years, it can have anywhere from one simple answer to a millions of vague and undefined ones. For me, I find myself more on the latter side of things, which is why I’m coming to you: I’m going to be putting together a massively pro-Nintendo piece of video soon in the feature, and I want it to include not only the opinions of one lone “journalist”, but the thoughts of many Nintendo gamers young and old.

So what is it for you? Is it their focus on things like frame rate and graphical consistency over technical prowess? Is it their attention to little details like easter eggs? Their innocent-yet-deep nature? Or maybe something as simple as “they make their games fun to play inherently– not fun to play because you want to see the next cutscene”?

Whatever it is, I want to know what you all think so I can take them and make a massive list that we can all use the next time someone asks us why the hell Nintendo games are better than anyone else’s. Not to say that there aren’t other great games, but there’s just something about games made by the big N that have a special ring to them, and I think a lot of you agree!

Top 10 Japanese publishers for June ranked by revenue share

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

The information below is based on data taken from May 30 through June 26:

1. Sega: 20.9%
2. Nintendo: 14.8%
3. Level-5: 9.1%
4. Namco Bandai Games: 8.6%
5. Gust: 5.5%
6. Capcom
7. Konami
8. Kadokawa Shoten
9. 5pb.
10. Tecmo Koei

Source

Aonuma wants to make something new, Four Swords DSiWare local multiplayer only, Zelda online talk, more

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii | 0 comments

IndustryGamers has posted a lengthy interview with Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma. Aonuma discusses some interesting topics, such as his involvement for Wii U, his desire to make something other than Zelda, and online gaming for the console (and talk relating to Zelda). Aonuma has also confirmed that Four Swords for DSiWare will not contain online functionality.

Aonuma’s thoughts on Wii U…

“First off… I’ve been involved in it in some capacity since the stage where we started to bring things all together and decide what to make of this new system. We had the idea already that we’re going to have this monitor in the controller. So that was about 2 years ago when I started to be involved in these meetings and we decided how we should further develop the system, and in what direction we wanted to take it.

“The way I was involved in many ways in the project was as the representative for how Zelda will evolve with this new console. That was the perspective I brought to those meetings. Obviously, Zelda is one of those games in which a lot of the gameplay is centered around the idea of items and tools that the player uses in various ways in their environment. And so, so far it’s just been me examining how I’d like to use that new controller on the interface there to allow additional control or easier control over the toolset that’s given to the player as well as how to open up new possibilities.”