General Nintendo

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

In the latest edition of Nintendo Power, the magazine interviewed George Kamitani, the president of Vanillaware. While there was no mention of the company’s next project in the actual interview, there was a small piece of information in the article, which mentions that their current game is “an unannounced title to be revealed in 2010.” Other than that, there was also a slight mention that the “it will be another 2-D offering,” similar to Vanillaware’s previous works. It’s possible that it may be a Wii title, especially seeing as how their latest title, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, was for Nintendo’s console.

Posted on 15 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

A rating for a brand new game, “Missile Reflect”, has appeared on the COB (Australian ESRB) website which outlines another title from Q-Games to be published by Nintendo. In the past, Q-Games has teamed up with Nintendo to bring games like Art Style: Digidrive to the DSiWare service, but this new outing doesn’t seem to fit the Art Style series based on title alone. Maybe I’ll be wrong, but chances are this will be an entirely new game for either DSiWare or WiiWare.

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii | 6 Comments

“I have an eight-year-old son myself at home, and quite recently he started playing The Phantom Hourglass for DS, because when the software first hit the market he was too young. When he started playing with the boat, I told him: ‘In the next Zelda, you are going to be able to ride on the train.’ He answered: ‘OK, Dad, first boat, and then train? Surely next time, Link is going to fly in the sky … ‘. [Grins] I just don’t know. If many people make many speculations … some of them might be correct. Right now, I have to refrain from commenting on anything.” – Eiji Aonuma

“With this attachment, your minute hand movements are more precisely reflected … You can feel it so naturally and so intuitively. It’s not just an improvement over the movement of Link himself: the realisation of your more minute movements on the screen will expand the entire gameplay. I believe that we will be able to offer some great innovations in the new Legend of Zelda. Of course I have to refrain from giving any details, but we are contemplating altering the way the game progresses in comparison with all the past Legend of Zelda franchises…but I have to stop talking here.” – Eiji Aonuma

Obviously, the big piece of news here is that Eiji Aonuma sort of hints at the possibility of flight being used as a method of transportation in Zelda, through his son’s words. However, I don’t know how much we should read in to it. Aonuma grinned, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see Epona flying in the sky in Zelda Wii or anything…Although, that could be neat. We’ll just have to wait and see. All I know is that I’m really pumped to see what the game looks like.

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Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments

Mario is one of the most recognizable video game character to have been created. However, you may be surprised to know that the mustached man originally had a different name. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the initial plan was to call Mario “Mr. Video,” as he explained in the latest edition of Iwata Asks.

Iwata
So the entire design was a case of form being dictated by function. You can really see that your specialist field, industrial design, is evident in the final result. Then, because he jumped up and down, he became known as “Jumpman”, right?

Miyamoto
Well, I called him “Mr. Video”. My plan was to use the same character in every video game I made.

Iwata
So you had that plan right from the start? Why did you intend to use him in every video game you made?

Miyamoto
Well, I thought the way Hitchcock cropped up in all the films he directed was really cool! (laughs)

Iwata
(laughs)

Miyamoto
Or take manga artists like Osamu Tezuka and Fujio Akatsuka9 who have the same character popping up in a variety of different works. I think I was probably influenced by that at the time.

Iwata
If you were considering using the character in a number of titles, you must have been satisfied with the way Mario had turned out.

Miyamoto
I felt that I had come up with a pretty solid character, which is why I thought: “Right, I’ll keep using him from now on!” That’s why I decided a solid, imposing name like “Mr. Video” would work best. But thinking back, I don’t think I should have gone with that name. Someone at Nintendo of America actually came up with the name Mario. If he had been called “Mr. Video,” he might have disappeared off the face of the earth. (laughs)

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Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

Over the past few days, trailers have been posted online for games that will make their debuts at the Spike Video Game Awards. For instance, a video went up for Tron earlier today. One would think that all of the surprises for the show are already being spoiled, but this isn’t the case. While Spike will continue to make premier announcements as the show approaches, Geoff Keighley promises that there are some surprises being saved for the actual VGAs. Check out what he posted on his official Twitter…

“We have lots of surprises we are saving for the show too.

We have lots more announcements to make! And some big surprises too!”

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Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

This is yet another snippet from the New Super Mario Bros. Wii Iwata Asks interview…

“I think a game has to become just like a trusty tool that people get used to using and always have to hand. Also, it needs to have those elements that people can discover every time and want to tell other people about…It’s important that the other person knows what you’re talking about, and that you’re discovering new things. That way, even if you play for a while and then put the game away, when a friend comes round, you’ll want to dig it out again and play it again. I also think it’s incredibly important that the sensation of playing the game is one you can’t forget and that it gives you something that you can’t get from other games. I suppose you’d call that the atmosphere of the game, or the ‘smell’… I think ‘smell’ is getting close to it.” – Shigeru Miyamoto

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Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments

This is a snippet from the latest Iwata Asks interview regarding New Super Mario Bros. Wii…

First, Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto discussed how it was decided that Mario should wear overalls:

Miyamoto
But when you come to draw the body using the remaining pixels, there’s a limit to what you can do. Furthermore, because we wanted him to run properly, we needed to animate him and we were only able to use three different frames for this. When Mario is running he moves his arms, but in order to make that movement easier to see, I thought it would be best to make his arms and his body different colors. So I wondered whether there was a type of outfit that was like that…

Iwata
And that’s how you came up with overalls! (laughs)

Miyamoto
Right! Overalls were the only option! So that’s how we ended up giving Mario overalls. Fortunately, the game was set on a construction site so we thought we had no other option but to make him a carpenter! (laughs)

Iwata
There’s a sense of inevitability about all of this! (laughs)

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Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments

“Nintendo has become one of those companies that graduates from colleges and good universities really want to work for. Because of that, the competition’s really become so fierce for positions. And that means that a lot of the recent recruits for Nintendo have tended to have the higher degree from the prestigious colleges and universities and whatnot. I often say to Mr Iwata: ‘If I was applying for a job here today, I, with my actual college degree, would probably not have been employed by Nintendo’. I might pick up on [applicants] and try to find out something really different within them which you can’t judge just by a college degree. That’s one of the special little jobs I set myself.” – Shigeru Miyamoto

Could you imagine if Shigeru Miyamoto never had an opportunity to work for Nintendo? I can’t even begin to think of how different the company would be today. Miyamoto has played such a vital role in all of Nintendo’s franchises, and even some of the small titles published by the company.

Source 1, Source 2

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 17 Comments

In the past, Nintendo’s Eiji Aonuma has always discussed The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and has noted that no game has managed to surpass it. Last year, he told Nintendo Power that he will not quit working on the series until he accomplishes that goal. In an interview with Spanish magazine El Mundo, Aonuma once again commented on the challenge of topping the classic N64 classic and said that it will be “quite complicated.”

“Surpassing it is very complicated. In addition, the things of the past pass on to our memories and there they grow bigger. Now if you play Ocarina of Time, you realize that it is not such a good game. There are times when it does not move quickly, the graphics are not as nice as they should be, there are parts that are somewhat confusing…Now, other Zelda games are technically superior. Everything is much faster, much better…But to overcome Ocarina of Time, what is needed is a change comparable to what occurred back then. And that’s something that is quite complicated.”

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 7 Comments

This is from an interview which was originally posted on July 22, but the information is still relevant…

“I was happy to find out that was possible. But games demand many more lines of dialogue despite the fact that the main characters don’t talk, so I couldn’t keep making them. That’s why I felt deep down after making three of them, ‘Well, that was a neat experience.’…Yes, that’s right (no more plans for Earthbound games).” – Shigesato Itoi, Earthbound designer

Thanks to Robert for the news tip!

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