“The Atlus brand and consumer business will continue” amidst parent company bankruptcy, according to official statements
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, DS, General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments
– Official Statement from Atlus
As a big fan of Atlus’ work myself, this is great news. What will happen to the parent company (and where Atlus may end up after their rough patch) is still up in the air, but with any luck things will maintain their current scheduling at the developer themselves.
Aonuma on decision to remake Wind Waker, going back to buttons on 3DS, Mario 3D Land inspiration, Zelda Wii U, difficulty with multiplayer
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, GameCube, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 2 Comments
Wired’s interview with Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma is up now for viewing, and it contains a lot of interesting nuggets about Nintendo’s classic series.
Aonuma commented on all three current Zelda projects: Wind Waker HD, A Link Between Worlds, and Zelda Wii U. Topics include the decision to remake Wind Waker (there was pushback internally!), the change to full button control on the 3DS with A Link Between Worlds and how Aonuma gained inspiration from Super Mario 3D Land, the difficulty in implementing multiplayer, and more.
Nintendo keeping region locking in place due to parental controls and game ratings
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 7 Comments
For some of its systems, Nintendo decided against implementing a region lock. But now we’re in an era in which all of the Big N’s hardware make use of the functionality. Both the 3DS and Wii U do not allow games to be played outside of their original regions.
Why has Nintendo decided to adopt such an uncompromising stance? According to a statement from Nintendo of America, region locks allow for parental controls and “ensure compliance with regional standards and rating systems.” And no: Nintendo’s region locks aren’t going anywhere.
“Nintendo has no plans to remove region locking from our systems. By taking this approach, Nintendo is able to include parental controls and ensure compliance with regional standards and rating systems.”
NPD puts preparations in place to begin tracking digital sales later this year
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Digital sales are becoming increasingly important to the video games industry. Yet, since its inception, the NPD Group has not typically included any of these figures in its monthly reports.
Plans are now in place to change that. NPD hasn’t set any sort of date, but hopes to begin include digital sales in its reports – which will include global sales as opposed to just US sales as is the case with its retail data – later this year. Market research firm EEDAR is on board to make this possible.
David McQuillan, president of the Games group at NPD, told GamesIndustry:
“We fully realize that the market needs the same level of information for the digital categories as exists for the physical business today: SKU-level POS. The progress on that effort up until recently has been slow and frustrating at times, but today I am very happy to share that the pace of progress has changed recently. NPD has formed a leader panel to track digital POS sales of full game and add-on content downloads. It is an important and critical step toward that goal. Leader panels are often formed as a precursor to a formal launch of a POS tracking service.
“We couldn’t agree more with ESA; full market transparency, including digital is incredibly important to the health of the industry.”
“The NPD games leader panel is currently comprised of nine leading games publishers. The initial focus will be on full-game downloads and downloadable content for consoles, PCs and portables. We aren’t at liberty to say who is participating at this time, since we are in the beta (proof of concept) stage.”
“The plan is to have digital POS sales integrated into our US new physical POS retail sales data to enable more efficient analysis for our clients. The timing of when that will happen has not been finalized.”
Ubisoft says the Wii U pioneered a tablet interface on consoles, but they’re focusing on the PS4 and XBO for second-screen experiences going forward
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 5 Comments
– Ubisoft managing director Nicolas Rioux
The irony of the situation notwithstanding, it would be pretty unfortunate to see Ubisoft’s next gen games skip the Wii U, but perhaps even more troubling (politically) to see the games hit the platform but skip out on the tablet-integration interface. Given that the Wii U is the only console that actually ships with such a device installed, common sense would dictate that it’d be easiest to develop such extra features for. Unfortunately, the case is such that making an iPad app means you’ve covered the PS4 and XBO in one swipe, whereas developing something separate for the Wii U Gamepad requires additional resources.
Such has been the situation with Nintendo consoles for a while now– their unique architecture is designed the help Nintendo stay in the game, but it’s a bit of a turn off for third parties.
Video: Reggie says processing power doesn’t matter, games are most-important, more
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos, Wii U | 12 Comments
Capcom won’t be at Gamescom 2013
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Capcom will not be at this year’s Gamescom, according to an official statement from the company. A representative put it succinctly: “We’re not attending gamescom this year.”
You may remember that Capcom did attend Gamescom last year. In fact, the company held a press conference so that it could highlight its slate of games.
Club Nintendo Elite rewards news coming soon
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments
A new Club Nintendo year was ushered in today. That means rewards will soon be revealed for members who reached Gold/Platinum status.
Just when will we be hearing news regarding this year’s prizes? Very shortly, apparently. An image posted to the main Club Nintendo page mentions, “Thank you to our Elite members. Gifts are coming soon.”
Nintendo has typically sent out Gold/Platinum rewards at the end of the year. I imagine that will be the case once again this year.
Club Nintendo Japan adds stylus pen set
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment
A new reward has landed on the Japanese Club Nintendo site today. For 180 points, users can receive a special stylus pen set for use on the 3DS or Wii U GamePad. Each order comes with two white/black pen variations.
Iwata’s investor approval rating dips to 77.26 percent
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
Satoru Iwata’s investor approval rating has taken a fairly sizable hit.
Last year, Iwata’s rating stood at 90.60 percent. It has now fallen to 77.26 percent – a little more than a 13 percent dip.
Iwata is the only Nintendo executive with an approval rating less than 90 percent. In the past, it has been as high as 96 percent.
