Eligible Club Nintendo members should be on the lookout for their Platinum rewards. Nintendo finally started to ship out the items today. Presumably the Gold rewards should be on their way out as well.

Reggie: Sony/Microsoft need to react to us

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 0 comments

Amid talk that the Wii U may not be a next-generation console due to specs that are in many ways comparable to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told CNET that it is Sony and Microsoft’s responsibility “to react to what we’re doing in the marketplace and figure out what their innovation will be.”

“In the end, our competitors need to react to what we’re doing in the marketplace and need to figure out what their innovation will be. It’s likely that faster processors and pretty pictures won’t be enough to motivate consumers. They need to react to what we’ve done and we need to continue innovating with the Wii U and we will.”

In the past – and especially as of late – some have said that the Wii U could become irrelevant or at the very least find itself in a position comparable to Wii if the machine’s capabilities aren’t up to par with the PS3 and Xbox 360 successors.

But for Reggie, he doesn’t believe releasing the Wii U is a way to catch up with current-gen consoles:

“We don’t believe so. For us, launching new systems is about bringing new consumer experiences to the marketplace and we’re doing that with Nintendo land and third-party publishers are doing it with games like ZombiU. For us, now is the right time to launch new hardware.”

Reggie wrapped up by saying that “consumer response [to the Wii U] has been very positive,” and the console’s performance thus far is “quite comparable” to the Wii. He also made sure to mention that he sees Wii U as “a living, breathing” product that will improve over the years.

Source

ThruSpace available on Club Nintendo as downloadable reward

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii | 0 comments

A new downloadable reward is available on Club Nintendo.

Art Style: Rotozoa has been swapped out for ThruSpace. The game is available for 150 coins.

You can order ThruSpace here. It’s available as a WiiWare download until December 9.

Gold nunchuck back in stock at Club Nintendo

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

The gold nunchuck is back in stock at Club Nintendo, folks! Grab it while you can – I can’t see this being on the site for too long.

You can view the order page here.

Miyamoto on what dominates his time and third-parties on Wii U, plus a story about being locked in a bathroom

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

Despite being a developer at heart, Shigeru Miyamoto doesn’t spent most of his time making games. He reads and writes a whole lot of emails and makes phone calls instead.

“Actually, most of my working time is occupied by reading email, making phone calls and returning comments by email… I’m always trying to remind myself that even though something can be done digitally, I need to have face-to-face contact with others.”

Going in a completely different direction, we have a few words from Miyamoto regarding third-party support. Here’s what he had to say about that topic:

“It’s a matter of how seriously they commit themselves. Our mission is to approach developers, and if they’re willing to commit to experiences only available on Nintendo hardware, we are more willing to help. Each developer has his or her own ideas and we really encourage the differences.”

And this post wouldn’t be complete without a bit of a strange story from Miyamoto’s trip to Spain.

Miyamoto ended up getting stuck in a bathroom following a door lock malfunction. He was about to meet two members of the royal family, so to guarantee his prompt arrival, the door was hacked down with a crowbar and he was escorted away by police.

Source

Dark Horse to release Zelda: Hyrule Historia Limited Collector’s Edition

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Dark Horse Comics is planning a “Limited Collector’s Edition” version of The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia. It includes a special hardcover and gold-gilded pages not included with the normal release.

According to the Amazing product listing:

“The limited edition of Hyrule Historia looks like it could have been pulled off the shelf of one of the sages in Hyrule. The faux-leather hardcover bears the symbol of the Gate of Time, debossed, on the cover, and gold gilded pages. The limited collector’s edition of The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia is perfect for the hardcore The Legend of Zelda™ fan!”

Currently, Amazon is offering The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia Limited Collector’s Edition for $45.73. It’s normally priced at $69.99.

Orders will ship on February 12 – two weeks after the normal release. It also seems as though the Collector’s Edition contains eight fewer pages.

You can view the product listing here.

Via

Ubisoft CEO wants shorter console transition times

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

This past console cycle has been abnormally long. For Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot, he hopes the transition for the next round of systems will be shorter.

“I think that what has happened is the transition has been very long. You know, in the industry, we were used to changing machines every five years. This time we are in the seventh year of the 360. We need new consoles and at the end of the cycle generally the market goes down because there are less new IPs, new properties, so that damaged the industry a little bit. I hope next time they will come more often.”

Specifically, Guillemot said, many publishers and developers use the transition to a new console as an opportunity to “reinvent” themselves.

Guillemot believes new consoles bring about innovation. He also fessl that it leads to more risk and new IPs.

“Transitions are the best times, are the best ways, to make all of our creators take more risks and do different things. When a console is out for a long time … you don’t take as much risks on totally new IPs because even if they are good, they don’t sell as well. Everybody who is taking risks and innovating is welcome because there are lots of hardcore gamers and those guys want new things, where the mass market will be more interested in having the same experience and doesn’t want to take as much risks because it’s not aware as much of what is going to change its experience. So, the beginning of the machines is always a good time for innovation.”

Source

Former Free Radical staffers on what happened to TimeSplitters 4, lack of publisher interest

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

TimeSplitters 4 was officially revealed in 2007. A year later, developer Free Radical Design went into administration.

Speaking with GamesTM (#128), former employee Steve Ellis told the magazine that the game “was in the very early stages of development” at the time. Unfortunately, publishers weren’t too interested in the project.

“TimeSplitters 4 was in the very early stages of development when Free Radical went into administration. A small playable demo was shown to several publishers, but it didn’t attract any publishing deals.”

Another former staffer and current Crytek UK managing director, Karl Hilton, also spoke with the magazine regarding the lack of interest for TimeSplitters 4. At the time, publishers had been skeptical due to the reception of Haze and concerns about how the title will be sold.

Hilton said publishers relayed the message “that you can’t market a game that is based around a diverse set of characters and environments – you need a clear and easily communicated marketing message, and TimeSplitters doesn’t have one.”

“We pitched it to a lot of publishers, and from each of them we got the same two responses. Firstly, they would ask what happened with Haze. We were the company that made a series of high-rated shooters and then we had released Haze, which wasn’t as well received. This worried them. Secondly, their marketing person would say something alone the lines of, ‘I don’t know how to sell this.’ The unanimous opinion among all publishers that we pitched TimeSplitters 4 to is that you can’t market a game that is based around a diverse set of characters and environments – you need a clear and easily communicated marketing message, and TimeSplitters doesn’t have one. Perhaps they are all right. Perhaps this is why the previous games in the series achieved much more critical success than commercial success. For these reasons, one by one they all declined to sign the project.”

Thanks to joclo for the tip.

Eurocom restructuring, lots of employees let go

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Eurocom, the developer of Dead Space: Extraction and the most-recent 007 games, has significantly reduced the size of its team. Over 200 staffers had been employed by the company, but only 50 will remain.

The company said in a statement:

“Eurocom are undertaking a restructuring which I regret to say has meant we’ve made the majority of our workforce redundant today. This includes many very experienced, talented and highly skilled employees, and we’d like to thank them all for your hard work and efforts. We’ve fought to try and save as many jobs as possible, but the steep decline in demand for console games, culminating in a number of console projects falling through in the last week, left us with no option. Eurocom has retained a core staff of just under 50 employees and will be focusing mainly on mobile opportunities moving forward.”

ThisIsDerbyshire.co.uk writes that Eurocom is suffering from cash-flow problems. The site says the studio is working hard to preserve the final 42 jobs.

Source 1, Source 2