Submit a news tip



General Nintendo

Japanese TV show Game Center CX has continued their playthrough of the original Pokemon games, which they previously started You can watch the video, which was uploaded to Nintendo’s Japanese YouTube page below.


Update (8/8): The archive has now been removed. There’s no mention on the page about this, so we don’t have an official explanation as to why it’s been taken down. Nintendo may not have been content with the archive being posted online.


Original (8/2): If you’d like to catch up on some Nintendo Power nostalgia, you may want to visit a new section of the Internet Archives. Over 140 issues are now up on the website, starting with the very first magazine in 1988 up until mid-2001. You can check out the full selection here.

Manabu Daishima, who worked at Square Enix, has passed away at the age of 45. Daishima died in a diving accident off the coast of Japan.

During his time with Square Enix, Daishima worked on Chrono Trigger for the RPG’s field graphics. He’s also been involved with titles such as Romancing SaGa and Final Fantasy.

Source, Via

In North America and Europe, Nintendo has had more and more of an indie presence over the past few years. But in Japan, you don’t really hear too much about what’s happening there.

There’s a reason for that. Until recently, Nintendo was pretty closed off in Japan. That’s starting to change with the introduction of the Nintendo Developer Portal. It’s now easier than ever for indie developers to put their games on Nintendo systems regardless of region.

In a recent issue of Famitsu, the magazine spoke with Nintendo about its indie initivates in Japan during a brief interview. Here’s a translation between the two sides:

Last month, the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition was announced. Nintendo is bringing back its retro system as a mini device in November. 30 NES games are pre-installed, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and many more.

Following the announcement, a French-language radio show hosted an interview with Julie Gagnon. Gagnon is the communications manager at Nintendo of Canada.

Gagnon talked about a few different topics such as who the company is targeting with the NES Classic Edition. Additionally, she appears to have revealed some different display modes, such as pixel perfect.

Head past the break for a translation of the more interesting comments from Gagnon. Huge thanks goes out LuigiBlood for helping us out with this.

Composer and sound designer Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka has worked on a number of Nintendo releases over the years – especially during the early days of gaming. One of his more well-known projects is Metroid, which just happened to have celebrated its 30th anniversary. In honor of the big event, Tanaka shared a special message attached below:

metroid-tanaka-message

Aside from the message, Tanaka also put together a collage using sounds from the original NES game. That can be heard below.


Source

Mario and Sonic have starred alongside each other in various games based on the Olympics over the years. However, that’s not what Yuji Naka – one of Sonic’s creators who has since moved on from SEGA – originally envisioned.

We’ve heard about this a bit in the past, but Naka spoke about the origins of Mario & Sonic in greater length in an interview with Famitsu. When he gave a presentation in front of Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto during the GameCube era, it was for an action game featuring the two characters. Unfortunately, that didn’t lead anywhere, but SEGA obtaining the license for the Olympics eventually led to Mario and Sonic teaming up for a game. Yet to this day, Naka still wants to see the two characters in an action title.

Here’s what Naka had to say about Mario and Sonic co-starring in titles based on the Olympics and the origins of it all:

The Kirby Cafe debuted in Japan yesterday, with the first location opening in Osaka. Plenty of people stopped by and snapped photos of the venue. You can see what the Kirby Cafe looks like in the gallery below.

Source

More:

Back in the day, 4Kids Entertainment played a large role in Pokemon’s distribution outside of Japan. Al Kahn, who was formally CEO of the company, took a business trip to the country when he stumbled upon the franchise. He then pitched the idea of bringing the IP west to Pokemon’s owners (including Nintendo). While that was met with reluctance, Kahn felt it could become a hit and was able to gain the rights to the game and anime outside of Asia when he offered money to get the franchise released overseas.

Pokemon is known as Pocket Monsters in Japan. However, Kahn “didn’t like the name” as it felt similar to other monster games. “I wanted the name to be more Japanese-y,” he told The Washington Post.

This week’s episode of Nintendo Minute has gone live. In today’s video, Kit and Krysta hold a debate argue about which is the better console: the Super Nintendo or original NES. Watch the full episode below.


Manage Cookie Settings