General Nintendo

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 26 Comments

Update: Clarification time! “Nintendo Account” is the new name for accounts. “My Nintendo” is the membership service.

During its financial results briefing, Nintendo touched on its new membership service being created by DeNA. Today, Tatsumi Kimishima revealed the name as “Nintendo Account”.

This information comes from the Wall Street Journal:

Nintendo’s new membership service will be called “Nintendo Account” — it will connect hardware users, as well as PC and smart device users, Mr. Kimishima says.

Kimishima also revealed that the company has plans to use a cloud-based data service to transfer game data between mobile games and console titles.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Mobile, News | 110 Comments

Nintendo is just about to kick off its Second Quarter Financial Results Briefing (and Corporate Management Policy Briefing). The event should begin at roughly 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT – 30 minutes from now.

We’ll be relaying information collected by the Wall Street Journal as well as any other sources that pop up. You can keep track of the updates below.

Live blog

– Beginning now (9:04 PM ET)
– Kimishima, Miyamoto, and more are there
– Kimishima beginning his presentation

– CEO Tatsumi Kimishima says there are more titles–unannounced–coming this year to promote both Wii U and 3DS during the year-end holiday season

– 70% of “Animal Crossing” fans in Japan are women
– Nintendo will be pushing more games to win more women users this Christmas
– “Super Mario Maker” hit 1 million sales in just three weeks
– Mr. Kimishima notes that like “Splatoon”, a single hit game can change the course of hardware sales

– 400,000 Yarn Yoshi amiibo sold
– amiibo shipments worldwide hit 21.1 million at end-September
– This is up from 14.7 million at end-June

– Nintendo can’t keep up with demand for “Animal Crossing” amiibo cards
– Kimishima apologizes, says will start sales of a new round of shipments today
– 8.6 million amiibo cards sold

– Nintendo’s new membership service will be called “Nintendo Account”
– This will connect hardware users, as well as PC and smart device users
– Nintendo to use a cloud-based data service to transfer game data between mobile games and console games
– Launch date of Nintendo’s smartphone games has been delayed
– Launch will be March 2016, not year-end
– Nintendo eyes global launch, depending on the game
– The new smartphone game will be “Miitomo”
– Free-to-play
– Attractive add-ons that people can pay for
– Other games will be pay-to-download
– Miitomo is the first of five smartphone apps that Nintendo plans to release by March 2017
– In the new Miitomo game, users will design their own avatars, or “Miis,” to communicate with other users
– Executive Shinya Takahashi says that Nintendo will find ways to encourage people who are hesitant to talk to share things about themselves
– Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto says DeNA will help operate the smartphone games, while Nintendo will focus on ways to guide users to its hardware
– The five smartphone apps won’t soon comprise half of sales
– Nintendo’s goal is to use smart devices to increase the value of its IP, which will help sales of both software and hardware
– On the reason for the delay of the smartphone app, Mr. Kimishima says, is the need for more lead time to fully promote and explain Miitomo
– The company is busy promoting other titles in the pipeline right now,
– It will start promoting Miitomo after the year-end holiday season
– Says this will have little impact on earnings
– Curious about how the DeNA and Nintendo partnership is going. Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto says DeNA will focus on operation of the games
– Which suggests game design is all Nintendo
– Mr. Miyamoto chimes in on NX
– “We are going to be far more aggressive in using our IP, and not just stop with licensing, as in the past. The first example is Amiibo. We want our IP to better reach more children, and smart devices is just one vehicle.”
– Coy on NX
– Mr. Kimishima: How can we make a completely different kind of game that nobody has ever thought of? It’s the same issue we have always faced.

END

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Rumors | 28 Comments

Retro Studios has worked on three Metroid games and two Donkey Kong Country titles. Could their next project be something entirely original? That’s what the latest speculation is pointing to.

Liam Robertson, who is known for digging up information about cancelled games as well as ones still in production, recently appeared on Gamnesia’s Nintendo podcast with some insight. According to him, Retro Studios tends to have three chances to pitch a project to Nintendo. If the concept isn’t greenlit after this, they’ll be assigned a project that NCL deems more likely to sell well.

Robertson went on to state in the podcast that Retro’s new game is something that they did indeed pitch. Pitches were submitted to Nintendo throughout 2014, one of which was eventually accepted by Nintendo.

Robertson ended with the following about Retro possibly working on an original IP:

“… And you were saying, ‘could it be an original property?’ I think, actually, the time is now for Retro to do an original property. They’ve done two established Nintendo franchises, they’ve done Metroid and Donkey Kong, and I think now is the time to let them take hold of the reins a bit more for themselves and do that. And I think if it is something that they pitched themselves, then that does make it more likely that they pitched something original.”

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 11 Comments

Nintendo is just a few hours away from its latest investor briefing. If you’ve been on the site before, you should probably know what to expect.

Over the past couple of years, these meetings haven’t really been the place for major game announcements. However, we’ll be seeing (or at least hearing about) Nintendo’s mobile title for the first time. The new membership service is also something that could be touched upon. And could we finally hear about Quality of Life again?

In any case, we’ll be covering the event as it happens later today. It should be held at roughly 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT, with the event lasting 90 minutes. I may create a live blog depending on how much coverage it’s getting from those who are attending, but we’ll definitely post any important news regardless.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 9 Comments

Nintendo has sold 21 million amiibo worldwide, according to president and CEO Tatsumi Kimishima. This number indicates that around 10.6 million units were sold since March.

We also have some data specific to France. Journalist Chloé Woitier reports that over 800,000 amiibo have been sold in the territory thus far, including 70,000 cards.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 28 Comments

Earlier today, we heard from Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima that at least one new Nintendo Direct will air before the end of this year. Another tidbit about the company’s plans for the presentations has since been made known.

During Nintendo’s financial results briefing, Kimishima mentioned that Nintendo Direct is currently being remodeled. In 2016, we’ll be seeing the new format. Specific details about what’s in store for Nintendo Direct in the future were not made announced.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 17 Comments

It’s been several months since the last, true Nintendo Direct. But even though there hasn’t been a new presentation in quite some time, we did recently hear that the broadcasts will continue – despite the passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

Nintendo’s Tatsumi Kimishima also provided a brief update about the future of Nintendo Directs during a financial results briefing earlier today. According to the new company president, at least one presentation will be coming this year. That means we should be seeing something within the next couple of months.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

The latest episode of Nintendo’s Japanese show Nyannyan Neko Mario Time has now gone live. We’ve included it below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Nintendo Inquirer managed to get its hands on stock numbers for upcoming amiibo. Given data obtained from New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Milwaukee, it appears that Lottie will be receiving more than double the stock compared to the other Animal Crossing characters. This suggests that Lottie will be a Target exclusive in the United States.

Stock numbers are also in for Mewtwo. It’s expected that there will be around 12 units for smaller stores whereas larger ones will be loaded with 24-48 amiibo.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments

NES designer Masayuki Uemura has offered quite a bit of insight into the console’s controller. Here’s what was shared with USgamer:

“There were, as you can probably imagine, a lot of difficulties we faced in doing things for the first time in building this hardware, but one of the most difficult was, ‘What shape and layout will the controller have?’ This has a touch of coincidence about it, too, but some of those people who had gone to work with Gunpei Yokoi’s team eventually found their way back to our team. So one of the ideas that came up because of that was, ‘Well, we’ve got this Game & Watch multi-screen Donkey Kong that uses the controller format of a plus control pad and buttons.’ So we hooked that up and got it working.”

“At the time, we were prototyping various ideas for the Famicom hardware, as well as controllers. When we took this idea that had been used for controls with the Donkey Kong Game & Watch and got it working on the Famicom prototype with that same style of controls, we immediately knew, ‘OK, this feels right; there’s something good about this.’ That means that there are actually a few people who can claim that they invented the controller for the Famicom!

“I think that the biggest reason that we liked the controls this way was just how good the original Game & Watch Donkey Kong, which was on multi-screen, felt. To expand on that a little further, with this prototype… the multi-screen format of the Donkey Kong Game & Watch means that you have a screen on top and a screen on the bottom, with the controls down below. When we hooked up the prototype, it meant that you were no longer looking down there [at the controls], but up here [at the screen]. Yet we suddenly realized, kind of mysteriously, that you didn’t need to look at the controls while you were playing the game, and it still felt right!

“And up to that point, we had tried a big variety of control styles and they had all had some sort of something that didn’t feel quite right about them, but this was something that no matter who tried it on our team, they could tell right away that this worked. So that’s when I decided to put my foot down and make the call that this is what we would be going with.

“I may have made the decision, but in the end, it’s something that whoever worked on the Game & Watch for Donkey Kong had a hand in, whoever brought the idea to try out the prototype had a hand in it—it was really a team effort.”

“You know, we didn’t patent that technology (crosspad design) at the time. Once it was established, you kind of started to see it pop up everywhere, and now it’s kind of become a standard for controls in games.”

USgamer has much more with Uemura in its piece. You can read up on the full article here.

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