Nintendo celebrates women’s history month
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Random | 64 Comments
This is indeed a real thing Nintendo has been sending out to members of the press. It’s a bit random!
· In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, Princess Zelda was actually a tough and spunky captain of a ragtag group of pirates. Tetra saves Link from Ganondorf’s clutches, and later helps Link defeat Ganondorf for good to save the world.
· Toadette is a recurring Toad character in the Mario series. These days, she’s a plucky treasure-hunter in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, who puts on a brave face to find rare goodies and save Captain Toad from the monstrous and greedy bird, Wingo.
· Bayonetta is a sassy and incredibly stylish witch with pistol-stilettos and a vendetta against the armies of angels and demons that hunt her. She’s a force to be reckoned with, an ally to her best friend and fellow witch Jeanne and doesn’t take flak from anybody.
· Rosalina is an interstellar observer, protector of the Lumas and friend to Mario in Super Mario Galaxy. She is mother to the Lumas, who are little star-like creatures capable of becoming new galaxies!
· Lucina is an unwavering warrior with a strong sense of justice and commitment to her family. Her power, determination and wisdom gained from watching the destruction of her world are priceless strengths as one of Fire Emblem Awakening’s many playable female protagonists.
· Samus Aran shocked the video game world at the end of the original Metroid game by revealing her gender and changing the way we think about video game characters in the process. Video game protagonists need not be male in order to be strong. Samus is a space bounty hunter in an armored suit, outfitted with a powerful blaster on the arm and extreme heat resistance.
· Bombette is a Bob-omb who joins Mario on his quest in the original Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64. As a member of Mario’s diverse team of fighters, she has an explosive fighting style and isn’t afraid to get physical with her body slam and powerful bomb attacks.
Source: Nintendo PR
More: press release
Pokemon Rumble World rated in Australia – new game?
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 9 Comments
An interesting title entered the Australian classification database today. Something known as “Pokemon Rumble World” has been rated, which I don’t believe is a game that already exists.
Unfortunately, the entry doesn’t provide much information, but Ambrella is listed as Pokemon Rumble World’s developer. Ambrella worked on previous entries in the Pokemon Rumble series. There also appears to be online interactivity of some sort.
We’ll keep you updated as we learn more about Pokemon Rumble World.
More: Australia, Pokemon Rumble World, top
DeNA on the need to begin its Nintendo partnership with the right game, Big N’s IP strength, not too late with mobile, more
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 8 Comments
GamesBeat spoke with DeNA West CEO Shintaro Asako following Nintendo and DeNA’s business and capital alliance announcement today. Topics included how talks between the two sides evolved, the need to kick off its partnership with the right game, the strength of Nintendo’s IPs, how it’s not too late for the company to enter the mobile market, and plenty more.
We’ve rounded up Asako’s various comments below. Be sure to check out GamesBeat’s full post here.
More: DeNA, interview, Shintaro Asako, top
Nintendo’s first smartphone games will come out this year
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 67 Comments
It won’t be too long before we see the first product from Nintendo and DeNA’s new partnership. We know that their first smartphone games will be releasing this year, though nothing has been said beyond that. Is there a Nintendo IP you guys would like to see make its debut on smart devices?
Nintendo share value sees big increase thanks to today’s announcements
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments
Most of the time, I’m against posting any sort of news about stocks and share values. The market constantly fluctuates. When something good happens, share value goes down. When something good happens, the value goes up. That’s all there is to it for the most part!
Given today’s announcement regarding Nintendo and DeNA’s partnership (spanning new plans for smart devices and a new NX platform), it should come as no surprise that the Big N’s share value has seen a significant spike. We won’t know how things are going in the Japanese stock market until tomorrow, but there have already been notable increases in NTDOF and NTDOS values in the US market. Both are currently experiencing their highest values over the last year with a 20 percent boost.
Nintendo and DeNA business and capital alliance announcement – full presentation
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 1 Comment
Final comments from Iwata on Nintendo’s alliance with DeNA
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Generally speaking, an alliance is an approach that aims to realize certain objectives by leveraging the strengths of the other party in areas where each company could not easily succeed by itself. In that sense, there is a large significance in these two companies with different strengths working together, and so that we can review this business alliance in the medium to long term, we decided to make the capital alliance as well.
Lastly, allow me to add some final comments to express my aspirations for this alliance.
Many content providers who are succeeding on smart devices are depending on single hit titles. One of my goals here is, now that we are challenging ourselves with this endeavor by making use of Nintendo IP, to produce multiple hit titles at an early stage after we start releasing our software on smart devices.
Also, until now, when we said, “platform,” it meant a specific video game platform. Now that we are going to release games on smart devices and make use of globally widespread PCs and smart devices for our new membership service, we would like to offer more consumers with software that is suited to their tastes. In other words, we are challenging ourselves to redefine what “Nintendo platforms” mean.
With this collaboration with DeNA, a partner with different strengths, we aim to achieve this goal as soon as possible.
DeNA on its relationship with Nintendo
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Some may think the two companies’ corporate cultures don’t really match, but it’s rather the opposite. We have been able to advance the alliance project with compassion and mutual respect for the other company’s strengths. By forming a joint team consisting of Nintendo and DeNA members, I firmly believe we will be able to create major synergies and deliver compelling products with new value to our customers.
Our new business alliance, as Iwata-san discussed earlier, consists of two parts. One is to jointly develop and operate gaming apps that use Nintendo IP, for smart devices. The other is to build together Nintendo’s new online membership service.
In addition to the business alliance, we also formed a capital alliance where both companies own part of each other’s stock. Under the alliance, both companies will share each other’s unique know-how, and this allows for a firm, long-term relationship.
There are a few other reasons why we also entered into a capital alliance. We want to scale our business alliance on a long-term basis rather than short. Additionally, we plan to pursue other opportunities to enhance both companies’ corporate value without limiting our joint efforts just to the new alliance. So please stay tuned to both companies for more news in the future.
Lastly, I want to make a comment as a fan of games. I grew up playing Nintendo games, and I’m already excited that I will soon be able to play Nintendo IP games on smart devices.
At DeNA, we are aware that Nintendo has been the most beloved company in the gaming console space for quite a while. As such, I would like us to be a team that delivers the best games that truly delight our customers.
Thank you.
DeNA on its history, mobile competition, need for strong IP on smart devices
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Hello, I’m Isao Moriyasu, President and CEO of DeNA. Thank you for joining us today despite our sudden invitation.
Please allow me to share background and objectives of our new alliance from DeNA’s perspective.
Ever since DeNA was founded in 1999, we have launched a range of online services. In 2004, we shifted our focus to the mobile arena and accumulated world-class expertise in building and operating mobile services.
DeNA’s expertise lies in, for example, the infrastructure technology that can handle massive amount of traffic. We are also able to manage live operation by analyzing user activities and quickly reflecting the insight to improve our service. We have extensive expertise in developing mobile services that are optimized for small screens and short, in-between time usage. I believe this alliance came together because Nintendo recognized these strengths and capabilities of DeNA.
Since we launched our mobile game platform in 2006, DeNA has owed much of its growth to mobile gaming, which is currently our core business. In the past couple of years in Japan, we have tried to adapt ourselves to the rapid market shift from feature phones to smartphones as well as browsers to native apps. I admit it took longer than we initially expected.
But we created a native app hit last year, and we are certainly gaining strong momentum in the app market.
However, the competition in the mobile game app space has been intensifying. All kinds of new titles are launched every day even though the number of mobile games a user can play in a day is quite limited. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get games noticed. This is happening globally.
In order to get consumers to notice a game and actually take time to play it, a compelling differentiator is needed. The most apparent of all differentiators is, I believe, intellectual property, or IP.
Nintendo probably has the most beloved game IP globally. At DeNA that’s our understanding, and I’m sure many of you see it the same way.
I believe teaming up with Nintendo is the best possible strategy to achieve growth in DeNA’s core business of mobile gaming.
More: DeNA, Isao Moriyasu
Iwata teases new membership service from DeNA
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Switch, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo, together with DeNA, will jointly develop a new membership service which encompasses the existing Nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems, the new hardware system with a brand-new concept, NX, and smart devices and PCs, and Nintendo will be the primary party to operate this new membership service. Unlike the Club Nintendo membership service that Nintendo has been operating, the new membership service will include multiple devices and create a connection between Nintendo and each individual consumer regardless of the device the consumer uses. This membership will form one of the core elements of the new Nintendo platform that I just mentioned.
