General Nintendo

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment

Capcom has reported its latest financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.

During this period, Monster Hunter 4 was one of the publisher’s highest-performing titles. The 3DS game experienced “explosive popularity” having shifted 4.1 million units. As of now, it’s Capcom’s sixth best-selling game of all time.

Capcom also said that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Dual – Destinies “basically achieved” its target,and DuckTales Remastered saw an “over-performance”.

Capcom’s sales increased by 8.6 percent to ¥102 billion ($1 billion), and profit rose 15.9 percent to ¥3.4 billion ($33.8 million). The company intends to bring out online-centric games for PC and other platforms, including Deep Down.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 6 Comments

Nintendo has published the full outline from its financial results briefing held earlier today, featuring comments from Satoru Iwata. You can find it here. We’ve already picked out quite a few quotes from the briefing (not to mention the comprehensive summary that went up earlier!), but if you want to read up on more lovely comments from Iwata, now you have the chance to do so.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 4 Comments

We now have direct quotes from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata regarding the company’s NFP plans. You can find all of his comments below.

To establish new and growing areas through the active utilization of character IP, it is important for Nintendo to take risks ourselves and come up with interesting ways to use our character IP.
In other words, other than using character IP in Nintendo’s video game software, we need to start a new business that will someday become one of our core activities.

As Nintendo’s first step

We have decided to release character figurines with built-in NFC functionality that are compatible with video games starting from this year-end sales season.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 18 Comments

It’s that time again! Nintendo is once again hosting an investor briefing in Japan having reported its latest financial results just a few hours ago.

We’ll be keeping track of any news that comes through below, courtesy of analyst David Gibson. Expect updates in this post for the next hour or so.

Updates below:

– Iwata saying 3DS hit 43 million
– Helping is next Pokemon, Tomodachi Life in June internationally
– 3DS third-party titles to come include Monster Hunter 4G and Youkai Watch 2 in Japan
– Wii U: want to regain momentum with 2 signature titles in Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros.
– System update in June will speed up start up by 20 seconds
– First smart device app will be available by end of fiscal year
– This is called Mario Kart TV and will enable sharing of game movie and rankings
– In June, Japanese users will be able to use SUICA transport cards for payments on Wii U through NFC
– On IP licensing: nothing to announce today, but Nintendo is looking at a joint agreement
– Limited profit, so Nintendo is looking at non-games usage for licensing
– Will launch figurine business called NFP – NFC featured platform
– Nintendo showed Mario figure across many games being used including saves
– NFP game and figures will be shown at E3
– 3DS will also get IR NFP reader so figures can be used across Wii U and 3DS
– Wii U target of 3.6 million units will need more manufactured than in current inventory
– Nintendo not experiencing a loss from hardware anymore
– More Wii U games at E3
– NFP has been in development since last year
– Nintendo would rather make not just make a figurine, but something that does more
– Nintendo hopes to show related games in development at E3 for the NFC tech
– Iwata saying that for this fiscal year (through 3/15), the goal is to increase profits
– 3/16 fiscal year: not grow dramatically
– 3/17 fiscal year: develop pillar for growth with growth
– Iwata: we are preparing for next generation hardware as always, when will it release? Difficult to declare
– Iwata: not hopeless or at a loss in coming up with something new, but until existing users are satisfied, we cannot release next hardware
– Iwata: for Quality of Life, don’t think too narrowly of Nintendo, we can make fun, healthy services… we know how to get people hooked
– Iwata: developers will move into new building in Kyoto around E3; currently teams are separate so will share more
– Iwata: have established Business Development department with outputs like NFP, entering into new markets, use smart phone platforms etc
– Iwata: for emerging markets, $30-60 game prices are difficult. Need something new, but won’t be this fiscal year, studying China changes
– Iwata: the Wii U forecast of 3.6 million don’t think it is peak, wanted to be more conservative this year

And that’s it!

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 16 Comments

Analyst David Gibson reported on Twitter earlier today that Nintendo spent over $100 million on some sort of “mystery tech acquisition”. The move was made sometime in Q4.

No one seems to be clear as to what the acquisition was about – including Gibson himself.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

The folks over at Nintendo-Online recently examined the amount of employees working at Nintendo EAD Tokyo. You can get an estimated look at how the staff count changed over the years based on how many direct developers are named in the credits of the studio’s games.

– The studio started in 2003 with about 30 employees.
– Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (2004): ~ 30 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario Galaxy (2007): ~ 55-60 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010): ~ 40 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario 3D Land (2011): ~ 50 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario 3D World (2013): nearly 100 EAD Tokyo developers
– Conclusion: The studio grew gradually bigger over time, but in the last two years, its staff nearly doubled.
– This is supported by a Miyamoto interview from June 2013 in which he revealed that he was working with Yoshiaki Koizumi, the studio’s producer, on increasing the staff.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 1 Comment

Update: Nikkei’s article doesn’t actually say anything about being able to watch videos. Apologies for the confusion!

Original: Nintendo has a Mario Kart 8 web app in the works, according to a report from Japanese outlet Nikkei. It’s primarily designed for smartphones and tablets.

With the app, users will be able to watch videos uploaded from Mario Kart 8. You’ll be able to check the status of friends as well.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment

Tecmo Koei sure likes its collaborations. With Nintendo, for instance, the company is working to bring out Hyrule Warriors for Wii U (officially confirmed for a summer launch, by the way).

Tecmo Koei may have another large-scale collaboration in the works. CEO Yoichi Erikawa hinted during a financial results briefing that the project in question will arrive in the latter half of the fiscal year, which takes place between October 2014 and March 2015.

The new collaboration could be pretty much anything, and Erikawa did not share a single detail. However, it seems that the franchise collaboration will be released overseas as well.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

During a recent podcast, the folks over at Mega64 shared some very interesting behind-the-scenes information about the video produced with Nintendo for the company’s E3 2014 plans. We learn that Nintendo reached out just after PAX East, Reggie’s role was initially much smaller, and the original plan was to film at an office site about a block away due to Nintendo’s policy of not allowing anyone to film inside their headquarters.

Believe me, there are plenty of additional bits of well. The entire breakdown of information can be found after the break.

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