IA Labs Loses Patent Portfolio to Nintendo after Nintendo Wins Patent Lawsuit
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments
Way back in April 2010, IA Labs sued Nintendo for patent infringement. The lawsuit never progressed as in February 2012, Nintendo put on a strong defense and obtained judgment in its favor.
IA Labs attempted to follow up with an appeal. However, in June 2013, the appeals court confirmed Nintendo’s win and was required to pay the company’s additional costs incurred in defending the appeal.
IA Labs did not end up paying the amount as ordered. As a result, a sheriff’s sale was conducted to sell IA Labs’ remaining assets. Nintendo was able to, in the process, acquire IA Labs’ entire patent portfolio at that sale as partial repayment for litigation costs.
You can find Nintendo’s full announcement concerning today’s news below.
More: IA Labs
Next Level says it’s “doing only Nintendo products now”
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 6 Comments
Over the past few years, Nintendo fans have seen Next Level Games’ work in a number of prominent titles. The studio has produced Super Mario Strikers, Mario Strikers Charged, Punch-Out!!, and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon within the last decade.
Next Level hasn’t always worked exclusively on Nintendo products, however. The team has previously churned out titles like Spider-Man: Friend or Foe and Ghost Recon on Wii.
But things have changed. Next Level doesn’t intend to work on games for companies besides Nintendo – at least for the foreseeable future – with co-founder Jason Carr telling Gamasutra: “We are doing only Nintendo products now.”
Carr also spoke with the site about Next Level’s relationship with Nintendo:
More: Jason Carr, Next Level Games, top
Spike Chunsoft planning some exciting announcements for 2014
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Spike Chunsoft’s Yuichiro Saito was among the developers 4Gamer spoke to for its New Year’s feature. One of Saito’s more recent works was Conception II.
Speaking on the topic of 2014, Saito stated that Spike Chunsoft will continue to work hard to get games out there, because it is in them. If you pay attention in 2014, there will be some exciting announcements, he added.
More: Japan, Spike Chunsoft, Yuichiro Saito
Club Nintendo readds Donkey Kong poster set
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 4 Comments
Update: Clarification. This reward originally appeared in 2011, but has been unavailable for a significant period of time.
Original:
Club Nintendo has added a new selection of posters. For 400 coins, members can obtain a set of three featuring Donkey Kong. You can place an order right here.
More: Club Nintendo, Donkey Kong
Miiverse hilarity: “Allan & Nicole: A Miiverse Romantic Drama in One Act”
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Random, Videos | 8 Comments
This is a bit silly, but you have to watch it. It’s pretty hilarious, I have to admit!
More: Miiverse
Nintendo currently valued as a bigger company than Sony
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 13 Comments
Indications from the business markets point to Nintendo holding a higher market value than all of Sony combined. Whereas Sony’s market capitalization stands at $17.7 billion, the total value of all Nintendo shares come in at $18.4 billion.
Nintendo’s performance can be attributed to the 3DS’ success and announcement concerning China’s consoles ban removal. Investors are also banking on Nintendo making changes to its business model.
As for Sony, despite its strong PlayStation business, the company’s movies, music, and laptop divisions haven’t been up to par.
Thanks to Tim for the tip.
More: top
Two Tribes announces a reboot for the company
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Toki Tori 2 developer Two Tribes announced a reboot for the company today.
Below are the clear-cut facts, as presented on the studio’s official blog:
- The old Two Tribes B.V., who employed the developers, is now gone.
- Its parent company, Two Tribes Publishing B.V., that owns and publishes all our games and handles all contracts, remains unaffected.
- A new daughter company has been formed and it will handle the development of future titles.
- The original founders Martijn Reuvers and Collin van Ginkel aren’t going anywhere.
Two Tribes says that “nothing much will change” for the general public. Behind the scenes though, there’s a lot that won’t be staying the same.
Two Tribes wrote:
We’ve got a ton of hindsight to work with and we’re going to be applying the lessons we learned to the new Two Tribes. Behind the scenes things will change quite a bit. We’ve decided to move away from creating custom technology and focus on what’s readily available. As a result we’ll be working with a much smaller team on our next game, a 2D side scrolling shooter, which will be re-using the existing Toki Tori 2+ engine.
Our focus will be on the design of our games, which we plan on making more of in less time than before.
More: indie, Two Tribes
Nintendo stock on the rise
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments
Nintendo stock has risen by 30 percent since October, according to a report from Japanese publication Nikkei. The outlet also confirms that Nintendo increased nearly 1,000 yen (7 percent) compared to yesterday.
Why the rise in stock? That can be attributed to yen depreciation in foreign markets.
If Nintendo’s stock is to increase further, analysts say Nintendo will need to improve Wii U’s sales.
More: stock
Nintendo willing to consider classic approach for other franchises similar to Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 8 Comments
With The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Nintendo took a SNES classic and made it completely new again. Yet even though there’s a lot that’s new in the game – new dungeons, a new item system, and more – it also uses A Link to the Past as a base.
Could A Link Between Worlds set a new standard? What if Nintendo were to return to the core/basic elements of its other franchises and put a new spin on them?
When Game Informer asked Zelda: A Link Between Worlds director Hiromasa Shikata if he believes Nintendo is more interested in revisiting the structure/perspective of classic SNES games such as Metroid or Star Fox, he said:
It’s an honor that people consider the game to be a success. When we make a game we often start by thinking of the basic system and letting that in turn determine a suitable setting. If there’s something fitting for the basic Star Fox and Metroid formula then I think we’ll be able to develop something. On this title, if we hadn’t come up with the idea of going into the walls at the beginning and instead thought of something new which had the player curling up into a ball, we might have ended up with Metroid, not Zelda.
More: Hiromasa Shikata, top
Monolith Soft seeking planners and motion designers
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 8 Comments
Monolith Soft, developer of Xenoblade and the upcoming Wii U title “X”, is on a hiring spree of sorts for its Tokyo studio.
The company’s planner/designer position is marked as “urgent” on an official recruitment page. This is split into game planner, town planner, and battle algorithm planner parts.
The game planner section welcomes those with additional experience of having made a game that requires networking. For town planners, Monolith Soft is particularly interested in those who can write scripts and have programming knowledge while battle algorithm planners require experience in writing enemy AI and putting together scripts.
Monolith Soft is also seeking motion designers – another “urgent” hiring. The position is mainly for those who can work on character motions during event and battle scenes.
