Nintendo open to free-to-play Animal Crossing
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
Nintendo is open to exploring a free-to-play Animal Crossing game, but it doesn’t sound like there are immediate plans to pursue this route.
Animal Crossing lead designer Katsuya Eguchi told GamesBeat that finding a business model appropriate for a free-to-play entry is imperative. Additionally, they would need “to determine what we’re going to make available from the beginning.”
“I think the main thing that we need to think about before even considering doing something like that is to determine what we’re going to make available from the beginning. I think that’s key in deciding whether we do something like that. If I find a business model that works, however — that works for Nintendo and the end-user — then I can’t say that [free-to-play] is something we wouldn’t consider.”
Eguchi also drew a comparison to the demographic playing Animal Crossing and the audience in Japan who enjoy casual free-to-play smartphone titles.
“When you look at our main audience in Japan, they are definitely that audience that has smartphones. [They are] women in their late teens and early 20s. They are certainly playing free-to-play games on their smartphone.”
Suda51 remains interested in making another No More Heroes
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii | 0 comments
Suda51 created two No More Heroes games for Wii. There hasn’t been many developments in the series since No More Heroes 2 came out a few years ago, but he’s still interested in the series.
When asked about the possibility of No More Heroes 3, Suda51 said:
“Travis [Touchdown] is one of the characters I’m really fond of, that means a lot to me. So if there was the opportunity to create another sequel then yeah, I’m always up to the idea.”
Come on, Suda… you basically promised another No More Heroes for Nintendo’s new console (which we now know is the Wii U) way back in 2009. The fans demand it!
SEGA opens “Project 575” teaser site
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
SEGA launched a teaser site today for something called “Project 575”.
Currently, the page contains a video featuring two female silhouettes engaged in conversation. The two don’t appear to be revealing any significant information about what SEGA is actually teasing, so we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for future updates.
Keep track of the site here.
Peter Molyneux talks Nintendo, says their hardware is starting to get in the way of their success
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Game developer Peter Molyneux took some time with GamesIndustry International the other day all about Nintendo, and he outlined some of the things he feels the company is doing right, as well as some of the things they’re doing wrong.
You know what Nintendo did – this is a fascinating thing – Nintendo created gamers by the software they made. They created millions of gamers with Donkey Kong and Mario – they were the birth of gamers. That exact same thing is happening on this platform today. Millions of new gamers are being created almost every month, and they’re being created with titles not from Nintendo, not from Microsoft, not from Sony, not even necessarily from Activision or EA. They’re being created by companies like Supercell and Rovio. They’re the ones that are bringing and creating new gamers. And now there are millions of people interacting with franchises, which Nintendo won’t even touch, which seems a shame to me because Nintendo are brilliant about bringing people into the industry, and I think their hardware is starting to get in the way of that.
I caveat all of this by saying that they are a factor more intelligent than I am, and they’ve probably got a plan, and you should never underestimate Nintendo. We’ll probably be sitting here in a couple years saying, ‘Oh that’s what they were doing’.”
– Peter Molyneux
I must admit, sometimes I feel the same way as Molyneux! Occasionally it feels like Nintendo is using their hardware in ways that are simply “different” rather than “better”, which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but perhaps their focus could be better shifted to incremental improvements to gaming while bringing in more people with games themselves.
That being said, I think the Wii U is a perfect example of an incremental improvement, rather than something different for the sake of different’s sake. I have a feeling Peter disagrees with me on that point! And he also said that the Wii U is a reaction to Microsoft’s SmartGlass, which is somewhat troubling and shows that perhaps he isn’t paying as close attention to the timeline of the industry as he should be!
Iwata says make games people won’t want to sell, forgetting to talk about games
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
Because of how the Xbox One will be implementing certain policies, the topic of used games has come up often in recent weeks. IGN asked Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata for his thoughts in a recent interview.
For Iwata, the best approach is making a game that people won’t want to sell.
“The best possible countermeasure against people buying used product is making the kind of product that people never want to sell. Taking as an example Mario Kart or Smash Bros., even though you might think, ‘I’ve done enough with this,’ you’ll still have second thoughts. ‘Wait a minute. If one of my friends comes over, I might need this again.’ You’re never going to want to sell these games. That’s something that always occupies our minds. We need to make software that players don’t want to sell.”
“We’re competing with each other in terms of who’s creating the most fun games. Unfortunately, however, as I saw the reports dispatched from E3 this year, they’re pretty much occupied by talk about which machine is more friendly to used games, or which machine is $100 cheaper than the other. I’m sorry that we’re missing the most important discussion – about video games.”
Iwata also said that he never thought about implementing anti-used games measures or “typing down” any Nintendo system with restrictions.
Miyamoto on always-online, more powerful systems, competitor price comparisons, Zelda toon-shading style could return
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Shigeru Miyamoto has weighed in a number of prominent topics, including always-online, the need to make creative games in the wake of more powerful systems, price comparisons of Wii U’s competitors, and the possible return of the toon-shading style introduced with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
Head past the break for Miyamoto’s comments.
Ubisoft made Rayman Legends multiplatform due to concern over potentially poor Wii U sales, no news on Beyond Good & Evil
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Rayman Legends originally started out as a Wii U exclusive. But when the platformer launches later this summer, it will be coming to four different systems.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot explained to GamesBeat that the company was concerned about potentially poor sales on Wii U. Guillemot said, “we didn’t want those creators to wind up in a position where even after making a fantastic game, they didn’t sell well enough.” In order to make additional versions and improve the Wii U version, Ubisoft made the decision to push the game’s release back.
Nintendo’s first free-to-play game is Steel Diver, multiplayer confirmed
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
Nintendo is bringing back the 3DS launch game Steel Diver in the form of a free-to-play game.
Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed the news to IGN, and also revealed that multiplayer will be included. Platforms are unconfirmed at this time, however.
“There is something we’re doing with the Steel Diver idea that I think is going to open things up with that game… It’s going to be very fun. We’re exploring from a perspective of where we can take that from a multiplayer standpoint – it’s going to have this four-player battle mode that I think is going to be very interesting. It’s something that we’re hoping to be able to show relatively soon.”
The new free-to-play Steel Diver game could introduce a membership or micro-transaction type of free – nothing is decided currently. IGN reports that “Miyamoto stressed that his team was focused on balancing how a pricing model would affect the entertainment value of the final product, which ultimately would be available in a packaged form as well.”
Kamiya estimates 20 hours of gameplay for Wonderful 101, would be happy to see Bayonetta in Smash Bros.
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
The Wonderful 101 will not be a short game. Far from it, actually.
Although director Hideki Kamiya and his team at Platinum Games are striving to create a game with a lot of replay value, there is a ton of content waiting for players who only plan on experiencing The Wonderful 101 once. Kamiya estimates 20 hours of gameplay for a “normal play session”.
Miyamoto says is was challenging to move Pikmin 3 from Wii to Wii U, making Pikmin accessible, difficulties with portable Pikmin
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo confirmed Pikmin 3 way back in 2008. The game is finally coming out in a few weeks, several months following the Wii U’s launch.
Shigeru Miyamoto told Polygon recently that he had hoped to bring Pikmin 3 out sooner, but doing so wouldn’t have been so easy. It’s true that the title started off on Wii, but moving it to the Wii U was more difficult than people assume.
“I did want to release it sooner. One of the big challenges was that I think that a lot of people, they hear the name Wii U, and because it shares the Wii name, the assumption is, ‘Oh, it would be very easy to take whatever was on Wii and just move it to Wii U.’ But in fact, the jump in a hardware standpoint, both from the development structure and the chipset within the system, it was such a dramatic change from what we had with Wii that development of the game, we had to recreate it to move it over to Wii U. So that was one of the challenges.”
