General Nintendo

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 0 comments

A strong launch for LEGO®City Undercover: The Chase Begins helped Nintendo 3DS™ maintain its torrid pace in 2013. Through the first four months of the year, Nintendo has already sold more than 2.1 million units of first-party Nintendo 3DS software in the U.S. alone, an increase of 52 percent over the same time period last year. In 2012, it took 30 weeks for Nintendo 3DS to sell 2 million units of first-party software. In 2013, the platform accomplished that same feat in 18 weeks.

With the peak holiday selling season still ahead and a strong lineup of upcoming games that includes Donkey Kong Country™ Returns 3D on May 24, Animal Crossing™: New Leaf on June 9, Mario and Luigi™: Dream Team on Aug. 11, as well as new titles in the Pokémon™, Mario Golf™ and Legend of Zelda™ franchises, Nintendo 3DS is poised to have the strongest year of sales in its history.

Some notable sales numbers* achieved by Nintendo in April include:
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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Ubisoft feels that it isn’t releasing games fast enough. To address this, the company will use its 26 different studios and more than 7,000 developers to output entries in its popular franchises at a faster pace.

During a financial conference call yesterday, CEO Yves Guillemot said:

“We believe that our major production capacity, strong of a network of 26 international studios and over 7,000 developers, now optimized with our lead and associate organization, will allow us to come with an enhanced pipeline of increasingly high quality franchises and new IPs. We will be able to release our franchises more and more regularly, providing solid visibility on our future revenue and profitability streams. All that, combined with the online expertise and know-how that we have been growing steadily internally make us believe that we will benefit disproportionately from the arrival of the new generation and from the continued growth of the online market.”

Ubisoft already releases Assassin’s Creed games on a regular basis. Could we eventually see a time where franchises such as Watch_Dogs each year as well? That’d probably be overkill.

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

Nintendo won’t be holding a major press conference at E3 2013 this year. The company will be holding two smaller events for media and investors/analysts, but neither will likely be live-streamed.

For fans, Nintendo is replacing its conference with a Nintendo Direct. This was pretty much a known fact, but the news was made official today. A new Nintendo Direct will be held “around E3 time” next month to highlight Wii U games “coming this autumn and beyond”. Let’s hope the 3DS gets some love as well!

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, 3DS eShop, General Nintendo, News, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

Nintendo UK will begin its “Nintendo Unleashed Tour” at the 2013 MCM London Comic Con later this month. The expo – taking place between May 24 and May 26 – will house a number of playable demos for the Wii U and 3DS including Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Director’s Cut, Rayman Legends, Game & Wario, and Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

Here’s the full lineup:

Wii U

• Game & Wario
• RESIDENT EVIL REVELATIONS
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Director’s Cut
• Rayman Legends
• Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
• Coaster Crazy Deluxe
• Toki Tori 2
• Cloudberry Kingdom
• The Cave

Nintendo 3DS

• Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf
• Project X Zone
• Mario Kart 7
• Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move
• Super Little Acorns 3D Turbo
• 3D Space Harrier
• Luigi’s Mansion 2
• Cut the Rope

Along with demos, Nintendo staff will provide tips, tricks, and advice. Multiplayer events for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Luigi’s Mansion 2, and Mario Kart 7 will be hosted as well.

Source: Nintendo PR

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Over in Europe, SEGA trademarked something called “Sonic Lost World” for use with video games. Could this be the next entry in the Sonic series?

SEGA has given Sonic a bit of a break over the past couple of years. New games came out annually between 2004 and 2011, but we haven’t seen a major release since Sonic Generations.

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Tom Nook has been around ever since the first Animal Crossing game, but he’s not viewed as players’ favorite character in most instances.

Why is this so? Well, Tom Nook usually has players beginning their adventure by paying off a loan. A fairly significant one. And Nook makes sure to get those bells (the game’s currency) out of you in a somewhat pushy fashion.

At the end of the day, Nook is “very misunderstood”, according to Animal Crossing: New Leaf co-director Aya Kyogoku. Kyogoku said that Nook is “just passionate about his business.”

“We think he is very misunderstood. He’s just passionate about his business. He’s not like a loan shark. He doesn’t add a handling fee or anything like that. He can wait as long as it takes for you to pay back. He’s not as bad as other people might think he is.”

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

There’s been some concern that Nintendo has been cracking down on “Let’s Play” YouTube videos. The main issue? Users are sending in complaints regarding blocked videos.

Nintendo has since issued an official response to the situation. In a statement provided to GameFront, the company explained that some videos may now be accompanied by ads, but other than that, everything should be status quo.

As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips. We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property.

For more information please visit http://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/faq.html

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Ubisoft’s latest financial results are in, but there is one particular excerpt from the report that is of significant interest.

The publisher’s lineup up through April 2014 includes five titles. Ubisoft cited three games: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Watch Dogs. The company also teased “two titles that have not yet been announced, including one new creation.”

That “new creation” term is likely alluding to a new IP of some kind. The other is probably based on an existing franchise.

The latest fiscal year ends on March 31. Both of these unannounced titles should be out by then.

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Precursor Games has been receiving a lot of press as of late for Shadow of the Eternals. But Precursor was established from former members of Silicon Knights. Speaking of which, what are the staffers at Silicon Knights up to these days?

According to chief financial officer Mike Mays, the company is “mostly working on legal issues.” Mays wouldn’t say how many employees are at Silicon Knights, but it is “more than one.”

Mays commented on a few other things as well. Mays first clarified that when employees left Silicon Knights, they had the opportunity to buy art. While Denis Dyack did not make any purchases, other staffers – who are now at Precursor – did. Staffers were also given the option to “take computers”, but hardware was not removed immediately due to legal complications with Epic Games. Moved PCs needed to be fully wiped before they could be transferred out of Silicon Knights.

Finally, Mays told Game Informer that the studio possesses a very small amount of material from Eternal Darkness. That makes sense based on the fact that Nintendo owns the IP.

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Castlevania experienced a major change in 2010. Konami gave the series’ reigns to MercurySteam, who went on to make the 3D action game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – and later, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate.

The game was quite the departure from other Castlevanias. Before its arrival, a trio of major 2D titles were made for the DS and Konami created each release in-house.

According to producer Dave Cox, the change was necessary. Cox told EDGE this month that the franchise “wasn’t going anywhere, sales were dwindling and it was appealing to only a very small hardcore base of fans.” Cox feels that Lords of Shadow allowed the series to survive. Without change, “it’s just going to be like Mega Man.”

“We needed to make a change, so we did. The Castlevania series wasn’t going anywhere, sales were dwindling and it was appealing to only a very small hardcore base of fans. That’s how franchises die. The success of Lords of Shadow proved to everyone that there’s life in the series yet and that people could accept us going in a new direction, and we can do that again. We have to take these risks if Castlevania is to survive, otherwise it’s just going to be like Mega Man.”

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