General Nintendo

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

A new Okami announcement of sorts is coming next week. On Twitter, the official Japanese Okami Twitter account writes:

“Hello, this is Okami news. Sorry I’ve been kind of out of touch lately, but I have the feeling we’ll be able to drop a fresh announcement like WHAM! around the beginning of Golden Week, so please look forward to it. Right now we’re on track with preparations.”

Famitsu has a tease of its own in its latest issue which states:

“The new game to bring fans tears of happiness finally comes to life! A must-see!”

Could the two teases be connected…?

Source

Posted on 11 years ago by Patrick(@Patricklous) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 1 Comment

Amongst the sales numbers and fancy infographics, Nintendo’s recent board of directors meeting also resulted in a number of planned changes to the company’s management. Most notably, the current chairman and CEO of Nintendo of America, Tatsumi Kimishima will be promoted to General Manager of Corporate Analysis and Administration Division and General Manager of the General Affairs Division. With none of the other board members set to assume his former position, President Satoru Iwata will be taking over his roles and responsibilities.

This is all pending shareholder approval and we won’t know for sure until the company’s Annual General Meeting in June.

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

No matter how much it may sell, analysts will still call gloom and doom upon the 3DS. At the end of the day, these people feel that the portable can’t compete with mobile devices.

iOS is often one platform often brought up in 3DS comparisons. Both are portable. Both offer an array of digital content. But whereas tons of games may be available on the App Store, Nintendo of America’s sales VP Scott Moffitt sees the 3DS eShop as an area of higher-quality.

“With software, as with most things, there’s a distinct difference between quantity and quality. The website 148apps.biz recently calculated that there are currently 139,000 different games actively available on the [Apple] app store. One hundred and thirty-nine thousand. Huge number. That number is way too big to wrap your head around, so I try to think about it this way. If I wanted to spend just fifteen minutes sampling each one of those games, I’d be at it non-stop for four years. That’s a ton of caffeine. Obviously there are good games available for mobile platforms. But the point is, the Nintendo 3DS has a record of quality that’s hard to challenge.”

Moffitt added: “Nowhere else in portable gaming is high quality found so frequently.”

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

Nintendo has a lot of Zelda content in the works currently. There’s the Link to the Past follow-up for the 3DS, a remake of The Wind Waker for Wii U, and a brand new title made from the ground-up for Nintendo’s console.

How Nintendo is approaching the development of these projects – and Zelda overall – is rather interesting. Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen discussed the process with Kotaku, commenting that “They kind of shuffle people in and out, so they’ll sort of have their core group, but then they’re bringing new people in and out, so that helps bring in fresh ideas.”

“They kind of shuffle people in and out, so they’ll sort of have their core group, but then they’re bringing new people in and out, so that helps bring in fresh ideas. Each of the different games will have their main lead director, or maybe depending on the game, they may have two…Generally the way that the Zelda team operates is they may have one or two people who carry over or take the lead, but they do a lot of kind of jumping in and out in terms of moving from handheld to console, or vice-versa.”

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Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

I must admit, the documentary looks like it takes itself a little bit too seriously for my taste, at least based on the video above. Still, I think he makes a good point: Zelda has managed to challenge and foster our imaginations more effectively than arguably any other piece of art I’ve ever consumed, and at least in my case, it’s an experience only matched by a few other games– and maybe some books or movies here and there.

Certainly something worth making a documentary about!

Kickstarter via DigitalSpy

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

It has been less than 24 hours since the dust settled on THQ’s latest auction results. Nordic Games, a company that hasn’t been known for game development, picked up the rights to Darksiders, Red Faction, and more.

While speaking with Eurogamer, Nordic Games Group owner and CEO Lars Wingefors admitted that the company won’t be developing Darksiders III, but would be very much interested in working with an outside studio.

Wingefors said:

“We are not a developer. We should not create a sequel. We need to find the best creative team to look into a sequel. We will look into various options to make sequels. In the last 24 hours we have been approached by people who seem to know that product very well. However, if those discussions lead anywhere, I don’t know.”

One studio Nordic could work with is the newly-formed Crytek USA. Crytek founded the subsidiary after THQ was forced to shut down Vigil Games, the developer behind the first two Darksiders.

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

Darksiders has a new home – an unexpected home, but a home nonetheless.

THQ is transferring the IP to Nordic Games, who seems to be interested in continuing the series. A message was posted on the company’s forums asking for feedback with a resulting thread that is already 15 pages long.

Along with fans, two former Darksiders developers offered some advise to Nordic.

First up is former Vigil co-founder Ryan Stefanelli:

As one of the co-founders of Vigil and the lead level designer/principal designer on both games, all I can say is… make it adventurous.

And do what we would’ve done: let people know what happens when those other three comets land on Earth! Four player co-op or bust!

Good luck to you guys. You’ve adopted our baby.

Lead combat designer Ben Cureton also weighed in, and even offered to take the Darksiders IP off of Nordic’s hands:

If you actually ever go forward with the Darksiders franchise, be sure to focus on the things that made DS and DS2 cool. Things like… that feeling of adventure (that Ryan mentioned), the fast-paced combat, the sense of scale, quality voice acting, and don’t forget that Strife and Fury need to be BADASS… whatever you do, don’t forget to crank the BADASS meter up to 11. If you are ever in doubt of what to do… just add more skulls!

Oh yeah… it has to be 4 player. It’s a must!

That being said, if you decide you don’t want to continue making games for the series, let me know. We’d be more than happy to take the IP off your hands. In fact, you can even have all of the money that DS1 and DS2 continue to generate!

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

Earlier today, OFLC updated its database with an entry for “Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom”. Tecmo Koei is listed as developer while Nintendo is listed as the game’s publisher.

Might the OFLC rating be signaling an upcoming VC release? On the Wii U, perhaps? Or maybe the 3DS?

Source, Via

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

In the wake of Nordic Games’ acquisition of Darksiders, Red Faction, and other THQ IPs, the company has sent out an official press release announcing the news.

Nordic Games will gain the rights to over 150 SKUs, making this the biggest acquisition deal in its history. It was confirmed earlier today that Nordic will pay THQ $4.9 million.

Nordic Games isn’t exactly a household name, but in a series of comments, the company revealed that it intends “to cooperate with the original creators or best possible developers in order to work on sequels or additional content for these titles.” Perhaps Darksiders III is a possibility after all…

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

We’ve heard stories of folks getting their 3DSes stolen, calling Nintendo, and getting their systems and games replaced for free. This is a policy that, for Nintendo, is definitely overly-generous as far as replacing the system is concerned, but how about replacing the games? Should Nintendo enact a policy that lets you log into some account and re-download games on a new system if your old one was stolen? I’d say so, but Nintendo seems to think otherwise. A customer service representative for them has said (like we’ve heard in the past) that it is not their policy to replace lost or stolen physical OR virtual games.

Which makes sense as far as physical items go, but since virtual items are priced exactly the same as their physical counterparts… shouldn’t there be some benefit since we can no longer lend the game to a friend or hold a physical box!? I guess one could argue that having the game constantly installed on a system is one benefit, but it sure would be nice to be able to re-download lost games via an online account…

Via Nintendo Life