Frontier lays off staff
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Frontier Developments, known for the LostWinds games and Elite: Dangerous, has confirmed layoffs at the studio. Managing director David Walsh told Eurogamer that “the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects”, which “remain healthy”.
Frontier let go of 14 of its 233 staffers last week. Positions affected include art, animation and audio.
Eurogamer reports that affected staff were informed about the layoffs last Friday at 6 PM. The news hit just eleven days before Christmas.
Walsh said the following in a statement:
“Frontier regretfully has given a total of 14 people (from a staff of 233) notice that their roles are redundant, across art (9), animation (3) and audio (2) disciplines. This is due to the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects – it is not a reflection on the company’s prospects, which remain healthy. Once we took the decision to make the roles redundant, we felt it was better that the affected people knew ASAP so they can plan any further expenditure over the Christmas period accordingly and focus on their search for new roles as soon as possible. We have provided redundancy arrangements in excess of the minimum. We are actively recruiting to shift the balance of skills we have within the company to enable us to deliver the set of projects currently in development.”
Happy holidays from Nintendo
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Nintendo is wishing its fans a happy holiday for the 2012 season. The company has produced an animated card that can be viewed in a number of different languages. It’s heavily influenced by New Super Mario Bros. 2’s launch back in August.
You can view the card here.
Nintendo Power Dec. 2012 scans – Nintendo Power memories, reviews
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, General Nintendo, Images, News, Wii, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 0 comments
Well folks, this is the end of the line. Nintendo Power’s final issue is out that door and has started to reach subscribers. The magazine picks their all-time favorite games and looks back on Nintendo Power’s history. There are reviews of the first wave of Wii U titles as well.
Club Nintendo registration issues being ironed out
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment
Club Nintendo has been experiencing issues as of late. Some members were not receiving coins for filled-out surveys, and issues have been plaguing the site in general.
Nintendo is currently resolving the issue, but assures Club Nintendo users that their coins will not be lost.
Logged-in visitors should be seeing the following message on the site:
“Some customers are currently experiencing issues with registrations and earning Coins for surveys. We are actively working to resolve these issues, and apologize for any inconvenience. Please be assured that we will make sure you receive Coins for any eligible registrations or surveys taken during this time.”
“Zelda Game” pops up on Windows 8 store
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Random | 0 comments
Something called “Zelda Game” has been found on Microsoft’s Windows 8 Marketplace. Believe it or not, developer Joeri Kerkhof is charging consumers $1.49 for the download.
I wonder how long this one will remain on the store. A day? A week? I can’t see it staying up too long.
Capcom looks to improve localization efforts, hire new staffers next year
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Next year, Capcom is hoping to improve its localization efforts. Director and executive corporate officer for Consumer Games Business Katsuhiko Ichii told GamesIndustry that the company wants to break into more territories and have titles translated into 13 to 15 languages.
“We’ve seen a great deal of expansion of markets in emerging countries and regions, such as Russia, Eastern Europe, South Africa, India, and the Middle East. When you combine the size of these new markets, they’re about as large as the markets in major developed nations such as Germany and France. However, to successfully break into these regions, localizing our games is a must. Up until now we’ve only done English voiceovers for game characters, but by next year we’re looking to do voiceovers in languages of 5 to 7 countries, and have the in-game text translated into 13 to 15 languages. This will give us with a major boost in the area of game localization.”
Capcom is also looking to expand its overall pool of developers in 2013. Roughly 100 additional staffers will be brought in starting next month.
“We’re looking at taking on about 100 additional developers next year, with plans to continue strengthening our development structure. Capcom is actively working to create games for the ever-diversifying range of platforms, such as smartphones and tablet devices. That’s why we intend to actively recruit and employ largely new graduates. This will provide us with individuals we can raise up into employees capable of forging Capcom’s future.”
Recent Mass Effect news fabricated
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Recent news regarding the Mass Effect franchise has proven to be inaccurate. BioWare had apparently made statements confirming a late 2014 to early 2015 launch for the next entry in the series, and there had also been talk about future Wii U support.
Now GamerSyndrome – the original source of the interview – has updated its story, all but confirming that the Q&A was fabricated.
“This interview has been removed. The information provided previously by the author of this post was deemed to be obtained from an inaccurate source and NOT an official Bioware or EA interview response. We apologize for the inconvinience.” [sic]
BioWare community manager Tully Ackland added a denial of his own:
“Just want to make it clear as I’ve had a few questions. Any rumours of release dates for our next Mass Effect project are completely false.”
It’s unclear why the interview was published in the first place. Just keep in mind that any updates you’ve read about Mass Effect over the past few days or so is likely untrue.
Famitsu readers reveal what they want for the holidays
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 0 comments
Famitsu readers were asked this week what they would want to get as a holiday gift, and many of the responses (understandably, given Famitsu’s audience) were related to video games:
“For a friend, I’d like to get Borderlands 2. We could play co-op over New Years!” – 18 year-old male high school student
“I think Animal Crossing: New Leaf would be perfect as a gift for a friend who doesn’t play video games very much, since it lets you play casually at your own pace. I want to enjoy the village life together. Plus the characters are so cute!” – 33 year-old female part-time worker
“I want to give the Resident Evil series! Playing together with a romantic partner would be more exciting than watching a horror movie.” – 25 year-old self-employed male
“I think for this season, the Wii U is a no-brainer. It’s just been released and now’s the time when it’ll be the hottest item.” – 25 year-old male company worker
“The Nintendo 3DS is perfect since it has a lot of games with network play. It’d be a lot of fun to play with the person you give it to!” – 16 year-old male high school student
“My husband is a huge fan of the Yakuza series, so I’m sure he’d love it if I gave him Yakuza 5.” – 40 year-old self-employed female.
“I’m giving my girlfriend a PlayStation 3, since she doesn’t have one. Now’s a good time since the price has dropped.” – 36 year-old male company worker
“I’m giving a PlayStation network card to buy downloadable games with. The software lineup has gotten bigger and that way they can choose whatever they want.” – 24 year-old male part-time worker
Sounds like games are the way to go for a lot of folks in Japan! I wonder if the same holds true in the states… probably not!
Sakurai keeping quiet on next Smash Bros., talks Twitter whiners and more
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 1 Comment
Masahiro Sakurai is keeping quiet on the next Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. In a Famitsu column, he told fans that they’ll have to “wait a while longer.” He’s been thinking about cutting down on his tweets “and start putting in a real effort here.” He thinks it’d be best “if I could be forgotten about by gamers for awhile.”
Sakurai also talked about how his tweets tend to result in speculation about the new Smash Bros., talked about Fox’s inclusion in past games, and more.
Read on below for Sakurai’s comments.
Deal of the week: Every North American SNES game for $25,000
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Nintendo, News, Random | 0 comments
If you happen to REALLY like the Super Nintendo and you happen to be REALLY wealthy, you might be interested in purchasing every single game that every came out on the system– including rarities like Demon’s Crest— for $24,999. That’s 721 games.
Joystiq did the math and it comes out to about $35 per game– which could be a lot or could be not a lot, depending on which game you apply it to. Overall it’s not a great deal, but it’s an easy one if you need every SNES game right this second and can’t afford to buy them one at a time for some reason.
The seller’s online name is “Byuu” and he says if he doesn’t get over 20K for them he won’t make a profit, and thus won’t bother selling! Why does he have all of them? Well, he developed a popular SNES emulator and he wanted to make sure every game ran flawlessly on it, so he did the logical thing and purchased all of them! Now he wants to sell them off in order to buy the complete Japanese and European collections, perfect emulators for those, and sell THEM off as well!
All of the games come with their boxes, 605 of them with manuals, and come have duplicate games to sweeten the deal. Sort of.
