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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 2 Comments

EnjoyUp Games brought Funk of Titans to the North American Wii U eShop on May 14. In Europe, the game is slated for release on July 9. Pricing is set at €8.99

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images, News, Screenshots | 2 Comments

Amazon Japan has shared the official boxart for Pro Yakyuu Famista Returns. Check it out above.

We also have the first screenshots from Pro Yakyuu Famista Returns, which are in the gallery below. Access the official site here.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News, Wii U eShop | 17 Comments

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata opened up on the company’s handling of the Virtual Console during the latest shareholders meeting.

Iwata explained that creating Virtual Console titles “require detailed manual work, such as testing if the software runs smoothly on each platform, or making sure the content is appropriate under the various standards currently in place.” Although some fans say that Nintendo tends to release classic games slowly, it’s difficult to speed up the process since doing so would take up resources for brand new titles.

Nintendo is “currently researching how we can efficiently develop Virtual Console titles with limited human resources.” Iwata also pointed to one big issue, which is “how to resolve the situation in which we can only release a few Virtual Console titles at a time when we release new platforms.”

Read on below to check out everything Iwata stated about the Virtual Console.

Regarding your question on the scale of Virtual Console title sales, the download sales as a whole for this (75th) fiscal year are 31.3 billion yen, and I have shared publicly that this is a 30 percent increase from the last fiscal year, but we have not disclosed the individual sales of Virtual Console titles only.

Virtual Console itself is a service that began when we developed Wii so that consumers can play past titles on new platforms, and we continue to distribute various titles now. However, back when we started this service, there were some points that we could not sufficiently foresee about how big this business would grow to be and how the business would expand. For example, Virtual Console titles are generally developed based on the original game software, but this does not mean that we can develop numerous Virtual Console titles simply if we have the original game software. Development of Virtual Console titles require detailed manual work, such as testing if the software runs smoothly on each platform, or making sure the content is appropriate under the various standards currently in place. Thus, we occasionally receive opinions that our pace of releasing new Virtual Console titles is slow, but if we use much of our human resources on such detailed manual work, we would not be able to develop new titles, so we are currently researching how we can efficiently develop Virtual Console titles with limited human resources. One of the big issues for our system development is how to resolve the situation in which we can only release a few Virtual Console titles at a time when we release new platforms.

In addition, regarding the possibility of making all titles available on Virtual Console, I can say that it is possible for Nintendo titles with a few exceptions, since we generally have the intellectual property rights for such titles. However, as to third-party software publishers’ titles, if they are producing the software based on a license from another copyright holder, for example, we may not be able to easily use the same title for the system that exists now because we do not have a license from the copyright holder at the time. This often becomes a problem with reruns of TV shows or Internet broadcasting. Therefore, since we can only release Virtual Console titles of third-party software publishers if they come to an agreement with the copyrights holders upon negotiating terms and conditions that were not included in their original contract, please understand that there are some titles that we cannot easily release despite many requests. We will make our best efforts to satisfy our consumers with our Virtual Console title lineup.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 5 Comments

We now have Nintendo president Satoru Iwata’s full comments regarding character licensing collaborations. While it’s unclear what sort of ideas the company has in mind, Iwata expressed openness to things like movies/TV programs.

Here’s everything shared by Iwata:

This answer overlaps with what I discussed in my answer about IP utilization earlier, but it would be a stretch to say that Nintendo was proactive in making merchandise in the past. We have been discussing internally that we should be more proactive, and it is imperative that we establish a global structure to deploy such business all around the world. As a large proportion of our sales come from outside Japan, we have various ideas in mind for collaboration on the character licensing business across Japan, North America and Europe. And this expansion won’t be limited to merchandise; it may take various forms including, for example, images or even movies or TV programs. Even though I am not sure of the actual forms, it is safe to say that in addition to profitable licensing businesses, Nintendo will take risks we believe are worthwhile. On the other hand, not a small number of businesses have ended up with a pile of leftover stock after a particular product’s short-lived period of popularity. It would surely ruin the value of Nintendo IP and would not enhance corporate value over the long term if we chose this path. Therefore, I would like to recap that our current plan is not to simply increase the number of proposals but to be more proactive than in the past by making appropriate decisions that will enhance our overall corporate value over the long term.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Switch, Wii U | 27 Comments

Nintendo is not sharing any specifics about its next system – tentatively known as NX – until next year. There’s a reason for this.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, speaking at the company’s latest shareholders meeting, explained that revealing details early “could also give other companies the opportunity to come up with counterplans or implement the ideas that they find interesting.”

Iwata also touched on plans for Wii U and 3DS following NX’s launch. Even when the new system hits the market, we can apparently expect continued release for the two platforms.

Below are Iwata’s comments in full:

As I mentioned earlier, I cannot speak about the details of NX today. If I mention every detail of what we are newly thinking, it could be persuasive but it could also give other companies the opportunity to come up with counterplans or implement the ideas that they find interesting. There may also be the possibility that it will spoil the sense of surprise for consumers. Of course these factors are all against the interest of the entire company and they would ultimately harm the interest of our shareholders, so we appreciate your understanding in this respect.

Regarding your concern about what will happen to Wii U or what will happen to Nintendo 3DS, NX is a new platform, so the installed base will have to be built up from zero. When NX is launched, there already will be a certain volume of Nintendo 3DS and Wii U hardware widely existing in the market, so from a software business perspective, it would be highly inefficient to stop releasing titles for Nintendo 3DS or Wii U right after the launch of NX. Therefore, while we are preparing NX for the future, we are discussing within our internal development teams as well as with the second-party developers we co-develop software with and also with third-party software publishers about how to continue creating software for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. So, I believe that your point of concern should not happen immediately. As for Wii U, we will continue to make efforts, as it is a priority within the company to think about how we can satisfy the consumers who purchased this system to the maximum extent possible.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 7 Comments

Whereas Nintendo’s E3 showing was generally well-received in 2014, the same can’t be said of this year’s event. A number of fans have expressed disappointment in terms of what Nintendo brought to the table during its latest Digital Event last month.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto both addressed the reaction to the company’s E3 2015 presence at a recent shareholders meeting. The two of them noted the following:

Iwata:

E3 this year was held a week later than it has been held in the last few years, and it was held right before our general meeting of shareholders. Including the preparations for this meeting, I prioritized my works in Japan and did not travel to the U.S. to attend E3. As a representative of our board of directors who attended E3 this year, I would like to ask Mr. Miyamoto to talk about it. There will be a video that I would like to show afterward.

Shigeru Miyamoto (Senior Managing Director and General Manager of Entertainment Analysis & Development Division):

E3 is the annual industry trade show that is usually held around May or June in the U.S. It is true that E3 has the aspect that the shareholder just mentioned. It actually started as a trade show for the U.S. market, and due to the spread of the Internet, the information dispatched at E3 spread around the world. Nintendo views E3 as not only an industry trade show in the U.S. but also as an occasion with which the entire Nintendo group should be involved.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Switch, Wii U | 12 Comments

During Nintendo’s latest shareholders meeting, one attendee brought up the slow launches of both Wii U and 3DS. This same person expressed concerns about NX meeting a similar fate.

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, addressed this by stating:

The situation for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U is in line with what you mentioned. For Wii U in particular, it cannot be said that it had a successful launch. As for Nintendo 3DS, in Japan there was a temporary slowdown but we managed to make a recovery by offering a number of initiatives collectively. On the other hand, Wii U has not been able to recover at this point in time. Because of this, the size of the installed base compared to the Nintendo DS or Wii eras appears not to be as solid and this is reflected in the company’s profitability. But taking a look back, it was not the case that Nintendo DS sold with huge momentum from the beginning. When it first started to lose momentum, we offered a number of titles from a new genre, such as “nintendogs” or “Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day,” and these titles were widely accepted even by those who had never played video games in the past. This sequence of events led to a very large business. The platform business can sometimes be referred to as a “momentum business.” Thus, it is ideal to have a jump start and drive momentum. Looking back at some of Nintendo’s past platforms, this ideal launch has been achieved 100 percent by perhaps only Wii. Even the Nintendo DS launch had areas in which we could have done better. I cannot disagree with your indication that Wii U is experiencing the most unfavorable situation.

Since the word “NX” has been mentioned, please let me elaborate. When Nintendo announced the collaboration with DeNA on March 17 of this year, I mentioned that Nintendo is currently developing a new dedicated video game system codenamed “NX.” The reason I mentioned this was, at that time, there were more than a certain number of people that thought that Nintendo would give up on the dedicated game system business and concentrate on smart device application development, or that Nintendo should take that path. In addition, such tone could be seen frequently through the media. I felt it was necessary to communicate that Nintendo is not pessimistic about the future of the dedicated game system business but rather more and more eager to continue it. On the other hand, details on the new platform essentially should come later. This is because the entertainment business has an aspect where there is value in surprising consumers. It is not convincing enough to the consumer if we describe how the magic works before actually showing it to them and then expecting them to be surprised or delighted. Having the element of surprise or doing the unexpected is the premise for introducing new ideas and having them welcomed with surprise. That is why I have been repeatedly saying that the next news on NX will not be announced during 2015 but will be announced in 2016. Nevertheless, since NX has news value, when I am interviewed on various occasions, I am asked about it almost every time. I will not share details on NX today but with regard to the launch of Nintendo 3DS and Wii U not necessarily having progressed well and not acquiring sufficient support from software publishers, we intend to offer NX through a Nintendo-like solution. Thank you for understanding that we are making various considerations and preparations in order to avoid what happened with the previous generations.

On a different note, I believe the standard for software publishers in selecting what hardware to provide their games for is the installed base after all. The larger the installed base or the more it is believed that the installed base will largely expand, there is an aspect that more software publishers are likely to join in. On the other hand, Nintendo is collaborating with various software publishers. At E3, which was held in the U.S. and is the largest trade show in the video game industry, we received many proposals for joint initiatives. In addition, Japanese software publishers have close relationships with our licensing department on a regular basis. As for collaborations with software publishers or their games, please consider that there are various ongoing projects below the surface.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Nintendo conducted its 75th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders a couple of weeks back. The event featured some brief opening remarks from president Satoru Iwata, but the main highlight was the Q&A. Nintendo now has the entire transcript up in English here.

We already covered the Q&A in-depth last month, so we won’t be posting all of the information here. However, I’ll be picking out a few highlights throughout the day.

Thanks to Thomas for the tip.

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

According to the latest issue of Jump, Dragon Quest VIII on 3DS will feature an additional dungeon. Jahagaros, a new boss monster, is located here. You can view a scan from the magazine above that provides a look at the new box art illustrated by Akira Toriyama.

Jump is also teasing the reveal of a “big title” for its next issue due out next week. Since it’s on the Dragon Quest VIII page, it should be something related to Dragon Quest. It’s unclear if the game in question is for Nintendo platforms.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, Videos, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

Nintendo released a new video today showcasing a few European digital game highlights from June 2015. You can watch it below.

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