Podcast Stories

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

Cheesemeister has gone to the trouble of translating various bits from Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing Q&A. A few of the points are rehashed from quotes we covered earlier today, but there’s quite a bit of new stuff as well. Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto talk Pikmin 3, Wii U NFC, 3DS sales and overseas performance, and more.

• Iwata: Cloud gaming possible but introduces lag, therefore not suited to all game types, i.e. action.
• Iwata: Merger of home and portable console dev. groups not a move to 1 system, but sharing of dev. process, OS, pre-installed SW, assets.
• Iwata: If groups’ merger successful, it may instead allow undivided development to be applicable to more types of (Nintendo) devices.
• Miyamoto: Having 1 dev. environment would allow efforts to be concentrated on making more games rather than being lost on hardware support.
• Iwata: Some Animal Crossing New Leaf customers said on Club Nintendo surveys that their purchases were motivated by talk about it on Twitter.
• Iwata: “Asymmetric gameplay” wasn’t the best term to describe Nintendo Land, want to think of a better way to describe Wii U software.
• Miyamoto: Pikmin 3’s HD graphics are the most appealing part. Not forcing asymmetric gameplay, instead showing a map. Off-TV play enabled.
• Miyamoto: Pikmin 3 off-TV play can be thought of as GameCube-style gameplay in your hand. Wii Remote Plus’ gyro sensor can be used on TV.
• Miyamoto: I think that Pikmin 3 off-TV play is the freshest gameplay experience. Please look forward to it.
• Miyamoto: Pikmin, Bulbear to appear w/ Toho Cinemas logo before movie screenings. They’ll be shown in 3D for 3D movies.
• Iwata: WiiU NFC can be used w/ cards/figures for games, sharing data with arcade games, and in electronic payments. I want to recoup cost.
• Iwata: More than thinking about not achieving 100b yen operating income, it’s my job to think about how to achieve it.
• Iwata: For the 3DS, the point is to achieve the same kind of virtuous cycle in HW and SW sales overseas as in Japan by releasing good games.
• Iwata: For the Wii U, software will really start to arrive that communicates its appeal, and I aim to greatly improve its sales flow.
• Iwata: As for what I’d do in case of failure, I used the word “commitment”, so please understand what I mean.
• Iwata: If only the same number of 3DS systems sell next FY as this FY, software sales will be limited and the goal won’t be achievable.
• Iwata: Therefore I absolutely don’t think that the 3DS is meeting its sales potential overseas. It’s not due to external factors, but please understand that it’s because we haven’t sufficiently communicated the 3DS’ appeal as a platform of choice.
• Iwata: Expanding the sales of the 3DS beyond this fiscal year’s numbers is obviously our objective.
• Genyo Takeda: I don’t think that the Wii U CPU and GPU are imbalanced in favor of the GPU. It depends how you measure. GPU chip is bigger.
• Genyo Takeda: In modern CPUs, the math logic portions are rather small. In new PCs and servers, the CPUs may be big, but the logic is small.
• Genyo Takeda: It’s common for the surrounding SRAM cache memory in CPUs to be bigger. From that viewpoint, you wouldn’t see them imbalanced.
• Genyo Takeda: It’s a memory-intensified design. I can’t get into specifics, but I think it’s rather powerful.
• Genyo Takeda: As for the GPU, the tech is fairly mature and going in the same direction as competitors. Makers are used to prog. shaders.
• Genyo Takeda: The experience of other companies and Nintendo with shaders means that the difficulty with them early on has decreased.

Source 1, Source 2

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

Satoru Iwata told investors at a financial results briefing earlier this week that Nintendo does not believe “cloud gaming is the future”. Although he acknowledged that it has its advantages (and disadvantages), Nintendo is “trying to work hard on a future where gaming only consoles are not gone.”

An unofficial translation from the meeting reads:

“There are things you can do with cloud gaming and there are things you cant do. We don’t agree that cloud gaming is the future and we are trying to work hard on a future where gaming only consoles are not gone. Unified platforms are for us not platforms that are one but rather platforms that have the same development architecture. This also means that there could be more platforms.”

Shigeru Miyamoto, who was also in attendance, spoke about the challenge of creating new development environments for Wii U and 3DS:

“We needed to create new development environments for Wii U and 3DS unlike Wii which reused the GameCube architecture. We are unifying our development teams to accommodate this challenge and minimize the losses while preparing the shift. I think handhelds and consoles will coexist as the aim is different.

Source, Via

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

Earlier today, Nintendo posted a transcript of the company’s financial results Q&A from its investor’s meeting. It isn’t available in English just yet, but a few sections have been unofficially translated online.

One topic concerns new games for Wii U. An investor asked Nintendo about the timeframe of new software the company has presented as of late, and also requested information regarding the development structure.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that his company is “not thinking about a long timeframe.” Some of the newly revealed titles will be released from mid-2013 up through the end of the year. Iwata added that there is additional software coming towards the end of the year that has not yet been announced.

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Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

When Nintendo published Iwata Asks: Fire Emblem: Awakening in Japanese last year, a few interesting tidbits were translated from the discussion. For instance, we heard that an idea for a new Fire Emblem set in a modern world was thrown around, as was one concept for a title set on Mars.

Now that the Iwata Asks is available in English, we have the full English translation and relevant portion from the discussion. Read on below for the excerpt.

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

There were a surprising amount of Resident Evil games released in 2012. Capcom published Revelations in late January, Operation Raccoon City in May, and closed out the year with Resident Evil 6 in October. Don’t forget: The Mercenaries also launched in June of 2011.

The amount of titles released during the past couple of years may have been a bit too much, according to Resident Evil: Revelations producer Masachika Kawata:

“I think certainly looking at the last year or two, there probably were a few too many. I think we learned last year that putting on a lot of titles would not necessarily win over gamers. At the same time, I don’t think we should just stagger them out artificially because that’s the solution to the problem we have. We should always start by asking how do we make the games better. And if the solution to making the games better is to have a more staggered release than we’ve had recently then that’s something we’ll do. But we’ll do it for that reason and not just for flipping what we’ve done already.”

Resident Evil fans can look forward to one more entry this year, though it’s updated version of the 3DS title Revelations.

Source

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

Read all about the development of Fire Emblem: Awakening and more in the latest entry in the Iwata Asks series. Satoru Iwata conducted a chat with staffers from Intelligent Systems and Nintendo employees who worked on the game. The discussion can be accessed here.

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

Update 2: Bumped to the front page. Deals are now working once again!

Update: Best Buy appears to be experiencing issues with its website. Some consumers have also reported success at their local stores while others have not. We’ll update this post again if there’s anything new to share about the situation.

Best Buy is holding a two day sale on over 20 video game products, a few of which are Nintendo-related. Through Saturday, consumers can save on titles such as the Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Kingdom Hearts 3D.

Below is a listing of all available Nintendo deals.

Wii U

Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Nintendo Wii U – $29.99

3DS

3DS blue/black – $169.99
3DS XL red/black – $169.99
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance – $19.99

Visit this link for all video game deals from this Best Buy sale.

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

Ubisoft will be patching ZombiU. That’s according to an in-game message detected by players. The note doesn’t say what the update will address or when it will be made available, but more details will be shared soon.

Source

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

EA officially announced Madden NFL 25 today… for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Notice anything missing there? Yep, as far as we know, the next Madden isn’t coming to Wii U.

We reached out to EA earlier today for platform clarification, but have not heard back as of yet. Unfortunately, it looks like Nintendo systems will be left out of the Madden action this year.

Source: EA PR

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

The chances of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance landing on Wii U aren’t high, but there is a small glimmer of hope for the future.

When asked about want it would take to get the game on Wii U, Platinum Games’ Jean Kellams said Konami would need to see demand from fans. The publisher would also have to approach Platinum before anything is set in motion.

Kellams wrote on Twitter:

Source, Via