XSEED: Pandora’s Tower did “pretty well”, tough finding the right “bigger games” for 3DS retail, future announcements
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii | 0 comments
Pandora’s Tower is XSEED’s latest and likely final Wii title localized by the company. It came out during a fairly difficult period – once the Wii U was in the spotlight and at the beginning of the year.
Thankfully, Pandora’s Power did “pretty well”, according to executive vice-president Ken Berry. Had XSEED published the title during the 2012 holiday season, however, it “could have done much better”.
Berry told Siliconera:
“Pandora’s Tower has done pretty well, though not quite the level that The Last Story enjoyed. It probably could have done much better if we could have released it last holiday season rather than the first quarter of this year.”
Nintendo Treehouse on localizing Mario & Luigi
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
The Nintendo Treehouse is behind pretty much all localized titles that Nintendo puts out on its systems. Mario & Luigi is no exception. Fortunately, senior localization manager Nate Bihldorff says that the characters only require a few tweaks – no major recreations of characters are required:
“Conceptually, all the characters are generally just one tweak away from being awesome. It’s a matter of making it fit better.”
Another Fantasy Life Link play video
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Videos | 0 comments
Super Smash Bros. for 3DS screenshot (8/1/13)
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Screenshots | 0 comments
Sakurai not including Wii Fit Trainer/Villager in new Smash Bros. just to surprise people
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 0 comments
Most Smash Bros. fans likely didn’t expect Nintendo to announce Wii Fit Trainer as a playable character in the new Wii U and 3DS games. Yet, during E3 2013, Nintendo did just that. The company also revealed the Animal Crossing Villager, a character that you wouldn’t exactly peg as a fighter under normal circumstances.
Masahiro Sakurai told GamesTM this month that the their inclusion isn’t simply a means of surprising players. Rather, he feels that they “are very unique characters and they lend themselves well to the Smash Bros. family because they bring things we don’t already see.”
Sakurai said:
“The Wii Fit Trainer and the villager from Animal Crossing, there may be some people out there being like, ‘Okay, great, now you’re going out on a limb, you’re trying to do something strange or unusual, but there’s really no meaning behind it, you’re just doing it for…’ I don’t want to say shock value, per se, but just to surprise people. And that’s really not the case. I think these are very unique characters and they lend themselves well to the Smash Bros. family because they bring things we don’t already see.”
Thanks to joclo for sending this our way.
Sakurai comments on how the Smash Bros. “pic of the day” came to be
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 3 Comments
For the new Smash Bros. titles on Wii U and 3DS, Masahiro Sakurai posts new one new screenshot Mondays through Fridays on the game’s official website. He also shares each image on Miiverse and occasionally posts a message.
Sakurai’s latest notice covers the origins of the daily screenshot. He wrote:
The “pic of the day” originally started as a fun internal update for the people developing the game – we would put up a daily shot on our own corporate website. We soon decided that we wanted to share the fun with the general public, so that’s where we are today. Please keep in mind, though, that this is just meant to be a little bonus feature – we’ll continue to release other information about the game on the website.
XSEED hopes to have Rune Factory 4 out in late September or October
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 1 Comment
Rune Factory 4 still doesn’t have a final release date. But with any luck, we’ll see it in late September or October.
North American publisher XSEED attributed the long wait to a longer QA process to ensure the game’s quality for English players. Rest assured that the company is “dying” to release the 3DS game.
“We’re dying to get it to you, but the game is absolutely massive and taking much longer to QA (play through the English for quality assurance) than we originally anticipated. Right now we could be looking at a late September or October release, but it will definitely be worth the wait.”
Rune Factory 4 was originally slated for summer, but XSEED wasn’t able to nail down an exact date. Now we know why.
GameStop ad (7/31 – 8/6)
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments
This week’s GameStop ad has gone live. Highlights include Project X Zone for $30 and LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes for $20.
You can find the full round of GameStop details in the ad below:

Capcom talks about taking Phoenix Wright into 3D and its difficulties
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies is the series’ first entry to feature 3D graphics. The transition from 2D to 3D wasn’t so easy. Producer Motohide Eshiro and scenario director Takeshi Yamazaki spoke about the new direction while speaking with Game Watch. For an overview of what was shared, check out the summary below.
– Using 3D allows the team “to go backwards in the work process”
– Process of changing motions and angles are also easier
– Therefore, the director of the project can further focus on the camerawork
– Also opens up a wider range of creative possibilities with how you present a scene
– 3D brings more room, but “the ‘trouble of making it 3D’ was actually very problematic. Simply taking the original 2D screen’s perspectives and camera angles and tossing in 3D models ended up making it appear completely different.”
– Staffer in charge of modeling came up with different models based on different situations
– “When you used Phoenix Wright’s models for court in the adventure parts [of the game], the sense of inconsistency was too great. That resulted in camera angle changes leading to something that looked strange. For such occasions, we switched parts of the model. That way, the 3D models appeared natural in any scene.”
– Phoenix’s famous pose has been enhanced by 3D
– Devs wanted to upgrade the intensity of the pose
– This was made possible by adjusting the perspective of the pose, making the hand appear much larger when seen in 3D