3DS

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 6 Comments

This information comes from issue 258 of Nintendo Power…

Goichi Suda (Suda 51) – President & director, Grasshopper Manufacture:

“My first impressions of it was, ‘This is the toy of the future.” You can feel just how far and how fast games have evolved when you see the Nintendo 3DS. We’ve entered an era where we can bring worlds that we can almost touch and feel to life. Thus far, 3D has only been expressed with 2D. I think we’ve graduated from that and reached an age of expressing real depth through 3D with the 3DS.”

Matt Bozon – Creative director, WayForward

“I’ve stood in line for a lot of Nintendo unveils over the years, but even expecting to be amazed, seeing the Nintendo 3DS in person induced a sort of visual shell-shock. The system is as hypnotic as Turkish Delight and looks like a Hogwarts newspaper. The demos that showed games, movies, and photography in the third dimension had to be seen firsthand to be truly appreciated, with elements popping off the glass or dipping into the distance. When my play time was over and the friendly (but strong) Nintendo lady wrenched the system away, my phone, laptop, and other devices became flat, boring wastes of Z-space by comparison. But what excites me the most about this fancy pants is that it’s in the hands of Nintendo, so the games are going to be as brilliant as the machine itself. Can! Not! Wait!”

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Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 7 Comments

The latest issue of Famitsu featured a discussion between Smash Bros. and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai and Dragon Quest series producer Ryutaro Ichimura. The two had a lot to say, and covered various games/series such as Smash Bros., Kirby, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Dragon Quest. Additionally, the two talked more broadly about gaming and conversed about such points as attracting new gamers. You can check out what the two had to say below.

“A lot of people around the world have interacted with Smash Bros., and a lot of Japanese people have interacted with Dragon Quest. In that aspect, they’re both games that’re easy to approach and easy to play with.” – Ichimura

“Kirby’s Dream Land was the first game I ever made, but I had no intention of making it a mainstream game. I really narrowed down the audience to beginners only. That’s because, at the time, no matter how much fun the Super Mario Bros. games were, they were still too tough for normal people and kids. I could feel people drifting away from games, and it bothered me. In the midst of making Kirby, a lot of the team started wondering if we were maybe making it too simple. But I think it was necessary for us to consider people who hadn’t played a game before, and I think doing that earned us fans that wouldn’t have been around otherwise. That’s the same creative approach I take with Smash Bros. It hasn’t changed at all today.” – Sakurai

“I grew up playing the Dragon Quest games ever since I was a grade schooler, and they served as a gateway to this great new realm of gameplay called RPGs to me. I’ve gone from playing them to making them, but I can’t afford to let myself forget about what it’s like as a player. I need to make a game that anyone young or old can pick up and unwittingly get addicted to.” – Ichimura

“The thing I always have the most difficulty with in DQ is the hero character, who never speaks and never gives his own opinions. If the hero shows his own emotions, that runs the risk of alienating the player.” – Ichimura

“We generally don’t have the characters talk in Smash Bros. either. That can makes things interesting sometimes, or maybe boring sometimes… With Brawl, we had game modes that played out with the story, and they wound up being like these silent films where we had to keep each character’s personality but couldn’t have them talk. It’d be easier to have them talk, but that’s unfair to the characters in the game who can’t talk, so we decided to keep all of them silent instead.” – Sakurai

“I don’t think there are many games today that really attract new people. That’s why I think games need to be simplified a bit. Kid Icarus might be called a FPS or a third-person shooter, but if you took someone who didn’t know games and gave him the latest FPS and a controller with ten buttons and two analog sticks and told him to start playing, he’d never be able to. That’s why Kid Icarus is really easy to control. It gives people who gave up on the genre a chance to take a step back into that world. Even though I’m a pretty hardcore gamer, I think that’s very important.” – Sakurai

“That’s something you can do because you’ve delved so deeply into the genre and are so familiar with essence of what makes it fun. You’re able to lower your sights precisely because you have a heavy gaming habit. I really understand that, but as a producer, I suppose my approach is different. The way I see it, the main issue before us to figure out how to make games proliferate in the realm of entertainment. One way to do that is position the game front and center, then prepare a bunch of alternate entryways that aren’t games, like manga or anime or merchandise. Having all these entryways results in a single piece of entertainment, and as a producer, I feel it’s my job to link all that together.” – Ichimura

“I suppose our root motivation is the same. Kids and normal people can’t create games, so that’s why we’re here to make them instead. We need to keep ourselves aware of that going into the future.” – Sakurai

Thanks to Robert for the tip!

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Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 1 Comment

This information comes from Warren Spector…

“I’m as excited about that device as I was at E3. If anything, I’m even more excited. True 3D with no glasses, great visual quality, adjustable so every human can see 3D—c’mon, it’s a fantastic little thing. I go on Amazon pretty much every day just to see if they’re taking preorders yet. The day they do, I’m clicking “buy.” I love the thing. I think it’s great.

…The coolest thing about the 3DS and about stereoscopic 3D without glasses is that I have no idea what I would do. I would never say that game development is a solved problem. With movies, the position of the sprocket wheels hasn’t changed for 100 years, right? Making movies is a solved problem; it’s just about creating compelling content. Game design and development is not yet a solved problem, but it’s pretty close. I pretty well know how to start, what kinds of games I want to make, kind of how to make them, and how long it takes, and what sort of people you need. And then I think about what impact is stereoscopic 3D going to have on what I do for a living, and I go, ‘No idea.’

So the coolest thing to me is that all of a sudden there’s a new kind of challenge that I have no idea about. Any developer who’s saying, ‘Oh yeah, I’m working on a 3DS title and I know how to do it—I’m making a flight sim where it looks like you’re really flying,’ it’s like, OK, you haven’t thought hard enough. There’s more that we can do with the 3DS than just saying, ‘Oh look, there’s a crate between me and my target.’ There’s got to be. But what it is, I have no idea—and that’s exactly why I would love to just have six months, a year to just play with the 3DS and see just what the heck it does afford you and how it does change game design.”

Well, I have a suggestion for Mr. Spector: Duck Tales for the 3DS. He certainly sounds like he’d be open to making a new Duck Tales and there is interest from fans. So it seems like a good idea to me!

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Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 4 Comments

This information comes from Nintendo Power…

“Yes, definitely [improved graphics were a priority]. We wanted to do things that were not possible on the previous handheld. For example, I’m developing Nintendogs + Cats, and I really wanted to realize the sense of fur on the pets.” – Hideki Konno

Honestly, I was shocked when Kid Icarus: Uprising was revealed. I couldn’t believe that it was running on the 3DS. Aside from Uprising, though, there are equally impressive games on the way like Resident Evil: Revelations. Capcom even stated that the trailer they released a few months ago was running in real time.

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii | 3 Comments

Eiji Aonuma on the significant of Skyward Sword’s title and how it relates to the original piece of artwork…

“Did you happen to watch the trailer? That last scene where Link dives off the big cliff and goes flying through the clouds is a key hint as to the connection between the game and the Skyward Sword title.

Link lives on Skyloft, a series of floating islands that are above the clouds. He’s a normal kid living up on these islands above the clouds, but then an incident occurs and Link is forced to travel to the land beneath the clouds. This other world below the clouds has been captured and is being ruled by evil forces. So he has to go down there and start his adventure. The juxtapositon between the two worlds is very important.

What leads Link on this adventure is the Skyward Sword and when that Sword is actively guiding Link, it actually transforms into a feminine figure. I wouldn’t say that it’s female per se but it’s a feminine figure.”

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Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Videos | 4 Comments

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 5 Comments

This information comes from Nintendo Power…

“Great, now my beside table is going to have an iPhone, an iPad, and a Nintendo 3DS. I think the question for how much attention the new Nintendo hotness will get is, like always, based on software, on games. Is somebody going to be able to make the darn thing sing? Or is it going to be a shovel-ware extravaganza (but now in glorious 3D!). Nintendo makes insanely good first-party stuff; we’ll see if the rest of us devs can follow suit.” – Ken Levine, President and creative director, Irrational Games

It’s interesting to hear how Mr. Levine feels about the 3DS, as he hasn’t been involved with Nintendo hardware at all. Perhaps one day he’ll consider making some software for Nintendo’s next handheld.

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 3 Comments

One particular rumor about the 3DS has now been debunked. A few months ago, EA’s Ryan Stradling hinted that the portable would have an achievement system. However, Harald Ebert of Nintendo confirmed at GamesCom that the handheld probably not support such a feature. Instead, it sounds like it will be up to developers to include achievements in their games individually.

Ebert also stated that the design of the 3DS isn’t final. We’ve actually heard conflicting information about that a few times now. Hideki Konno previously indicated that the system will look the same at launch while Reggie Fils-Aime noted at E3 that the design had yet to be finallized. So I suppose the 3DS could change slightly, but don’t expect a drastic overhaul.

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, News, Wii | 6 Comments

Wii

1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
2. Kirby’s Epic Yarn
3. Metroid: Other M
4. Donkey Kong Country Returns
5. Epic Mickey

DS

1. Pokemon White Version
2. Pokemon Black Version
3. Super Scribblenauts
4. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem
5. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

3DS

1. Paper Mario
2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
3. Mario Kart
4. Kid Icarus: Uprising
5. Star Fox 64 3D

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 4 Comments

Headstrong Games, a Nintendo supporter since 2005, has confirmed that they are working with the 3DS. According to Development Director Steve Pritchard, the company is hard at work on three titles for the system. Although nothing has been confirmed outright, it’s possible that one of the 3DS projects is being made for Nintendo based on the relationship the two companies maintain. Perhaps there’s a chance that they’re developing a Batallion Wars title for the handheld. In any case, expect a few 3DS announcements from Headstrong Games sometime in the future.

Thanks to Mario K for the tip and translation!

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