3DS

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

Tournament of Legends

– Most of the violence from when it was originally shown is gone
– Craig gave it a 5/10
– “An official meh”
– Graphics don’t look that great
– Craig feels like the game was rushed to make the game SEGA wanted them to make it (not official)
– Game sometimes stops so they can do something cool in the middle of the fight
– Quick time event to dodge giant feet
– Described as “bizarre”
– Filling in the gap of original third-party games
– $30, so it’s a budget game

Read More

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

Even though many technical specs behind the 3DS are still under wraps, one thing is certain: The system possesses a 3.53-inch widescreen and 3.02-inch touch screen. The two screens are quite a bit smaller compared to what the DSi XL offers. However, Hideki Konno, who is heading development of Nintendo’s new portable, recently explained that this was a conscious design decision. Even though the company created the handheld hoping that consumers carry it around with them, Konno said that they could make the screen larger.

“The DSi XL was quite impactful with its very large screen, but the concept for the 3DS is to have consumers bring it out of their homes and carry it around, considering all of those Tag Mode functions in the hardware. If we make it too large, consumers might not be able to carry such a heavy thing in their bags. We wanted to make it compact…We can make it larger.”

Also noteworthy, Konno stated that it’s technically possible to incorporate the 3DS screen technology into a television-size display. But due to high costs and the fact that players would need to remain still in a specific position, there are currently no plans to introduce that idea to the market.

“We could do it, but besides the cost issue, consumers would have to be in one very specific position to watch the TV or the 3-D will be completely gone. With the handheld, there is only one position.”

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 2 Comments

Hideki Konno on how the 3DS’ screen works…

“The basic technology is quite old. For example, like a lenticular sticker where you shift it left and right and it shows different pictures. If we simply prepare a picture for the left eye, and a picture for the right eye, and the eyes each see a separate picture, it looks 3-D. The theory is the same, although it’s not a lenticular screen.”

Konno on why no one has used that technology in a videogame system before…

“We have been doing these experiments for a very long time, starting from the NES era. We also tried with the Virtual Boy. And even for GameCube, with the development of Luigi’s Mansion, we were thinking of developing a 3-D version of it. However, at that time it was very difficult to realize it as an actual product on the market, because of the resolution of the screen and the separate costs of the console and screen…We have been waiting, going to tech shows and seeing the latest 3-D technology and devices that support those features. We started to have more confidence that this might be a good time to bring 3-D back to Nintendo.

Read More

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

– Live Caster: Exclusive DSi/3DS feature
– Live Caster lets you have video chats with friends
– 4-player wireless, 2 player over Wi-Fi for Live Caster
– Pass By mode: Connect to other players when you walk by them, which helps them out somehow
– Order of your Pokemon during triple battles determines damage calculations for attacks that hit multiple Pokemon
– High Link: Overworld hub, located in the middle of Isshu, go up to other players and offer your help with missions
– Rankurusu is the Green Pokémon and Gochiruzeru is the Black Pokémon
– Gochiruzeru can use Magic Room, negates the effects of items on you and the opponent

Source

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

“The online capabilities are currently being tested. There could be some versus play but we can’t go into any detail. There are a lot of capabilities that expand on what was in the DS that people are taking advantage of.” – Masahiro Sakurai

Online play was something that I hadn’t really thought about. Although, there certainly could be an opportunity to do something neat in that area, especially with the 3DS’ expanded online functionality.

Source

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

“What excites me even more [than 3DS games] is that there’s technology built in that device to really combat piracy. The problem with the DS market in the last few years, particularly with the DS Lite, is that it’s just been attacked by piracy. It’s made it almost impossible to shift any significant volume. The DSi combated it a little bit, but the 3DS has taken that a step further. I actually asked Nintendo to explain the technology and they said it’s very difficult to do so because it’s so sophisticated. They combated the piracy on Dsi, which they don’t believe is cracked yet – but they know they’ve been hurt across the world and they believe the 3DS has got technology that can stop that. Therefore the opportunity for people to invest more in product development [on the system] and bring more 3DS products to market comes out of that. It’s going to probably cost us more to do it all in 3D – so we want to make sure we get a return on our investment when we do it.” – THQ’s executive VP of global publishing Ian Curran

I think it’s pretty clear that piracy has been a huge problem on the DS. Nintendo certainly has their work cut out for them with the 3DS, but it sounds like they have something interesting up their sleeves.

Source

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

“I think the third-party publishers are taking this a lot more seriously. Certainly, the video game market has changed a lot over the last year. You know, a lot of the casual games that really bombarded the DS marketplace have now moved onto other platforms like the iPhone, so I think everyone looks at this as an opportunity to kind of bring something special back to the gamers. Everyone looked at the 3DS with just how powerful it was, and the new features, the analog stick and the 3D, as an opportunity to bring almost console-level quality games to this handheld because they could. On the DS, you really couldn’t. And that’s something that we’ve learned over the last six months. You can’t treat this machine as just a DS plus. You almost have to treat it like a console, because many of the things it can do are things that consoles can do. So, you know, why not bring a more ‘gamer’ experience to that platform, if it can do really well with it?” – JC Connors, studio head at Griptonite Games

The 3DS is a very interesting device. It’s the first piece of hardware to truly introduce portable 3D gaming, and it’s also one of the closest things we’ve seen to a handheld console due to the slide pad and enhanced graphics. Also, Iwata recently mentioned that development costs could approach Wii levels.

Source

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Yuji Naka, CEO of Prope responding to the fact that he created Sonic…

“Not right now. Right now, I want to create new things. Even if I had the opportunity to create some kind of new Sonic game I think that’s best kept within Sega.”

Naka on whether we’ll see another game like Let’s Tap…

“Personally, I would love to work on something like that, but the sales weren’t high so I don’t know if I can justify making another one. One of the things in Let’s Tap is it’s not digital, you don’t push a button and have the game react to it. I’m really happy with the technology we created. It senses soft touches, reads that, and puts that it into the game.

Read More

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, News, Wii | 9 Comments

Metal Gear Solid 3 vs. Metal Gear Solid 3DS

Read More

Posted on 14 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

We’ve pretty much heard this news already, but just in case you want to read a few more direct quotes from Hideo Kojima regarding Metal Gear Solid 3DS, you can check out what he had to say below.

“It was a top-secret project — I had a non-disclosure agreement signed with Nintendo, so I couldn’t even tell you [Hamamura] about it. The demo was produced by the Peace Walker team, but outside of the group that developed it, nobody at Kojima Productions even knew about it. I got that group together and said ‘Okay, we have to build this thing for E3’ — they work on a different floor from the rest of the studio, so most people thought they were on vacation after shipping off Peace Walker, I suppose.”

“The thing is that it’s hard to get a lot of feedback from players, because only so many of them could physically play the title at the event. I was hoping to shape our future direction for the game based on more of their opinions. Also, the maps and character models were all remade with a higher polygon count than before. The models are about the same quality as what we made for the PlayStation 3, but you really can’t tell within the game. We could’ve made it look better if we had a little more time.”

“I did handle direction work on the E3 demo, but where I go from here hasn’t been decided yet. For now, what we wanted to do was advertise the fact that we are producing a 3DS game in the MGS franchise. Largely it was just a demonstration of what we’re capable of with the 3DS. For a full-size game, just having things pop out at the player all the time will get old fast, so I think the emphasis will be on visual depth instead. We haven’t settled on the details yet, but I’d like to get CO-OPS and some of the other things we did in Peace Walker into this game as well. We can’t change MGS3’s story, but we are thinking about CO-OPS and other things we can use the 3D technology for.”

“Nothing’s been decided at all yet. I don’t think we’ll be able to make it a launch title, but if we don’t at least stick close to launch, we’ll lose a lot of product value. …I think we need to get it out by then (year within launch). That’s why I want to get more people to try it out. Showing a trailer really just isn’t enough — it’d be nice if Nintendo organizes some kind of public demo event.”

Kojima also discussed a secret project he’s working on, “taboo,” but since there are currently no indications that it will be for a Nintendo platform, we won’t be covering that unless some sort of announcement in the future proves otherwise!

Thanks to Robert for the tip!

Source