Reggie – always thinking about new systems, digital vs. physical games, more
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Switch | 44 Comments
Polygon has a few more quotes up from its interview with Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America. Much of the talk focused on new consoles and Reggie’s take on digital vs. physical games.
For those that are interested, continue on below for the breakdown of Reggie’s remarks. Be sure to check out Polygon’s original article here as well.
On how Nintendo is in front of the curve in terms of when a company might next release a next-gen console, and how the company takes big chances while innovating in video games…
“So, bad news for you, I’ve got nothing to share specifically about NX.
“One element of your premise is that Nintendo as a company has a history of being innovative and driving innovation. You look at the DS with the incorporation of the touch screen. You look at what we did with Wii. We’re constantly trying to innovate. So to frame it as ‘Here’s a company with a history of innovating. I’d love for them to innovate more.’ We accept that and that is part of our DNA.
“The other thing I would say is that, we see in our existing business, and we anticipate looking into the future, how this gaming industry is going to continue to evolve. And absolutely, our challenge is to think about what that future looks like and create a business model, technology approach and consumer messaging approach that brings it all together to a successful platform and a successful platform launch. We’re constantly thinking about that.”
More: interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, top
Reggie indicates that NX is a home console
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 288 Comments
Nintendo announced a few months ago that it’s working on a new platform called “NX”. The company hasn’t elaborated any further, and never confirmed if we can expect it to be a home console or new portable system.
That’s why recent comments made by Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime are quite interesting. Here’s what he had to say about NX in an interview with The Wall Street Journal (see a Q&A breakdown here):
We’ve also said publicly that we are already hard at work on our next home console and that’s another element we’ll be talking about much later.
Remember: Metroid Prime series producer Kensuke Tanabe, speaking with Eurogamer this week, also referred to NX as a console.
So what can we make of this? This definitely seem to be a strong hint – if not a confirmation – that NX will be a console rather than a handheld.
More: interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, top
Nintendo – improving amiibo supply, 2015 not a transition year, Splatoon driving Wii U sales, eSports, partnerships, JRPGs
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Switch, Wii U | 14 Comments
The quotes below come from Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America, who spoke with GamesBeat…
On the surprises he’s seen now that the conferences have aired…
Scott Moffitt: From a Nintendo standpoint, our goal this year, our objective, was to showcase how we can leverage the power and imagination of our developers to transform how people are playing on our platforms. With iconic franchises like Mario, like Star Fox, or new franchises like Amiibo, you combine that with the imagination of our developers and you get magic.
What emerges are games like Star Fox, a new and exciting version of Star Fox that fans haven’t seen before. It has walker capabilities, two-screen gameplay, the drone capability. That’s an exciting game that fans reacted well to and they’re looking forward to it. It’ll be a big seller this holiday.
You take Amiibo. We’re transforming what consumers have come to expect in the world of toys-to-life. We’ll be the first with Amiibo Cards in Animal Crossing and Happy Home Designer. You’ll see how you can leverage smart cards, Amiibo Cards with the same NFC read-write capability. You can use that to energize or re-imagine a game like Animal Crossing that people have loved in the past.
On how it seemed like a lot of information that could be conveyed through cards, as opposed to toys…
Moffitt: They’re going to be easy for consumers to trade. We’ve announced 100 of them coming so far. There’s a great breadth of cards out there for fans to buy and to collect and trade. You’ll be able to do great things with them. There are special cards and regular cards. You can save your home design to that card and then bring it to someone else’s game. That’s an interesting application of the technology. We’re transforming what people have come to expect in Amiibo.
With Super Mario Maker, we had a great reaction. It’s a game we’ve shown before, but now it’s on the precipice of coming to market. We’re all about showing things that will be playable this year. We have 14 total games that we’re launching between now and the end of the year. That’s a lot of exciting content for fans – eight on Wii U, six on 3DS. The imagination of creativity, the transforming power of all those franchises, is spectacular.
With Super Mario Marker, for the first time, gamers are going to be able to play game designer and design their own levels and challenge others to complete their level. They can play other people’s levels. Celebrities, fans, YouTubers—you may have levels posted by people from all walks of life — kids, adults, pros, non-pros. We think people are going to have a lot of fun building imaginative and creative gameplay of their own with Mario. It’s transforming what people expect. You have a 30-year-old franchise in Super Mario, and now it’s re-imagined with user-generated creations.
More: Amiibo, interview, Scott Moffitt, top
Metroid Prime producer – next proper entry would probably be on NX, more ideas, wants numbered release
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch, Wii U | 55 Comments
This information comes from Metroid Prime series producer Kensuke Tanabe…
“If we started for Wii U now, it would likely take three years or so. So it would likely now be on Nintendo’s NX console. It’s a long time but it would need to include a lot of content, which would take a lot of work on the development side.”
– Tanabe has plenty of ideas for the game
– This includes a focus on a single planet that has a time-shifting mechanic
“Instead of broadening it to more planets I would have one and would focus on the timeline, and being able to change that. That’s one interesting idea I have in mind… but I understand many people thought that [Echoes] was too difficult.”
Head past the break for more quotes, which may include Metroid Prime spoilers for some.
More: interview, Kensuke Tanabe, Metroid Prime, top
Iwata again says that the Nintendo Digital Event will cover titles through early 2016, no NX, QOL, or smart device games
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, Mobile, News, Switch, Wii U | 13 Comments
Update: Bumped to the top. Fully translated tweets:
[Iwata] Originally, the Media Briefings (press conferences) were attended not only by reporters but also by security analysts, distributors and game industry staff—but now that Internet broadcasting is commonplace, many videogame fans can now watch them, too.
[Iwata] On the other hand, the information sought by reporters present at the press conferences can vary greatly depending on their viewpoints. As a result, every year saw the difficulty of pleasing everyone increase. That’s when we settled for a new format to convey information. With the Nintendo Direct format, our E3 has greatly evolved in the last 2-3 years.
[Iwata] This is the back story as to how the Media Briefing changed into the Nintendo Digital Event. During the Digital Event broadcast, we also have distributors gather and open a conference specially dedicated to them.
[Iwata] During our financial results briefing on May 8th, we talked about how we won’t announce anything about the new NX hardware until next year, and how we don’t have plans to showcase our QoL (Quality of Life) business or smart device announcements at E3, which we at Nintendo consider a trade fair for console games. However, perhaps these statements may not reached out as far as we had hoped.
[Iwata] For this year’s Nintendo Digital Event, we will use the occasion to showcase Wii U and 3DS software that is expected to release this year and early next year. It will be voiced in English with Japanese subtitles. This year, I’d like to join you all in Japan to watch the broadcast together. (Note: The second half of that tweet obviously pertains only to Japan.)
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has reconfirmed what fans should and shouldn’t expect from the Digital Event today. You know, just in case you needed a reminder.
Once again, Nintendo will be focusing on games launching through early 2016. This applies to both Wii U and 3DS.
As mentioned previously, there will be no talk about Nintendo’s next system known as the “NX”. There also won’t be any news about the Big N’s Quality of Life initiative or smart device games.
That’s it! Iwata will be watching along from Japan as the Nintendo Digital Event airs. He’ll probably be tweeting throughout the day as well.
More: E3 2015, Satoru Iwata
Nintendo says NX won’t use Android
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 13 Comments
Yesterday, an article surfaced from Japanese newspaper Nikkei suggesting that Nintendo’s upcoming system, the NX, will use an Android operating system. The publication cited people with knowledge of what’s happening within the Big N in its report.
Nintendo has since responded to the speculation, and has confirmed that the rumors are inaccurate.
“There is no truth to the report saying that we are planning to adopt Android for NX,” a company spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
This seems to be keeping in line with Nikkei’s track record. While the newspaper has been spot on with a number of reports in the past, it’s also true that a number of claims have ended up being proven false.
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Nintendo’s NX platform could potentially use Android based OS
Posted on 9 years ago by Dennis Gagliardotto(@LyonHart_) in Rumors, Switch | 81 Comments
Though we don’t have 100% confirmation on this, an article from Nikkei discussing NX, Nintendo’s next platform that was announced during their DeNA conference, states an insider says the OS for NX will be Android based. The reason behind this being because of third party support dwindling for the Wii U, they want to be able to have a more open and accessible platform for developers to create content that can be used on not only NX, but smartphones and tablets as well. This would allow a huge range of flexibility from third parties, and also implementing new features with cross play and performance we probably have yet to see in gaming. Whatever NX ends up being, it sounds like it could be pretty scary, for better or for worse.
Iwata’s official comments on the possibility of not region-locking NX
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 3 Comments
Thanks to Nintendo’s translation of its financial results briefing Q&A sessions from last week, we now have president Satoru Iwata’s official comments on region locking when it comes to NX. View his response below.
My understanding is that it is not realistic on the existing video game systems because unlocking them after they are already on the market poses a number of hurdles. On the other hand, regarding NX, we understand that many consumers hold such opinions and such suggestions exist in the market, and although we have nothing concrete at the moment, we are internally analyzing what hurdles exist to lifting region locks. That is the situation right now. We acknowledge your request, and I personally want to give it positive consideration.
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Iwata’s full comments on NX, what Nintendo isn’t showing at E3 2015
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Switch, Wii U | 20 Comments
Unofficial translations came up over the past few days regarding what Nintendo has in store for its new system codenamed “NX”. Nintendo has now put up a translation of its own, which has a slightly fuller response.
Of course, CEO Satoru Iwata made sure to withhold major information, but he did say that it’s not intended to be “a simple ‘replacement’ for Nintendo 3DS or Wii U.” Nintendo is also “taking into consideration various factors, including the playing environments that differ by country.”
Head past the break for Iwata’s full comments on NX, plus what Nintendo won’t be showing at E3 (posted on the site previously).
More: Satoru Iwata, top
Nintendo thinking about what steps need to be taken to make NX region-free
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Switch, Wii U | 67 Comments
Update: Fairly accurate translation is below.
Removing region-locking from current game machines presents various issues, so we don’t consider that to be very realistic. However, regarding NX, given the customer feedback and proposals from the market, while nothing has been decided yet, we’re currently investigating internally what problems there would be in realizing it. You can think of that as the current situation. I understand your desire, so I’d like to look at it optimistically going forward.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata addressed the topic of region locking during the Q&A portion of the company’s latest financial results briefing.
Iwata stated that Nintendo is thinking internally about what steps need to be taken to make NX region-free. Additionally, the Big N is aware that people want a region free system, and he is “thinking positively” about region free. A decision has not been made internally about whether or not NX will be region-free.
Iwata was also quick to point out that doing away with region-locking for current hardware is “unrealistic”.
