Super Mario 3D World to feature a bunch of live music
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 2 Comments
With the Super Mario Galaxy games, it was the first time we saw Nintendo truly taking advantage of a live orchestra. Super Mario 3D World, the company’s latest 3D platformer, will be receiving similar treatment.
Destructoid managed to obtain confirmation from lead composer Mahito Yokota that many tracks will feature a live performance.
He told the site:
“There are naturally a lot of tracks performed live. We’re arranging the music with a big-band feel, taking advantage of a full horn section with trumpets and saxophones.”
More: Mahito Yokota, Mario, orchestra, top
GameStop ad (10/30 – 11/5)
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments
This week’s GameStop ad has gone live. With the holidays and Black Friday quickly approaching, the retailer is very much light on deals this week. There aren’t a whole lot of sales, but you check to see what GameStop is offering this week through the flyer below.
Details from Nintendo’s latest financial results
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 3 Comments
Nintendo’s latest financial results are in. The company did just about what most had expected – the Wii U struggled, but the 3DS continued to perform very well.
Here’s the full overview of Nintendo’s performance:
– 300,000 Wii U consoles sold in the three month period to September 30th
– That’s double the 160,000 sold in the prior three months
– Wii U has sold only 460,000 worldwide in the six month period to September 30th
– An average of 76,666 units a month worldwide
– Lifetime Wii U sales are 3.91 million
– Nintendo not likely to reach its nine million sales expectation by the end of its 2014 financial year
– Pikmin 3 and Zelda: Wind Waker HD did not significantly boost console sales during the six month period in which both games were released
– Nintendo’s net sales: 196.5 billion yet
– Loss of 23.2 million yen
– Nintendo statement: “The Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo’s profits”
– Nintendo blamed the loss on a markdown in the US and Europe, plus advertising and research/development for Wii U
– Animal Crossing: New Leaf has sold 2.49 million units worldwide
– Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D all showing “steady sales”
– Global 3DS sales: 3.89 million for the period
– 27.38 million games sold during the period
– 3DS has now sold 34.98 million units worldwide since launch to the end of September 2013
– Nintendo not revising its forecast for the 2014 financial year even with the loss and Wii U’s poor sales
– Pokemon X/Y “showed extremely strong initial sales, further propelling the popularity of the system”
– Wii U: “we attempt to concentrate on proactively releasing key first-party titles towards the coming year in order to regain momentum for the platform”
– Nintendo pointed to Wii Party U and Super Mario 3D World
– Wii U will be offered “at an affordable price by bundling software with the system”
– New promotional activities for Wii Fit U
– Nintendo also hopes to improve digital revenue and hardware profitability for both Wii U and 3DS by reducing their manufacturing cost
You can find Nintendo’s full financial results here.
Off-screen Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures footage
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
More: Namco Bandai, Pac-Man
Getting Wii Sports Club online was “a brand new challenge” due to the complexity of gyroscopes vs. buttons
Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 3 Comments
The following is an excerpt from the latest round of Iwata Asks about the development of Wii Sports Club. Specifically, these quotes relate to the game’s online functionality (Miiverse included) and how the team (including folks from Namco Bandai, who helped the game along) tackled various issues that they came across:
“When we thought about how we want people to have fun with Wii Sports on the new hardware, the Wii U console, there was no way, given the expectations, that we couldn’t prepare online gaming. So as we began development, we set online gameplay of Tennis — the representative sport of Wii Sports — as our first goal. [We wanted to] pour our energy into how we could make [online gaming] fun.”
“In a typical online game, the information of the button presses are sent to your opponent, and the inputs are synchronized between the players, but for this game you have to send complex information from the gyro sensor and accelerometer of the Wii Remote Plus controllers, in addition to information from the buttons, which was a brand new challenge.”
– Nintendo EAD Takayuki Shimamura
Specifically regarding Miiverse:
“So we thought about how [Miiverse] should work. But if we were to simply implement Miiverse to a sporting game, the winners would probably write cheerful comments like ‘Yay! I won!’ But I bet the losers would hardly write anything at all, like ‘Oh I’m so frustrated I lost.’ We were concerned that Miiverse would become a cruel place. We also thought many people who play Wii Sports would have never played competitive games online.”
“Everyone has a hometown or someplace where they live, so we thought about setting it up in a way as if at first you join the sports club in the area where you live, and if we made sports clubs for the various states and provinces, each of the regions could compete.”
– Nintendo EAD Takayuki Shimamura
More: interview, Iwata Asks, top, Wii Sports (series)
Bloodbath trailer
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments
Reggie talks using mobile devices for marketing, Nintendo TVii will see continued updates, more
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 3 Comments
Nintendo doesn’t plan on putting any of its franchises on smartphones. However, that doesn’t mean the company is opposed to the use of such devices entirely.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, speaking with CNET, spoke about how Nintendo is consistently considering the mobile space from a marketing perspective. He also pointed out the importance of exclusive IPs like Mario and Zelda so that consumers understand they can only experience these series by picking up Nintendo hardware.
“We’re constantly thinking about how to leverage mobile as a marketing vehicle. How do I give little tastes of content, little experiences that then drive the consumer back to my hardware environment?”
“That’s why we’re so focused on having content exclusive to our platform. When the consumer wants to play Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon, they have to purchase our hardware to do so. And that preserves our overall financial model.”
More: interview, Nintendo TVii, Reggie Fils-Aime, smartphones, top
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag takes up 13GB of space
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 3 Comments
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is now available. You can choose to purchase the game physically or as a digital download. Note that if you opt for the latter, you’ll need 13GB of free space on a hard drive connected to Wii U.
