XSEED Games released a few titles on Wii, such as the niche title Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (which Austin seemed to love) and Ivy the Kiwi?. Now that a new Nintendo console is on the way, will the publisher be moving on to the platform? Ken Berry, Director of Publishing at XSEED, sounds interesting in localizing some games for the system depending on the type of content that’s involved:

“With the right opportunity for us, with the right title, absolutely. Their showing and demonstration was very impressive. I think everyone was floored with what the unique new controller can do. If there’s a game creator out there that puts out something very compelling and we get a chance to publish that, then yeah we would like to seize that opportunity.”

Source

Batman: Arkham City Wii U controller mockups

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Source

EA’s Riccitiello: Wii U “transcends anything I’ve ever done before”

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

In case you haven’t already heard, EA is a big supporter of the Wii U. So much so that EA CEO John Riccitiello took the stage at Nintendo’s E3 2011 media briefing to talk about the potential of the console. Riccitiello once again demonstrated how excited he is about the Big N’s new system in an interview with IndustryGamers, even say that it “transcends anything I’ve ever done before.”

“It’s a high definition platform and I love the controller. I just think it’s cool. You’re a gamer – so you’ve got the screen here [in your hands] and you’ve got the [TV] screen there and you’ve got full control. Personally, while there’s some great experiences on Move, and there’s some great experiences on Kinect, I’m not a motion control guy. It’s still too imprecise for me. I like shooting something and hitting it. I like turning a corner and feeling precision. So I still like my swizzle sticks and my shoulder buttons and my Xs and Os, etc. But there is something about having that second screen that transcends anything I’ve ever done before. I can draw a pass pattern for Madden, I can be playing an FPS up here while I’m calling in air strikes or whatever I want to do. I can give all the detailed control off the screen, I can see another part of a map… I always find it breaks the spell for me when I’m playing a game with a squad and I have to stop the action and move up for them. Now I can just move them down here [on the tablet]. I think there’s something really powerful about a second screen that I think really matters. I think we’re just beginning to realize what we can do with it and I think it’s obvious we can do a lot with it.”

Source

Bleszinski thinks Wii U is neat, believes skeptical gamers will purchase the console

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Cliff Bleszinski continues to throw his support towards Wii U. The Gears of War creator likes the idea of being able to play a console game on the controller and also believes that those who have been hateful of the system thus far will eventually purchase it. Bleszinski made a… somewhat humorous remark when discussing how you’ll be able to take the game with you even if there isn’t a television in sight:

“From what I’ve seen, it looks pretty cool. It seems like you can stream your game from your television directly to your [tablet] controller, so if you have irritable bowel syndrome, or a small bladder, you can still play it in the toilet. That’s great. But, you know, from what people are saying online, they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s just a DreamCast, whatever.’ But it’s like, ‘Dude, what’s old is new sometimes.’ The Power Glove [back on NES] led to the Wii, right? The Virtual Boy led to the 3DS, right? A lot of these older technologies that you forget about are [the technological predecessors]. The Kinect is a sophisticated webcam, right? So I’m just dying to see it. It’s Nintendo. I’ll buy it. I know I’ll buy it. They’ll (skeptical gamers) talk sh*t but they’ll buy it.”

Source

Iwata likes the idea of automatically pushing demos to 3DS and Wii U owners

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 0 comments

The only type of real demos we’ve seen on a Nintendo service thus far have come through the Wii Shop Channel. Unfortunately, the process of actually downloading content can be tedious and it doesn’t help that demos are automatically removed after a few weeks. On the bright side, it sounds like Satoru Iwata might be open to changing Nintendo’s demo methods in the future.

“…Additionally, when Nintendo would like to ask users to try a specific new game, we should deliver it to their Nintendo 3DS, and possibly Wii U, with their prior consent and recommend that they just try it and, if they like it, they can pay for it. In this way, we need to introduce users to unknown products. Consumers are likely to be convinced to pay about 5,000 yen for a well-established franchise product, but not all the people are willing to pay a certain amount of money for an innovative but unknown product. Now is the time to prepare for these situations. We would like to respond to some of the concerns surrounding our business in this manner.”

I could see this happening very easily on the 3DS and I imagine it could be easy to implement on Wii U. Demos for both retail and downloadable games are heading to the eShop later this year, but it would be great if there was an option to automatically receive demos. It’d probably be demos that Nintendo selects, but it could be an great feature.

Source 1, Source

Aliens dev thinks Wii U is “a really cool stop-gap console”, excited about controller, more

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Gearbox Software co-founder and chief creative officer Brian Martel was very positive when talking about the Wii U with IGN. But one the more interesting comments he shared is that Wii U is “going to be a really cool stop-gap in between this generation and the next generation.” I don’t think Nintendo has any plans for Wii U to be a stop-gap! I’m sure that they want the console to stick around for at least five years.

Martel’s full comments about Wii U are below:

“Right now we’re still finding out what kind of final tech specs the Wii U is going to have. But we like the system a lot; we think it’s going to be a really cool stop-gap in between this generation and the next generation. We think it’s really smart of Nintendo, and the fact that as a platform it’s a lot more capable for hardcore first-person shooter-style gaming – for us that’s fantastic. We’ve got the [Aliens: Colonial Marines] engine running on the Wii U, and as far as the console goes, you’re going to see textures at a resolution that you haven’t seen on [the current] generation. But the thing we’re most excited about is: what can we do with the controller? So the obvious thing for us is that we can do the motion tracker [on the controller screen], or the sentry gun information – all that kind of stuff. That stuff is really sexy for us. Getting the information off the screen and onto this device is a fantastic idea, right? So can we have a HUD-less environment? Yeah, probably. That would be fantastic, right?”

Source

Iwata says Wii U will appeal more towards the hardcore, EA partnership talk, Wii sales not a concern… yet

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments

Satoru Iwata on how the Wii U will better appeal to hardcore gamers compared to Wii…

“When we considered what to do with the graphics capability of the Wii, we put more attention and focus on the ability to create new experiences rather than the quality of the graphics. For popular genres in the Western world such as the shooter games, the picture quality is actually very important. And as a result, we have not been able to provide hardcore video game players with the option they really want with the Wii. That sort of picture-processing issue is going to be solved this time around.

Nintendo explains Wii game droughts, working with third-parties to develop games, more

Posted on 13 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments

Unfortunately, the Wii has suffered from a number of “droughts” throughout its lifecycle. One such drought was in 2009 for Japan, when there just weren’t many games to play. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told investors last week that this was a result of the unpredictable nature of development and lack of support from third-parties:

I would like to explain about it in an organized way. First, in the first half of 2009, when the Wii lost its momentum, we could not offer new titles for a certain period of time. We ourselves have to reflect on this situation. We usually plan to release software in a way like, first we release this, then this and then that. But the development does not always proceed as it is planned. For example, if we feel that certain software will end up being boring if we continue to develop it in the same way, we will have to polish it. We sometimes change the content substantially, and in that case, the date of the release schedule has to be significantly changed.