Nintendo restructure will help avoid software lineup shortages, other benefits
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo’s upcoming restructure is a massive undertaking. A single development department will be created from a nearly 300 combined employees. But the payoff will be worth it.
As noted by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata to investors, in 2012, “we also started a project to integrate the architecture for our future platforms.” Nintendo won’t be integrating its handhelds and consoles, but it hopes to “integrate the architecture to form a common basis for software development so that we can make software assets more transferrable, and operating systems and their build-in applications more portable, regardless of form factor or performance of each platform.”
The benefits of restructuring also extend directly to gamers. Once the new division is in place, Nintendo will be able to “avoid software lineup shortages or software development delays which tend to happen just after the launch of new hardware.”
Iwata talks a bit about Wii Street U and services
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo’s next-big thing for Wii U is Wii Street U. The upcoming app, now set for a mid-February launch, will allow users to take advantage of the GamePad to tour areas straight throughtheir living room.
President Satoru Iwata believes services such as Wii Street U “will help people widely understand the unique value of Wii U and increase the number of people who are interested in Wii U in a family and eventually lead to a bright future of this console.”
Wii Street U as well as other functionality like Miiverse and Nintendo TVii are primarily built on HTML5 and web technologies. As a result, Nintendo has “been able to deploy various services for this console with less in-house development resources in a more timely manner than our previous platforms.”
Iwata has also said that, in GDC in March, Nintendo “will show you some of our efforts to expand the range of software developers.” Talk about Wii Street U’s development environment (and “some VOD services”) can be expected.
Wii U Internet-connection rate stands at 74%
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Much like the 3DS, Wii U is experiencing a rather high Internet-connection rate. Speaking with investors during Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing, president Satoru Iwata said the ratio is up to 74 percent. Nearly three out of every four systems have already connected online.
“The Wii U is a game console you can enjoy most with the Internet connection and the current Internet-Connection ratio is 74%, which means that almost three of four consoles have been online already. This is clearly higher than the previous hardware system we released. We will continue to inform our consumers about the advantages of using the Wii U consoles online to further increase this ratio.”
Iwata on third-party collaborations for Wii U, willing to actively team up with partners
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo announced a completely unexpected title during last week’s Nintendo Direct: Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. Atlus and Nintendo are bringing the two legendary franchises together on Wii U.
During the Nintendo Direct, Satoru Iwata briefly talked about the rise of console development costs and the need to strengthen its lineup through partnerships. Iwata once again spoke about this subject during Nintendo’s financial results briefing today, stating that the company is “willing to actively cooperate with software developers to produce something new beyond the traditional licensing business.”
Iwata said:
Iwata’s direct-quote on its lack of Wii U price drop plans
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 1 Comment
Although the Wii U may be struggling in certain sales areas, Nintendo has no place to initiate a price cut.
A summary of Satoru Iwata’s financial results briefing has gone live, and it contains direct commentary from the president concerning the Big N’s stance on a possible reduction. Iwata noted that Nintendo has “taken a rather resolute stance in pricing it below its manufacturing cost, so we are not planning to perform a markdown.”
Nintendo will be looking to execute a couple of aspects going forward: 1) communicate the value of Wii U and 2) enhance the console’s software lineup.
Nintendo’s financial briefing – 10 in-house 3DS games this year, no Wii U price cut, NFC, more
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Satoru Iwata is currently hosting an investors briefing for Nintendo’s latest financial results. As usual, analyst David Gibson has been live-tweeting from the event.
Read on below for a summary of items discussed during the meeting:
– Iwata says he feels great responsibility for not achieving forecast target
– 3DS is, in Japan, on good track with 3/5 top games from Nintendo
– Animal Crossing: New Leaf has exceeded plans
– US market has been worse with only 2 out of the top 20 titles from 3DS and no console in the territory
– US sales down 27%, compared to Japan while previously 2.5x
– “also blaming competitors were aggressively bundling titles in usa and eu”
– Germany and France 3DS sales up year-over-year
– These are the best markets for Europe
– In the US, Nintendo had 5 titles in the top 20
– France: 11/20; Germany: 10/20; Spain: 11/20
– UK was lower
– “still saying 3ds volumes accum exceeding ds ramp”
– Overseas 3DS software is not there yet to drive hardware sales, but has become leading platform in Japan
– Wii U value proposition not delivered enough to consumers
– Nintendo is selling below cost and not planning to discount further
– “set minimum 100bn op for next fy,committment from mgmt, want to eliminate loss per unit aggressively”
– To achieve this target in Japan, 3DS will gain Monster Hunter 4, Dragon Quest VII, Pokemon X/Y, and has Animal Crossing
– Overseas, Nintendo will release Fire Emblem, Brain Age, LEGO City, Animal Crossing by mid-year
– 10 more titles coming from Nintendo
– All of these games will be available digitally on 3DS
– More Japanese 3DS games for third-parties will be released overseas like Professor Layton
– Digital space has proven important for sales
– Animal Crossing: New Leaf sales account for 1/4 of sales
– Nintendo wants to do more third-party collaborations
– Not just licencing; Nintendo wants to collaborate with developers
– Wii U connectivity rate is 74%
– Nintendo wants to enhance pad usage
– Google Street View delayed to mid-February for Japan
– Iwata says it’s an example of what they want to do with the GamePad in living room
– Called “WiiStreetU”
– Can tour places from living room
– Adjusts to orientation of GamePad as you pan around
– Handheld and console R&D is now together
– Plan is that software can work across each other with potential for mid-long term
– Wii U will have more software to come out from mid-year onwards in particular
– Miyamoto: changing my gaming style with Wii U
– Miyamoto – saying developers have not put much uniqueness in games as yet
– Iwata: Wii U is part of my life
– Iwata says not every single game can become cloud offered and believes hardware won’t become obsolete
– Need to think of something new and unexpected in games
– Miyamoto: smartphone games are now so functional, users become satisfied
– Nintendo’s mission is to offer more and hence users buy their systems
– Miyamoto: for consoles, he thinks the TV can be more useful in people’s lives; this is Wii U’s mission
– Animal Crossing: New Leaf has been more successful with more women/girls compared to the DS game; 2/3 women buyers
– 3DS female mix was 25% in week 1, but that hit 50% when Animal Crossing launched and continues at high levels since the game released
– Iwata: need to think of better way to communicate asymetrical gameplay
– Miyamoto: don’t think all games should incorporate asymetrical gameplay
– Miyamoto: Miyamoto thinks besides HD there is no better way to play with 2 screens
– Iwata: said up until middle of last year was difficult to develop for Wii U for Nintendo and 3rd party, improve over time, we have overcome it
– “processor is memory optimised,cpu/gpu becoming less important, competitors doing the same”
– Iwata: digital sales key for growth, but won’t replace packaged releases
– Achieved 11bn sales in 9 months
– Wii U NFC “can be used for games with figures/cards working with game, making preparations in that direction ,say by end of yr”
– ” nfc is similar to felica in jp so studying to use nfc for e-money, no change to dividend policy or return to shareholders”
– Iwata: it is my mission to improve and make our platforms solid and hence achieve 100bn op, wiiu after summer will have more games to drive
Nintendo release schedule – Tomodachi Collection for Japan, other tidbits
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 0 comments
Remember Tomodachi Collection 3DS? It was announced in August of last year, but dropped off the radar following the initial reveal. The game is still in development, according to an updated release schedule from Nintendo, and it’s still on track to launch this spring.
There are other interesting inclusions in the schedule. Nintendo lists the new Monolith Wii U game for Japan, but not North America and Europe. That’s rather strange. I have a feeling that Nintendo won’t be stingy with its localization like it was with Xenoblade, but the non-inclusion is peculiar.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf is coming to North America “early” this year. Europe is getting the game between April and June. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD is reconfirmed for release in all three major territories (North America, Europe, and Japan) this fall.
Take a look at the full release schedule above.
TiVo, Netflix, Google Maps Wii U support pushed back
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
With only one month remaining in January, previously announced services for Wii U – namely TiVo, Netflix, and Google Maps – had little chance of making it out this month despite Nintendo saying otherwise.
Officially, Nintendo has now declared a more vague “early 2013” release for both TiVo and Netflix. Regarding Google Maps, support for the app is now scheduled for the “first quarter of 2013.”
EA talks Wii U, basically says it’s not a next-gen console
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Update: Added in the full quote after the break.
Nintendo and EA’s relationship has gone strangely sour following the Big N’s E3 2011 press conference. EA CEO John Riccitiello stepped out on stage and proudly spoke about his company’s excitement over the console. Since then, though, the publisher’s interest in Wii U has declined and its output has been nothing less than disappointing.
We’ve seen a couple of sports titles. We’ve also seen a late Mass Effect 3 port and late Need for Speed: Most Wanted port, the latter of which is finally coming out in March.
During EA’s financial results call today, one investor mentioned the company’s non-aggressive pursuit of Wii U and wondered what this means for consumer adoption of next-gen consoles in the future. Riccitiello, who happened to deliver a response, noted that it isn’t wise to ever count Nintendo out and praised the game-maker’s IP. However, he went on to say: “What we describe as ‘Gen 4’ is yet to come.” Does this not mean that EA – well, Riccitiello at least – feels that the Wii U isn’t next-gen?
Below is Riccitiello’s paraphrased response, as transcribed by NeoGAF’s iMax:
