Nintendo Voice Chat podcast summary (E3 and 3DS talk)

E3

– Nintendo’s conference is Tuesday at 9 AM Pacific
– They will be number two, Microsoft is on Monday
– Guesses that this conference will be more hardcore-focused
– Craig thinks the 3DS name won’t change
– The cool games we want to see might just be put into a montage like last year
– Craig’s theory about the Vitality Sensor was that Nintendo needed to fill a gap to show they were working on something
– Epic Mickey will probably be at E3, Craig has it scheduled in his second day at E3

3DS

– Hopefully not just a DS with 3D screens
– 360/PS3 power rumor came from Craig, he’s been talking with devs who are working with it or are close to it
– These people are very impressed with its capabilities
– Nintendo hasn’t made a big jump with hardware because they haven’t had to, Craig thinks they need to now because of Apple
– DS is old technology, Craig says Nintendo needs to step it up
– Apple already doing well with their games, they look great
– You can have processing power and not take up media space
– Quality of the visuals will depend on the resolution of the 3D screen
– 3D requires images to be rendered twice, will need significant processing power for that
– Craig is skeptical like most people, but the people he has talked to have said it’s powerful
– Battery important has been very important to Nintendo
– Nintendo never considered Apple as a competitor, now everyone is developing on Apple platforms
– If you make a DSi game, it’s a loss for you since no one really knows it came out
– Hopefully for 3DS Nintendo will do Virtual Console, Nintendo has a huge backlog for their past handhelds
– 3D will be an option on the system itself
– Apparently a slider will be able to toggle the strength of the 3D effect
– 3D tech is a way to sell the system
– There will definitely be a Mario Kart game for the system
– Developers are trying to figure out what to do with the 3D
– There was quite a wait for good games when the DS first came out, seemed like there were a lot of tech demos to beat out PSP
– Doesn’t sound like a lot of third-parties have had more time with the 3DS than the DS, some were saying they didn’t have the hardware yet
– Nintendo Japan has the hardware, if you’re a third-party you don’t have much
– Nintendo is probably working with Sharp
– Craig has heard the 3D effect is very cool
– Most of Craig’s focus will be the 3DS

– Level-5 wants to publish Professor Layton in North America/Europe

Reader question

– Craig asked about the Club Nintendo Galaxy 2 soundtrack, Nintendo of America doesn’t want to let fans know what they’re working on