Nintendo Everything

Rune Factory 4 still doesn’t have a final release date. But with any luck, we’ll see it in late September or October.

North American publisher XSEED attributed the long wait to a longer QA process to ensure the game’s quality for English players. Rest assured that the company is “dying” to release the 3DS game.

“We’re dying to get it to you, but the game is absolutely massive and taking much longer to QA (play through the English for quality assurance) than we originally anticipated. Right now we could be looking at a late September or October release, but it will definitely be worth the wait.”

Rune Factory 4 was originally slated for summer, but XSEED wasn’t able to nail down an exact date. Now we know why.

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Precursor Games pledged support for Wii U in a big way when it announced Shadow of the Eternals for the console (and PC, later followed by PS4). Yet not all companies are willing to put out new titles for Nintendo’s system. There’s no denying that the Wii U is struggling, which is one of the big reasons why third-party support has been slim.

So what is it about the Wii U that drew Precursor to the console? Chief creative officer Denis Dyack pointed to a number of reasons in an interview with GameSpot:

“We like the Wii U. …Well, I think first of all we’re great friends with Nintendo. We love Nintendo. Also, Eternal Darkness got its roots with Nintendo and I think a spiritual successor should follow those roots and I think that was just natural. I also think that the controller and the system itself is very, very unique and leaves a lot of possibilities for us.”

Later in the interview, Dyack went on to speak about Nintendo’s recent struggles and said of the console race: it’s “way, way too early to tell.”

“I’m always very cautious about saying Nintendo’s put themselves in a corner or made a lot of huge mistakes because I’ve never seen a company surprise so many people and come out of nowhere to win and I think certainly this console race with the Wii U is way, way too early to tell. The people at Nintendo are extremely smart, really great people. We’ll see where it goes. I think it’s just too early to tell…”

This week’s GameStop ad has gone live. Highlights include Project X Zone for $30 and LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes for $20.

You can find the full round of GameStop details in the ad below:

Art Academy: SketchPad won’t be available on the North American Wii U eShop after all. Nintendo has updated its official listing, which now includes a “TBA” date. Previously, the page said that Art Academy for Wii U would launch on August 8.

Joystiq caught up with Dan Adelman, who you’ve likely heard about before. His official title is business development manager at Nintendo of America, but gamers should know him as the main man behind the company’s indie efforts.

In the new interview, Adelman spoke about indie content on Wii U, as well as the console’s install base and competition. Head past the break for a roundup of his responses.

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I’ve started to pull back on posting ratings that don’t have any importance to them. But hey, it’s Zelda. And this is yet another reminder that it’s coming.

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Nintendo of America’s business development manager Dan Adelman has provided another update on the upcoming functionality that will allow users to purchase digital content on PCs and mobile devices.

Adelman himself isn’t “personally directly involved”, but confirmed that players will be able to “log onto the site and set [purchases] up for download so that once they get home, it’ll be available for them and they can have that at their fingertips whenever they need it.”

So there you have it. As we reported yesterday, this feature should be ready to go by year’s end.

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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies is the series’ first entry to feature 3D graphics. The transition from 2D to 3D wasn’t so easy. Producer Motohide Eshiro and scenario director Takeshi Yamazaki spoke about the new direction while speaking with Game Watch. For an overview of what was shared, check out the summary below.

– Using 3D allows the team “to go backwards in the work process”
– Process of changing motions and angles are also easier
– Therefore, the director of the project can further focus on the camerawork
– Also opens up a wider range of creative possibilities with how you present a scene
– 3D brings more room, but “the ‘trouble of making it 3D’ was actually very problematic. Simply taking the original 2D screen’s perspectives and camera angles and tossing in 3D models ended up making it appear completely different.”
– Staffer in charge of modeling came up with different models based on different situations
– “When you used Phoenix Wright’s models for court in the adventure parts [of the game], the sense of inconsistency was too great. That resulted in camera angle changes leading to something that looked strange. For such occasions, we switched parts of the model. That way, the 3D models appeared natural in any scene.”
– Phoenix’s famous pose has been enhanced by 3D
– Devs wanted to upgrade the intensity of the pose
– This was made possible by adjusting the perspective of the pose, making the hand appear much larger when seen in 3D

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