Ubisoft’s two newest games, The Crew and The Division, aren’t coming to Wii U as far as we know. Still, it’s tough to knock the publisher’s support. Rayman Legends, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Watch_Dogs, and Assassin’s Creed IV are all due out before year’s end.
Tony Key, senior VP of sales and marketing at Ubisoft, recently said that the company will continue investing in the Wii U and believes it is capable of thriving on the platform.
“We did not take a big risk with all those launch titles on Wii U. [Wii U game] development isn’t expensive — some Wii U games are versions of games for other platforms, like Assassin’s Creed. And we continue to invest in that system. We have just as many titles coming on Wii U this year as we did after launch, because the system isn’t as resource-intensive to make games for it. We continue to believe that the Wii U will find its audience. We saw some good games [during Nintendo Direct this week]. We’re confident that the Wii U is a good place for us to do business, and we can make money there.”
Super Mario 3D World draws inspirations from all kinds of older Mario games. When it comes to multiplayer, the Wii U game more or less lifts the bubble mechanic from the New Super Mario Bros. releases. Players are placed in a bubble when they fall behind and are kept together with the main group.
Director Koichi Hayashida discussed Mario 3D World’s multiplayer while speaking with Eurogamer:
“I guess you could say that the one influence from New Super Mario Bros that we do feel strongly is the use of the bubble as a catch-up mechanism in multiplayer. But when we came up with this game we were actually thinking along completely different lines, and that is how to make the gameplay focused on multiplayer when you have a 3D environment, a world for people to run around in rather than just in one direction. I think that’s taking the gameplay into some very interesting and different directions.”
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will host its annual “Video Game Week” starting on Monday. Nintendo fans will be most interested in Friday’s show, where Game & Wario and Super Mario 3D World will be making appearances.
Also worth mentioning, a demo of Watch_Dogs will be shown on Wednesday. Activision will be bringing Call of Duty: Ghosts on Thursday.
Mario Golf: World Tour was originally planned for a summer release this year. So much for that!
A slide from Nintendo’s E3 2013 analyst briefing reveals that World Tour has slipped into 2014.
The slide in question:
Nintendo’s new Nintendo Web Framework technology has been a hit. The company has been in contact with over a thousand parties, according to Satoru Iwata.
The Nintendo president shared the news during an E3 2013 analyst event earlier today:
Also, at the March Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco, we announced to the attending game developers Nintendo Web Framework, which provides a way of developing Wii U software using open web technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript, and the provision of Unity for Wii U.
Since then, we have received great feedback. We have been in contact with more than a thousand parties.
Even though software for dedicated gaming devices has become advanced and complex, we have been working on those new approaches to expand the range of developers for the platform. As digital business expands, there will be even more opportunities for us to do business with small, independent software developers.
The Wii U is not in a good position when it comes to third-parties – this is well-known. The system is missing out on major sports titles, other multiplatform releases, and big publishers such as EA have started to move away from the system.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata doesn’t sound too concerned about the situation. Speaking during the company’s E3 2013 analyst briefing, Iwata said that “more unannounced titles will come.” He feels that an improved first-party lineup – something that Nintendo is now addressing – will lead to more efforts from third-parties.
When it comes to third-party software, this slide shows a list of games that have already been announced.
It is not my position to mention which titles each third-party developer will release in the future. However, more unannounced titles will come. We hope to revitalize the platform with our strong first-party lineup, and then an enriched third-party software lineup will follow.
We now have the full details on Nintendo’s plans to expand StreetPass availability in western markets.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced today that 28,000 Wi-Fi access points in the US and 24,000 access points in Europe will be installed in areas such as Starbucks and McDonald’s to increase the number of connections experienced by 3DS owners. These spots act as relay stations and will be able to automatically connect to any system following a system update.
Here’s how it works: you walk into a Starbucks, and your 3DS – in Sleep Mode – reaches an access point and sends StreetPass data to a server. While this is happening, the same 3DS receives the data of another user from the server. It’s more like indirect communication as opposed to connections taking place between 3DS users a few feet apart.
