Having the Wii U Deluxe Set priced at $350 could be a tough sell for Nintendo moving forward. Sony will be launching the PlayStation 4 later this year, and is only $50 more for what you could say is a much-more involved piece of technology.
There is one important point to note, according to Nintendo of America senior director of corporate communications Charlie Scibetta. Scibetta mentioned in an interview with Shacknews that the Wii U Deluxe Set comes with a game whereas the PlayStation 4 does not.
Scibetta said the following when asked if Wii U can be competitive priced against the PS4:
“Well, you do get an included game with our Deluxe 32GB SKU. You automatically have software to enjoy right out of the box.”
“We believe our value proposition is right for both our 8GB and 32GB models. With the software that’s coming out between now and 2014, we have the software to power the hardware. We had a good launch, but as we’ve said before, we’ve had to hold some titles back from the first half of 2013 to the second half and that was for quality reasons.”
Nintendo of America senior director of corporate communications Charlie Scibetta says that “the relationship is great between Nintendo and Electronic Arts.”
But when pressed further and asked what makes their relationship “great”, Scibetta would only note:
“You’ll have to ask EA when it comes to any future announcements or future product plans. I don’t want to speak for them.”
As far as overall third-party support for Wii U is concerned, Scibetta admitted that the console needs to sell so that external companies can reach a large audience:
“Third parties want the same thing that we do, which is the install base to grow so they have a larger audience to sell their games to. We feel that’s our job to help drive that install base, and we haven’t had the software so far in 2013 that’s going to do that. But we’re confident between now and the holiday and again in 2014, we do have the software that’s going to grow that install base. And when that happens, we think that Wii U will be a far more attractive platform for third parties to want to publish on. The same thing happened on Nintendo 3DS that we think will happen on Wii U, which started off slow, but when the software came around, the hardware sales came. We’re looking for the same dynamic for Wii U.”
In an interview with IGN, Yoshi producer Takashi Tezuka explained the decision to make Yoshi’s New Island:
“It’s just been a long time since there’s been a Yoshi game, so I wanted to put another one out there. The first time you see Yoshi is in a Mario game. [I thought] it would have been ideal if there was a Yoshi game first, where you would get to know Yoshi, and then you could see him appear in a Mario game. That’s something I’ve thought about as I look back and reflect on the series. So that’s one reason I really want to put out another Yoshi game, so people will get to know Yoshi as a character again. This new 3DS game is a sequel, basically, to the first Yoshi’s Island. It takes place after that.”
Tezuka also spoke about the visual style for Yoshi:
“When it comes to the graphics for Yoshi, one thing I’m conscious of is having that kind of handmade feel, a kind of handicraft feel. In the previous one, we had this hand-drawn style, but now we’re moving on to create something new, leaving that behind. There’s still a lot of hand-drawn stuff. Like with the yarn thing, it’s also more like something physical, with the weight of something hand-crafted. We’re trying to create more variations like that.”
A few more notes from Tezuka: the idea behind eating giant enemies that can allow Yoshi to create huge eggs came from “creating something big and impactful”; Tezuka is overseeing level design, as are developers from the New Super Mario Bros. projects; StreetPass and multiplayer are under consideration.
In Europe, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies will only be playable in English.
The move came down to Capcom’s interest in releasing the game quicker in overseas markets. Because the company wanted a shorter delay between the Japanese and western launch of Dual Destinies, localization efforts began immediately.
Shigeru Miyamoto shared a few comments regarding game ownership while speaking with Eurogamer. In Miyamoto’s eyes, consumers should retain access “for a long time” and similar to a physical toy, should remain the property of their owner.
He said:
“What’s really important is viewing Nintendo almost like a toy company where we’re making these things for people to play with. As a consumer you want to be able to keep those things for a long time and have those things from your youth that you can go back to and experience again. I really want to retain that product nature of the games that we create so that people can do that and have that experience. To me that’s something that’s very important about entertainment itself. So from the approach of continuing to create things that are entertaining for people, that’s an important direction for me that I want to maintain.”
Thanks to miriam for the tip.
