Devil Survivor 2: Break Record’s release date has been revealed in Famitsu, which is leaking out ever-so-slowly tonight.
In Japan, the 3DS game is due out on July 11. Atlus previously confirmed a general Summer 2013 timeframe for launch. Pricing information isn’t immediately available, but this information will likely be included in Atlus’ official announcement in the near future.
Update 2: And back up to $17.75! I think we’re done with these minimal price changes now.
Update: Now down to… $17.59.
Mega Man is in hibernation for the time being. So why not look back on the series’ past games?
You can start with Mega Man Zero Collection, which contains all four Mega Man Zero games on a single cartridge. It also features an art gallery and other elements.
We’re mentioning Mega Man Zero Collection because it’s available through Amazon
for just $17.75. Think about it, guys!
Shin’en is planning two new games for the Wii U. While details about both are being kept under wraps, the studio’s Manfred Linzner has confirmed that one of these will incorporate online play. It’ll be Shin’en’s first title with network play, according to Linzner.
“We are working on two new Wii U games currently. One of them is our first game with network play.”
No matter how much it may sell, analysts will still call gloom and doom upon the 3DS. At the end of the day, these people feel that the portable can’t compete with mobile devices.
iOS is often one platform often brought up in 3DS comparisons. Both are portable. Both offer an array of digital content. But whereas tons of games may be available on the App Store, Nintendo of America’s sales VP Scott Moffitt sees the 3DS eShop as an area of higher-quality.
“With software, as with most things, there’s a distinct difference between quantity and quality. The website 148apps.biz recently calculated that there are currently 139,000 different games actively available on the [Apple] app store. One hundred and thirty-nine thousand. Huge number. That number is way too big to wrap your head around, so I try to think about it this way. If I wanted to spend just fifteen minutes sampling each one of those games, I’d be at it non-stop for four years. That’s a ton of caffeine. Obviously there are good games available for mobile platforms. But the point is, the Nintendo 3DS has a record of quality that’s hard to challenge.”
Moffitt added: “Nowhere else in portable gaming is high quality found so frequently.”
Video games do have health benefits upon occasion, and the latest scientific study surrounding our favorite hobby took people with lazy eyes and pit them against Tetris, the beloved puzzle game that is constantly being pinpointed for mental and physical health benefits. It turns out that simply playing the game for a set amount of time each day actually improved the condition in 18 adult patients more effectively than what had been used prior as treatment for the issue.
Next up, researchers want to see if the game-based treatment would help in children as well, preventing the onset of a condition that would last their entire lives. Let’s hope the results are positive!
Nintendo has a lot of Zelda content in the works currently. There’s the Link to the Past follow-up for the 3DS, a remake of The Wind Waker for Wii U, and a brand new title made from the ground-up for Nintendo’s console.
How Nintendo is approaching the development of these projects – and Zelda overall – is rather interesting. Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen discussed the process with Kotaku, commenting that “They kind of shuffle people in and out, so they’ll sort of have their core group, but then they’re bringing new people in and out, so that helps bring in fresh ideas.”
“They kind of shuffle people in and out, so they’ll sort of have their core group, but then they’re bringing new people in and out, so that helps bring in fresh ideas. Each of the different games will have their main lead director, or maybe depending on the game, they may have two…Generally the way that the Zelda team operates is they may have one or two people who carry over or take the lead, but they do a lot of kind of jumping in and out in terms of moving from handheld to console, or vice-versa.”
I must admit, the documentary looks like it takes itself a little bit too seriously for my taste, at least based on the video above. Still, I think he makes a good point: Zelda has managed to challenge and foster our imaginations more effectively than arguably any other piece of art I’ve ever consumed, and at least in my case, it’s an experience only matched by a few other games– and maybe some books or movies here and there.
Certainly something worth making a documentary about!
“After shipping Conviction, there were a lot of people who said the fans didn’t like Mark and Execute. But when we looked at our broader feedback – we do surveys through Uplay and get thousands and thousands of players – the people who rated those new features the highest were actually players who played at least two games in the series before. So in fact it was the opposite of what the data was telling us.”
– Ubisoft Toronto boss Jade Raymond
You can read the rest of a really interesting interview here. It basically says that– while some players see the series as being “dumbed down”– Ubisoft will be going for a game that you can play stealthily or action-y, depending on what you enjoy. It’s a way to expand the audience without sacrificing the core gameplay that hardcore players like in Splinter Cell, but chances are we’ll be looking at more of an action-stealth game than a purely stealth game. Think the Resident Evil 4/5 change vs. Resident Evil GCN‘s “hardcore horror” vibe.
