Today’s Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze announcement brought along the news of David Wise’s return to the series. Of course, Wise worked on almost all of the previous Country titles.
Although Wise is the leading staffer behind Tropical Freeze’s soundtrack, composer Kenji Yamamoto will still be contributing to the game, as will Retro Studios audio director Scott Petersen. Yamamoto created content for Donkey Kong Country Returns, the Metroid Prime games, and more.
Nintendo has never been interested in the mobile space when it comes to bringing its franchises to such platforms. President Satoru Iwata has continually denied pressure and requests posed by analysts, investors, and others to make the move to smartphones.
Iwata once again downplayed smartphones in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He said:
“If I was only concerned about managing Nintendo for this year and next year—and not about what the company would be like in 10 or 20 years—then I’d probably say that my point of view is nonsense. But if we think 20 years down the line, we may look back at the decision not to supply Nintendo games to smartphones and think that is the reason why the company is still here.”
Koji Kondo and Mahito Yokota will be in charge of the soundtrack for Super Mario 3D World. Kondo has obviously been with Mario since the very beginning, while Yokota was involved with Super Mario Galaxy.
While we’re on the topic of Galaxy, could 3D World feature an orchestrated soundtrack like the Wii games? One of the game’s directors teased: “Wait for more information about that soon.”
Speaking with GameSpot, Nintendo senior communications director Charlie Scibetta said that the Mario Kart brand “is more powerful than ever.” Scibetta referred to the longtime gamers who have played the series for years and newcomers such as kids.
“I do think that the power of the brand is more powerful than ever because you have all the people who grew up on it, so you have that carryover; the fact that they still keep playing into their adult years. And then you also have kids getting into it and you get them involved too.”
Scibetta added that adding innovation and pushing the series to its limits can help keep the Mario Kart series fresh, relevant and popular.
Scibetta also said that Mario Kart 8’s freshness is conveyed through elements including anti-gravity, new vehicles like gliders, and 12-player online support. He believes that the Wii U game will be compelling for consumers due to its classic features and new experiences.
Zelda’s original Wii U outing appears to be farther along than originally thought. Nintendo considered bringing the game to this year’s E3, surprisingly, but Shigeru Miyamoto told Game Informer that the decision was made “to wait just a little bit longer before sharing it with everyone.”
Miyamoto said:
“We’re also working on a new Wii U Zelda game. Work on that is progressing fairly concretely. In fact, we were thinking about showing it here at E3 but decided to wait just a little bit longer before sharing it with everyone.”
