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.
It has been confirmed that players will be able to use more than two active playable characters in the 3DS version of Skylanders: Swap Force. Previous Skylanders games on the 3DS have put this limit in place.
Swap Force will allow players to load up characters so that their entire collection can be brought on the go.
Users will need to connect their 3DS system to the Portal of Power and place figures on the portal in order to add upgrades you receive while playing.
On Nintendo’s handheld, Skylanders will once again act as its own experience and will be a side-story.
This week’s North American Nintendo Downloads are as follows:
Wii U download
Mutant Mudds Deluxe – $9.99
3DS download
Mighty Switch Force! 2 – $5.99
Big Bass Arcade: No Limit – $6.99
Picross e – $5.99
3DS VC
Sonic the Hedgehog – $4.99
Columns – $3.99
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine – $2.99
Shining Force: Sword of Hajya – $3.99
Source: Nintendo PR
Is there any sort of possibility that third-party characters could be included in Mario Kart 8? Hideki Konno won’t say. When asked, Konno replied that he “can’t answer that yet.”
Retro president Michael Kelbaugh and the rest of the studio “love Metroid.” And while the company could look to create another entry in the classic series someday, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze became the company’s focus for Wii U.
Speaking with IGN, Kelbaugh elaborated a bit more as to why Retro went with Donkey Kong for its first Wii U project:
“Well, we love Metroid. We love Metroid Prime and we always will. It was a big part of our studio, the culture of the studio. The majority of that team is still at Retro. When we finished with DK, we still had a lot of really cool ideas. That, in combination with what the Wii U could do, we really wanted to continue with that. Again, Retro Studios loves Metroid. We might do another one someday. But we really enjoyed working with DK as well.”
Donkey Kong Country is Retro’s only project at the moment. Those who had been hoping that the team could be working on a couple of projects at once will be disappointed.
