Source: Nintendo PR

Eurocom, the developer of Dead Space: Extraction and the most-recent 007 games, has significantly reduced the size of its team. Over 200 staffers had been employed by the company, but only 50 will remain.

The company said in a statement:

“Eurocom are undertaking a restructuring which I regret to say has meant we’ve made the majority of our workforce redundant today. This includes many very experienced, talented and highly skilled employees, and we’d like to thank them all for your hard work and efforts. We’ve fought to try and save as many jobs as possible, but the steep decline in demand for console games, culminating in a number of console projects falling through in the last week, left us with no option. Eurocom has retained a core staff of just under 50 employees and will be focusing mainly on mobile opportunities moving forward.”

ThisIsDerbyshire.co.uk writes that Eurocom is suffering from cash-flow problems. The site says the studio is working hard to preserve the final 42 jobs.

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A few issues have plagued the Wii U launch. Users have encountered freezing problems, for instance, and one user even manged to gain access to a Miiverse mock menu.

Although it hasn’t been smooth sailing for Nintendo, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich says the Wii U was successful. Divnich is also not at all concerned that the console will perform well on the market throughout the holiday season.

“The Nintendo Wii-U launch was a success. There were issues. Issues that are common among hardware launches and Nintendo should address them over time. Nintendo will have a successful holiday season, as they always do. I have no concerns about the Wii-U’s success through the holidays.”

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Remember Nintendo’s 8-bit Summer promotion? Sonic Labyrinth and Sonic Blast were originally intended to be released during the time of its campaign, but neither game landed on the 3DS eShop.

That should be changing soon. The eShop has been updated and both titles are said to be coming soon. Each will cost $4.99 when they are finally made available.

A couple of months back, Akihiro Suzuki noted how the Wii U’s CPU was presenting a challenge in making Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper. Reports had surfaced from TGS that the game possessed a lower-than expected frame rate and fewer on-screen enemies compared to other Dynasty Warriors titles.

Suzuki promised an improved performance for Hyper before release, but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though the team was able to completely deliver.

Destructoid editor Jim Sterling wrote on Twitter recently that Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper’s frame rate is “noticeably worse than the PS3 version.” In a separate tweet, Sterling wrote that it is “very bad in Warriors Orochi 3 at times.”

Thanks to Jake for the tip.

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Unchained Blades came out on North American PSN (PSP) months ago. The 3DS eShop version, however, has been in limbo.

Publisher XSEED says it is “struggling” to release the 3DS edition. Having said that, the company hopes to finally launch the game next month.

And what about the sequel, Unchained Blades Exiv? Once the original game comes out on the eShop, XSEED may begin to consider localizing on the follow-up.

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WHAT: Wii U Official Launch Event

WHERE: HMV, 150 Oxford Street, London W1

WHEN: Thurs 29th Nov 2012 from 22.00 hrs/ for official sale at 00.01 hrs Fri 30th Nov

London, 22nd November 2012 – HMV is delighted to announce that its flagship store in London’s Oxford Street will play host to the Official Midnight Launch Event of Nintendo’s hugely anticipated new home console – Wii U.

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Rayman Legends was supposed to have a demo on the eShop for the Wii U’s launch. Strangely, it never made it out this past Sunday and it still isn’t available. Where is it?

We did reach out to Ubisoft about the situation a couple of days ago. As of this moment, we haven’t heard back. If and when the company responds, we’ll be sure to let you know.

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