In recent years, there has been concern about the Japanese gaming industry. Quite a few developers have admitted that technology in the west has outpaced the east, and there are some who have been very vocal about Japan’s impact overall.
You may remember a quote from Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune back in 2009: “Japan is over. We’re done. Our game industry is finished.” As of now, Inafune looks upon things less harshly, though he’s only slightly more optimistic.
Inafune told IGN:
Square Enix has a new president, Yosuke Matsuda. Current president Yoichi Wada will be on his way out by June.
What lies ahead for Square Enix now that there’s a new man in charge? Matsuda gave a brief update during a briefing session:
“After having succeeded the important role as the president, I plan on reviewing all Square Enix duties, business and assets on a zero-based budgeting standpoint. Due to the radical change of environment, I’d like to fundamentally review what works and what doesn’t work for our company, then cast all of our resources towards extending what makes us successful and thoroughly squeezing out what doesn’t.
As far as a concrete plan on what to expect from us, I will further explain it on another briefing session in the near future, so I kindly ask for your patience. Thank you for your support.”
As previously reported, the European version of Devil Survivor Overclocked suffers from a number of crash and bug issues. Publisher Ghostlight is, thankfully, working on a fix.
The company has been in touch with Atlus regarding a fix, and is also working with Nintendo on releasing an upcoming patch.
Ghostlight wrote on its blog:
To give you an update of where we are… We have been in contact with Atlus who are already looking into fixing the possible causes of problems when summoning a demon in to a battle along with the intermittent crash found in the Auction House. Nintendo have also been contacted and will be able to help us both quickly and efficiently through the process of looking at a patch solution.
Sorry that we don’t have any more news for you at this time but we are working as fast as we can towards a fix. We appreciate your words of support and continued patience through our first release on 3DS.
Two third-party 3DS apps landed on Japanese 3DS systems last year: the Rekochoku music service and Dokodemo Honya-san book service. Interestingly, Nintendo now seems to be pushing both downloads to users. Through SpotPass, Dokodemo and Honya-san have been added to at least some 3DS owners. We sort of knew that this was possible, but it’s still neat to see in action.
We’ve already seen one instance in which a company created an improved version of an older game for Wii U, only to re-release it later on its original platforms (see Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge). Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut is somewhat similar in that numerous changes and additions have made their way to the Wii U game.
But when it comes to the new Deus Ex version, it doesn’t sound like the Director’s Cut content will be coming to other platforms. Game designer Emile Pedneault told Penny Arcade Report recently that the title’s enhanced visuals, reworked bosses, and other elements aren’t planned for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC – for now, anyway.
The pages of this week’s Famitsu contain an update about Sayonara Umihara Kawase. The publication shared information regarding a couple of new characters this time around. Read on below for a summary of Famitsu’s report.
– Yokoyama: undercover time police officer from the future
– Also a descendant from the Kawase family
– Can slow the stream of time
– Emiko-chan: nine year-old girl who is friends with young Umihara Kawase
– Emiko-chan is sort of like an “easy mode” character
– She allows players to restart a level from a checkpoint if they touch it
The original Luigi’s Mansion made use of dual analog controls. Its sequel, Dark Moon, does not.
While the development team did experiment with Circle Pad Pro implementation for Dark Moon, according to director Bryce Holliday, “it didn’t add anything.”
In an interview with IGN, he said:
“We always wanted it to work with a single circle pad. When we moved to a second analog stick, because we’d actually changed that gameplay mechanic paradigm to the tug-of-war, it just wouldn’t work. There was nothing to do with the second stick. By changing, at the beginning of the project, the high-level strategy around the ghost fishing, we found that when we did experiment with the Circle Pad Pro, it didn’t add anything.”
Later in the interview, gameplay engineer Brian Davis spoke about how Toad’s involvement in Dark Moon is somewhat comparable to Link to the Past’s first mission in which players escort Zelda out of the castle:
