The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD can now be pre-ordered from either Amazon or GameStop. Amazon’s product page is located here
. Alternatively, you can pre-order from GameStop here.
Both retailers list a December 31 release date, but that’s obviously just a placeholder. Wind Waker will be out on Wii U this fall.
Resident Evil: Revelations producer Masachika Kawata fielded a few questions about Capcom’s new HD version in an interview with Nowgamer. Kawata commented on the game’s new aspects, why it’s being brought to consoles, and more. There’s general talk about the Resident Evil series, too.
Head past the break for the full Q&A.
01./02. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf # (Nintendo) {2012.11.08} (¥4.800) – 82.370 / 2.366.126 (-15%)
02./01. [PS3] DmC: Devil May Cry (Capcom) {2013.01.17} (¥6.990) – 31.627 / 142.056 (-71%)
03./00. [PSP] Gintama no Sugoroku (Bandai Namco Games) {2013.01.24} (¥6.280) – 27.011 / NEW
04./00. [PSV] Demon Gaze (Kadokawa Games) {2013.01.24} (¥6.090) – 25.316 / NEW
05./00. [3DS] Fantasy Life (Level 5) {2012.12.27} (¥5.800) – 25.042 / 187.772
06./00. [PSV] Genkai Totsuki Monster Monpiece # (Compile Heart) {2013.01.24} (¥7.140) – 24.978 / NEW
07./00. [PS3] Kamisama to Unmei Kakumei no Paradox # (Nippon Ichi Software) {2013.01.24} (¥7.140) – 23.417 / NEW
08./00. [PS3] Hitman: Absolution (Square Enix) {2013.01.24} (¥7.980) – 22.233 / NEW
09./03. [PSP] Digimon Adventure (Bandai Namco Games) {2013.01.17} (¥6.280) – 13.991 / 61.798 (-71%)
10./04. [3DS] New Super Mario Bros. 2 # (Nintendo) {2012.07.28} (¥4.800) – 12.834 / 1.886.476 (-28%)
11./05. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Best Price!) (Capcom) {2012.11.15} (¥3.800) – 12.105 / 196.243 (-12%)
12./06. [3DS] Inazuma Eleven Go 2: Chrono Stone – Neppuu / Raimei (Level 5) {2012.12.13} (¥5.500) – 8.942 / 400.331 (-26%)
13./08. [3DS] Paper Mario: Sticker Star (Nintendo) {2012.12.06} (¥4.800) – 8.185 / 504.107 (-26%)
14./12. [3DS] Taiko no Tatsujin: Chibi Dragon to Fushigi na Orb (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.07.12} (¥5.040) – 7.640 / 401.125 (-9%)
15./09. [WIU] New Super Mario Bros. U (Nintendo) {2012.12.08} (¥5.985) – 6.883 / 448.591 (-28%)
16./19. [WII] Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Super Deluxe Edition # (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.11.29} (¥5.040) – 6.852 / 367.165 (+17%)
17./07. [3DS] Tousouchuu: Shijou Saikyou no Hunter-Tachi Kara Nigekire! (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.07.05} (¥5.040) – 6.761 / 406.143 (-42%)
18./15. [PS3] Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Dubbed Edition (Square Enix) {2012.12.20} (¥7.980) – 6.111 / 112.964 (-17%)
19./10. [PS3] Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2 # (Koei Tecmo) {2012.12.20} (¥8.190) – 5.983 / 222.794 (-36%)
20./11. [WIU] Nintendo Land (Nintendo) {2012.12.08} (¥4.935) – 5.914 / 276.831 (-32%)
Rockstar moved the launch of Grand Theft Auto V from spring to the fall a few days ago. However, the delay won’t result in any additional SKUs.
According to a GameSpot tweet quoting Rockstar, the company has “nothing new” to share regarding GTA V for either Wii U or PC. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 remain the only confirmed platforms for release.
Super Mario 3D Land is, thus far, having more success than Super Mario Galaxy. 3D Land sold through 8 million copies while Galaxy moved 7.66 million units through their first 13 months on the market.
Japan could be pointed to as the primary reason for Super Mario 3D Land’s success. However, 3D Land sold 1.85 million copies in Japan whereas Galaxy’s sales stood at 934,000.
Galaxy has sold slightly more in the west. But thanks to sales from Japan, 3D Land is outpacing Galaxy worldwide.
Amazon has Tales of the Abyss 3DS in stock for $30. It’s not extremely rare, but the game has been a somewhat tough find over the past few months. Plus, it’s a great game – I’ve played through the entire thing and would absolutely recommend it (though it’s not for everyone!).
View the product page here
. Shipping is free.
Cheesemeister has gone to the trouble of translating various bits from Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing Q&A. A few of the points are rehashed from quotes we covered earlier today, but there’s quite a bit of new stuff as well. Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto talk Pikmin 3, Wii U NFC, 3DS sales and overseas performance, and more.
- Iwata: Cloud gaming possible but introduces lag, therefore not suited to all game types, i.e. action.
- Iwata: Merger of home and portable console dev. groups not a move to 1 system, but sharing of dev. process, OS, pre-installed SW, assets.
- Iwata: If groups’ merger successful, it may instead allow undivided development to be applicable to more types of (Nintendo) devices.
- Miyamoto: Having 1 dev. environment would allow efforts to be concentrated on making more games rather than being lost on hardware support.
- Iwata: Some Animal Crossing New Leaf customers said on Club Nintendo surveys that their purchases were motivated by talk about it on Twitter.
- Iwata: “Asymmetric gameplay” wasn’t the best term to describe Nintendo Land, want to think of a better way to describe Wii U software.
- Miyamoto: Pikmin 3’s HD graphics are the most appealing part. Not forcing asymmetric gameplay, instead showing a map. Off-TV play enabled.
- Miyamoto: Pikmin 3 off-TV play can be thought of as GameCube-style gameplay in your hand. Wii Remote Plus’ gyro sensor can be used on TV.
- Miyamoto: I think that Pikmin 3 off-TV play is the freshest gameplay experience. Please look forward to it.
- Miyamoto: Pikmin, Bulbear to appear w/ Toho Cinemas logo before movie screenings. They’ll be shown in 3D for 3D movies.
- Iwata: WiiU NFC can be used w/ cards/figures for games, sharing data with arcade games, and in electronic payments. I want to recoup cost.
- Iwata: More than thinking about not achieving 100b yen operating income, it’s my job to think about how to achieve it.
- Iwata: For the 3DS, the point is to achieve the same kind of virtuous cycle in HW and SW sales overseas as in Japan by releasing good games.
- Iwata: For the Wii U, software will really start to arrive that communicates its appeal, and I aim to greatly improve its sales flow.
- Iwata: As for what I’d do in case of failure, I used the word “commitment”, so please understand what I mean.
- Iwata: If only the same number of 3DS systems sell next FY as this FY, software sales will be limited and the goal won’t be achievable.
- Iwata: Therefore I absolutely don’t think that the 3DS is meeting its sales potential overseas. It’s not due to external factors, but please understand that it’s because we haven’t sufficiently communicated the 3DS’ appeal as a platform of choice.
- Iwata: Expanding the sales of the 3DS beyond this fiscal year’s numbers is obviously our objective.
- Genyo Takeda: I don’t think that the Wii U CPU and GPU are imbalanced in favor of the GPU. It depends how you measure. GPU chip is bigger.
- Genyo Takeda: In modern CPUs, the math logic portions are rather small. In new PCs and servers, the CPUs may be big, but the logic is small.
- Genyo Takeda: It’s common for the surrounding SRAM cache memory in CPUs to be bigger. From that viewpoint, you wouldn’t see them imbalanced.
- Genyo Takeda: It’s a memory-intensified design. I can’t get into specifics, but I think it’s rather powerful.
- Genyo Takeda: As for the GPU, the tech is fairly mature and going in the same direction as competitors. Makers are used to prog. shaders.
- Genyo Takeda: The experience of other companies and Nintendo with shaders means that the difficulty with them early on has decreased.
The Wii U GPU was another item brought up by an investor at Nintendo’s financial results briefing earlier this week.
Developers have praised Wii U’s memory in the past, but some have wondered if the console’s architecture focuses too much on GPU. Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, and Genyo Takeda all responded to this topic at the Q&A session of Nintendo’s investors meeting.
Takeda’s comments were, perhaps, most enlightening. He admitted that the GPU is “more pronounced” than the Wii U’s CPU, but said those who claim the CPU is weak are incorrect.
Read on below for the full comments from Miyamoto, Iwata, and Takeda.
