Hiro Mashima may best be known for his work on Fairy Tail and the Monster Hunter Orage manga. He’ll be lending his talents to Monster Hunter 4. Fans can expect to see Mashima’s work on equipment designs in the game.
EA, Activision, and Ubisoft top the UK charts as the top boxed games publishers of 2012. Nintendo landed in the fourth spot.
According to Chart-Track, FIFA 13’s record-breaking sales contributed to EA’s success, as did Mass Effect 3, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Battlefield 3, and even FIFA 12. Activision now maintains the second spot – thanks to Skylanders and Call of Duty – after settling for third place the year prior.
Below are the rankings in full.
1. EA
2. Activision
3. Ubisoft
4. Nintendo
5. Microsoft
6. Sega
7. Warner Bros
8. Take-Two
9. THQ
10. Square Enix
Nintendo has been on a roll with retail releases on the 3DS eShop, so it wouldn’t make sense for that to stop now. But just in case you had any sort of doubt, it has now been completely confirmed that Fire Emblem: Awakening will be available on the digital store when the game launches next month.
Did you know Awakening is currently unavailable on the Japanese eShop? I suppose that’s because Nintendo started getting involved with digital retail releases after the game shipped.
Disney Home Video will release the DVD and Blu-ray versions of Wreck-It Ralph starting next month. The company announced yesterday that the digital version – featuring HD digital and HD digital 3D formats – will be available on February 12. That’ll be followed by the physical launch on March 5.
Consumers will be able to choose from a standard DVD copy without extras, a two-disc collector’s edition, and a four-disc ultimate collector’s edition. Each copy of the collector’s edition packs in the DVD and Blu-ray versions. The four-disc ultimate collector’s edition will also offer the Blu-ray 3D and digital copy.
Bonuses include a “making of” video titled “Bit by Bit: Creating the Worlds of Wreck-It Ralph”, alternate as well as deleted scenes, video game commercials for games made for the film, and Paperman, the short movie shown before Wreck-It Ralph at theaters. All Blu-ray copies additionally contain a video hosted by stand-up comedian Chris Hardwick, who goes into detail about the many video game references in Wreck-It Ralph.
Are you an Animal Crossing fan? Have 9.5 hours to spare? Then be sure to check out the video above. It contains almost ten hours of footage from Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
Fry’s is offering a discount on LEGO City: Undercover pre-orders. You can order the game for $39.99 and $2.99 for shipping, bringing the total to $43.
Check out the product page here.
The official Pokemon Twitter account is also hyping up Tuesday’s announcement. Just a few minutes ago, a tweet was sent out stating that “big news” is coming on January 8.
Pokémon fans, mark your calendars! Check Pokemon.com on January 8th for some big news!
— Pokémon (@Pokemon) January 4, 2013
No matter what is planned, this Pokemon announcement appears to be a worldwide affair.
Renegade Kid co-founder Jools Watsham has published a second blog post focusing on 3DS piracy.
Watsham started out by looking to clarify his thoughts, as “some people have taken my comments as an attack on Nintendo, the 3DS, and the players.” But Watsham noted: “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Watsham went on:
I understand that piracy is always going to exist, and that every market has some form of piracy. I accept that piracy will exist on the 3DS. The question is how much is it affecting the market? Some markets maintain a healthy business environment alongside piracy. I believe this is due to many factors, not least of which is the service provided in that market.
I don’t think there is a solution to piracy. It will always exist in some form. We just need to make sure the price of games is affordable. We need to make it easy to buy and own games. The availability and access player’s have to their games needs to be at least as easy and convenient as the ROM sites make it to illegally download a game file. Ideally, it should be better. If the player’s only question is, “buy or not buy?”, and not dealing with issues such as, “how do I transfer ownership of this game to my new system?” then we’ll have minimized the appeal of piracy.
Ultimately, Watsham noted that Renegade Kid’s “support of the 3DS platform couldn’t be stronger.” The studio has games planned for Nintendo’s portable into 2014.
Be sure to read the full blog post here.
