You know, you have to hand it to Nintendo of Europe. Not only are they localizing titles that gamers care about, but now they’re even beating America to the punch by launching the 3DS’ video service tomorrow.
As far as North America goes, there’s no word on when the application will go live. A representative would only say that it will be available “later this summer.” Another feature, Netflix, will also be released “soon”.
“Nintendo’s short-form video service that delivers special video content for Nintendo 3DS systems will launch in North America later this summer. In addition, Netflix members who have an unlimited plan starting at $7.99 a month and access to a broadband wireless Internet connection will soon be able to download a free Netflix application that allows them to watch movies and TV shows on their Nintendo 3DS systems at no extra charge. These services will add to the wealth of games and entertainment content currently available via the Nintendo eShop. For more information about Nintendo 3DS, visit http://www.nintendo.com/3ds.”
360 – 350,000 (-23%)
Wii – 345,000 (-18%)
DS – 285,000 (-44%)
PS3 – 250,000 (-18%)
3DS – 150,000 (n/a)
PSP – 80,000 (-34%)
Total – 1,460,000 (-22%)
Believe it or not, the details below actually from a Japanese PlayStation magazine – specifically, Dengeki PlayStation. The magazine sometimes has reports on high profile games, such Theatrhythm Final Fantasy.
– Three modes of play: Music Game, SpotPass, Museum
– Three submodes for Music Game: Series, Challenge, another mystery mode
– Options are shown with your current party, listed with HP and level
– Swap out characters from your party
– Icons move across the screen
– Three icons: Red, yellow, green
– Red: Touch the screen briefly
– Yellow: Slide in the direction of the arrow or line of movement of the icon
– Green: Touch and hold down on the screen
– Field: Play to field, town and dungeon music. There’s just one rhythm line here. The difficulty is lower, and there are some more relaxed songs that require you to slide the touch pen up and down.
– Battle: There are four rhythm lines here. The music is higher tempo and the difficulty higher. It appears that you’ll be able to get critical attacks by timing your inputs perfectly.
Antipole could turn out to be one of the better DSiWare games. It was well received on Xbox Live Arcade!
Tokyo Girls Collection
- A fashion show themed around “real clothes,” or the kind of clothes that teens and 20-year-old girls wear.
Yoshimoto Nintendo 3DS Experimental Theater
- Various skits from comedians.
3D Fura Fura Machi Aruki Kyoto
- A 3D tour of Kyoto, hosted by Tomoko Tabata.
Like Satoru Iwata’s interview with Mashiro Sakurai regarding the next Smash Bros. games, Monolith Soft posted an interview on their website involving their next Wii U project. By discussing their ambitions and goals, the company hopes to attract new employees.
Monolith CEO Hirohide Sugiura. Toshiaki Yajima (main programmer on Xenosaga and Dragon Ball Kai), Katsunori Sakai (main programmer on Xenoblade, event system programmer on Disaster) and Michihiko Inaba (Xenosaga, Soma Bringer) all participated in the interview. You can read up on what they had to say below:
– Monolith Soft has been doing continuous research/development on other company’s products including HD machines
– Sugiura thinks that the company will be able to show the fruits of their work with Wii U
– Yajima says that they’ve been doing R&D for awhile now, so they aren’t experiencing issues on the technical front even though this is their first HD game
– Yajima believes that the potential expressive ability of the game has risen because they can use physics and shaders
– Yajima feels that they can really show their skills as programmers as a result
– Inaba interested in Wii U’s controller, could be interesting to play on the TV and the second screen
– Yajima wants to try out the controller quickly and possibly show different things on each screen
– Inaba wants to make something that surprises everyone since it’s Monolith’s first HD game
– Inaba wants to show that Japanese technology does not lose out to America
– Inaba said that he wants to be at the level of Bethesda Softworks, but joked that maybe he’s going too far
– Sakai excited about the design document for their Wii U game since it would require a high level from the staff
– Yajima wants many people with specific knowledge in such areas as Havok and Shaders
– When trying to portray realistic expressions on the screen, you end up needing to use external programming libraries
– Sakai wants people who are interested in using such libraries for game development
Thanks to Thomas N for the tip!
