In what Nintendo probably considers a major victory over piracy, the High Court in London ruled that the “R4” flash cartridges are a violation of Nintendo’s rights and the DS system, and therefore are now illegal to import, sell, or advertise for them in the UK. Unfortunately, the DS is in the end of its life and so it probably won’t have a massive effect on the sales of software for the system in the future, but anything can help, as there have been millions and millions of software sales lost to the device in the past.
Why was the card outlawed? In an explanation that makes a lot more sense than most people’s arguments of simply “It’s bad to do”, the court ruled that since the card must circumvent Nintendo’s handheld’s security before it is able to be used, then it is a violation of the property that they have made and therefore should not be used.
“Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications. In the UK alone, there have been over 100,000 game copying devices seized since 2009. Nintendo initiates these actions not only on its own behalf, but also on behalf of over 1,400 video game development companies that depend on legitimate sales of games for their survival.”
Well, that’s a good enough explanation for me!
Hudson Entertainment’s unique platformer Lost in Shadow for the Nintendo Wii will be officially unveiled in North America on January 4, 2011. Today for the first time, Hudson Entertainment is proud to reveal a new feature in the game: Materialization.
While the main character is indeed a shadow boy, on occasion in the game he will need to become a creature of light to achieve his ultimate goal. The boy’s shadow is able to acquire multiple swords, which not only help him defeat enemies but allow him to enter certain areas that were restricted by the Tower’s Keeper. The “Watchman’s Sword” allows the boy to manipulate both light and shadow by cutting a door in reality. Doing so opens areas that the boy can travel to as a being of light and can manipulate physical objects for a limited period of time.
Source: Hudson PR
SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 28, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ — De-classifying previously top secret information, Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) revealed new details today about Call of Duty(R): Black Ops’ release on November 9th with the confirmation of an all-new companion game for the Nintendo DS(TM) family of hand-held systems, developed exclusively for the platform by n-Space. Call of Duty: Black Ops for the Nintendo DS will put gamers in the boots of CIA-backed operatives that are dropped into the shadowy world of deniable operations with an expansive arsenal of weapons at their disposal.
“Call of Duty: Black Ops for the Nintendo DS is going to take the handheld Call of Duty experience to a new level,” said Dan O’Leary, n-Space Studio Head. “From taking the controls of an attack helicopter to flying an experimental stealth fighter jet, players will have a wealth of new features to utilize.”
– Releasing November 4
– 6279 yen
– Designer Satoshi Takayashiki and character/art designer Hiroshi Konishi worked on Radiata Stories
– Mitsuru Hirano is the director, worked on Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne games
– Yoko Shimomura is working on the music
– Game takes place in Vancule, become dry/barren/desert-like
– Play as a spy for the nation of Aristel, Stok
– Start off with a mission to infiltrate Granorg (Aristel is at war with), rescue an agent
– Stok captures/wounded in Granorg, somehow gets the power to time travel and travel across parallel worlds that are connected
– Go to the past/future
– Correct mistakes made long ago, try to bring peace and environmental stability back to Vancule
– Turn-based battles
– Enemies on a 3×3 grid
– Monsters occupy front and rear positions
– Creatures on front take more damage compared to ones in the rear
– Turn order determined
– Can do combo moves when two player-characters have consecutive turns
“This game is a collection of stories based around the concept of time travel. When you look at something from a different point of view, everything can seem completely different. In this way the hero learns that his bitterest of enemies was just doing what he had to, among other things, and every cast member has a deep background to back up that storytelling. You aren’t an impartial observer, either — the player’s actions have the power to dramatically change history. We’re devoting just as much care to the boundless amount of side stories as we are to the main plot, so I hope you take the time to seek them all out.” – Satoshi Takayashiki
Thanks to Thomas N for the tip!
“Sakamoto wanted to make a 3D action game that could be played with a single Wii remote. The concept was ‘the latest in gameplay with the simplest of controls.'” – Team Ninja leader Yosuke Hayashi
“We had decided how many buttons to use from the planning stages, and I think Team Ninja went through a lot of trial-and-error with the controls, getting them right without increasing the number of buttons.” – Yoshio Sakamoto, father of the Metroid series
“There were a lot of things that couldn’t be done here without the first-person view that Metroid Prime used. That’s why we have the search view that lets you examine your surroundings from a first-person perspective and fire missiles. I think it provides the sort of gameplay that’s only possible with the Wii remote. If you come across something that seems suspicious, that’s your cue to try switching perspectives. We intended to have a lot of that searching aspect because that’s what Metroid is known for — Metroid games have unique map structures and lots of hidden corridors, and I was worried that Team Ninja would have trouble grasping the concept at first, but the know-how involved went over loud and clear and I’m impressed with the results.” – Sakamoto
“I think Metroid is all about having suspicious-looking hiding places and finding items there. There’s nothing unfair about how we hide them — they’re hidden in places you can spot once you think it through a little, and that’s what makes finding items fun in this game… [There are] as many [pickups] as there are in any other Metroid game. I think you’ll only find about 30% of the pickups in a normal playthrough.” – Hayashi
“We’re making this game so there’s no obvious seam between the cutscenes and action parts, ensuring the player isn’t cut off from the scene and can get into the story. Doing that required us to keep that concept in mind all through the motion capture process; you can’t tell if it’s working until you actually make everything. We couldn’t re-do the motion capture afterward, so I was really anxious after it wrapped up.” – Sakamoto
“We set it up so that there are as few ‘now loading’ displays as possible. We want the player to get into the story and not feel cut off from it emotionally, so we were careful with that aspect of it. I think we’ve been able to set up the game so that players can forget that loading is taking place entirely. Even saving the game is a seamless process here, which I think makes it a very comfortable and addictive experience.” – Hayashi
“There’s a ‘theater mode’ that lets you view all of the cutscenes linked together seamlessly as a single movie. We placed just as much weight on enjoying the story as we did on the action aspects of this game, but it’s hard to fully communicate a storyline in a video game with just one playthrough. At the same time, though, it’s asking a lot of players to beat the game twice to get it all, so that’s where the idea for that mode came from. It lets you make a lot of discoveries, things you missed or dialogue that makes more sense in retrospect. I hope it helps people understand the story better.”
– Theater mode is around two hours
– Divided into chapters like a DVD
– Cutscenes and pre-recorded gameplay
– Gameplay isn’t recorded from your footage, it’s sample play data
“I wanted to do that, but we’re using our own sample play data instead because that’s also a way of giving the player hints — like, you can beat this particular boss this way too, and so forth.”
“I wanted to do that, but we’re using our own sample play data instead because that’s also a way of giving the player hints — like, you can beat this particular boss this way too, and so forth.”
“Samus has not been portrayed externally in 3D all that much, so there weren’t many previous examples of how her movements and attack stance should look. As a result, we had a trial-and-error process for figuring out how to show off her assorted actions in 3D. We originally had scenes with Samus getting blown away in flashy fashion by enemy attacks. Nintendo didn’t want that to be emphasized, but if Samus isn’t ‘selling it’ that way, then that’ll make the enemy’s attacks have less impact — it won’t mean as much when Samus defeats the enemy. Eventually Nintendo saw it our way, and we had the freedom to do what we wanted there.” – Hayashi
“In making this game, I wanted to tell action-game fans that this is Team Ninja’s newest game without feeling embarrassed to do so. At the same time, I also think that people who’ve drifted away from the genre can get a taste of what makes action games fun once again, so I’d love everyone to try it out.” – Hayashi
– Return to Agata Forest again
– Find Kokari
– The forest has been completely flooded out
– Kokari fishing with Ume, trying to get the giant mystical catfish that is supposedly causing all of this trouble
– You’ll also meet Nanami, a mermaid and royal retainer for Queen Oto
– Nanami’s treasure has been stolen, searching for it in Agata
– Catfish turns out to be one of the game’s first bosses
– Yoshinori Ono said Capcom considering bringing the game to the DS or PSP, but that wasn’t a viable option
– When the 3DS was announced, Ono thought they could use the system to make something that showed the enjoyment of having Street Fighter in your palm, wanted to use wireless functionality
– Team has a number of ideas about using 3D
– Considering 3D for visual effects
– Players won’t be able to move into and out of the stages, or anything that will effect play
– Game won’t be tailored for kids: “Rather than that, we’d like to make it into a title that makes kids grow.”
– Team is seeing if they can do anything with the touch screen and slide pad
– Special buttons could end up on the lower screen, special attacks on the slide pad
– Want to keep all of the modes from the console version, including wireless play
– Hoping to include original content
– Might have arranged costumes
– All 35 console warriors are available
– Saving Attack, Ultra Combo, other systems will be in the game
– Only 10% complete
– Ono wants to release the game following the arcade version’s release
The following quotes come from Yoshinori Ono…
“We thought about a DS or PSP port when we were considering porting SSFIV to a portable system, but neither system would’ve been able to produce a port that I would be satisfied with. That’s around the time when the 3DS was announced to us, and we decided that we could produce Street Fighter on that system well enough that everything fun about the series would shine through. There was also the fact that we could use all of its network abilities to help gamers communicate with each other.”
“We’re in the midst of a trial-and-error process, throwing ideas around the development team for things that’d be neat to work with in 3D. The system itself is still purely SSFIV — we’re thinking about ways 3D can be used in the visuals instead.”
“We don’t have any intention of pandering to children here. We’d rather make a game that a kid wants to strive to become better at. Of course, we’d like to make it a little more accessible since it’s not on a home console, but we’re not thinking about kids so much as people who stopped playing SF after the Super NES version… We have no intention of rebalancing the strength of the moves. We are conducting trials, though, to see how we can use the bottom screen and Slide Pad. Maybe we could use the screen to simulate multiple button presses and the pad for special moves, or the like.”
“We don’t know exactly when yet, but I would like to see it out while the original version is still popular in arcades. Releasing a simple upgrade to arcades would whittle down our audience, but getting the game out on lots of different platforms will hopefully help expand it instead.”
Thanks to Thomas N for the tip!
