A new job listing has been posted on the job listings pages of the Nintendo of America website. Nintendo wishes to hire a Software/Hardware Tester, but the description highlights the importance of “Creating and executing a test plan for Wii’s USB devices.” There are a plethora of possibilities that the job description could be referring to, although the first concept that would come to mind is a hard drive. Perhaps Nintendo is finally beginning to take initiative to solve the storage solution on Wii.
“We are currently working on several titles for launch in Europe. With AQ Interactive we’re also working on Lost Regnum, which will be published in Europe with the name: Warriors of the lost Empire. We will also be launching our own IP’s: Mind Your Language, a new language game that will be available for learning: Spanish, English, French, German and yes, Japanese!
We also have B-Team in the works, more information will be available shortly, but to give you a preview, think the A-Team mixed with Hogan’s Heroes. We have games for younger audiences, Pocoyo and Lola & Virginia will also making their first appearance on consoles this year, and of course we have the much anticipated Realmadrid Real Life which creates a totally new genre as well, projected for the end of 2008 just to name a few. We are on a constant lookout for new concepts or games that will be attractive to the end user and to add to our ever-growing catalogue.”
In case you aren’t familiar with the animated shows, the pictures are screen captures from Lola & Virginia. While this particular game may not be of great interest to the Siliconera crowd, thought of Mind Your Language: Japanese Training probably is. The other promising development is seeing another relationship between AQ Interactive and an international publisher. Could Virgin Play be brave enough to take a risk with the vertical PSP game, Anata wo Yurusanai (I Won’t Forgive You)?
“Aside from SD Cards, at this time the Wii console does not support external storage devices, such as USB drives or external hard drives. While it’s possible to transfer a file manually to an external storage device using an SD Card, there is currently no way to save directly or to transfer files directly to such a device from your Wii console. If such functionality is granted via a future system update and WiiConnect24 is activated, we will post it to our website, and might possibly send notice via the Wii Message Board.” – Nintendo email rep
Usually, when you send an email to Nintendo, you’ll later receive a generic, unhelpful reply. This response, however, is far from useless. Is Nintendo somehow going to take advantage of WiiConnect24 to send data to devices in the future?
WII Fushigi no Dungeon – Furai no Shiren 3: Karakuri Yashiki no Nemuri Hime – 40,000 (40% sell through)
NDS DS Yamamura Misa Suspense – 17,000
Man, that looks pretty darn good!
Picto Image (DS) – September
Sonic Chronicles (DS) – September
Sonic Unleashed (Wii) – November
MadWorld (Wii) – Q1 2009
– KOTOR 3 (An MMO, and a joint project between Lucasarts and BioWare)
– Battlefront 3
– “The Official Indiana Jones” game
– “another LEGO game based on the Indy universe”
– “a lightsaber game for the wii (sorry, no lightsaber peripherals)”
This list apparently comes from an previous employee of LucasArts. Out of everything on that list, a lightsaber game and a new LEGO Indiana Jones title seem the most probably for Wii.
– Main characters: Rikimaru and Ayame
– Story: set one year after the riots caused by the Witchcraft Lord “Tenrai”. There are still some evil people behind the scenes that are causing trouble, and gaining in power. There was also an incident involving the kidnapping of princess Kiku (Lord Gouda Matsunoshin’s daughter). Rikimaru and Ayame must find out what is going on with these happenings.
– “Stealth Ninja Action Game”
– developers are saying that this could be the ‘epitome of the series’
– new character designs
– new actors
– both characters have different fighting styles, and “assassination cutscenes”.
– Stealth actions: hide in water, climb on ceilings, sneak around above the ceiling, hide in the dark, hide bodies, hide within caravans to sneak into heavily guarded locations, and more moves completely new to the series
– special move allows you to quickly dispose of a body into water, effectively hiding the corpse
– ninja tools from previous entries return, and have been reworked for Wiimote/Nunchuk control
– www.tenchu.net may be updated on June 7th with info
Interestingly enough, Ubisoft will be handling the publishing for Tenchu. Ubisoft isn’t developing the title, but I do think the company deserves a bit of praise for picking up this title. It is also known now that two other games are planned for the future.
