New data provided by SELL reveals France’s top 20 best-selling games of 2016. Two Nintendo-published games made the list.
Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon were collectively the second best-selling game. The two sold 805,390 copies in France last year. Additionally, Yo-kai Watch was the fifteenth best-selling title at 222,218 units sold.
Two other notable entries include Minecraft and Just Dance 2017, which were the seventh and sixteenth best-selling games in France of 2017 respectively.
Pixel Princess Blitz was looking to be funded through Kickstarter. With about a week to go, the campaign reached its funding goal. That means we’ll eventually be seeing the game on Switch.
Philippe Lavoué, the Managing Director of Nintendo France, has shared some insight on the marketing strategy Nintendo plans to employ in France. Speaking to LeMagJeuxHigh-Tech, he emphasized the importance of demo units in stores – not only at specialty retailers, but rather supermarkets and other general stores that also carry video games.
Lavoué first worked for Nintendo during the launch of the Wii. His job was to demo the Wii for potential buyers at supermarkets, and he says that, countless times, people who weren’t initially planning to buy a Wii ended up buying one immediately after trying it out at one of the in-store demo kiosks. He believes that a similar effect could be achieved with the Switch as well, and as such, Nintendo is planning to set up demo kiosks at various French retailers in the coming weeks.
Fire Emblem Heroes is out today, and to celebrate the game’s launch, several of the artists who designed characters for the game have shared some special artwork.
Above you can see Yusuke Kozaki’s drawing of Sharena, one of the characters he designed. He’s also responsible for the other original characters of Heroes (Alfonse, Veronica and the Mysterious Man) as well as Heroes’ version of series staple Anna. Kozaki was also the main character designer for Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates.
Below is Kotaro Yamada’s special artwork of Lyn and Narcian, the characters he’s responsible for in Heroes. Previously, he drew the spin-off manga of Fire Emblem 6, Hasha no Tsurugi.
Update: The game is also available in Europe.
Fire Emblem Heroes is now available in the iOS and Google Play stores in Japan. Other territories are sure to follow over the course of the day, so stay tuned!
Fire Emblem Heroes is releasing soon, and the My Nintendo page has updated with some rewards for playing. The rewards are very basic: you will earn 100 Platinum Coins for linking the game to a My Nintendo account, and then will earn another 100 Platinum Coins for completing chapters. The website lists a prologue and nine chapters, meaning that you can earn 1100 Platinum Coins total.
There are also several rewards that you can claim for the game itself. They all purchasable with Platinum Points, with prices as follows:
As previously reported, the eShop will be down for maintenance on Tuesday specifically for redeeming eShop cards. More maintenance is actually planned before that though. Credit cards can’t be used for several hours this Sunday / Monday.
The maintenance schedule is as follows:
– 7 PM PT (February 5) – 3 AM PT (February 6)
– 10 PM ET (February 5) – 6 AM ET (February 6)
– 3 AM in the UK (February 6) – 11 AM in the UK
– 4 AM in Europe (February 6) – 12 PM in Europe (February 6)
From Sunday, February 5, 2017 7 :00 PM – Monday, February 6, 2017 3 :00 AM Pacific Time
Monster Hunter XX has received another video today. In the latest footage, a couple of quests are shown featuring Lao-Shan Lung and Deviant Diablos. View it below.
Analyst Hideki Yasuda wrote up a new article on GamesIndustry Japan earlier today. There’s one part of the piece pertaining to third-parties that stood out to us in particular.
Yasuda talks about how many investors were anticipating major overseas third-party games to be announced for Switch, but the timing wasn’t right (due to E3 being a few months away, etc.). He then mentions that NIS is making Disgaea 5 Complete for the system’s launch, which used to be a PS4-only title. NIS was never really on Nintendo platforms before, and their few Wii / DS games were buried among other games leading to a lack of success. 3DS also didn’t receive a high amount of support from NIS because of its unique specifications. With Switch though, the company is bringing over a PS4 title and on day one.
Yasuda was in attendance at Nintendo’s Corporate Management Policy Briefing, and relayed a comment from Shigeru Miyamoto. Miyamoto said that games developed with PC as a base can be ported to Switch in about a year. The report also adds that the console was revealed to third-parties last summer. It’s thought that we could therefore see major multiplatform titles starting from the fall season.
Nintendo has followed up on the Splatoon 2 online details we heard earlier today with an official English translation. The overview covers meeting up with friends as well as voice chat.
Here’s the full rundown:
“We’ve received a report that Splatoon 2 will be compatible with an upcoming app for smart devices that enhances online play. This app will link with the game and allow you to set a play appointment with your friends and teammates invited through your social media accounts. It also lets you match up with them directly in the game and voice chat with them too.
For example, during a Private Battle, you can voice chat with all of the connected friends when you divide into teams, but once teams are set, voice chat is switched to communication only between teammates in the same team. Also, you cannot communicate with random Inklings you don’t know.”
