A trio of Wii U titles are on sale over on Amazon
and Best Buy. Both retailers have discounted Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Mario Kart 8, and Mario Party 10 by $15. The sale should last through the next week.
It’s not much of a discount, but I’ll also mention that Best Buy has the Splatoon Wii U bundle for $25 off. This will also be on sale through the following week.
The Wii U version of Mighty No. 9 has been on display at Gamescom 2015 over the past few days. Off-screen footage from the game can be viewed below.
The results are in for Splatoon’s third North American Splatfest.
Marshmallows dominated in popularity (64 percent), which ultimately propelled that side to victory. Although the hot dog side had a slight edge in wins (52 percent), it wasn’t enough to overtake marshmallows.
The final score was actually pretty close since wins are now more important than ever. There were 256 points for the marshmallow team and 244 points for hot dogs.
This week’s expanded Japanese software sales are as follows:
01./00. [3DS] Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer #
02./01. [3DS] Yo-Kai Watch Busters: Red Cat Team / White Dog Squad
03./00. [PSV] IA/VT: Colorful #
04./04. [WIU] Splatoon
05./06. [3DS] Rhythm Heaven: The Best+
06./00. [PSV] Date-A-Live Twin Edition: Rio Reincarnation
07./02. [PS3] Sengoku Basara 4: Sumeragi #
08./08. [3DS] Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright / Conquest
09./00. [PSV] Ray Gigant
10./11. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition
11./14. [PSV] Taiko no Tatsujin: V Version
12./10. [WIU] Yoshi’s Woolly World #
13./15. [WIU] Mario Kart 8 #
14./00. [3DS] Corpse Party: Blood Covered – Repeated Fear #
15./12. [3DS] Great Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Naruhodou Ryuunosuke no Bouken #
16./18. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf #
17./09. [PS4] Batman: Arkham Knight
18./03. [PS4] Sengoku Basara 4: Sumeragi #
19./05. [PSV] Makai Shin Trillion #
20./00. [PSV] KLAP!! Kind Love And Punish #
This month’s issue of Nintendo Dream has yet another interview with one of the developers behind Splatoon. This time, the Japanese magazine spoke with producer Hisashi Nogami.
Going back to the origins of Splatoon, Nogami commented on how program director Shintaro Sato came up with the idea of inking. Sato wrote a program for a drawing system, which included affixing textures on models and processing shadows. He thought at the time, “If I replace a shadow with the possibility of repainting with a color, wouldn’t that be a new way to play?”
Nogami also spoke about the decision to feature 4 on 4 matches in Splatoon:
Nogami: It’s not like we couldn’t have made 3 vs. 3 battles, but if just one player is splatted, the balance changes drastically and the enemy team can make a push in one go.
Nogami: On the other hand, when we tried increasing the number of players, the effect of splatting one person was small.
Nogami: However, when we tried 4 vs. 4, just splatting one player got the other team into a quite unfavorable situation. It is like a power play in ice hockey.
Scott Moffitt, executive VP of sales at Nintendo of America, has once again spoke about the reasoning and timing of NX’s announcement.
Moffitt told Examiner:
“Going back to the reveal, it was important for us to reinforce to our loyal game fans out there that we remain committed to the world of dedicated game platforms. We believe there is magic that occurs when you have a marriage between the hardware, operating system and game content itself. It was important for us to recommit, on behalf of our game fans, to that business. We didn’t want people to think we were migrating away from that core principle, which is we believe in the power of dedicate game platforms and we are going to remain in that business.”
Moffitt went on to talk about Nintendo’s decision to pursue the smart devices as well. He said that this space will be used as an “additive” for the company’s console business.
“We can’t deny the massive install base of smartphones out there, and some fans that aren’t old enough yet to afford their own gaming console, perhaps for those consumers they can start to appreciate some of our content and build a relationship with some of our characters and our franchises. We feel it’s going to be an additive to our console business.”
GameStop is giving out a little something extra with Super Mario Maker pre-orders. By reserving the game, you’ll receive a 30th anniversary poster. This will be available while supplies last. You can pre-order Super Mario Maker on GameStop here.
Amazon
recently announced a pre-order “bonus” for Prime members as well. Those who put in a reservation at the retailer can get it for $10 off.
Earlier this week, Xenoblade Chronicles hit the European Wii U eShop. It’s a 6.5GB for those who are wondering.
It’s not yet known when we’ll be seeing Xenoblade Chronicles on the North American eShop. Soon, hopefully!
Thanks to Jake for the tip.
Fire Emblem Fates was released in two versions in Japan. In North America, that’s how the games will be sold as well (Birthright and Conquest). But what about Europe?
Amazon UK currently has a notice on its Fire Emblem Fates product page stating that there’s only one version due out throughout Europe. However, the message is only appearing on iOS/Android devices at the moment.
Keep in mind that Nintendo hasn’t made an official announcement regarding its plans for Fire Emblem Fates’ distribution in Europe. We’ll just have to wait and see if there’s any truth to Amazon’s listing.
