Nintendo has shipped 10.5 million amiibo figures worldwide, president Satoru Iwata has confirmed. Iwata shared the news during today’s fiscal year financial results briefing.
66 percent of amiibo sales stem from the U.S. and Canada. Europe is next with 20 percent, followed by Japan at 11 percent and Australia at 3 percent.
YouTube user “Akwartz” shared an hour of Dex footage today. You can watch the full video below.
Dex launches on the Wii U eShop this summer.
The developers behind Anima: Gate of Memories confirmed late last month that the game has finally entered beta. Although it can be played from start to finish, Anima requires lots of polish, the addition of story cut-scenes, and bug corrections.
That’s not all on Anima: Gate of Memories. The team announced that Badland Games is handling the title’s distribution. I’m not entirely sure how/if the news applies to the Wii U version, so I’ll just mention that off-hand.
Through Nintendo’s latest financial report, we have an update on how much cash Nintendo has in the bank, so to speak.
Nintendo’s “cash and deposits” sits at ¥534,706 million (or roughly $4.465 billion). Meanwhile, the company’s current assets amount to ¥1,097,597 million (roughly $9.168 billion).
These numbers are slightly down compared to Nintendo’s previous quarterly report. For the period ending December 31, Nintendo’s cash and deposits came in at $4.8 billion while total current assets were worth $10.2 billion. Nintendo also had ¥563,917 million in cash/deposits at the time. The decline can be partially attributed to the changing exchange rates between the yen and dollar.
Nintendo made a major announcement in conjunction with the release of its most recent fiscal results today. For those that missed out on the news, the company revealed a new partnership with Universal Parks & Resorts for the first theme park attractions based on Nintendo’s various properties. Nintendo is remaining coy on specific details for the time being, but president Satoru Iwata shared a few words at a press conference held in Japan earlier today.
He said:
There have been many requests to build a theme park with Nintendo characters. (Realizing that) requires assistance and know-how, so there were discussions with Universal in order to find a good partner.
Iwata also stated: “We want to create an opportunity where [a theme park visitor] wants to try playing the game.”
Japanese outlet Asahi, who passed along Iwata’s quotes, also obtained a comment from Nintendo’s PR manager. He said: “It’s possible we’ll create attractions together in Universal Studios Japan (USJ) in Osaka.”
Some footage has come in of Ultratron’s Wii U build. You’ll find nearly a half hour of footage below.
Splatoon Global Testfire hit the eShop today, though you can’t do much with it at present. As it’s an online-only demo, you can only experience what Nintendo is offering during select hours on Friday and Saturday. You can at least poke through Splatoon’s entire digital manual, and some users have done just that, which has resulted in the discovery of an interesting option in the final game.
Splatoon will come with a “Color Lock” option that lets players choose from a few pre-set color patterns. It’s unclear what these options are currently, but the manual says it’s “for the aid of players who have difficulty distinguishing certain colors.” Good on Nintendo for including this feature!
Game Informer published a new video feature that provides some insight into the creation of the Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars figures. There’s also some commentary from Avalanche’s Jeff Bunker. Watch the video in full below.
Nintendo put up a one-question interview with Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi over on its Twitter account. It asks: “How has making games in the ‘Xeno’ series changed since the team first worked on Xenogears?” Take a look at the image above from Takahashi’s full response!
While announcing Nintendo’s latest financial results, president Satoru Iwata shared a brief update regarding the company’s mobile development plans.
Sankei reports that the producer of Mario Kart has been appointed to be in charge of mobile game development. “It should help you understand the level of commitment from Nintendo”, Iwata said.
A name isn’t specifically mentioned, but we assume the article is referring to Hideki Konno, who has been producing Mario Kart games since the DS entry. Konno was also the producer on Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 7, and Mario Kart 8.
Sankei also mentions that today’s news shows how Nintendo intends to tackle mobile games with the same developers they use for console games.
Nintendo announced in March that it was teaming up with DeNA to create gaming apps for smartphone devices. The two sides are also working together a new membership service for Nintendo.
