Last week, Viz Media reprinted the Zelda: A Link to the Past comic that was featured in Nintendo Power over two decades ago. GameXplain has now posted a video showing a look at the graphic novel, which is posted below.
Code Name: S.T.E.A.M launched in North America back in March, but it’s finally due out in Europe this Friday. Check out the European launch trailer below.
A little bit of additional information has come in pertaining to Fire Emblem If, the series’ upcoming concert, and the Fire Emblem Cipher trading card game.
First, it’s been announced that “Renka” is the person behind Aqua’s song in the Fire Emblem If trailers. Serenes Forest reports that “Aqua’s singing voice is unique, possessing a pure and divine quality, with the ability to represent both strength and fragility.” The team “knew she was the one” after looking at a number of candidates and hearing Renka sing for the first time.
Fire Emblem If’s main theme song is “if ~hitori omou“. That roughly translates to “if ~ one’s thoughts”.
The theme song is due out as a single on July 1. It will be sold both as a CD for 1,296 yen and a limited edition CD/DVD bundle for 1,836 yen. The latter package contains two extra MVs and a reversible cover designed by Yusuke Kozaki.
Promotional displays for Fire Emblem If are already appearing inside a few stores across Japan. Only blurry pictures have been posted online thus far, which show artwork of Marx, Hinoka and Sakura and most notably Leon, Nohr’s “Dark Knight” prince. Check them out below.
Regarding Fire Emblem Cipher, there will be rare cards signed by the characters’ Japanese voice actors. We’re also hearing that the Fire Emblem concert will feature at least two parts – specifically the “Hero-King” part and “Light Inheritors” part.
The moderation team over on Reddit has posted unconfirmed figures for Target’s inventory of upcoming amiibo. Supposedly, the information was obtained from a trusted source, and indicates how much stock the retailer has for figures like the upcoming Smash Bros. and Splatoon figures.
As expected, Lucina and Robin will end up being the toughest to find. Marth’s restock also seems to be rather small, although that also isn’t a major surprise.
Update (5/11): Bumped to the top. It’s unclear if this is anything different than what Bloomberg already reported, but we’re hearing that Nintendo has changed its plans to produce consoles for the Chinese market.
Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports that Nintendo will not execute prior plan to manufacture consoles for the Chinese market.
— Dr. Serkan Toto (@serkantoto) May 11, 2015
Last year, we heard from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata about how the company planned on bringing completely new hardware to emerging markets in 2015. This was instead of selling cheaper versions of systems like the Wii U. Nintendo hasn’t given up on emerging markets, but its new device will be delayed in favor of experimenting in different countries with smartphone games.
Iwata mentioned during Nintendo’s financial results briefing this week that smartphone games will increase its chances for success in emerging markets. “Smart devices have lowered the barrier for people around the world to get to know our games and characters like Mario,” he said.
Iwata also confirmed that plans for emerging markets will be shared during a business strategy briefing later in the year.
Because of Nintendo stating that its pursuit of the mobile space will help double profit this fiscal year, the company’s shares rose the most in seven weeks. Bloomberg reports, “The stock rose as much as 9.5 percent as of 11:25 a.m. in Tokyo.”
Battleminer’s new update came out in Europe last month. The patch added multiplayer, animals, and support for the New 3DS.
Wobbly Tooth is still planning on bringing the update to North America, but the developer has encountered a snag. There’s a chance that version 2.0 will be ready in June, but it’s also possible that it won’t be released until later down the line.
Wobbly Tooth recently shared the following in a Miiverse update:
Gust Corporation uploaded a new video featuring footage from Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland. Watch it below.
In the Q&A following Nintendo’s recent financial results briefing, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata already clarified that Nintendo won’t talk about their upcoming smartphone games at this year’s E3. In addition, don’t expect to hear specifics about Nintendo’s next gaming system, codenamed “NX” or their Quality of Life platform either. Iwata said the following:
We do not plan on talking specifics about the NX until 2016. Presently, we cannot talk about the time period when it will go on sale or what it’s like. Because we are calling it a ‘new concept,’ we are not thinking of this as a ‘simple replacement’ for the 3DS or the Wii U.
Incidentally, we’re getting various questions for this year’s E3, like ‘Won’t there be a NX announcement?’, ‘Will there be a presentation on smart devices?’, or ‘Will there be more on the quality of life platform?’ However, since we understand that E3 is an event for dedicated video game machines, we do not intend to discuss the smart devices as well as quality of life.
Despite a troubled development and a negative critical reception, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric for Wii U and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for Nintendo 3DS have sold a combined 620 00 copies to date. This news comes from SEGA’s financial results briefing for the past fiscal year (2014-15, which ended on March 31st).
In the next fiscal year (April 1st, 2015 – March 31st, 2016) SEGA plans to release a total of 34 titles – 14 in Japan and 20 in the West. SEGA expects to sell 7 140 000 units in that period of time.
In addition to the Regirock event, 10 new main stages were also added to Pokemon Shuffle today. Download the latest update by Checking In to access them.
