The original 3DS appears to have been phased out by Nintendo in North America and Europe. It’s practically impossible to find on retailer sites like Toys “R” Us, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. Nintendo’s own website does not sell regular 3DS systems either.
There are listings for the original 3DS on GameStop’s website, though you can’t purchase one online and finding a system in store is next to impossible. Destructoid has also heard from local GameStop employees that Nintendo had outright discontinued the system, and they would no longer be receiving new stock.
The situation is similar in the UK. GameStop’s UK website and retailer GAME only show “new” results for the 3DS XL and the 2DS.
With the 3DS XL and 2DS on the market, it makes sense to phase out the original 3DS. We also have the New 3DS coming sometime this year!
Back in September 2013, Enlightened Games opened a Kickstarter for “Bliss”. The project was described as “a fantasy puzzle adventure game where the player makes the powerful choice to take control of their own destiny to explore a sacred and mystical land full of physical challenges, inner discovery, and healing.”
Bliss unfortunately fell well short of its Kickstarter goal. However, Enlightened Games came back in full force last year and rebooted the project as “The Song of Seven”. The Song of Seven is “an evolved version of Bliss.” It features similar themes, goals, and visuals as Bliss, but has completely new gameplay, characters, environments, and story.
Nintendo fans will be pleased to hear that The Song of Seven was confirmed for Wii U this past November. It sounds like the first chapter will be launching before the end of this year. In the meantime, take a look at a pre-alpha video shared back in June below.
Technobubble published an interview with Zelda director/producer Eiji Aonuma and Koei Tecmo producer Yosuke Hayashi before the launch of Hyrule Warriors last year. While it’s a few months old, the discussion contains several noteworthy comments and we wanted to share those with you.
We hear, for example, that Tingle was considered for Hyrule Warriors as a playable character, but Aonuma advised the team against including him. Aonuma commented on the possibility of other Nintendo franchises seeing crossovers with the Zelda series, noted how he’s interested in applying what Hyrule Warriors did with bosses that move across the map for Zelda Wii U, and touched on Zelda remakes. On Hayashi’s side, he spoke about the possibility of Hyrule Warriors 2 and a few other topics.
Head past the break for several excerpts from the interview.
PlatinumGames posted a video message on its YouTube channel last night, which is intended to be a New Year’s greeting. There are plenty of teases from various staff members about this coming year as well as some general talk. If you head on over to PlatinumGames’ blog, you’ll find a lengthy message from PlatinumGames president and CEO Tatsuya Minami.
We shared this screenshot in our New Year’s roundup post, though we now have Nintendo’s official translation of the included message. View it below.
Happy New Year! Wishing you a tentacular, squidtastic, cephalopoppin’-off 2015! Now let’s get down to business. Check out the first photo we received this year from our research team. It looks like the crazy squids celebrate New Year’s also! But…wait. Squids keep track of time?! I don’t even…
We have confirmation of at least one new game coming to the Wii U eShop in Europe next week. Family Tennis SP is slated for January 15, according to a newly-discovered listing. Pricing is set at €4.99.
3D Afterburner 2 is launching on the European 3DS eShop next week. The news is confirmed through a listing on the digital store, which features a January 15 release date. 3D Afterburner 2 is priced at €4.99.
Two different Protect Me Knight 2 (Mamotte Knight) themes will be available in Japan starting on January 14 at 200 yen each.
There will also be a soundtrack available on February 22.
Circle Entertainment is kicking off 2015 with its first announcement. The company has officially confirmed that it is bringing the Harvest December visual novel series to the west.
Just a few moments ago, Circle wrote on Twitter:
Happy New Year! Our first news of year 2015 is: Harvest December series English version has confirmed. Cheers! 🙂
— CIRCLE Ent. (@CIRCLE_Ent) January 5, 2015
Circle said last April that it was looking to hire translators for the Harvest December titles.