Intelligent Systems’ staff count has been on the rise over the years. As a prominent Nintendo developer, that certainly makes sense.

81 employees were working at Intelligent Systems in 2003. That number increased steadily over the years, rising to 130 as of 2013.

Siliconera put together a graph showing the rise in Intelligent Systems’ employee count since 2003. You can find it above.

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Amazon is now taking pre-orders for the Super Smash Bros. Edition of the GameCube controller. Orders can be placed here. And as we’ve mentioned in our weekly pre-order update, you can also pre-order the GameCube Controller Adapter for Wii U here.

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Indie developer Electronook is making two new games for the Wii U eShop.

The first, Talismatch, is a casual puzzle game. It will be released later this year.

Also in the works is Victoria, a 2.5D action platformer. Electronook is currently creating a prototype and hopes to crowdfund the full game, which would launch in 2015.

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More: Electronook, indie, Talismatch, Victoria

It turns out that voice chat hasn’t been officially confirmed for Splatoon after all. Producer/manager Hisashi Nogami and project lead Tsubasa Sakaguchi, speaking with GameRant said that the functionality hasn’t been decided just yet.

“The core concept of Splatoon is that by looking at the way the ink is being spread around and progressing, you know, you can kind of see what your enemies are doing, what your teammates are doing, and then you’re able to decide what you want to do. And that’s kind of the main thing we’re always thinking about, and we kind of get similar questions about the number of people that can be in a multiplayer match, but for this game it’s really that four-on-four is the best number. With four-on-four, the amount of influence that a single player has is perfectly balanced, but also the speed at which the battle changes, the way the battle is developing changes is also completely perfect.”

“The idea being that the core concept is basically that players look at the way the ink is being spread around, the way it’s being painted around, and decide what to do. If in any way that doesn’t disrupt that balance we’ve created, we’ll definitely consider different ways of communication and introduce that to the game as we go forward with development.”

Nogami concluded his comments by stating: “Basically, I haven’t decided.”

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More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, Tsubasa Sakaguchi

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This week’s Japanese eShop update is as follows:

3DS

Downloadable Titles
Simple DL Series Vol. 30 – The Number Puzzle – 400 yen
Gakki de Asobo Tanoshi D?y? – 100 yen
Gunma no Yab? for Nintendo 3DS – 500 yen
Shizuku – 300 yen
Dokopon Choice Tonari no Atashi 1 – 10-kan Pack – 4,400 yen
Fushigi no Kuni no B?ken Sakaba – 648 yen
Puchi Novel Kongi no Roku-gatsu – 200 yen
Taiko no Tatsujin Dontokatsu no Jik? Daib?ken (retail title) – 5,119 yen (from 5/26)
Metal Fight Beyblade: 4D x Zerog Ultimate Tournament (retail title) – 5,184 yen (from 5/26)
Gacha Racing DEMO – FREE

Virtual Console
NA

Wii U

Downloadable Titles
Pac-World (Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, Download only) – 4,000 yen
Kamen Rider Battride War II (retail title) – 7,690 yen (from 5/26)
Wii Sports Club: Baseball – 1,000 yen (can be purchased with Boxing as a set for 1,000 yen, from 6/27)
Wii Sports Club: Boxing – 1,000 yen (can be purchased with Baseball as a set for 1,000 yen, from 6/27)

Virtual Console
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Super Famicom) – 823 yen
Street Fighter II: Turbo Hyper Fighting (Super Famicom) – 823 yen
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Super Famicom) – 823 yen
PC Genjin 3 (Bonk 3: Bonk’s Big Adventure, PC Engine) – 617 yen

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A new Bayonetta 2 interview has come online over at CVG. The site spoke with director Yusuke Hashimoto, who talked about the decision to make a sequel, how Nintendo provided input, interest in continuing the series, and quite a bit more.

You can find CVG’s interview in full here. For notable excerpts, head past the break.

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More: Bayonetta 1, Bayonetta 2, interview, PlatinumGames, top, Yusuke Hashimoto