Finally had the time to put up a new Random Thoughts. It’s a short and sweet video, as I talk about the Wii U’s casual appeal through a personal experience.

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Below are the latest titles that can be currently pre-ordered at retailers:

Wii U

Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark – Amazon, GameStop
Watch Dogs – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
LEGO The Hobbit – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Bayonetta 2 – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Super Smash Bros. – Amazon, Best Buy
Mario Kart 8 – Amazon (back in stock), Best Buy, GameStop
Cabela’s Big Game Hunter: Pro Hunts – Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy
Yarn Yoshi – Best Buy

3DS

Farming Simulator ’14 – (new) Amazon
Tenkai Knights: Brave Battle – Best Buy
Cut The Rope: Triple Treat – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Disney Magical World – Amazon, Best Buy (new), GameStop
Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Gardening Mama 2: Forest Friends – Best Buy, GameStop
Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
LEGO The Hobbit – Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop
Mario Golf: World Tour – Amazon (save $10), GameStop, Best Buy
Super Smash Bros. – Amazon, Best Buy
Kirby Triple Deluxe – Amazon, Best Buy (new), GameStop
Putty Squad – Amazon, Best Buy

Thanks to Jake for the tip.

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Monster Hunter Frontier G will soon be seeing a new collaboration. Starting on April 24, players will be able to get their hands on costumes and equipment from Attack on Titan. More information will be shared on April 4.

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The recently-launched Pure Chess is causing online issues for some players. Publisher Ripstone acknowledged the problems on Twitter, while also noting that users should email them so that they can be investigated. Ripstone will be looking into the situation next week.

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More: indie, Pure Chess, Ripstone, VooFoo Studios

The folks over at Nintendo-Online recently decided to research the history of Intelligent Systems and were kind enough to send over some of their findings in English. There are some interesting tidbits about the company’s origins, among other things. Check out the full summary below.

– Intelligent Systems was founded in December 1986 as the successor studio to a company known as Iwasaki Giken.
– The cooperation between Nintendo and Iwasaki Giken started with the development of Donkey Kong jr. in 1982
– Contrary to common believe, Intelligent Systems is not a Nintendo subsidiary. It’s independent, but because of its strong connections to Nintendo, it can be refered to as a Nintendo studio. The case is comparable to other well known studios like HAL Laboratory or Next Level Games.
– In its early years, Intelligent Systems existed to help programming Nintendo games. Its first games were cooperations with Nintendo R&D1.
– Famicom Wars was not solely created by Intelligent Systems. Instead, it was designed by R&D1 and programmed by Intelligent Systems. After that, the team split up and R&D1 developed Super Mario Land, while Intelligent Systems started working on Fire Emblem. It was the first project where Intelligent Systems was deeply involved in designing the game.
– In the next years, Intelligent Systems developed many new games while continuing assisting on R&D1 games. The studio’s output decreased for a few years during the N64 and Virtual Boy era.
– Intelligent Systems is best known as a game development studio, but it is more of an engineering company. It had developed many dev kits and dev tools for Nintendo. In fact, Intelligent Systems is Nintendo’s most important source of dev kits.

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