REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–One month from today, Mario Kart 8 will be driving players wild with anti-gravity racing action. To get people revved up for the Wii U game, Nintendo released a new Nintendo Direct video that announced some additional news nuggets, including a Mario Kart 8 Wii U bundle, a free downloadable game offer for Wii U owners who buy Mario Kart 8, details about online features, cool new characters and devastating new items.
“Everyone loves Mario Kart,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “It’s a franchise that brings people together for fun at a family gathering, a frenzied race against friends or just an afternoon break at the office. The numerous new features of Mario Kart 8 make this the most ambitious version yet, and one that will have players of all skill levels racing for the checkered flag.”
To view the Nintendo Direct in its entirety, visit http://www.nintendo.com/nintendo-direct. Some of the new information announced today included:
It looks as if Nintendo is geared up and ready for a bigger presence in the merchandise world with a set of new goodies set to hit stores relatively soon. Among them is your Mario showing from plushies to mini play-sets of various stages, and a picture of what look to be figurine mock-ups for other characters like Link, Zelda and Pit among others. Perhaps most impressive however is the Mario Kart 8 branded loop tracks, which look to be pretty elaborate with a number of different characters available for purchase.
The release window is currently listed as ‘September 2014’ so hopefully we’ll have more info in the following months
Check out Banter Toys for more pictures of the full line
Today’s screenshot details a new item, the Super Leaf. Sakurai explains:
With the Super Leaf, any fighter can have ears and a tail. You can also float in the air by pressing the jump button. We’re still figuring out whether you’ll be able to attack with the tail…
Today it was announced that there will be a launch event for Disney Infinity 2.0. The event will take place at 10am PST on April 30th and is to be held at Pacific Theater’s Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles. Alongside the event will be a live stream for the folks at home so you check out all the action. We’ve embedded the stream below, so you can catch it when it goes live!
As we’ve done for the last two weeks, today we have another exclusive screenshot of the upcoming Wii U eShop game Art of Balance from our friends at Shin’en. They’ll be showing off some genuinely neat stuff this time around, including some changes to the core user-interface and some of the small graphical touches that their known for putting in all of their games. Like before, the following quote comes from Mr. Manfred Linzer over at the developer, and you can look at the screenshot he’s talking about above:
Hi guys! Another week, another screen from our upcoming beautiful Wii U game called “Art of Balance”. This time I’ll show you a screen from the 2nd world.
When creating the Wii U version we thought about how we could make the game feel more ‘real’; a subtle but nice change was how to pick the shapes. On 3DS and Wii, the shapes were simply picked from a 2D HUD Layer and then projected into the 3D screen. On Wii U, we placed the shapes directly on the table, so you can select them with your GamePad or Wii Remote. This feels very natural and gives a more ‘solid world’ feeling.
Also we wanted the game to feel ‘gemuetlich’ as we say in German, so the levels should feel warm and inviting. Besides choosing the correct lighting and props, we figured out that it was important not to have that typical ‘clean’ computer rendering style, so we tried to give everything little imperfections. Just look at the table – all of the little scratches and variations in particular. This is used on every asset in the game. It’s very subtle, but gives that little extra touch we wanted.
This week’s 3DS eShop charts are as follows:
Software
1. Pokemon Battle Trozei
2. Super Mario Bros. 3
3. Pokemon Dream Radar
4. Art Academy: First Semester
5. Super Mario Bros.
6. Animal Crossing: New Leaf
7. Mario Kart 7
8. Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX
9. Disney Magical World
10. Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
11. The Legend of Zelda
12. Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars
13. Super Mario Bros. 2
14. Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
15. Pokemon Y
16. EDGE
17. Pokemon X
18. Trajectile
19. Bravely Default
20. Mega Man
Videos
1. Super Mario Bros. 3 Trailer
2. Kirby Triple Deluxe: Gee Kirby, you’re so cute Trailer
3. Super Smash Bros. Challenger From the Shadows
4. Tomodachi Life Direct 4/10/14
5. Kirby Triple Deluxe: Wow Kirby, you’re sure exciting Trailer
6. Nintendo Minute – Mario Kart 8 New Courses
7. Super Smash Bros. Direct 4/8/14
8. Pokemon Battle Trozei – Announcement Trailer
9. Introducing Tomodachi Life
10. Kirby Triple Deluxe: Oh Kirby, you’re so silly Trailer
11. Kirby Triple Deluxe Trailer
12. Disney Magical World Launch Trailer
13. Mario Kart 8 – New Courses and Items Trailer
14. Mii Plaza New Features Trailer
15. Mario Golf: World Tour – Item Shots Trailer
16. Super Smash Bros. Champion of the Ring
17. Yoshi’s New Island – Launch Trailer
18. Hyrule Warriors Teaser Trailer
19. Mario Kart 7 Video
20. LEGO The Hobbit Trailer
Source: 3DS eShop
This week’s video additions to the Wii U/3DS eShops are as follows:
Wii U
Child of Light – Lemuria Trailer
Child of Light – Making of Part 3
Child of Light – Making of Part 2
Child of Light – Making of Part 1
Mario Golf: World Tour New Courses Trailer
Nintendo Minute – NES Remix 2
Play Nintendo – Announcing Nintendo @ E3 2014
Kirby Triple Deluxe: Oh Dedede, You’re So Dashing Trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Behind the Scenes with Stan Lee
Ava and Avior Save the Earth Trailer
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 Trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer 2
Evergreen 2DS
My Time, My 2DS
Disney Magical World Launch Event Recap
3DS
Child of Light – Lemuria Trailer
Child of Light – Making of Part 3
Child of Light – Making of Part 2
Child of Light – Making of Part 1
Gardening Mama 2 Trailer
Mario Golf: World Tour New Courses Trailer
Nintendo Minute – NES Remix 2
Play Nintendo – Announcing Nintendo @ E3 2014
Kirby Triple Deluxe: Oh Dedede, You’re So Dashing Trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Behind the Scenes with Stan Lee
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 Trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer 2
Sea Battle Trailer
Evergreen 2DS
My Time, My 2DS
Disney Magical World Launch Event Recap
Source: Wii U/3DS eShops
