Analyst David Gibson reported on Twitter earlier today that Nintendo spent over $100 million on some sort of “mystery tech acquisition”. The move was made sometime in Q4.
No one seems to be clear as to what the acquisition was about – including Gibson himself.
Wario Land 4 will be released in North America tomorrow as a Virtual Console download. Nintendo lists the eShop release on its website along with a $7.99 price point. Previously, Wario Land 4 was made available in Japan last week.
Strike Force Foxx is nearing release. The game is done, and according to developer Big John Games, is now in Nintendo’s lot check.
The studio tweeted earlier today:
We're thrilled to have our newest effort, #StrikeForceFoxx, in lot check now. Stay tuned for the release date! #3DS pic.twitter.com/RWW4uP4J2e
— Big John Games (@BigJohnGames) May 7, 2014
The folks over at Nintendo-Online recently examined the amount of employees working at Nintendo EAD Tokyo. You can get an estimated look at how the staff count changed over the years based on how many direct developers are named in the credits of the studio’s games.
– The studio started in 2003 with about 30 employees.
– Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (2004): ~ 30 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario Galaxy (2007): ~ 55-60 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010): ~ 40 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario 3D Land (2011): ~ 50 EAD Tokyo developers
– Super Mario 3D World (2013): nearly 100 EAD Tokyo developers
– Conclusion: The studio grew gradually bigger over time, but in the last two years, its staff nearly doubled.
– This is supported by a Miyamoto interview from June 2013 in which he revealed that he was working with Yoshiaki Koizumi, the studio’s producer, on increasing the staff.
Nintendo has submitted an FCC filing in the United States for the approval of model FTR-001_-01. As it turns out, the Big N is looking to tweak the standard 2DS unit in order to adjust a security function within the CPU. Nintendo sent in its submission in late April, though some documents were only just made pubic.
The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:
3DS LL – 31,979
Vita – 23,030
PS4 – 11,486
PS3 – 9,252
Wii U – 8,079
3DS – 7,644
PSP – 2,321
Vita TV – 1,687
Xbox 360 – 278
For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:
3DS LL – 27,914
Vita – 22,394
PS4 – 12,712
PS3 – 6,726
3DS – 6,073
Wii U – 5,710
PSP – 1,957
Vita TV – 1,548
Xbox 360 – 242
