Nintendo says competition has been its biggest challenge, but IPs and innovation give the company an edge
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 51 Comments
Unlocked: The World of Games, Revealed is a new documentary series that explores the world of video games. The new show just went live this week, and one of the episodes features Nintendo quite a bit.
Two prominent Nintendo executives spoke about the topic of competition during their segments. At one point, Nintendo of America executive vice president of operations Don James was asked about the biggest challenge the company has had to deal with. That’s what led him to mention competition. While competition can be “fierce”, James believes that Nintendo franchises act like a “secret weapon”.
He noted:
More: Don James, interview, Reggie Fils-Aime, top
Paper Mario: Color Splash producer on lack of returning NPCs, new game would feature “a different system”
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 47 Comments
Paper Mario’s first two games featured many original characters and party members with original abilities. However, since then, the series has been moving away from that. It is especially evident in Color Splash, as many of the characters encountered are Toads.
Game Informer spoke with Kensuke Tanabe, the Wii U title’s producer, in this month’s issue. The magazine started out by asking why old NPCs from the early Paper Mario games haven’t returned. Tanabe replied with the following:
More: interview, Kensuke Tanabe, top
Miyamoto on Nintendo’s thinking that led to the creation of motion controls with Wii
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Videos, Wii | 5 Comments
In the new documentary series Unlocked: The World of Games, Revealed, Shigeru Miyamoto was interviewed and asked about a wide array of topics. Among these was the creation of the Wii Remote.
Miyamoto talked about what prompted Nintendo to pursue motion gaming. With controllers and games becoming more complex at the time, some people were falling away from the industry. Nintendo wanted to find a way to bring them back into the fold and make things simpler. That’s where the conversation started, according to Miyamoto.
His full response:
Mr. Miyamoto shares his thoughts behind the creation of Wii motion controls in episode 3 of @UnlockedTVShow. https://t.co/WXMQRtv12v pic.twitter.com/3VK4gVZ3Me
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 16, 2016
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Game Freak on the prospects of Pokemon appearing on Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 49 Comments
Since a mainline Pokemon has never graced a Nintendo home console, fans of the franchise are waiting to see if and when it will make an appearance on Switch. Of course, there has been plenty of speculation regarding a third version of Pokemon Sun/Moon for the platform.
When asked about Switch in a new Spanish interview, Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda said:
“Without a doubt, Nintendo Switch is the future, but we will have to wait until it goes out on the market and study how it can benefit from Pokemon. When people have it, we will have too see and deeply study how to use it so we can think how the next entries of Pokemon are going to be and how the saga can benefit from the new console.”
Masuda also mentioned that Pokemon has always evolved with Nintendo consoles, and will continue to do so. With the technology that’s available, they’ll explore how to highlight the series’ important aspect of communication.
More: Game Freak, interview, Junichi Masuda, Pokemon, top
Teslapunk file size
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments
Teslapunk is out now on the North American Wii U eShop, and arrives later this week in Europe. Now we have the game’s file size. It’ll require 416 MB of free space.
More: file size, interview, klutzGames, Teslapunk
Skylanders Academy showrunner on giving Crash Bandicoot a voice in the show
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Skylanders Academy premiered on Netflix back in October. After the show appeared, it came as somewhat as a surprise that Crash Bandicoot was in, and even had his own voice.
GameSpot caught up with Skylanders Academy showrunner Eric Rogers to talk about giving the character a voice. He also touched on the mixed reaction and why the news of Crash’s involvement wasn’t talked up beforehand.
Head past the break for Rogers’ comments. Read GameSpot’s full interview here for other topics, including what’s in store for season two of Skylanders Academy.
More: Eric Rogers, interview, Skylanders Academy
Miyamoto on the durability of Mario, says technology will influence the franchise’s future
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments
Mario is here to stay. As Nintendo’s biggest franchise – and one of the biggest in general – there are plenty of additional adventures in store for the future. Shigeru Miyamoto is unsure about where Mario will be taken down the road, though technology will play an important role.
Miyamoto was asked about where he sees the future of Mario going during the Super Mario Run event at the Apple Store a few days ago. He reflected on a poll conducted after Super Mario Bros. launched, and how Mario was more popular than Mickey Mouse. Miyamoto realized at the time that “Mickey Mouse was a character that had evolved with the evolution of cinema and animation, and so it was then when I felt that if I want Mario to continue to survive as a character, then Mario needs to evolve with technology and video games.” And so Mario’s future will depend on the technology Miyamoto stumbles upon in the future.
Miyamoto’s full comments:
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Miyamoto wants to put more energy into Star Fox, Pikmin
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 143 Comments
Fans were able to submit a bunch of questions to Shigeru Miyamoto when he showed up for the Super Mario Run event at the Apple Store in SoHo a few days ago. At one point, he was asked if there was any character he wanted to develop or felt very passionate about that didn’t make it. He pointed to two franchises: Fox McCloud (Star Fox) and Pikmin.
Miyamoto said:
“Yeah, I always wanted Fox McCloud to be a bit more popular than he is. But I think one more would be Pikmin. So I think these two, I’ll need to put some more energy into.”
With Pikmin, we know that a new side-scroller is coming to 3DS in 2017. Miyamoto has also previously mentioned Pikmin 4 which one would assume is a different game.
More: interview, Pikmin, Shigeru Miyamoto, Star Fox, top
Miyamoto says Nintendo conducted Minecraft-like experiments on N64, some designs “were very similar”
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 25 Comments
There’s one additional excerpt from Glixel’s new interview with Shigeru Miyamoto that we wanted to give the spotlight to.
As part of the discussion, Miyamoto was asked if he’s playing games other than the mobile title Neko Atsume. This led him to speak about his enjoyment and respect of Minecraft.
Interestingly, Miyamoto told Glixel that Nintendo conducted “a lot of experiments that were similar to that back in the N64 days”. There were apparently “some designs that were very similar.”
Miyamoto’s full words:
“I do like Minecraft, but really more from the perspective of the fact that I really feel like that’s something we should have made. We had actually done a lot of experiments that were similar to that back in the N64 days and we had some designs that were very similar. It’s really impressive to me to see how they’ve been able to take that idea and turn it into a product.”
More: interview, Minecraft, Shigeru Miyamoto, top
Miyamoto on his role with development, inspirations, younger devs on Switch, Apple/Nintendo similarities, more
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Switch | 18 Comments
Glixel has a new interview up with Shigeru Miyamoto. But whereas most discussions with Nintendo’s legendary developer have focused specifically on Super Mario Run, this one is a bit more general.
While speaking with the site, Miyamoto spoke about working with his core team of four for thirty years, his role with development, inspirations and influences, relationship with Mario, and the similiarties between Apple and Switch. He also mentioned that younger staff “are taking the lead on Switch development”.
We’ve rounded up the notable responses from Miyamoto below. For the full interview, head on over to Glixel.