NES Classic interviews with Miyamoto and Sakamoto now officially translated
Posted on 7 years ago by Matt(@OnePunchMaz) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
A couple of weeks ago, Nintendo published two interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto and Yoshio Sakamoto on their Japanese website. Miyamoto, obviously, created Donkey Kong, and Sakamoto developed Balloon Fight. Both of these NES games are among the games lineup of the NES Classic Mini, which was the occasion for these interviews. Now, Nintendo of America has provided an official translation of both interviews on their website. We’ve already provided an overview of the Miyamoto interview here, but it if you want to check out the official translation, you can find it here. The Sakamoto interview about Balloon Fight is located here.
Niantic would like the game to be a social network, looking to include “more heads-up play”
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 3 Comments
The Verge recently spoke with Niantic’s Dennis Hwang, who was previously in charge of designing Google Doodles. Much of the conversation revolved around Pokemon GO.
At one point, Hwang was asked if he considers the game to be a social network. His response was as follows:
“I think we would like for it to be. That’s kind of part of the way we envision our platform, is really bringing people together. It’s not really about the specific game title or mobile phone app, it’s how do you create a shared experience that brings people together. So for Ingress, when we did start seeing boyfriend / girlfriend, husband / wife, people who are having kids after meeting each other playing our game, it was super satisfying and we were overjoyed to see that actually happening.
We’re sort of trying to paint an optimistic future, where technology is really bringing people together, not like you’re strapping a screen in a dark place to your face, where every interaction becomes through a camera, through a computer, through a network — that seems a little too dystopian to us. So we’re trying to see if there’s a better way to do things.”
Hwang later took on a question about Pokemon GO’s design and whether he’d change anything. This prompted him to speak about wanting to incorporate “more heads-up play.” Niantic wants players looking less at their phones rather than more.
Hwang said:
“Oh, there’s a lot that isn’t perfect. We had a pretty tight timeline to build this. I think just generally speaking the biggest element we’re looking to improve is allowing more heads-up play. It saddens me a little bit when I see a lot of hunched over people outside. They’re having fun, they’re outside in a great public park, but we’re always wanting a little more direct engagement with our immediate surroundings. So those are design choices we’re looking at carefully to keep improving it.
Like let’s say in the current interface, some of the information about a pokémon that spawned is in fine detail and the icon is really small. It’s going to make you go closer to the screen. We may just iterate on the design until you feel like the information is being presented to you in a way where you’re not having to stick your nose on the screen. It could be a simple size change, or the way the notification is animated, or it could be auditory cues instead of visual cues. There are a lot of options we’re going to explore.”
More: Dennis Hwang, interview, Niantic, Pokemon GO
Animal Crossing: New Leaf devs talk about the new update
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments
Nintendo UK added a new interview to its website today centered around the new Animal Crossing: New Leaf update. General producer Katsuya Eguchi and Animal Crossing series producer Hisashi Nogami spoke about various topics, including why camper vans were chosen. You can read up on Eguchi and Nogami’s various comments below.
Various indie devs on interest in making games for Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 9 Comments
Nintendo Life caught up with several indie developers to field their thoughts about Switch. For the final question, they were asked if they’d like to support the system in the future.
Unsurprisingly, that was a resounding yes. These developers are either interested in Switch, or are already working on the platform.
Read up on comments from Yacht Club Games, Engine Software, Drinkbox, Choice Provisions, Atooi, and Shin’en below. Some are very brief as you would expect.
Game Freak still interested in Pokemon remakes, no current plans for Gold/Silver on the Virtual Console
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, General Nintendo, News | 35 Comments
Remakes are a well-known part of the Pokemon franchise. New titles are produced regularly, but older ones are visited fairly frequently. Fans might be interested to hear that Game Freak remains interested in this.
Series producer Junichi Masuda told IGN:
“I think the remakes, like Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, is still an approach we’re interested in. With the Virtual Console releases of the original games, specifically there had never been a way to bring those Pokemon over to the latest generation. It had always been that you couldn’t get those Pokemon out.”
Level-5 trying to figure out how to take advantage of Switch, won’t have any games at launch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 25 Comments
Level-5 has been a staunch supporter of Nintendo platforms for many years. This will continue with Switch, as the company is already confirmed to be on board. Just don’t expect any titles immediately.
In an interview with Vandal, CEO Akihiro Hino said Level-5 won’t have any games ready for Switch’s launch. As for why, he explained that they want to “find out the best way to get the most out of the console” and “how to take advantage of it.”
Hino’s full comments:
“We plan to make games for Nintendo Switch, but I think it’s very important to find out the best way to get the most out of the console. For that reason, we won’t have any titles at launch, but we’ll work with it as soon as we figure out how to take advantage of it.”
Level-5 is working on several projects, including Lady Layton, The Snack World, Inazuma Eleven Ares, and Megaton Musashi. Some of these are planned for 3DS, and a couple may end up on Switch as well. Megaton Musashi probably won’t be ready until 2018, so it might make more sense to create it for Switch rather than 3DS.
More: Akihiro Hino, interview, Level-5, top
Sakamoto on making Balloon Fight, Iwata memories, canned GBA hardware idea, more
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments
Nintendo recently published another new interview on its Japanese website to promote the NES Classic Edition / Famicom Mini. This time, Yoshio Sakamoto of Metroid fame sat down to talk about Balloon Fight. Nick Mosier translated the piece, which had some interesting talk about how the game was made, memories of the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, and a GBA hardware idea that was cancelled after making it to the mock-up stage.
We’ve picked out some notable excerpts from the interview below. You can read the full translation here.
Final Fantasy XV director “very interested” in Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 48 Comments
Hajime Tabata, the director of Final Fantasy XV, has significant interest in Switch.
Speaking about Nintendo’s console with French outlet Gameblog, Tabata talked about how he is looking forward to the platform as both a developer and a player. This is also the first time in awhile that he’s has had interest in creating titles for a Nintendo platform.
Tabata’s words in full:
More: Hajime Tabata, interview, top
Kadokawa Games “would like to look into the Nintendo Switch”
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 18 Comments
Kadokawa Games has some interest in Switch, according to president Yoshimi Yasuda. In a recent interview, Yasuda mentioned that the company is interested in looking into the platform in the future.
Yasuda said:
“We would like to deliver our games to as many peoples as possible, in the best route possible. Therefore, in the future we would like to look into the Nintendo Switch or Steam and any other hardware that has an install base.”
Kadokawa Games helped to develop the Wii-exclusive (and Japan-only) Earth Seeker a few years ago. They’re also responsible for Demon Gaze, and originally published Rodea: The Sky Soldier in Japan.
More: interview, Kadokawa Games
13AM Games is done with DLC for Runbow, thinking about the IP’s future
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U | 1 Comment
13AM Games has been keeping Runbow updated over the past year with new content, but now the studio has confirmed that DLC is coming to an end. Shantae is the latest addition to the game, and now they’re just about ready to move on.
Now the question is: what’s Runbow’s future? It’s been a success for 13AM Games, so that’s something the team is trying to figure out currently.
In an interview with Hardcore Gamer, the developer mentioned:
“We are still figuring out where we are going to take this IP next. There’s a lot that can be done and we love all different types of games. We’ve had fans requests RPGs and Fighting Games in the Runbow family, but the flip side is that it might be nice to work on something else for a bit. I know it’s not much of a concrete answer, but the truth is we are still figuring it out!”
Whatever 13AM Games ends up doing with Runbow, it’ll likely be a hit. Runbow was one of the more successful indie games on Wii U.
