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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 9 Comments

Nintendo has sold 21 million amiibo worldwide, according to president and CEO Tatsumi Kimishima. This number indicates that around 10.6 million units were sold since March.

We also have some data specific to France. Journalist Chloé Woitier reports that over 800,000 amiibo have been sold in the territory thus far, including 70,000 cards.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 28 Comments

Earlier today, we heard from Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima that at least one new Nintendo Direct will air before the end of this year. Another tidbit about the company’s plans for the presentations has since been made known.

During Nintendo’s financial results briefing, Kimishima mentioned that Nintendo Direct is currently being remodeled. In 2016, we’ll be seeing the new format. Specific details about what’s in store for Nintendo Direct in the future were not made announced.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U | 30 Comments

The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:

PS4 – 22,801
New 3DS LL – 16,144
Vita – 12,981
Wii U – 9,961
New 3DS – 3,530
PS3 – 1,909
3DS – 1,277
Xbox One – 1,009
Vita TV – 782
3DS LL – 478

For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:

PS4 – 25,699
New 3DS LL – 17,881
Vita – 14,546
Wii U – 11,658
New 3DS – 4,514
PS3 – 2,105
3DS – 1,232
Vita TV – 696
3DS LL – 625
Xbox One – 438

And here are the software charts:

1. [3DS] Zelda: Tri Force Heroes – 54,394 / NEW
2. [3DS] PriPara Mezase! Idol * Grand Prix No.1! – 34,035 / NEW
3. [3DS] Yo-kai Watch Busters – 20,824 / 1,674,995
4. [WIU] Super Mario Maker – 15,817 / 337,039
5. [3DS] 7th Dragon III – 13,299 / 85,776
6. [WIU] Splatoon – 13,159 / 737,478
7. [3DS] Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer – 8,625 / 1,098,904
8. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition – 7,547 / 375,264
9. [PS3] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2016 – 6,442 / 82,413
10. [3DS] Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon – 6,402 / 243,494
11. [3DS] Picross 3D – 5,905 / 58,147
12. [3DS] Pro Yakyuu Famista Returns – 5,894 / 38,421
13. [PS4] Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – 4,944 / 411,720
14. [PSV] Tokyo Xanadu – 4,793 / 116,835
15. [PS4] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2016 – 4,528 / 63,769
16. [PS4] Uncharted Collection – 4,439 / 37,049
17. [3DS] Dragon Quest VIII – 4,208 / 801,043
18. [PS4] GTA V (4,990 yen Edition) – 3,673 / 10,875
19. [3DS] Chibi-Robo!: Zip-Lahs – 3,647 / 25,083
20. [PS3] Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – 3,614 / 190,093

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 17 Comments

It’s been several months since the last, true Nintendo Direct. But even though there hasn’t been a new presentation in quite some time, we did recently hear that the broadcasts will continue – despite the passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

Nintendo’s Tatsumi Kimishima also provided a brief update about the future of Nintendo Directs during a financial results briefing earlier today. According to the new company president, at least one presentation will be coming this year. That means we should be seeing something within the next couple of months.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 18 Comments

We’ve all been waiting a very long time for the first details about Nintendo and DeNA’s debut mobile title. In just a matter of hours, the wait will be over.

Nintendo has confirmed that it will be sharing news about its project in Japan during its latest financial results briefing on Thursday.

“We will provide updates on our project with DeNA tomorrow,” Nintendo president and CEO executive Tatsumi Kimishima said today.

For those of us in North America, we should be hearing something later tonight. That will be in the very early morning over in Europe.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U | 9 Comments

Nintendo’s latest financial results are in, giving us the latest information about how the company did between April 1 and September 30. Here’s a quick overview:

– 1.19 million Wii U units sold during the first six months of its fiscal year, which runs through September
– 2.28 million 3DS units sold
– That means 720,000 Wii U consoles and 1.27 million 3DSes were sold during its fiscal Q2
– Wii U hardware sales are now at a worldwide total of 10.73 million
– 3DS lifetime to date: 54.34 million units worldwide
– Wii U software: 69.05 copies sold
– Generated $1.69 billion (204.18 billion yen) in sales worldwide during the first half of its fiscal 2016
– That’s up 19.1 percent year-over-year
– Operating income of $74.5 million (8.98 billion yen)
– Earnings of 79 cents (95.46 yen) per share
– Where Nintendo generated $747 million of its revenue total in Q1, it was able to bring in $953 million in Q2

Head past the break for some comments straight from Nintendo about its latest financial performance.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 13 Comments

Included in Nintendo’s latest financial report is an updated release schedule for both Wii U and 3DS. We’ve attached it in full below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments

NES designer Masayuki Uemura has offered quite a bit of insight into the console’s controller. Here’s what was shared with USgamer:

“There were, as you can probably imagine, a lot of difficulties we faced in doing things for the first time in building this hardware, but one of the most difficult was, ‘What shape and layout will the controller have?’ This has a touch of coincidence about it, too, but some of those people who had gone to work with Gunpei Yokoi’s team eventually found their way back to our team. So one of the ideas that came up because of that was, ‘Well, we’ve got this Game & Watch multi-screen Donkey Kong that uses the controller format of a plus control pad and buttons.’ So we hooked that up and got it working.”

“At the time, we were prototyping various ideas for the Famicom hardware, as well as controllers. When we took this idea that had been used for controls with the Donkey Kong Game & Watch and got it working on the Famicom prototype with that same style of controls, we immediately knew, ‘OK, this feels right; there’s something good about this.’ That means that there are actually a few people who can claim that they invented the controller for the Famicom!

“I think that the biggest reason that we liked the controls this way was just how good the original Game & Watch Donkey Kong, which was on multi-screen, felt. To expand on that a little further, with this prototype… the multi-screen format of the Donkey Kong Game & Watch means that you have a screen on top and a screen on the bottom, with the controls down below. When we hooked up the prototype, it meant that you were no longer looking down there [at the controls], but up here [at the screen]. Yet we suddenly realized, kind of mysteriously, that you didn’t need to look at the controls while you were playing the game, and it still felt right!

“And up to that point, we had tried a big variety of control styles and they had all had some sort of something that didn’t feel quite right about them, but this was something that no matter who tried it on our team, they could tell right away that this worked. So that’s when I decided to put my foot down and make the call that this is what we would be going with.

“I may have made the decision, but in the end, it’s something that whoever worked on the Game & Watch for Donkey Kong had a hand in, whoever brought the idea to try out the prototype had a hand in it—it was really a team effort.”

“You know, we didn’t patent that technology (crosspad design) at the time. Once it was established, you kind of started to see it pop up everywhere, and now it’s kind of become a standard for controls in games.”

USgamer has much more with Uemura in its piece. You can read up on the full article here.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos, Wii | 2 Comments

Liam Robertson dug deep into the development and troubles surrounding Project H.A.M.M.E.R. earlier this year.Today, Robertson published a new report that sheds even more light on the cancelled Wii game.

Here are a few highlights:

– Shigeru Miyamoto wasn’t happy that NST spent over $1 million on lavish CGI sequences which were ordered the game design was concrete and before the game’s reveal in 2006
– Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis also featured cut-scenes from Silver Ant for a high sum of money
– This all caused the person in charge of budgetary concerns on both H.A.M.M.E.R. and Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 getting a slapped wrist from Miyamoto
– Miyamoto branded the investment in CGI “superfluous”
– This ended NST’s relationship with Silver Ant
– Katsuhiko Kanno was the person in charge at the game’s inception
– Kanno was apparently “difficult to work with”, “rude” and “uncooperative”
– Around this time, is is thought that a large number of NST staff left the company under their own volition
– Staff count at NST dropped from 50 to about half of that
– To steady the ship staff were moved onto the project from elsewhere in Nintendo’s North American network
– Metroid Prime level designer Jason Behr was brought on to bring things back on course
– Behr found himself singled out as a scapegoat for the game’s shortcomings
– Behr stayed on until around 2008, and would leave NST to join Monolith Productions
– Senior staff at NST finally spotted the friction between Kanno and his team
– He was removed from the project in 2007 and replaced by Masamichi Abe (Pikmin 1 and 2 director)
– Metroid Prime producer Kensuke Tanabe joined in a supervisory role towards the end of the project
– He didn’t have much of an impact, and only visited NST’s offices a handful of times
– Project H.A.M.M.E.R. would be re-tooled as Wii Crush, a casual title aimed at the Wii Sports audience
– Would have supported MotionPlus
– Project cancelled entirely in 2009

You can see the latest report on Project H.A.M.M.E.R. in its entirety below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 21 Comments

Nintendo has announced a sizable update for Super Mario Maker. This will be made available starting on November 4.

Once the update has been applied, mid-level checkpoints can be used. These flags let players start at the selected point if they lose a life instead of having to start again at the beginning of a level. Existing levels that are edited and re-uploaded can be made with checkpoints as well as entirely brand new ones.

Also coming next week is the addition of Event Courses in the Course World online hub, which feature levels from partner creators outside Nintendo. One of these will be the “Ship Love” from Facebook’s “hackathon” event. You’ll also find a new Official Makers section in Course World that contain specially selected courses, including some created by Nintendo.

Finally, the patch introduces a more challenging version of Gnat Attack and allows players to insert power-ups dependent on Mario’s status. For the latter, by attaching a Super Mushroom to a Fire Flower and placing it inside a block, Mario will receive the Super Mushroom when he is small, and the Fire Flower when he is large.

View a trailer for the update below. You can also find today’s full announcement after the break.

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