Nintendo not talking about smartphone games at E3 since the event is for “dedicated gaming systems”
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Mobile, News | 17 Comments
Nintendo will be releasing its first mobile game this year. We don’t know what exactly is planned, but don’t expect to hear about anything at E3 2015 next month.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, speaking at the company’s latest financial briefing, confirmed that there are no plans to discuss smartphone games. That’s because they realize the event is for “dedicated gaming systems”.
Nintendo thinking about what steps need to be taken to make NX region-free
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Switch, Wii U | 67 Comments
Update: Fairly accurate translation is below.
Removing region-locking from current game machines presents various issues, so we don’t consider that to be very realistic. However, regarding NX, given the customer feedback and proposals from the market, while nothing has been decided yet, we’re currently investigating internally what problems there would be in realizing it. You can think of that as the current situation. I understand your desire, so I’d like to look at it optimistically going forward.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata addressed the topic of region locking during the Q&A portion of the company’s latest financial results briefing.
Iwata stated that Nintendo is thinking internally about what steps need to be taken to make NX region-free. Additionally, the Big N is aware that people want a region free system, and he is “thinking positively” about region free. A decision has not been made internally about whether or not NX will be region-free.
Iwata was also quick to point out that doing away with region-locking for current hardware is “unrealistic”.
More: top
Xenoblade X beats original game with first week sales, sells through 70% of initial shipment
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 15 Comments
The latest data from Media Create reveals that Xenoblade Chronicles X sold 85,586 copies in its first week in Japan. While it didn’t set the charts on fire, the game did quite well all things considered.
When the original Xenoblade came out on Wii, it sold 83,000 copies in its first week. You may recall that Nintendo was working with a much, much higher install base with that console at the time. It’s also worth noting that the recently-released New 3DS version sold 56,923 copies in its first week.
Separately from Media Create’s report, Dengeki indicates that Xenoblade Chronicles X sold through 70 percent of its initial shipment.
More: Japan, Monolith Soft, sales, top, Xenoblade Chronicles X
Come take our new survey!
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Site updates | 9 Comments
Giving this one final bump to the top. I’ll be closing the survey soon so that I can closely look over what you guys had to say!
Bumping this to the top. Thank you so much to those who completed the survey thus far. The feedback/comments/responses are very much appreciated and will hopefully allow us to improve! We received a ton more than I was expecting. I’ll be going through them all in the days and weeks ahead!
Surveys are not something that we’ve dealt with too much in the past. I’m changing that now! I have a fairly short survey that I would really, really appreciate if you could take a moment to fill out.
Take the survey here
There are several questions in there, but most are basically in the form of multiple choice/quick selections. Also, you can feel free to skip any question. I’m just looking for genuine responses! I can’t stress how important this survey is, and your feedback will help shape Nintendo Everything’s future. Thank you in advance!
Splatoon Global Testfire – round one now live
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 46 Comments
Splatoon Global Testfire is now open for business. This first round will last from 8 PM PT to 9 PM PT (11 PM ET to 12 AM ET).
Two more rounds of Splatoon Global Testfire will be going live over the next 12 hours or so. We’ll publish reminders as they begin.
3.4 million copies of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate shipped worldwide, Capcom hopes to ship 2.5 million units of Monster Hunter Stories by March 31, 2016
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 6 Comments
Capcom has shared a bit more on its latest financial results.
The most notable piece of Nintendo news is that, as of March 31, 2015, the company has shipped 3.4 million copies of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate worldwide. As previously mentioned, 1 million of the game’s shipments came from the west. Capcom originally projected a shipment of 3.9 million units, though they weren’t too far off.
Capcom’s new “title related to Monster Hunter” for 3DS, which is almost certainly Monster Hunter Stories, has a projection shipment now as well. Capcom is looking to have 2.5 million copies of the game out in the market by March 31, 2016.
Media Create sales (4/27 – 5/3) – Xenoblade Chronicles X debut
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U | 48 Comments
The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:
Wii U – 22,898
PS4 – 19,782
Vita – 17,748
New 3DS LL – 17,062
New 3DS – 5,901
PS3 – 3,956
3DS – 1,520
3DS LL – 1,465
Vita TV – 687
Xbox One – 341
For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:
PS4 – 20,112
Vita – 15,467
New 3DS LL – 13,981
Wii U – 7,210
New 3DS – 5,329
PS3 – 4,248
3DS LL – 1,253
3DS – 1,095
Vita TV – 558
Xbox One – 201
And here are the software charts:
1. [3DS] Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition – 179,926 / NEW
2. [WIU] Dragon Quest X: Inishie no Ryuu no Denshou Online – 98,323 / NEW
3. [WIU] Xenoblade Chronicles X – 85,586 / NEW
4. [3DS] Bravely Second – 20,195 / 120,242
5. [3DS] Girls Mode 3 – 20,103 / 99,007
6. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition – 16,166 / 125,951
7. [PSV] Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata -Blessing Flowers- – 11,202 / NEW
8. [PSV] To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers – 10,956 / NEW
9. [PSV] Tokyo Shinseiroku: Operation Babel – 8,104 / NEW
10. [WIU] Mario Kart 8 – 7,955 / 974,448
11. [3DS] Assassination Classroom: Grand Siege on Kurosensei – 7,141 / 63,814
12. [WIU] Mario Party 10 – 6,888 / 130,353
13. [3DS] Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire – 6,427 / 2,610,284
14. [PS4] Dying Light – 6,277 / 38,837
15. [3DS] Yo-Kai Watch 2: Shinuchi – 5,618 / 2,597,320
16. [3DS] Super Smash Bros. for 3DS – 5,272 / 2,220,527
17. [PS3] BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend – 4,870 / 20,420
18. [PS3] One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 – 4,652 / 146,633
19. [PS4] Tropico 5 – 4,495 / 13,201
20. [PS4] Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II – 4,369 / 26,979
More: charts, Japan, Media Create, sales, top
Yoshi’s Woolly World also works with non-Yoshi amiibo for design unlocks
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 2 Comments
Yoshi’s Woolly World will be compatible with more than just the upcoming plushies and Yoshi figures. As revealed through the game’s Australian packaging, other amiibo such as Mario, Luigi, Peach and “more” unlock Yoshi designs based on the character scanned. No images yet, sadly!
More: Amiibo, top, Yoshi's Woolly World
A few more Iwata comments about Nintendo and Universal’s partnership for theme park attractions
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 11 Comments
Finally, please let me introduce you to one of our new efforts to maximize the value of the Nintendo IP.
Nintendo and Universal Parks & Resorts, which manages the “Universal Studios” theme parks, have reached a basic agreement about deployment of theme park attractions using Nintendo IP.
Based on this agreement, the two companies will jointly create attractive experiences by using the characters and the worlds of Nintendo games that people cannot enjoy anywhere else.
We will announce the details, including the specific period, which IP and how it will be used, at which park and the scale of the attractions, at some later date. However, today I just wanted to confirm with you that this sort of endeavor to actively use Nintendo IP has been progressing.
More: Satoru Iwata, top
Iwata on maximizing Nintendo’s IP, mobile plans
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 2 Comments
And now, I would like to discuss our future business developments.
Right now, the game business is undergoing significant change. The spread of the Internet and social media has dramatically changed the lifestyles of people all over the world, and Nintendo is adjusting its strategic endeavors in line with the new market dynamics.
For one thing, in order to maximize the value of Nintendo IP, we are working to leverage opportunities that go beyond a traditional focus on dedicated video game systems. As you know, amiibo is one such effort. Also, we made the announcement that we will take advantage of smart devices. As smart devices are increasing in significance as the dominant window through which consumers connect with one another and with society, it is natural for us to leverage smart devices to communicate directly with our consumers.
In addition, to facilitate the ability for consumers to be closely and continuously connected with Nintendo IP, Nintendo will also deploy Nintendo IP on games for smart devices.
Regarding this subject, we announced our business alliance with DeNA on March 17. Each of our companies offers unique strengths, and we are confident that when combined, the synergies will enable us to compete strongly in the smart device space.
We will start the service for the first game application by the end of this calendar year. Internally at Nintendo, we have executed several organizational and personnel changes in order to properly operate the smart device business, and we will make further changes before the first release.
As we confirmed on March 17, all of our IP can be considered for a smart device game. On the other hand, since the game business on smart devices is already severely competitive, even with highly popular IP, the odds of success are quite low if consumers cannot appreciate the quality of a game. Also, if we were simply to port software that already has a track record on a dedicated game system, it would not match the play styles of smart devices, and the appropriate business models are different between the two, so we would not anticipate a great result. If we did not aim to achieve a significant result, it would be meaningless for us to do it at all. Accordingly, we are going to carefully select appropriate IP and titles for our smart device deployment.
Regarding the number of the titles, you may want to know that we will release approximately five titles by the end of the next fiscal year, which is the end of March 2017. You may think it is a small number, but when we aim to make each title a hit, and because we want to thoroughly operate every one of them for a significant amount of time after their releases, this is not a small number at all and should demonstrate our serious commitment to the smart device business.
We will strive to expand this business into global markets at a steady pace so that eventually we will entertain hundreds of millions of people all around the world. We are aiming to make this one of the pillars of Nintendo’s revenue structure.
