Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Rumors, Wii U | 2 Comments

We’re hearing – as reported in this month’s ONM – that Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze will offer three secret levels per world. In total, the game would end up featuring 60 levels if true.

ONM also apparently contains a quote from Retro president Michael Kelbaugh who told the magazine, “As for Tropical Freeze, there are a few more things I feel we could have done with the animal buddies”. Some are speculating that Kelbaugh could be hinting at more animal buddies included in the Wii U title.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Screenshots | 0 comments

Along with today’s screenshot, Sakurai passed along the following message on Miiverse:

Rosalina and Luma’s attacks are very different. This screencap shows Rosalina producing a Saturnian ring for her strong up attack.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images | 6 Comments

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

This week’s European Nintendo Downloads are as follows:

Wii U Download

Dr. Luigi – €14.99 / £13.49
F1 Race Stars: Powered Up Edition – €24.99 / £19.99

Wii U Virtual Console

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja – €7.99 / £5.49

3DS Retail

Mario Party: Island Tour – €39.99 / £34.99 (available Jan. 17)

3DS Virtual Console

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest – €3.99 / £3.59

Special Offers

Trine 2: Director’s Cut – €6.79 / £5.49 until Jan. 30 (was €16.99 / £13.99)
Dress to Play: Magic Bubbles – €0.99 / £0.89 until Feb. 6 (was €3.99 / £3.59)
Dress to Play: Cute Witches – €0.99 / £0.89 until Feb. 6 (was €3.99 / £3.59)

Source: Nintendo PR

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 29 Comments

In light of Eurogamer’s anonymous Wii U developer piece that went up over the weekend, Ping 1.5+ creator Christopher Arnold has offered his own insight into the console’s dev kit.

Arnold believes that the anonymous remarks are “aimed at pre-retail release SDK problems.” The post-release SKD kit, on the other hand, “do not contain any of the listed problems”.

You’ll find Arnold’s full comments below.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 16 Comments

Retro Studios president Michael Kelbaugh and Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe commented on how the two companies cooperate in the development of projects in the latest issue of ONM.

To begin, Kelbaugh explained how the process is ultimately “a symbiotic relationship” between Retro, Nintendo SPD, “and other entities throughout the Nintendo family.”

He said:

“Tanabe-san and his team at SPD are our primary contacts at Nintendo. Please let me be clear: games developed at Retro Studios are a collaboration between members from Retro Studios, SPD and other entities throughout the Nintendo family. It’s a symbiotic relationship that consists of members from all over the world; we are very honoured to be working with such a talented team.

“When we worked on Mario Kart 7, we were working on Tropical Freeze at the same time. Part of the team was working on creating assets for Hideki Konno’s group, the Mario Kart team, and part of our team continued making progress on Tropical Freeze in conjunction with Tanabe-san and SPD.”

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More: Kensuke Tanabe, Michael Kelbaugh, Retro Studios, Shigeru Miyamoto, top

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 47 Comments

Eurogamer has put up an intriguing piece “from a respected third-party”, who shared his experience working with the console. The article covers Nintendo’s initial reveal to the developer up through the release of the company’s game.

Details rounded up from the post can be found below. I also highly suggest checking out the full thing right here.

Reveal

– Developer “worked on the hardware extensively and helped to produce one of the better third-party titles”
– Nintendo held a presentation, and said they wanted a console that is small like Wii and wouldn’t make noise
– This is so “mum wouldn’t mind having it in the living room”
– Point was raised in the meeting that the Wii U seemed significantly slower than the Xbox 360 in terms of raw CPU
– Nintendo dismissed it and said that the “low power consumption was more important to the overall design goals” and “other CPU features would improve the performance over the raw numbers”
– Devs communicated through emails after the reveal and the thought was “I like the new controller, but the CPU looks a bit underpowered”
– Some people started doing their own calculations to guess Wii U’s performance and some even built custom PC rigs with under-clocked CPUs to try and gauge performance of their code
– The thought was that it wouldn’t be powerful enough to run next-gen engines and could possibly struggle doing current-gen
– Despite their own tests, “management” decided to go ahead and make a game for Wii U

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Wii U | 3 Comments

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 3 Comments

Nintendo has revealed some strong stats for the 3DS in 2013, highlighted by the platform’s sales that have surpassed 11.5 million units in the US.

The company also revealed today that over 16 million packaged and digital 3DS games were sold last year. That’s a rise of more than 45 percent compared to the 3DS’ game sales in 2012.

In other news, Nintendo has confirmed several release dates for upcoming titles. Yoshi’s New Island will release on March 14, followed by Disney Magical World (the Japanese title now heading west) on April 11.  Also remember Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, which launches on February 28.

You can find Nintendo’s full announcement below.

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More: Bravely Default, Disney Magical World, Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, sales, top, Yoshi's New Island

Posted on 10 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in 3DS, Images, News, Wii U | 1 Comment

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