Nintendo News/Rumors Thread

[Clestcruz]

Holy Crap! Earthbound Is Coming To The North America Virtual Console In 2013

http://kotaku.com/holy-crap-earthbound- ... Socialflow

[Daniel]

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/04/17/ni ... hot-blast/

Game and Wario. Win!

[Seraph011]

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/04/17/ni ... hot-blast/

Game and Wario. Win!

Gaganda ng announcements for the 3DS! Meron pang Super Luigi!

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/17/ninte ... -and-more/

[Tibarn]

...nintendo direct video

[z3kEn]

RUMORSquare Enix developing Dragon Quest Monsters 2 remake?

Square Enix recently trademarked the name “Iru to Ruca no Fushigi na Fushigi na Kagi” in Japan, which roughly translates to “Iru and Luca’s Wonderful Mysterious Keys.”

Game Jouhou speculates the trademark could be for a Dragon Quest Monsters 2 remake. Square Enix has already remade the first game, Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry’s Wonderland, for 3DS.

In 2001, Square Enix released Dragon Quest Monsters 2: Malta’s Mysterious Keys (or Malta no Fushigi na Kagi) for Gameboy Color in two versions: Dragon Quest Monsters 2: Malta’s Mysterious Keys – Luca’s Journey (released overseas as Cobi’s Journey) and Dragon Quest Monsters 2: Malta’s Mysterious Keys – Iru’s Adventure (released overseas as Tara’s Adventure).

The trademark seems to imply a remake combining both versions.

gematsu

[Daniel]

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/04/23/wi ... ght-games/

Wii U Virtual Console To Debut With These Eight Games

The Wii U Virtual Console in North America will launch with eight games, Nintendo have announced. The eight games are:

Balloon Fight
Donkey Kong Jr.
Excitebike
Ice Climber
Kirby’s Adventure
Punch-Out!!
F-Zero
Super Mario World

Additionally, a Wii U Virtual Console trailer released alongside last week’s Nintendo Direct presentation showed games like Super Metroid, Mega Man and more.

The Wii U Virtual Console is expected to launch this week, following a Wii U firmware update that will speed up the device’s loading times and more.

[z3kEn]

Satoru Iwata becomes Nintendo of America CEO
Current CEO promoted to corporate managing director.

Tatsumi Kimishima, the current chairman and CEO of Nintendo of America, has been promoted to Nintendo Co. managing director and will be relocated from Nintendo of America headquarters in Redmond, Washington to Nintendo Co. headquarters in Kyoto, Japan.

In his new position, he will assume the roles of general manager of Corporate Analysis and Administration, and general manager of the General Affairs Division. Yoshihiro Mori and Masaru Matsumoto, who currently hold these titles, will be retiring later this summer.

More interestingly, Nintendo Global President Satoru Iwata will assume Kimishima’s current responsibilities, including the Nintendo of America CEO title.

According to Nintendo, this will “support the company’s unified global strategy, allow streamlined decision making and enhance Nintendo’s organizational agility in the current competitive environment.”

gematsu

[z3kEn]

Nintendo to skip E3 2013 press conference in favor of smaller directed events

Nintendo won't hold a traditional, large-scale press conference at this year's E3, president Satoru Iwata revealed in a financial result briefing today. Instead of a presentation targeted at an international audience, Nintendo plans to host smaller, more directed events.

"As a brand new challenge, we are working to establish a new presentation style for E3," Iwata said. Nintendo's E3 presence will be "specifically focused on our software lineup for the U.S. market," Iwata says.

Instead of a large-scale presentation, Nintendo plans to hold a closed event for American distributors and another closed hands-on event for Western gaming media. Iwata, who did not present at last year's E3, says he's not planning on speaking at these events.

"Apart from these exclusive events for visitors, we are continuing to investigate ways to deliver information about our games directly to our home audience around the time of E3," Iwata explained. "During the E3 period, we will utilize our direct communication tools, such as Nintendo Direct, to deliver information to our Japanese audience ... and we will take the same approach outside Japan for the overseas fans as well."

During the most recent episode of Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced release dates for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games, and revealed a new Yoshi's Island, a new Mario Party and a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Iwata says Nintendo does not plan to announce new hardware at this year's E3. Instead, Nintendo plans to talk in detail about Wii U titles slated to launch this year and "make it possible for visitors to try the games immediately."

polygon

Iwata says more unannounced 3DS titles on the way
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library ... 25/02.html

[Daniel]

Satoru Iwata becomes Nintendo of America CEO
Current CEO promoted to corporate managing director.

Tatsumi Kimishima, the current chairman and CEO of Nintendo of America, has been promoted to Nintendo Co. managing director and will be relocated from Nintendo of America headquarters in Redmond, Washington to Nintendo Co. headquarters in Kyoto, Japan.

In his new position, he will assume the roles of general manager of Corporate Analysis and Administration, and general manager of the General Affairs Division. Yoshihiro Mori and Masaru Matsumoto, who currently hold these titles, will be retiring later this summer.

More interestingly, Nintendo Global President Satoru Iwata will assume Kimishima’s current responsibilities, including the Nintendo of America CEO title.

According to Nintendo, this will “support the company’s unified global strategy, allow streamlined decision making and enhance Nintendo’s organizational agility in the current competitive environment.”

gematsu

Hopefully this will help make their consoles region-free.

[z3kEn]

NEWSNintendo eyes free-to-play, subscriptions and micro-payments as it expands digital business

Online sales for traditionally packaged games is just Nintendo's first step in expanding their digital business, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told a group of investors.

"We will not simply change our existing packaged software distribution channel," he said. "Rather, we might have many other types of business models in addition to packaged software. For example, we might see more games that are similar to free-to-play games, games that cost much less or games that require a monthly subscription fee."

Selling games online gives the company much more flexibility, he said, because it increases the way payments can be made.

"Nintendo 3DS and Wii U have flexible systems to handle such trends, so it is now a question of putting these ideas into action," he said. "I can definitely say that Nintendo will make new offers that go well beyond simply replacing packaged software with digital software."

Nintendo's push to support Suica e-money cards is driven in part by a desire to make it easier for people to make quick, small payments on the Wii U, Iwata said.

"If this becomes a reality, it will be easier for consumers to pay for products and services such as, Wii Street U powered by Google, add-on content for games or pay-per-view options in VOD (Video on Demand) services," he said "and I feel that there will be more ways for consumers to take advantage of these options."

polygon

[z3kEn]

Capcom Has No Plans To Re-Release Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars

Published by Capcom, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars was released way back in 2008 on the Wii, and, nowadays, not all retailers sell copies of the fighting game. Therefore, Capcom’s Christian Svensson was recently asked whether there’s a chance the game sees a re-release, either physically at retail, or digitally via the Nintendo eShop. Svensson replied by saying that, as far as he’s concerned, there are no plans of the matter.

mynintendonews
Is there any chance of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom being re-released either as a download for the E-shop or on disc? I know the rights have lapsed, but if there is a demand for it, will you consider it?

Svensson: There’s no plans I’m aware of and as you point it, it would mean Capcom Japan amending the prior agreement or creating a new one as well as potentially new development, unless Nintendo at some point has plans to release Wii ISOs digitally (which I’m not aware of happening).

mynintendonews

[z3kEn]

RUMORGamecube’s Tales Of Symphonia HD Remaster Coming To PlayStation 3?

A rumor has begun circulating the internet that suggests that Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World are due to be remastered in HD and will be coming to the PlayStation 3. Tales of Symphonia originally launched on the Gamecube back in 2003 and was met by glowing reviews and healthy sales figures. Namco Bandai recently confessed that Tales of Symphonia was the most popular Tales game to be released in the West. The HD remastered version of the JRPG is thought to be one of the games due to be revealed at this year’s Tales Festival.

[/b] mynintendonews

[z3kEn]

IGN News: EA Has No Games in Development For Wii U

[z3kEn]

Sega has announced Yakuza 1 & 2 HD for release on Wii U in Japan.

Mario & Sonic Olympics Game Headed To Wii U

5/17/2013 NINTENDO Direct

[Seraph011]

Nalimutan ko may Nintendo Direct nga pala ngayon...

[z3kEn]

Pikmin 3 launches in Europe on 26th July 2013, Nintendo has announced
US on August 4.

[z3kEn]

EA Engineer Calls Wii U 'Crap,' Claims Nintendo is Dead

Another string of not-so-nice Tweets from a member of the industry has been discovered.

EA Engineer Calls Wii U 'Crap,' Claims Nintendo is Dead
Another string of not-so-nice Tweets from a member of the industry has been discovered.

We’ve heard some pretty harsh criticism concerning the Wii U. The lack of both first and third-party content has caused the gaming community to question whether or not it’s worth investing in the dual-screen console, but really, a recent statement by an EA employee may just be the harshest judgment we’ve heard from an industry professional yet.

As you’d guess, the rant against Nintendo was discovered on Twitter by a member of neoGAF. Bob Summerwill, a senior software engineer and architect at EA, came out swinging when he discovered a feature on The Verge questioning the Wii U’s lifespan. Instead of simply agreeing with the editor, Summerwill went a step further.

“The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet. Nintendo is walking dead at this point,” he wrote.

He only continued to post venomous comments against the Mario maker, saying the company is “still operating like it's 1990” and has “always been very poor revenue-wise for third parties.” Summerwill believes that it’s only Mario and Zelda that bring in the big bucks.

No matter what this employee really thinks about the status of Nintendo, rants like this via Twitter rarely end well. We all remember Mr. “Deal With It,” also known as Adam Orth, and his speech about the possible always-online nature of the latest Xbox console. He was let go not long after Microsoft had to publically apologize for his Twitter remarks. How EA will handle this situation is yet to be seen, but expect some sort of action to be taken before too long.

gameranx

[Seraph011]

Game Gear coming to Nintendo's E-shop! Sa mga gusto mag reminisce, eto na! Hahaha...and the good thing is hindi na kayo bibili ng tabo tabong batteries!

[z3kEn]

Ubisoft reaffirms its faith in Nintendo

Publisher confident that
"Nintendo will take steps to ensure that the Wii U is successful in the market”

The proverbial #@*^ hit the fan this week when Electronic Arts confirmed that it no longer has any Wii U games in development and that it's essentially backing away completely from the Nintendo console. The move, which provoked much discussion on the web (including from our European editor Matt Martin), is certainly a bad omen for the Wii U business, but French publisher Ubisoft is sticking by Nintendo.

As one of the strongest supporters of Wii U from the beginning, Ubisoft would still appear to be 100 percent committed to the platform with a host of different titles, despite the fact that Nintendo hasn't been able to build up a solid installed base.

When approached by GamesIndustry International about whether the company may reevaluate its stance on devoting resources to a struggling platform, a spokesperson told us, "As with any new console, it takes some time to grow an established base. Ubisoft has a varied and high-quality line-up for Wii U, with more big titles on the way including Rayman Legends, Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag and Splinter Cell Blacklist. We're confident that this will help in continuing to attract gamers to the Wii U system and that Nintendo will take steps to ensure that the Wii U is successful in the market."

Nintendo has a hard road ahead of itself with the Wii U, but the company has to be happy that it has a friend in Ubisoft.

[/b] gameindustry

[z3kEn]

Miyamoto: piracy a bigger concern than used games market
Best way to combat pre-owned is to create games "people want to keep"

Legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto has told CVG that piracy is a bigger threat to his company's business than the used games market.


Speaking during an E3 interview, the Mario creator said: "For us it's less about used games and it's really more illegal copying of games that we're really worried about. By creating the games that we create and selling those games, it enables us to then create new versions of those games.

"We're more worried about piracy and we think used games are a whole other story," Miyamoto continued. "In fact, from our perspective you want to create a game that people will want to keep and keep playing for a long time. That's the approach that we always take and that's the best way to avoid used games."

Nintendo's pre-owned games stance strongly contrasts with Microsoft's. The Xbox maker recently confirmed it will introduce a new scheme that severely limits the way Xbox One games can be distributed following the original buyer's initial install.

Sony confirmed this week that PS4 will not enforce measures designed to strangle the used game market.

During a Nintendo Direct E3 webcast on Tuesday, the company revealed Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8, while showing off games likes Super Smash Bros., Bayonetta 2 and The Wonderful 101.

cvg


Miyamoto blames Wii U launch software delays on Nintendo's leap to next-gen
"Any time you have a big jump in the hardware technology it certainly takes the teams time."

Nintendo's top designer Shigeru Miyamoto has explained that its developers struggled with the hardware leap from Wii to Wii U, and that's why some of the console's initial software line-up has been a long time coming.

The Wii U launched with New Super Mario Bros. U and mini-game collection Nintendo Land, but other 'launch window' titles such as Pikmin 3, Game & Wario and The Wonderful 101 have yet to arrive. It's especially surprising as The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was Nintendo's only blockbuster Wii release in the last two years of that console's life.

"Any time you have a big jump in the hardware technology it certainly takes the teams time to learn that and adjust their development environment in order to adapt to those big changes," Miaymoto told GameIndustry International.

One answer to this would be simply hiring more staff, but Miyamoto explained that this was not as straightforward a solution as it sounded.

"If you speak in terms of simple maths you could say that Nintendo should just multiply its development team staff by four times and then everything would be fine, but unfortunately things aren't quite that easy.

"Our focus is always on delivering the highest quality content, and simply increasing the development team size isn't going to allow you to achieve the level of quality that we strive for. You really have to kind of bring those people up gradually and help teach them how to develop games in order to achieve that consistent quality level."

The 3DS also suffered from a lack of hit first-party games soon after launch. It lead to the console's early price-drop and promise of a 3D Mario and Mario Kart the following Christmas.

For Wii U, its price has already been discounted at some UK retailers by as much as £100, and a 3D Mario is due for December. Mario Kart 8, however, won't arrive until next spring.

The parallels are there, Miyamoto admitted, but were merely "coincidental".

"It's a little bit coincidental in that the hardware jump from DS to 3DS was quite big in terms of the difference between those two [platforms] and it just so happens that that same scale of jump happened from Wii to Wii U, consecutively with those two pieces of hardware," he concluded.

eurogamer