daftada

Region-locking has a lot to do with licencing issues, as different companies sometimes hold the rights to publish in different territories and removing region locking could negatively affect some of the smaller ones that take a chance on a niche title, or stumble upon a sleeper hit. Take Rising Star Games for example, say the wii wasn't region-locked and everyone in Europe who'd usually get a PAL copy went and imported a Harvest Moon or Rune Factory from the US. When RSG come to release the game in the EU they would have lost their main market, making them lose money, have to close, sack all the hard working, nice people they employ and subsequently make Jesus cry. Price differentials also play a part. If games in the US were half the price of EU games (which isn't far from the truth - and there are many reasons why that is) and they could easily be imported here, the average selling price for the game would decrease, reducing the profit margins and making shareholders unhappy. Games companies are businesses. A business' first priority is it's own profitability, next are the shareholders that invest in them to give them the cash to create more games, last on the list are the consumers. That's a hard reality for all creative industries. A successful company has to walk a fine balance between those three and to be fair to them, Nintendo actually do that pretty well. I would have liked to see them pour some of the Brain Training, Wii Fit and other 'casual' profits into setting up a couple more internal studios dedicated to core games but I'm sure they have good (business) reasons why that hasn't happened.

Just went to preorder this from Amazon, you know to show a bit of support for our friends across the pond, and they don't even have a listing for it?!?

I think the timing difference between SquareEnix and Nintendo's translation times is down to the sheer volume of titles Nintendo puts out. SE may have, what four or five games at any one time to translate into the five main Euro languages, then compare that to the number Nintendo release across Wii, DS, 3DS plus digital channels. They also throw resources into some big third party titles too ( i think im right in thinking they got involved with the EU translations of Monster Hunter and the last few Dragon Quest games?). NoE are SOOOOOooo much better these days than they were in the old days. They actually seem to be able to decide for themselves what to bring to Europe instead of NoJ assuming everything that's a bit niche will never sell here (which to be fair is kinda true - Xenoblade isn't going to hit big numbers if we're being realistic). I just wish they could find the time to go back and translate older titles like Giftpia, Captain Rainbow, Baten Kaitos Origins and Excite Bots. But still, well done NoE for bringing over four very awesome games (inc solartorobo) to help tide me over till Wii U!

Anyone else a bit annoyed they didn't map START to the X button? All this switching items malarky in LA highlights just how poor the start/select buttons are on the 3DS

I agree, this looks pretty damn fun, hope Namco bring it to the UK. And is it just me or did that racing segment look infinitely better than any of EA or Ubisoft's dire driving games?

How about an N-E meetup/streetpass event when they bring the concert to London?

Mass Effect collection, with 1,2 & 3 and all the DLC included in one package! With all weapon changes and abilities mapped to the touch screen, and a special Nintendo planet snuck in there as a hidden extra! Oh and Namco better get to porting all the Tales games we've missed out on. Graces, Abyss, Vesperia and Xillia better make it to Wii U. Namco has no excuse now. Konami could do some interesting stuff on it for PES too - imagine having four players with wii remotes playing on one side and then the player with the uController acts as the manager and has to view the action from the touchline, shouting tactics with the mic etc. Call of Duty could do something similar, with one player on each team getting a bird-eye view of the battleifeld and using the screen to direct the rest to objectives or opposing players.

Looks nice! Really shows off the potential for a Zelda game. I reckon the tech demo's the work of Retro Studios.

Nintendo have quarterly shareholder/retail meetings to show off their upcoming releases so any internally developed Wii U titles will get shown off at one of those. I think Nintendo were keen to give the third party games some time in the spot light, and rightly so - now I'll be happy to wait for the Wii U versions of Arkham City and Dirt, instead of getting them on 360.

Dammit man you can sit on a freaking bench, what more do you want???

"I just can't come up with a character based game that Nintendo haven't taken characters from." What about Raymond Bryce, Captain Rainbow, the Golden Sun cast, Andy from Advance Wars, Jimmy from WarioWare, Balloon Fighter guy, Rob Haywood (1080), Custom Robo, Xenoblade or Last Story?

Wasn't this released years ago in Japan? Sounds like the Dragon Quest Teradaku(??) street game that only came out in Japan.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/e3_2011/03/luigis_mansion2/index.html Another look at the trailer!

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/e3_2011/03/animal_crossing/index.html Graphics are looking really nice - some fancy shaders used on the grass and water textures. Looks like you have a tent instead of a house this time around? There are park benches to sit on, bee hives, mushrooms to collect, street lights, a Zelda tunic and hat to go with the master sword and triforce and you can go swimming in the sea now!! The soundtrack is awesome too. This is a must-have for me!

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/e3_2011/03/rolling_western/index.html I saw the logo pop up at the end of the conference, turns out it's a new 3DS title featuring an Armadillo sheriff in some wierd western locale. Looks like it a combination of a tower defense game with Goron-Link style rolling attacks. Come to think of it, the presentation looks a bit like the DS Zelda titles, could be from the same team maybe? Oh and it's an eShop game by the looks of it.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/e3_2011/04/kirby_wii/index.html Trailer time So, looks like you can have up to four helpers along with you, hope that means four player co-op! Oh and Kuribo's shoe (I think) makes an appearance!

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/e3_2011/04/mario_party9/index.html New trailer! It's for Wii, and looks quite good actually! I love the Mario Party series so very happy to see this revealed. Some of the mini games seem to have taken some inspiration from Mario Galaxy too.

Nintendo said Wii U would be totally backwards compatible with Wii games so I think it's safe to assume GCN controllers will work. I'm hoping we get DLC stages and characters for these two. And exclusive fighters for each one. Maybe have characters/stages from handheld titles appear exclusively on 3DS (Isaac from Golden Sun, or an Advance Wars stage for example).

Hopefully it'll include the original mansion in there somewhere. I loved the first game.

Four Swords Adventure returns! Nice one Nintendo! Very happy to see the orchastral symphony will be touring, saw VG live a few years back and that was amazing!

You might hate Miis but other people like them, so why not include them? It didn't look like you had to play as them, but had the option to, if you want.

Me and a mate were chatting at work about all the stuff we're excited for at E3 and both of us were most looking forward to seeing how Nintendo mark the 25th anniversary of Zelda. We both reckon it's a dead cert a gold Wii and DS will come out, following the red limited editions for Mario's 25th. But then we got thinking about what our ultimate dream announcement would be. She said her dream game would be either a Lego Zelda, shrinking all of Link's adventures into one blocky package (I told her 3D Dot Game Heroes had already got there first), or a new Four Swords Adventures for Wii/DS or a Zelda feature film (she wants Orlando Bloom to play Link...?). I said I'd always wanted Nintendo to invite select developers to create their own specialised take on the Zelda world, and then have them all released in one 'Chronicles of Hyrule' bundle (or on the eShop). So, for instance, invite the Harvest Moon team to put together a farming sim set on Lon Lon Ranch, or a Devil May Cry style game featuring a Gerudo Princess. So, throwing that question out to you all: If you had your wish, what game/film/figurine/whatever would you like Nintendo to announce to celebrate 25 years of Zelda?

Slowly but surely this is becoming my favourite Pokemon game yet. I had zero enthusiasm for it before launch - I was a bit tired of the franchise after Diamond - but it's not only won me over but I've been compelled to fully complete Diamond and Soul Silver, both of which had been gathering dust. I've had great fun building several teams to use throughout the game. I must have used well over 30 pokemon within my lineup - usually I settle on my team early on and don't experiment too much. I'm only just past the Dragonspiral tower, still a long way to go but I've clocked up 80 hours already (which is my usual completion time), just because it's great building new teams. Can't wait till I finish it and get to send over my old 'Mon, but on the other hand I don't want to rush it! Pokemon rulez again!

What I think will happen: Pikmin switches to 3DS Luigi's Mansion 2 for 3DS New Wario platformer for 3DS, with warioland VB as a freebie Two new games from Retro (not metroid or dk related) Some kind of Mario Allstars type compilation for Zelda series (and maybe Gold wii/ds) Factor 5 creating new Rogue Leader game exclusively for Project Cafe BIG timed exclusives for Cafe launch (GTA, Res Evil, Virtua Fighter) Might happen: New Miyamoto IP (maybe his Marionette idea?) Second wave of new play titles for wii (Wave Race, Luigi's Mansion, Zelda WW) Brownie Brown's London Life given 3DSware release Rare announce some kind of deal with Nintendo (DKC 3DS) Want to happen: Project HAMMER returns! Earthbound collection on DS ShenMue 3 for Cafe Wave Race for new console DLC for Pilotwings Resort (n64 islands, plus cannonball missions please!) GifTpia and Captain Rainbow given western release for Wii New Smash bros for Cafe announced with DLC stages and characters

If there's one launch title that I hope gets DLC it's this game. I absolutely love the controls and missions, and free flight mode is just as fun and relaxing as the N64 birdman mode. I've nearly spent nearly 30 hours getting all the rings, mii's and balloons on it (plus another 10 getting golds on most of the missions). I'd love to see the N64 islands made available via spotpass, and a return of the cannon missions.