Dcubed

Wow! The GOW Collection is a terrible port... Low resolution (looks about as blurry as the original PS2 version on a HDTV, maybe even worse), capped at 30FPS (with frequent dips into the low 20s, high teens), sound is compressed to hell and the FMVs have been reduced in quality too (understandable given that they need to cram both games into the one Vita card, but damn...). The rear touch pad being used in place of R2 for opening chests/contextual actions is also a regrettable choice. Good thing I got this for free by owning the PS3 collection digitally. You actually get a better gameplay experience from playing the game via remote play! Avoid!

I buy full price on day 1 most of the time. Not from B&M, but from online retailers. Nintendo's games don't really drop rapidly (and I want to support them as much as feasibly possible) and most of the games I like are from niche developers like Atlus and Platinum who need all the help they can get too. Indie games I typically buy at full price too (obviously the ones that I'm interested in) because I either want it ASAP or I just want to support them. I don't really buy the typical "AAA" games that plummet in price rapidly anyway.

The 3DS game comes out next year and it's completely separate from this new game for Wii U that is coming out this year... (figurines are going to be used across multiple games to be released in the future) ... so it's not Smash Bros 3DS (Smash Bros Wii U on the other hand...)

Well, we'll have to wait for the actual officially transcribed English version of the QA before we know for sure, but if that's the case then that's a pretty big deal! Should mean that there's no significant avenue for making a loss over the next year (unless the figurines are a huge flop of course...) Also it's nice to hear that they're not actually sitting on a massive pile of Wii U inventory. Hopefully it'll finally quash those rumblings of Nintendo sitting on a massive pile of unsellable stock that'll end up causing a massive writedown...

Now this sounds interesting. Imagine levelling up your Mario figurine in something like Mario Golf and then having those stats actually being reflected in a completely different game like Smash Bros or Mario Kart! (as a "Draw" character in MG, you'd be better at turning right than left in MK or you'd be faster moving right than left in Smash for example.) That would be a nice Nintendo-like twist on the concept Also... First game to use the figures is Wii U only (coming this year) and then games that use the figures coming out next year will be for both consoles.

Not anymore...

It's ok to be wrong sometimes, but not in this case... GRUMPIG IS FUCKING AWESOME!!! ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TRYING TO SAY THAT LUVDISC IS BETTER THAN ANYONE!? My cousin actually fights competitively with Grumpig. He is pure swag, in unswag form and a perfect example of how Gen 3 has some of the best designs in the series. Grumpig laughs at your stupidity

Interesting that they're doing Blazing Sword before Sword of Seals (or Sacred Stones for that matter). Wonder if it means anything in regards to a potential localisation of FE6... Nah, probably not

Well this came out of nowhere! I did expect R/S remakes to come, but what a strange way of announcing it! Considering that it's just about a month to go till E3, you'd think that they'd wait just a little longer and announce it there Anyway, the ought to be interesting. R/S/E is my least favourite Pokemon gen, so it'll be interesting to see if they can make it more fun for me the second time around That Omega Ruby boxart is GODLIKE! Groudon>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Shitty Kyogre once again; now and forever!

Everything here is more or less as expected, no real surprises... save for a couple... Mostly I'm surprised at the fact that the forecast for Wii U actually looks realistic (which indicates that Nintendo doesn't have much faith in the ability of their Wii U lineup to spur sales... Which makes me doubtful that we'll be seeing much from them this E3 that's coming this year)... ... but I'm also surprised at the somewhat bullish looking 3DS forecast. They're not predicting much of a drop from last year, hmm...) The low 3DS shipments during Q4 also show that they stuffed the retail channels hard during the Xmas season. Also their R&D spend is also set to increase quite a bit over the next year too (while their advertising budget continues to flounder...)

Nice to see the store selling merch. Long overdue to see an official source for buying this kind of stuff I love how Boo gets his own section on there too Also... THIS ISN'T HELPING NINTENDO!!!

Well yeah, that's why they're focusing heavily on digital and pushing hard on special promotions and the like. That's why they're doing all these different experiments with things like NPFC's cheap price on the eShop (it was a full priced retail game in Japan) and the early purchase discount, or things like the Mario Kart 8 promotion, or Steel Diver Sub Wars and Rusty's Real Deal Baseball. They're going all out on finding different methods of mitigating the problem (cause they obviously can't start giving away high quality games for 69p/Free and they don't want to make scam style F2P games or shitware). It's fairly safe to say that it'll be a real struggle to get any successor to the 3DS to sell as well as their current handheld has, given the changing environment; so it's about finding ways of adapting without throwing away everything that makes Nintendo who they are...

A redesign isn't what the 3DS needs really. The problems it faces are far more fundamental than anything like that... It's this! The utter destruction of software value at the hands of things like mobile games... Changing the hardware design isn't going to solve this problem (and neither will rushing out a successor for that matter! Nintendo fought tooth and nail to build up the audience they have and throwing that back to the mobile wolves this early would be suicide!) They have to find a way to encourage people to put value in the quality of games once more and make them willing to pay for their games at the kinds of sustainable prices they need (either through traditional upfront payment or DLC), or else their software has no future. The problem is far more grave than just merely hardware sales or the specs of their hardware (which are still absolutely fine for the kinds of games that Nintendo and their 3rd party developers make). It's about making these people willing to pay premium prices for premium software. THAT is the great cataclysmic problem that Nintendo is currently facing and throwing away a 45-50 million audience at this early a point is just crazy when they have little else to fall back on while they build up that userbase from zero once again. How does rushing out a 3DS successor encourage people to be willing to pay premium prices for premium software?

I bet you'll get your wish this year. IS have been hinting not too subtly at exactly this ever since releasing FEA... ... But man I'd love to finally get the chance to play Famicom Wars and Super Famicom Wars in English (officially! Fan translations just aren't the same) one day...

That's what I remember hearing anyway (I only had a US Wii at the time). If it doesn't come up from a search or by looking at the publishers category, maybe it was later removed from Europe's one as well... @Serebii Why wouldn't All Stars be likely? The reason why they went retail with the VC version on Wii instead of digital is because they were worried about it taking sales away from the NES versions. They couldn't do bundles and discounts and variable prices before... But now they can! They could just make it more expensive than a standard SNES game and then offer it for a discount for those who already own all 4 NES games... Also Nazo no Murasame Jō was rated for EU/AUS release a few years back as "The Mysterious Murasame Castle" No word since, but it does at least mean that they intend on releasing it in English speaking territories eventually Otherwise... They just need to get off their lazy arses and emulate the peripherals/Super FX Chip needed for the rest of those missing games. The Wii U has all the tools necessary to handle those different input methods through the Gamepad and Wiimote, they just need to stop being lazy...

Well of course 3rd parties need to give permission, that just goes without saying :p Still there's no reason for them not to re-release their games (unless there are licensing issues standing in their way). BTW, SimCity SNES is still available on the EU Wii VC. It was only removed from the US service IIRC (and no I have no idea why either )

WOOT! Scram Kitty is coming out on May 15 for Europe! Joy! From what I played of it last year, this one's a real winner guys! Shovel Knight has also been given to Nintendo for Lotcheck (if it passes then it has officially gone gold and is ready for release )

Nintendo handle all of the VC emulation, QA and manual creation themselves.! It is virtually risk free for 3rd parties to allow their games to be re-released (though Nintendo take a larger percentage of the takings than the usual 70/30 split in order to compensate for the fact that they're footing the bill for everything).

Every real Kirby fan knows that his games are always easy until you get to the boss rush and other secret modes. Then it suddenly becomes bollock hard

I've asked for it many times before, but what the hell! Localisations of all JPN only games from all previous systems on Virtual Console. Anything else is gravy

I have it (hell I have TWO copies), but I'm not playing it till May 30th like everything else 3DS/Wii U related...

I've had a Vita since around 2 weeks or so after launch (was really desperate to play Monster Hunter Freedom Unite with a second stick - this was the period when a localisation of MH3U was looking unlikely and I absolutely HATED playing that game on the original PSP for its lack of two sticks!) I was far more wowed by the 3DS when I first got it than the Vita (in terms of actual Vita games of course). For me the most impressive thing about the Vita is not the visual quality of its games, but rather how snappy the OS is (it is indeed much faster than the 3DS' one and is better at multi-tasking - though strangely it's web browser was, and still is, totally shite ) RE: Revelations was easily a match for Uncharted Golden Abyss in terms of visuals (and that's not even accounting for the fact that the 3DS is technically running that game at twice the effective framerate - 30 FPS x 2) The fact that almost every game runs in sub native res on Vita really hurts too. What's the point in having a high res screen when the games run at low resolution (not far from the 3DS' one actually...) anyway? But anyway, I play games for the gameplay; not the visuals anyway; and the Vita has some pretty decent ones now (Soul Sacrifice is really good, as is Stealth Inc and there's quite a few good looking games on the horizon like Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines) But the fact that the two consoles share game engines like MT Framework Mobile says it all... The gap is utterly miniscule in comparison to the power difference between the DS and PSP. The former could never hope to run a game like Monster Hunter (which is why it went to the PSP back then instead, despite the DS having the larger userbase). 3DS is also certainly not sub GCN - the fact that it can straight up run Wii games (and with even better visuals/framerate in some cases, like with Monster Hunter 3U) should be enough to tell you that...

For its time (2010-2011) the 3DS was actually a very powerful little handheld, handidly outclassing even top of the line smartphones that were several times its price (and all while rendering games twice for 3D!) In comparison to every previous Nintendo handheld, it has been able to remain competitive in terms of visuals (in comparison to other high spec handheld devices) for far longer than the likes of the DS or the GBA (of course that was also reflected in its cost - which was far higher than Nintendo's previous handhelds and also their first loss leading one, when the price drop was done). Even the Vita isn't that far ahead really (certainly nowhere near the gap between the DS and PSP, not even remotely close!) I don't really find myself itching for a new handheld at all. What modern functionality is it really lacking anyway? Even its visuals still look great, with it still pushing out stunners like Mario Golf WT, Ace Attorney DD, Zelda ALBW, Kirby Triple Deluxe and Smash Bros 3DS!

Some of us don't want the whole game spoilt for us...

Iwata did say that the next big Wii U system update (the one that includes the quick boot feature) was coming in "Early Summer". Rather conveniently, their E3 press conference just so happens to be happening on June 10... right at the start of Summer... hmm