Dcubed

Not a bad week all in all Was hoping that we'd get a demo for S&ASRT 3DS though, I'm curious to see how the port turned out! Also it's a shame that we don't get a reduced price for it, considering how late the 3DS version is. Would've considered it if it was £19.99...

You're forgetting much of Mario Galaxy really. For starters, the camera system was designed in the way it was because the Wii Remote & Nunchuck lacked a second stick - so they wanted to create a game where the player wouldn't have to touch the camera once. That wouldn't have happened if they designed the game around a traditional controller. Then there's all the gameplay mechanics that did use the Wii remote's capabilities (the pull stars, the shake move, the bubble blowing, the sticky flingers, co-star mode, the ball rolling, the vine climbing etc) Whatever Mario game they decide to make for Wii U, it will be built around taking advantage of the Wii U Gamepad. Every single (non NSMB) Mario game ever made has been designed around taking advantage of the console's unique capabilities. Super Mario World was designed to take advantage of the SNES' greater processing capabilities (Yoshi was something they wanted to do before, but the NES couldn't handle the sprite layering properly) and the extra buttons on the controller (spin jump, camera control) Mario 64 is obvious (3D gameplay) Mario Sunshine took advantage of the analog shoulder triggers, the c-stick for enhanced camera control, the extra face buttons (for the nozzle attachments) and the enhanced processing capabilities for more detailed environments. Super Mario 3D Land took advantage of the S3D in order to create environments that wouldn't normally be easily playable without real depth perception (especially the top down stages). It also used Streetpass for the mystery boxes and the camera was zoomed in (in comparison to the console games) in order to accommodate the small screen. The Wii U game will be no different in that respect. Whatever they come up with, it will use the two screens to create a new type of Mario game. I suspect that screen switching will play a big role, with certain enemies and parts of the environment only showing on one screen at a time (calling back to that unreleased Rollorama game)

The hell!? How long have they been selling these for? How did they get download codes for these games if they're not supposed to be available!? Edit: Nintendo UK list them on their official website as a seller (currently the only one! http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Nintendo-3DS/Download-Content/How-to-buy-games/How-to-buy-games-347408.html), so they're obviously legit. Shame that their prices aren't much better than buying it direct from eShop... Now we just need them to get them onto Shopto's site

Ahh, this collaboration actually makes sense now! From the newly released Fire Emblem Awakening Iwata Asks... http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/fire-emblem/0/0 They wanted to make a FE game that broke away from the series norm by changing it to a modern setting, but they couldn't make it work in a way that still felt like Fire Emblem. That's probably why they chose to do a collaboration, to take the characters and gameplay out of its comfort zone and join with a series set in a modern setting!

The Iwata (laughs) Asks is out now! http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/fire-emblem/0/0 Filled with love and enthusiasm and a comment that surprisingly happens to explain why SMT X Fire Emblem exists! (Pretty creepy considering that this interview was conducted back in March 2012!)

Really you should be saying "fuck Sony" for treating us like 2nd class citizens... It's their fault for not giving us and mainland Europe the attention we deserve!

It's nothing to do with not having analog sticks or "compromising" to fit the game on the DS; no not at all! The game is what it is because they wanted to create something completely different from past Zeldas and something that was designed to take advantage of the DS' functions to create a game that couldn't work on any other machine. Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks could not exist on any other piece of hardware at the time (and even now, only the 3DS could really replicate the game fully) They didn't want to make a "proper" 3D Zelda, they wanted to make a DS Zelda game. That philosophy will not change if their future hardware can share code/art assets/engines etc; for them, it's just a cost saving measure and nothing more (multiplatform releases are already possible and they do connectivity across their handhelds and consoles when the games call for it anyway)

Just finished watching episode 2 (of 13) and I must say that I am very much enjoying it so far Urquhart Underwood is a very different character than his British counterpart and not as likeable, but Spacey has played a great role so far in making him an endearing character Zoe finds her feet faster than Matty and has more of her wits about her, but still has those same elements of inexperience that define her It's strange how it feels faster paced than the original, despite being longer in terms of length. Feels like a long movie, rather than a TV series. While it lacks some of the more subtle playful undertones, in favour of highlighting the darker side of the original story, it does a great job of adapting the original story and characters to match the US setting. It goes out of its way to not attempt to straight up replicate the original British TV version, but rather it takes elements of the original and uses them to craft an original take on the book - standing on its own two feet! Really good stuff! One of the rare examples of a British to US adaptation that's actually not complete shite! Anyone else here watching it?

Probably no more so than the rest of the hardware I'd imagine (though it doesn't have as far to drop I guess)

http://www.edge-online.com/news/playstation-4-revealed/ EDGE are claiming that the new controller will keep the familiar DS form factor, but will have the Start/Select/Home button area replaced with the same touch pad as the Vita's rear end. Also, it'll automatically record video footage of your last 15mins of play for you to share online via a dedicated button on the controller 2013 launch for everywhere except Europe, where we wait till 2014 (that's the most believable part sadly...)

It did sell around 3.5 million on its own in Japan... Wii Sports Resort did around 34ish million on its own... Wii Sports certainly can sell well without being bundled...

I surely hope so. The last Nintendo Direct restored much of my faith in that respect as it was nearly identical to the Japanese one in terms of content. Would've been devastating to see X and FExSMT in the Japanese one and not in ours! Though we're still missing Tomodachi Collection 2 and Jam with the band 3DS... (I don't expect the former for technical reasons but the latter should be coming to Europe at least!)

Nah, it was 720p. The console could obviously handle NSMBU in 1080p if they wanted to do it. Nintendo Land utterly obliterates NSMBU in terms of visuals and does so while rendering 5 player splitscreen at the same 720p resolution and VSynced 60FPS as NSMBU. They probably just drew the 2D assets in 720p (to save on costs) and didn't want to redraw them for 1080p resolution, instead opting for globs of AA (which works just as well really. The game's IQ looks pristine anyway)

In more positive news, it looks like Fire Emblem Awakening is doing really well in the US! It has sold out at Gamestop and managed to take the number 1 spot on Amazon across all platforms! (though I think it now sits at around No6 or 7 - but still ahead of both versions of Dead Space 3!) Looks like it's continuing the trend of outperforming the series' Japanese sales in the west (and considering that it's the 2nd best selling game in the series on public record in Japan, it looks like it's gonna blow every other FE game out of the water in terms of US sales ) I hope that NOE give it as much of a push as NOA have, cause it seems to be working wonders for the game!

Actually supposedly, according to people on GAF who had access to the Wii U beta dev kits, the final Wii U is actually more powerful than the beta kits that powered that tech demo (specifically, the GPU was boosted by about 150mhz and the CPU by 100mhz - no idea about what other changes were made though) The Zelda tech demo isn't really that impressive, from a tech perspective, anyway. I fully expect the actual Wii U Zelda game to surpass the tech demo with ease (as has been the case every time, where every Zelda tech demo has always been surpassed by the actual game)

They just programmed the game. The actual design work was done by HAL/Creatures/Ape/Itoi.

We already know what MS are planning (Set-top box OS with live TV DVR recording, Kinect 2.0, Fortaleza AR Glasses accessory after launch, possible Illumiroom camera accessory, cross game Skype support and probable built in Twitch.TV support), so it's definately not just a graphics jump... Sony have some sort of stereo camera setup as well, but we don't know much about it. Otherwise though, it seems to be a more basic upgrade and focus on a graphics boost (unless the rumours about a radically new design for the DS controller pan out)

Performance will still get sacrificed at the altar of graphics and you know it. There's nothing stopping devs from making 1080p/60FPS games on PS3 if they wanted to (in fact there are already a few like Ridge Racer 7), the problem is that they don't want to! I still expect many sub 1080p games next gen (though I doubt we'll see them go sub 720p this time) and many games will continue to run at 30FPS for the sake of better graphics, larger worlds etc. Not every game needs 60FPS...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=511142 Brownie Brown (Sword of Mana, Mother 3, Layton's London Life, Fantasy Life), is restructuring and renaming themselves to 1-up studio! Nice to see them finally have a success to call all their own with Fantasy Life, heard nothing but good things about it (an actual good game made by Brownie Brown!? No wonder they're rebranding themselves, their reputation for making mediocre games has been irreparably tarnished!)

Obviously MS are planning on unveiling Durango on Feb 19th

Looks like Feb 20th is the day of the reveal! https://us.playstation.com/meeting2013/ About damn time! Let's get this over with!

It's the same game, just a different name in Europe.

It'll happen I'm sure. If not by Xseed themselves (they have done a few DD releases in Europe themselves), then Rising Star Games will pick it up.

The thing with Sony and MS though is that there were/are potential candidates who could replace the likes of Stringer fairly easily, not to mention that Stringer's failings were far greater than Iwata - nor did he have any big success to call his own. Iwata's position is far from untenable, especially considering that the reasons for Nintendo's financial woes over the last couple of years were largely due to highly extrenuous circumstances with the 3DS price cut and Wii U R&D costs as well as an unprecedented strengthening of the yen. With all that out of the way, Nintendo have gotten through the worst of it. They're only making a small loss on the Wii U hardware and that'll be chipped away within this financial year for sure. Not to mention that this year will see the 3DS take off like a rocket in the west, as the release schedule finally catches up with Japan. They'll be printing pure money off that hardware, even if the Wii U chugs along at a sluggish pace