Dcubed

Outside of Ubisoft and Activision, I think that the western 3rd parties are a lost cause. They're just too set in their ways now and are determined to walk the path of industry destruction. Perhaps it's time to bring back the idea of the N64 "Dream Team"? Cut off ties with EA and Take Two (implicitly of course, certainly not publically!) and engage in some sweetheart deals with the remaining publishers (Activision, Ubisoft, WB and the other smaller ones). Simultaneously, they should help build up the indie development community (and the developers who are actually supporting them). They've made great inroads already with them (the Unity/Autodesk deals were a stroke of genius and seem to have done wonders for eShop support), now they just need to power them up! Lend them funds and support and try and get the likes of Mojang to make something exclusive for them! For the Japanese developers... well we don't really know what's happening there in terms of support. They seem to be on good terms with Capcom, SEGA, Atlus, Tecmo Koei and Namco and they've got the Dragon Quest franchise sown up nicely (though DQ11 will almost certainly be heading for the 3DS rather than the Wii U...), though who knows what's happening with S-E these days and their nonsensical attitude towards consoles/mobile/handhelds/life. It's the smaller JPN devs that still take issue with them like Gust, Falcom etc and the lack of eShop support from JPN devs that is still of some concern. Otherwise, the only thing they really need to do with them is to shoulder some of the risks of localisation (they're only just now doing it with 3DS, but this may also need to extend to the Wii U).

Well Iwata did say that there was gonna be a Nintendo Direct focused on 3rd party titles later on during the last one at least... That being said I have to agree with you. It's looking pretty terrible... As for Iwata's position, I really doubt that he's going anywhere any time soon. Let's not forget the shambling wreck that is Square-Enix and the fact that Wada is still CEO, despite running the company to the ground :p Think about it, who would replace him? Nobody has been primed to take his place! He's had plenty of success as CEO. A couple of poor years is not going to erase all of that so easily (not to mention that they're out of the red now, with the 3DS now making a profit on each unit sold and the Wii U sure to do so too pretty soon)

As far as Nintendo's own games are concerned, they'll no doubt still be making games that take full advantage of everything that their individual pieces of hardware can offer in each of their games and taylor each experience to their respective form of play. It's just that they can worry less about asset production now that they can just reuse their code/engines/art assets across both future platforms. 3rd parties on the other hand will no doubt be thankful for the ability to put their handheld games on the big screen without any extra cost or effort. It would go a long ways towards bulking up the library for their console. They'll still be a market that wants taylored experiences for each device and Nintendo will fulfill that for sure. 3rd parties that don't want to see their games tank will be wise enough not to make a console game for a handheld (and vice versa) Of course, western developers will still not give two shits though...

More Streetpass content incoming! http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/05.html I could do with a new StreetPass Plaza game

Could we finally be getting the 3DS download cards in stores!? http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/05.html I hope this does mean what I think it means. I'd actually start buying some retail eShop games if NOE pulled their finger out and finally got them into stores!

Gah! you beat me to it! Here's the actual original source though http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/04.html About bloody time!!! I imagine that the "10 key titles" this year include the ones that we already know about (though I'd love to be wrong!) so that leaves 3 mystery titles after discounting the 7 that we already know about (LM2, FEA, PKMN X&Y, Devilish BT, Monster Hunter 3 U, Lego City Undercover, PKMN MD Gate to Infinity) I think it's safe to say that Layton 6 is one of them. Otherwise I reckon that Fantasy Life and Dragon Quest 7 have the best chance of being published by Nintendo overseas... Also interesting that he mentions the games published in Europe specifically and how they plan to extend that policy to the US. I wonder if this means that NOA will take over publishing duties for Castlevania MOF, like what NOE are doing?

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/05.html Unique hardware, but same underlying architecture. They can run the same game code and use the same assets but the hardware itself would be differentiated between console and handheld still. Well then, there's no excuse to not have cross platform VC support then!

Those figures are meant for their shareholders, not you. It doesn't matter if you don't know the difference as long as they do... Anywho, that's one meaty transcript! With a lot of revelations in there! (some points probably could do with their own thread actually) So the UK accounted for 18.8% of their total EU sales. Pretty much the same as the 3DSxl then... I see why they dropped their forecast now. They've got 1 million units sitting on store shelves worldwide right now and no big game releases to sell them with... It's gonna be a rough Q1 for them... Good thing that this is when the 3DS starts its takeoff in the west!

Nice to see that their shareholders at least called out EA on their shabby treatment of the Wii U. Hopefully they'll ring them by the neck when the Wii U does take off and EA continue to ignore the console...

Cheers! Looking forward to getting some Feng Shui going in my room

All right! My store is up and running! My code is F61M68G68 BTW, it's scarily easy to overspend on these online stores! Now I know how my customers feel lol! (I see one outfit, then ooh, I like that one too! And that one looks cute as well! ) Also here's a few new shots to liven up this thread (Yes that is a floating pie, don't ask why) And some new designs to use... BTW, when the hell do you get the chance to redecorate your flat? I'm sick of the same old stuff in the background of every pic!

April 12th is the day for us! http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/01/dr_kawashimas_devilish_brain_training_arrives_in_europe_on_12th_april BTW, this thread needs a name change...

Very true. The localisation of the AC games is a huge part of the series' appeal and rushing that would be disastrous. It's reliant on its text to a greater extent than any other Nintendo series. Aye. true again. They can't afford another large gap in their schedule as that would kill off their momentum completely. MH3U needs to be the start of a schedule of having at least one big exclusive game per month until at least August and they have enough games to do it (Game & Wario should be a lock for April, if it's coming out in Japan on March 27th; with Wii Fit U in May, Pikmin 3 in June, hopefully Wii Party U in July and maybe The Wonderful 101 in August)

Probably because they fast-tracked Pokemon B&W2's localization. AC games have more text in them than any other Nintendo game series...

I'd like to see some more dynamic tracks (Earthquakes, terraforming landscapes, track destruction etc) and tracks where you can take cheesy shortcuts like in Mario Kart 64 (none of this nonsense where Lakitu stops you from skipping part of the track, like when you try to drop down from part of the spiral in Wario Stadium in Double Dash - I want to be able to quasi-cheat and put nasty traps where players might fall down and have to repeat part of the track again, like in Wario Stadium N64 ) Also a mode where 4 players can race while a 5th player with the Gamepad acts as a "game master" of sorts and can screw over or help other players by placing bad/good items and traps around the track (otherwise, 5 player local play would be very sweet) There could also be a 4 vs 1 battle mode where the TV players have to work together to fight against an overpowered Gamepad player (who has a visibility and health advantage over the TV players ) The core gameplay would stay pretty much the same though, outside of the usual physics tweaks that ever MK game has (speaking of which, I wouldn't mind seeing that kind of weighty feel that SMK and DD had return in some way) and some new items (amisdt the usual cry for the feather to return ) Online wise, just expand on what you did with MK7, with greater customisation, official worldwide live tournaments, the ability to make your own online tournaments (with a Spotpass reminder notification being sent out to participants an hour before the starting time and results being saved on your community page for all to see ), voice chat (friends/communities only if you must) and the return of MKDS' Mission Mode (with new missions added over time via Spotpass - REAL DLC, none of this fakey nonsense you pulled with MKWii and it stays on your system forever!)

Yes it is and also a clear sign that the retail Download Card initiative is a success. If I were Iwata, I'd be fuming at NOA & NOE's reluctance to get those game download cards into stores!

It's also just below the 3DS' first month figure as well and we all know what happened there... (in fact Nintendo are actually predicting the same thing to happen with the Wii U, with less than 1 million new units being shipped from now till the end of March...)

Not exactly a surprise but still...

Yep! Can't wait for Animal Crossing New Leaf and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate

Indeed it is. It doesn't explain the drop for 3DS though. If anything, it should have risen now that all of its previous Q3 & Q4 releases in the west were pushed back to this March!

The results were better than I had expected TBH and oh look... It seems that once again, the UK has only made up a small fraction of their total EU sales (less than 10% according to Eurogamer/chart track, who state that Wii U stood at around 80,000 at the start of January) Told you guys that the UK sales weren't representative of the whole of Europe! :p Now less so than ever before. Strange that they chose to downgrade their forecasts for all of their consoles and not just Wii U. I would've thought that with all the big 3DS software being pushed back into this quarter we'd see their 3DS hardware and software forecasts rise accordingly! Also 1 million units for the next 2 months WW seems really quite conservative, even considering the wasteland of releases until Monster Hunter 3U... BTW, the software attach rate is really very good! 3.8 in total, with NSMBU and Nintendo Land acheiving insane attach rates of 65.7% and 76.1% respectively ) Edit: Ahh, forgot that these were shipment figures. The sell-through data (actual sales to consumers) is coming tomorrow...

Weird. I never found the crossbow either...

No idea. They're available in Japan, but NOA and NOE haven't said or done anything about them. It's frustrating as hell because it's a fantastic model that fixes most of the problems with offering retail games as downloads and yet they won't allow us to take part

Has anyone else here actually played that game? It's awkward as hell seeing Pac Man and Tamagotchi in Mario Kart (the 2nd game even moreso!) It's also a shit game (both of them)

Yeah, Secret of Mana isn't as good as I remembered it as a kid. It's not even the grinding that bothers me (though that IS an issue for me), it's the general lack of polish (not just the fact that it's riddled with glitches, but also the hit detection issues) and the really repetitive nature of the environments and gameplay mechanics (the recycled environments and pallet swapped bosses are a clear remanant of the port from SNES CD to cartridge) It feels unfinished and half baked. That being said, the music is still fantastic!