Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 1 Comment

With Metroid Other M this month and more than a handful of games on their way in the coming months, Nintendo is looking to hit the market hard with new installments in some of their non-Mario franchises. The E3 darling Kirby’s Epic Yarn will release for the Nintendo Wii on October 17th, while the aptly named Donkey Kong Country Returns will make its debut on November 21st. Over  a dozen other titles also received shelf dates across both of the Big N’s platforms, so follow the jump for the full list.

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Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Although the E3 highlights of upcoming content for Nintendo’s 3DS showcased literally dozens of IP heading towards the handheld, one project missed was the latest from Julian Gollop. The developer of the cult favorite science-fiction strategy franchise X-Com left a comment on a Gamasutra interview (listed as 14, August 2010 at 1:29am PST) with Jonathan Pelling – producer in charge of the recent reboot of the respective series – revealing that he and his team are at work on a new game for the 3DS.

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Friday, July 30th, 2010 | Posted by Eliot Hagen | 1 Comment

We’ve received a healthy portion of promotional screenshots from the upcoming Nintendo 3DS version of Super Street Fighter IV.  And seeing as pictures are worth a thousand words, we’ll just direct you to the gallery below.

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Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 6 Comments

Mark your calendars for September 29th. That’s the day that Nintendo (according to the quote Bloomberg‘s Japanese office received from company spokesperson Yasuhiro Minigawa) will reveal both the price and Japanese release date of the hotly anticipated 3DS. Prices are expected between the $150 and $250 range, with higher software prices also expected on average. No word on whether a Western release will be included in the announcement, but expect any announced price to carry across the shore.

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Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Call of Duty: Black Ops will be coming to the Nintendo DS day-and-day with its console big brothers (November 9th), recently announced Activision, developed by n-Space (Call of Duty: Modern Warefare Mobilized). The game will feature an optimized perk system spread across six multiplayer modes and a Co-Op campaign. The single player campaign will also have unlockable challenges for those wishing to replay certain chapters.

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Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | Posted by Robin Meijer | 1 Comment

Despite the apparent undiminishing popularity of the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo announced that it has made a loss during the first quarter of the current financial year, which ended in June. Overall sales fell with 25.6%, which lead to a loss of approximately ¥25.2 billion, or $289 million. During the same quarter in 2009, Nintendo made a profit of ¥42.3 billion, approximately $485 million.

Hardware sales for the Nintendo Wii increased with 36.6% as compared to the same quarter in 2009, part of which can be attributed to a strong first-party line-up. Nintendo indicated that it has already sold more than 4 million copies of Super Mario Galaxy 2, even though the game has only been available for just more than two months. However, despite this success, the overall Wii software sales dropped by approximately 9.3%.

With respect to the Nintendo DS, Nintendo indicated that hardware sales had fell by a staggering 44.7% as compared to a year earlier. DS software sales also fell, though not as steeply, by 22.9%. Over the last year, more and more developers and publishers have begun to phase out their support of the Nintendo DS, as piracy runs rampant on this platform. During the same three months last year, a total of 278 games were released for the Nintendo DS. This year, only 168 titles were released. Still, many of these third party developers and publishers have pledged their support to the upcoming successor to the DS: the Nintendo 3DS, which is supposed to put a halt to the widespread piracy on the platform.

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Thursday, July 29th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Like registering domain names, the act of a company trademarking certain similar phrases could lead to some hints at their future products. Nintendo recently filed for copyright on the terms “CrossPass”, “CrossPass Network”, “CrossPass Mode”, leading some to believe that this is the new term for a promised “tag” system in the Big N’s upcoming 3DS that would allow the handhelds to passively interact with others in their vicinity.

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Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Seemingly out of nowhere, the DS-child rearing simulator My Baby 3 & Friends has become the latest IP to attract a major lawsuit between game companies. SouthPeak Studios have filed suit with the franchise’s current publisher, Majesco over their respective rights to sell the title (at least in the US markets.) Nobilis, the French studio behind the games, have come out in support of Majesco, alleging that SouthPeak missed major payments owned to them during their time together.

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Saturday, July 24th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 1 Comment

Even if a company could perfectly capture 3D visuals in a cost-effective manner, that still leaves the fact that playing games with technology for hours on end could be torture for many vision types, not to mention those incapable of viewing most types of 3D in general. With the 3DS already compensating with a hardware slider on the device, allowing users to manipulate the 3D depth all the way back down to 2D, Sony may be looking into a similar system for its our 3D titles.

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Friday, July 23rd, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 1 Comment

Looks like not even child rearing-simulators are immune from lawsuits. SouthPeak Interactive has filed suit against Majesco, stating that the publisher has not right to publish My Baby 3 & Friends (Nintendo DS). SouthPeak is claiming contractual rights to publish the series in the US markets. The game’s original release date was set for this Winter, with the final launch to fluctuate depending on which publisher wins the rights.

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Sunday, July 18th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Even MGM’s financial woes can’t keep Bond (James Bond) down. Activision has revealed (via a Joss Stone voice acting feature announcement) a new, unique game featuring the super-spy, James Bond 007 Blood Stone. Produced by Bizarre Creations (Blur, Geometry Wars) and written by the screenwriter of the Goldeneye film, Bruce Feirstein. The third-person action adventure is currently in production for a 360, PS3, and PC release this holiday, with a separate DS version produced by n-Space (Tron: Evolution – Battle Grids for the Wii).

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Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

Expect this to be the model soon selling out at a store near you!

The speculation that what we all saw at E3 was not the final design for Nintendo’s glasses-less new handheld has been laid to rest. In a recent interview with Wired, Producer Hideki Konno confirmed the E3 design as the final version we will see at retail.

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Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | No Comments

One of the (arguably few) highlights of Ubisoft’s E3 Press Conference this past month was its reveal of a new IP based on the life and work of the self-proclaimed King of Pop. Now revealed to be Michael Jackson: The Experience, the game is set for a November release this year for the DS, Wii, 360, PS3 and PSP platforms. The Experience will allow players to “step into the shoes” of the world-famous music star and re-live his most memorable performances (although no specific venues or setlists were revealed.)

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Sunday, July 11th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 2 Comments

Is there anything Nintendo’s recently detailed new handheld can’t do? In addition to providing 3-dimensional visuals without the need for specialty glasses, IGN is reporting that those developers keen on remaining the 2D spectrum can design a title that is meant for gamers to turn off the system’s 3D capability in order to upgrade their 2D graphics.

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Sunday, July 11th, 2010 | Posted by Gavin Greene | 1 Comment

With continuing the Metal Gear franchise – now on two separate fronts – and producing both Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and an unannounced exclusive project on the Playstation 3, Kojima has a lot on his plate in the present. But in an interview with Famitsu (via 1UP) the auteur designer put forth his thoughts on what to expect from him years down the road.

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