Ken Levine, the President and creative director at Irrational Games wonders whether 3DS will be the new home of shovelware and if third party devs can keep up with Nintendo…
“Great, now my beside table is going to have an iPhone, an iPad, and a Nintendo 3DS. I think the question for how much attention the new Nintendo hotness will get is, like always, based on software, on games. Is somebody going to be able to make the darn thing sing? Or is it going to be a shovel-ware extravaganza (but now in glorious 3D!). Nintendo makes insanely good first-party stuff; we’ll see if the rest of us devs can follow suit.”
Source
The man in charge of the 3DS lead title – Kid Icarus: Uprising – Masahiro Sakurai has told C&VG that Pit now feels like a new character and that there will be lots of different weapons in the game. The more the merrier!
“One thing I can talk about is that Pit uses a lot of weapons and this is a very important aspect of the game. There’s a wide variety of very different types of weapons. Each one is very unique and presents a wide range of gameplay possibilities and a multitude of ways to approach different enemies with different weapons. All of this weapon variation makes you feel like you’re playing the game with a brand new character because the feel is so varied when you use different weapons.”
This is an interesting quote from ex-Nintendo first party developers, Rare (now wholly owned by Microsoft) about taking Wii Sports on with their Kinect sports game.
“In terms of the competition, we looked very carefully at Wii Sports. We didn’t shy away from it – we actually attack it head on, if I’m honest. We looked at Wii Sports and, okay, if we were going to do this better, how much further can we go with this and will the consumer see an obvious improvement?” – Rare’s creative director, George Andrea.
Though his honesty is refreshing, it wouldn’t be the first time you could accuse them of taking a page from Nintendo’s book. Just look at the similarities between Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing, Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie etc.
Thanks C&VG
In an interview with MCV, Satoru Iwata talks about how Wii 2 will be announced as late as possible to its launch due to competitors stealing their ideas. It’s nothing new!
“I am afraid to say that the history of entertainment is also the history of imitation. A great idea will promptly be copied unless protected through patents. At the same time, it is really important for our business to positively surprise people. Will you be surprised by our completed product if we told you how it is surprising three years in advance? Therefore, we basically disclose information on our products as late as possible. We believe this is the best approach for the entertainment products we are developing. Again, we are planning the next products for Nintendo’s continuous growth, but we cannot tell you what, when and how we will release it here. Thank you for your understanding.”
Talking to ONM, Motohide Eshiro, producer of Okamiden for DS explains why the game is only bound for that console.
“The distinctive feature of the Celestial Brush is just screaming out to be realised on the DS touch screen. I think it’s only natural that Okamiden was designed for DS. …Showing such diverse, sensitive colours that were seen in the original Okami was one tough task indeed. However, it was rather fortuitous for Capcom to have plenty of talented programmers and graphic designers that they have put everything into this title and recreated that very experience on the DS.”
Here are some of the main points taken from the financial briefing of Nintendo chief, Satoru Iwata from a few days ago. The executive discusses basically everything so grab a drink and have a read!
- We believe that Nintendo’s sound business development in the mid-and-long term will basically benefit all of the stakeholders. In other words, we need to regularly release products that can offer positive surprise to our customers and to try to make efforts to spread that meaningful surprise in order to maximize the number of our consumers who are willing to purchase our products. We should be responsible for solid results in every fiscal year in order to not have people worry about our future by saying that Nintendo’s rapid growth through Nintendo DS and Wii was just very lucky and nothing but temporary. If we can have our shareholders acknowledge in mid to long run that pure luck alone could not have yielded the actual sales results of Nintendo DS and Wii and that Nintendo is the corporate organization which has the ability to sustain such performances, it will dispel the concerns about our future business and, as a result, lead to a high valuation by investors in the long run, I believe. For the time being, we are concentrating on our new hardware, Nintendo 3DS, because it is very important to make Nintendo 3DS as popular as, or to make it more popular than, Nintendo DS which has been appreciated by so many people around the world. Of course, we are not focusing on just the new product that we have announced. For Nintendo DS and Wii which already have well-established installed bases, we are aware of the significance of developing quality software to continue to enhance their popularity.
Read more…
Unfortunately it seems like Resident Evil Revelations or StreetFighter IV 3D won’t make it for the launch of the 3DS. Let’s hope they come out soon after!
- “We announced Resident Evil Revelations and Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition at E3, but these are not included in our plan for this fiscal year.”
- Talking of the timing of 3DS releases – “At present, it’s to be determined.”
- Talking of 3DS development cost -) “If we use our internally developed engine MT Framework, it is possible to share the basic development process with other platforms, so we don’t think [development costs] will see extreme rises.”
- “We decide platform by considering the type of game and other areas. It’s not the case that we’ll simply release one game on all platforms.”
Thanks adriasang [via Gonintendo]
Here’s a portion of n-Space’s interview with IGN talking about 3DS and DS:
IGN: So how about that 3DS, huh? Ready to hunker down and develop on that?
n-Space: The word most often used to describe the 3DS by those fortunate enough to experience it at E3 is “magical.” We feel this is completely justified and that it’s a home run for Nintendo and for developers like n-Space that have been dedicated supporters for many years.
IGN: Speaking of developing on the 3DS, do you see there being an extended transitional shift between the DS and 3DS in the same way there was with the Game Boy Advance to Nintendo DS? Or do you see developers dropping DS like a hot potato in favor of Nintendo’s new console?
n-Space: As with any new system, the types and number of games are really going to depend on the reaction of the gaming public. The DS has a tremendous installed base and the backward compatibility of the 3DS will definitely make the DS format viable for years to come. Like in previous platform transitions (think PS2), I expect to see an ongoing market for DS games, with their budgets and retail prices decreasing as leading developers move quickly to the new platform.
Zelda producer, Eiji Aonuma is excited about the prospect of Zelda on the 3DS. He is not alone! Talking to ONM, Mr Aonuma says 3D technology is perfect for the series.
“I am excited. With the Nintendo 3DS, all of the new elements and the 3D technology is perfect for The Legend Of Zelda series. It’s everything from the depth that you get from riding through vistas or a more accurate sense of distance between you and the enemy you are fighting. I think it is perfect for this series. Of course we are very excited to see what it can do. Of course I look at what the development environment is like and one of the things that I want to take up further going forward is how playing in 3D effects things. Does it make you tired? Do you want to create a game where players are sitting in front of their systems for a long period of time? Obviously there are things that can be 3D but we don’t have to shoehorn it in. If it’s beneficial, of course, we’ll want to use it. So what I would like to do is to take a look at what other people are doing out there, see what the reaction is, then go back and figure out exactly what I want out of 3D.”
According to EA executive John Schappert anyway:
“I think it’s a great E3 for the industry. Normally, you come here and there’s one hardware surprise, and I can’t think of another E3 where everyone’s surprising in a positive way. And they’re positive surprises. It’s not like, ‘Yeah, they did that but I don’t know about that.’ Every one of [these new technologies] is cool. The 3DS is just incredibly cool. The 3DS is magical. You put that in your hand, you look down, and all of a sudden it’s in 3D without glasses. That’s an amazing experience. I’m a huge fan. I think that device is going to sell like hot cakes. I think it’s going to do incredibly well, and in typical Nintendo fashion they have re-energized the industry, yet again. I give them nothing but credit and we are excited to be supporting that platform with Madden, FIFA, and The Sims that we announced.”
We have to agree with him. The DS wasn’t this well received when it was announced as Nintendo hadn’t proved itself with the ‘novelty’ handheld and Sony were thought to be taking the right path with PSP. We all know how that turned out and the amount of support and praise from developers so far for 3DS is staggering. Surely it can only sell by the bucket load?
Source
Following on from the post earlier where Microsoft claimed that Kinect offered better value than Wii or Sony Move, infamous games analyst Michael Pachter seems to agree with us that it probably doesn’t.
For new Xbox gamers the bundle is pretty good value, but for those of us who already own 360′s, the Kinect stand-alone price seems pretty high. What do you think? let us know in the comments.
“We disagree…and think that standalone Kinect, at $149, is not as good a value as a standalone Wii at $199, which comes with two games (instead of one) and a much deeper library of content. On a bundled basis, we agree that Kinect plus the Arcade 360 is a compelling value, at only $100 more than a Wii bundle, but with the deep library of Xbox 360 games available, plus a robust multiplayer experience and the opportunity for value added Xbox Live services.”
Source
This is interesting as if you count the fact that the Kinect will cost $150/£129/150EUR then having to buy another Wiimote looks like good value we’d say Mr Greenberg, wouldn’t you?
Another thing to keep in mind is that the Kinect price is on top of the console price whereas the Wii is bundled with the controller already. This is just nit-picking but it annoys me when I see quotes like this.
Why are these corporations so bitchy? You would expect they’s know better!
“If you think about the console bundle as a standalone, what you have to keep in mind is, when you get the console and the sensor and the game, when you add another player to that experience you don’t have to buy another wand, another controller, another Nunchuk… It’s all included in the experience.” – Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg
Thanks Industrygamers
