Square Enix has revealed exactly why the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy XV won’t be coming to the platform. The development studio says that both games won’t be coming to Wii U as they use DirectX 11 which isn’t compatible with the console. The team said that Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3 is being developed using DirectX 11, so porting between Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One would be easy .
Thanks, Valesca and ikeezzo
Miyamoto has finally revealed to Kotaku which of the many games he has created he considers his least favourite. That game is Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Miyamoto says it’s not necessarily a bad game, but he feels he could have done a lot more with the title. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was originally released on the NES in 1988 in North America and Europe. The game was a radical departure for the series as it changed between a vast overworld viewed from above to towns and dungeons presented from a side-scrolling view.
“I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever made a bad game, per se, but a game I think we could have done more with was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.”
“When we’re designing games, we have our plan for what we’re going to design but in our process it evolves and grows from there,” Miyamoto said. “In Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, unfortunately all we ended up creating was what we had originally planned on paper.”
“So that’s a rule of thumb,” I asked, “that if you find yourself at that point, you know the idea wasn’t successful? Or is that you didn’t give yourself enough time?”
“I think specifically in the case of Zelda II we had a challenge just in terms of what the hardware was capable of doing,” he said.
“I’m just curious,” I pressed, “what would you have liked that game to have been like?”
“So one thing, of course, is, from a hardware perspective, if we had been able to have the switch between the scenes speed up, if that had been faster, we could have done more with how we used the sidescrolling vs. the overhead [view] and kind of the interchange between the two. But, because of the limitations on how quickly those scenes changed, we weren’t able to.”
“The other thing,” he said, “is it would have been nice to have had bigger enemies in the game, but the Famicom/NES hardware wasn’t capable of doing that. Certainly, with hardware nowadays you can do that and we have done that, but of course nowadays creating bigger enemies takes a lot of effort.”
Thanks, Nightmare
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has admitted that the reason why former Wii U exclusive Rayman Legends went multiplatform is because the company didn’t think it would sell enough units on the Wii U alone. Guillemot says that the team didn’t want to create a fantastic title only to see disappointing sales, so they brought it to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Guillemot stands by the decision and says it was the right move for gamers and the team.
“What happened was that we saw the Wii U was not going to sell enough of those games. The game is going to be fantastic, and we didn’t want those creators to wind up in a position where even after making a fantastic game, they didn’t sell well enough. We decided that we had to come out on enough machines that players can try it out on any one that they have, and give more time to both improve the game on the Wii U and create versions for the other consoles.”
“I think it was the right decision for gamers and for the team. My role is to make sure that the team is happy with the quality of the work they do and the reach they can have. The quality is there now, because they had more time. They’ve expanded the possibilities of the game. It’s much bigger content-wise. We have new bosses in key levels and so on. The experience is much more complete. I think it will be one of the best games we’ve ever done.”
“Sometimes we have to go against the urge to get to market too fast. We have to make sure we give enough time and resources to our creators to they can reach the potential in their games. This time, they were very close to excellence, but not quite there.”
Thanks, SortableShelf19
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed during the E3 analyst briefing that the company acknowledges that Nintendo Land has failed to attract consumers to Wii U. Iwata said that Nintendo Land hasn’t fulfilled the same role as Wii Sports – which consumers flocked to play and subsequently purchased a Wii back in 2006. Iwata did say that Nintendo is going to release a variety of Wii U software which shows off how convenient and delightful it is to have the Wii U GamePad controller, and how it changes the gaming experience.
“Asymmetric gameplay” is one of the important elements which differentiate Wii U from other products. Thus, we have released “Nintendo Land” as the software to make consumers understand the value of asymmetric gameplay. In the United States, we bundled it with the Wii U “Deluxe Set” which is a higher-end model equipped with 32GB of memory. We have received a lot of comments from consumers that the gameplay in “Nintendo Land” is interesting. However, we presume that they have not yet come up with the best words to easily explain how interesting it is to other people.”
“I would say that “Nintendo Land” has not fulfilled the same role as “Wii Sports” did when we bundled it with Wii.”
“Of course, we won’t remain silent and do nothing. We are going to release a variety of Wii U software, and with each title, we would like to show how convenient and delightful it is to have the Wii U GamePad controller, and how it changes the gaming experience.”
“In addition, we have also learned that the name “asymmetric gameplay” does not fully explain the GamePad’s value to consumers. As for the software going to be released from now on, we would like to describe the experience that the GamePad provides with a different expression in order to adequately convey its necessity to consumers and increase the number of consumers that think, “Indeed it is good to have a GamePad.” In this sense, starting with “Pikmin 3,” we aim to include functions that make good use of the GamePad that consumers can appreciate”
Outspoken game developer Peter Molyneux agrees that Nintendo would fare a lot better if they left the hardware business and just relied purely on quality software. Molyneux doesn’t agree with Shigeru Miyamoto’s opinion that Nintendo must create hardware to cater to the needs of its own development talent. Here’s what Mr Molyneux had to say.
“What Miyamoto says defines things in this industry. What I say just upsets people,” he cautioned, before continuing. “When Nintendo is making truly world-changing hardware, I totally see his point. But I do wonder about the Wii U – it seemed to be a kind of reaction to SmartGlass. And it’s very chunky, doesn’t really feel like it’s cutting edge. That’s when we start saying, ‘Why not spend some of your unbelievable talent on these devices?’ Because there’s a billion people out there,” Molyneux said, pointing to his iPad.
“You know what Nintendo did – this is a fascinating thing – Nintendo created gamers by the software they made. They created millions of gamers with Donkey Kong and Mario – they were the birth of gamers. That exact same thing is happening on this platform today. Millions of new gamers are being created almost every month, and they’re being created with titles not from Nintendo, not from Microsoft, not from Sony, not even necessarily from Activision or EA. They’re being created by companies like Supercell and Rovio. They’re the ones that are bringing and creating new gamers. And now there are millions of people interacting with franchises, which Nintendo won’t even touch, which seems a shame to me because Nintendo are brilliant about bringing people into the industry, and I think their hardware is starting to get in the way of that,” he said. “But I caveat all of this by saying that they are a factor more intelligent than I am, and they’ve probably got a plan, and you should never underestimate Nintendo. We’ll probably be sitting here in a couple years saying, ‘Oh that’s what they were doing’.”
Kensuke Tanabe, the producer on the upcoming Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, spoke about a character that he would love to bring to Wii U. That specific character would be Tingle, from The Legend of Zelda games. Tanabe joked that he finds the idea of a new, standalone Tingle game extremely compelling. Here’s what he had to say about Tingle .
“There’s no definitive plan or anything,” he warned me at first. “It’s just me off the top of my head.” But as Tanabe spoke in Japanese, the room suddenly exploded into laughter. It took a second for the translator to calm down and tell me what he said.
“I know how hated the character of Tingle is in the U.S,” Tanabe started. “I know that people cannot stand Tingle. But to me that challenge is: Could I take this character that is so reviled in the West and just [do] a complete turnaround and make him a beloved, fun character? The idea of that really just gets me going. I know we have made a Tingle game in the past, but maybe at some point down the road. …”
My reaction gradually changed from horror, to bewilderment — is he serious!? — and finally to curiosity as Tanabe explained himself.
“It’s like love,” Tanabe said. “It’s like romance: You meet someone and you’re like, ‘Oh god, I can’t stand that person.’ And then three weeks later, you’re madly in love — it’s that turn, that quick whip, that motivates [me] a little bit.”
“If we we ever get a really successful Tingle game, maybe we will have like a big Tingle statue out there [points to Nintendo's E3 booth outside the room's walls],” said Tabata.
“Retro does Tingle!” Kelbaugh added, playing along with the joke. Another round of laughter swept through our little room.
Retro president Michael Kelbaugh along with Nintendo’s Kensuke Tanabe and Risa Tabata have discussed how they think the Metroid series would work on the Wii U. Kelbaugh and Tabata both thought of ingenious ways to utilise the Wii U GamePad to display information to the user. Tabata thought using the suit’s HUD elements would work very well on the GamePad’s touchscreen, as well as using the GamePad for minigames, such as turning Samus’s ball-morphing ability into a pinball-like game.
“Samus obviously has a lot of features [in her space suit],” said Tabata. “There’s a lot you can do with that thing — once she pulls her arm up and pulls out that [metal flap] and does some of this stuff [Tabata pretends to punch buttons on her forearm]. I can see mapping some of that to the GamePad. I think that would be really cool.”
Tanabe, meanwhile, focused on what the shooting gameplay might feel like. At first, the translator had trouble figuring out what Tanabe meant, going back and forth to confirm what he heard. Here’s what he had to say.
“I [told Tanabe], ‘What, you want to hook a GamePad on a Zapper [gun peripheral]?’” recounted the translator. “He said: ‘No, that’d be too heavy. Maybe something more streamlined. But like a Zapper-style thing with a GamePad feature on it or some device like that. I’d love to do some shooting stuff with something like that! Maybe some day.’
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment president Martin Tremblay says that the company is a believer in Wii U. Tremblay admitted that the console has had a slow start, but he believes that the software shown at this year’s E3 should help sales pick up as we approach the holiday season. Tremblay said that he hopes sales of the platform increase and that the success of the platform is vital for the industry.
“We’re a believer on the Wii U. Honestly, we hope everybody’s going to work out. It’s just good for the industry.”
“I think the console has been off to a slow start, but I think they’re going to fix the problem. I don’t think it’s a problem, but it’s more about the content. And I think they showed tons of new content [at E3] that will re-energize the platform.”
Thanks, Mike S
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has revealed via Twitter that both console and handheld software sales were the lowest since May 2000. Nintendo of America announced earlier today that the Nintendo 3DS was the best-selling video game platform in North America during May. Sounds as though it was another terrible month for North American video game retailers.
“I can’t/won’t publish any data from the NPD, but found it interesting that software sales for console/handheld were lowest since May 2000″
Nintendo 3DS continued its strong year with another first: The platform was the best-selling video game hardware platform in the United States in May. The launch of Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D on May 23 and another strong month for Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon helped Nintendo 3DS software sales in stores increase by more than 60 percent over the same time last year. Nintendo 3DS also had two of the top three best-selling software SKUs for the month, with Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D at No. 2 and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon at No. 3.
At the recently concluded E3 trade show in Los Angeles, Nintendo defined its proposition for the holiday season by showcasing a cavalcade of great games coming for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS systems in 2013. Starting in August and continuing through the end of the year, Wii U will launch one major game a month, including Pikmin 3 (Aug. 4), The Wonderful 101 (Sept. 15), The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (October), Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (November) and Super Mario 3D World (December). Nintendo 3DS will build on its momentum with the successive launches of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (Aug. 11), Pokémon X and Pokémon Y (Oct. 12) Mario Party for Nintendo 3DS (name not final, November) and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (November).
