Information Update // Noticias Nuevas - Nintendo 3DS & PSVita

Information Update - Nintendo 3DS

1.- Activision has confirmed that the forthcoming Men In Black: Alien Crisis will utilise the not-often-used Wii Zapper peripheral. Men in Black will be released on the Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 25th, which is precisely the same day when Men in Black 3 will be available to view in glorious 3D in cinemas.

More After the Break...

IGN has managed to get hold of a leaked correspondence from a GameStop manager which states that the Wii U will launch in North America on November 18th. You may remember that a leaked internal email from a large Japanese retailer had the launch penned for November 18th but the source for that was disputed by Kotaku. We should hear an official launch date for Wii U at this years E3 event in June.

EA managed to beat the Bank of America to be crowned the worst company in America. Readers of The Consumerist were told to vote earlier this week for the worst company and the finalists were Bank of America and EA. EA won. Here’s what John Reseburg, EA’s senior director of corporate communications had to say about the matter:

“We’re sure that bank presidents, oil, tobacco and weapons companies are all relieved they weren’t on the list this year. We’re going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide.”

 

‘Key’ developers have told online gaming publication CVG that Wii U games look as good as their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 counterparts, but the console struggles to compete against the platforms in other areas. The sources claim that graphical quality won’t be a problem, but key areas such as the CPU power could see the console having difficulty managing complicated physics and AI.

“Assumptions that Wii U games will look like ‘up rezzed’ current-gen titles with better textures aren’t quite right. They’ll look just as good, but not better,” one developer told CVG. “You shouldn’t expect anything special from a graphics point of view,”
“We’re still working on dev machines but there have definitely been some issues [in porting PS3/360 games],” our source said. “It’s not actually a problem getting things up and running because the architecture is pretty conventional, but there are constraints with stuff like physics and AI processing because the hardware isn’t quite as capable.”

The same source concluded, bluntly: “I suppose you don’t need sophisticated physics to make a Mario game.”

2.- We first heard that Namco, Sega and Capcom were planning to team up on an exclusive Nintendo 3DS game at the Nintendo Direct conference, but we haven’t heard anything since. Now it appears as though the official website for the project has been updated providing those who visit it with a countdown timer, which is due to expire in a week. Any guesses as to what the mystery project could be?

Gearbox President Randy Pitchford has confessed to Joystiq that the Wii U is a “really nice bridge to the next generation” and that the console is “pretty powerful”. Pitchford stated to the publication that he wasn’t able to say too much about the system, as there’s still plenty for Nintendo to announce about the platform at E3. Here’s what he had to say:

“Nintendo still has a lot to announce with their platform, and it’s not up to us to go ahead of them. I think it’s a great platform and I’m really excited about it, particularly with this game, there’s a lot of exciting opportunities like, ‘Wow, my motion tracker is there, and I can move it like this!’” he said as he moved his arms side to side. “There’s just so much cool stuff.”
“There’s a lot that we can do with that screen,” Pitchford said. “It’s a really cool system — it’s pretty powerful. I want to be careful, because I don’t want to risk any sensitive information that Nintendo’s not ready to share yet, but in our experience it’s a great system. I think it’s a really nice bridge to the next generation. I think people will be surprised. I don’t know off the top of my head how many of the specs they’ve released, so I want to be very careful not to jump the gun, but we’re very pleased with the hardware. And even since they gave us our first alpha kit, our very first ‘pre-prototype’ development hardware that they kind of let us play around with, they’ve done so many things to make the platform better. So it’s getting better for us as developers.”

This weeks Enterbrain and Media Create sales data is in from Japan and it once again shows that the Nintendo 3DS is currently an unbeatable format. The Nintendo 3DS decimated the competition this week selling an impressive 121,921 units. Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance was the best-selling piece of software, easily nabbing the number one position. Here’s the Japanese software and hardware charts:

1. [3DS] Kingdom Hearts 3D – Dream Drop Distance
2. [PS3] Pro Baseball Spirits 2012
3. [PSP] Pro Baseball Spirits 2012
4. [3DS] Kid Icarus: Uprising
5. [NDS] Pokemon Conquest
6. [PSP] Black Panther 2: Yakuza Ashura Chapter
7. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3G
8. [3DS] Super Mario 3D Land
9. [PSV] Pro Baseball Spirits 2012
10. [3DS] Mario Kart 7

• 3DS – 121,921
• PS3 – 23,771
• PSP – 18,356
• Vita – 12,105
• Wii – 9,292
• PS2 – 1,374
• Xbox 360 – 1,317
• DSi LL – 941
• DSi – 771

3.- Sega and Gearbox software have unleashed a three minute gameplay trailer for the forthcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines. The game is currently in development for Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Sega has yet to announce an official release date for the game, but it’s currently scheduled for a Fall release.

Aliens: Colonial Marines director Brian Martel has told Nintendo Gamer magazine that the Wii U has more RAM than either the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and has a “really great processor”. Martel says that the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines will be one of the best looking versions of the game when it launches later this year.

“The machine itself will be one of the best looking versions of the game [sic]… because they’ve got more RAM than some of the other things [platforms]“, says Martel. “They’re late in the cycle so they’ve got this really great processor.”

Disney has shown off the first images of Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion which is exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo Power previously revealed that the game is a follow-up to the classic Sega Mega Drive game Castle of Illusion. Disney has yet to announce a release date for the game which is being developed by Dreamrift.

4.- The latest edition of Iwata Asks reveals that Fire Emblem: Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS will feature a marriage system. You’ll now be able to marry any of your allies, or your My Unit characters. The game’s director, Genki Yokota, has announced that one of the major themes for the new game is love of the characters, therefore Nintendo decided to introduce a marriage system. Fire Emblem Awakening will be released in Europe sometime later this year.

Pokémon Conquest, which was known as Pokemon + Nobunaga’s Ambition in Japan, is set to launch on June 18th and offers a fun new way to play Pokémon in a unique world called Ransei that is filled with adventure. Developed by Tecmo, the 2D game can also be played on the Nintendo 3DS system.


In Pokémon Conquest, players take on the role of a young Warlord who is linked with a Pokémon. Together, they must set out to recruit Warrior allies to strengthen their growing kingdom. Along their journey, players will encounter a variety of Pokémon, as well as Warriors and Warlords inspired by the Japanese feudal era. The game contains nearly 200 Pokémon, including many from the recent Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version games, which have sold more than 4 million copies combined in the United States.


As the battlefield unfolds in Pokémon Conquest, players must choose the correct Pokémon type to inflict maximum damage on their opponents. In the turn-based skirmishes, players choose different tactics for intense six-on-six battles, and battle conditions can change on every turn, keeping players on their toes in anticipation of what will happen next.

“Pokémon fans are always interested in playing in new environments and experiencing new adventures. Pokémon Conquest gives them an entirely new way to enjoy this beloved series, with exciting new settings, fierce battles and nearly 200 Pokémon to team up with.”

-Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing.


Club Nintendo members in Japan can claim these awesome Nintendo themed polo shirts that come in a range of colours, and feature different iconic Nintendo emblems. Nintendo has yet to confirm whether these funky polo shirts will make their way to the West. Let’s hope Nintendo of America and Nintendo Europe make the right decision and decide to stock these.

Warren Spector, the producer behind Epic Mickey, has explained why the team at Junction Point studios have chosen to use the Wii as the lead platform for the game. As Epic Mickey: The Power of Two is coming to Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, many thought one of these higher end platforms would be the lead, but Spector claims that’s simply not the case.

“I didn’t want to build the 700 person team, and my studio has Wii expertise. So there are those two factors. And I’m just not a believer in the idea you have to make different games for different platforms. We had a game experience we wanted people to have. We had a story we wanted to tell.
“One of the goals for the first game was to make a Wii game that had even other developers saying, ‘Holy cow! I didn’t know you could do that on a Wii.’ And so, at the end of the day, we decided we wanted to make the same game for all three platforms.

“And because we have Wii tech and Wii expertise and because we needed to build next-gen tech, which we didn’t have, we prototyped, essentially, on the Wii. And the next-gen versions are running about a month behind everything. Just recently, everything caught up, so now we’re running in lock step, making them simultaneous.
“If we come up with something in tuning the game at Junction Point on the Wii version we think will benefit the 360 and PS3 version, that gets integrated into the 360 and PS3 version. If the guys at Blitz working on the next-gen platforms come up with something that will benefit, it comes back the other way.”

I guess you could say the Wii is the lead platform, because we’re driving the creative on all three platforms. But really, it’s been a two-way street. They’re both feeding into each other.”
He added: “I guess you could say the Wii is the lead platform, because we’re driving the creative on all three platforms. But really, it’s been a two-way street. They’re both feeding into each other.”

5.- It’s been revealed via the Australian Classification Board that two more GameGear games will be released on the 3DS. The first of these is Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya, a tactical role-playing game, while the other is Defenders of Oasis. There are no release dates yet, but it shouldn’t be long before we hear something.
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Mister Gaga