The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has an interesting report on how Nintendo's end-user license agreement (EULA) for the Wii U is an "agree or else" kind of agreement.
Wii U ain't doing so hot. Two years out and its sold less than seven million units worldwide (as of June 30). Many said, "Wait until Mario comes out! No, not New Super Mario Bros. U, a real 3D Mario game!"
Super Mario 3D World came out last year, sold over two million units (New Super Mario Bros. U sold over four million) and Wii U sold about two million units that holiday. Not great but not bad. Unfortunately, there was no sales momentum and the Wii U only sold about 300k in the next quarter.
Nintendo made a few Super Smash Bros.-related announcements this morning including the fact that the Nintendo 3DS version of the game has sold more than 2.8 million units worldwide - mostly attributed to sales of the game in North America, Europe, and Australia. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS launched on Sept. 13 in Japan, Oct. 3 in the North America and Europe, and Oct. 4 in Australia.
Dan Adelman, the guy that used to be in charge of Nintendo's indie program, was let go by the company in early August. Today we learn from Gamasutra that Adelman is helping developer Tom Happ with Axiom Verge. Adelman says that he is handling the business- and marketing-related stuff for Happ's upcoming game.
Nintendo of Japan today issued a formal apology for banning Super Smash Bros. online players while in the midst of trying to clear up a glitch. The game for 3DS, which launched in Japan Sept. 13, contains a glitch related to item usage in an online game mode that doesn't allow it.
According to multiple reports on the glitch, a number of players found a way to use Princess Peach's special ability to pull and throw her turnip item in the 'For Glory' online mode. The problem is that items are supposed to be disabled.
A number of adult-themed images managed to make their way to the Mario & Luigi Dream Team Miiverse community, before they were finally spotted by administrators and deleted. While none of the images were x-rated, they did show anime and real women with huge breasts in various provocative poses.
Nintendo today announced a free game giveaway for consumers who buy a 3DS, 3DS XL, or 2DS and either Super Smash Bros or Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire between now and January 12th 2015. The bad news is that this offer is only available in the UK and other PAL territories (Europe).
Those who meet the aforementioned requirements must also register their new system and the game they bought through Club Nintendo before January 12, 2015.
Do you like Batman? Do like LEGO games? Do you like DLC?
Well, Warner Bros. has you covered. Yesterday, it announced 6 DLC packs for this fall's LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. Each pack includes a brand new mission level (Story Mode and Free Play), new characters, new vehicles and new achievements.
The first three packs, the Dark Knight Pack, Batman 75th Anniversary Pack, and the Man of Steel Pack, will be available Nov. 11th and cost £2.55 each (about $4).
UPDATE: Never mind. Nintendo has confirmed that the New 3DS will be region locked.
ORIGINAL STORY: Last week, Nintendo announced a new 3DS with a faster processor, more buttons, a second analog stick, built in NFC, better 3D and a few other features. Nintendo calls it...
The New Nintendo 3DS.
If you missed Saturday's live broadcast of Super Podcast Action Committee (Episode 112), you can watch the video replay on YouTube or download it below.
Surprising everyone who didn't see it coming (obviously), Nintendo announced a brand spanking new model of the Nintendo 3DS called New Nintendo 3DS.
Great name, eh? Check out the attached Nintendo Direct. The New 3DS stuff starts at 14:20. Of course, it's in Japanese but that never stops a true fan!
Anyway, the New 3DS (which comes in both standard and XL sizes) launches in Japan on October 11th with a host of new features including:
Nintendo of Europe has confirmed with Kotaku that around 320 of its employees will be laid off this week. That number includes around 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees, along with 190 temporary workers at Nintendo of Europe's Germany-based localization department. All 320 people will be unemployed by August 31, according to Kotaku.
If you were wondering why the releases of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U are staggered, the answer is the debugging process. According to series creator Masahiro Sakurai, who recently wrote about the games in his Famitsu Weekly column (as translated by Kotaku East), the debugging process for both games is very time consuming. Sakurai is currently debugging the 3DS version of the game, which is set to be released first.
Nintendo has responded to a petition calling on the company to add Robin Williams as a character in the next Legend of Zelda game. Williams and his daughter Zelda were big fans of the game series and have in the past appeared in Nintendo commercials supporting the franchise and other Nintendo games. Williams was an avid gamer and a big fan of Nintendo's series. His daughter is named after the world famous princess from the game as well.
Nintendo announced on Thursday that it has sold over 40 million 3DS systems in the United States since the system launched in March of 2011. Nintendo made its announcement alongside the NPD group numbers for July, which showed that that four of the top-ten best selling games at U.S. retail were for the system. Nintendo did not say how many of these sales were bundles or if it included sales numbers for the 2DS in the figure.
Atlanta-based company InComm has acquired point-of-sales services company SIRAS.com Inc. from Nintendo of America, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
InComm global provider of gift, debit and card technology. The company said it acquired SIRAS to help it expand "asset control and point-of-sale services to retailers."
SIRAS will become a wholly owned subsidiary of InComm. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Our favorite photogenic contributor Andrew Eisen offers a new video delving into Nintendo's most recent financial results. Not only is it a lot of fun to watch, you might learn a thing or two about where Nintendo is and where it expects to be by the end of its current Fiscal Year.
There's also some talk about the next Fatal Frame game, and the Wii U version of Watch Dogs, and Andrew highlights the fact that America is Nintendo's top market. See, Nintendo, America still loves you!
Dan Adelman, the guy that used to be in charge of Nintendo's indie program, has been let go by the company. In an interview with Kotaku he also said that Nintendo basically banned him from tweeting after he made comments about region locking and the 3DS port of The Binding of Isaac. Further, Adelman claims that Nintendo's PR department wanted to take his Twitter account over for him.
While the last three months have shown marked improvement for Nintendo console and software sales, the maker of Wii U, 3DS, and all things Mario still found itself struggling. Nintendo reported that it raked in 74.7 billion yen ($731.5 million) for the three month period that ended on June 30, 2014, down by approximately 8.4 percent compared to the same period a year ago. The company also recorded a loss of 9.9 billion yen ($96.9 million), compared to profits of 8.6 billion yen ($84.2 million) in the same period a year ago.
Companies would like to believe that the people who invest in them understand the business they are trying to make a return on and that they believe in it to some degree, but the sad truth is that for every shareholder who understands what they are putting their money into there might be one that doesn't have a clue or doesn't care beyond the financial return or loss.
On this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's health and being reelected by the company's board, a bunch of topics related to Electronic Arts, and whether Microsoft should bother selling the Kinect separately from the Xbox One. All this and more awaits in the latest episode of the Super PAC. Download Episode 104 now: SuperPAC Episode 104 (1 hour, 13 minutes) 84.1 MB.
During yesterday's annual shareholder meeting, Nintendo re-elected president Satoru Iwata to the board of directors. Iwata was not at the meeting - he's still recovering from a major surgery. The proposal to re-elect Iwata and nine other executives was approved without any opposition (PDF).
Nintendo UK says that it will appeal a decision by a UK High Court judge who ruled last week that the Wii and Wii U violate several patents held by Philips. High Court judge Colin Birss said Nintendo infringed two Philips patents in a ruling last week related to the sensor and camera used in the Wii and Wii U. The judge said that Nintendo did not violate a third patent related to modeling a body in a virtual environment.
Nintendo issued the following statement on the matter:
The High Court of the United Kingdom has ruled that Nintendo's Wii console system infringes on two of Philips' patents, Bloomberg reports. Judge Colin Birss said Nintendo infringed two Philips patents in a ruling today related to the sensor and camera used in the Wii. The judge said that Nintendo did not violate a third patent related to modeling a body in a virtual environment.
A federal appeals court has dismissed a patent infringement claim against Nintendo's Wii Remote controller filed by Triton Tech in 2010. The lawsuit was first filed by Triton Tech in 2010, but was dismissed by a Seattle district court judge because the patent "did not adequately describe a complete invention." The judge rendered the patent invalid. But Triton decided to appeal the decision in the federal appeals court. The Appeals court upheld the lower court ruling on June 13.
In a bid to promote its 2DS - the no-frills version of its 3DS hand-held gaming system, Nintendo will kick off a multi-city tour allowing gamers in select areas try out the device and the newest games for it. Games scheduled for the tour include Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Yoshi’s New Island, Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Super Mario 3D Land, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, and Mario Kart 7.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said lots of interesting things while he was at E3 last week. Adding to his comment that watching people playing games isn't exciting (millions of people do it every day on Twitch and YouTube), Fils-Aime told the Seattle Times that the Wii U is currently second place in console war, right behind Sony's PS4 and right ahead of Microsoft's Xbox One.
It's E3 week and Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Sony and Nintendo are doing their damnedest to convince us to buy their stuff.
Earlier this week, Nintendo had a digital event announcing it's upcoming games while the other four hosted full press conferences. Who had the best show?
If you need a refresher, you can read our recaps here: