Nintendo responds to marriage equality campaign for its bizarre life-sim
Nintendo has no problem with its Mii-based Tomodachi Life being off-kilter, but when it comes to the handheld game’s same-sex avatars being able to wed, well, that’s a different story. Tomodachi Life is all about the interactions and relationships between an island full of Miis, and as two characters’ dating progresses they’ll eventually walk down the aisle, unlock a bigger home and have children — so long as one is, say, Mario and the other is Princess Peach. A fan called the gaming giant on this, urging the internet to use the “#Miiquality” hashtag across social media when requesting that the company change its stance. Nintendo’s response? It told the Associated Press that it “never intended to make any form of social commentary” with the 3DS game’s launch.
“The relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation. We hope that all of our fans will see that ‘Tomodachi Life’ was intended to be a whimsical and quirky game, and that we were absolutely not trying to provide social commentary.”
This isn’t a new issue. After the game launched in Japan last year, there was a bug that allowed male Miis to marry one another and have children (but not two females). Nintendo addressed this by telling players to download a title update if they noticed “human relations that become strange.” In regards to that, the outfit recently told the AP via email that “the ability for same-sex relationships to occur in the game was not part of the original game that launched in Japan, and that game is made up of the same code that was used to localize it for other regions outside of Japan.”
Changing the game this close to release isn’t feasible, but a patch could be issued after the game releases. To that, Nintendo told the AP that it’s “carefully and thoughtfully” considered the responses it’d received via Twitter and the like, and it will continue considering the feedback. “We’re using this as an opportunity to better understand our consumers and their expectations of us at all levels of the organization.”
It’s worth noting that gay marriage isn’t legal in Japan, and this could be seen as a reflection of the country’s values. In contrast, Western-developed games like the Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, Fable, Mass Effect and The Sims series have taken steps to be more inclusive, allowing same-sex marriage and relationships.
Via: CNet
Source: Associated Press
Nintendo’s smartphone efforts start to surface
At the start of the year, Nintendo explained that while it wasn’t bringing its gaming properties to the smartphone carrying millions, it would be tackling the platform as a way of attracting more people to its games and consoles. Let’s not get too excited — the above isn’t an app (apparently), but a web-based portal. Nintendo’s done these in the past, but they haven’t been quite as feature-rich as this. You’ll see a feed of your friends activities (this one’s all about Mario Kart), while there’s apparently separate pages for movies and rankings. There’s no Nintendo Network ID required to access the service, but you will need said ID to login and establish your own rankings and upload videos. No launch dates, but we’d assume it will fall in line with the launch of the next Mario Kart installment. Oh, and there’s E3 next month.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Nintendo
Source: Nintendo
Nintendo is making entirely new consoles for emerging markets
Nintendo’s Wii U woes are well known by this point, but the Japanese company’s latest move to expand its gaming reach is incredibly unexpected. Rather than pare down the existing Wii U hardware for emerging markets, the outfit is developing an entirely new console, according to Bloomberg. “We want to make new things, with new thinking rather than a cheaper version of what we currently have,” company president Satoru Iwata said. “The product and price balance must be made from scratch.”
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Nintendo
Source: Bloomberg
Nintendo plans new NFC figures and games in a bid to rescue the Wii U
We hope you liked Skylanders, because Nintendo is apparently setting up its own range of toys to accidentally tread under foot. At the company’s financial briefing this morning, it outlined a Mario figure that could be used across multiple titles, somehow tying into game saves too. It’s not the first for Nintendo’s console: Pokemon Scramble connected NFC toys to the Wii U last year. Interestingly, Nintendo had apparently declined exclusivity on Activision’s lucrative Skylanders series.
These physical characters and games, grouped together as NFP (which apparently stands for both NFC Featured Platform and Nintendo Figurine Platform), will debut at this year’s E3, alongside a new IR reader for 3DSes that will make the toys compatible across both the handheld and the Wii. With 3DS sales currently totaling 43 million, and the Wii U struggling to top six million, it’s probably a wise business decision.
The briefing also revisited the Wii U quick-boot function the company teased back in January, including a short preview trailer. The teaser plays out almost exactly like its earlier mock-up — except, you know, real. Iwata says the quick-boot feature will be included in the console’s summer update. Care to take a look? Check out the video below.
Nintendo had another very bad year and it’s all the Wii U’s fault
Nintendo’s reported a staggering loss of $456 million for the past financial year. The blame is being laid squarely at its relatively young console, the Wii U. Sales have slowed significantly: Nintendo sold 2.72 million Wii Us in the last twelve months. (Running totals for the Xbox One and PS4: five and seven million, respectively). In the last quarter, only 310,000 units were sold. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s handhelds continue to sell more favorably: 12 million 3DSes were sold in the last financial year, meaning there’s now just shy of 43 million sold globally. It remains third consecutive year of losses for Nintendo, but CEO Iwata claims that this incoming financial year will see a return to operating profit ($394 million, he reckons) and millions more consoles sold. Then again, he said similar things last year.
The Wii U managed to sell close to 3 million units in its launch quarter, but despite markdowns and (perhaps too few) incredible titles, sales continue to tank. From Nintendo itself: “The Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo’s profits, owing mainly to it’s markdown (overseas).” The beleaguered gamesmaker plans to focus on the console’s GamePad, calling it the “the most important differentiator of the Wii U” and expects both Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart to act as the main drivers for console sales — no pun intended.
Source: Nintendo
Nintendo bundling Wii U with two games and an extra controller for $330 on May 30th
You don’t have a Wii U yet, right? You’re forgiven, and far from unique (in that respect, anyway — you’re a unique snowflake otherwise). Should the eighth entry in the Mario Kart series pique your interest, Nintendo’s got a pretty fantastic bundle arriving at the end of May with a copy of the game, an extra Wii Remote Plus gamepad, and a free download of one of four games. All that stuff comes together in one box for $329.99 — a pretty great deal considering the Wii U system in the box costs $300 by itself!
Head below for a new trailer for Mario Kart 8, as well as more on why Nintendo would offer a brand new game for free alongside its console.
The price isn’t a measure of Nintendo trying to save you dough, but one of a company struggling to make its game console relevant against growing competition from Sony and Microsoft. The PlayStation 4′s sales are already outpacing the Wii U, at 7 million consoles compared to Nintendo’s 5.86 million (as of Dec. 31 2013); Xbox One isn’t far behind at 5 million.
With major third-party publishers like EA and Ubisoft largely abandoning the Wii U, Nintendo’s leaning on first-party software to sell the system. And that’s where this Spring’s Mario Kart 8 comes in, the latest entry in a series going back to the Super Nintendo era. Like Microsoft offering Titanfall bundled in with Xbox One, Nintendo is bundling a major, exclusive release with its console, and taking a hit on profits from game sales in favor of putting more Wii Us in more living rooms. The hope is, in the long run, more consoles in homes means more game / accessory sales (which is where the real money is for Nintendo).
The company also announced this week that it’s going to (once again) skip holding a press conference at E3, instead opting to host a Nintendo Direct video stream.
Joystiq Weekly: Mario’s links, socially conscious awards and a mobile hitman
Welcome to the Joystiq Weekly wrap-up where we present some of the best stories and biggest gaming news from our sister-publication.
- Nintendo’s been chronically late to the party with modern accoutrements, but it’s just joined the season-pass club with Mario Golf: World Tour.
- Indie hits Papers, Please; Gone Home and The Mission US: A Cheyenne Odyssey take home top honors at The Games for Change Festival, an awards ceremony for socially conscious games.
As unassuming and stylish as the rest of the series is melodramatic and bombastic, Hitman Go is an impressive debut for Square Enix Montreal. The play style recalls the strategic thinking of the console/PC games, but does so with an entirely new style that fits touch-based devices like a fine leather glove.
- Instead of shoe-horning a typical entry of the long-running stealth series Hitman onto iOS, Square-Enix transformed it into a tense board game, earning a lot of love from Joystiq‘s Anthony John Agnello in the process.
Until next Sunday, that’s it! Check back in seven days for another recap, or, you know, head over to Joystiq and catch all of the news as it happens.
[Image credit: dcmaster/Flickr]
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Nintendo
Source: Joystiq
Feedback Loop: phone prices, mobile Chrome extensions, television shows and more!
Welcome to Feedback Loop, a weekly roundup of the most interesting discussions happening within the Engadget community. There’s so much technology to talk about and so little time to enjoy it, but you have a lot of great ideas and opinions that need to be shared! Join us every Saturday as we highlight some of the most interesting discussions that happened during the past week.
This week, we talk about the ridiculous pricing structure of cellphones, discuss the possibility of extensions in a mobile browser, share thoughts on HBO’s Silicon Valley and fondly recall our memories of the Game Boy. Do you have something to say? Head past the break to join the conversation!
Will we ever see cheaper phones?
Earlier this week, OnePlus unveiled its new smartphone, the One. It’s a flagship-level phone that will be available at a fairly reasonable price point. Frank asks if this will finally break the current pricing model of phones here in the United States. It’s an interesting question: Why are our cellphones so expensive? Especially when compared to tablets, which use nearly identical components. What do you think it will take for us to have access to cheaper cellphones?
Extensions for Chrome on mobile devices?
Chrome has been one of the more popular browsers on traditional desktop computers for some time. One of the best parts of Chrome is its rich catalog of extensions. Thanks to the flexibility and increased convenience that browser extensions have given us, it seems only logical that we should eventually see them on our mobile devices, right? GF wants to know when we’ll see them and why Google and Apple haven’t allowed them yet. What do you think the holdup is? And what browser extension would you absolutely love to see on a mobile device? Head over to the forums and let us know.
Tech Television: Share your thoughts on Silicon Valley
HBO announced that it signed Silicon Valley for an additional season based on strong ratings from the first three episodes. Over in the forums, we’ve been sharing our impressions of the show. Have you had a chance to check it out yet? Tell us what you think!
Nintendo’s Game Boy turns 25
Nintendo’s Game Boy system hit a pretty crazy milestone, turning 25 years old. Dan Cooper wants to know if you have any special memories of your time with the device. Do you remember the first time you ever played a Game Boy? Share your story in the Engadget Forums.
That’s all this week! Do you want to talk about your favorite gadget or have a burning question about technology? Register for an Engadget account today, visit the Engadget forums and start a new discussion!
One of Activision’s top moneymakers gets a new entry in Skylanders: Trap Team
Like taxes, iPhones and, well, Madden, you can count on a new Skylanders game every year. If you’re unfamiliar with the franchise, that may just be a symptom of not being around kids — the toy / video game series is a dominant force in the kids gaming market, sharing responsibility with biggies like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft for bringing in 80 percent of Activision’s earnings in 2013. Each new entry in the game series comes with a new physical device for reading toy figurines; when said figurines are placed on the device (called a “portal”), they’re transported into the game world and playable in-game.
Between the figures ($5 – $7 apiece, on average) and the games (anywhere from $7 to $60), it’s easy to understand why the franchise is so profitable. Thankfully, the franchise is also lauded by most critics as a pretty decent game, too. The next entry, Skylanders: Trap Team, arrives this October — the first time the series is on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One — and it’s the largest game in the franchise to date.
When Skylanders: Trap Team launches on October 5th in North America (the 10th in Europe), it arrives with a new portal, and also even larger Skylanders figures than before. The hook this time around (beyond the whole “putting a toy from the real world into a game” thing) is the ability to “trap” in-game enemies. Using one of eight “Traptanium Traps” — that’s eight colored real-world toys that must be purchased — you can “trap” enemies (store the character data from the game). That enemy can then be used in-game, just like a Skylander. This enables players to quickly switch between two characters, one Skylander and one boss character, on-the-fly. There’s also a neat interactivity aspect wherein the portal now has a speaker and the boss character, once captured, will comment on the game in real-time.
We spoke with Toys for Bob’s Paul Reiche, head of the studio that both created the Skylanders franchise and headed up development of Skylanders: Team Trap. Before you ask: yes, all previous Skylanders toys work with this new one. All the parents in the crowd say “Yay-a!” Reiche (pronounced “Richy”) walked us through the new game, the scope of the series, and spoke to the design of the new characters. What’s with the new traps? Why are the characters larger? And what the heck is “traptanium”? Allow him to explain in the video above, and get a much closer look at all the new hardware while you’re at it.
Video produced by Edgar Alvarez and Daniel Orren.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
Flippypad, a Project Ara concept gamers could get behind
By now, everyone has probably heard about Google’s Project Ara modular smartphone that should arrive in January 2015.
While there are plenty of people talking about the potential to swap out components such as the display, camera, processor, battery, etc., one concept is making its way around the web that could bring an almost Nintendo DS/3DS gaming experience to the smartphone.
Designer Samuel Herb is sharing a concept he created called Flippypad for Project Ara, a hinged controller that turns the smartphone into “a neat little clamshell gaming device.”
The concept has L and R buttons, a D-Pad, two flat joysticks “and the familiar ABXY diamond.” The hinged component concept also connects into the back of Project Ara to power and integrate it.
This could be the perfect accessory for gamers who want to carry as little with them as possible and allow them to get great gaming experience out of their mobile device as well.
Herb said that if anyone wants to see something like this made, they should try and get the word out, then maybe it will find its way to the right people and he can start developing it for real.
Would you be interested in such an component/accessory? Are you excited for Project Ara?
The post Flippypad, a Project Ara concept gamers could get behind appeared first on AndroidGuys.
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