Poor Nintendo. They were the biggest name in gaming through the Nintendo 64 but just lost traction along the way. Sure, the Wii was a sales success but they lost third-party support along the way and that hasn’t changed with the underpowered Wii U. That being said, Nintendo was probably the top first-party developer and publisher last year and this year’s E3 presentation hopes to help them retain the title.
Back in October, we covered complaints over the price of the PlayStation Four and Xbox One in Brazil. As a result of the country’s high import duties and taxes, the PS4, which is priced at $400 in America, costs the equivalent of $1,800 USD in Brazil while the Xbox One jumped in price from $500 to $1,000.
Sony and Microsoft are continuing in the Brazilian market despite very nearly being priced out of it because of the local taxes. On the other hand, Nintendo has decided that the prices caused by high taxes are too much so they are pulling their products from Brazil.
If you want to make a big wave in marketing your game at E3, you don’t take your game onto IGN or anyone else’s all-day E3 livestream or even make it a part of your media briefing. You take your in-development game to Conan O’Brien for a Clueless Gamer segment.
For his latest Clueless Gamer segment, Conan took at look at the upcoming Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
Now that you’ve caught up on reading about the latest offerings from the crew at Nintendo, how about we all watch the latest offerings from Nintendo. While we might have been complaining about a lack of system sellers on the Wii U thus far, it looks like the next 18 months of the Wii U’s life might just be worth picking up the console, especially when it comes down to the $300 price range from the $350 in Canada.
For the second straight year, Nintendo forewent the big press event and instead kicked off the first official day of E3 with a special Nintendo Direct video conference. While it might scream of a company bleeding cash, it may not have been a bad idea this year. With neither Sony nor Microsoft setting the world on fire with their media briefings, the door was open for the white brand to make a big impression.
Not only did they have a big opportunity, they took it and got people excited about Nintendo for the first time in a few years.
Nintendo has had a hell of a time figuring out how this whole YouTube thing works. Last year, they started cracking down on Let’s Play videos on YouTube by using the video website’s ContentID system to claim revenue from those videos. They also claimed that they were dropping story mode from the upcoming Super Smash Bros. on Wii U because the cutscenes would end up on the internet so it defeated the purpose.
Now, Nintendo, in their great benevolence, have decided to meet Nintendo fans halfway. Rather than take all the ad revenue from the people who help promote their games on YouTube, Nintendo has announced a new YouTube affiliate program that will see both parties splitting the ad revenue.
We knew that Nintendo has been in rough shape since the launch of their current-gen Wii U console was a catastrophic flop. Between not having any killer apps on launch to an apparent massive marketing problem getting the message out that the Wii U is a new console and not a controller, the last year-and-a-half hasn’t been pretty for the granddaddy of game companies.
Yesterday’s quarterly earnings call showed how bad the situation is for Nintendo. The company announced a big loss for the fiscal year, noted poor Wii U sales for the first nine months of the fiscal year and lowered expectations for 3DS sales for the year.
There are few series in gaming that are as iconic and as loved as Nintendo’s Super Mario series. Despite the fact that Mario has been around for over 30 years, Nintendo has this way of reinventing Mario and the Super Mario series with each new console generation. The result is games that bring new gamers into Nintendo and Mario while still giving fans who have played Mario games for their whole lives something to love.
For the industry shaking Wii console, Nintendo took Mario to the one place he’d never been before: The final frontier. Not only did Mario’s first adventure in outer space prove to be a smash hit, at release, it was considered one of the best Wii and platformer games of all-time.
I don’t want to sound like I’m slagging off Nintendo but this news should really worry some people back in Japan. In its first weekend on the market in the UK, the PlayStation 4 is already the top-selling next-gen console having beaten both the Xbox One and Wii U.
Last week was a pretty good week to be a Nintendo fan. Mario had a big release last Friday on the Wii U with the launch of Super Mario 3D World. Meanwhile, on the 3DS, Link was back with a new handheld exclusive in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. I’d say that the 3DS needs love too but I’m pretty sure that everyone with a 3DS (or 2DS) is still playing Pokemon X & Y.
It seems as though that Nintendo managed to reinvigorate two of their most classic and iconic franchises in one day. Critics raved about both the accessibility of the game for those new to Zelda and the depth of gameplay and story for long-time players. Not everyone felt that way as some critics felt that A Link Between Worlds didn’t try anything particularly new and goes too easy on players.
et geekera 