Talking Point

Last one before E3

It's that time again, the weekend is upon us. It's been a busy week here at Nintendo Life, so naturally we're planning to unwind for a couple of days with some quality gaming. This will be the last of these features for a few weeks, however, as we'll be busy bringing you all of the content you could ever want for that gaming...

Too good to ignore

Not long ago, we brought you a feature on Bargain Bin DS Games, detailing some excellent games available for relatively little money. The response to the article highlighted how many little-known or under-appreciated gems the DS library has, as it seems to have been a platform that encouraged a lot of creativity from developers...

Time for another round

It's Friday, so there's a temptation to quote the lyrics from the worst pop song ever, but instead we're going to get ourselves ready for another gaming weekend. After we first shared our weekend plans with you a few weeks ago, we thought that more members of the team should share the most intimate details of their gaming...

Competitive download prices for a good cause

We’re just one month away from the 3DS eShop's first anniversary, a busy period that’s seen the service grow and evolve. A modest start, including a slow-burn of actual 3DS exclusives, made way for a vibrant period of service improvements, game demos and, most importantly, some top quality games. The...

CoD always sells

For those of you that follow gaming news beyond Nintendo, one title has been dominating all headlines: Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The Activision behemoth has been everywhere, grabbing attention ahead of a 'global reveal' and then accounting for the bulk of news stories on many multi-platform websites in the aftermath. While it's...

Sword blunted

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was one of the most anticipated Wii games ever. After years of teasing it finally launched in November 2011, and has so far racked up 3.52 million sales around the world, a decent performance over a five-month period. It's on par with Wii launch title Twilight Princess, which sold 3.27m units between...

Mario out of thin air

Now that Nintendo’s got the announcement of financial losses out of the way, it can look ahead to plans for the coming year. As expected, follow-up statements to investors revealed some interesting insights into the company’s plans, with the biggest news that Nintendo's 3DS retail games will be available to download later...

Time for a transition

Today Nintendo announced its annual financial results, and the big headline is that it made a loss of 43 billion Yen, roughly $529m USD or £327m GBP. While we don't need to fear for the future of the company at this stage due to its significant stockpiles of cash and assets, it’s nevertheless a blow for the big N. The loss...

Augmenting profit

Nintendo made a big deal of augmented reality at 3DS' launch, but it's all gone a bit quiet on the gaming-on-your-table front aside from scant appearances as extra modes in titles like Kid Icarus: Uprising, or in its various uses in horror games that don't cut it. The 3D overlay technology, through which games and avatars can...

Aside $$$

The biggest news that came out of Nintendo Direct yesterday was the announcement of New Super Mario Bros. 2 for Nintendo 3DS. To say that the revival of 2D Mario has been a gigantic success for Nintendo is somewhat of an understatement; both New Super Mario Bros. on DS and New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold over 25 million copies each worldw

What else are weekends for?

Another busy week has passed, whether you've spent it at work, school, college or somewhere else, and now it's time to sit back and chill out over the weekend. For many of us that means taking some time for gaming, either delving into something new or playing an old favourite. We've taken a quick poll of four members of...

Cool heads should prevail

One news story has been dominant on Nintendo Life since it was posted, attracting a significant number of comments from the community. The news that MDK2 developers Beamdog will never develop for Nintendo again seemed to strike nerves, as strongly worded statements generally do. Writing on Twitter, studio president Trent...

The plumber's conundrum

The news that Shigeru Miyamoto will show off Super Mario Bros. on Wii U at E3 is more or less confirmation of what we all expected. When 3DS faltered many said Nintendo needed to show the way with a Mario game, and Super Mario 3D Land's Christmas appearance gave the console a big shot in the arm, becoming its first...

Lots of plumbing to do

Back in 1985, no-one could have imagined that a plumber saving a princess from the clutches of an evil turtle king could become one of gaming’s defining moments. Since the release of the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES, Mario has become not only the face of Nintendo, but arguably the face of gaming as a whole. Shigeru...

It's how you use it

One topic's dominated the Wii U news since Nintendo revealed its new console at E3 2011 — just how powerful is it? Nintendo's Wii U technical specifications give the vaguest of nods to its under-the-hood power, just mentioning a multi-core IBM processor — which we know is based on game show-conquering chip Watson — but it...

First impressions count

With each passing week we get closer to the arrival of Nintendo’s next home console, Wii U. It’s due by the end of 2012, yet there’s still so much that we don’t know: technical specifications, prices, planned launch games and even the final name. All of these factors will be important to its early success, but...

How will it affect our gaming?

For Nintendo gamers, the video game market is currently a simple, relatively traditional place. If you want to buy a retail title, you hit the high street or visit your online retailer of choice and pick up a box with a disc or game cart inside. Pop that media into your Wii, 3DS or DS and you’re immediately playing...

Achievement unlocked?

Back in 2005, Microsoft kick-started the HD console era with Xbox 360, at the time a technical marvel with online capabilities that were one of the jewels in its creamy white, far-too-easily overheating crown. However, while online play, reams of downloadable content (DLC) and a single, unified community were indeed admirable...

Developers left out of the party

Recent weeks have seen some positive news for Nintendo and 3DS: a truly abysmal launch period has been forgotten by many, as a major price drop and some heavy-hitting titles have resuscitated the device. It’s now exuding respectability after a difficult summer in 2011 when it looked like a flawed idea and,...

'Project $10' and what it could mean

With the number of gamers indulging in online play on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at an all-time high, it’s disheartening sometimes to observe how far Nintendo has been lagging behind, as far as online functionality goes. For those lucky enough to own more than one console, the Wii isn’t exactly the go-to...

Time to evolve onto 3DS

Given that the 3DS console has been on sale worldwide for nearly a year now, the desolate wastes of its almost non-existent software library have finally blossomed into a variety of must-have titles. But there’s one Nintendo property that’s still criminally under-represented on the handheld: Pokémon. The franchise has...

Near Field Communication: cooler than it sounds

As you may have noticed, we've seen a flurry of news stories coming out of Nintendo HQ in the past few days. We started with bad news, that Nintendo expects to make a loss in the current financial year, though the news that Wii U will launch in time for Christmas 2012 helped ease the pain. Of course, soon we might have to stop calling it Wii U, due..

Everyone stay calm

This week game cheats have been in the news. We learnt about the origins of the Konami Code and, controversially, that Nintendo has no plans to fix Mario Kart 7’s Maka Waku glitch. All this talk of codes, shortcuts and glitches got us thinking about the morality of these gaming quirks: when is it acceptable to take advantage of...

What was in your stocking?

By now you've unwrapped (and probably discarded most of) your Christmas presents and digested your Christmas meal. It's time to talk what you got this year. No, we don't mean the Christmas meal: tell us about your Nintendo Christmas presents. Was Satoru Claus good to you this year? Drop us a comment below and let us know...