March2013
Feature The Nintendo Easter Egg Hunt
We'll get you started with a few
It's Easter Sunday, and however you treat the day there's a good chance that you will, at the very least, eat a little more chocolate than you would on a typical day. However you spend the day, we should also celebrate the fact that the occasion lends its name to one of gaming's coolest features — in-game Easter...
Talking Point Going Mobile Will Give Miiverse a New Lease of Life
A true Nintendo social network
We think that many Wii U owners are likely to agree on one key point: Miiverse is a welcome and excellent new feature on the system. Nintendo was clearly aware that it'd be a major feature and selling point, giving the platform its iconic pre-E3 demonstration and reveal with the viral star, Non-Specific Action Figure...
News Club Nintendo Japan Rocking Five New 3DS LL Cradle Colours
Let your 3DS LL sit in style
There are some new additions in the Japanese Club Nintendo rewards catalogue in the form of five different coloured 3DS LL cradles. As you can see from the image below, club members can choose from a red, green, white, blue and yellow cradle. Any of these colourful cradles can be redeemed for 200 points from Club...
News Nintendo of France: Games Will Improve Wii U Sales, Not A Price Cut
Boost in 3DS sales attributed to first party releases
A lot has been said about the Wii U and its slow sales in 2013. For example, research emerged yesterday from ABI which claimed the success of Nintendo's new home console hinged on a price cut. However, not everyone agrees with this statement. Speaking at GameStop's post-earnings financial call,...
Video Luigi Gets His Hands On The Poltergust 5000
Bustin' makes me feel good
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is out and in the hands of gamers all over the globe, which strikes us as the perfect time to show off this cool "reveal" video for the iconic Poltergust 5000 ghost-busting gadget. Created by Nintendo in conjunction with iam8bit Productions, the video mixes in-game footage with live-action to...
News GameStop: Wii U Marketing Strategy Has "Not Broken Through" To Consumers
More first party titles will enable system to "take off"
Earlier in the month, GameStop President Tony Bartel said Wii U sales had been slower than the company had anticipated and that the system would need some great first party titles in order to compete. The games retailer recently had its post-earnings financial call, which has been reported on...
News Shigeru Miyamoto Makes His Miiverse Debut
Nintendo legend declares 2013 'The Year of Luigi'
Satoru Iwata took to Miiverse for the very first time earlier on to reconfirm that the update Wii U users will receive in April will reduce the time it takes to launch and exit software. Not to be outdone, Shigeru Miyamoto has now made his Miiverse debut by submitting a post to celebrate the Year of...
News New Research Claims Wii U Success Hinges On A Price Cut
ABI believes the video game market is set to improve
The video game market has been contracting in recent years. According to research from ABI, sales of video game consoles dropped by around a quarter in 2012 as the big three systems came towards the end of their life cycles. The launch of the Wii U over the festive period was reasonably...
News Best Buy R.O.B. Saga Reaches a Happy Ending
S.A.V.E.D.
Best Buy has decided not to destroy the R.O.B. unit that nearly cost an employee his job. The robot, which an employee unsuccessfully attempted to take home instead of being recycled as part of Best Buy's Renew Blue program, will instead be sent to the company's corporate headquarters to be put on display. Best Buy had some enthusiastic...
Out Today LEGO City: Undercover And Luigi's Mansion 2
Bumper times ahead for Euro gamers
Nintendo fans are being blessed with some seriously amazing software lately. We've only just had the amazing Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on 3DS and Wii U, and today European gamers have a double helping of brilliance in the shape of LEGO City: Undercover and Luigi's Mansion 2. "There are technical cracks in its...
News Access Miiverse On Your Smartphone And PC By The End Of May
Keep up to date on the go
During a talk at the Game Developers Conference today, Miiverse producer Kiyoshi Mizuki said Nintendo's popular social network application would be accessible on smartphones and PCs between April and May. A 3DS version is currently in development and will arrive sometime in the future, though a release date is unknown at...
News Nintendo To Reveal Its Web Framework For Wii U At GDC
Big N looking to reduce development time for games and applications
The Nintendo Web Framework is due to be unveiled in a panel today entitled "Nintendo Wii U Application Development with HTML and JavaScript" at this week's Game Developer's Conference (GDC). The panel focuses on developing games and applications for Wii U using HTML 5, Javascript...
News Best Buy Employee On A Mission To Save R.O.B.
Battling corporate policy for the sake of gaming history
An employee at Best Buy is currently at risk of losing his job in a desperate bid to prevent a Nintendo Entertainment System Deluxe Set from being recycled. Sharing his story on Reddit, a customer recently brought the set into the store to have it recycled as part of Best Buy's "Renew Blue"...
News Netflix Now Available on TVii
Still no sign of TiVO
TVii was seen as an important selling point for the Wii U in North America at launch. Unfortunately, however, it was delayed by a month and when it was released it only featured Amazon Instant Video and Hulu Plus - services such as TiVO and Google Maps were nowhere to be seen. TiVO is set for an early 2013 release but it...
"Not just another NWC cart auction"
A copy of Nintendo World Championships 1990 owned by none other than "Gamemaster" Howard Phillips has recently sold on eBay for an incredible US $17,367. The game was listed as part of a unique package being offered by Howard, including an all-access badge he wore during the original competition in 1990 and a...
Feature A Short History of Luigi
From palette swap to main man
This week, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon has been scaring — or more likely charming — 3DS owners in North America, while Europeans will get hold of the title very shortly. It represents Luigi's latest solo effort, as he chases ghosts with his Poltergust, with his widely acknowledged debut — bear with us, Mario is...
News Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon Tops Japanese Charts
3DS remains best selling hardware, too
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon has successfully spooked its way to the top of the Japanese sales charts. The 3DS adventure sold 280,151 copies in its first week on sale. The arrival of Luigi's latest outing helped the 3DS shift 76,553 units, putting it ahead of the PS Vita, which sold 41,073 consoles in the same...
News Star Fox Developer: I Wanted To Say "Screw That" To Shigeru Miyamoto
Dylan Cuthbert reveals the magic of working with Nintendo
Star Fox is one of the Super Nintendo's most enduring classics, thanks largely to its ground-breaking use of 3D and tight, immserise gameplay. However, had Dylan Cuthbert — one of the game's key developers — had his way, it might have turned out very differently; something he now admits...
News Miyamoto Teases the Possibility of a Real "Nintendo Land" in the Future
Step right up for the Spirit Tracks runaway train...
While on his press trip around North America in recent weeks, Shigeru Miyamoto has been busy speaking to a variety of outlets about his development philosophies and his most recent projects. It's in an interview with ABC News, however, where Miyamoto has been asked about the prospects of a...
News New 3DS System Update Gives the eShop a Spit and Polish
Update: fix confirmed for any post-update issues
Since posting this article we've been advised in the comments and elsewhere that this system update has caused issues in some cases; when an error occurs it prevents subsequent access to the eShop or System Settings. Courtesy of our wonderful Twitter followers we've been directed to a fix that'll...
News The Nintendo 3DS Celebrates its Two Year Anniversary
Still going strong
Two years ago, on 25th March 2011, the Nintendo 3DS arrived in Europe; its North American release was on 27th March. As the follow-up to the DS family of systems — the biggest selling series of handhelds in history — it arrived with plenty of expectation. After an excitable launch — it landed in Japan in late February —...
Talking Point The Download or Disc Dilemma
Do you download?
In moving from the Wii Shop and DSi Shop to the Wii U eShop and 3DS eShop, Nintendo has shown a desire to compete head on with the Xbox, PlayStation and Steam online marketplaces and offer full retail downloads. It's amazing to think that downloads from the Wii Shop were limited to a meagre maximum of 40MB, yet now we can download...
News Dan Adelman: Nintendo Aims to Make eShop Publishing "as Frictionless as Possible"
Admires indie scene's "willingness to try out new ideas"
This is an important week for game developers of all sizes, as the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) gets underway in San Francisco. Nintendo will naturally have important members of the team on the scene, taking the opportunity to weigh up trends, discussion points and, most importantly, meet...
News Platinum's Kamiya: "No Other Way" That Bayonetta 2 Could Be Made Without Nintendo
It's exclusive for a reason
Platinum Games’ Hideki Kamiya has reminded his Twitter followers that without Nintendo, the highly anticipated Bayonetta 2 wouldn’t be in development. Kamiya, who directed the original Bayonetta for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, is supervising development of the Wii U exclusive and directing a new IP, The Wonderful 101,...
Feature Nintendo Life's Staff Favourites - NES
Let's begin at the beginning
One thing you may have noticed, if you're a regular visitor to Nintendo Life, is that we're more than happy to wear our retro-enthusiast, rose-tinted spectacles as often as possible. A merger with VC-Reviews in April 2009 is an important part of our history, and we often share entertaining blasts from the past and wax...
























