Tag: Talking Point - Page 18
Poll Do You Follow and Watch Rival Console Reveals?
Microsoft's new Xbox is next up
We're just going to come out and do it, and gauge just how much you, the Nintendo Life community, have been following the rival console reveals of the PS4 and today's Xbox Next/Infinity/they-might-just-call-it-Xbox event. As a network that includes www.pushsquare.com and www.purexbox.com, the latter of which is also...
Talking Point Nintendo Should Step Up for the Wii U eShop
It can be the home of creative new ideas from the big N
So, where does the eShop stand at roughly six months old? It's had an uneven release schedule, but looking at it as a complete picture we feel that it has a solid initial library with decent variety, combining some multi-platform titles with the odd exclusive thrown in, with genres and price...
Talking Point Nintendo's Mixed Week With Wii U Third-Party Support
If someone gives you lemons, make lemonade
The video game industry is a strange beast, especially for Nintendo and its Wii U system. Since launch it's had some early ups with launch week sales and some thoroughly decent releases, but also lows with a loss of momentum and a fair amount of negative press. Some excellent exclusive software has arrived...
Talking Point The Increasing Relevance of Kickstarter
We speak to successful crowdfunders
Kickstarter, as regular readers of Nintendo Life have no doubt noticed, is becoming increasingly visible in the gaming media. It's not just here that the crowdfunding site is gaining a lot of web space, as increasing numbers of fundraisers begin to emerge, gain significant support and, of interest to us here,...
Talking Point DLC's Increasingly Important Role for Nintendo
Games are a bit less 'final' than they used to be
It's not so long ago that Sony and Microsoft's platforms began to drown in DLC (downloadable content) while, for Nintendo gamers, it was largely restricted to the occasional Guitar Hero or Rock Band track on Wii. Nintendo had an attitude of adopting online trends and practices in its own sweet time,...
Talking Point The Wii U Virtual Console Has Started, But Not With a Bang
Oh for the days of that Revolution reveal
The Wii U Virtual Console is well and truly up and running, which its greatest supporters will say is a more-than-welcome boost of old-school goodies to fill out the Wii U lineup, and the greatest cynics may say it's another example of Nintendo mastering the art of selling very old rope. Based on the...
Talking Point Why Nintendo Life is a Part of the Animal Crossing: New Leaf Mayor Program
Jon gets recruited as an early Mayor, sadness ensues
If you follow us on twitter you may have noticed that our Editor-At-Large, Jon Wahlgren, has in his enviable, clammy hands an English-language digital copy of Nintendo’s newest quaint life sim, Animal Crossing: New Leaf. In fact, a few dozen people have received early copies — not only the...
Talking Point Censoring Boingy Bits, Bums and Gore
Won't somebody think of the children?
The past week has brought us a couple of stories around the localisation of Fire Emblem: Awakening that, depending on your viewpoint, may be considered either funny, quirky or a disheartening example of censorship. We had the Nintendo of Europe translation of one conversation remove a rather juvenile reference...
Talking Point What Games Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue Twelve
It's what we do
The weekend is upon us, dear readers, and rather than relax our weary minds with some rest we plan to exercise our thumbs and senses with some gaming shenanigans. And why not? A sharp mind is always important, whether it's planning strategies for turn-based battles or assessing an environment before charging in with guns blazing,...
Talking Point Lessons to be Learned, Again, From the Wii U Games Drought
Fresh approaches can avoid repeat scenarios
So here's the deal, Wii U owners. The next notable exclusive for the platform isn't due until late June — when Game & Wario hits North America — and then Pikmin 3 hits the same region on 4th August. The eShop DLC-exclusive New Super Luigi U comes in the summer at an undefined point; if you're in...
Talking Point It's Time for a 3DS Storage Upgrade From Nintendo
Small price, lots of space
When the 3DS was launched, it didn't even have an eShop to enjoy, and even after the online store arrived the pack-in 2GB SD card seemed perfectly adequate. With a mix of Game Boy Virtual Console titles, the odd 3D Classic and the first flashes of download-only titles from third parties, the number of blocks offered up by...
Talking Point The Importance of the Virtual Console
Old games seem to sell
The start of a new console generation is always problematic for fans of older titles, as with each passing system backward compatibility becomes an increasing issue, and older titles risk being lost to the ages due to damage. Nintendo’s recent policy has been one of allowing backward compatibility for the previous generation...
Talking Point Nintendo's Changing the Media Game at E3
Abandoning the big presentation
So here's how the E3 game is supposed to be played by the three major game manufacturers. They appear at E3, talk up how exciting it's going to be, and then hold a high-profile press conference that's viewed by thousands of gamers before being mercilessly dissected. At that point senior figures conduct interviews to...
Talking Point The Wii U's Identity Crisis
Muddled messages aren't helping matters
Let's start this with some clear points, to head-off accusations before they're made. No, we don't think Nintendo is doomed and no, we don't think the Wii U is doomed. While critical of some aspects of the Wii U since release, in general we've maintained a line that the system cannot be judged yet, and that...
Talking Point The Arrival of eShop Download Codes in Stores is a Smart Move
Another step forward
This week it was announced that Nintendo of Europe had established an agreement with retailer GAME, for it to exclusively sell select download codes from the high street and its website; it's the first serious move to match up to similar download cards already available in Japan. The GAME retail group has stores across Europe as...
Talking Point Fire Emblem: Awakening - The Big Casual Mode Debate
Classic or Casual - which mode do you play?
Fire Emblem: Awakening is finally available in Europe after a couple of additional months of waiting. The series itself is now 23 years old, and is arguably one of the more 'hardcore' franchises that Nintendo owns. One element Fire Emblem is known for is its punishing levels of difficulty, which has never...
Talking Point iDÉAME, Unity and Nintendo's Continuing Indie Crusade
Yet more evidence of the vital role of smaller studios
If you go back even a relatively short amount of time, for example ten years, most gaming was locked down by fairly high profile releases from the great gate-keepers of the games industry, such as Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Capcom, EA, Activision, Ubisoft and more. These names are all familiar...
Talking Point What Games Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue Eleven
Yikes, we're up to number 11?
So, OK, we've done some seasonal issues of this jolly series of features, so this isn't actually the 11th entry in the series. But the idea of shamelessly riffing off a Hollywood movie only came to us when typing out "Issue Eleven", so it is what it is. What we do have is another collection of weekend gaming plans from...
Talking Point The Blurring Lines of Kickstarter Fundraising Goals
Pwnee Studios gives its perspective on the publication deal with Ubisoft
If you go back just a few years, the idea of developers raising funds for non-existent games from the consumer marketplace may have seemed to be a wacky proposition. The thinking may have been along the lines of "ask consumers to pay for a game that isn't even in development...
Talking Point The Next-Gen Console War is Wii U's to Lose
Graphical differences and consumer budgets continue to shrink
If you'll forgive us, let's delve of into a faint whiff of politics in this introduction. In most major industrialised countries — whether in the West or Japan — national economies aren't exactly in rude health. After spells of prosperity and golden toilet seats for all in the...
Talking Point The Terrible Timing of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate's Stock Issues
LEGO City Undercover had problems in North America, too
There's a strange dichotomy at work right now with Nintendo, Wii U and its games. We endured an undeniable retail software drought, with game retailers probably weary of trying to sell the same old launch titles week after week. We then had two diverse, high profile games arrive near each other...
Talking Point Nintendo Should Make EA Co-operation a Priority
Whether we like it or not
Let's say something right off the bat — we expect a number of readers will have read that headline and scoffed audibly, confidently saying that this article is deranged and already wrong. EA isn't exactly flavour of the month, and is at the time of writing a semi-final candidate to once again be crowned as the "worst...
Talking Point The Downside to Delayed Releases on Wii U
What a difference a delay makes
At the start of the year we published a list of our biggest Wii U games of 2013; despite the beginning of a software drought on the system, we felt that the list showed the promise of the software lineup to come. There were eight exclusives at that point, either with fixed release dates or windows that we're confident...
Talking Point Warren Spector Asks, Where Are Gaming's Grown-Ups?
Questions for a young industry
As a Nintendo website, we often treasure and talk the most about games that are based in fantastical and, often, family friendly lands — an Italian plumber running and jumping, miniature creatures assisting a stranded rocket man, an adventure played out by LEGO characters and so on. Occasionally we get edgy and...
Talking Point The Unreal Engine 4 Gaffe Exposes Graphical Snobbery, Again
The fact it's actually scalable for Wii U should surprise no-one
A number of articles on Nintendo Life really got the community talking last week, one of which was our April Fools for the year. In terms of stories that were real, however, we had high profile comments from Epic Games' Mark Rein, who essentially stated that developers on Wii U...
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...
Talking Point What Games Are You Playing This Weekend? - Easter Edition
Insert your own egg/Easter bunny pun here
It's the Easter Holidays which, whether you observe the religious aspects of the occasion or not, often means a long weekend of basking in the Spring sunlight and having a well-earned rest. That said, there's still snow on the ground for some of the Nintendo Life team, so staying inside and playing video...
Talking Point An Open Letter To Nintendo
A Wii U owner's plea to the company they love
Even the most dedicated Nintendo fan will admit that the Wii U hasn't had the best of starts. The console has struggled to shift units in the way that Nintendo expected, and although we've seen some quality software of late — including Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, LEGO City: Undercover and Need for...
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...
Talking Point The Perils and Positives of a Packed Release Schedule
Room for no more
We're all more than a little familiar with video game droughts by now. Until a few years ago, it was tradition to suffer a lack of software in the summer, surviving only on the ever-faithful backlog and the revitalising elixir provided by E3 info dumps. It's common in the months following a console launch too: we're sure you...
Talking Point What Games Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue Ten
Oh baby, it's cold outside
First of all, we should apologise for using a tagline specific to those of us in parts of the world enduring a long Winter — a lot of the NL crew can see snow outside their windows right now, when they should see flowers in bloom and overly-chatty birds that won't stop tweeting (as birds do naturally, not on the social...
Talking Point Wii U eShop Discounts Show It's a Vibrant Marketplace, Not a Monopoly
Nintendo's digital strategy continues to evolve
This week it was confirmed that a sale on Ubisoft's retail Wii U downloads, which arrived in North America in mid-February, will hit Europe this week. It's the latest small landmark in what's become a regular series of subtle evolutions in Nintendo's download platform strategies, and one that strongly...
Talking Point The Problem With 'Old' Wii U Ports
The classic catch-22
So, it looks like Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut is coming to Wii U, with a ratings board classification and the common knowledge that Australia-based studio Straight Right has been working on a high profile Square Enix franchise for Nintendo's new system. Although still in rumour territory until announced at PAX East...
Reaction Doom and Gloom Merchants on Wii U Being Nintendo's Last Home Console
We discuss the casual dismissal of Wii U in some quarters
In a regular series of features, we're going to take a rather strong statement or opinion expressed about Nintendo, and give our own take. These opinions aren't those of the site as a whole, but rather of a collection of your humble Nintendo Life writers. This time around we're looking at a...
Talking Point The Pros and Cons of a Wii U Price War
Sell, sell, sell, say the retailers
Earlier this week we saw a bit of a Wii U price war break out, in the UK at least, with Amazon UK joining Asda in slashing the price of both Wii U models by £50. At the same time, a number of US retailers are being rather creative with their offerings, not necessarily going for a full-blown price reduction but...
Talking Point Review Scores and Unwinnable Arguments
Just how important are review scores?
Last week we published our Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate review; we liked it, despite some flaws that we outlined, and gave it a strong recommendation with a score of 8/10, which counts as "very good" in our review scoring policy. Such was the reaction to the review here, elsewhere and to the...
Talking Point Nintendo's Stock Jump Bodes Well for the Value of Potential
History and pedigree in the industry are vital weapons
This week brought some interesting and, perhaps, unexpected news. Nintendo's stock jumped a little over 7% on the Osaka Stock Exchange, a boost attributed to factors such as a weakening Yen being a benefit against trade in the U.S., while positive economic news from the big N's most valuable...
Talking Point What Games Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue Nine
Because that's what weekends are for
The weekend is upon us, so it's time to break out the good-stuff — by which we main games, obviously. There are always more games to play, even if none of them happen to be new; if you haven't bought anything this week just play something you already have, unless it's a recently released online-only single...
Talking Point NFC and AR - Two Cool Extras That Need Some Love
The features that time forgot
Remember the augmented reality (AR) games on 3DS? Go on, check your handheld, they're still there, quietly sitting on the home screen waiting to be enjoyed. Built into the system for all to experience whenever they like, taking an established technology and adding a hefty dose of Nintendo whimsy and charm. They were...
Talking Point Nintendo's Revised Approach to E3
It’s not all about the LA expo
Nintendo has often been one of the most secretive companies in the world, and while that prevents any unwanted information being leaked ahead of schedule, it means that at times it’s infuriating to follow as a fan. Up until a few years ago, the only chance we got to look inside the hallowed grounds of Nintendo HQ...
Talking Point The Positive Power of Gaming
Stepping away from blaming games
We live in a world where blame is often too easily shifted and personal responsibility too easily avoided. Excuse-making has arguably become the fad of our time; as the laundry-list of blame-accepting environmental influences grows larger, the courage to accept and improve our own faults seemingly becomes more rare...
Talking Point The Slippery Slope of Micro-Transactions
Where will it all end?
We recently shared some news from an investor briefing, in which EA's chief financial officer, Blake J. Jorgensen, outlined EA's plans for a future with micro-transactions in all of its games. It seems pertinent to own up to the fact that the tone of that news article wasn't exactly delighted with the idea — while...
Talking Point WiiWare's Vital Role in a Retro Revival
Introducing bits and pixels to a new generation
The upcoming release of Retro City Rampage on WiiWare arguably represents two important trends for the service — it could be the last notable release on the platform, and it's also yet another "retro" themed release. We'll consider the possible swansong and end of WiiWare in the near future, but for...
Talking Point Sony's PlayStation 4 Poses a Fresh Challenge for Wii U in the 2013 Holidays
A festive dust up
If you live somewhere with no internet access or connection to the outside world, it may be news to you that Sony unveiled its PlayStation 4 console in New York on 20th February. Over the course of two hours it confirmed a Holiday 2013 release, showed off the system's user interface and social functions, a new version of the...
Talking Point Gamer Protests Can Earn Small Wins From Publishers
From 60Hz retro releases in Europe, to freebies and localisations
It seems that in the modern era of social networks, free online news and consumers with greater choice than ever before, there is always something to get thousands of online commentators hot, bothered and outraged. On many occasions there are justifications and genuine reasons behind...
Talking Point The Year of Luigi Could Bring a Burst of Creativity
Stepping out from a big shadow
The most recent round of Nintendo Direct broadcasts opened, whether you were watching in Europe or North America, with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata telling us all about The Year of Luigi. After a solid 18 months when, arguably, Mario was the go-to figure accounting for a healthy portion of Nintendo's release...
Talking Point Early Flirtations With Wii U "Free to Play" Are Just the Start
Blasting away some kinks
While Europeans have endured a rather frustrating trend of late, waiting for various games to arrive that have already graced North America, the region has enjoyed first dibs on the Wii U eShop's dalliances with free-to-play download models. We're referring to Zen Pinball 2 and today's arrival, a downloadable tweaked version...
Talking Point The Emergence of "Niche" Japanese Titles Into The Nintendo Mainstream
If in doubt, go with what you know
As the weeks pass of Wii U's early days, and the 3DS campaigns to prove that gaming handhelds still have a major role to play, there are some signs that Nintendo's being forced to adjust its strategies when preparing new games. With the previous week's debates about third party content — both multi-platform and...
When $200 of credit can't replace $400 of downloaded games
As we've spoken about before, Nintendo's current attitude to downloadable games leaves quite a bit to be desired. The Nintendo Network ID system introduced with the Wii U is a step in the right direction, but the fact that purchases remain tied to a single piece of hardware is, in this day...
Talking Point What Games Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue Nine
Play games and forget your worries
The weekend is here, which for most surely means relaxation and happy times; oh, and video games. No matter what the speculation or news getting the video game industry into a funk, we can always settle back into our favourite hobby to have a good time. As always, some of your humble Nintendo Life writers are...
