-DEMISE-

@Shugo Uh, it's 320 pages, so I'm willing to bet that it goes significantly deeper in its coverage of those 17 games than that other book does on any of the games it covers, which you can see just from looking at the previews that each game gets about one single paragraph of "review" text. This book is clearly not trying to do the same thing that Ultimate Nintendo book is.

@LordGeovanni Oh Disney is famous for how far they'll go to protect their copyrights. They'll shut down anything and everything that uses their property without permission, if they know about it. For example, a few years ago there was a daycare center not too far from where I live that had painted Disney characters all over the walls of the place. Somehow Disney found out, and they sent a cease and desist notification to the daycare, basically threatening to sue them if they didn't paint over the unauthorized paintings of their characters. Disney would be disgusted at how relaxed Nintendo are with their ip compared to Disney.

@Damo "practically zero..." meaning that relative to the images on each page, the text you and whoever else have written isn't substantial enough to make it a clear-cut and obvious case of fair use, at least not at first glance, which I'm sure was the reason Nintendo filed a claim against the book in the first place. Are you really trying to say that the art assets in this book aren't the primary selling point, and that those images are somehow secondary and complimentary to the original text? Because from what I've seen, it seems like the art and game screens are far and away the main priority, as evidenced by the term "visual" in the title.

Anyway, like I've already said, I don't really have a problem with this book. I think it looks great. And again, I have no idea what kind of deal was settled on with Nintendo. I just find it incredibly peculiar that people think Nintendo are somehow a bunch of blood-sucking monsters for deigning to believe that they should have control over and receive compensation for property that they own, as though the party that sells someone else's intellectual property is more entitled to the money that material brings in than the party that actually created and owns it.

@Ryu_Niiyama Oh, I know all about the kirkmeister and his penchant for defending the indefensible. I generally try to avoid getting into it with people on here, but in certain cases where common sense seems to be completely lost on someone, it's hard for me to hold to that rule.

@Kirk Honestly it is beyond baffling to me that you're actually trying to argue that the people who ACTUALLY OWN the artwork in this book, and are the only ones legally entitled to make money off of it, are somehow "pushing their luck" in (presumably) citing the law to make money off of it, and yet the people who simply compiled that artwork and slapped a cover on it for the specific aim of making money off of work they DON'T own are somehow totally innocent and should be given a pass simply because they're "the little guy".

The fact that one party is smaller than the other and that you clearly have some very negative feelings towards Nintendo because they're a larger company than the one that's profiting off of their work doesn't make the act of profiting off of someone else's work somehow more noble or just. Your ideals are completely backwards on this. I don't personally think this book is that egregious of an offense on Nintendo's copyright, but still, Nintendo DOES own the images in the book, and it's not even remotely wrong for them to not want people making money off of their stuff if they can help it.

And again, do you know that Nintendo are actually taking a cut of the profits from this book? Because no one has said that's the case, as far as I can tell.

@Kirk The difference, which I would assume you know since you seem to have a lot to say about this subject, is that such artwork is generally always considered fair use when it is used in the context of a review, like the ones you posted, but simply selling a bunch of delineated pictures where the pictures themselves are the whole draw is generally not considered fair use. A review is original content, and the pictures included in them are not the main point.

@Kirk It's a picture book full of pictures that belong to someone else. And not all of it is just game screens, some of it is original box art, like this: http://images.nintendolife.com/news/2016/06/bitmaps_next_visual_compendium_turns_its_attention_to_the_nintendo_entertainment_system/attachment/3/original.jpg

@PieNinja That's just Kirk. He gets mad over basically everything along these lines.

@Kirk Um, have you even looked at this book? It's not at all like that magazine. There are no game reviews, and practically zero commentary or original content of any kind. It's a book of full-page images, much of it being cover/instruction booklet art. And that's about it. I'm not surprised that you think it's wrong for Nintendo to get paid for this sort of thing, because you pretty much always think it's wrong for corporations to claim ownership over their own property. If you want to give away your work for free, then by all means go ahead and do that. But fortunately for those of us that actually want to be compensated for the things that we own and produce, there are laws that facilitate that. Yes those laws can be abused by trolls, but Nintendo aren't trolls, at least not in this case.

But all of this is irrelevant anyway, because this article doesn't say anything about Nintendo getting compensated for this book. You're just jumping to that conclusion because you like having a reason to get mad at Nintendo.

@Kirk I understand all the different angles of fair use, but this isn't just using "snippets" of Nintendo-owned art. It's literally just a book full of Nintendo-owned art, with what seems like very little in the way of commentary or interpretive information that would help qualify it as fair use.

@Kirk Maybe, maybe not. But since Nintendo owns all of the artwork included in the book, they have at least as much of a right to be paid for that work as does some random entity that has zero ownership of it. I don't understand why this concept is so controversial for some people.

hmmmm. I've been playing it. It definitely has some fun moments, but it feels a little tedious at times.

Oh how I've longed to hear that slogan again! Fan-freaking-tastic.

@WiltonRoots "Dear Nintendo: All I want is core AAA traditional framerate gimmicks, 1080 fps, Miyamoto's third party to drive a final nail in the coffin and Aonuma to step down because there is no dislike button."

What....

@Kirk I think you may have missed his point. The next part of that paragraph says:

"We try not to focus too much on whether it's already been done. We think, ok, it's been done before, but how can we implement it in our game and make it our own, unique experience?"

So it seems to me that what he's saying is that there are people who think it's bad to implement previously-used ideas, but that the actual philosophy that they follow is that using old ideas isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if they can find a way to utilize those ideas in a way that they find unique or interesting.

@c1pher_c0mplet Right. I hope for the same thing as well. Thankfully the console business is still incredibly lucrative for the industry, so even if Nintendo didn't find much success there with Wii U, they're no doubt still aware that it's an area where they could make a lot of money, which means there's genuine motivation for them to continue making console games that goes beyond just their own desire to stay in that business out of a sense of pride or loyalty to dedicated Nintendo fans.

@c1pher_c0mplet Not to be argumentative or anything, but it seems like you haven't been paying attention to Nintendo-related news over the last year or two. Because what you're saying you HOPE Nintendo realize is what they've already specifically said they realize, which is that success in mobile games can support their core business of making traditional games. And we already know they're buzzing over the potential to make money in the mobile space, since they're in the middle of developing several games for mobile devices, obviously with the aim of making obscene amounts of money for relatively little effort.

@greengecko007 Clearly a unified account would be the ideal solution to many of the eShop's problems, but it's obvious that Nintendo aren't going to take that route with the current generation. But I don't think this developer threw out that figure of "half of the copies" of their game as hyperbole. It really does strike me as a matter of an inexperienced developer who hasn't sold many games and doesn't actually know how to interpret the sales data that Nintendo provides for them. Which isn't to ascribe blame on the developer for anything; it's probably Nintendo's own fault if third-party devs don't know how to navigate the appropriate channels and interpret important information. I just think these guys should probably dig a little deeper into their sales data before they write off the whole notion of making cross-buy available in this way.

@greengecko007 But unless there were only like, twenty copies of this game sold, that wouldn't be a very practical or reliable method for determining how many codes had been given away. Can you imagine parsing through thousands of purchase records by hand and comparing network id's? Because that's what you would have to do, because I doubt Nintendo provides comprehensive analysis tools that track that kind of information/produce results in an easy to understand format, informing developers that half of their downloads were a result of cross-buy codes that had been given away to people that hadn't actually purchased the game. They likely just report back to developers with hard sales numbers and revenue generated.

It also just doesn't sound even remotely plausible that literally everyone who bought this game gave their second copy to someone who didn't actually buy it. Because that means that everyone who bought the game had a friend or family member who owned the system that the code was compatible with, and who also wanted to own this game but hadn't yet bought it. I find it hard to believe that nearly everyone who bought this game fit that criteria. In my opinion, it seems more like this developer is just misinterpreting their sales and revenue results. If you give a free second copy of your game to everyone who buys it, and then half of the copies that end up being downloaded were actually "free" downloads that were acquired through the use of second-copy cross-buy download codes, then the most likely explanation is that people are actually taking advantage of the cross-buy codes and using them as intended. Because if you give away a free copy with every purchase of your game, then you should naturally expect that around half of the copies that get downloaded won't generate revenue for you. Make sense?

@Moshugan If the rumors of NX being a hybrid system turn out to be true, than this issue will be rendered irrelevant.

@PtM They probably didn't know that was an option. That's clearly the best way to do it, though.

I'm not saying I outright don't believe them, but I'm curious how they came to the conclusion that half of the downloads of their game came from people giving away codes. That means that practically everyone who bought this game on one system didn't want their second copy and gave away their second code to someone who not only had the necessary other device to download the game, but also actually wanted the game in the first place. I sincerely doubt that's the case, and I really wonder how or if this sort of thing is actually even tracked.

Haha was Alex going for an American accent on this? Anyway, good stuff.

@Octane I really don't think it is better, and that's coming from someone who's played Star Fox 64 a hundred or more times and loves it thoroughly. It's just that it's old, and time and nostalgia make people less objective in the way they remember things.

@Octane Star Fox Zero is by no means a bad game though, even with unorthodox controls that so many people claim to struggle with. I've played a lot of bad games in my nearly-thirty years of playing games, and Star Fox Zero is not one of them. If it is a bad game, then so is Star Fox 64, since Zero is essentially just a remake of that game. It might be lacking in length and originality, and the graphics might not be impressive, but the exact same things can be said in criticism of Star Fox 64, and yet so many of the people who say Zero is bad seem to somehow think that 64 is some kind of masterpiece.

@MysticX But my point is, I don't think it would be any easier. Wii U might not have an overflow of games, but Nintendo has this other system called 3DS that has more than enough games to make up the difference. Even as a PS4 owner, I can pretty confidently say that there's no way that system or Xbox One have enough exclusive content to make for a more INTERESTING magazine than a Nintendo-focused one would be, and multiplats don't strike me as interesting enough to fill out a platform-specific magazine. Because who would buy an Xbox/Playstation magazine to read about Call of Duty or FIFA, when vastly superior magazines like Edge already exist to serve that portion of the market? Just my opinion though.

@Octane lol I don't think you know what an "ad hominem" is. Anyway, the "excuse" for not using "standard" controls is that they didn't want to. It's their game, so they can do whatever they want. As for the reviews, the vast majority of the ones that I read, including from the usual big sites like IGN, said that the controls might take some time to get used to, but that after a while they were easy to use and no longer a problem. And personally, I just find it utterly baffling that anyone could have a problem with the controls in this game. But even if you do have a problem with them, all you have to do is avoid making large motions with the gamepad and the reticle will only move with the ship itself, effectively giving you the same controls as a more "traditional" Star Fox game. It REALLY is not that hard to figure this game out.

This appears to have been done by NOA, as it was sent by a US law firm on behalf of Nintendo, so it's safe to assume that it was NOA that signed off on it. But that's irrelevant anyway, as all of Nintendo's regional subsidiaries have to act in accordance to Nintendo HQ's wishes, so if one arm files a copyright claim, you can bet that HQ was aware and approved the claim. Likewise, if this company really did get approval from one of Nintendo's subsidiaries, be it Nintendo UK or whatever, then there's no way they could have given that approval without first getting the green light from Japan.

@SilentHunter382 If he "got permission", then why did Nintendo have it taken down? What you're saying obviously makes no sense.

@MysticX But what EXCLUSIVE games do those platforms have that would make platform-specific magazines more interesting than a Nintendo-centric one? Most of the relevant/interesting games on PS4 and Xbox One are multiplats.

@Moon It's more an issue of print media not being relevant anymore.

@ImDiggerDan This is good news, but I sincerely hope the "terms" don't include you paying any portion of your game's income to the other developer, because that would be a colossal travesty.

@Pigeon Pfffft get out of here with that bull. Find one other game designer who's had even half the impact on gaming that Miyamoto has. He's not perfect, but he's contributed more than enough to warrant him keeping his job. He could make a thousand more Star Fox Zero's and it would still be worth it for the absolute masterpieces that he's given to gaming over the decades, or been responsible for to one degree or another. Honestly, just an idiotic thing to say.

@Octane It sounds like you just aren't good at learning new controls and probably aren't a very coordinated person. I guess I can see how that would be frustrating.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE I think most people dismiss Toki Tori 2 because it's a little on the boring side and requires a lot of backtracking.

@Kirk I don't normally agree with the kirkster, but I do on this one. I missed your comment before posting my own, but this is basically what I said. This is bullsh*t, and the guy potentially needs some legal counsel. There are all kinds of free orgs set up for this.

@ImDiggerDan Not to be argumentative, because I don't have experience with Nintendo, but that's not by any means the best approach, nor is it how most companies that host third-party content function. With Apple and Google, for instance, the takedown process is simply an automatic response to a takedown request that serves only to cover legal bases, not to be a permanent solution, and after that it is up to the affected party to appeal directly to the platform holder, at which point they'll start their own review process. Apple and Google have rightly recognized that if they left it solely up to the parties in dispute, the system would easily be abused by large companies looking to take advantage of an ambivalent, disinterested platform holder to bully smaller companies in ways that they know the laws don't support, but which those smaller companies would never be able to defend against. If Nintendo does it differently, than that is hypocritical, and it is sub-standard for the industry. But then it is Nintendo, and they do love doing things their own way.

Either way, there are non-profits here in the states that provide free legal help specifically for this type copyright/patent dispute, some of them even specializing in digital media. There's one in the US called newmediarights.org that I've read about but haven't used. I don't know what the situation is like there in your country, but I strongly suggest you try to find a service like this. Not just for your own financial health, but because it creates a hostile environment for all independent developers when copyright laws are abused in this way.

@ImDiggerDan This is as egregious an abuse of copyright as I've ever seen. Gameplay elements generally can't be copyrighted. There are mountains upon mountains of precedence for this. There are ways to patent mechanics of games, but it can be extremely expensive and complicated to pull off, and Boulder Dash is such an old game that I would be surprised if it is or ever was protected in this way.

Have you been in contact with Nintendo? I don't know if you would even need to "fight" this in a way that would cost you money. It could just be an issue that you could appeal through Nintendo. Considering that some of their games could be construed as "clones" (Alleyway comes to mind, as it's a clone of Breakout), I find it amazing that your "clone" of a 32 year old game would be a problem for them. I mean they have that "Angry Bunnies" game on the eShop, and that thing is a blatant ripoff of Angry Birds, which is a much more recent and relevant game than Boulder Dash.

@Camilla Not quite. They said it will have "different visuals", which you can pretty much interpret any way you want.

@Ryu_Niiyama I'm not entirely sure yet. I plan on getting an NX, but without knowing exactly what NX will be like, it's hard to say. But if NX looks rad and I buy one at launch, and assuming it has the better version of Zelda, then I'll definitely buy it on NX. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to buying it on Wii U, especially if the two versions are more or less the same. All I know is that I'm pretty excited to see how things play out in the next few months.

@Ryu_Niiyama This is basically what I was going to say. I hate that we have to wait so long to play this, because it looks more amazing with each new video I watch.

Sometimes Sonic shaves his arms when he wants to go faster, sometimes he doesn't. But it's his decision, not ours.

@gatorboi352 How is that even remotely relevant to this article? Miyamoto: "We are researching VR. We want a product that is affordable and doesn't suck when played for long periods."

gatorboi: "Miyamoto needs to step down! Nintendo needs new ideas!"

You're like a broken record. You say the same things over and over, regardless of whether or not they actually make sense as a response to a given article.

@Peek-a-boo Mario Maker made the gamepad "somewhat useful"? Mario Maker wouldn't even be possible without the gamepad. It's true that the game didn't change the Wii U's fortunes, but it's still a perfect marriage of hardware and software, and represents the very reason why Nintendo prefers to continue making hardware.

Let me guess- it's going to involve aliens.

Well, at least run-and-gun fans still have Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 to look forward to. The first one was a pretty excellent experience and scratched the Mega Man itch a little bit.

@Judgedean I completely agree with you, but you should be prepared to get dumped on for that comment.

Is anyone actually surprised that markets dipped in response to the exit? Everyone knew this would happen going in. It won't be permanent, though. Things will rebound once everything gets sorted out and finalized.

This game absolutely deserves the high review score. I just finished it today, and it was thoroughly entertaining. And the final boss fight was just sublime and wholly unexpected. I'm used to Kirby games being creative and fun, but HAL really upped their game on this one.

"Super Mario Plumbing Simulator: the VR Experience"