I'm happy to do all download with the Wii U and my PS3; the latter is eased by an internal 500GB hard drive and I'd like to note that in addition Sony released a Super Slim with a surprisingly meagre 12GB internal flash which is cheaper and clearly aimed at people who mainly buy discs.
I will say that downloading everything has made me a lot more conservative in my purchases, but frankly given I spend from £20-70/mo. on games I could use some kind of restraint.
I do agree there's still a place for physical media generally, but I think games aren't in a protected space like music with vinyl fans or books where coffee table books and the like aren't easily replaced by digital versions. The fact is that all games are digital; the only difference is the media they're stored on, whether disc or cart or downloaded to a hard drive or flash media.
There is no reason why current limitations of people's internet connections couldn't be overcome by in-store kiosks where you could do the download and burn to disc or SD. Special editions could still exist with an enclosed download code instead of media.
I do think the days are numbered for physical media, but I have nothing against it per se. I will say that if downloads make it easier to get niche titles from Japan I think it should be embraced rather than railed against, though I do sympathise with the folk who feel left out.
@readyletsgo you can use the Gamepad as your screen, but you'll still need a Wii Remote and nunchuck. Only games you can play with a Classic Controller can be played using the Gamepad alone.
@Waveghoul I think my major problem has always been that it's just too long. I don't have a problem with the cheesy lame plot and dialogue, but the B-movies it emulates are often watchable because they're 90min. The epic length isn't a benefit.
I also would have liked it better if the controls were tweaked to have point to look like a first-person Wii game. Using the pointer to target is excellent, but having to use the control stick to change facing is very clunky and often means getting hit from the side - very annoying in Mercenaries when you're getting mobbed.
I bought and sold RE4 more than any other game: four times. Kind of a love-hate relationship. Buying as a download would finally resolve that problem. Welcome to the eShop Capcom, now please bring us Tatsunoko vs Capcom as a download and I'll be well-pleased.
I thought online was part of more recent Animal Crossing outings - isn't that kind of the social aspect of the game to visit other people's towns? Maybe they just meant for the demo version?
The honour system should work pretty well for this kind of thing. I'm sure the risks of complaints getting a game pulled and subjected to the full and expensive inspection process would deter people from lying about the content of their games.
Given only a fraction of the PC Engine Wii VC from Japan ever got released elsewhere (the catalogue rivals the NES, amazingly enough) I won't get too excited, but I did get a few games for my UK Wii that I'd happily pay the Wii U upgrade toll for. Alien Crush and Devil's Crush please!
I'd like one of these as I had pre-ordered the individual ones following the initial sell-out of the triple pack. I've bid on some individual ones broken out of the game+amiibo pack (it comes packaged inside the big box, so no reason they couldn't sell it separately), but it goes far north of £20, and I'm not paying that.
Hopefully they will sell separately and the retailer has just used the Japanese photo because that's all they could find.
@electrolite77 yeah it came out in Japan last February - Wii U AND 3DS. I like 'em both so unless it's total crap I has to be worth playing mixed up right?
No surprise on Super Mario Galaxy, it's already in the Japanese eShop for a few months now. Still hoping we'll see the New Play Control Pikmin games and a localised version of the Chibi Robo NPC game from Japan - surely that should be easily done?
My daughter likes this. Though she has bought some cards via lots on Amazon she's pretty frugal with her pocket money and I steered her towards the custom decks to ensure she could play without having to learn deck building herself. It's to break out on occasion and has made me more familiar with these odd critters.
Blok Drop U was pretty decent. I can't say I've been moved by other stuff on offer, but I wouldn't automatically dismiss anything from this dev as he's shown he can make a fun game. Of course it needs to cross the pond to be relevant to me!
I would be extremely surprised if we didn't have every Zelda title on every platform in the Wii U VC before Zelda U releases. I will absolutely get this and Skyward Sword.
I don't understand the opposition to royalties here. You're telling me a game publisher should be free to continue to make money off of future game reissues and online sales throughout copyright - and long beyond the point where expense has been recouped - but the people whose talents are featured don't?
Do people not recognise the value of their own labour any more? If you can get a bigger piece of the pie because your worth is recognised you're a fool not to take it. There is nothing outrageous about getting residuals; especially because you're probably talking about fractions of pennies per unit here. CEOs making seven figures is greedy, getting a cut of a title that is arguably a massive success because of a starring role isn't.
I tried the app once a few months ago with a video more than fifteen minutes long. Apparently it hit what would have been an ad break, but instead of playing the ad it exited the video and took me back to the front page, so I had to find it start it and scroll ahead. Not sure why it's any different from the iPad app which works great, but if that's no longer happening I could see using it again...
I'm very surprised we haven't seen any additional DLC for the Wii U version. Warriors Orochi 3, has like 3 dozen additional levels and tons of costumes. I do intend to play the harder difficulties in Hyrule a Warriors, but no way will it occupy as much time as Warriors Orochi 3 did.
I think they do a pretty good job. I found New Super Mario Bros U challenging, but not impossibly so. The use of extra pickups which are hard to get seems a nice way to appeal to both parties.
Nintendo's trying to sell more software and let's face it, most people aren't going to get far in a Mario game if you're asking people to use certain advanced techniques skilfully like a triple jump, just to continue playing the game. World 2 was my limit for Super Mario Bros. 3; I've never finished the original game. Until the Wii U, the only Mario games I had played through were Super Mario Land on Gameboy and Super Mario Galaxy (and I couldn't do the shadow races to unlock Luigi there). So from my perspective they're getting better.
If you can't be bothered playing games because they're "too easy" well frankly that's not unique to Nintendo: all the Arkham games are plagued with button prompts and wasted time doing presses to open doors to pad out the game and make it feel like you're doing something. QTEs fill the same role of substituting for actual gameplay and let's not get started on aim assist in first person shooters to compensate for dual stick controls. I think Nintendo does a decent job considering - if they ever have (press A) popping up every time Mario reaches the end of a platform, then you'll have a problem.
That looks pretty sweet. The fact that it reminds me of old school arcade maze games is an extra boost. I'll likely be playing more campaign, but it could be fun to try out with my partner's kids. Gifting them Runbow tomorrow, most likely.
This is what they should have done with Just Dance 4! Well I'm not sure about this. I bought Just Dance 2 and DLC and Just Dance 4 and DLC. Do I want to buy a third one and pay for Unlimited to play the stuff I already have access to without it? Probably not...
Yep got one of these and then the game showed up in the post today, so not bad for a one day delay. The main delay in my case is the rest of the kit, which included the 3DS case and extra styluses, but that's cool as long as my little girl can do her happy home designing!
The question isn't whether or not there's a market for a dedicated handheld, it's whether or not that market is large enough to justify the expense of developing and marketing another one. Will Nintendo be willing to gamble they can sell another 50 million handhelds? If they only sell 25 million is it still worthwhile?
Remember we're not just talking component cost and advertising budgets, but staff payrolls for the engineers and software developers. Now if a theoretical new handheld can run the same code as NX (assuming that's not the handheld), then that reduces cost, but that only really helps if one of these platforms (handheld or console) is successful enough to carry the other.
Also remember that Nintendo is a publicly held company, so even if such a venture is successful in terms of being profitable - as the Wii U appears to be, it's not really good enough for shareholders: they must see it as a success or they'll sell their stock which will seriously damage the company.
The 3DS may have sold 50mil units and that's a lot, but the loss of an entire generation to general purpose mobile platforms makes developing a successor extremely risky.
Nintendo managed to save the 3DS, but even if they got pricing and support right again I rather doubt you'd see a larger install base. I've never really been into mobile gaming (I'd rather read a book on my phone than play), but it clearly has the edge in terms of convenience, even if the lack of buttons is off-putting. I figure Nintendo will continue to offer a dedicated device as long as the cost to R&D and manufacture can be recouped without much effort. Unlike Sony handheld gaming has been a key pillar of their business and they won't walk away from that because of a little market shrinkage.
It's nice to know there are at least a couple of people with sense commenting on these stories. I cannot believe anyone here actually believes wealthy people invest their wealth into projects that benefit society. There are some altruists, but the majority of the wealthy don't actually do anything to benefit anyone but those who cater to their whims. Very few are starting companies or funding start-ups. Mainly they're sinking money into tax havens, real estate overseas, jewellery, cars, horses and yachts.
Real wages for everyone except the really wealthy have been falling since the 1970s. Anyone opposing unions today can look forward to having a job replaced by software or a robot in the next fifty years to ensure that trend continues. So by all means defend your betters while you can - you will live to see the light.
They're actors and there's an actors union and that determines whether or not actors get royalties and stuff about working conditions. If developers think they deserve same then maybe they should form a union and fight for better pay and working conditions. But more likely they'll be like most IT people and moan without doing anything about it other than quit.
Well my daughter got tired of repetitive tasks in New Leaf to get stuff, so this game where you can just jump in and design stuff is a lot more appealing for her. She never plays anything on her 3DS any more (in fact I suspect if this was on the Wii U she would have preferred it on that platform), so it will be nice to see her getting some use out of what is very likely to be the last handheld from Nintendo in my house. It's nice that Nintendo is going to mobile platforms as I think that's where the money is going to be down the road...
You really cannot count them out. Take amiibo and an NFC reader to mobile platforms and marry it to a series of Pokemon games and they'd have a steady revenue stream for years to come.
Apple Force Touch isn't an impossibility in future control inputs either. The idea of a gamepad without physical buttons and a unique per-game config isn't far off...
It does seem a better design idea than adding a third pair of shoulder/rear buttons. I can't think of many games that use 8 buttons and those that do often do so to the game's detriment since it's hard to keep track of all that crap between plays (Samurai Warriors 3, I'm looking at you).
The Wii showed that effective button chording was often more intuitive and made for better design than assigning different functions to every last button press. I'm all for the less is more approach and a scroll wheel seems like a better idea than using two face buttons for the same rapid inventory scroll or special weapon selection.
Even Tank Tank Tank with its simplistic controls is fun; especially in multiplayer; most notably asymmetric against the gamepad player with the giant ape. Seems odd you could mess this up.
Pre-ordered though I take a UK XL. I wanted that amiibo and the hat (got a free Luigi hat last year when they were giving them away) so the rest is bonus. Cheers for flagging it up before the Nintendo store NL!
If they can get the Apple TV (which is cheaper by far than any home console and has an established media marketplace) into enough homes, it won't matter how "late" they are. If I didn't have a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV I'd probably already own an Apple TV, but I won't lie that being able to stream games from iPad to TV doesn't have me tempted. The Horipad is a pretty decent dual stick controller. Hopefully this will get companies to finally roll-out MFI support across the board and we'll see a wider range of decent controllers. Hell, Nintendo could even make compatible Wii Remotes for it to work with their iOS offerings.
Well if Nintendo was going to transition away from making consoles this would be a neat solution. After all their existing controllers are all Bluetooth, so all they'd need to do is port games from Wii/Wii U to tvOS; might not even need any mods to the controllers.
Damn I didn't realise about the AirPlay streaming for games. Gotta try playing Pinball Arcade on my partners AppleTV tomorrow. Even though I'm already having a Mac Mini connected to my TV for films the game streaming thing is tempting considering how cheap the low-end AppleTV is. I have a Horipad already which works great with RYPE 1&2 and the new Geometry Wars game. Just have to see how the streaming works.
Having tried streaming it leaves a lot to be desired. For classic arcade games and stuff like Pinball Arcade it's just as bad as connecting using an HDMI adapter. Unless the content is optimised for external displays the split-second lag on the external display is very noticeable. Geometry Wars3 was playable, but I expect the only game in town will be apps that run natively on tvOS or have been tweaked for external output rather than iOS mirroring.
I'm surprised to hear there would be any issues for eShop titles running from external HD. Most if them are small enough that the entire game should be able to be loaded into main memory before executing. This title is less than 1GB if I remember correctly - anyone know how much system resources are available for game use?
The eShop titles for Wii U both look promising. I just bought two games last week though - I can still probably justify this. I got Thomas Was Alone how long ago and never fired it up, though?
Comments 3,675
Re: Editorial: It's Far Too Soon to Go Download-Only, and Physical Retail Still Matters
I'm happy to do all download with the Wii U and my PS3; the latter is eased by an internal 500GB hard drive and I'd like to note that in addition Sony released a Super Slim with a surprisingly meagre 12GB internal flash which is cheaper and clearly aimed at people who mainly buy discs.
I will say that downloading everything has made me a lot more conservative in my purchases, but frankly given I spend from £20-70/mo. on games I could use some kind of restraint.
I do agree there's still a place for physical media generally, but I think games aren't in a protected space like music with vinyl fans or books where coffee table books and the like aren't easily replaced by digital versions. The fact is that all games are digital; the only difference is the media they're stored on, whether disc or cart or downloaded to a hard drive or flash media.
There is no reason why current limitations of people's internet connections couldn't be overcome by in-store kiosks where you could do the download and burn to disc or SD. Special editions could still exist with an enclosed download code instead of media.
I do think the days are numbered for physical media, but I have nothing against it per se. I will say that if downloads make it easier to get niche titles from Japan I think it should be embraced rather than railed against, though I do sympathise with the folk who feel left out.
Re: Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition is Creeping Up On the European eShop for Halloween
@readyletsgo you can use the Gamepad as your screen, but you'll still need a Wii Remote and nunchuck. Only games you can play with a Classic Controller can be played using the Gamepad alone.
@Waveghoul I think my major problem has always been that it's just too long. I don't have a problem with the cheesy lame plot and dialogue, but the B-movies it emulates are often watchable because they're 90min. The epic length isn't a benefit.
I also would have liked it better if the controls were tweaked to have point to look like a first-person Wii game. Using the pointer to target is excellent, but having to use the control stick to change facing is very clunky and often means getting hit from the side - very annoying in Mercenaries when you're getting mobbed.
Re: Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition is Creeping Up On the European eShop for Halloween
I bought and sold RE4 more than any other game: four times. Kind of a love-hate relationship. Buying as a download would finally resolve that problem. Welcome to the eShop Capcom, now please bring us Tatsunoko vs Capcom as a download and I'll be well-pleased.
Re: Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival Won't Have Online Play
I thought online was part of more recent Animal Crossing outings - isn't that kind of the social aspect of the game to visit other people's towns? Maybe they just meant for the demo version?
Re: International Age Rating Coalition System, IARC, Set to Come to the eShop "Very Soon"
The honour system should work pretty well for this kind of thing. I'm sure the risks of complaints getting a game pulled and subjected to the full and expensive inspection process would deter people from lying about the content of their games.
Re: Octodad: Dadliest Catch Gets A Revised Release Date
Crazy-looking stuff, could be something that must be experienced...
Re: The Chibi-Robo amiibo is Being Sold Separately in Japan
Maybe Chibi Robo HD is in the offing with amiibo unlockables? I can always dream...
Re: Bonk's Adventure Has Been Rated By The ESRB For Wii U
Given only a fraction of the PC Engine Wii VC from Japan ever got released elsewhere (the catalogue rivals the NES, amazingly enough) I won't get too excited, but I did get a few games for my UK Wii that I'd happily pay the Wii U upgrade toll for. Alien Crush and Devil's Crush please!
Re: Dutch Retailer Lists Standalone Splatoon Squid amiibo, Available 6th November
I'd like one of these as I had pre-ordered the individual ones following the initial sell-out of the triple pack. I've bid on some individual ones broken out of the game+amiibo pack (it comes packaged inside the big box, so no reason they couldn't sell it separately), but it goes far north of £20, and I'm not paying that.
Hopefully they will sell separately and the retailer has just used the Japanese photo because that's all they could find.
Re: Video: The Just Dance Unlimited Subscription Service Gets a Quirky Trailer
@Mahe is this on offer in Europe as well?
Re: Classic Sega Saturn Puzzler Baku Baku Animal Is Getting A Spiritual Successor
@electrolite77 yeah it came out in Japan last February - Wii U AND 3DS. I like 'em both so unless it's total crap I has to be worth playing mixed up right?
Re: Classic Sega Saturn Puzzler Baku Baku Animal Is Getting A Spiritual Successor
Still waiting for Puyo Puyo vs Tetris to leave Japan on Wii U. I don't back kickstarters for games, but I would buy this if it comes to Wii U.
Re: Former Sony Exclusive PixelJunk Monsters Is Coming To The Wii U eShop
Not that keen for this, but I did get Pixeljunk Shooter on my PS3 and it rocks. Totally would love it on Wii U.
Re: Rumour: Dataminers Dig Up eShop Listings For Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Skyward Sword And Metroid: Other M
No surprise on Super Mario Galaxy, it's already in the Japanese eShop for a few months now. Still hoping we'll see the New Play Control Pikmin games and a localised version of the Chibi Robo NPC game from Japan - surely that should be easily done?
Re: Video: Learn the Basics of the Pokémon Trading Card Game
My daughter likes this. Though she has bought some cards via lots on Amazon she's pretty frugal with her pocket money and I steered her towards the custom decks to ensure she could play without having to learn deck building herself. It's to break out on occasion and has made me more familiar with these odd critters.
Re: COLOR BOMBS Will Splat Onto the North American Wii U eShop on 22nd October
Blok Drop U was pretty decent. I can't say I've been moved by other stuff on offer, but I wouldn't automatically dismiss anything from this dev as he's shown he can make a fun game. Of course it needs to cross the pond to be relevant to me!
Re: Rumour: Data Miner Uncovers Evidence Of Twilight Princess On Nintendo's Wii U eShop
I would be extremely surprised if we didn't have every Zelda title on every platform in the Wii U VC before Zelda U releases. I will absolutely get this and Skyward Sword.
Re: Apparent Confirmation Emerges of Shovel Knight for Super Smash Bros., Denied in Vain By Yacht Club Games
If it is I'd totally get the amiibo and the game!
Re: Nintendo Life Weekly: Skull Kid Confirmed as Playable on Wii U Hyrule Warriors, Pokémon Lawsuit Flip-Flop and More
Great stuff Alex, perfect choice for NL video-casts!
Re: Voice Actors Union Authorises Strike Action With Landslide 96.52 Percent Vote
I don't understand the opposition to royalties here. You're telling me a game publisher should be free to continue to make money off of future game reissues and online sales throughout copyright - and long beyond the point where expense has been recouped - but the people whose talents are featured don't?
Do people not recognise the value of their own labour any more? If you can get a bigger piece of the pie because your worth is recognised you're a fool not to take it. There is nothing outrageous about getting residuals; especially because you're probably talking about fractions of pennies per unit here. CEOs making seven figures is greedy, getting a cut of a title that is arguably a massive success because of a starring role isn't.
Re: The YouTube Wii U App Has Another Update
I tried the app once a few months ago with a video more than fifteen minutes long. Apparently it hit what would have been an ad break, but instead of playing the ad it exited the video and took me back to the front page, so I had to find it start it and scroll ahead. Not sure why it's any different from the iPad app which works great, but if that's no longer happening I could see using it again...
Re: Video: Indulge in the Weirdness of This Genei Ibun Roku #FE Footage
Very odd pairing, but more Fire Emblem - in whatever form - cannot be a bad thing!
Re: Skull Kid is Confirmed as a Playable Character in Hyrule Warriors Legends
I'm very surprised we haven't seen any additional DLC for the Wii U version. Warriors Orochi 3, has like 3 dozen additional levels and tons of costumes. I do intend to play the harder difficulties in Hyrule a Warriors, but no way will it occupy as much time as Warriors Orochi 3 did.
Re: Video: The Just Dance Unlimited Subscription Service Gets a Quirky Trailer
@Mahe It all depends on his much it is.
Re: Miyamoto and Tezuka Discuss the Difficulties of Balancing Games for Players of All Skill Levels
I think they do a pretty good job. I found New Super Mario Bros U challenging, but not impossibly so. The use of extra pickups which are hard to get seems a nice way to appeal to both parties.
Nintendo's trying to sell more software and let's face it, most people aren't going to get far in a Mario game if you're asking people to use certain advanced techniques skilfully like a triple jump, just to continue playing the game. World 2 was my limit for Super Mario Bros. 3; I've never finished the original game. Until the Wii U, the only Mario games I had played through were Super Mario Land on Gameboy and Super Mario Galaxy (and I couldn't do the shadow races to unlock Luigi there). So from my perspective they're getting better.
If you can't be bothered playing games because they're "too easy" well frankly that's not unique to Nintendo: all the Arkham games are plagued with button prompts and wasted time doing presses to open doors to pad out the game and make it feel like you're doing something. QTEs fill the same role of substituting for actual gameplay and let's not get started on aim assist in first person shooters to compensate for dual stick controls. I think Nintendo does a decent job considering - if they ever have (press A) popping up every time Mario reaches the end of a platform, then you'll have a problem.
Re: Hands On: Aperion Cyberstorm is Bringing a Welcome Slice of Twin-Stick Shooting Action to Wii U
That looks pretty sweet. The fact that it reminds me of old school arcade maze games is an extra boost. I'll likely be playing more campaign, but it could be fun to try out with my partner's kids. Gifting them Runbow tomorrow, most likely.
Re: Video: The Just Dance Unlimited Subscription Service Gets a Quirky Trailer
This is what they should have done with Just Dance 4! Well I'm not sure about this. I bought Just Dance 2 and DLC and Just Dance 4 and DLC. Do I want to buy a third one and pay for Unlimited to play the stuff I already have access to without it? Probably not...
Re: Nintendo's UK Store Gives Free eShop Copy of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer Following Order Delay
Yep got one of these and then the game showed up in the post today, so not bad for a one day delay. The main delay in my case is the rest of the kit, which included the 3DS case and extra styluses, but that's cool as long as my little girl can do her happy home designing!
Re: Review: The Rivers of Alice: Extended Version (Wii U eShop)
I picked this up at launch to play with my partner, who enjoys adventure games.
Re: Climate "Not Healthy" For Dedicated Handheld Games Consoles, Says Sony's Shuhei Yoshida
The question isn't whether or not there's a market for a dedicated handheld, it's whether or not that market is large enough to justify the expense of developing and marketing another one. Will Nintendo be willing to gamble they can sell another 50 million handhelds? If they only sell 25 million is it still worthwhile?
Remember we're not just talking component cost and advertising budgets, but staff payrolls for the engineers and software developers. Now if a theoretical new handheld can run the same code as NX (assuming that's not the handheld), then that reduces cost, but that only really helps if one of these platforms (handheld or console) is successful enough to carry the other.
Also remember that Nintendo is a publicly held company, so even if such a venture is successful in terms of being profitable - as the Wii U appears to be, it's not really good enough for shareholders: they must see it as a success or they'll sell their stock which will seriously damage the company.
The 3DS may have sold 50mil units and that's a lot, but the loss of an entire generation to general purpose mobile platforms makes developing a successor extremely risky.
Re: Nintendo Download: 1st October (Europe)
Can we at least get Super Mario Galaxy on Wii VC? I still have a massive backlog, so not a real complaint, but I have been waiting for a bit...
Re: Climate "Not Healthy" For Dedicated Handheld Games Consoles, Says Sony's Shuhei Yoshida
Nintendo managed to save the 3DS, but even if they got pricing and support right again I rather doubt you'd see a larger install base. I've never really been into mobile gaming (I'd rather read a book on my phone than play), but it clearly has the edge in terms of convenience, even if the lack of buttons is off-putting. I figure Nintendo will continue to offer a dedicated device as long as the cost to R&D and manufacture can be recouped without much effort. Unlike Sony handheld gaming has been a key pillar of their business and they won't walk away from that because of a little market shrinkage.
Re: Video Game Voice Actors Contemplate Strike Action Over Pay and Conditions
It's nice to know there are at least a couple of people with sense commenting on these stories. I cannot believe anyone here actually believes wealthy people invest their wealth into projects that benefit society. There are some altruists, but the majority of the wealthy don't actually do anything to benefit anyone but those who cater to their whims. Very few are starting companies or funding start-ups. Mainly they're sinking money into tax havens, real estate overseas, jewellery, cars, horses and yachts.
Real wages for everyone except the really wealthy have been falling since the 1970s. Anyone opposing unions today can look forward to having a job replaced by software or a robot in the next fifty years to ensure that trend continues. So by all means defend your betters while you can - you will live to see the light.
Re: Video Game Voice Actors Contemplate Strike Action Over Pay and Conditions
They're actors and there's an actors union and that determines whether or not actors get royalties and stuff about working conditions. If developers think they deserve same then maybe they should form a union and fight for better pay and working conditions. But more likely they'll be like most IT people and moan without doing anything about it other than quit.
Re: New Assault Android Cactus Trailer Shows Fast, Fun & Frenetic Blaster Action
Very cool; makes up for lacking stuff you see on the PlayStation side of the fence.
Re: Review: Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (3DS)
Well my daughter got tired of repetitive tasks in New Leaf to get stuff, so this game where you can just jump in and design stuff is a lot more appealing for her. She never plays anything on her 3DS any more (in fact I suspect if this was on the Wii U she would have preferred it on that platform), so it will be nice to see her getting some use out of what is very likely to be the last handheld from Nintendo in my house. It's nice that Nintendo is going to mobile platforms as I think that's where the money is going to be down the road...
Re: Nintendo Download: 24th September (Europe)
I still need to get Year Walk so that's my buy this week.
Re: Don't Count Nintendo Out, Says Former Xbox Boss Robbie Bach
You really cannot count them out. Take amiibo and an NFC reader to mobile platforms and marry it to a series of Pokemon games and they'd have a steady revenue stream for years to come.
Re: Haptic Feedback Patent Could Hint At Full Touchscreen Interface On NX
Apple Force Touch isn't an impossibility in future control inputs either. The idea of a gamepad without physical buttons and a unique per-game config isn't far off...
Re: Miyamoto: Star Fox Zero Has Been Delayed, "I Am Very Sorry"
As long as it makes a better game, it's hard to complain. Besides my backlog is so massive it would just collect dust on my hard drive anyway.
Re: New Nintendo Controller Patent Features Rotational Shoulder Buttons
It does seem a better design idea than adding a third pair of shoulder/rear buttons. I can't think of many games that use 8 buttons and those that do often do so to the game's detriment since it's hard to keep track of all that crap between plays (Samurai Warriors 3, I'm looking at you).
The Wii showed that effective button chording was often more intuitive and made for better design than assigning different functions to every last button press. I'm all for the less is more approach and a scroll wheel seems like a better idea than using two face buttons for the same rapid inventory scroll or special weapon selection.
Re: Review: Year Walk (Wii U eShop)
Fab, sounds like a good night in!
Re: Nintendo Download: 17th September (Europe)
Year Walk and the Mario vs DK games, though I've yet to complete the stock levels in tipping stars.
Re: Review: Brave Tank Hero (Wii U eShop)
Even Tank Tank Tank with its simplistic controls is fun; especially in multiplayer; most notably asymmetric against the gamepad player with the giant ape. Seems odd you could mess this up.
Re: Nintendo UK Store Offering Limited Edition Super Mario Box Packed With Goodies
Pre-ordered though I take a UK XL. I wanted that amiibo and the hat (got a free Luigi hat last year when they were giving them away) so the rest is bonus. Cheers for flagging it up before the Nintendo store NL!
Re: Apple Just Announced Its Own Wii, Almost A Decade After Nintendo
If they can get the Apple TV (which is cheaper by far than any home console and has an established media marketplace) into enough homes, it won't matter how "late" they are. If I didn't have a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV I'd probably already own an Apple TV, but I won't lie that being able to stream games from iPad to TV doesn't have me tempted. The Horipad is a pretty decent dual stick controller. Hopefully this will get companies to finally roll-out MFI support across the board and we'll see a wider range of decent controllers. Hell, Nintendo could even make compatible Wii Remotes for it to work with their iOS offerings.
Re: Rumours and Speculation Stir Over Potential Involvement of Nintendo with Apple TV
Well if Nintendo was going to transition away from making consoles this would be a neat solution. After all their existing controllers are all Bluetooth, so all they'd need to do is port games from Wii/Wii U to tvOS; might not even need any mods to the controllers.
Re: Rumours and Speculation Stir Over Potential Involvement of Nintendo with Apple TV
Damn I didn't realise about the AirPlay streaming for games. Gotta try playing Pinball Arcade on my partners AppleTV tomorrow. Even though I'm already having a Mac Mini connected to my TV for films the game streaming thing is tempting considering how cheap the low-end AppleTV is. I have a Horipad already which works great with RYPE 1&2 and the new Geometry Wars game. Just have to see how the streaming works.
Having tried streaming it leaves a lot to be desired. For classic arcade games and stuff like Pinball Arcade it's just as bad as connecting using an HDMI adapter. Unless the content is optimised for external displays the split-second lag on the external display is very noticeable. Geometry Wars3 was playable, but I expect the only game in town will be apps that run natively on tvOS or have been tweaked for external output rather than iOS mirroring.
Re: Update on the Way to Make Wheels Round Again in Gunman Clive HD Collection
I'm surprised to hear there would be any issues for eShop titles running from external HD. Most if them are small enough that the entire game should be able to be loaded into main memory before executing. This title is less than 1GB if I remember correctly - anyone know how much system resources are available for game use?
Re: Nintendo Download: 10th September (Europe)
The eShop titles for Wii U both look promising. I just bought two games last week though - I can still probably justify this. I got Thomas Was Alone how long ago and never fired it up, though?