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Nintendo's hardware visionary is calling it a day
Alongside today's impressive earnings report, Nintendo announced that long-serving employee Genyo Takeda is stepping down as company director this June. Holding the title of representative director and also sitting alongside Miyamoto as "Technology Fellow", Takeda has played a key role in defining both Nintendo's hardware and software.
Pilotwings stage spotted in Super Smash Bros Wii U
Today's image du jour over on the official Super Smash Bros website unveiled a Pilotwings Resort-themed stage for the Wii U version of Nintendo's cross-franchise brawler. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this biplane is secretly a new playable character, a la Hornet in Fighters Megamix.
New Nintendo eShop releases: Pilotwings, Mighty Switch Force sale
As a nation recovers from a fireworks-induced stupor, Nintendo gives us something else to celebrate: Pilotwings on the Wii U Virtual Console. Beyond that, the week pretty much belongs to the 3DS with even more Virtual Console Game Gear games – including Sonic Drift 2 – and several standalone eShop releases. Also, if you haven't tried out the first Mighty Switch Force, now is the time to do it. Both the 3DS original and the Wii U's Hyper Drive Edition are on sale for $3.99 and $6.67, respectively, until 9am PT on July 11. Two other 3DS downloads, Order Up and Planet Crashers, will be discounted from 9am PT July 8 through 9am PT, July 22. You'll be able to grab either one for $4.99.
Pilotwings available through Club Nintendo until Oct. 28
Club Nintendo is now offering the original Pilotwings. For 100 Club Nintendo coins, Wii owners can download the SNES classic, which combines elements of arcade gameplay with simulation-style flying mechanics – wait, you've never heard of Pilotwings? Well, congratulations on making us feel old.If you're not a Club Nintendo member, you can pick up Pilotwings on the Wii Virtual Console for 800 Wii Points ($8). To redeem your Club Nintendo copy, head to the Club Nintendo site through the source link below and drop the 100 coins for a download ticket. You'll want to do so before October 28, 2012 – after that, it'll no longer be a Club Nintendo reward.
Monster Games is behind Pilotwings Resort on 3DS
We didn't expect to get news about Pilotwings Resort during a Donkey Kong Country Returns panel, but here it is. During Retro Studios' GDC postmortem, Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe cited two other American developers that Nintendo works with: Next Level Games, which made Punch-Out for Wii, and ExciteTruck/ExciteBots developer Monster Games -- which he said is working on Pilotwings Resort. Until now, it seems that this detail had been a secret (and Pilotwings creator Nintendo EAD had been assumed to be the Resort developer) -- or, at least, it just wasn't mentioned. Resort isn't the first Pilotwings game to be co-created with an American company: Nintendo EAD worked with Paradigm Simulations for the Nintendo 64 sequel.
Pilotwings Resort flying to 3DS
Though there have been shades of it in games like Wii Sports Resort, we've been without a new entry in the Pilotwings series since 1996 with Pilotwings 64. The 14-year wait is finally coming to a close with Pilotwings Resort, which is headed to the 3DS according to a list distributed this morning.
Japanese Nintendo downloads: Pilotwings, Bonsai Barber
Pilotwings, the game that taught us with huge, blocky pixels just what the SNES's scaling and rotation effects could do, touches down on the Japanese Wii Shop this week, along with the world's most beloved game about giving haircuts to personified plants. DSiWare is a bit less thrilling this week in Japan, with a kanji practice game, some kind of coloring app about color therapy and Gameloft's Legends of Exidia. The complete list of releases follows: Pilotwings (Super Famicom, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Bonsai Barber (WiiWare, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Renjuku Kanji Shougaku 6 Nensei (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points) DS Kokoro Nurie (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points) Legends of Exidia (DSiWare, 1 player, 800 DSi Points)
VC in Brief: Pilotwings (SNES)
Virtual Console aficionados have been waiting a long time for this one. Pilotwings is finally here and it's pretty much just like you remember it: highly repetitive; punishingly difficult, but as rewarding as ever. Check it out in the latest episode of VC in Brief above! Pilotwings (SNES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Every week, we like to check out what's new on the Virtual Console. We offer these videos as a sort of taste to help you decide whether or not you would want the game in question. We also toss in our own two cents because we're pushy jerks like that.
NintendoWare Weekly: Castlevania ReBirth, Pilotwings, Oregon Trail
Nintendo's been on quite the roll recently, providing plenty of content in its weekly offerings -- and today is no different. There are ten new titles to check out, including high-profile downloads such as Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth, Oregon Trail and -- finally! -- Pilotwings on the Virtual Console. Head past the break to check out the full list.
Report: Mario Kart, Pilotwings and Smash Bros. coming to Virtual Console by year's end
Gamespot is reporting that Nintendo revealed to them that a few oft-requested classic titles will be added to the Virtual Console within the coming weeks. According to the report, the festivities will kick off this coming Monday, when Super Mario Kart (which has been available in Japan for approximately forever) will be added to the storefront for the standard price of 800 Wii Points ($8). Later in the holiday season, Nintendo will also reportedly drop the original Pilotwings onto the platform, then shortly after that, will also toss Super Smash Bros. into the mix. No prices have been announced for these two titles, but according to the Gamespot article, both will be released by the end of the year. That's just great. It's not like we're already drowning in huge, time-draining blockbusters. Now we've got to start perfecting our drifting and shell-flinging once again. We appreciate the gesture, Nintendo -- but your timing is rotten.
European Nintendo downloads: Pilotwings (finally)
Without a doubt, the highlight of this week's WiiWare, Virtual Console, and DSiWare offerings in Europe is Pilotwings, the SNES launch title that should have been on the Virtual Console in 2006. It has finally arrived in PAL territories, and we have high hopes for a North American release soon. (Which we really shouldn't.) The other new additions are actually pretty great as well: Mario vs. Donkey Kong and Pop! Plus Solo are now up on DSiWare, and two distinctly different paddle games, Bit.Trip: Core and Arkanoid Plus, are on WiiWare: Pilotwings (SNES, 800 Wii Points) Bit.Trip: Core (WiiWare, 1 player, 600 Wii Points) Arkanoid Plus (WiiWare, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (DSiWare, 1 player, 800 DSi Points) Pop! Plus Solo (DSiWare, 1 player, 500 DSi Points)
OFLC ratings suggest VC release for Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart
The OFLC website is back after being hacked, with the Australian ratings organization taking the opportunity to redesign it. Luckily, it's still revealing unannounced games! The database has two new listings for classic Nintendo franchises that, really, should already be on the Virtual Console: Pilotwings and Super Mario Kart. We've actually booted up the Wii Shop more than once hoping to buy Super Mario Kart after forgetting that only the N64 game is available on Virtual Console, not the original.Also of interest: Picturebook Games: A Pop-Up Adventure!, which must be Nintendo's original WiiWare board game adventure, Asoberu Ehon Tobida-Sugoroku!, and You, Me, and the Cubes, which is clearly Kenji Eno's WiiWare puzzler Kimi to Boku to Rittai.[Via GoNintendo]
Top 5: Activities that Need Waggle
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Top_5_Activities_that_Need_Waggle'; Hardcore gamers sure do hate tacked-on waggle. Indeed, no one likes to flail their arms around like they're trying to signal aircraft when a simple button press will do. And the guys on the other sides seem to be under the impression that the Wii is nothing but a PS2 that replaces thumb pressing with wrist flicking. So when a new title or an iteration of an existing franchise gets announced for the Wii, the non-believers tend to thumb their snooty noses and prattle amongst themselves with ingenious statements like "Dead Rising on the Wii? More like Waggle Rising. YEAH! HIGH FIVE, BRAH!" All right, maybe they're not quite as neanderthalic, but the sentiment remains: the use of waggle is often met with skepticism from the core. To ignore the importance of waggle would be to forget what makes the Wii so awesome. Sure, some games have no real need for motion-based controls, but let us not forget the joy and immersion experienced by the non-gamer who first picked up a Wiimote and found themselves instantly engaged in a lively tennis match. To downplay motion controls would be to forget what made the Wii so successful in the first place. Without it, the Wii would be just a beefed-up GameCube. (THERE, I said it!) Just for a moment, let us forget about why Super Mario RPG has yet to be released on the North American Virtual Console and go back to the flood of imagination we felt when the Wiimote was first unveiled. Here are the activities we wish were made into games on the Wii. NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up.
Wii Fanboy E308 Poll: What games series needs Wii MotionPlus?
You've had several years to complain about the missed potential for immersive applications with a Wii Remote supporting true 1:1 response; now that Nintendo has announced the Wii MotionPlus accessory, enabling games to track your movements faster and more accurately, we want to know which game series you feel would benefit the most from the new technologyAre you hoping for the most obvious pick -- compelling lightsaber duels in a Star Wars game? Or are you looking for Wii Sports 2 with support for more subtle movements? If you don't see your preferred series in our list of poll choices, make sure to leave a comment and let us know what game you think needs Wii MotionPlus!%Poll-16808%
Nintendo Power asks for your VC wishlists
We get to have our say about what we'd like to see on the Virtual Console every single week, and now Nintendo Power is giving its readers the chance to do the same. At first, we thought Nintendo Power just might be able to turn Nintendo's head to what the fans want (it is, after all, the official Nintendo tome for the U.S.). And then, we read the disclaimer: "This is for polling purposes only, and will in no way determine future Virtual Console releases." But we don't believe them. Actually, we kind of do believe them, but it's worth a shot, right? Right?If you want to take part and push your game up the list, just drop a line to vcpoll@futureus.com, and the magazine will do the rest, totting up the votes and publishing the top 100 most requested not-yet-Virtual Console games in a future issue. It'd be nice if you put in a shout for some of our favorites as well. Not that we're Secret of Mana suggesting you Pilotwings 64 do anything Alf untoward like rigging the results.
Wii Warm Up: Your dream mod
This Clerks Wii case mod from serial modder Ramon Stokes came straight out of left field, and its sheer randomness delighted us, even though the Metroid Wii above (also by the same chap) remains this blogger's all-time favorite. Alas, yours truly lacks Ramon's mad skillz (Pritt Stick remains a considerable challenge), meaning I'm limited to daydreaming about how my awesome Pilotwings Wii case mod would look. Reader, in my head, it is majestic.What about you lot, though? If you could modify your Wii's tidy, white exterior in any way you liked, regardless of cost or a lack of talent, how would you want it to look?
Nintendo serving up Pilotwings, ping pong?
Mysterious games have shown up in the far reaches of the no-man's-land known as GameStop's "Coming Soon" list. We've speculated that a Pilotwings game was on the way forever, and now it looks like ... GameStop is also speculating that a Pilotwings game is on the way. The release date is listed as March 6, 2009, but that's likely just a placeholder date, especially since the whole entry is just a placeholder anyway. Depressingly, the fake release date is five days after the listed release date for Sadness.Another interesting new game with a less distant fake release date: a game simply called Ping Pong, published by Nintendo. Its December 31, 2008 release date is most likely also a placeholder, but the very possibility of a new, full-size ping pong game from Nintendo should be great news for fans of Wii Play, Rockstar Table Tennis and/or Balls of Fury. (Somebody's probably a fan of Balls of Fury, right?)We don't mean to get your hopes up, since the further out into the future you go, the less accurate the GameStop "Coming Soon" list is. Thus, we are calling these rumors at best.
Number of weekly VC games to increase?
Reggie's recent address in New York failed to tell us much that we didn't already know, though it did throw up the slide you see above, indicating that Nintendo is promising us 200 Virtual Console games in the US by the end of this year. We can probably all agree that the world would be a better place if Pilotwings 64 and River City Ransom were included in that number.But we digress. See, the folks over at Game|Life did the math, and discovered that would mean Nintendo has only eight Mondays left in 2007 to deliver 34 games. Average that out, and you get 4.25 games a week. Currently, of course, we only get three titles every Monday. So, is this a genuine miscalculation on Ninty's part, naughty marketing hyperbole, or will we really be seeing more retro goodness than normal pumped down our tubes in the coming weeks?Either way, Nintendo, we are now absolutely holding you to this. 200 by December 31st or you're ripped from our BFF collage. And we do not make such threats lightly.[Via The Tanooki]
New Virtual Console games on the horizon [update 1]
Yes, the U.S. Virtual Console launch line-up is a bit ... anemic. We know, it hurts. However, one has to consider why it doesn't really matter: 1) We'll all be too busy playing Twilight Princess to bother with the Virtual Console immediately, and 2) Nintendo has promised ten new Virtual Console releases per month. That's quite a bit, especially looking at how often Xbox Live Arcade is updated, but the question then becomes: what's on the horizon?Well, thanks to the ESRB, we've got a clue. The ESRB requires that games be rated before release, which obviously means that companies need to send in their product quite a bit in advance. Since they publish their ratings, we've managed to score a list of eight potentials, and quite an eight they are (all rated E for Everyone): Duck Hunt Hogan's Alley Kid Icarus Kirby's Adventure PilotWings Pro Wrestling Punch-Out Wild Gunman Kid Icarus, Duck Hunt, and Punch-Out? Holy hell. The Virtual Console is awesome.[via Joystiq][Thanks, Zeke!][Update 1: Legal issues?]
Duck Hunt, others get ESRB's thumbs-up, zapper imminent
The ESRB has approved and rated another pile of Nintendo's Virtual Console throwbacks, including: Duck Hunt (E) Hogan's Alley (E) Kid Icarus (E) Kirby's Adventure (E) PilotWings (E) Pro Wrestling (E) Punch-Out (E) Wild Gunman (E) With Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, and Wild Gunman making appearances, the Zapper can't be far behind. Think the E3 prototype fits the bill?[Thanks, Spindash54]
