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Nintendo halting console and software distribution in Brazil
Nintendo will end its distribution of hardware and software in Brazil due to high import tariffs. The company opted not to create a local manufacturing operation to avoid the import fees in the emerging market. "Starting in January 2015, Gaming do Brasil, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Juegos de Video Latinoamérica, GmbH, will no longer distribute Nintendo products in Brazil," Nintendo stated to Game Informer. "Despite the changes in Brazil, Juegos de Video Latinoamérica will continue to be Nintendo's distributor for Latin America and they remain committed to the brand and the region." To get a sense of the sticker shock these tariffs have, when Sony's $400 PlayStation 4 launched in Brazil it was approximately $1,800. Sony explained at the time the mark-up was caused by various import fees and taxes. "Brazil is an important market for Nintendo and home to many passionate fans, but unfortunately, challenges in the local business environment have made our current distribution model in the country unsustainable," said Nintendo. "We will continue to monitor the evolution of the business environment and evaluate how best to serve our Brazilian fans in the future."
GDCA 2015 finalists led by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
The finalists for the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards were revealed today, led by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which received five nominations. Monolith's third-person action game was nominated for Game of the Year, Innovation, Best Design, Best Narrative and Best Technology awards at the ceremony (on top of also being Joystiq's favorite game of 2014). The other nominees for the 15th annual GDCA's Game of the Year award are Bayonetta 2, Alien: Isolation, Destiny and Hearthstone. Blizzard's collectible card game received three nominations in total, the other two for Best Design and Best Handheld/Mobile Game. Destiny also received two other nominations for Best Audio and Best Technology. The ceremony for this year's Game Developer's Choice Awards will be held during the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday, March 4 at 9:30 p.m. ET (6:30 p.m. PT) at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. Head past the break to see the full list of nominees.
Super Joystiq Podcast Live: Best of 2014 [Update: Watch the replay!]
Starting at 3:30PM EST right here and on Twitch, it's JOYSTIQ DOME! Ten games enter! Ten games get robustly examined while 13 editors jaw at one another before examining the year 2014 in detail! Yes, it's the Super Joystiq Podcast Live! Thrill as Ludwig Kietzmann tries to defend Watch Dogs. Swoon as Susan Arendt and Anthony John Agnello defend Lightning Returns with the fury of a thousand burning suns. Chortle as Alexander Sliwinski tries to resist playing Hearthstone. Jess Conditt talks Walking Dead, Danny Cowan digs Shovel Knight, Earnest Cavalli loves Sunset Overdrive, Sam Prell digs into Dragon Age: Inquisition, Richard Mitchell bets on Bayonetta, Xav de Matos feels Far Cry 4, Sinan Kubba delights in Dark Souls 2, Mike Suszek survives Desert Golfing, and Thomas Schulenberg gives Super Smash Bros. for Wii U a what for all over again. And that's just how it starts. Tune in right here and on Twitch.tv/Joystiq at 3:30PM EST for a live, all staff round table discussion on the best games of 2014, our personal favorites, and a look back on the gaming year that was. [Images: WBIE]
Nintendo's characters show up in someone else's handheld game
Nintendo's iconic characters have appeared more than once in third-party console games (hello Soul Calibur fans), but mobile games have largely been off-limits. However, there are new signs that the gaming giant is taking a more relaxed approach to the handheld world. GungHo has unveiled Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition, a take on the popular puzzle battler that includes many of the characters from Nintendo's most sacred cash cow. It's not surprising that there's only a 3DS version so far given Nintendo's usual disdain for smartphone games, but the regular Puzzle & Dragons is also available (and successful) on both Android and iOS -- it wouldn't take much to get the Mario variant on non-3DS systems. Will that happen? Probably not. Even so, GungHo's game is further proof that Nintendo isn't as protective of its franchises as it used to be.
Xenogears, SaGa Frontier resurface in Theatrhythm Curtain Call DLC
Xenogears, SaGa Frontier, and other classic RPGs from Square Enix's back catalog make an appearance as part of this week's DLC lineup for the publisher's 3DS rhythm game Final Fantasy Theatrhythm: Curtain Call. New Battle Music Sequence tracks hitting the eShop today include Final Fantasy 7's "Opening: Bombing Mission," "Primal Judgment" from Final Fantasy 14, "Soaring" from Xenogears, and "Last Battle: T260G" from SaGa Frontier. Players can also download the Battle Music Sequence track "Sacrifice Part Three" plucked from the Japan-exclusive Secret of Mana follow-up Seiken Densetsu 3 starting today, along with the Field Music Sequence stage "In Search of the Sword of Mana," originally featured in the Game Boy action-RPG Final Fantasy Adventure. All DLC tracks are priced at 99 cents apiece. Square Enix notes that additional songs will hit the eShop on January 22. [Image: Square Enix)
New Nintendo eShop releases: Chariot, Mega Man Battle Network 2
Considering we're knee-deep in new year lull, there's enough to dig into in this week's eShop update. If you're after something new, you've got the couch-bound co-op of puzzle-platformer Chariot - check out our review on PS4. If you're after something older, you can't go far wrong with Mega Man Battle Network 2. The Game Boy Advance RPG joins the first MMBN on Wii U Virtual Console, and there are four more Battle Networks to go. It may be a new year, but we're keeping it old-school in our eShop posts. As always, the full list of new releases is below the break, while all the sales stuff is just a chariot's ride away.
Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Bros. Edition announced [update]
Do not adjust your monitors, do not wipe your glasses clean. You're 100 percent looking at a Super Mario-glossed entry in GungHo's incredibly popular Puzzle & Dragons series, and it's coming to 3DS in Japan this April. GungHo America also notes an "overseas release" of the thus-titled Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Bros. Edition through Nintendo. [Update: A Nintendo spokesperson told Digital Spy that currently Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Bros. Edition is a "Japanese-only announcement." So it's unclear what exactly GungHo America's referring to by "overseas release." We've reached out to GungHo for clarification.] Details are limited at the moment - according to Gematsu the match-3 game features both local multiplayer and StreetPass functionality. From another angle, the most important details lie in the numbers. GungHo just revealed that the original mobile Puzzle & Dragons surpassed 6 million downloads in North America, taking the free-to-play game's worldwide tally to more than a staggering 41 million. To put that in perspective, in April 2013 Puzzle & Dragons raked in $3.76 million per day. Furthermore, it's well established that Mario likes gold coins. If you still puzzled, check out GungHo's announcement trailer below the break.
Best of the Rest: Danny's picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Fantasy Life Sometimes, you just wanna sidequest. For those times, there's Fantasy Life. Fantasy Life is fun in the way that checking off items on a checklist is fun. There's a solid action-RPG here from Professor Layton series creator Level-5, sure, but much of my time in Fantasy Life was spent completing sidequests, crafting equipment, and hunting down component items so that I could craft more equipment and complete more sidequests. You don't even have to kill anything to complete the game - you can smith, cook, sew, and alchemize your way to victory if that's the way you want to play it. Fantasy Life is an endless grind that remains compelling even after I've completed hundreds of its quests. If you don't fit into its niche, you'll be bored immediately. If you're a specific breed of completionist, Fantasy Life is impossible to put down. In either case, beware.
IGF 2015 finalists: The Talos Principle, 80 Days, Invisible Inc.
Finalists for the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 17th annual Independent Games Festival awards are Klei Entertainment's Invisible Inc., Croteam's The Talos Principle, Inkle Studios' 80 Days, Patrick Smith's Metamorphabet, 11 Bit Studio's This War of Mine and Team Outer Wilds' Outer Wilds. These games make appearances across other categories – Exellence in Visual Art, Narrative, Design, Audio and the Nuovo Award for unconventional game development – as well. Other games up for awards from the IGF are Lumino City, Else Heart.Break(), Pry, Three Fourths Home, Framed, Killer Queen, Shovel Knight, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, The Sailor's Dream, Desert Golfing, Elegy for a Dead World, Bounden and more, listed in full on the IGF website. The IGF jury nominated more than 30 games from a judging pool of almost 650. The IGF awards are held during GDC, alongside the Game Developers Choice Awards, on Wednesday, March 4 in San Francisco. Congrats to all the finalists! [Image: Klei Entertainment, Invisible Inc.]
3D After Burner 2 locked-on to hit 3DS eshop next week
Sega's next wave of 3D-enhanced Classics looks set to begin January 15 with After Burner 2, going by new eShop listings. Nintendo's storefronts in North America and Europe have the arcade air fighter down for that date, though Sega's yet to make any announcements. We've reached out to the publisher to confirm the ETA for some top-gunning action. According to its eShop description After Burner 2 includes 23 stages and comes with a selection of "real arcade cabinets," new difficulty settings, new graphical options, and the standard Classics addition of stereoscopic 3D. Also, if you beat all 23 stages you unlock an extra mode that features "even more gameplay enhancements."
Majora's Mask 3D bundle sports a Skull Kid figurine
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D will receive a limited edition bundle at the game's launch that includes a Skull Kid figurine. The $50 bundle doesn't include any of the goodies packed in to Europe's special edition, as Nintendo noted that it only features a copy of the game and the figurine. The publisher has yet to offer a launch date for the remastered game. Nintendo announced plans to remake Majora's Mask for 3DS during a Nintendo Direct livestream in November. The original game launched in 2000 for Nintendo 64, putting series hero Link in the doomed land of Terminus, months after the events of the other cherished Zelda game for the system, Ocarina of Time. Word of a possible 3D remake of Majora's Mask began in November 2011, when series producer Eiji Aonuma said the publisher was "seriously considering" it following the success of Ocarina of Time's own 3DS remake. [Image: Nintendo]
New Nintendo 3DS comes to Europe as Ambassador Edition
Nintendo fans have been eagerly anticipating the 'new' 3DS and 3DS XL handhelds since they were first announced last August. Both models hit store shelves in Japan last October, followed by Australia and New Zealand a month later, but since then we've heard very little about an international release beyond "2015." Now, Nintendo is taking its console tease even further with a new Nintendo 3DS 'Ambassador Edition' for Europe. The company is offering the special handheld to select Club Nintendo members and, weirdly, it isn't limited to people in the original 3DS ambassador program. So if you have an active Club Nintendo account, you should probably check your inbox or head here to see if you're eligible.
Best of the Rest: Susan's picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Framed Framed is so elegant and simple that it needs not a single word to teach you how to play. If you understand the basic function of the panels in a comic book and are able to poke things with your finger, you will swiftly understand the basics of how to make things happen in this brilliant mobile game. Arrange the panels one way, and your spy makes a daring escape from the police; position them another way, and he emerges from the wrong door right into the hands of the law. From the very first level, which uses just two panels to illustrate how switching the order of the comic can change the outcome of its events, Framed builds on its simplicity, adding more panels, directionality and timing to create more complex puzzles in its stylish spy-vs-spy thriller. Each page of the comic is a puzzle complete unto itself, making Framed perfectly designed for short bursts of inspiration, or restricted play time. It's one of those games that's so damn clever, you wish you'd thought it up yourself.
New 3DS 'Ambassador Bundle' revealed for EU, shipping early
Nintendo of Europe is offering the New 3DS early to its "most loyal customers," as revealed by emails sent out this morning. The company invited a limited selection of Club Nintendo users (and only them) to buy the "Ambassador Edition" bundle, priced $180/€200 and only available to order until January 12. The New 3DS only has a "2015" release window in Europe, like North America, but screencaps sent to Joystiq show the Ambassador Bundle is ready to be delivered within three to five days. That tallies with Nintendo's terms of sale, which indicate delivery should be made by January 23. We've reached out to the company to confirm the details. As attested to by multiple reports, Nintendo's outline of the bundle notes the system itself has a value of £156/€170 (in USD that's $237/$202). That may prove to be the baseline price when the New 3DS hits Europe's store shelves. In Japan the system costs 16,000 yen ($134).
Best of the Rest: Earnest's picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Forza Horizon 2 Don't let the checkered flags and supercars speeding from point to point fool you, Forza Horizon 2 is not a racing game. It's a driving game; a game that's equally entertaining whether you're speeding from point A to point B in a pack of supercars, or languidly navigating a scenic highway on the Italian coast. Say what you will about the game's less-than-realistic physics modeling (the polite term is "arcade-style"), but developer Playground Games absolutely understands what makes cars cool. Driving endless laps around a tarmac track might work for NASCAR, but vehicular works of art like the Lamborghini Aventador need equally picturesque surroundings. Southern Europe works nicely, but the impressive bit is that Playground Games managed to capture all the aesthetic highlights of the region in a relatively small space tuned explicitly for racing. It's a good thing the setting works so well, because once you've arrived it's hard to leave. Not just because the driving mechanics feel so right, and not because the game's leveling system is fiendishly moreish, but because the virtual world is stocked with a truly vast number of races and events. 120 levels in, I've seen maybe 20 percent of what the game has on tap. At this rate, Forza Horizon 2 isn't just one of the best games I played in 2014, it's probably going to be one of the best games I play in 2015 too.
UK Charts: Captain Toad reports for duty in 16th
JAN 5 2015 JOYSTIQ THE INTERNET TREASURE TRACKER REPORTING SAFE AND WELL STOP WE SECURED CAPTURE OF SIXTEENTH REGIMENT THOUGH WE HAVE BEEN ON UK MAINLAND FOR SOME TIME ALREADY STOP MUST GO THAT IS MY BUS STOP CAPTAIN ARCHIE MONTGOMERY TOAD
Joystiq Top 10 of 2014: Shovel Knight
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Retro-inspired platformers are practically synonymous with the indie scene, and the genre's almost as active nowadays as it was back in the early console era. With so much competition already on the market, what makes Yacht Club Games' throwback platformer, Shovel Knight, worth a spot in our list of the best games of 2014? It has a rare devotion to authenticity, for one thing. Similar in premise to Capcom's NES classic DuckTales, Shovel Knight stars an unlikely hero equipped with an unconventional but multifaceted weapon. Making the most out of simple mechanics is a staple of the 8-bit era, and Shovel Knight himself is a shining example, showcasing a robust moveset in spite of his seemingly limited capabilities. Like the best games from the last millennium, it won't take you long before you've mastered Shovel Knight's initial learning curve and find yourself chaining carefully timed pogo bounces in order to reach faraway platforms. It's also incredibly faithful to its source material. Like its ancient 8-bit brethren, Shovel Knight is built with hardware limitations in mind, mostly adhering to standards with its tile-based backgrounds, limited color palettes, and exceptionally catchy soundtrack that never exceeds its limited number of allotted sound channels. These are the sort of details that you won't notice unless you're specifically looking for them, but working together in concert they legitimize the experience, and complete the illusion that Shovel Knight escaped from the flannel clutches of the early '90s.
New Nintendo eShop releases: Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire
To complement the recent launch of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, the latest Nintendo eShop update is headlined by Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire. For those unfamiliar, Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire is, as its name suggests, a pinball adaptation of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, the same games that provided the basis for the recent Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remakes. In Pokemon Pinball players are still working toward catching all the Pokemon available, but the core series' lengthy adventures are replaced by complex table layouts and bouncing silver balls. Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire is now available from the Wii U eShop for $8. The other half of this update is the GameBoy Color platformer Bionic Commando: Elite Forces. It's not the best in the series, but it's also not the worst, and it is notable for relatively novel gameplay and what the developer's were able to do with the aging handheld hardware. Bionic Commando: Elite Forces is priced at $6. Capping off the update are a list of sales. Joystiq favorite Shovel Knight is 33 percent off on both Wii U and 3DS until January 8, Unepic is 30 percent off on Wii U until January 29 and the 3DS eShop is hosting 50 percent discounts on both Dress to Play: Cute Witches! and Dress to Play: Magic Bubbles! until February 1. [Image: Nintendo]
Joystiq Discussion: How do you tackle your gaming back log?
January is when the sheer scale of it hits you, when you stare into the inky abyss of your Steam library and wonder: when the hell am I going to play all of these games? Every time the sale starts, the back log grows. Five measly bucks for a copy of Tomb Raider: The Definitive Edition! Who cares that I'm smack dab in the middle of three different RPGs? I can't let that pass me by! So the backlog swells, piling more and more games onto the proverbial, sometimes actual, stack. Recently I took stock of my own considerable back log, counting up all the vintage cartridges, discs, recent releases that went on sale, and downloads I'd amassed but never actually fired up to play. Turned out there were 27 games that I'd simply never turned on. In January, I'm trying to tackle them one at a time. Pokemon Y and Silent Hill: Book of Memories are first up! Once I've knocked them down, I'll move on to two more. It's not a perfect system, though. There are plenty of ways to tackle the back log. Do you take it slow? Do you not even bother and just let the back log grow? Or do you manage to keep up, finishing everything as you go. Take the poll, discuss below. How do you tackle your gaming back log? [Images: Nintendo]
Game Boy Tetris leaving eShop on New Year's Eve
Shall old acquaintance be forgot And days of breaking lines Shall old acquaintance be forgot And Nintendo is pulling Tetris from 3DS eShop on New Years Eve Maybe it has something to do with Ubisoft. Okay, so it's not as catchy as Auld Lang Syne, but it might make you just as weepy. Nintendo has confirmed via its UK Twitter account that the Game Boy version of Tetris, a game that helped define Nintendo's handheld and portable gaming in general, will be pulled from the 3DS eShop on December 31. It appears that Tetris Axis for the 3DS is also being pulled, according to an image from the 3DS eShop news section posted on Twitter. Nintendo of America has yet to make a similar announcement, and the US eShops make no note of either game being removed, so it's possible that this applies only to the UK. As for why Tetris would be removed from the eShop, it may have something to do with Ubisoft's Tetris Ultimate, which was recently released on 3DS. We've contacted Nintendo of America to confirm if the US version is to be removed as well. If you'd rather not take your chances, the Game Boy version can still be had for $3.99. Unless, of course, you've somehow managed to keep your old Game Boy in working condition all these years. [Image: Nintendo]
