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The Wonderful 101 initially starred Nintendo characters
Despite its cast being wonderfully original, The Wonderful 101 was initially conceived as a way to unite "world famous characters" with Nintendo's iconic characters, Nintendo's Iwata Asks series revealed this week. Wonderful 101 Director Hideki Kamiya explained that the original concept stemmed from Platinum Games CEO and President Tatsuya Minami's order to "bring together world famous characters with Nintendo characters at its center, appearing all in one game." While working with the original idea, Kamiya wanted to find a way to "please everyone by letting them play the whole game as their favorite character." As one would imagine, the involved licensing sunk the original concept. Nintendo President Iwata said that the game's "cover certainly [had] impact to make even me think twice, and I was the producer working hard to gather all the characters in the first Smash Bros.!" Nintendo Producer Hitoshi Yamagami reacted similarly, noting that "the moment I saw the cover, I winced ..." Several months after Platinum Games' initial pitch, Nintendo's Licensing Department contacted Yamagami concerning a revamped build of the game without Nintendo's characters. Once Managing Director of Nintendo Shinya Takahashi showed him a demo of the new project, Yamagami "knew the moment [he] saw it that this was that idea from Platinum Games."
Capcom talks about Clover closure
This news may not be as hopeful as the last Clover-related item, but it certainly helps to soften the original shock of Capcom's shutdown of Clover Studio last October. Capcom's vice president of marketing, Charles Bellfield, explained the nature of Clover's dissolution, giving us a glimpse at Capcom's internal development team structure. Basically, most of Capcom's teams are defined by their heads, and programming talent is pulled from a common pool. Clover was the exception, with a dedicated team of about 80 people. When Hideki Kamiya, Atsushi Inaba, and Shinji Mikami "decided to leave" the rest of the staff were folded back into the Capcom development pool. It's not exactly a happy ending to the Clover saga, but at least the whole development team didn't get canned for being too Viewtiful. The Clover bigwigs have their freedom, and the staff still have Capcom jobs. The interview is packed with info on all kinds of recent Capcommery, including a discussion of Phoenix Wright's surprising success. A Fanboy high five to the interviewer, former Video Game Ombudsman and blog-relative Kyle Orland.
Clover bosses start Seeds, blogger strains to resist botany metaphors [update 1]
Four months ago, we started mourning the sad loss of Clover Studio, the development house responsible for beautiful, original games like Viewtiful Joe, Okami, and God Hand. Well, now we can wipe our cel-shaded tears away! Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya, and Resident Evil/Devil May Cry creator Shinji Mikami have held their V-Watches aloft, shouted "Henshin a-go-go, baby!" and transformed the moribund Clover into a new development studio, called Seeds. And they want you! You know, if you're a qualified programmer or artist of some kind. According to the site, they are in the process of looking for new people to help them make some "weird, amazing games." We Fanboys are hoping that they (and whoever publishes their future work) turn their attentions to the two weirdest, most amazing consoles we can think of. These guys have some prior DS experience, and they've no doubt noticed that the DS has done a little bit of business in Japan, so it seems likely they'll be weirding and amazing it up on two screens in the near future.[Via Game|Life][Update 1: Those insidious italics!]
