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Talk show's 'Nintendo Gay Marriage' video pairs up Mario, Link
Last Week Tonight discussed the ten-year anniversary of Massachusetts' legalization of same-sex marriage by poking fun at Nintendo's apology for not including same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life. Steamier than the average fan-fiction, the talk show played match-maker with Nintendo's characters.
3DS sim Tomodachi Life brings weird to the West in June
Even if you're not interested that Tomodachi Life is making the journey from Japan to North America and Europe on June 6, you'll want to watch its announcement video. If Nintendo Direct were to get its own sitcom, this would be its pilot. And it'd probably get greenlit. The 3DS game is known as Tomodachi Collection: New Life in Japan, where it's been a hit with 1.82 million sales since its launch this time last year. It takes its cues from games like The Sims and Animal Crossing, but adds its own distinctive Nintendo flavor by letting you play with Miis in a diversity of activities, from the casual and simple to the totally bizarre. Also, if you've ever wanted to hear your Miis talk in a weird synthesized voice, Tomodachi Life goes one better by letting you hear them sing in a weird synthesized voice. We'd say more, but really you should just watch the video. We're not going to top Nintendo execs dancing in a circle and hailing the Virtual Boy. [Image: Nintendo]
Tomodachi Collection will likely let Western players dance to techno, eat pizza
The number of American and European Nintendo 3DS owners that desperately want to virtually sing karaoke and wander through a Mii's dream is likely limited, hence why Nintendo has been reluctant to localize its Tomodachi Collection life simulators. Recent signs suggest, however, that Nintendo is warming to the idea of bringing Tomodachi Collection: New Life outside Japan. Rejoice, US/EU 3DS owners: looks like your Mii will visit a pizza shop yet. According to a number of Twitter posts compiled by Tiny Cartridge, Nintendo Europe is sending Nintendo 3DS owners a survey trying to gauge interest in Tomodachi Collection. The questionnaire opens with a brief description of the peculiar life simulator that's like a crossbreed of Animal Crossing and The Sims. "Tomodachi Collection is unlike any video game you have ever played, where you decide who should be part of your game," reads the summation, "Will it be your best friends? Your parents? Your crush? Or maybe your favorite actor? You get to choose who lives in this vibrant community! Create a Mii character of each person you want in the game. Pick a voice and personality, and watch your Mii character come to life." Think of it like Animal Crossing, but where you populate the game with characters before they start acting strange and randomly offering you furniture. The questionnaire then asks questions about how the surveyed would themselves describe the game, what interests them about it, and whether or not they would buy a copy. There are even a number of screenshots with full English text. Before the original Tomodachi Collection released in 2009, Nintendo registered a trademark for Friend Connection in Europe that suggested it would be localized. Nintendo later backed away, deciding that the game might be too specific to Japanese culture for Western players. [Images: Nintendo]
3DS life sim Tomodachi Collection heading West
Tomodachi Collection: New Life is coming to North America, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has confirmed to the Wall Street Journal. Iwata didn't provide a time table for the Western launch. A Nintendo representative told Joystiq that the company "has nothing to announce at this time." Tomodachi Collection, which translates to Friend Collection, is a series where Miis interact with one another across a variety of everyday activities, like going out to dinner and playing in a band. The first Tomodachi Collection launched on the DS in 2009, was turned into a TV show a year later, then made its debut on the 3DS in 2013 with Tomodachi Collection: New Life. As of last October, the game has sold 1.63 million copies in Japan. The 3DS localization news follows an eventful week for Nintendo, which held an investor's meeting in Japan where CEO Satoru Iwata outlined plans to bring the company back to profitability. Ideas included non-wearable health tech, bringing DS games to the Wii U and a new on-demand games service spanning multiple devices. Image: Nintendo
Five 3DS games shifted millions in the last six months
Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon are among five 3DS games that each shipped more than a million copies between April and September. The three other members of Nintendo's million-high club are Tomodachi Collection, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, and Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. It's New Leaf that led the way over the last six months, shipping 2.49 million worldwide and just over 2 million in the West; it came to Japan back in November 2012, before heading West in June. The cutesy sim's life-to-date figures are an impressive 6.35 million. Meanwhile, despite being released at the end of March and just before the start of Nintendo's fiscal year, Dark Moon came in second with 1.91 million. More significantly, its life-to-date total is 3.13 million. The remaining three all came in beneath the 2 million mark: the Japan-only Tomodachi Collection at 1.63 million, Dream Team at 1.37 million, and Country Returns 3D at 1.19 million. Together, the five 3DS games shipped 8.59 million units in those six months, contributing 31 percent of the system's total software shipments. If you're not all statted-out by that, here's a final bit of info for you: New Leaf's figures would put it fourth on the handheld's all-time list, behind the plumber triforce of Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, and New Super Mario Bros. 2. That's based on figures from March 2013, though, and the new Poke-games must be closing in after selling a crazy 4 million worldwide in just two days.
Wii U ships 300,000 units worldwide in Q2, still hurting Nintendo profits
Nintendo shipped approximately 300,000 Wii U units worldwide across the three months of July to September, nearly double what it did in the previous quarter. Despite the marked improvement, the company noted the the "Wii U hardware still has a negative impact" on profits, particularly because of the price cuts made to the system in the west. Nintendo reduced the Wii U Deluxe's North American price to $300 in August, after shifting just 160,000 units worldwide in its first fiscal quarter. The Wii U's lifetime shipments are now up to 3.91 million, a figure almost matched by the 3.89 million 3DS units shipped across the first six months of Nintendo's fiscal year alone. Nintendo shipped around 2.5 million units of its handheld across Q2, while Animal Crossing: New Leaf and Tomodachi Collection posted six-month figures of 2.49 million and 1.63 million units. The total six-month figure for 3DS software shipments is 27.38 million, up considerably from the 11 million or so for the first three months. The Wii U shows further improvement here, up to 6.3 million across six months compared to just over 1 million in the first three. Nintendo's net profit across the first six months of its fiscal year is ¥600 million ($6.1 million). That's down considerably from the approximate $88 million net profit posted for the the first three months, and translates an operating loss of of ¥23.2 billion ($236 million). The company attributed this to advertising initiatives to increase sales, as well as research and development on software for the Wii U. Update: Removed mention of 2DS, which was not yet on the market.
Nintendo announces 'mint white' 3DS XL, Tomodachi Collection bundle for Japan
Just in case your desire to catch them all extends to Nintendo 3DS variants, the company announced today that in Japan it's releasing a new mint white edition of the 3DS XL (called the LL in its home country) April 18th. Priced at 18,900 yen just like the (many) others, it keeps the styling simple with a green lid and white casing. Also arriving on the same day is a special edition bundle commemorating the latest Tomodachi Collection life simulation game, priced at 22,800 yen and showing off a more distinctive splotchy look. You can get all the info straight from virtual Iwata's news desk in the Nintendo Direct video embedded after the break while we keep an eye out for new models -- like that slick transparent demo unit -- crossing onto US shores this summer.
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver reaches 8.4m sold; other Nintendo million-sellers revealed from last fiscal year
As an addition to its overall earnings report, Nintendo has released a list of first-party million-sellers from its last fiscal year (ending March 31). Many of these games, including Wii Sports and Wii Fit, have been out for years, but still managed to sell more than a million units over the last four quarters! On DS, Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver have sold an astonishing 8.4 million copies -- 3.78 million in Japan, where the game's been out since September, and 4.62 million outside of Japan in just a few short weeks of availability before the close of the fiscal year. Nintendo's Japan-only Tomodachi Collection sold 3.2 million copies, and Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box moved a respectable 2.43 million copies outside of Japan. Even Style Savvy, which has a somewhat low profile in North America and Europe, sold 1.21 million copies in those territories. As for two perennial bestsellers, Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros. each sold over three million copies outside of Japan in the last fiscal year. Nintendo's marquee 2009 Wii titles, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, sold more than 10 million units each in North America and Europe alone; and worldwide, those titles sold 16.14 million, 12.65 million, and 14.7 million copies, respectively, through the fiscal year. But if you think those are big numbers, think again. Thanks to Wii Sports being bundled with the Wii system outside of Japan, the game now totals 63.46 million units sold. Heck, even Link's Crossbow Training (bundled with the Wii Zapper) broke a million sold in the last fiscal year. Head past the break for the complete list of million-sellers from Nintendo's fiscal year ending March 31, 2010. Source [PDF] - Supplementary information about earnings release [Nintendo]
Nintendo's Tomodachi Collection now a TV show
There's no indication of Nintendo localizing its DS hit Tomodachi Collection, in which you interact with a house full of your Miis as well as celebrity guest Miis. But its dominance in the Japanese market has reached a ridiculous high: it's being spun off into a TV show. "Koi no Kaitou?! Tomokore no Ni-se" (Love's Answer?! Tomodachi Collection Second Generation) stars three young girls with famous parents, who talk about relationships with a guest "second generation talent." They also make a Mii for the guest and have their Miis take part in Tomodachi Collection-related activities like singing together in-game. This scintillating programming will be on Japan's Tokyo MX channel starting May 6. [Via Famitsu, Andriasang]
Professor Layton and the Million-Selling Sequel
It would appear that Nintendo made the right decision in finally getting around to releasing Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box worldwide, as the company was able to trade that box for one filled with cash money. The company released a supplement to its earnings report, listing the million-selling first-party Wii and DS games of its Q3 (April-September), and Diabolical Box made the list with 1.26 million units sold. The entirety of that 1.26 million comes from outside of Japan, since it wasn't a first-party game in Japan, and it was released in 2007. The other new additions to the million-seller club on DS: Tomodachi Collection, the Mii communication game, and Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver, which mysteriously managed to rack up 10,000 overseas sales despite not having been released outside of Japan. Is Nintendo tracking import retailers differently somehow? On Wii, Wii Sports Resort has reached 6.97 million units worldwide, and Wii Fit Plus has already sold 2.13 million, a nice complement to the 4.28 million that the first Wii Fit sold in the last quarter. %Gallery-64964% Source (PDF)
Weekly Dragon Quest IX sales drop under 100K for the first time
Last week, for the first time since its July debut, Dragon Quest IX sold fewer than 100,000 copies. Gamasutra reports that the latest Media Create totals (not yet up on Media Create's site) put Dragon Quest at 79,000 units sold for the week ending August 23, earning it the second-place spot behind another DS game, Nintendo's Tomodachi Collection. This isn't the first week out of the top spot for DQIX: the August releases of SD Gundam G Generation Wars and Monster Hunter 3 bumped Square Enix's RPG sequel as well. Gamasutra estimates life-to-date sales for DQIX at 3.7 million units -- the rate of growth is slowing, but the results are still ridiculous.
Rumor: Friend Collection sounds 'Sim'ilar to an existing game
Retailer Gamestar has offered the first details about Nintendo's bizarre DS-based Mii interaction game, Tomodachi Collection (Friend Collection). We knew it involved Miis, specifically Miis resembling Nintendo executives, but not much else! These details should be considered rumors for now, simply because they aren't from Nintendo, but Gamestar does have a boxart image for this game, so it probably received this info from Nintendo.Gamestar's description makes the game sound even more like The Sims than Animal Crossing is. In Friend Collection, you create a Mii, or import one from the Wii, who moves onto an island populated by Miis. Your Mii can form friendships, and even fall in love and get married with other island Miis. Your real family's Miis can be imported and given personalities like the real people. You will be in charge of taking care of your Miis, by giving them food, playing games with them and giving them advice. The game also features a TV channel, which plays the news twice a day.[Via Siliconera]
New DS games make their Stage Debut
The DSi wasn't the only DS news out of Japan. A video showing Nintendo's upcoming lineup just happens to reveal several upcoming games for the handheld, all published by Nintendo themselves. It makes E3 look like a cruel joke. We've culled the totally new games from the video and listed them here, along with the games that we knew about but haven't seen video of yet. We'll have more info about each of these games when ... it exists! In the meantime, oh man new Mario & Luigi! Wagamama Fashion Girls' Mode: a fashion game from Nintendo! Neat. Aruite Wakaru Seikatsu Rhythm DS: The fitness game with the pedometer. Sekai no Gohan Shaberu! DS O-Ryouri Navi: a sequel to Cooking Guide that is based on recipes from around the world -- we're guessing the exact ones featured in other regions' versions of Cooking Guide. Some kind of fortune telling thing involving tarot and palm reading. Taboo: The Sixth Sense 2K9! Tomodachi Collection, some kind of thing that lets you interact with Miis. This looks like none other than a resurrected Stage Debut! Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!! Made in Wario/Wario Ware, although Wario's name doesn't actually appear in the tentative title. It's, like "Made in Series" or something. But it's clearly Wario. A brutally insane 3D Picross.
