Category: Nintendo News

We’ve had our eye on Vostok Inc for a little while – it blends twin-stick shooting with a quirky dose of capitalism as you try to exploit various planets in order to get rich.

Nosebleed Interactive and Wired Productions recently confirmed some quirky exclusive content for Switch – the inclusion of Pluto as a planet – and has now announced the release date. It arrives on 7th December and will have a pre-load option at some point; its US store game page gives a price of $14.99USD.

With its gameplay hook and some cool minigames this one seems rather promising, and it’ll be interesting to see whether it takes off on Switch.

Splatoon is fantastic in 3D, but what exactly would it look like in 2D? That’s what former Vitei (Steel Diver, Tank Troopers) staffer Nathan Heckel pondered last year.

“While I was at Vitei wrapping up work on Tank Troopers as a gameplay programmer, I wanted to start my own project to pitch to Nintendo for a follow-up contract,” explains Heckel. “As I’d been studying NES programming as a hobby for some time, I suggested the idea for a NES version of Splatoon to my former boss, Vitei CEO Giles Goddard.”

Work progressed swiftly, with the prototype getting to the stage where it was possible to run, jump, shoot and transform, and “rudimentary” collision detection was implemented. Even the audio side of things began to develop. “Mark Sparling’s MMC5 cover of ‘Splattack!’ [which you can listen to below] plays in the background through the Famitracker driver,” says Heckel. “This all runs on real hardware using dev carts I had made from repurposed copies of Sangokushi II for the Famicom.” 

Heckel also enlisted the help of Pirate Pop Plus developer Dadako’s Hawken King to create the visuals. The aim from the start wasn’t just to create a cool “demake” of Splatoon, but to somehow get it into the hands of players. “While actual cartridges would’ve been really cool, that was always the longest shot,” he says. “Short of that, I was hoping to have it packaged with Splatoon 2 like Star Fox Guard was packaged with Star Fox Zero, used as a mini-game like the retro-themed diversions in Splatoon 1, sold on the Virtual Console, or included in a hypothetical 2nd version of the NES Classic Edition.” 

Naturally, a project of this kind would need Nintendo’s official blessing, but sadly it wasn’t meant to be. Heckel thinks the project was simply the victim of bad timing. “In terms of presenting to Nintendo, I put together a set of slides outlining the progress on the demo, possible scope of the game, a development timeline, and sales avenues. I sent this to a member of the Splatoon team I was able to reach. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. While I can’t speak for Nintendo, the pitch was sent after Splatoon 2 had been announced for the summer this year. Not having any visibility into unannounced projects, my guess had been that a sequel wouldn’t be out until the summer of 2018, and a NES version could be paired with it in some form. Instead, I caught them when they were probably very busy finishing the game.”

However, it might not be the end for this interesting venture, and Heckel says he’s open to continuing development – albeit with different visuals – assuming a publisher is willing to back him. “While I can’t use the Splatoon IP without a development contract with Nintendo, it’d be possible to repurpose it as a different title entirely. Continued development in full would depend on a publisher expressing interest.” If there are any publishers reading this who can help, but sure to get in touch – or, if you’re at Nintendo and you can make this happen, it’s time to do the right thing.

The biggest shopping weekend of the year has now passed, from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. It’s a hugely important period for retailers, and the shift to online shopping continues to gain momentum; data from Adobe suggests that’s the case.

In a press release outlining its estimates for the Holiday Weekend (as it is in some countries), Adobe Data has estimated that Cyber Monday brought record online sales in the US of $6.59 billion, up on Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day in terms of online revenues. Its analysis also suggests that 47.4% of visits were on smart devices (phones and tablets).

From a Nintendo perspective it seems like the Holidays have been lucrative, too.

Top sellers on Cyber Monday included the Nintendo Switch, PJ Masks and Hatchimals & Colleggtibles figurines, Apple AirPods, streaming devices like Google Chromecast and Roku, and Super Mario Odyssey, the video game.

In previously released estimates via Adobe Digital Insights the Switch was listed as the top selling product on both Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. With momentum reportedly then continuing through Cyber Monday, that would suggest that Nintendo also got decent stock in place to meet demand.

These are all estimates from Adobe, albeit based on a huge amount of data and analysis.

It seems like the Switch and Super Mario Odyssey were headline successes over the past few days, then, and it’ll be interesting to see more data and information once the US NPD results roll around for November.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s Nintendo had an iron grip on gaming culture, and merchandised the heck out of it – that was especially the case in North America. There were lunchboxes, official magazines, loads of console accessories and, of course, cereal.

Those days have been gone for a long time, to varying degrees, though Nintendo is in the midst of a big push to regain its foothold in popular culture. There’s buzz around the Switch, theme park attractions are being built, and there may even be a movie; now, it seems, the company is heading back into the cereal game.

According to cerealously.net (nice one) Kellogg’s is getting ready to release ‘Super Mario Cereal’, a berry mix with marshmallows. Though it’s apparently not the final box art, it seems to suggest that the box (or at least one version of it) would have a small NFC chip in order for it to function as an amiibo.

One of the Cerealously readers has apparently had this confirmed by Kellogg’s, though we can only take their word for it until confirmation comes along.

We’ll see whether this is real or not very soon, we suspect. Would you start your day with Super Mario Cereal?

Plenty of genres have been covered already on the Switch eShop, but a bit of 3D brawling certainly won’t go amiss. With that in mind it’s good news that BadLand Games is publishing Heart&Slash on the system, with release set for December.

This brawler is treated as a roguelike, so each run throws up different stage designs and weapon pick-ups. What’s particularly neat is that there are “up to 75 different weapons and 60 different robot body parts”, which all affect how you fight and play. In theory that should keep things very interesting.

It looks like an intriguing title – let us know whether you’re interested in the comments.

For those of you hunting bargains this Cyber Monday, Ubisoft has thrown its hat into the ring with some discounts in the North American Switch eShop, with a couple of Just Dance discounts also arriving on Wii U.

We don’t think there are any knockout deals here, but they could be tempting for those seeking something new to play this week – all discounts are live until 4th December, with prices below in US dollars.

Switch eShop

Wii U eShop

• Just Dance 2018 – $35.99 (normally $59.99)
• Just Dance 2017

That’s the lot, are you tempted by any of those deals?

Plenty of quality download titles have been realised thanks to crowdfunding, though it’s also a route that can lead to some disappointment. Slain: Back From Hell, a Castlevania-style title with a heavy metal soundtrack, was delayed a little before eventually getting released, and the Wii U version fell through; low sales with the console were cited as a reason.

In positive news it’s only a week or so away from the Switch eShop, popping up on the ‘Coming Soon’ section of the European eShop with a date of 7th December and priced at £17.99 in the UK. It promises a six hour campaign and a ‘full soundtrack recorded by Curt Victor Bryant, formerly of Celtic Frost’. Below is the trailer from last year’s PS4 version, which is the same as that on the eShop.

It’s one we’ve been interested in since its crowdfunding days, so here’s hoping that it turns out well on the Switch.

The Switch eShop, with various success stories to its name, is attracting a host of multi-platform Indie releases. Another to join the list is Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, a clever puzzle platformer in which a coloured ‘magic marker’ allows for various abilities.

Check out a trailer below.

This originally came out in 2014, developed by Press Play and published by Microsoft Game Studios; they’re different teams turning around the latest console releases, with an arrival on PS4 just a couple of weeks ago. The North American Switch eShop is listing it for a release on 21st December priced at $14.99.

Is this going on your wishlist?

We are, slowly and surely, exiting the ‘silly season’ of game releases. From late September to mid/late November each year all of the biggest companies push out their premium games, hoping to capitalise on the tendencies of many to spend big ahead of the festive period. It works, too, and every year we see familiar names – FIFA, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed / Far Cry and more. Nintendo joins in too, with this year’s notable arrivals including Super Mario Odyssey on Switch and Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon on 3DS.

In the past couple of years Nintendo’s role in this chaotic period was relatively muted in terms of sales and broader attention from the public. In fact without Pokemon Sun and Moon we’d be struggling to look for big hitters last year, especially as the big N had scaled back its Wii U support. Nintendo was having to do the majority of the lifting on its own, too, with 3DS having a distinct library and Wii U being put out to pasture, meaning that most (read: practically all) notable multi-platform releases passed Nintendo systems by.

To an extent that’s continuing with Switch, with the likes of Assassin’s Creed Origins being too beefy for the console. Yet it has been a busy time with the system – beyond Super Mario Odyssey there was the September release of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, and we’ve had a little glut of pleasing third-party games led by DOOM, L.A. Noire and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Big name games, with the angle being that they’re portable for the first time.

There’s more to come yet – this week will bring Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Resident Evil Revelations Collection (separate downloads only in Europe), and we still await the final DLC for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Yet from a non-Nintendo major retail perspective, we’ve had the silly season burst. The question is, where does it leave us?

We still await detailed sales information on DOOM, L.A. Noire and Skyrim, a triumvirate of ports that were exciting in theory but tougher purchasing decisions for some. Undoubtedly an audience eagerly snapped them up, some from the eShop, but early evidence from the UK charts showed a hesitant userbase at retail. The reality is simple – we live in a world where many gamers have multiple systems.

One reason the Switch is doing well, among various factors, is the temptation for some to pick it up as their Nintendo / portable gaming fix for the generation, typically alongside a PC, PS4 or Xbox One. Yes, there are a number that game exclusively on Nintendo hardware, but it’s likely that a large part of the audience that enjoy the likes of DOOM and Skyrim have another console or PC, a legacy of Nintendo’s decade+ policy of putting concept above power – a philosophy that was a huge success with Wii, let’s not forget. With these being ports, plenty will have already played them in some form on other hardware.

That was the case for this scribe, with copies on PC or PS4 of all those games prior to their Switch arrivals. For those in that boat it’s then a question of double dipping – how much do you want to play these games on the go or with their Switch-specific features? All three of those big-name games are tempting for different reasons, but it is a lot of money to buy them again. Take DOOM and Skyrim, for example – full price games on Switch, easily found at a discount on other platforms. For those with limited budgets tough decisions are made, and perhaps games that are desirable are nevertheless left behind.

The question, then, is whether releases like this trio will sell enough to keep their notable publishers interested; perhaps, even if they struggle, those companies will take the long view. We already have suspicions and fears that EA will be put off by FIFA 18 Switch sales, but will Bethesda and Rockstar be more pragmatic, will they be realistic with their sales expectations? You have the challenge of selling pricey ports on a young system with a userbase around the 10-12 million mark – surely numbers are expected to be modest.

At this stage we have to rely upon the positive reputation and momentum of the Switch continuing to draw in major publishers through 2018 and beyond, regardless of successes (or otherwise) in this launch year. In some cases there’ll be scaled back ports, but there could also be scope (if we’re lucky) for unique titles, be they spin-offs or standalone titles developed as notable side projects. Think, for example, of when we had a game like Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on DS, a top-down spin-off to the big budget 3D series entries. If the Switch continues to thrive, primarily off Nintendo’s releases, projects of that nature could be an interesting route for big studios to take alongside ports / remasters.

One thing is for sure – right now the future is uncertain. With a lot of the biggest studios considering 4K and graphical fidelity as priorities for big-budget titles, the Switch won’t be a fit for them all. Yes, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is coming, but not every graphical engine is that scalable and flexible, and let’s not forget how far Doom had to be squeezed using the same technology.

Taking the optimistic angle, considering the continual good press and positive vibes around the Switch we could see a fascinating generation from third-parties. Ideally it’ll be a mix of ports and multi-platform games – such as Ubisoft’s Starlink: Battle for Atlas – with some unique titles thrown in. The future could be bright.

Time will tell.