Nintendo wants to “change movies” with an interactive Zelda film

Nintendo wants to “change what a movie is” before it attempts a Legend of Zelda film adaptation.

Nintendo has been pretty conservative when it comes to spreading its properties out to other media. Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma told Kotaku that a possible Zelda adaptation would have to give audiences something completely different from their normal film experience.

“This is something that me and Mr. Miyamoto talked about,” Aonuma said. “If we were to make a Zelda title, if we had interest in doing that, I think really what would be most important to us is to be able to play with the format of a movie, make it more interactive, like you’re able to take your 3DS into the theater and that leads you into participating in it somehow. We wouldn’t want to make it the same as any other movie. We want to somehow change what a movie is.”

Disney’s been toying with second screen film experiences, with the release of the Little Mermaid: Second Screen Live in September. The experience uses an iPad app that syncs up with the film using the built-in microphone. Mashable tried out the app at a screening and found the film almost unwatchable due to the app.

“The games are distracting. Some moviegoers meeting Ariel and friends for the first time will find it hard to focus on the movie, with a new game every minute or two,” wrote Mashable’s Taylor Casti. Many games require an individual’s full attention, for instance, when players quickly pop bubbles or tilt the iPad to catch Ariel’s treasures in a chest. In fact, the games were so distracting, on multiple occasions key information was lost to gameplay.”

“Not to mention the voiceover and inter-theater competition, where up to four characters talk over the dialogue in the film to encourage players to compete with other audience members. As someone who grew up with Ariel, sure, the games were fun. But children seeing the movie for the first time missed seeing Triton destroy Ariel’s treasures; Ariel meet Eric for the first time; Ariel’s visit with Scuttle.”

Perhaps Nintendo could work around this with a film built specifically for interactivity? It is a way for Nintendo to continue to be unique, but Rovio and others seem perfectly fine making simple animated features. Is the company trying to reinvent the wheel for no good reason?

 

[source]

Wii U still misunderstood by consumers, retailers – Analyst

IHS analyst says Nintendo’s messaging troubles persist, people don’t understand how it differs from Wii.

As the Wii U closes in on its one-year anniversary, the system is still hampered by some of the same problems it faced at launch. Speaking with Benzinga, IHS senior games analyst Christine Arrington said people still don’t understand that there’s a difference between the Wii U and its seven-year-old predecessor, the Wii.

“I think one of the things that was a real indicator of that was just, anecdotally, if you went into a retailer and you talked to somebody in the games department, they didn’t even understand what it was,” Arrington said. “I did the secret shopper kind of thing, and they would say, ‘Well, there’s no difference between the Wii and Wii U.'”

Arrington said she was told the same thing multiple times in her secret shopping efforts. As for why the console was so poorly understood, Arrington lamented the lack of a Wii Sports-like launch title, a game that would let everyone understand at a glance why the Wii U GamePad would allow for different experiences from the Wii.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata acknowledged both the lack of consumer understanding and the absence of a Wii Sports-like title for the Wii U earlier this year. However, he blamed the misunderstanding on Nintendo’s “relaxed” marketing efforts for the system.

 

[source]

Donkey Kong delay hurts Wii U holiday lineup

Tropical Freeze pushed to February as Nintendo leans on Super Mario 3D World, Mario & Sonic Olympics, Wii Party U to bear the load.

The Wii U’s holiday lineup is looking a little lighter as Nintendo today delayed the launch of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Previously set for a December debut, Tropical Freeze has been pushed to February in North America, as confirmed by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata during a Nintendo Direct presentation.

“In order to deliver the optimum gaming experience, we need a little more time for development of this title,” Iwata explained, adding, “We would like to apologize for this delay and hope you understand.”

The Wii U’s holiday lineup still has a handful of big exclusives yet to launch, including Super Mario 3D World on November 22. The same month will also see the launch of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014, as well as the digital debut of Wii Fit U. Meanwhile, October’s release slate is headed up by Wii Party U, Sonic Lost World, and this week’s retail launch of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.

Analysts including IHS’ Piers Harding-Rolls and Baird’s Colin Sebastian have pointed to this holiday season as a key stretch for the Wii U. Sebastian said “the fate of the platform” rests on its holiday software lineup, while Harding-Rolls said this season’s sales performance will dictate his firms long-term outlook on the system.

Rubin: “Games are becoming harder to make”

Infinity Ward’s exec producer worries for smaller studios.

Call Of Duty: Ghosts’ executive producer has highlighted the rising costs and increasing difficulty presented by the AAA market for developers, and even for Infinity Ward.

“It’s a scary thing, and I’ll take my Call Of Duty hat off for a minute here, but games are becoming harder to make, more expensive to make,” Mark Rubin said in a video interview with GameInformer.

“I feel like smaller studios are having trouble – I can’t speak for them but I would think – are having trouble making games that fill the big AAA market because they’re harder to do. It is kind of a bummer that games are getting so hard and difficult to make.”

“People want better and better graphics, they want more realistic looking art assets and that comes at a cost and that’s a hard thing to have to deal with.”

He added that it “bothered” him to think that games were trying to chase Call Of Duty’s success, using the example that he loved MMOs, but wouldn’t want to make a World Of Warcraft clone.

During the interview Rubin, who has been executive producer at the studio since August 200, also spoke about some of the challenges about developing for current and next-generation platforms at the same time. The game is due for release on both PlayStation consoles, both Xbox consoles and PC later this year, and Treyarch is developing a version for Wii U.

 

[source]

Monster Hunter Frontier G coming to Vita

Online action RPG Monster Hunter Frontier G is making the jump to Vita, Capcom announced at the Tokyo Game Show.

 

It will be the first entry in the phenomenally popular series to make the jump to Vita, and is due next year. It will share some connectivity with the PS3 version – cross-save and cross-play.

Capcom hasn’t had much else to say on the topic, but has opened a teaser site. According to IGN‘s translation, the Vita and PS3 version will share servers, although a PS3 exclusive server will be available.

The subscription MMO was first released on PC in 2007, and came to Xbox 360 in 2010. In late July, announced for PS3 and Wii U later this year. the various ports do not share servers.

No version of Monster Hunter Frontier has ever been released outside Japan. It’s known variously as Monster Hunter Frontier Online and Monster Hunter Frontier G; the G was added after a major upgrade issues in April 2013.