Category: Gamespot

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, passed away on Saturday due to ongoing health complications. He was 55 years old.

Nintendo announced that the widely respected chief executive died on July 11 “due to a bile duct growth.” Two representative directors remain at the company: Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto.

Iwata was first appointed as the director of Nintendo in June 2000. He was promoted to the position of president and representative director of Nintendo in 2002, following the resignation of Hiroshi Yamauchi. He also assumed responsibilities as chief executive of Nintendo of America in 2013.

In related matters:

• Shigeru Miyamoto has issued a statement: “I am surprised at this sudden news and overcome with sadness.”
• Tributes have poured in from across the industry, with leaders at Sony, Microsoft, and the development community paying their respects.
• Nintendo of Europe President Satoru Shibata released a statement addressing the passing of his colleague. “It is difficult to put into words the sadness we feel at this time,” he said. “He was a visionary in every sense of the word and we will miss him dearly. Just as Mr. Iwata challenged us to always push forward, we will ensure his legacy lives on through our ongoing work to always surprise and delight our fans.”

In the wake of Iwata’s shock death, Nintendo must begin a new search for its next chief executive. The corporation has told GameSpot that succession plans have “not been decided at this point.”

But it adds that the two acting representative directors, Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto, have already taken on the task of managing the business, and as such is hoping for a smooth transition.

The company states: “Other than Mr. Iwata, we have two representative directors (Mr. Takeda and Mr. Miyamoto). Even by now, these representative directors have been together discussing and managing to operate the company, so we anticipate no issue in the near future.”

Iwata was absent from E3 last year due to health issues, later revealed to be a bile duct growth which was removed via surgery. He resumed his regular work schedule in October last year, although there were concerns about his rapid weight loss following treatment. Iwata was not present at this year’s E3, staying in Japan in order to focus on Nintendo’s “other areas of business.”

Prior to joining Nintendo, Iwata worked at HAL Laboratory as a programmer and designer. During his time there he worked on several games including the Kirby, Earthbound, and Balloon Fight series. He would go on to become president of HAL in 1993.

Iwata garnered the adoration of fans and the industry as a whole through his candid demeanor and willingness to embody the playful nature of Nintendo’s games, even as CEO of the company. Last year he took a 50 percent pay cut to apologise for the company’s disappointing financial results, following lower Wii U sales than was projected.

In addition to his regular Iwata Asks column, in which he would interview key members of various upcoming games, Iwata was also the face of the company’s Nintendo Direct events. These streams, while primarily designed to make game announcements and provide updates on ongoing projects, became something more thanks to weird and wonderful skits, many of which Iwata would participate in.

“On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.”

Satoru Iwata, 1959-2015

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DICE’s upcoming Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst is a re-imagining of the original Mirror’s Edge; we’ll hear a different version of protagonist Faith’s tale, and although we’ll see familiar faces and hear familiar names, they may not be in the forms we remember. But perhaps the biggest change is the way DICE is presenting Faith herself. According to narrative director Christofer Ermgard–who is also working on the prequel comic Mirror’s Edge: Exordium–she’ll be less an “empty vessel” for players to control and more fleshed out, due to a richer narrative and supporting world.

“We are doing something that is new; it’s different and separate from the first game,” Ermgard explained. “You will recognize maybe the names of some characters, but they will be different characters in this one. Sometimes we even have the name and the look, but the character, what they do is still different, so there are some carry-overs in terms of ideas.

“I think what we [at DICE] felt was that we wanted a more fleshed out world, a larger world that was more detailed and textured than the original game had,” he continued. “Also, we had new art direction–it had been eight years since the first game, so I think a lot of people felt that it was time to take the elements that we felt worked with the first game, and then use them to then expand upon that to do this game. People shouldn’t expect to understand any sort of connection to the first game. This is its own thing.”

As for the new version of Faith, Ermgard said the original game focused on providing a character players could fully imprint upon, stepping into her shoes and allowing them to experience the world as they wanted. For Catalyst, however, Ermgard said DICE was keen on creating a deeper narrative, which in turn led them scrapping the “blank canvas” character idea for Faith and bulking up her backstory and behavioral traits.

Catalyst is also far enough removed from the original Mirror’s Edge that players who didn’t play the first game won’t feel dazed by the second.

“People who have played the first game will recognize some elements, but for Catalyst, the city is new, Faith herself is similar-ish, but we never really delved too much into her in the first game,” Ermgard explained. “Her personality now is more fleshed out. The game is about her personal journey, I would say. Of course there’s this big plot about getting involved against oppression and all that stuff, but the more important story is her journey, who she becomes and where she starts out and what happens along the way to make her into the person that she is.”

There is a lot of affection among DICE’s developers for Faith. Ermgard, who has been working on Mirror’s Edge for three years, is personally attached to her, speaking of her like she were his own daughter. The game isn’t just about the developers’ journey to completion; it’s about them giving Faith a rich world and story they feel will best help her grow.

“In the first game, there was not that much of her personality,” Ermgard said. “I didn’t myself feel like she went through any large change throughout that game, and so the person she is there is maybe more or less the person she is now… But now she’s even more fleshed out, and there’s more of her. There are more events in her life that explain who she is, and this is, in a way, a coming of age storyline, in that she will come to understand the impact that she has on the people in this society around her. She’ll start out her journey a bit more careless, a bit more selfish, a bit more immortal and then realize along the way that’s not the case, and I think that transformation people can hopefully relate to.

“She is a complex young woman,” he continued. “I hope that she’ll be relatable. I think she is, because she’s very human, even though she does these things that would be considered superhuman. But she’s no superhero. We’re very clear about that. Her skills are skills that she acquired that all people could if they really dedicated themselves. But still, I think she is both someone to aspire to, and someone to empathize with.”

Eager fans will be able to get a small taste of Faith’s new story in Mirror’s Edge: Exordium, a comic book series that will detail events leading up to the start of Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. The six-issue run will begin on September 9, with one issue releasing each month until the game releases on February 23, 2016.

“I think you see coming of age stories all the time, but I’ve got to say, I haven’t really seen Faith’s type,” Ermgard said of Faith’s story. “She’s not a superhero. I think that in itself is different and she exists in a world that is in many ways similar to and inspired by the one we live in today. Of course, it’s been beautified and taken to the extreme, but I think that combo is something special.”

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Criterion Games, developer of the Burnout franchise and most recently Need for Speed Most Wanted, has teased that it will reveal “something amazing” and you won’t have to wait long to find out what it is.

“I’ve been working on a couple of super-secret things that I can’t talk about yet,” veteran Criterion producer Pete Lake said on the developer’s website. “But we’ll have something amazing to reveal soon…!”

At E3 2014, Criterion announced an epic-looking extreme sports game featuring helicopters, ATVs, planes, jet skis, wingsuits and more. However, this project was nowhere to be seen at this year’s E3 and we still don’t know much about it.

Perhaps Criterion–which is owned by Electronic Arts–is gearing up to re-reveal the game at Gamescom next month? Or maybe a new Burnout game to follow 2011’s Burnout Crash? Let us know what you’d like to see from Criterion in the comments below.

Via: Videogamer

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Director Paul Feig has shared the first official cast image of the upcoming all-female Ghostbusters movie.

Feig tweeted the image you see below of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon posing in front of the Ecto-1 and carrying proton packs. Images of the individual elements (costumes, car, proton packs) were released previously, but this is the first time we’re seeing them all together.

The new Ghostbusters hits theaters on July 22, 2016. It’s the first entry in the series since 1989’s Ghostbusters II, which starred Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.

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