Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and many other iconic Nintendo franchises, has revealed he is not contributing to the development of the company’s next gaming console.
Speaking in an interview with Forbes, Miyamoto said he is focusing his efforts on developing games, instead of participating to hardware development, as he has done in the past.
“I’ve pulled myself back out of some of the hardware section and I’m really focused on some of the software I’m involved in–for example, the new Starfox game,” he said.
“Of course, I am observing and looking at the hardware, but I am not actively participating and making decisions.”
According to Forbes, however, Nintendo was discussing the console with third-parties at E3 2015 and insiders say the reception was “positive.”
Shinya Takashi, who oversees Nintendo’s software planning and development division with Miyamoto, said the duo are now focused on catching “the attention of a large number of players again and [getting] them excited.”
“We’re constantly thinking about this idea from the perspective of the players and the needs of the players in terms of what can we can do with our ability and our technology to capture that excitement and passion,” he said.
Elsewhere in the interview, Miyamoto reflected on the performance of the Wii U, saying he feels “people never really understood the concept behind the Wii U and what [Nintendo] was trying to do.”
‘I think the assumption is we were trying to create a game machine and a tablet and really what we were trying to do was create a game system that gave you tablet-like functionality for controlling that system and give you two screens that would allow different people in the living room to play in different ways,” he explained.
“Unfortunately, because tablets, at the time, were adding more and more functionality and becoming more and more prominent, this system and this approach didn’t mesh well with the period in which we released it.”
Sony is feeling “extra pressure” to deliver an uncompromised version of The Last Guardian, executive Shuhei Yoshida has said.
Speaking in a new interview with GamesIndustry International, Yoshida said it was a relief to finally re-announce the long-in-development adventure game for PlayStation 4 during E3, but “now the reality settles in.”
“We have to deliver, we have extra pressure, and the team has too,” Yoshida explained. “But it’s a good pressure. The team is super happy.”
Yoshida also frankly acknowledged some of the issues with the first version of The Last Guardian, which was announced at E3 2009 as a PlayStation 3 game.
“The trailer we showed [at E3 2009] was running on the engine but not at the performance; the game had a much lower frame rate so we sped it up to look like it was running at 30 frames-per-second for the video,” Yoshida recalled. “But the team has really really struggled to get the game running at the performance it needed and some features went missing so there are lots of technical challenges that they were going through.”
In 2012, with the knowledge that the PS4 was due to release just a year later, Yoshida said Sony realized that it had to make an important decision regarding the fate of The Last Guardian.
“With the [PS4 development] system available it became apparent for us that we just cannot continue like this in terms of the pace of development,” Yoshida said. “We knew that we had to compromise on the design or the scope or the number of characters if we stayed on PS3. So in order to realize the vision we said, ‘Let’s do PS4.’”
If this decision was made in 2012, why is the game still not out? Yoshida said the engineering team still had a lot of work to do to optimize The Last Guardian for PS4.
“They spent a lot of time optimizing to PS3 but that’s a really unique architecture, so everything had to be kind of redone for PS4,” Yoshida said. “So that took until last year, when there was huge progress. The fundamentals of the game architecture were done so the actual game was playable and being implemented on PS4.”
Warner Bros. Montreal, the studio behind Batman: Arkham Origins, is hiring developers to work on an open-world game based on a new intellectual property.
The studio’s job page features listings for numerous roles, some of which make vague references to its next project.
The job description for a game designer states the studio is looking for someone “responsible for designing and driving development of specific features or systems for an open-world action game.”
The technical director spec, meanwhile, states the successful candidate will join the development team “working on a new IP project for next generation platforms.”
Digging deeper into the technical director role, using the “scripting languages and design tools of the Unreal Engine” is listed as one of the job responsibilities, suggesting the unannounced game will be powered by Epic’s game engine.
WB Montreal was tasked with developing a prequel title in the Arkham series, while Arkham Asylum and Arkham City developer, Rocksteady Studios, worked on Arkham Knight.
Many speculated the founding of a second studio working on Batman games was indicative of Warner’s intention to annualise the series. This, however, may suggest otherwise.
The initial $1.5 million grant was part of a larger $63 million initiative promised to WB Games Montreal for the company to add 100 jobs and buy new equipment by 2018.
In addition to Batman: Arkham Origins, WB Montreal has also worked on Batman: Arkham City Armoured Edition for Wii U and Lego Legends of Chima Online. It may be that the studio is working on multiple projects.
Back in December 2014, Mojang and Telltale Games announced a surprise partnership for a new project called Minecraft: Story Mode. The story-driven series is due for release in 2015, but neither Mojang nor Telltale has talked much about it. But that’s about to change–and soon.
Telltale teased on Twitter this morning that it will make some kind of an announcement about Story Mode this weekend at Minecon, the annual celebration of all things Minecraft.
Minecon 2015 will be held in London, July 4-5. We’ll have all the news from the show as it’s announced.
Story Mode will tell an original story that’s “driven by player choice.” Story Mode is not a Minecraft expansion, but instead a standalone game.
“Telltale’s series will mix new characters with familiar themes, in an entirely original Minecraft experience, inspired by the Minecraft community and the game that continues to inspire a generation,” Telltale said as part of the game’s original announcement last year.
In terms of visuals, Story Mode won’t “won’t look exactly like Minecraft,” Mojang said in an interactive press release, “but it will feel authentic in its own special way.”
It is worth noting that domain registrations are relatively easy to fake. The ones attached to Mafia 3 include servers located at RockstarGames.com, in addition to Take2Games.com, which is somewhat unusual.
Additionally, this may also be a case of a publisher securing domains for one of its intellectual properties for future-proofing purposes.
Previous rumours, however, have suggested Mafia 3 is in production.
“Might have some Mafia news very soon,” he said to one fan. To another, who bluntly said, “make Mafia 3,” Pasqualone replied: “Might have some exciting news very soon.”
Publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and developer Rocksteady have released a patch for the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight which fixes a bug that disabled the game’s rain effects and other issues, the companies have announced.
Warner Bros. Community Admin Yorick said that the patch is being released now, and that the companies will continue to release interim patches while it continues to work on improving performance issues the game suffered from since it launched on PC last week.
Updates in the first patch include:
Fixed a crash that was happening for some users when exiting the game
Fixed a bug which disabled rain effects and ambient occlusion. We are actively looking into fixing other bugs to improve this further
Corrected an issue that was causing Steam to re-download the game when verifying the integrity of the game cache through the Steam client
Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when turning off Motion Blur in BmSystemSettings.ini. A future patch will enable this in the graphics settings menu
“Rocksteady is leading our team of developers and partners as we work on the PC performance issues that players have been encountering,” Warner Bros. said. “The work is significant and while we are making good progress on improving performance, it will take some time to ensure that we get the right fixes in place “
These are the issues that Warner Bros. said it’s dedicating its resournces to in order to improve the game:
Support for frame rates above 30FPS in the graphics settings menu
Fix for low resolution texture bug
Improve overall performance and framerate hitches
Add more options to the graphics settings menu
Improvements to hard drive streaming and hitches
Address full screen rendering bug on gaming laptop
Earlier this week, Apple started removing games from the iTunes App Store “because [they] include images of the Confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways.” Yesterday, the developer of the critically acclaimed Civil War game Ultimate General: Gettysburg announced that it was allowed back in the the App Store.
“Ultimate General is back! Unchanged,” developer Games-Lab said on its official website. “After several late night phone calls with Apple yesterday and today the game has returned to AppStore the way it was… in 1863.”
Though Apple originally said it would only remove apps from the store that used the Confederate flag in an offensive ways, even games about the Civil War that included it to be historically accurate were removed.
“We accept Apple’s decision and understand that this is a sensitive issue for the American Nation,” Games-Lab said after its game was removed. “We wanted our game to be the most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg.”
An Apple spokesperson later said that the company would reinstate some games that were wrongly removed, and given the news about Ultimate General: Gettysburg, it seems like it is.
3D Realms and developer Interceptor have released the E3 2015 trailer for Bombshell, an upcoming top-down action role-playing game.
Bombshell was originally conceived as Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction, and would have starred the titular, cigar chomping protagonist. However, a lawsuit from Gearbox Software, the current holder of the Duke Nukem IP, made Intercept put that game on hold and eventually reintroduce it as Bombshell.
This is the first look we’ve had at Bombshell gameplay since March, and in this video the game’s Duke Nukem roots are pretty obvious. Last month, a court document from the Gearbox lawsuit showed us some early images of Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction, including one of Duke standing next to a black Global Defense Forces truck. You can see the same truck at the 0:09 mark in the video above.
Bombshell will be released in 2015 on PC, PlayStation 4, and the Xbox One. 3D Realms that it will let people play the game for the first time at QuakeCon, which takes place in Dallas, Texas in July.
Welcome back to GameSpot Q&A a weekly section where we ask our staff and readers an interesting discussion question about video games. Look at this as a forum where you and others can discuss and compare your opinions of this beloved hobby of ours. Let us know what your answer is to this week’s question in the comments below!
This week’s question is:
What’s the first game you bought with your own money?
Money wasn’t an easy thing to come by when you were younger. If you had any, you most likely didn’t have much. This didn’t bode well for us being young gamers at the time. That’s why buying a videogame, which seemed to cost a fortune back then, was a pretty big deal. So what was the first game you ever bought with your own money? Whether it was bought with a Toys “R” Us giftcard or the hard earned cash from a first part-time job, here are all the first game purchases we’ve ever made!
Pokemon Yellow | Eddie Makuch
I think the first game I bought with my own money was Pokemon Yellow. My mom took me to KB Toys (RIP KB Toys) on Black Friday and it was a madhouse. I think I also bought a skateboard that day for some reason. As for the game, I definitely got my money’s worth, as I certainly sank over 100 hours into the now-classic RPG.
Crash Bandicoot | Mary Kish
I received most of my games as gifts when I was a kid, but I do remember getting a gift card to Best Buy and making a decision to buy Crash Bandicoot on PlayStation. I was drawn to the colorful box art and I always liked playing as an animal. I will always remember the xylophone intro music with the Naughty Dog doghouse logo. Good purchase decision, little Mary.
Crash Bandicoot (1996)
…A bunch of PC Games | Daniel Hindes
It wasn’t a single game, but rather a whole bunch of games all at once. I remember receiving about $100 for a birthday (I don’t think any 12-year-old kid had ever seen so much money at once) so I went to the local games store and bought, all at in one purchase: Blade Runner, FreeSpace, FreeSpace 2, Wing Commander: Prophecy, and Dune 2000.
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? | Kevin VanOrd
I am so old that it’s hard to remember! My mother bought most of the Commodore 64 games I pleaded for, even though we scraped by through most of my childhood and teenage years. If my declining mind is to be trusted, however, it was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, which I would have bought with money earned from my high-school job. I worked as a dietary assistant in a nursing home!
Body Harvest | Rob Crossley
If we’re talking about money I earned from my first ever job (making sandwiches all day long), as opposed to pocket money, then I think the first game I actually bought for myself was a second-hand copy of Body Harvest on the N64. It was actually the very same cartridge that I had traded in a few weeks prior. There was something about this game–which was technically Rockstar North’s first GTA-style 3D action title–that lured me back.
Body Harvest (1998)
Comanche: Maximum Overkill | Ty Root
Most of the games I purchased were through gift cards for Christmas and my birthday, for Toys “R” Us for my NES back in late 80s. However, I do remember that the first game I ever bought with my allowance was Comanche: Maximum Overkill. (1992) I believe the game was published or developed by NovaLogic. It was a military helicopter simulator. I even bought a flight stick for it. It was one of my first PC games. I played the crap out of it.
The Sims | Lucy James
The first game I bought with my own money was The Sims: Collector’s Edition, which included the base game and the first expansion pack Livin’ It Up (Livin’ Large in the US). I became utterly besotted with The Sims after playing it at a friend’s house, so I saved up my birthday and pocket money to buy it myself.
Quest for Glory IV: Shadow of Darkness | Edmond Tran
Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness. As a kid, I spent lots of time at my friend’s place continually marathoning this life-defining Sierra RPG/adventure game series over and over. When I started getting an allowance, the first thing I saved for was the CD-ROM version of QFG4. It was my favorite installment, and it was enhanced with some great voice acting which wasn’t in the floppy disk version I was used to. The John Rhys-Davies narration was the bomb.
Quest for Glory IV: Shadow of Darkness (1993)
Jurassic Park | Chris Watters
Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis is the first one I really remember. My friends and I were SUPER into Jurassic Park, so when I brought the game home and invited them over, it was a big event. I put the game in the system and draped a tissue over it, and when we were all assembled, I whisked the tissue off dramatically. Obviously, that move wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be, but we had fun with the game!
Star Control | Peter Brown
The first game I ever purchased with my own “money” was Star Control on the Sega Genesis. With a Toys “R” Us gift certificate that I got for Christmas in hand, I perused the aisles looking for anything that jumped out at me. Being six or seven at the time, I didn’t know better than to judge a game by its cover. Looking back, I have no idea why I chose Star Control. The cover features a clawed hand clutching a galaxy, which means as little to me today as it did back then. So, I bought Star Control and tried to play it, but being too young to understand what a sim was, I played it like a shooter. I can appreciate the game now, but at the time, I thought it was a complete waste of an opportunity to get a new game.
Star Control (1991)
SimCity 3000 | Zorine Te
I’m actually having trouble remembering this. I think it was SimCity 3000, which I purchased from my local EB Games at a discounted sale price of $50. It was a lot of money to spend, particularly because my parents didn’t believe in giving out pocket money. I feel like I got every cent’s worth out of that game! Prior to that, I practically lived off the demo discs that came with the PC PowerPlay and PC User game magazines. When a full game was included, it was like Christmas.
The Fallout 4 special edition includes a replica Pip-Boy that can hold your phone, allowing you to run the Fallout 4 companion app as you play. But if you’re going to spend $120 on the special edition, you better make sure you have a phone that can fit inside the Pip-Boy first.
A post to the Bethesda Blog confirmed that the replica Pip-Boy will have foam inserts that fit iPhone 6, iPhone 5/5s, iPhone 4/4S, Samsung Galaxy 5, Samsung Galaxy 4, and most smartphones of a similar size. Larger smartphones like the iPhone 6+ will still let you run the companion app, but won’t fit inside the Pip-Boy.
“As we wanted to stay faithful to the dimensions of the in-game model, any smartphones larger than the models listed will not fit inside the wearable device,” Bethesda said. “For these larger devices, our Pip-Boy companion app will still be available.”
