Rumor pegs Nintendo 3DS for November 11th in Japan

By Sean Hollister posted Sep 12th 2010 2:56PM Remember when Nintendo said it’d release its release date for the 3DS autostereoscopic portable game system on the 29th of this month? We may already have the magic number — depending on how you interpret a few Japanese words. You see, a supposed video game accessory designer by the handle “nocchisan” recently tweeted that eleven Nintendo 3DS accessories will be released on November 11th, and asked his or her followers to kindly buy them up… while purportedly remarking that the 3DS itself will arrive at the same time. While the tweets in question can certainly be read that way, and it makes a certain amount of sense for accessories to appear at launch, our admittedly limited grasp of Japanese suggests an alternative translation: that it’s the accessories themselves (and not the 3DS) that will all arrive at the same time. There’s also the little matter of nocchisan himself, whose Twitter account has already disappeared — we have nothing actually connecting him to the accessory company except a link in his tweet.

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3DS contains impressive piracy protection

THQ’s VP of global publishing, Ian Curran, made mention in a recent interview that he is impressed and excited with the anti-piracy capabilities of Nintendo’s new handheld.

“What excites me even more [than 3DS games] is that there’s technology built in that device to really combat piracy,” said Curran.

“The problem with the DS market in the last few years, particularly with the DS Lite, is that it’s just been attacked by piracy. It’s made it almost impossible to shift any significant volume. The DSi combated it a little bit, but the 3DS has taken that a step further.”

That’s nice and all, but the one thing you should never do is tempt the modding community.  These type of interviews always persuade hackers to try even harder to defeat the system.  Not that I’m complaining because personally I think there is a ton of use for being able to mod these systems such as all the awesome homebrew stuff that is created for it.  It isn’t always about pirated games, folks.  Anyway, I’m sure Nintendo has looked a lot into the mistakes of the DS to create a better protection scheme, but like anything, don’t expect it to be uncrackable.

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Finally, a trailer for The Last Story

Big Mistwalker fan?  Then you’ll no doubt know of their recent project for the Wii entitled The Last Story.  While the game has been discussed over the months, there hasn’t been much media to go by… until now.  Witness the first trailer for the game and Mistwalker’s RPG elements meshed with action/adventure.  Being a fan of Mistalker and the father of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, I can’t wait to check this one out as it’s looking pretty fresh.

Now, if only I can get a Lost Odyssey sequel.  One can dream, and dream I shall.

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Miis may make their way on the 3DS

The 3DS has a lot going for it already, but Miyamoto has mentioned the possibility that Miis could be making their way to the handheld as well.  If you don’t know what Miis are, then clearly you are not a fan of the Wii and for this, I can’t blame you.  Miis are Nintendo’s version of avatars and have been around since the system launched.  Okay, now we have that clear, expect them to make their way to the 3DS as Miyamoto said in an interview with IGN.com, “ We need to keep in mind how we evolve the Miis and how we think about compatibility with Miis between different systems, but that’s something that we’re definitely giving consideration to and want to continue to try to allow people to use their Miis on different Nintendo systems going forward.”

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Miyamoto wants new Game Characters

Getting tired of Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Peach, Link, Zelda, Samus, and the host of other household name characters that Nintendo has been giving us since the 80’s?  Well, it clearly doesn’t show due to these characters still constantly selling games like mad.

In any case, Miyamoto himself has said recently that he believes it’s time for some new characters, “We need new game characters soon, maybe we can move forward on that next year.”

Smart man, and more than likely right.  Time to start installing a user base with interesting new characters and maybe giving some of these old timers a rest for a little while?

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Some 3DS info – Release and Price hinted as well as video capabilities

Alright, it’s painfully obvious that I’m extremely hyped for the 3DS (and that’s just funny in its own right considering I haven’t felt compelled to Nintendo in a long time).  The anticipation of waiting for news is a killer and we’re obviously a long way before hearing everything we want.  In the meantime, however, a tiny bit of news has started making the rounds.

First, Reggie has stated that the 3DS will be available to the major markets by March of 2011.  Yea, it isn’t a solid release date by any means and that could mean anything.  Maybe a end of the year release or even March 31st, 2011.  Of course, this depends on their term of ‘major markets’.  Japan and the U.S?  Most likely, but Europe and others aren’t slouches.  So it really is a guessing game on when it could become available to the different markets.  At least we know for sure, according to Reggie, that we’ll have our hands on the 3DS by early next year at the latest.  How about we make sure there is enough supply for the obvious demand?

Oh, and it’s likely that the 3DS won’t sell below the production cost, according to Iwata.  What is the production cost?  Your guess is as good as anybody’s at the moment.  It’s kind of a new technology with the 3D effect being implemented and there seems to be some serious power underneath the hood.  But at the same time, Nintendo isn’t stupid and knows people will only pay so much.  It’s possible that we could see this thing launch for $200 – $250.  I can’t see it being over that though.  I would hope not, at least.

So what about those video capabilities considering the system seems to be showing off some sweet graphics for a portable?  Apparently, Nintendo will be using a PICA200 graphics chip.  The chip is a product from Digital Media Professionals and says that it will push 200MHz with the ability of 15.3 million polygons per second.  What else you ask?  How about 800 million pixels per second, alpha blending, and complete anti-aliasing.  Sounds beautiful.  And just to tease us in a typical manner, check out the video below which shows off the graphical abilities of the chip.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Nintendo makes big splash with 3DS

It has been known for awhile that Nintendo was working on a portable 3D device and while we had a lot of specs, nothing was certain until the big N announced it during their keynote.  So exactly what can we expect from the 3DS?

Nintendo announces new Zelda game

Nintendo opened their E3 keynote by announcing a new game in the extremely popular and long running franchise; The Legend of Zelda.

The new title which is called, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, will be available for the Wii in 2011.  Miyamoto demoed the game during the presentation live and it looks pretty interesting.  It will use motion+ and has a close 1:1 ratio.  Even sword beams are back 😉

Should be noted however that the motion controls seemed a bit off as Miyamoto was demoing it.  Plenty of time to fix errors and what not, but I highly doubt it was wireless interference causing the bow to not work 😉

It’s almost time for E3!

It’s nearly that time of year again.  That special time when gamers from around the world impatiently and excitingly wait around their computers or TV as all the information, trailers, and surprises come out from the floors of E3.  It’s so tense that it probably devirginizes many of those that stand in its wake.  From June 15 to June 17 (technically June 13 is when Microsoft is kicking things off), it will be gaming bliss and this year looks to be a big year for E3 because of the different elements that are being brought.  We have a battle of motion controls, 3D taking its next step, and of course a ton of games.  We can’t also forget all the crazy surprises that E3 tends to conjure up.  Sometimes those announcements just come out of nowhere and you just can’t help but be excited.  So with all the big names gathered around in one convention center, what kind of things should we expect this year?

Super Mario Galaxy 2 – Afterthoughts

Miyamoto and the gang at Nintendo bring us another installment in the Mario franchise.  This time we get a sequel to the extremely popular Super Mario Galaxy which was released in 2007.  You know the funny thing about this?  It is the strange things that inspire Miyamoto to create these games.  It always seems to be based off of some real life event such as exploring the woods and caves when he was a child thus inspiring The Legend of Zelda.  The inspiration for Mario Galaxy came when Miyamoto was trying to figure out a good way to use Mario in a space and galaxy environment.  You know what it was?  A hamster.. a fricken’ hamster.