Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books Gets a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Most Recent: 3DS
Nintendo’s Plan: Mario Kart 8 in May, DS games on Wii U, more third party development deals
In an investor’s briefing over night, Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata outlined the company’s plan to come back from an incredibly poor performance in 2013. Nintendo plans on improving the Wii U, nailing down a launch window for one of their biggest 2014 releases, and pushing their business into other areas. However, I don’t know if the Big N is heading in quite the right direction.
First off – and most importantly for those who already own a Wii U – Mario Kart 8 is finding its way to shelves this May. That’s not just a Japanese release date either; that is worldwide. This newest entry in the series introduces anti-gravity courses, allowing races to move to the walls and ceilings.
In other Wii U news, DS titles are coming to the system’s Virtual Console service. Iwata said that the firm had “overcome technical hurdles” to allow the portable games to work on the big screen. “The dual-screen Nintendo DS, one of which is a touch screen, has a very strong software lineup, and so we plan to add the Virtual Console titles from Nintendo DS software to the future Virtual Console lineup for Wii U,” confirmed the boss. No titles or launch dates have been offered up so far. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t Nintendo also bring DS titles to 3DS and not the other way around. Anyway…
The Wii U is going to get a “Quick Start” menu this Summer. Iwata stated that the 20-30 second boot time for the Wii U impairs the system’s simplicity of use. To solve this – because system firmware updates have not in the past – another firmware update will patch in a new, faster start-up menu that will enable instant game access.
The new boot-up sequence, which is featured in a video on Nintendo’s site, will immediately display a simple menu of recently played icons on the GamePad screen. Tap the game you wish to play, then select your Mii, and the system bypasses the slow main menu and directly loads the game.
Nintendo wasn’t done yet. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Mario Kart 8
Capcom will release Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate for 3DS in early 2015
Capcom has announced that they will bring Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate to the 3DS in early 2015. MH4 Ultimate is an enhanced and expanded re-release of Monster Hunter 4, which was released in Japan in September. The Japanese version of Ultimate, which is known as Monster Hunter 4G, will be released in its home country this Fall.
To help get western fans excited for MH4 Ultimate, Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto has created the above video and revealed a few details about the game. With MH4 Ultimate, Capcom wants to “evolve the series in a new direction” by including more vertical movement and “more multiplayer options than ever before.” In a first for the series, those options will include local wireless play and online muliplayer.
Capcom has promised more details about Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate will be revealed soon.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
Nintendo President cuts salary in wake of poor Wii U sales
Nintendo’s President, Satoru Iwata, has already apologized to shareholders for the poor sales performance of the Wii U in 2013. But now the beleaguered executive is going one step further and slashing his salary to atone for Nintendo’s overly optimistic Wii U sales forecast.
Iwata will take a 50% reduction in his salary for the next six months. At that time, if Nintendo is still hurting financially, Iwata said he may continue to discount his salary through the Summer and beyond. Other members of Nintendo’s Board of Directors, including legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, will also reduce their salaries by 20 to 30 percent.
This isn’t the first time Iwata has cut his salary to save face in front of investors. In 2011, poor sales of the 3DS also forced Iwata to take a 50% pay cut.
[Source: AFP]
Here are three new screenshots from Mighty No. 9
Development on Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. 9 is humming right along inside the walls of Comcept and Inti Creates. In fact, development is going so well that Inafune recently released a new trio of screenshots for the game’s Kickstarter backers. But with the Internet being the Internet, the images are now available to all. The game is still clearly in the early going, but be sure to check out the screenshots after the break and savor that sweet Mega Man-like flavor.
Mighty No. 9 will be available on nearly every platform imaginable (current-gen consoles, next-gen consoles, handhelds, and the PC) sometime in 2015. (more…)
Spider-Man joins forces with Kraven for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will crash into theaters this May and even though the film is absolutely bursting with villains (Electro, Rhino, Green Goblin, and references to Vulture and Doctor Octopus) there’s enough left over for Beenox to use in the game adaptation of the movie, which is also titled The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
The “Reveal Trailer” above gives us our first glimpse of the game, including appearances from Kraven the Hunter (as an ally) and Electro (still a supervillain and still blue). Also, Spider-Man webswings among the skyscrapers of New York City and beats up nameless thugs. Spoilers!
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will be available this Spring, probably sometime in April, for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
Shovel Knight digs into 3DS, PC, Wii U on March 31
The time has finally come! Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight will be released for the PC, Wii U, and 3DS on March 31.
The retro-styled game was a huge hit at last year’s PAX East show and wears its inspiration, including the side-scrolling challenge of the Mega Man series and the pogo stick mechanic found in DuckTales, on its armor-clad sleeve. The developers at Yacht Club, who broke away from WayForward several years ago, funded Shovel Knight through a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign that ultimately netted more than three times its $75,000 target. The game is now in a fully playable state within the walls of Yacht Club and should be ready for release after a round of playtesting, polish, and bug fixing.
You can see just how far they’ve come by viewing the brand new gameplay trailer, which has been embedded above.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, Wii U
Tagged Shovel Knight
Nintendo Download: Mighty Bomb Jack, Life Force
Just two games are included in this week’s Nintendo Download and both are classic NES titles of yore. Mighty Bomb Jack, the bombing-based platformer that’s not Bomberman, is now available through the Wii U eShop and Life Force, another of Konami’s side-scrolling alien shooters, has been added to the 3DS eShop.
More details on both games can be found here:
Wii U eShop
Mighty Bomb Jack – The hero of the game, Jack, must make his way through 16 levels of a pyramid in order to defeat the demon Belzebut and rescue the royal Pamera family. Navigate through action zones and Royal Palace rooms, discovering treasure chests along the way that hold money bags and useful power-ups.
3DS eShop
Life Force – Blast your way through six stages of intense action, alternating between horizontal- and vertical-scrolling environments, and take on wave after wave of enemies. You can go at it alone, or invite a friend to assist in the challenge. Do you have what it takes to save your planet from the monstrous Zelos?
Nintendo cuts 2013/2014 sales forecast for Wii U by 70%
It’s no secret that we here at Warp Zoned love the Wii U and want to see it succeed (just look here or here or here). However, it looks like that success will have to happen sometime in the future as Nintendo has announced that they’re cutting their Wii U sales forecast for the April 2013-March 2014 period by almost 70%.
Nintendo originally predicted that they would sell nine million Wii U consoles across the globe during the 12-month period. But now, they have revised that number down to 2.8 million. The company also expects to post their third consecutive annual operating loss. Sales expectations for the 3DS were also revised down. Previously pegged at 18 million, Nintendo now believes they’ll sell only 13.5 million during their fiscal year.
According to Reuters, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata apologized to shareholders and confirmed that he has no plans to resign: “There will be no major management shake-up in the short term,” Iwata said.
While 2013 was a rough year for Nintendo, their 2014 could be looking up as they plan to release at least a dozen games for the Wii U and 3DS including Super Smash Bros. 4, Mario Kart 8, Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2, X, Bravely Default, and several others.