Nintendo’s Profits Rocket, Amico Gets Earthworm Jim 4

Nintendo’s net profits rocket by 541%

Nintendo is also benefiting from COVID-19 and the associated lockdown measures. Their latest financial report shows a massive spike in net profits, increasing by no less than 541% year-on-year.

Net sales between April 1st and June 30th totaled ¥358.1 billion, up from ¥172.1 billion in the first quarter last year. Operating and ordinary profit was also up from last year’s $157 million.

Production is up: “…hardware and software sales both rose on a year-on-year basis, with hardware sales reaching 5.68 million units (166.6% increase on a year-on-year basis), and software sales reaching 50.43 million units (123.0% increase on a year-on-year basis),” according to the report. Switch production is also back on track, making Nintendo able to fill stock shortages.

House bound sales: The staggering performance is thanks to strong Switch hardware and game sales, and especially to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While many companies in the games industry have enjoyed increased sales due to the pandemic, Nintendo has benefited more than most.

Who is the mysterious Sheng Long Ryu mentions in Street Fighter II?

• Ryu’s mentor
• Vega’s Lover
• A mistranslation
• Chun-Li’s Partner from Interpol

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Trapt started out with 720 traps

Tecmo’s action strategy game Trapt was originally called Deception 4, but producer Keisuke Kikuchi changed the name to Trapt because he wanted it to be a new start for the series.

That clearly didn’t work out, since the next game in the series was called Deception IV: Blood Ties. The game also refers to Princess Allura as ‘Alicia’.

The development team spent two weeks devising no less than 720 traps for players to use, which got trimmed down to 45 to make the game more manageable for both developers and players.

Tecmo also struggled to make the AI play well with the big number of traps, since they attempted to give personality-based behaviour which led to some comical results when characters encountered traps.

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

Spider-Man will only be playable in Marvel’s Avengers for PlayStation

Superhero fans eager to play the upcoming Marvel’s Avengers from Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix are not exactly happy about Spider-Man being a PlayStation exclusive.

Since Sony owns both the movie and game rights to Spider-Man, they have no particular interest in sharing their webslinging hero with other platforms. Unsurprisingly, Xbox and PC gamers are less thrilled that they won’t be doing whatever a spider can. The meagre consolation is that Xbox and PC players can still play with PlayStation users who play Spider-Man.

Business as usual: “Because of Sony’s unique relationship with Marvel and PlayStation, specifically, that gives us an affordance with Spider-Man that we wouldn’t have otherwise,” Crystal Dynamics’ Scot Amos told Newsweek. That apparently means this is just business and that it’s not up to Crystal Dynamics or Square Enix to decide.

More heroes: “People will get fixated on one thing as opposed to you’re going to have hundreds of hours of content in years of storylines coming ahead of us and new worlds and regions and new heroes and more stuff we haven’t even announced yet,” he continued. Amos assured fans that there are plenty of heroes yet to be announced for Marvel’s Avengers.

Today’s Gaming Deal Highlights

There are so many great deals now that it felt wrong not to share some of them ahead of the weekend’s bargain extravaganza.

SNK NEOGEO Mini Samurai Shodown Limited Edition Bundle (Games Console) $88.39 @ Amazon US

Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 (PS4) $20.99 @ Amazon US

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC) Free @ GOG

Humble Bohemia Interactive Bundle 2020 (PC) $1 @ Humble Store

Ubisoft Hits Sale (PC) Up to 80% off @ Humble Store

Better Together Sale (PC) 80% off @ Humble Store

Destiny: The Official Cookbook (Books) $23.86 @ Amazon US

Pokemon – Flocked Bulbasaur, Spring Convention Exclusive (Funko Pop!) $11.60 @ Amazon US

Pandemic: Legacy Season 2 (Board Games) $56.60 @ Amazon US

If you buy any of these games by following our links, DailyBits will earn a small commission, so thanks in advance! Saturday will bring even more amazing video game deals, so stay tuned.

Intellivision Amico delayed until 2021

The Intellivision Amico won’t be launching in October after all, thanks to “unprecedented challenges” resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the new release date is April 15th, 2021.

It’s not all bad news though as more games have been announced, along with partnerships with GameStop, Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Canada’s Electronic Boutique, and Germany’s Koch Media, Mediamarkt and Saturn.

“The magic of Intellivision Amico is that it will bring families and friends together around gaming – something that the world could always use more of – and these new games and partnerships will be a critical part of that,” said CEO Tommy Tallarico. Intellivision has also secured licenses from Mattel, Sesame Workshop and Usaopoly.

Announced Intellivision Amico Games

• Earthworm Jim 4
• Sesame Workshop
• Mattel Hot Wheels
• Rigid Force Redux Enhanced
• Telestrations
• Blank Slate
• Finnigan Fox
• Bomb Squad
• Incan Gold/Diamant
• Intellivision Monster Spades
• Liar’s Dice
• Space Strike

Onward downgraded for Quest release

Onward launched for Oculus Quest last week, but not without compromise. In order to support crossplay, Downpour Interactive brought a number of changes from the Quest version to the PCVR version.

Both visual and audio quality has been downgraded, leading to complaints. Downpour is working to improve the graphics quality in the 1.8 update, and suggests players revert to 1.7 if they are unhappy with the latest update – although this is obviously not a long-term solution.

Valve patents own wireless VR solution

Valve recently filed a patent for wireless data transfer technology for head-mounted displays. Valve filed for it in January 2019, but it was only published last week. The wireless attachment appears to be for Index, and is similar to the Vive wireless adapter Valve introduced in 2018.

The patent suggests Valve wants to use the 60GHz band for their upcoming wireless adapter, which means the price is likely to be high – expect to pay at least $200 for it. It’s not clear if the patented technology is for Index, or an upcoming headset.

Rock out in VR with Rocking Hero

Domuro Soft’s new game Rocking Hero brings the Guitar Hero formula into VR, placing four colored buttons on a virtual fretboard and encouraging you to rock out. With only three game modes and ten original songs, Rocking Hero is a pretty slim package but it features a song editor that should allow the community to fill in the blanks.

Beat Saber, Clone Hero and Rock Band have all managed to keep their communities alive with support for user-generated content, and Rocking Hero seems to take a similar approach. In addition to the Guitar Hero controller, Rocking Hero supports game controllers and even keyboard, although a guitar peripheral is obviously the best way to play.

• Leaks from Super Nintendo World website shows Mario Kart ride in videos posted to Vimeo by web developers
• Trailer for Fortnite’s Joy Ride update where players get issued drivers’ licenses to enjoy the “first drivable cars” on the island
• New games will be added to Xbox Game Pass from August 6th including Darksiders: Genesis, Man of Medan and Final Fantasy VII HD
• Street Fighter V: Champion Edition Summer Update revealed including new fighters and stages which will arrive this winter
• Sony’s next State of Play airs August 6th at 1.00pm PT / 4.00pm ET / 9.00pm BST, and will focus on third-party games

Who is the mysterious Sheng Long Ryu mentions in Street Fighter II?

Answer: A mistranslation!

Sorry fighting game fans, Sheng Long isn’t real – but there’s a pretty funny story behind the rumours.

When Ryu wins a match in Street Fighter II, he says “If you cannot overcome the Rising Dragon Fist, you cannot win!”. The Rising Dragon Fist is shōryūken in Japanese, but in Chinese pinyin, it reads shēng lóng.

That caused the line to get mistranslated into “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance”. That sparked rumours that Sheng Long is a secret character, and EGM made a hoax article about him as an April’s fool.

While Sheng Long isn’t technically a character, he inspired the creation of Gouken and Akuma and also appeared in the Malibu Comics adaptation of the game. Sheng Long was also supposed to appear in Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, but the idea was shelved. Maybe Capcom should learn from Mortal Kombat and turn rumours into reality?

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, Christian Vaz, and Jamie Davey.