Top Story
“No clear directive” for Nintendo remakes as ‘nostalgia not enough’
Is Nintendo planning to fully exploit its illustrious back catalogue of classics? Probably not, according to Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa in a Q&A for the company’s latest financial report.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! have all done well, but that there’s “no clear directive to release remade titles,” said Furukawa-san. Nintendo’s objective is to develop new experiences, and remakes depend on the original creator’s passion for doing one.
No rush to remake games with nothing new to say
“Nostalgia is one great appeal, but even in remake titles, what’s more important is to create new game experiences, fun, and more. More than anything, we believe that passion towards wanting to remake the game from the creator of the original game is very important,” he explained. “For a recent example, Link’s Awakening,” he continued, “is a good example of a game that has been reviewed by customers as both ‘nostalgic’ and ‘new’.”
This sets Nintendo apart from the companies like Activision and Sony, who has recently released Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and MediEvil remasters that faithfully reproduce ageing games with a modern presentation. Clearly, Nintendo have loftier ambitions than cashing in on nostalgia.
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
What cancelled Blizzard game spawned Overwatch?
- Project Titan
- Project A
- Project Nomad
- Project Ghost
The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!
News Bits
Applins to Flapples – more Pokédex leaks from Pokémon Sword & Shield
As early players dive into the new Galarian region in Pokémon Sword & Shield, more and more of the new Pokémon are leaking onto the internet. Players are already sharing snapshots of the Pokémon and their Pokédex entries, ahead of the game’s launch on November 15th.
Luigi’s mansion is selling scarily fast
Usually content to live in the shadow of his plumper brother, Luigi has proven his star power as Luigi’s Mansion 3 becomes the fastest-selling Nintendo title in the United Kingdom this year. Luigi also trounced the impressively successful Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, but couldn’t quite out-gun Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which was the best-selling game in the UK last week.
Daily Fact
Don’t panic! Tetris 64 set its speed based on your heartbeat
Tetris 64 from Amtex and SETA was exclusive to Japan, and featured a rather curious peripheral for the Nintendo 64: A bio-sensor that would plug into the controller and then clip to your earlobe, allowing the game to read your heart rate.
Why? To control the speed that blocks travelled down the screen, of course! Duh. If you panicked, you would just make things worse for yourself. Nintendo made another attempt at marrying bio-sensors to games when the Wii Vitality Sensor was announced at E3 in 2009 – but nothing came of it in the end.
Daily News
Valve and Apple team up for AR
Augmented reality might well be the next big thing in entertainment. Aside from a variety of AR features common on mobile phones (Pokémon Go is the quintessential AR game), Microsoft’s HoloLens is the only dedicated consumer AR device, but it is still rudimentary not very widespread.
What will Apple call their AR headset? iEye?
Now Apple has teamed up with Valve to work on an augmented reality headset. Valve has already put considerable resources into virtual reality, and has recently launched the Valve Index line of VR hardware. The two companies worked together to bring native VR headset support to MacOS High Sierra, using a Mac version of the SteamVR software.
There was speculation that Apple had shut down their VR/AR headset development in July this year, but it seems they were just scaling down their in-house development to focus on a partnership with Valve. Apple is expected to ship an AR headset sometime in 2020.
Norman Reedus “completely forgot” about Silent Hill P.T
P.T. has become something of a cult classic among horror fans, even though Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hill project – which was supposed to be a collaboration with Guillermo del Toro and Norman Reedus – fell apart after Kojima’s messy exit from Konami. The eerie experience has even inspired a number of game development studios to build on the creepy, looping hallway concept.
“Imagine there’s a thousand dead whales in front of you,” and you’re like, “What?!”
Norman Reedus was apparently approached by Guillermo del Toro, who simply told him “There’s a guy who’s going to call you and wants to do a video game with you. Just say yes,” he recalled. ‘That guy’ was Hideo Kojima and the project was Death Stranding. Reedus jumped at it, and soon forgot all about Silent Hill: “When Hideo described what we were doing next, I completely forgot about it. I was like, thank god that didn’t work because this is way better.”
“I like the fact that Silent Hills didn’t happen, to be honest, because I’ve gotten such a peek into the way he works and the way he thinks, and I’m completely blown away by this guy,” Reedus told the Hollywood Reporter. Death Stranding is out exclusively for PlayStation 4 and has seen considerable critical acclaim. A PC version is due to be released next summer.
