Added: 15.07.2015 0:19 | 3 views | 0 comments


A Japanese fan has made real-life versions of Splatoon weapons and showcased them in a YouTube video. The most...

Added: 14.07.2015 21:15 | 1 views | 0 comments


With the game confirmed to be out in North America this year and Europe next year, New Game Plus's Charlotte Buckingham has a crack at the Stella Glow demo on the Japanese eShop.

Added: 14.07.2015 15:15 | 3 views | 0 comments


Nintendo fans in Russia have gathered at the Japanese Embassy in Moscow to pay their respects to late company president Satoru Iwata, who died this weekend. Flowers, hand-written notes, candles and a Mario figurine were left outside the building

Added: 14.07.2015 10:17 | 8 views | 0 comments


A Japanese fan has made real-life versions of Splatoon weapons and showcased them in a YouTube video. The most...

Added: 14.07.2015 7:15 | 12 views | 0 comments


Carl Williams writes, "Fan translations are a grey area of sorts for gamers. Technically they are not illegal as the patch breaks no laws simply by existing. The illegal activity comes from the fact that you have to use the patch with a copy of the game it is for. Many will claim that the law allows for the owner of a game to make one copy (provided they have the hardware to do so). So far, there have been no court cases to prove, or disprove, this defense so it is accepted by the populace. Anyhow, there are some fans that are taking on the challenge of fan translating Shadowrun for the Mega CD, a Japanese exclusive that many reading this probably had no idea even existed. This is not Shadowrun like we saw on the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis (or even the recent remakes). This version is more like Snatcher, which we did see in North America, mixed with a strategy game for battles. It doesnt stop there though, there are more mechanics that are unique to this game and not se...

Added: 14.07.2015 0:14 | 6 views | 0 comments


The Japanese voice actor for Solid Snake, Akio Otsuka, has confirmed the closure of Kojima Productions.

Added: 13.07.2015 19:15 | 1 views | 0 comments


The Verge: Satoru Iwata, who lost his battle with cancer over the weekend at the age of 55, was the very best kind of CEO. Invested in Nintendos history from his time as a star programmer, Iwata rose up the ranks to take command at a young age and usher in one of the most dramatic transformations ever seen from a Japanese company. His vision upended and expanded the video game market, bringing years of astonishing profit to Nintendo with the DS and Wii. But more importantly, he made countless people happy. This afternoon I went down to the companys headquarters, situated in a nondescript Kyoto suburb peppered with run-down garages and overgrown playgrounds. A forlorn employee made her way through the gate, wiping a tear from her cheek, and as I saw the Nintendo flag flying at half-mast I was hit by a tidal wave of sorrow. For any other company, for any other president or CEO, I wouldnt have felt this way. But Satoru Iwata was more than just a CEO to many. He was an architect a...

Added: 13.07.2015 16:35 | 16 views | 0 comments

With the passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, the video game industry has lost one of its most bold and inspiring luminaries. To honour Nintendo's fourth CEO, GameSpot has put together a short gallery chronicling Iwata's career, starting from aspiring developer to iconic president. Images for this gallery were found on the official GDC Flickr (http://bit.ly/1O0S20D)

Satoru Iwata was born on December 6, 1959 and raised in Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido, the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectures. Iwata’s love of gaming began at a very early age, as did his ambition to develop them. According to Iwata, the first game he ever played was Pong, which he “loved.” This spurred him to buy a Hewlitt Packard Pocket Calculator, which he used to program a baseball video game.

Iwata joined the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1978 and enrolled to study engineering and computer science. At the time, game programming was not commonly taught. Despite being unable to study game programming, Iwata’s innate desire to create games pushed him to independently seek out avenues through which he could realise his dream. Instead of studying, he travelled to a Tokyo department store--the first in the city dedicated to PCs--and met like-minded people with dreams of game design and development.

With the friends he made hanging out at the PC retailer, Iwata moved into an apartment in Akihabara, where he spent nights designing and programming games. The group would eventually form a company called HAL. Though Iwata didn’t know it at the time, this studio would deliver some of Nintendo’s most cherished video games including Mother, Kirby, Smash Bros., and more. HAL was named after the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Following the completion of his studies, Iwata became the fifth full-time employee of HAL. By his own account, he joined “the smallest company of any graduate in [his] class.” At HAL, he was a programmer, an engineer, designer, and also marketed the team’s games, “ordered food, and helped clean up.”

The small team at HAL eventually began hearing whispers about a project at Nintendo which involved the development of a machine “capable of incredible new graphics.” Convinced the hardware would be the platform for HAL’s breakout success, the team arranged a meeting with Nintendo. Its first task, however, was a rescue mission. Iwata and his colleagues were put to work with helping bring a game that had fallen behind schedule to completion. That game would eventually be released as NES Pinball.

HAL’s consistency earned it a close relationship with Nintendo and, over time, it was given the opportunity to develop franchises that would go on to become Nintendo icons, such as Kirby. However, its early days were spent doing work-for-hire arcade ports. In between it released numerous entries in the Eggerman series (known in the West as the Adventures of Lolo). As well as this, members of the HAL team took on consultancy work to keep the company afloat.

HAL would go on to work with Shigesato Itoi, a renowned Japanese writer, on his first game: Mother. The role-playing game would eventually be released in the West as Earthbound and, thanks to its unique visual style and mature themes, amassed a passionate cult following.

In 2000, Iwata became head of Nintendo’s corporate planning division. Two years later, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who had served as company president since 1949, retired and Iwata succeeded him as the fourth Nintendo president. He was the first Nintendo president who not part of the Yamauchi family through blood or marriage since it was established in 1889 as a Hanafuda card company.

Iwata’s appointment as the head of Nintendo came in the heat of a crisis. At the time, the Nintendo GameCube’s performance was being eclipsed by its main competitor, the PlayStation 2, and faced stiff competition from Microsoft’s first ever console, the Xbox. It was around then that Iwata began to think about distinguishing Nintendo’s consoles from its rivals, and also appealing to a wider audience by creating approachable, creative experiences.

Iwata’s vision for a successful new Nintendo was defined by “lateral thinking with seasoned technology,” a principle developed by Gunpei Yokoi, father of the Game Boy, Game & Watch, the modern day directional pad, and creator of iconic franchises such as Metroid. It posited that a creative person could take mature technology and find radical new ways of using it to create transformative experiences. The first fruit of this ideology was the Nintendo DS which, in the face of adversity from Sony’s slicker, more powerful PSP, went on to sell over 150 million units, making it the second-best selling console of all time.

At E3 2005 Satoru Iwata took the stage and proudly held a diminutive black box aloft, proclaiming it a gaming revolution. That same year, at Tokyo Game Show, Iwata reiterated the company’s ambition to expand the gaming audience and speak to a wider market and revealed a new controller that “attracts those who aren’t playing games and offers new sensations to veteran” would be the key. The Wii outsold the competition from Sony and Microsoft by a considerable margin and became a bona fide sensation. Importantly, it achieved Iwata’s ambition of placing video games firmly in the mainstream eye and attracting a wider audience. At the height of its popularity, Nintendo’s stock became the second most valuable in Japan.

Iwata’s most recent years were spent trying to maintain the momentum achieved by the Nintendo DS and Wii. Given the magnitude of the success, many would argue this was an impossible task. The follow-ups to both of those devices, the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U, marked a downturn in the company’s performance. At the heart of these missteps was marketing that failed to distinguish new hardware from old, and a slowness to properly capitalise on the move towards mobile and tablet gaming. Despite this, Iwata remained a shining beacon of Nintendo’s ambition and an unwavering leader, famously refusing to lay off staff.

Satoru Iwata 1959-2015

Added: 13.07.2015 16:35 | 24 views | 0 comments

With the passing of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, the video game industry has lost one of its most bold and inspiring luminaries. To honour Nintendo's fourth CEO, GameSpot has put together a short gallery chronicling Iwata's career, starting from aspiring developer to iconic president. Images for this gallery were found on the official GDC Flickr (http://bit.ly/1O0S20D)

Satoru Iwata was born on December 6, 1959 and raised in Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido, the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectures. Iwata’s love of gaming began at a very early age, as did his ambition to develop them. According to Iwata, the first game he ever played was Pong, which he “loved.” This spurred him to buy a Hewlitt Packard Pocket Calculator, which he used to program a baseball video game.

Iwata joined the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1978 and enrolled to study engineering and computer science. At the time, game programming was not commonly taught. Despite being unable to study game programming, Iwata’s innate desire to create games pushed him to independently seek out avenues through which he could realise his dream. Instead of studying, he travelled to a Tokyo department store--the first in the city dedicated to PCs--and met like-minded people with dreams of game design and development.

With the friends he made hanging out at the PC retailer, Iwata moved into an apartment in Akihabara, where he spent nights designing and programming games. The group would eventually form a company called HAL. Though Iwata didn’t know it at the time, this studio would deliver some of Nintendo’s most cherished video games including Mother, Kirby, Smash Bros., and more. HAL was named after the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Following the completion of his studies, Iwata became the fifth full-time employee of HAL. By his own account, he joined “the smallest company of any graduate in [his] class.” At HAL, he was a programmer, an engineer, designer, and also marketed the team’s games, “ordered food, and helped clean up.”

The small team at HAL eventually began hearing whispers about a project at Nintendo which involved the development of a machine “capable of incredible new graphics.” Convinced the hardware would be the platform for HAL’s breakout success, the team arranged a meeting with Nintendo. Its first task, however, was a rescue mission. Iwata and his colleagues were put to work with helping bring a game that had fallen behind schedule to completion. That game would eventually be released as NES Pinball.

HAL’s consistency earned it a close relationship with Nintendo and, over time, it was given the opportunity to develop franchises that would go on to become Nintendo icons, such as Kirby. However, its early days were spent doing work-for-hire arcade ports. In between it released numerous entries in the Eggerman series (known in the West as the Adventures of Lolo). As well as this, members of the HAL team took on consultancy work to keep the company afloat.

HAL would go on to work with Shigesato Itoi, a renowned Japanese writer, on his first game: Mother. The role-playing game would eventually be released in the West as Earthbound and, thanks to its unique visual style and mature themes, amassed a passionate cult following.

In 2000, Iwata became head of Nintendo’s corporate planning division. Two years later, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who had served as company president since 1949, retired and Iwata succeeded him as the fourth Nintendo president. He was the first Nintendo president who not part of the Yamauchi family through blood or marriage since it was established in 1889 as a Hanafuda card company.

Iwata’s appointment as the head of Nintendo came in the heat of a crisis. At the time, the Nintendo GameCube’s performance was being eclipsed by its main competitor, the PlayStation 2, and faced stiff competition from Microsoft’s first ever console, the Xbox. It was around then that Iwata began to think about distinguishing Nintendo’s consoles from its rivals, and also appealing to a wider audience by creating approachable, creative experiences.

Iwata’s vision for a successful new Nintendo was defined by “lateral thinking with seasoned technology,” a principle developed by Gunpei Yokoi, father of the Game Boy, Game & Watch, the modern day directional pad, and creator of iconic franchises such as Metroid. It posited that a creative person could take mature technology and find radical new ways of using it to create transformative experiences. The first fruit of this ideology was the Nintendo DS which, in the face of adversity from Sony’s slicker, more powerful PSP, went on to sell over 150 million units, making it the second-best selling console of all time.

At E3 2005 Satoru Iwata took the stage and proudly held a diminutive black box aloft, proclaiming it a gaming revolution. That same year, at Tokyo Game Show, Iwata reiterated the company’s ambition to expand the gaming audience and speak to a wider market and revealed a new controller that “attracts those who aren’t playing games and offers new sensations to veteran” would be the key. The Wii outsold the competition from Sony and Microsoft by a considerable margin and became a bona fide sensation. Importantly, it achieved Iwata’s ambition of placing video games firmly in the mainstream eye and attracting a wider audience. At the height of its popularity, Nintendo’s stock became the second most valuable in Japan.

Iwata’s most recent years were spent trying to maintain the momentum achieved by the Nintendo DS and Wii. Given the magnitude of the success, many would argue this was an impossible task. The follow-ups to both of those devices, the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U, marked a downturn in the company’s performance. At the heart of these missteps was marketing that failed to distinguish new hardware from old, and a slowness to properly capitalise on the move towards mobile and tablet gaming. Despite this, Iwata remained a shining beacon of Nintendo’s ambition and an unwavering leader, famously refusing to lay off staff.

Satoru Iwata 1959-2015