Animal Crossing: New Leaf – Welcome amiibo – There’s more to discover than ever before in the Animal Crossing: New Leaf—Welcome amiibo game. This updated version of Animal Crossing: New Leaf adds new features and activities, as well as support for all Animal Crossing series amiibo figures and cards. Discover new villagers, explore the Campground, and interact with characters—all with the tap of compatible amiibo cards or figures.
Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS – Get ready to play a near-infinite number of side-scrolling 2D Mario courses anytime, anywhere! Earn in-game medals in 100 built-in courses and access recommended courses from the Super Mario Maker game on the Wii U console. Plus, design courses and share them with other players via the StreetPass feature and local wireless. The Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DSgame will be available on Dec. 2. Click here to watch the trailer.
Swapdoodle – Just in case you missed it, the Swapdoodle game is now available. Swapdoodle is an easy way to write messages, draw 3D pictures and share them with your Nintendo 3DS friends. Swapping doodles is a snap thanks to stamps based on the icons of played games and your Mii character. You can also purchase in-game add-on packs that have doodle lessons of Nintendo characters!
Dragon Ball Fusions – Dragon Ball Fusions is the latest exclusive Dragon Ball experience for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. It’s an RPG action game that combines fighting, customization and collection elements to bring Dragon Ball to the next level. In this new world, players will discover powerful items, find warriors who can become their allies and build teams to bring into battle to see who the best fighters are.
Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon – Embark on a new adventure and catch, battle and trade new Pokémon on the tropical islands of the Alola Region. Discover Z-Moves and unleash these intense attacks in battle. Call upon Pokémon with Poké Ride to discover new areas across the region and take on the Island Challenge Trials to become the Pokémon Champion! Who are you going to choose as your partner Pokémon: Rowlet, Litten or Popplio? The Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon games will be available on Nov. 18. Until then, don’t forget you can download the Pokémon Sunand Pokémon Moon Special Demo Version and meet the Pokémon that can be found in the full versions of the games. Ash-Greninja, the Pokémon that appears alongside Ash in the animated TV series Pokémon the Series: XYZ, will also appear as a member of your team and can be transferred to the full version of Pokémon Sun or Pokémon Moon once purchased when the games launch Nov. 18.
Swapdoodle – The Swapdoodle game is an easy way to write messages, draw 3D pictures and share them with your Nintendo 3DS friends. Swapping doodles is a snap thanks to stamps based on the icons of played games and your Mii character. You can also purchase in-game add-on packs that have doodle lessons of Nintendo characters!
XSeed Games is bringing their cool retro-looking side scrolling action game Exile’s End to the Wii U eShop next week, with the game landing on Nintendo’s digital service on November 22nd.
Exile’s End is a collaboration between Tokyo-based independent game developer Matt Fielding and several talented Japanese game industry veterans, backed by Japanese publisher Marvelous. The game is a remake of Fielding’s first independent release, Inescapable, building and expanding on the original idea by adding an atmospheric soundtrack, significantly more enemies, animated cutscenes, greater story depth, a greatly expanded world, and multiple endings.
The game plays out as an exploration-driven side-scrolling adventure through a massive, interconnected laboratory and mining complex on a moody, lonely alien world, and offers a variety of diverse locations to explore and puzzles to solve through skilled platforming and clever usage of the game’s myriad weapons.
Harvest Moon: Skytree Village – Exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS system, this game lets players revive the land and save a village. It features new and easy farming mechanics, updated tools, terraforming and a new animal: the Poitou Donkey. Play as a boy or girl, interact with a new cast of characters, get married and start a family.
Mario Party Star Rush – Think fast and have a blast with a variety of ways to party on the go or on the couch with Mario, Toad and more classic characters from the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s always your turn as you and up to three friends roll the dice, roam the board and recruit fan-favorite allies. The bigger your party, the faster you’ll earn stars and coins in frantic mini-games. It’s instant fun for everyone. (Additional games and systems required for multiplayer mode. Sold separately.)
Mario Party Star Rush – Party Guest Edition – Mario and friends invite you to be their party guest! Think fast and have a blast in this free version of the multiplayer portion of the Mario Party Star Rush game. Just download this for free in Nintendo eShop on your Nintendo 3DS family system, connect with a player who has the full version of the game, and enjoy all multiplayer modes with up to four players.
Corpse Party – The indie horror classic that spawned a franchise comes to the Nintendo 3DS system with exclusive new features, including four additional Extra Chapters (bringing the total to 14), redrawn high-resolution character sprites, new musical arrangements and 3D art stills.
SteamWorld Heist launches on Nintendo eShop on Wii U this week, with the game seeing a release on Thursday, October 20th, 2016. The release of the game will come with a two week special introductory price of $14.99 USD, before to changing to $19.99 USD afterwards. The game was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS back in December.
SteamWorld Heist is a game about space adventures and strategic shoot-outs. Play as Captain Piper and recruit a team of rag-tag robots to explore and scavenge the remains of a destroyed world. Board enemy spaceships and command your crew in a unique variety of turn-based combat, where the outcome is determined purely by your own skills.
Gurumin 3D: A Monstrous Adventure – From the legendary game developers at Nihon Falcom comes Gurumin 3D. Join Parin and her monstrous pals through a fun, colorful and fast-paced action-RPG featuring real-time combat, dazzling stereoscopic 3D graphics, 35+ hours of playtime and fully voiced characters by an all-star cast of voice actors. Click here to see the trailer.
Disney Magical World 2 – Live your dream life in the Disney Magical World 2 game alongside fan-favorite Disney characters. Adventure with Elsa and Olaf from Disney Frozen, dance with Disney Princesses and soar with Mickey in Magical Dream parades, all the while snapping photos to share your memories. The magic is in your hands, so use your wand to solve a ghostly mystery along the way. Disney Magical World 2will be available on Oct. 14.
Severed – Take control of a one-armed warrior named Sasha who wields a living sword on her journey through a nightmare world. The Nintendo 3DS version features dual-screen options and in-game achievements. You can even buy the Nintendo 3DS version of Severedand receive a free digital version for the Wii U console (and vice versa).Severed features a special introductory price for a limited time until Oct. 20 at 8:59 a.m. PT. Click here to view the trailer.
Paper Mario: Color Splash – A mystery’s afoot on Prism Island and only Mario can solve it by restoring the land’s vanishing colors with his new Paint Hammer. Puzzling battles await, but never fear – there’s always a clever way to deal out the powerful Battle Cards up his sleeve. These fresh layers of strategy make this one of the most action-packedPaper Mario adventures ever! Paper Mario: Color Splash will be available on Oct. 7.
YO-KAI WATCH 2: Bony Spirits and YO-KAI WATCH 2: Fleshy Souls– Watch out! The strangely charming troublemakers, Yo-kai, are back for a new adventure! Find, befriend and battle more than 350 new and returning Yo-kai. Hop on a train to seek out new towns and new Yo-kai. Teaming up with the heroic cat Hovernyan, travel back in time to save Springdale and witness the origin of the Yo-kai Watch! Both versions of the game, each containing unique Yo-kai, will be available on Sept. 30. Try out the new YO-KAI WATCH 2: Bony Spirits and YO-KAI WATCH 2: Fleshy Souls games with a special (and free!) demo, available now.
Azure Striker GUNVOLT 2 – From INTI CREATES, Azure Striker GUNVOLT 2 is a 2D action/platforming game in the style of the Japanese classics of yesteryear, available exclusively on Nintendo 3DS. The great controls, crisp graphics, unique play mechanics and epic boss battles from the first installment are all here, along with a host of new features. Click here to view the trailer. Azure Striker GUNVOLT 2is part of the #Nindies Summer Jam promotion, with a special introductory price through 8:59 a.m. PT on Oct. 6.
Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice – Get fired up for this cool new game. Race through this epic new adventure as Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles or Sticks to stop Dr. Eggman and new adversary D-Fekt. Harness the power of fire and ice to blaze through obstacles and puzzles, and freeze enemies in their tracks. Use Sonic’s speed, Tails’ flight, Knuckles’ strength, Sticks’ Boomerang and Amy’s hammer to explore, fight and race through an undiscovered land.
Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse – The Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse game is now available exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS system. The protagonist is a novice demon hunter in the ruins of Tokyo who meets an untimely end, only to find himself returned to the world of the living by the lesser god Dagda to serve as a pawn in his schemes … with humankind as the prize! Click here to view the trailer.
Word came out earlier today that retailers in the European Union have until the end of this month – just 7 days from now – to get their final orders in for Wii U hardware. None of this has been confirmed by Nintendo themselves but at least one twitter user corroborated the original GameSeek report that broke the story. With six months to go before Nintendo’s next generation console – code named NX – launches and no official reveal in sight this whole situation should be a little concerning.
It is not uncommon for console manufacturers to ramp down production after the launch of a successor. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was discontinued just this past April, staying in production for 3 full years past the Xbox One’s unveiling. In some cases the end of production can actually occur prior to the launch of a successor console – as an example Nvidia stopped manufacturing the Original Xbox’s GPU in August 2005 just 3 months before the debut of the Xbox 360.
Nintendo’s prior history with discontinuing consoles isn’t as cut and dry as its competitors, however. They haven’t shyed away from dropping an obvious failure like the Virtual Boy, which was discontinued just six months after its initial launch in August 95. But other, more successful, Nintendo consoles have had a much longer life, even alongside their successors – the GameCube wasn’t sunsetted until late February 2007, giving the console an additional 4 months on the market alongside the Wii before Nintendo finally pulled the plug.
The house of Mario has traditionally sold it’s hardware at a profit, however the expensive Research & Development and hardware costs of the Wii U GamePad have been eating into Nintendo’s bottom line for sometime. Wii U is the first Nintendo device in recent memory that has been sold at a loss and with declining sales an argument could be made for ending the production of the console if Nintendo has enough in-stock to meet their projected demands until the NX has a strong foothold with the company’s faithful customer base.
What is a bit odd in this particular situation is that Nintendo isn’t announcing the end of hardware production at its’ partner factories but rather telling retailers in the European Union to place orders for hardware within a weeks’ time. Traditionally Europe hasn’t been the strongest of the three major markets in terms of units sold – those honors shift between North America and Japan – but Nintendo’s pattern of discontinuation of hardware has always occurred either after a successor has been released into the market for a matter of months or at least announced and demo’d publicly.
Even when Nintendo discontinued the GameCube in February of 2007 and stopped producing new titles for the machine, then Nintendo’s long time marketing Guru Perrin Kaplin took the chance to re-position the remainder of GameCube stock as an alternative to expensive next-gen consoles for players who are new to console gaming.
“I mean, I wasn’t the first to buy an iPod. By the time I bought it, it came to a price where I wanted it to be and looked the way I wanted it to look. So we’re not selling GameCube to the people who are hardcore players and want all the gadgetry – we’re going after the people who never really bought a system before now it’s finally at a price that they can afford for their family.”
The NX Question
With all of this history taken into account there is still one unanswered question that remains shrouded in secrecy: what are Nintendo’s plans for the NX? The facts are that they confirmed its existence and announced its March 2017 release date, a year before its scheduled launch. Now with news coming forward of the Wii U’s hardware discontinuation in Europe, the company is about to enter the holiday season with no shelf presence for its existing platform or its successor.
There have been a ton of leaks coming out of Foxcon factories, the supply chain and development sources, to pretty much confirm that the Nintendo NX is a hybrid / dockable device that can be used either on-the-go or while hooked up to a television. If true then the NX is probably one of the worst kept secrets Nintendo has ever held so tightly to their chest. What is of concern here is that none of Nintendo’s recent decisions surrounding NX or to some extent the Wii U fit with the company’s history of hardware launches or the end of an existing console’s lifecycle. This whole strategy seems very concerning for those of us watching Nintendo, but here’s hoping it is a direction that works.
This fake 3D printed proto-type sure fooled a lot of people, us included.
Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past – Travel to the past to save the present as you restore forgotten lands and battle an unknown evil in this classic Dragon Quest adventure completely rebuilt from the ground up for the Nintendo 3DS system. Customize your party with more than 30 vocations, and level up in turn-based battles to learn new spells and abilities. The Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past game will be available on Sept. 16.
YO-KAI WATCH 2 – Demo Version – Watch out! Yo-kai, the strangely charming troublemakers, are back for a new adventure. Find, befriend and battle more than 350 new and returning Yo-kai. Now you can try out the new YO-KAI WATCH 2: Bony Spirits and YO-KAI WATCH 2: Fleshy Souls games before you buy. In this special (and free!) demo, use your Yo-kai Watch to investigate mysterious behavior taking place in Harrisville. Could it be the cause of a Yo-kai? By playing the demo, you can also sample the new Yo-kai Watch Blasters mode. The full versions launch on Sept. 30.
Noitu Love: Devolution – The year is 2288. The city is protected by an organization called “The Peacekeepers League.” Everything is swell, except that the city is under attack by a robot army lead by professor Darnacus Damnation. Or is it…? Available on both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS with intuitive, touch-screen-controlled gameplay. Click here to view the trailer. This game is part of the #Nindies Summer Jam promotion, with a special introductory price through 8:59 a.m. PT on Sept. 22.
