A new campaign has been launched by anti-slavery organization Walk Free that aims to persuade Nintendo to tighten up its supply chain and avoid the use of 'conflict minerals' mined by slave labor.
Walk Free has launched a video lampooning Nintendo characters Mario and Luigi, which states that Nintendo has yet to respond to a forceful campaign to join an electronics industry audit program for conflict-free mineral supplies. The video points out that minerals sourced from some suppliers come from slavery operations in conflict regions, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, where miners are often forced to work at gunpoint.
Walk Free's website states that the campaign aims to tell Nintendo that "slavery is not a game." It adds, "We've sent 430,558 emails calling on Nintendo to take...
Rayman Legends' delay on the Wii U was in part because of Ubisoft's fear that the console "was not going to sell enough of those games," Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told VentureBeat.
Speaking with the publication during a recent interview, Guillemot said "sometimes we have to go against the urge to get to market too fast," allowing for more time and resources to help the game reach its potential.
"The game is going to be fantastic, and we didn't want those creators to wind up in a position where even after making a fantastic game, they didn't sell well enough," Guillemot said. "We decided that we had to come out on enough machines that players can try it out on any one that they have, and give more time to both improve the game on the Wii U and create versions for the other consoles."
...
At this year's show, neither Sony nor Microsoft showed a single motion control demo on stage in their press conferences, and Nintendo's Mario and Zelda franchises showed up missing the shaking and pointing they had last time around.
Motion controls weren't absent from this year's show, with Harmonix revealing music spectacle Fantasia and Ubisoft annualizing the massively successful Just Dance. But for the first time since Nintendo introduced Wii eight years ago, motion controls seem to have found a comfortable place amongst the rest of the industry, with some games cutting them out, many making them optional and others hinting at new potential.
On Monday at the show, Microsoft started the trend by revealing two of its previously motion-only games will now work with traditional...
DC Comics is producing an interactive comic that ties into Batman: Arkham Origins, and the game itself could connect back to the digital comic, said Ben Mattes of developer Warner Bros. Games Montreal to Polygon at E3.
Speaking during the first episode of our E3 live show Wireframe, Mattes, the game's senior producer, said that the game and the interactive comic will "definitely tie in narratively," and added that there's the possibility of a closer connection (scrub to 32:25 in the video above). DC announced the digital comic, which is the first piece of its new DC2 Multiverse initiative, earlier this month.
"There [are] talks that are under way right now to see whether or not there's an opportunity to do something a little bit deeper than that," said Mattes, although he wouldn't...
Now that we all have our Wii U's and I'm sure I'm not the only one with an empty friends list, let's get together and "fix" this. Just post your ID if you want so we can follow or request each other.
he idea of people being able to follow someone without them actually used up a friend in your list is quite interesting. It'll at least help the Wii U feel a little less empty and lonely. Right now my plaza is just filled with Nintendo Miis trying to tell me how cool the Wii U is.
Edit: Also a quick tip. Send the friend request through the profiles in Miiverse. If you register a friend in the friendlist section, it works like friend codes used to, requiring both parties to register each other. It'll be a hidden request only you can see, unlike the Miiverse which its a 30 day expiring...
Titanfall
"The development veterans who created Modern Warfare and the team they’ve assembled are making their debut with Titanfall, an online-only multiplayer-focused shooter that takes all the chances they never could with a billion-dollar juggernaut." — Arthur Gies
Transistor
"Transistor is a science-fiction-set RPG that allows players to take on the role of a woman who is nearly killed by a mysterious group of assailants, who later gains access to a particular weapon and fights from street to street in a futuristic city against enemies attempting to take it back." — Emily Gera
Hohokum
"If a player really wants to find objectives in the game, then there are a few that can be found, such as the seed-collecting mechanic in the Kite Village. However, the...
Nintendo is not worried over the affect the PlayStation 4's relatively low price-point will have on Nintendo products, president of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime told Kotaku.
Despite low sales of Wii U systems and president Satoru Iwata's recent acknowledgement of Nintendo's role in this, Fils-Aime stated the publisher is not focused on the business direction of Sony and Microsoft despite being direct competition.
"It puts no pressure on us at all," Fils-Aime said regarding the reveal of the next-gen systems and pricing. "Sony and Microsoft are going to do what they're going to do. My bet is that there are going to be more announcements the closer we get to whatever their launch date is.
"From my perspective, I can't focus on that. I have to focus on: How do we satisfy the...
Low Wii U sales are the result of poor marketing and a failure to offer consumers software to showcase the system, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata told CNBC.
The troubled console launched last year; however, according to Iwata, Nintendo has yet to highlight to users the system's key features that make it unique.
"We are to blame," he said. "We relaxed our [marketing] efforts, so the consumers today still cannot understand what's so good and unique about the Wii U. Because we're always trying to be unique, it takes some energies on our side to [make] people understand the real attractions about whatever we are doing.
"We have been unsuccessful in coming up with one single software with which people can understand, ‘OK, this is really different.'"
Unlike its predecessor, Wii U has failed...
State of Decay has sold more than half a million copies since it launched last week, making it the fastest selling original game on Xbox Live Arcade. Shadowrun Returns' release date has been pushed back to July 25. Ken Levine is writing the screenplay for an upcoming remake of the 1976 sci-fi film Logan's Run. The restructuring at Electronic Arts continues with more layoffs. We've got a new feature from E3 on Shigeru Miyamoto and Pikmin 3.
State of Decay to get 'pure survival' sandbox mode, becomes fastest-selling XBLA game
Shadowrun Returns delayed, now launching July 25 with full editing tools
BioShock creator Ken Levine writing Logan's Run remake screenplay
EA layoffs continue company-wide restructuring
Pikmin 3: little plants in the shadow of giants
Activision says it is now in the top 100 licensing outfits in the world, thanks mainly to one product, Skylanders. The company announced it has doubled its licensing deals in the past 12 months, and it's made that top 100, according to License Global's Top 150 Licensors of 2012.
Today marks the first day of the glitzy Licensing Expo in Las Vegas where the world's entertainment companies seek to trade their leading IPs into everything from backpacks to breakfast cereals. Of course, Activision also trades in Call of Duty and World of Warcraft licensing deals — mainly video game-related gear like headsets and other peripherals — but Skylanders is where the pillows, plushies and pajamas are happening.
As well as the figures that play with the Skylanders games, there are decorative...
Nintendo's first free-to-play game is based on Steel Diver, Nintendo senior managing director Shigeru Miyamoto told IGN.
Steel Diver was a single-player and multiplayer Nintendo 3DS launch title when the console was released in 2011. The side-scrolling game put players at the helm of a submarine, performing underwater missions. Miyamoto said that the upcoming free-to-play game will include battle-focused multiplayer.
"There is something we're doing with the Steel Diver idea that I think is going to open things up with that game," Miyamoto said.
"It's going to be very fun. We're exploring from a perspective of where we can take that from a multiplayer standpoint — it's going to have this four-player battle mode that I think is going to be very interesting."
Miyamoto did not offer...
Pikmin has always been a strange series to pursue as a major tentpole franchise. It's a busy game, with lots of moving pieces — both on a mechanical and visual level. It's a deeply, surprisingly complex strategy game, a genre that Nintendo's not especially well-known for, and a genre that its casual-leaning audience doesn't have much crossover interest in. Despite those assumptions, Pikmin has a huge and devout fanship that's been waiting on its next installment since Pikmin 2, which was released nearly a decade ago.
Pikmin 3 was first announced in 2008
Shigeru Miyamoto is among that fanbase. In an interview with Polygon, Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen — who translated for Miyamoto — said Pikmin 3 was one of Miyamoto's favorite games that he's ever created. So why has he...
Masahiro Sakurai takes the process of adding new characters to the Super Smash Bros. seriously — possibly to the detriment of his mental and physical well-being. Choosing who stays and who goes on the game's roster is "almost deadly in the amount of time it takes me," the director of the new Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS tells Polygon.
At E3 last week, Nintendo showed first footage of the next Super Smash Bros., revealing a handful of returning favorites (Mario, Link, Pikachu, Kirby) and three brand-new fighters: Mega Man, Villager from Animal Crossing and the Wii Fit Trainer.
What's more difficult than adding a character, Sakurai said, speaking through a translator, is cutting certain characters from Nintendo's fighting game series and the resulting distress that...
The Electronic Entertainment Expo is a week's worth of executive sniping and news, parties and celebrity, and of course video games.
The artists and executives for Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony struggle to rise above the din of explosive trailers and bombastic speech. The fervor surrounding this year's dual launch of the next PlayStation and Xbox only made things worse, churning carefully planned press conferences into indistinguishable white noise.
With one very clear exception.
Standing on a stage set up in the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena last Monday, Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO Jack Tretton ignited an uproar of applause with a series of promises directed straight at competitor Microsoft.
The PlayStation 4, he said, won't impose any new restrictions on the use...
New Super Luigi U, downloadable content that portrays Luigi as the star of New Super Mario Bros U, will feature new levels, but overall familiar content, as shown by a demo we played at E3 2013.
We ventured through several levels in Acorn Plains, one of the game's new worlds. Similar to Mario's adventure, Luigi will gather coins, spin, bounce over the heads of enemies and race to finish levels before a time limit expires. Luigi includes his signature special ability to jump higher than his brother with an extra leg kick similar to that in Super Mario Bros. 2 for NES. This makes him slightly harder to control when landing a jump, as he tends to slip.
During the demo, we also had the chance to play some of the game's multiplayer. Like its predecessor, Luigi U will support up to five...
The era of speculation is over. We now know the details of all new next-gen consoles. Post-E3 2013, all of the major players have revealed the platforms, the games and the hardware that will power console gaming for the next several years.
Sitting at the heart of the consoles are three related cores built with AMD technology. The company went three for three.
This was no accident. According to representatives from AMD that Polygon spoke with during E3 2013, this was the result of a multi-year, companywide effort. In our conversations, we learned how AMD did it, how the company wants to help developers make better games and how it's trying to define the future of gaming.
It all began with a plan, Matt Skynner, AMD's corporate vice president and general manager, told Polygon.
"When...
Crimson Dragon developer Grounding Inc. is working on an unannounced title for Nintendo, the game's director Yukio Futatsugi told Joystiq.
Futatsugi declined to provide more details on the title or what platform it is in development for.
Grounding Inc. is one of Nintendo's Japan-based third-party developers. The company released Sakurai Samurai: Art of the Sword via the Nintendo 3DS eShop last year. In 2009, the company created two boardgame-style party titles in the PictureBook Games series: Pop-Up Pursuit for WiiWare and The Royal Bluff as DSiWare.
Crimson Dragon was announced for release on Xbox One during Microsoft's E3 press conference earlier this week. The game will feature both synchronous and asynchronous multiplayer modes, as well as on-rails and free-flight modes.
Check...
The new Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS is shaping up to be a return to the more hardcore four-player fighting game experience of its GameCube predecessor, game director Masahiro Sakurai says.
In an interview with Polygon, Sakurai explained many of the gameplay changes coming to the Wii U and 3DS fighter. He also touched on what's staying the same and, in some cases, being removed.
The speed and style of gameplay in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is being designed to live somewhere between the previous two games in the series, Brawl for Wii and Melee for GameCube.
"To paint in broad strokes, Melee is for the maniac, the veteran player, while Brawl is for a newer, more casual gamer, as far as the speed goes," Sakurai explained. "Melee,...
Reggie Fils-Aime said the best way for companies to deal with the used games market is to ensure their games are good so gamers won't trade them in. Shuhei Yoshida said the PlayStation Plus subscription requirement is up to publishers for free-to-play games on PlayStation 4. Achievements on the Xbox One will be broken into two categories: traditional Achievements and special Challenges. Microsoft said the popularity of multiplayer is why the company thinks the Xbox One's connectivity requirement won't be an issue. Several new games were announced as being in development at E3, and we've got a spread of features detailing the show floor's offerings.
Nintendo: If devs are worried about used game sales, they should make better games
Publishers decide whether to require PS Plus...
Shot on the Los Angeles Convention Center show floor on the final day of E3 2013, the Besties gang summon what energy remains to fight in a battle royale for the Best Besty of E3 2013. The stakes are great; the friendships are greater.
While I think you'll love our bloodthirsty debates about the best games of the conference, I am most excited for you to watch the halftime show. The Polygon video team and Editor-in-Chief Chris Grant outdid themselves, organizing something special for our viewers. I won't spoil it for you.
Due to the visual nature of this episode, we won't be posting an audio podcast this week. But worry not, friends. We'll be back next week with that sweet Besties audio juice, ready to quench your thirsty ear mouths.
2:00 - Dying Light
6:25 - Super Mario 3D World
1...
This year's unique approach to the show, skipping the press conference and opting instead for a very hands-on driven approach to its E3 showing, was one driven by what Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said was a specific set of circumstances.
Speaking with Polygon about halfway through the show, Fils-Aime said that if he were to do it over again Nintendo's approach to E3 this year would have been exactly the same, to not have a press conference. But that doesn't mean that it's done with E3 press conferences.
"Next year and what we do at E3 next year is going to be an ongoing conversation, based on what the right thing to do is for the content we have," he said. "What we are not saying as a result of this year is that the Nintendo press conference is dead."
This year's...
New Super Luigi U — upcoming downloadable content for New Super Mario Bros. U — will remodel all 82 courses to be shorter but more difficult, according to Nintendo's general manager of EAD Software Development, Takashi Tezuka.
Tezuka has been credited on games like the original Super Mario Bros. where he was assistant director and designer, the original Legend of Zelda on which he was director, designer and writer and, most recently, New Super Mario Bros. U. Speaking to Polygon, he said that when his team began working on DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U, it wanted to do something different and change what people think of DLC.
"Most people think of downloadable content as just an add-on to a game — in Japanese you say 'add-on content,'" he said. "But New Super Luigi U is such a...
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