Nintendo at E3 2014: All the news, direct to you

It is the truism of the game industry: Software sells hardware.

You need to have good games to sell lots of consoles.

Last week at Nintendo’s E3 booth, I committed some 800 acts of moblin murder during my hands-on time with Hyrule Warriors.

I killed so many of the dopey, low-level Zelda series enemy — along with a few dozen gorons — in my fifteen or so minutes with the game than I have in entire Zelda games past.

It’s been more than one year, a very rocky year, since I sat down with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto to discuss the future of the company he helped shape with creations like Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda and Star Fox.

There was an awkward moment in the beginning of that spring 2013 interview when I suddenly realized that I didn’t know the official title for Miyamoto, a man who I’ve interviewed countless times and perhaps the most recognizable game maker in the world. That moment became more awkward when it became apparent that Miyamoto didn’t really know his own title either.

According to Matt Scott, founder and CEO of family games-focused publisher Little Orbit, we shouldn’t count Nintendo’s Wii U out of the race just yet; despite poor marketing on Nintendo’s part dragging sales down, the company can still regain the race by opening up communication with consumers more, he told Polygon.

“The Wii U is an interesting platform: I think it’s challenged, no question,” Scott said. “Every publisher is caught between the audience that’s out there, and the content they want to put out there. You’re always looking for where the audience is playing games.”

Tezuka told Polygon the people on the tools team typically don’t design video game courses — they only build the tools for Nintendo’s game designers to use. In this particular instance, the tools team was working on a Mario course editing tool when they decided to pitch it to Tezuka as a standalone game.

“They brought the idea to me thinking it would be a great game idea because they had so much fun with [it],” Tezuka said.

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the crossover Nintendo 3DS game featuring the titular puzzle-solving archeologist and the charismatic defense attorney, mixes the best challenges of the two games — the title features both Layton’s nail-biting puzzles and the Ace Attorney series’ iconic courtroom sequences.

The title, a crossover between Capcom’s Ace Attorney and Level-5’s Professor Layton franchises, features Professor Layton, his assistant Luke, attorney Phoenix Wright and his assistant Maya. The four are transported by a magical book into a city and are tasked with absolving a young woman accused of being a witch. Players can work their way through the story by selecting from either puzzle sessions led by Layton and courtroom and investigation scenes with Phoenix. Both of these options are available to player at any time; both men’s stories can be accessed from the in-game menu and players can complete segments from either as they choose.

The introduction of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise’s newest villain — a 1,000-plus-year-old snake that clads himself in robot armor — is an extreme embodiment of everything the series has come to stand for so far, according to Sega developers.

Sonic Boom is the spin-off from the main Sonic franchise that takes place in an alternate universe. Producer Stephen Frost told Polygon the new games are essentially the ultimate evolution of the franchise’s main conflict: nature versus technology. The struggle between Sonic and pals and his machine-loving adversary Dr. Eggman always comes down to running fast and smashing robots, but this time there’s a new, badder baddie involved.

Code Name: STEAM is the next Nintendo 3DS game from the creators of Fire Emblem, the company announced today.

The cel-shaded steampunk game will launch next year for Nintendo 3DS. STEAM is in development with Intelligent Systems and is being headed by Hitoshi Yamagami, whose previous works include Xenoblade Chronicles and the Fire Emblem and Pokemon series.

The release of Mario Kart 8 had a “significant impact” on Wii U console sales, Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Aime told Polygon.

Nintendo’s Wii U, released in November, 2012, topped six million in sales through the end of March, according to the company’s fiscal report.

Yoshi’s Woolly World, the new yarn-themed adventure starring Yoshi, allows two-players to team up for co-op — which can sometimes turn into borderline-trolling competition.

During our hands-on time with the title, we played with a friend in a level set among the clouds. These two Yoshis had to find ways to climb blocks, bridge gaps between floating platforms and take out angry Piranha Plants together. Towards the beginning of the level, we encountered a Paratroopa that we had to knock out of the sky with one of many baby chick-creatures in order to steal its shell.

The buzz surrounding Mario Maker appears to be well-earned — but it isn’t the only new Mario title on the E3 floor with robust creation tools. Mario vs. Donkey Kong features a suite of level design tools that feel just as intuitive — and deep — as what we’ve seen of Mario Makers’.

I was able to get hands-on time with Mario vs. Donkey Kong at Nintendo’s booth on the E3 show floor. It’s an action puzzle game much in the mold of the older Mario vs. Donkey Kong titles, with an emphasis on the new level editor and sharing features.

Both games required us to use the gyroscope function of the Wii U GamePad, tilting and rotating the controller to achieve our goals. The first minigame placed four players in a fenced-in stone square with two lines of fireballs criss-crossing through it. As Bowser, we had to tilt the GamePad in any direction to move the two lines of fireballs front to back and side to side in an attempt to trap players in the fire. Each player began with five lives, with Bowser’s goal to knock out all twenty available lives. The minigame ended with two players still having lives, but it didn’t matter — they didn’t win anyway. They just lost less poorly to Bowser.

The second game required us to hold the GamePad up vertically and move it from side to side. On the TV, the four players were again trapped in a square with five lives each we had to knock out. As we moved the GamePad, we would press A to breathe fire at our four helpless victims, blowing steam until they were defeated.

Nintendo’s job at E3 was to get fans reinvested in the platform, and to get new customers excited about the idea of picking up a Wii U. Both Microsoft and Sony have enjoyed wonderful starts to a long life in the “next-gen” console race, but Nintendo’s hardware sales need a boost if the Wii U is going to continue to be viable.

So did that happen at E3? Are we walking away shocked and amazed at what we saw?

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U controller bundle, consisting of a Nintendo GameCube controller and an adapter will be available this holiday season for a recommended price of $99.99, the company announced during its E3 2014 Digital Event.

Performance Designed Products is slated to launch a Nintendo accessory inspired by the original GameCube controller called the Wired Fight Pad at an unannounced date. The Nintendo-licensed peripheral allows players to use the Wired Fight Pad in Wii U and Wii games that support the Classic Controller and Classic Controller Pro, along with Virtual Console titles.

Itagaki, who previously led development on Ninja Gaiden with Team Ninja at Tecmo, was originally developing Devil’s Third as a PlayStation 3, Windows PC and Xbox 360 action game to be published by THQ. In the summer of 2012, the company returned the Devil’s Third rights to Valhalla after dropping the game from its slate. Earlier this year, Itagaki said Devil’s Third was on track for a 2014 release.

Nintendo “really understood my vision,” said Itagaki through a translator on the livestream, flanked by former THQ executive Danny Bilson. Itagaki also showed a trailer for Devil’s Third’s objective-based multiplayer mode, along with a live demo of the single-player campaign. Movement and melee combat is shown from a third-person perspective, while shooting goes into a first-person view. Hand-to-hand fighting is brutal and gory with dismemberment, and the player character moves very quickly, with the ability to run up walls.

Mario Party 10 also will feature classic Mario Party-style games.

Star Fox is coming to Wii U in an all-new game — the first for a Nintendo console since 2005 — sometime next year, Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto announced at a pre-E3 event this week.

The new Star Fox, still in its early stages, is one of three new game projects that Miyamoto revealed this week that are designed to showcase the Wii U GamePad’s features.

No release date or window in 2015 has been given.

Some years ago, Toys For Bob executives visited Nintendo of America to pitch them with a new idea; toys that could be attached to game consoles and simultaneously appear inside video games.

Fast forward to 2014, and Skylanders is one of the single most successful toy brands in the world. Nintendo, meanwhile, is struggling to find a place for its underperforming Wii U console.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS will add Lady Palutena and, possibly, Dark Pit to its roster of fighters, Nintendo revealed in a video shown during its E3 2014 Digital Event.

Lady Palutena is a fictional goddess from Nintendo’s Kid Icarus series. Palutena has made several appearances in previous Super Smash Bros. titles as an unplayable character, such as a collectible trophy, as an Emissary and as a statue in the background of the Skyworld stage.

Fight fans are already calling it the showdown of the century. Probably.

Here’s Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata facing off against Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime in a swashbuckling display of martial merriment.

Only Nintendo could reinvent the shooter in such a colorful, potentially delightful way.

In Splatoon, due out in the first half of 2015, players take charge of a inkgun-armed cartoon child that can turn into a squid. The four-on-four multiplayer game has players fighting not to take out the opposing team, but to coat as much of the map as possible with their color ink.

Mario Maker’s existence was reported last week, based on what appeared to be a photo of Nintendo’s under-construction E3 2014 booth. Nintendo noted that Mario Maker is a working title.

“It has to be something that is uniquely Nintendo. Where a beginner can easily make something and have a good time, and simultaneously, someone who is really into Mario can delve into it deeper and make something more complex,” said Takemoto. “So that is a challenge we will need to tackle in the future.”

Nintendo revealed Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker at its E3 digital event today, showing a wide variety of new puzzles for the adventurous Toad to solve. Like the side missions featured in last year’s Super Mario 3D World, Captain Toad will explore contained, isometric view levels in pursuit of treasure.

While Captain Toad still has plenty of constraints that limit his adventuring skills — he can’t jump, for example — he’ll be able to investigate levels from first-person perspective using the Wii U GamePad.

Nintendo and Good-Feel Company, the developer of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, are releasing Yoshi’s Woolly World, a new textile-themed Wii U game starring Mario’s dinosaur companion, Yoshi.

In Yoshi’s Woolly World, Nintendo’s green buddy and his world are transformed into objects made of yarn, wool and more. Yoshi’s tongue interacts with the world, grabbing and unfurling the world’s fabric as he explores the landscape.