September 19 to 25 Nintendo News Roundup

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Nintendo has once again released a new clip for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, this time focussing on cooking. Check it out below.

Pokémon Sun & Moon

The Pokémon Company recently shared another bit of news about Pokémon Sun & Moon in a new couple of trailers you can watch below, followed by a summary of the information.

These cover some new pokémon, Z-Moves, customization, and Pokémon Refresh. Give it all a look.

NEW DETAILS AND MORE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POKÉMON SUN AND POKÉMON MOON REVEALED!

New gameplay features, Pokémon Bank information, Z-Moves and version-exclusive Pokémon announced for upcoming Pokémon games

London—20 September 2016— The Pokémon Company International and Nintendo revealed new information for the latest games in the Pokémon franchise, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, coming to Europe on 23 November and available exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS family of systems.Newly revealed Pokémon include:Passimian
Type: Fighting
The Teamwork Pokémon Passimian attack by throwing Berries at their foes. They tend to live in troops of 20–30 Passimian, who all follow one leader. These tribes work in teams to train and improve their skills. This Pokémon has the Ability Receiver, an Ability which no previous Pokémon has had. With the Receiver Ability, Passimian can inherit the Ability of an ally who faints in battle. Passimian only appear in Pokémon Sun.Oranguru
Type: Normal/Psychic
The Sage Pokémon Oranguru live in the solitary deeps of the Alolan forests and, in fact, were once known as ‘the people of the forests’. Oranguru hold a fan-like object made of leaves and are known to be kind to other Pokémon in the forest, often giving injured Pokémon medicine or hungry Pokémon food. This Pokémon can exclusively learn the new move Instruct, a move which can make the selected target use its most recent move again immediately. Oranguru only appear in Pokémon Moon.The previously revealed Puppy Pokémon Rockruff can evolve into a different form depending on whether you are playing Pokémon Sun or Pokémon Moon.

Lycanroc (Midday Form)
Type: Rock
In the world of Pokémon Sun, Rockruff is bathed in profuse amounts of solar energy, and Solgaleo’s influence causes this Pokémon to evolve into Lycanroc’s Midday Form. This form is known for speedy movement which can confound its opponents. A very loyal Pokémon, Lycanroc Midday Form dodges opponents’ strikes whilst attacking with the sharp rocks of its mane. Lycanroc Midday Form can learn Accelerock, a new move unique to the Pokémon, which is guaranteed to strike first, damaging opponents by slamming into them very quickly.

Lycanroc (Midnight Form)
Type: Rock
In the world of Pokémon Moon, Rockruff is bathed in an abundance of lunar energy, and Lunala’s influence causes this Pokémon to evolve into Lycanroc’s Midnight Form. This Pokémon will sacrifice its own safety to strike down its foes. The stronger an opponent is, the more excited Lycanroc Midnight Form becomes, its eyes glowing with the thrill of battle. This Pokémon feels a deep trust towards a Trainer who can draw forth its true power.

Two new Pokémon-specific Z-moves were also announced for some fan-favourite Pokémon:

Pikachu
Exclusive Z-Move name: Catastropika
Pikachu’s exclusive Z-Move, Catastropika, is a super-powered attack move where Pikachu borrows its Trainer’s strength, wraps itself in extra-high-voltage electric power, and charges into its opponents. This is Pikachu’s most powerful attack.

Eevee
Exclusive Z-Move name: Extreme Evoboost
Eevee’s exclusive Z-Move, Extreme Evoboost, gathers together Sylveon, Jolteon and more – all of the eight Pokémon that Eevee can evolve into – and grants their powers to Eevee. This highly powerful move raises Eevee’s Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk, Sp. Def and Speed by 2.

The popular character-customisation feature makes a return in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. Personalise your character’s clothing, hairstyle and eye colour as you venture through the Alola region. Now, you can even dye your fashions to change their colour and make sure you pull off your favourite look whilst out adventuring.

The Pokémon Refresh feature lets you care for your Pokémon. After a battle, Pokémon can sometimes end up rumpled and dirty. Pokémon Refresh lets you clean them up, care for them, feed them Poké Beans and even cure status conditions like poisoning and paralysis that were inflicted on them in battle. Pokémon that have been looked after in Pokémon Refresh can grow very affectionate and will battle to the utmost for you. This means that sometimes they may avoid attacks from opposing Pokémon or even hold out when they’re on the verge of fainting. Take good care of all your Pokémon in Pokémon Refresh, and they will be great allies on your adventure.

The Nintendo 3DS downloadable software Pokémon Bank, an application that enables players to put Pokémon they’ve been on past adventures with into internet-based storage boxes, will be receiving an update in January 2017. This update will give the Pokémon Bank application compatibility with Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon and include a new National Pokédex feature. The Pokédex feature reads saved data from any compatible titles you connect to Pokémon Bank and collects information about all the Pokémon you have caught. You can then check out all of this information in the Pokémon Bank application and even see Pokémon that don’t natively appear in the Alola region. Poké Transporter will also be updated to make the Virtual Console versions of Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Yellow compatible with Pokémon Bank. This means that Pokémon that players have caught in the VC-original Kanto games will be able to be transferred across into Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon.

Finally, The Pokémon Company announced that the next news update for Pokémon Sun & Moon is now scheduled to October 4.

The news should drop at the following times:

– 6 AM PT
– 9 AM ET
– 2 PM in the UK
– 3 PM in Europe

Pokémon Generations

The third episode of Pokémon Generations is now available for watching on the official Pokémon YouTube channel. Check it out below.

Pokémon GO

A new patch for Pokémon GO was recently released bringing the game up to version 1.9.0 (iOS) and 0.39.0 (Android).

The patch allows Pokémon GO Plus users to capture Pokémon through Incense, and makes it so that Pokémon you have caught will now show where it was caught in its summary. That second bit was a feature when the game started, but was removed due to it being buggy at the time. Any other changes are unknown.

Here’s Niantic’s message about it:

Trainers,

Pokémon GO is in the process of being updated to version 0.39.0 for Android and 1.9.0 for iOS devices. Below are some release notes and comments from our development team.

Capture location: The location where a Pokémon was caught will now be displayed on their information screen.

Pokémon GO Plus and Incense: Trainers can attempt to capture Pokémon they encounter from using Incense with the Pokémon GO Plus accessory.

Minor bug fixes

We appreciate your continued support and have some exciting features and changes coming soon.

Meanwhile, GameSpot has put together a handy chart showing how much you need to walk for each Buddy Pokémon to earn candy. Check it out below.

pokemon-go-buddy-listOn the business side of things, Pokémon GO has finally left the number one spot in the App Store’s U.S. top grossing chart for the iPhone, which lasted for seventy-four days. However, it only slipped a little bit, as Supercell’s Clash Royale went up, since a content update prompted players to up their spending in that particular game.

Clash Royale holds the record for the longest top grossing U.S. iPhone app at 347 days, followed by Candy Crush Saga at 109 days. However, as Sensor Tower points out, “Pokémon GO managed 42 more consecutive days atop the chart than the game that unseated it, Clash Royale, and more than twice as many days as the 10th game on the chart, The Simpsons: Tapped Out, which stayed at the top for 15 days”.

pokemon-go-top-grossing-comparisonPaper Mario: Color Splash

Paper Mario: Color Splash can now be pre-loaded on the North American eShop. Users can buy the game and download most of its data ahead of time, to be ready to play it on October 7, only needing small update then to begin playing.

You can also find some new screenshots and trailer below.

Nintendo has also released a fifth video in the multi-part series about the Rescue V squad of toads helping Mario in Paper Mario: Color Splash. Check it out.

Finally, due to the upcoming release, various pieces of gameplay footage have been made available online. Give them all a watch below.

Mario Party: Star Rush

The official North American website for Mario Party: Star Rush is now open and you can access it over here.

Besides that, more pieces of gameplay footage are now available online thanks to NintenDaan, which you can watch below.

Shigeru Miyamoto Interviews

php27gdk7A few interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto popped up online during the week, mostly about Mario games, but including other topics.

First we have an interview by Pocket-lint which focuses on Nintendo’s mobile strategy, Super Mario Run, and the future of the company on mobile platforms. You can read that interview over here.

Next, we have two seperate interviews from 1996 with Shigeru Miyamoto and other Nintendo employees who worked on Super Mario 64 together that only recently were translated and published in english on the website Shmuplations for any interested party to read.

These interviews come from the time when Super Mario 64 had just been released and was making waves in the gaming world. The interviews cover a variety of topics about Super Mario 64, but focus mostly on the creative process of designing a game in 3D compared to 2D and the early history of the game. You can give them a read over here.

Finally, due to Nintendo’s 127th birthday, BBC pulled an old interview out of its archives in celebration.

In 1990, the Money Programme visited Nintendo’s Japanese HQ, in what was apparently one of the first times that cameras were ever let inside. A good portion of the brief video shows a young Shigeru Miyamoto speaking about why be enjoys working at the company.

You can watch the video snippet below.

Splatoon

Nintendo has recently posted an interview with Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami on its German YouTube page.

During this brief interview, Nogami talked about Splatoon’s reception, the competitive scene, and his preference of Callie or Marie.

You can watch it below, and read an english version of the interview over here thanks to Nintendo Everything.

Virtual Console Trailers

The Wii version of Donkey Kong Country Returns is now out on the North American Wii U eShop. You can find a trailer for it below.

Miitomo

Miitomo has been updated with new content once again. This includes new Miitomo Drop and Miitomo Shop items.

Here’s a list of the new additions:

miitomo-sept-22Art is life! Art Museum #1

– Pearl earings + turban (set)
– Pearl earing dress (set)
– Impressionist jacket
– Impressionist pants

Miitomo Shop Items

– Secret shades
– Denim jacket + basic shirt
– Crisp dress + denim jacket
– Longline cardigan + striped dress
– Basic wide-leg pants
– Rock star boots
– Sheer lace socks
– Snood

miitomo-sept-25Art is life! Art Museum #2

– Modern art installation hat
– Cubism dress
– Modern art high-tops

Nintendo Selects

A new round of Nintendo Selects has been made available in Europe. Due to that, Nintendo has released a promo video for the new titles joining the discounted line, which you can watch below.

Nintendo Minute

The latest episode of Nintendo Minute is now out, and features Kit and Krysta trying to find out how well they know each other by asking five crucial Nintendo questions. Check it out below.

TGS 2016

According to an official document distribution by the Consumer Entertainment Supplier’s Association, more 3DS titles were present at this year’s Tokyo Game Show than the previous one. Nintendo’s handheld had 29 games on the show floor last year, but in 2016 there were 36 titles.

As expected, Wii U saw a big dip. The console was represented by 23 games in 2015, but only had a total of 13 this time.

Here’s the full breakdown by platform, with numbers from 2015 in parenthesis:

iOS – 220 (252)
Android – 203 (252)
Smartphone (other) – 15 (6)
3DS – 36 (29)
Wii U – 13 (23)
PlayStation 4 – 116 (103)
PlayStation 3 – 15 (39)
PlayStation Vita – 48 (62)
Xbox One – 30 (27)
PC – 178 (135)
PC Browser Games – 21 (28)
Steam – 74 (23)
VR – 110 (N/A)

In total, TGS 2016 had 1,523 titles, up from 1,283 last year.

fut_banner_wMeanwhile, the results for the Future Division Awards have also been released, and ten titles present at the Tokyo Game Show were selected by attendees as the expo’s best games in this category. Among these, two Nintendo games from Capcom made the list: Monster Hunter Stories and Megami Meguri. For those who are curious, Final Fantasy XV, Nioh, Gravity Rush 2, Yakuza 6, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last Guardian, Resident Evil 7, and Summer Lesson rounded out the rest of the list in no particular order.

Ubisoft on NX

nintendo-nx1Ubisoft has been one of the very few third-party publishers out there that has commented on Nintendo’s NX platform fairly frequently, despite not saying too much actually concrete about it. We don’t know much besides the fact that the company is bringing Just Dance 2017 to the platform as well as other unnanounced games.

At a Ubisoft presentation held recently, CEO Yves Guillemot once again weighed in on NX, stating:

“The new Nintendo [console] is a fantastic machine. It’s really a new approach, it’s really Nintendo, [which is] coming with something new again. We love it.”

Guillemot was later asked why Ubisoft has such faith in Nintendo. He responded:

“What we see is, players are more open when new hardware is coming. So we have the chance to come with something we have never done before, because we know that if we are the first there, people will try our game and maybe we’ll be able to get into that new genre. As our people wanted to do a game like ZombiU, they were happy they could just use the Wii U to do it. For us, a machine is a tool of expression, but when everything become stable it’s less open to innovation. We always want innovation.

“However, if you try something a little new and it’s not perfect, you come back quickly to what you know and works. As a gamer, if you change to new hardware, you have no references, so you’re looking at what people are saying are [the best games] and then trying them.

“But if you have an [established] machine and there’s all the experiences you know on there already, you know you’re going to miss some of those to try something new, so you’re less inclined. For us, we know opportunities to try something new are a lot more rewarding when it’s a new machine.”

Guillemot stressed out that Ubisoft is “working on some [other] projects” for NX.

IGN then put up more comments from the Ubisoft CEO, including one which has him saying that “Nintendo has learned from the Wii U” with its new system.

Guillemot said the following when asked if he views the NX as a step back towards the Wii’s more inclusive approach:

“It’s difficult to answer that [before NX is revealed]. What we see is that Nintendo has learned from the Wii U. All publishers learn from what they do, and then come with something new and more attractive, which I think is the case here.”

Finally, Guillemot went on to praise NX’s interface and how the system “will be easy to use for all gamers”:

“I think, once again, the interface is very attractive. It’s a machine that will be easy to use for all gamers. They have built in something that will give us chance to really have a different experience from what exists today. That’s what I like – that they come with something new that is adapted to what we actually want now.”

Patent for User-based Perspective Projection Correction System

Nintendo has filed another patent some months ago, for a projection system / projector device / image capturing device and program. It was finally made public recently.

Essentially, the patent involves a projection system that can correct itself to the user’s perspective. Here’s the abstract:

“The present invention implements a projection system which appropriately corrects geometric distortion of a projected image even when an object to be projected has an arbitrary three-dimensional shape and a user’s point of view is not fixed. A projection unit (3) of a projector device 100 projects a first adjustment test image. A three-dimensional shape measurement unit (4) measures a three-dimensional shape of the object to be projected. An image capturing device (200) captures the first adjustment test image projected by the projection unit (3), and acquires a first adjustment captured image. A projected image adjustment unit (1) executes: (1) first adjustment processing for, on the basis of the first adjustment captured image acquired by the image capturing device (200), correcting the image such that geometric image distortion is reduced at an image capturing point at which the first adjustment captured image was captured; and (2) second adjustment processing for, on the basis of a state when the image adjusted by the first adjustment processing was projected by the projection unit (3), correcting the image such that geometric image distortion is reduced.”

And illustrative images from the filing:

Nintendo – WIPO Patent WO/2016/147731A1

If you would like to investigate the patent further, you can find more about it over here.