Former Retro staff form Armature Studio

Remember those key employees Retro lost a few months back? Well they have resurfaced, and they have joined up with Electronic Arts. As it turns out they have set up a development studio by the name of Armature, in Retro’s own hometown of Austin Texas. They have signed a deal with EA to create games for the XBOX 360, Playstation 3, and Wii.

Mark Pacini told Kotaku

“EA approached us with this really interesting business model of creating a small studio that is only comprised of industry veterans. The goal is to create new IP with a very, very small team and to produce a game without having to grow that team.”

It will be interesting to see what they cook up.

The Speed Gamers – Gaming for Charity

I thought I’d take a moment from working on the “surprise” to make a short post about a group of gamers who’ve been raising money for charities with Gaming marathons. There have been quite a few of them popping up recently, with various charitable organizations benefiting.

On August 15th at 7pm est (6pm cst). The Speed Gamers will be raise money for St. Jude with a 72 hour Metroid Marathon. They’ll be going through all of the Metroid games (with the exception of Pinball) without sequence breaking, going “as their natural routes were intended.” while streaming a feed live off of their website.

Their last two marathons raised a total of $2445. This time they will be raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. You’ll find more information on their website, about the event and the guidelines they set for the marathon. On behalf of Metroid Quarantine: Best of luck to you guys.

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A short update on blackbird: It’s coming together nicely now. Only 2 More Days!

Promising Revelations

Ever since the beginning of its launch the Wii has attracted gamers worldwide by appealing to a broader sense of demographics as well as a significant portion of traditional gamers. While Nintendo has indeed held true to this profit-collecting slogan, only few games have been released that appeal to traditional gamers. These titles are few and far between so much so that the Wii is continually ridiculed beyond belief; being marked as too kiddy or too easy.

That, however, is all about to change with this year’s E3. While many believe that Nintendo has perhaps lost sight of its true fans the direction of public relations at Nintendo, Marc Franklin, says:

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Nintendo to sue Nyko for Wireless Nunchuk

The Kama Wireless Nunchuk, developed by Nyko as a third party controller for the Nintendo Wii, has met direct confrontation by Nintendo itself through a demand which supposedly exposes the Kama’s blatant similarities to the official Nintendo Nunchuk. Quoting the Nintendo spokesperson:

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Rumors of a Metroid movie resurface

Is it just me, or is this a good year to be a Metroid fan or what? We’ve got fan games coming out of the wazoo and now Metroid is rumored to be heading to the silver screen, this time with Michael Bay at the helm.
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New WiiWare

The Wii’s latest addition to its quite limited WiiWare library fits perfectly to the needs and expectations of the average gamer, offering several features that make game trials and demos easier to obtain, as well as know more about what’s new in Nintendo lately.

The main page is a list of the latest videos that Nintendo has uploaded, which will most probably refer to the latest games released. The videos stack in a descending order, depending on their creation date.

Now for the quality. The new channel’s video quality is something which was expected from the Wii console, and that most gamers have already taken for granted: average resolution and definition. Videos have low buffering speed, but the this varies depending on the internet connection, as always. The videos and images can go full-screen without suffering pixel fragmentation of any kind, and the general stats shown in the Titles screen complement the videos perfectly.

Of course, this new WiiWare, as most of Nintendo’s products, isn’t based in video quality but in the usefulness and/or fun in the software, and this is where Nintendo Channel makes its debut.

Not only does it give a list of the most recent game trailers, mini-documentaries, and upcoming game’s gameplays, but it also permits a connection between the Wii and the DS systems so to download the demo versions of several available games, which will help the gamers make up their minds when choosing the next buy.

Nintendo’s interest in gamers needs feedback as well, hence Nintendo Channel has a system of tracking which registers the games one plays and lets Nintendo know which games are the most appealing to the gamers. This will also filter the main page videos, leaving only those which fit the best the individual tastes.

The Nintendo Channel is completely free and is available in the WiiWare section of the Wii Shop Channel.

Veteran Programer leaves Nintendo for Microsoft

Employee of Nintendo for 11 years Colin Reed, technical lead for Metroid Prime: Hunters and system programmer for Pikmin, has left Nintendo for Microsoft. He will be jumping in with the developers of Turn 10.

Turn 10 is responsible for the development of the driving simulator Forza Motorsports.

Though this interesting turn of events (pardon the pun) seems strikingly familiar to the recent loss of talent at Retro Studios, there is nothing to link the two together. From what has been heard, Turn 10 and Nintendo seem to be on good terms with one another.

Though Nintendo might should take more measures to keep such programmers in their own employment, the video game industry, Nintendo in particular, is doing well at the moment.

Nintendo spokesperson denies rumors of a Prime trilogy for the Wii

Following a recent rumor from GoNintendo regarding an invoice appearing on a retailer’s computer system for a Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii; speculation about a Prime pack with Metroid Prime 1 and 2 revamped with Wii controls crept its way through the Metroid community.

In an interview with Computer & Videogames a Nintendo spokesperson dismissed it as “Purely rumour and speculation.”

While this may not put a nail in the coffin on this concept, for now the idea is dead.
Could this be linked to the recent leave of three Retro staff members?

Retro Studios loses key employees

Shacknews reported that three key Retro employees left the company recently. Each played a pivotal role in the development of the Metroid Prime series: design director Mark Pacini, art director Todd Keller, and technology engineer Jack Mathews were reportedly “escorted” off company premises. It’s still unclear as to why the three former staff members left.

Nintendo has confirmed that in an email to Computer and Video Games that “We still continue to work alongside the team at Retro and no official announcements as to its status have been made”.

Retro was bought out by Nintendo in 2001 three years after its founding. As of now Retro Studios is currently working on an unknown Wii title, taking a break from the Metroid series.

Good news from Nintendo

Fiscal Year 2008 ended in March 31st, but after a month of expectations, it was not until April 24th that Nintendo published the numbers.

At least we can say it was worth the wait, since we were greeted with amazing sales and revenues that have established, once again, a record in video gaming history.

Nintendo published a sale estimate of 1.67 trillion yen, which would be around 1.61 billion USD. This also sets an increase of 73% from last year’s sales.

The operating profits for Nintendo, which are the basic direct earnings of the company, rose high to 487 billion yen (4.65 billion USD), with an increase of 115.6% from last year.

But Nintendo is not planning to stay here. They are visioning rapid growth in Fiscal Year 2009, which would imply a rise in sales worldwide. To fit the public demand, it has been planned to increase the shipment of the Wii console globally to the official Nintendo retail stores, increasing the total amount of sold consoles from 24.45 million in FY08 to 25 million in FY09. It was also registered that in FY08, the company sold 18.61 million Wiis to retailers.

Yet those numbers only consider official Nintendo retail stores, which would imply a greater need for Wiis than the official numbers. Nintendo has taken that into consideration, as it always has every Fiscal Year.

Games will also have an impressive sales growth, from 119.6 million software units in FY08, to an expected 177 million games by the end of Fiscal Year 2009.

Now, to those who think that the Nintendo DS is starting to decay, and that the years are finally taking a toll on the sales, numbers prove you wrong. In the recently closed Fiscal Year, the company was able to sell 30.31 million DS systems worldwide, towering high above their competitors with a grand total of 70.6 million Nintendo DS units sold. And it’s not over yet, as forecasts calculate 28 million more systems sold globally. For DS games, Nintendo is considering the shipment of 187 million software units by the end of FY09, March 31st, 2009, staying above the previous sales in FY08, which were rather close to the new expectations: 185.62 million.

Each console and each gaming company has its different approach to the gaming masses. Their plans and expectations are different, as well as their limitations. But this difference between the points of view from one company to another is what determines their success. Going elitist and exclusive might work, but usually those who appeal to the great masses, even to non-gamers, and have new, revolutionary systems, friendly controls and fresh content are the ones to rise higher.

Competition is tough, and a “Console War” is an idea that only passes through the minds of those who aren’t able to apprehend the goddness of each console. Every console is good in some aspect, and lacks in another. But speaking clearly, if we consider how well Nintendo has achieved its goals, and comparing the amount of sales from company to company, we can just say that up to now, Nintendo has done an excellent job, and that there is much more to come.

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Official Source: http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=15039