Nintendo

The Coolest Nintendo Games That Never Actually Existed

It’s my favourite time of the year. The time when, like clockwork, Japanese indie gaming store Meteor holds its annual Famicase exhibition, which brings together artists from all over the world and asks them to design fake Nintendo games. The label art they design on old Famicom cartridges can be political, funny, realistic, attractive or…

You’re Just In Time For A Game Boy Micro Unboxing

In 2005, Nintendo shut the door on the original Game Boy with the miniscule Game Boy Micro, a brilliantly-engineered two-by-four-inch rectangle of compromise. It wouldn’t run original Game Boy or Game Boy Color titles — just Game Boy Advance games — but boy was it pretty. Many people hated it. I just bought a new…

Rumor: Nintendo Wants To Modify the Wii U to Run Smartphone Apps

Has it really come to this? According to Kyodo News, sources say that the Kyoto-based game maker is trying to modify its game hardware so it can run smartphone apps. “The game console and software maker has offered professional-use conversion software to application developers so they can produce smartphone games that can be played on…

Japanese Person Picked Zelda‘s Triforce for Tombstone, Apparently

In Japan, there are family crests called “kamon” (家紋). They’re similar to a coat of arms in the West. One Japanese Twitter user claims to have changed his family’s crest to a familiar mark: The Legend of Zelda Triforce. Apparently, the iconic symbol even ended up on the family’s gravestone. According to Twitter user @mahosyouzyo,…

Now This Is How I Imagine Samus Looking

It always baffles me when people go out of their way to make Metroid’s Samus look “beautiful”. As if that matters. There’s a reason her gender was kept secret for the first game, and that’s because the point was she was a badass, not that she was a she So I love this pic by…

How Are You Supposed to Enjoy Animal Crossing?

I know how to have fun playing a Mario game, a Zelda game or a Metroid game. I get Pikmin. I get Fire Emblem. Hell, I got Cubello. But I never got Nintendo’s Animal Crossing series. Help me understand! I’ve tried the GameCube version, the DS one and the Wii one. Nintendo kindly sent me…

JRPG Censorship Is Such A Silly Thing

For as long as there have been Japanese role-playing games, there has been censorship. Since the NES days, Nintendo and other big Japanese companies have been quick to stamp their big black bars on anything that might be considered offensive to American sensibilities: alcohol, religion, sex, octopus statues, whatever. And JRPGs have been the biggest…

The Ass Nintendo Doesn’t Want You To See

There’s new Fire Emblem DLC out today. The Summer Scramble pack. It adds a beach map to the game as well as “many conversations between the parent characters who normally do not support each other in the main game”. Yet it also takes one thing away. When the pack was released in Japan, it featured…

Why Hasn’t Nintendo Turned The Wii U Into A ‘Nintendo Paradise’?

The Wii U is struggling because it has so few games. Nintendo has a massive library of amazing classic games. How have they not put two and two together yet? Last week, Nintendo finally launched the Wii U’s Virtual Console, which allows you to download and buy classic games so you can play them with…

Another Quirky RPG Is Coming To The 3DS eShop

Remember The Denpa Men, that cute 3DS RPG that was sort of a cross between Dragon Quest and Pikmin? It must have done well in the U.S., because the sequel is coming here too. The Denpa Men 2 will be out on the 3DS eShop on May 30, thanks to the folks at localization company…

Another Big Third-Party Game Skips The Wii U

For the first time since 1991, a Madden game will not be released on Nintendo’s primary/current home console. A statement sent by EA to Nintendo World Report says: We will not be releasing a Wii U version of Madden NFL in 2013. However, we have a strong partnership with Nintendo and will continue to evaluate…

Why Is Everyone Being So Sketchy About The New Call of Duty On Wii U?

You might have heard today’s big news: the next Call of Duty is called Ghosts, and it’s coming to current- and next-generation platforms this fall. To be specific: according to publisher Activision, the game is coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and “next generation platforms.” It’s safe to say that means the next PlayStation…

Report: Nintendo Didn’t Make the Famicom Red Because It Was Cheap

Ever wonder why the Famicom (née Family Computer) was red, gold and white? It was glorious color scheme, but the story goes that cheap plastics were responsible for the console’s iconic hue. That story, says one of the console’s main designers, is wrong. In a recent interview with Weekly Playboy, former Nintendo hardware designer Masayuki…

Tengami, the Japanese papercraft inspired game, is heading to the Wii U, NintendoLife reports.

In Japan, Ice Cream Sushi Exists

That is not wasabi. You are looking at green tea ice cream…sushi. No, really. That’s vinegared sushi rice (aka “sumeshi” or 酢飯), dried seaweed (“nori” or 海苔), and ice cream. The ice cream sushi is served “gunkan maki” (軍艦巻) or “battleship roll sushi” style. This week on Twitter via Byoukan Sunday, photos of ice cream…

Humans Create Program That Builds Its Own Super Mario Bros. Levels

Manuel Kerssemakers, Jeppe Tuxen, Julian Togelius and Georgios Yannakakis have done something cool. They’ve created a computer program that does Nintendo’s job. Sort of. For their 2012 paper called A procedural procedural level generator generator, blogged today by Gamasutra, they built a system that’s able to randomly generate level generators that generate their own levels…

Wii Owners, Nintendo REALLY Wants You To Buy A Wii U, OK?

Readers are letting us know that Nintendo has this evening taken the very direct step of sending out messages to Wii owners. Not to tell them that their system is being updated. To tell them their system is now out of date. Continuing a recent exercise in the company finally realising “holy shit we really…

Nintendo Brushes Off Wii U Hacker Claims

Earlier today, a group of hackers claimed they’d cracked the Wii U, but Nintendo tells Kotaku they’ve received “no reports” of any unauthorized use of their gaming system. The group WiiKey, previously responsible for one of the Wii’s most popular mod-chips, said today that they’ve figured out how to create a new one for the…

I Am Stereoblind, But the 3DS Lets Me See the World as Others See It

I cried the first time I held a Nintendo 3DS. The experience was a revelation that I’ll not soon forget, and even if everyone stopped making games for it tomorrow, my blue 3DS XL is not going anywhere. That little machine is a window into a part of human experience that most people take for…

Earthbound‘s Creator Responds to Request for a New Game: “Impossible”

For years, players have been begging Earthbound (aka Mother in Japan) creator Shigesato Itoi for a new game. He’s listening and has a definite answer: Not gonna happen. Recently on Twitter, a fan tweeted this to 64 year-old icon: “Mr. Itoi, please tell us a way to get you to make Mother 4.” Itoi’s response?…