Nintendo

Nintendo Says They’ve Finalized Wii U Box Art Designs. They Probably Look Like This.

The leak of Wii U box art for a few Ubisoft titles got people wondering if the images seen online were real. Then Ubisoft confirmed the leaked box art was in fact legit. Now Nintendo is chiming in. Here’s what Nintendo sent Kotaku when we asked about the legitimacy of the designs: Nintendo has finalized…

You Think You Can Handle Samus’ Power Suit? Her Zero Suit? Ha!

Samus Aran is iconic. So are the Metroid heroine’s outfits. Yes, outfits—plural. Unlike many characters, who have a single set of trademark threads, Samus has two: her Power Suit (or its upgrades) and her Zero Suit. Some fans did not like the advent of Zero Suit Samus, saying it not only sexualized a strong female…

Thank Your God The SNES Didn’t Actually Look This Hideous

The North American Super Nintendo looked…OK. The Japanese and PAL version looked hot. Oh, how things could have turned out differently, had early concept art become reality. These two early designs for the SNES, drawn at a time when they were still calling the machine the “Nintendo Entertainment System 2”, were hideous. Where the final…

What a Real Mario Brother Would Look Like

Mario has a giant cap for a reason: so Nintendo didn’t need to animate his hair or eyebrows. That was back in the 1980s, though; if Mario was being designed now – or, heaven’s forbid, being redesigned – there’s every chance he’d look a little more realistic. Maybe not this realitic, though, which would be…

Don’t Be Surprised if Tales Characters Appear in Smash Bros.

So Namco Bandai is making the new Smash Bros. games. Know what that means, don’t you? There’s a really good chance Namco characters will pop up in Smash Bros Tales director and producer Yoshito Higuchi tells The Official Nintendo Magazine that he would totally be happy if Tales characters appeared in Smash Bros. Of course…

Amazon Leaks Wii U Box Art Designs? [Update]

Given the fact these may well be placeholder images, don’t read too much into them, but just in case they’re the real deal, what do you think of the splash? And the colour scheme? The yellow is a bit weird, but the “swoosh” design is something we’ve seen from Nintendo plenty of times before, from…

Gimped Madden on Wii U Doesn’t Speak Well of EA’s Relationship with Nintendo

Madden NFL was literally on stage with the Wii U, the day the console was formally revealed to the world. The unspoken message: No more cartoony, casual American football or minigame bullshit, this is a sports title you can actually take seriously on a Nintendo console. This happened more than a year ago, at E3…

Nintendo Bristles at Rumors That Seattle’s Baseball Team is For Sale

True or not, a baseball team owned by an aging Japanese magnate, two weeks after trading away a Japanese national hero, is an easy target for rumors that it’s up for sale. Add to that the fact Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo in its ascent to video game dominance, is 84 years old, has never…

Andrew Lloyd Webber Is Making A Game And It Will Undoubtedly Embarrass You

Being caught belting out the entirety of Phantom of the Opera in your living room can be pretty embarrassing. (In my defense, I was nine and I could, in fact, hit those notes. Mostly.) This fall, you can at least try to recapture some of your dignity (you won’t succeed, but you can try) by…

Square Enix’s New Game with Cars. Transforming Robot Cars.

Always nice to see game makers step outside their comfort zone, and bit by bit, Square Enix has been doing just that. The Tokyo-based game maker, best known for Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, is working on a new car game called Gyrozetter. A new transforming robot car game. It’s Unreal Engine powered, there’s an…

Do You Like This Pokémon Reimagining? Would You Buy This Stuff?

Japanese illustrator Momo Okada is everywhere of late. She’s done collaborations with Hello Kitty—and now, her take on Pokémon is getting its own line of products called “Poké Momo” for the Pokémon Centers in Japan. Okada’s illustrations look like “yura kyara”, which are the local mascots created to promote cities, towns, and rural villages in…

The Horror of Broken Old Nintendo Games

Old video games may have a certain charm to them when they’re working, but what about when they’re not? When they’re crashing and bugging out all over the place, no matter how many times you shake them or blow in the cartridge slot? Glitchee’s site is a wonderful catalogue of just such episodes, mostly of…

The Red-Headed Killer Returns to the Nintendo Download

It’s an incredibly short week for the Nintendo Download, but that just makes Circle Entertainment’s follow-up to the compelling DSiWare action-adventure The Lost Town: The Dust more of a chance to shine. Stare into the eyes of the red-headed killer. It was a grave oversight on my part that I completely skipped over The Lost…

Leaked Screens Show How FIFA 13 Works with the Wii U Controller

While Kotaku previously provided the nitty-gritty on how the Wii U version of FIFA 13 interacts with Nintendo’s new controller, this batch of new screen shots explicitly show how the Wii U’s tablet controller will work. WiiU Screens [FIFA Play via VG247]

The New Side Stuff In Pokémon Black and White 2 Might Be What Hooks Me This Time

Pokémon Black and White had one goal: to recreate the feeling of wonder and awe many of us felt over a decade ago when first setting out to be the very best on our Game Boy bricks. So, the setting was new: Unova, a locale based on the urban metropolis of New York. Naturally, the…

The 3DS download Pokedex 3D Pro will be sold in America on November 8. So Nintendo’s releasing something in November!

You Gotta Catch All These Pokémon Trainers! (No, Really, You Do)

Pocket Monsters isn’t only about monsters. It’s also about those Monster Ball packing characters. You know, trainers Over the generations, there have been a host of Pokémon trainers. Some of them have become iconic—such as Ash Ketchum, Misty, and Hilda. Being iconic in gaming means there are countless numbers of folks who enjoy dressing up…

DSi Coming in Two New, Rather Fetching Colour Schemes

While the 3DS is the flagship handheld at the moment, Nintendo hasn’t forgotten about the DSi, with plans to release two new colours for the device “as early as this week”. The two colours are “Matte Red” and “Matte Blue”. A sneaky Olympic-themed marketing move? They’ve only been announced for the North American market at…

Here Is What’s New in New Super Mario Bros. 2

In 2006 Nintendo released New Super Mario Bros.—the first big 2D Mario title since the SNES’ Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. This game would go on to be the best selling game of the DS’ formidable library, selling over 28 million copies worldwide. Now, six years later, it’s a new decade and a new…

3DS XL Forced on the Circle Pad Pro

While you probably wouldn’t want to do this yourself (it certainly doesn’t look comfortable!), one Japanese gamer apparently forced the recently released 3DS XL on the Circle Pad Pro and got it to recognize the larger 3DS—which makes sense! Nintendo will release a Circle Pad Pro for the larger 3DS. If you don’t like destroying…