Nintendophiles 12.16.09: Oii! Mega Man 10, 2010 Releases, Miyamoto, Martinet and Voices In Your Head

Posted by John De Large on 12.16.2009

Or....Things To Look Forward To From Nintendo, Including Some Great Games And The Second Wii Price Cut.

Hey there, this is J-D-L coming to you on your computer screen with this weeks edition of Nintendophiles. I'll be writing this while I watch Inglourious Basterds and eat cheesecake with a very pretty otaku/Basterds geek known as M-e-L (I'm not surprised at this development, but I guarantee the readers are).

Anyway, enough about me and the awesome night I have planned, here's some Nintendo news! Take it away, myself!

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NINTENDO TRADEMARKS ZII, OII SEVERAL OTHER LETTERS FOLLOWED BY TWO I'S


THAT'S how you spell Oi, Nintendo!

Source: Engadget

Nintendo has gone and trademarked the words "Zii," "Cii," "Bii," Oii," and "Yii," (at least in Japan they have) which has got everyone wondering "what the heck are they up to?" Some theorize that there's a Zorro game in the works, hence the Zii, while I hope that they're making a moshing game to justify the Oii trademark.

The trademark for Zii was filed on October 30, 2009, no word on when the other unoriginal buzzwords were conceived.

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MEGA MAN 10 RETURNS TO WIIWARE!


Now that is EPIC.

Source: Nintendo Power/IGN

According to Nintendo Power, Mega Man will be returning to WiiWare in Mega Man 10. If you're wondering if MM10 will be presented in the retro style you have nothing to worry about, there's gonna be retro graphics, a retro soundtrack and sprite flicker! Nintendo Power has also announced that Mega Man 10 will be easier than its predecessor thanks to an Easy mode that spares lesser gamers the frustration (and also joy) that comes with a "Nintendo Hard," game.

You start off as Proto Man/Break Man, complete with epic scarf and his sweet shield. You'll also get to play as Mega Man of course and even as a third playable character! No word on who that is just yet. I'm all for extra characters and more retro styled games, so I have little to add here except a few smiley faces.

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

There they go!

The only real criticism I have of this upcoming installment of Mega Man is that the designers must really be running out of ideas to be coming up with Robot Masters named SHEEP MAN.

MeL: Sheep Man? Sheep MAN?! Really, Capcom? REALLY?!

Yeah, SHEEP MAN whose special weapon is THUNDER WOOL. Thunder Wool?!?! I'm just having a hard time imagining how THUNDER WOOL could be a badass weapon. Maybe he'll fire some epic Brillo pads that electrocute you or something.I hope Capcom comes up with some better Robot Masters making this one the Black Sheep of the lot.

Mega Man 10 comes out in March 2010.

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CHARLES MARTINET HEARS VOICES IN HIS HEAD (THEY COUNSEL HIM, THEY UNDERSTAND)

Source: Official Nintendo Magazine (available this Friday).

Charles Martinet, AKA the voice of Mario (yes, THAT Mario) was recently quoted talking about the voices in his head, presumably the voice of the high strung plumber we all know and love.


Martinet with former 411 writer Jay Lopez

"The voice is always in my head," Martinet confessed in an interview with THE Official Nintendo magazine.

Martinet went on to say "I aspire to be more like Mario! What could be better than rescuing and falling in love with a princess right?"

LOLWUT?

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SHIGERU MIYAMOTO HAS MORE FREE TIME THAN YOU THINK

Source: Edge-Online.com

In a recent interview with Edge-Online, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto describes a typical day at the office:



"I can probably roughly divide things into three equal sections."

1. "About one third of my working year on average is spent in meetings [laughs]. Meetings of the board of directors, say, or meetings for development."

2. "And then I spend probably roughly a third of my time working with people outside of our Kyoto office. We have teams working in Tokyo, for example, and there are also people outside of the company who are still involved in development."

3. "Besides that, the final third is spent working more closely on direct game development: I'm talking about internal game and software development. That's working on things like testing prototypes, and looking at the experiments teams might have been working on: I'm particularly interested in seeing how people might react to these things we've been doing, and discussing how we can improve things. And if nothing appears to be working, if there's nothing we can do to get real progress with a project, I have to step in to write down the development sheets and get involved in the planning myself."

"But I have to make a point for other things. Because I'm often in the office from nine in the morning until ten or even midnight, I make sure that Tuesday evening is free for swimming. I'm busy, you could say, but not as busy as magazine writers."

Hm, sounds like me and Miyamoto have the same schedule....EXCEPT I START AT 7:30AM. Just like Miyamoto I do make sure to keep Tuesday nights open, except instead of swimming I spend my time watching Basterds and eating pizza.

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NINTENDO ANNOUNCES EARLY 2010 RELEASES

Source: Nintendo/411Mania

Since it's my column this week, I'm only going to tackle the titles that are important to me. Click the link for the full list.

For the Wii
Capcom TATSUNOKO VS. CAPCOM: ULTIMATE ALL-STARS Jan. 26
(Jeffrey Harris has probably already pre-ordered this since November....of 2007. I really wish they'd put in Phoenix Wright, instead of Frank West.)
Ubisoft No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle late January
(All right! More No More Heroes! Maybe this time Travis can hit some Pro Wrestling NOAH inspired moves? Go Flasher anyone? Maybe a little Orange Crush?)

For the DS/DSi
Capcom Entertainment, Inc. Ace Attorney Investigations™: Miles Edgeworth Feb. 16
(Aw yeah! Point click adventure meets courtroom drama! Edgeworth, Gumshoe and a rockin' soundtrack make their way to your DS, but most importantly mine, this February! DO WANT.)
Myst February
(I still haven't beaten the original Myst. It's kind of surreal that it'll be on a handheld. Come to think of it, how come it's JUST getting ported to a handheld system?! It's been around for almost 20 years! What was the hold up?)

For WiiWare
Mega Man 10 March
(So much for X standing for 10.)

For DSi Ware
Surviving High School Q1
(I wonder if you can play as the faculty after beating it once?)

So if 2010 is going to be the year of awesome Nintendo and Wii games then how come...

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NINTENDO IS CUTTING BACK ON WII PRODUCTION?

Source: Kotaku.com

Nintendo will be reducing the number of Wiis that are being made, according a Nikkei report. The report also says that Mitsumi and Hosiden are two Japanese companies that will be losing lots of revenue this year thanks to the Wii not being a big seller and a decline in orders from Nintendo to assemble Wii consoles.



At this rate both companies stand to lose 50% worth of profit. Well, I'm no economics major, but if two companies have their profits get cut in half it can't spell anything good. Also, what do these companies do? I've never heard of either of them, but if they're critical to the Wii's construction, maybe they'll bounce back soon.

Hmm, perhaps the decline in production is why...

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NINTENDO IS LOOKING TO DROP THE WII'S PRICE AGAIN?

Source: 411mania.com

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello wants Nintendo to pay attention to pricing while showing third parties some support too. Riccitello seems to think that whichever console drops to $150 first will inherit the PS2's market share.

"The Wii is not gone. But if they maintain $199 and don't innovate, they're going to have a hard time competing with what's already been announced from Microsoft and Sony," he said.

Well, it's hard to argue with him there, he makes nothing but good points in this brief, yet accurate statement. I think the Wii has still got something else in store for us in 2010, so maybe not all is lost. Nintendo needs a home-run game or a peripheral to tie in with a big name multi-platform game. Say if they got Modern Warfare 2 for the Wii and offered the ability to dual wield shotguns using two Wii-motes and two Shotgun light guns.

Okay, Nintendo is never going to get Modern Warfare 2, but I think everyone knows what I mean when I say the Wii needs an accessory that makes the gameplay radically different on the Wii than on any other system.

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Hey, lookit that! It's this weeks DLC list, courtesy of Joe Roche:

Virtual Console
Blaster Master (500 Wii Points)
Earthworm Jim 2 (800 Wii Points)

Nintendo DSiWare
Littlest Pet Shop (800 Nintendo DSi Points)
Miami Nights (800 Nintendo DSi Points)
Bejeweled Twist (500 Nintendo DSi Points)
Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam (500 Nintendo DSi Points)
Master of Illusion Express: Matchmaker (200 Nintendo DSi Points)

WiiWare
Stunt Cars (800 Wii Points)
Diatomic (800 Wii Points)
Moki Moki (800 Wii Points)
Rubik's Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH (600 Wii Points)

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SEE YOU NEXT TIME!
Until then, have a video. This being a Nintendo-centric column, I shall leave you with a Nintendo related video featuring one the most epic bosses ever and an even more epic Level Up sequence. Enjoy, all!

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All 1 Nintendophile Screenshots