Need to make a quick Pokemon purchase before you hop a flight? You'll have the perfect opportunity to do so at the Hong Kong International Airport, as they've just opened up a Pokemon Hub location. The store isn't permanent, but for the time being, it'll house all sorts of Pokemon plush dolls and more.
Amazon Japan has just revealed their preorder bonus for Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 + 2. Plopping down your cash for the game now will get you a set of 12 post cards. You'll get a set of 5 post cards if you preorder Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 and/or Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2. On top of that, you'll also get an exclusive smartphone/PC wallpaper no matter what option you buy.
Looks like Japan might not be the only place where Switch owners are having a hard time finding Octopath Traveler. Amazon.com currently has the game on backorder, expecting it to ship in one to two months. We're not sure what the situation is like when it comes to brick-and-mortar retailers, it looks like they might be a better bet right now.
This is the standard case in which Nintendo Switch™ games are packaged. The sleeve has a plastic liner that can be filled with your own artwork for display purposes. Cases are available in packs of 5.
This is really awesome for people who want to make some Switch cases for digital games they've purchased. I'm sure you could get scans of existing game box art on the internet, but I think fan-made covers would be even more interesting!
Rogue Trooper was indeed a video game, but it was a comic book before that. Fans of either or both might be excited to know that the a movie adaptation is in the works. In further news that might be divisive, it seems that Duncan Jones, the director of 2016’s Warcraft, is behind the project. Those are all the details we have at the moment.
Some of you might remember that Nintendo and Colopl are currently in the middle of a lawsuit over five potential patent infringements. If you did recall that info, you might have been really scratching your head when you saw that Colopl plans to bring their White Cat Project to Switch in 2020. How is it possible that this legal battle and game support both coexist? Nintendo clarified the situation with a statement.
“Their game software sales and the lawsuit are completely separate matters.”
A very short and to-the-point explanation of the situation. I guess in this instance, the two sides really are keeping these aspects of their business separate. Hopefully all this lawsuit stuff is wrapped up by 2020!
Conquer the storm with the new Magnus Outfit and Norse Gear.
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) July 15, 2018
Available in the Item Shop now! pic.twitter.com/7k9fEe0bOP
New gear available
- Magnus outfit
- Norse gear
Summer Skirmish technical hiccups
The first Fortnite Summer Skirmish event went down this weekend, and it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. The event, which paired gamers up with celebrities, faced some major lag issues right from the get-go. This turned potentially exciting matches into camping fests as players tried to move as little as possible to combat lag. The tournament ended after just 4 battles due to the technical snafus.
Chance the Rapper chimes in
Fortnite should put the actual rap songs behind the dances that make so much money as Emotes. Black creatives created and popularized these dances but never monetized them. Imagine the money people are spending on these Emotes being shared with the artists that made them
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) July 13, 2018
Chance the Rapper, a big fan of Fortnite, thinks it's time for Epic to collaborate with some of the artists who created songs that go with Fortnite's famous dances. The dances in Fortnite may have an even further reach because of the game, but they existed outside of the game for months, and even years before they were implemented. Those dances go with very specific songs by real musicians and artists. Should Fortnite partner up with those artists to include their songs in-game, and then cut them in on some of the profits as well?
Season 5 new items datamined
Dataminers have found a ton of new items that will be heading to Fortnite throughout Season 5. The above umbrella isn't really a spoiler, as you can currently achieve it by getting a Battle Royale win. As for the other items, most of them haven't been shown off by Epic yet, and they can't be seen while playing the normal game. Hit the jump to have a look.
Sushi Striker seems to have flown under the radar for most Switch and 3DS owners, which is a real shame. The title is a lot of fun, and presents some interesting puzzle mechanics in a very unique way. Sushi battles against opponents that involves throwing together combos on sushi conveyor belts?! Perhaps it's too wacky for some people or the general theme turns them off, but the game really is a blast.
As you might have guessed, the final product of Sushi Striker went through all sorts of design changes and tweaks along the way. The initial idea for the game simply came from the joy of eating sushi. The act of grabbing sushi off of a conveyor belt and having a great meal is something kids and parents both enjoy in Japan, and director Kaori Ando wanted to transform that into a game. How exactly you take that idea and make it into a video game lead to all sorts of funny discussions and design changes during development.
If you want to learn more about the game's development and some of the challenges that came up, you can check out a translated Famitsu feature including both Producer Hitoshi Yamagami and director Kaori Ando.
Nintendo of America’s head of sales and marketing, Doug Bowser, had some thoughts to share on Nintendo coming out of E3 2018. In the interview from GameDaily below, you can see Mr. Bowser talking about Switch's broad range of content, 3DS' staying power, Nintendo's plan to ship 20 million Switch units this fiscal year, and the negative stock market situation going on right now.
Switch's range of content
“It's been broad, it really has. You know, we like to say that we want to appeal to players from five to 95, but as we look at the Switch, it's been really balanced. Obviously, when you have a game like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or some of the more core content, or mature content you may have mentioned, that's going to skew a bit older… But we're also seeing games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe appealing to a very broad segment. We saw it with Kirby Star Allies, [which] actually [saw] a younger segment coming in and playing. So it really does vary by title.
Splatoon 2 is a great one that we have found is skewing much younger, and so our goal is, first of all, to have a gaming device that is going to appeal to a broad audience and we believe that, we're showing it downstairs [in our E3 booth], we really [are] kind of transforming how people think about play. It doesn't have to be a console experience or a handheld experience, it could be both, and that's really what we're continuing to stress.
And then the breadth of the games that we're showing right now help us address those different demographics. We're up to now, 700 titles in the first 15 months of release, and we just added an important one two days ago, with Fortnite. And [players] already downloaded two million of them; obviously it's the online phenomenon right now.”
3DS' continued success
“I can tell you right now [the overall 3DS business] is doing well. If you look at last holiday, we saw a real uptick at the end of the holiday season. We were up 27% on hardware year-over-year in the month of December. If you look at the first five months of this calendar year, so through May, we're up 10% on hardware, and attaching software at very nice rates, so we still see a strong potential for our handheld business. We're focusing right now on our 2DS, and our New 2DS XL lineup, because we believe those are great entry points.
If you think about a $79 2DS with a game installed or a $149 clamshell 2DS XL with a great screen, it's a more affordable entry point, and we have definitely found from a demographic standpoint, people that are coming in to those platforms and buying now, and then registering a Nintendo Account, they're skewing younger. So it's a wonderful way to bring them into our franchises. We've got over 1000 titles on the platform still, and we're announcing more. We've got Captain Toad coming to the platform, we've got more games coming in the latter half of the year and then the next year, we still have titles planned on the slate into 2019, and so we're going to continue to support the platform.”
Shipping 20 million Switch units in this fiscal year, and the current stock market situation
“What we're focused on really, is first of all, we've announced that we plan to ship 20 million units within our fiscal year. That still is our plan. And as we look at the engagement downstairs, we continue to believe that is a solid number.
I think what we're trying to do… Again, I can't speak to why markets react the way they do, why stock reacts the way it does. What I focus on is how to create awareness of our products, consideration of our products, and ultimately, purchase of our products. And things like this week really do help us get that message across, that we'll continue to market these products, but I think we've got some hits. If you go to Amazon right now, if you look at Amazon’s best-sellers, the top five best-sellers either have the name Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, or Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu, or Let's Go Eevee attached to them.
Out of all the content that has been announced and dated, those are the top five sellers right now, so I think we're doing what we need to do to continue to drive our business.”
