Ouya Is Dead

Some of you may remember the console known as "Ouya". It was a microconsole running its own version of the Android operating system. The console and company was founded by Julie Uhrman in 2012, and was funded by Kickstarter; raising a whopping 8.5 million dollars.

Units were being shipped to Kickstarter backers towards the end March, 2013.

Fast forward 3 years later since it's initial founding, Ouya now needs a buyer and fast. Due to the debts that the company has accumulated, Julie Uhrman is looking is sell the company to cover said debts accumulated over time.

Word leaked that the company was looking for a buyer after the founder and CEO Julie Uhrman sent out confidential emails to company investors and advisers. The letter detailed that the company had failed to restructure it's debts and as a result was on the hunt for a buyer. Uhrman also said that this process would not be lengthy, saying:

"Given our debtholder's timeline, the process will be quick. We are looking for expressions of interest by the end of this month."

- Julie Uhrman,Ouya

Apparently, the email was sent at the beginning of April, which means by now Ouya should have found a buyer or at least someone interested in buying. Just two months ago, the company raised $10,000,000 (10 million) dollars two months ago, which was not enough to cover it's debts. Which also means that they must be pretty deep in debt for such a large fund raising to not be enough.

Lets do some numbers, they initially raised $8.5 million dollars on Kickstarter, then early 2013 they pulled in $15 million from investors, followed by an addition $10 million dollars about 2 months ago. In total, Ouya had pulled in $33.5 million dollars which is an insane amount. Uhrman maintained her optimism for the console's future, saying:

"We believe that we've built something real and valuable. I continue to read the tweets and emails of our fans who play OUYA every day, and our catalog is now over 1,000 apps and 40,000 developers. We have the largest library of Android content for the TV (still more than Amazon) - hell ya!"

- Julie Uhrman, OUYA

Gotta give Uhrman for keeping her head up, she ventured and sailed. Here's to hoping that OUYA blossoms in the future once more.

Silent Hills Has Been Canceled

It's official, the new Silent Hills game has been canceled, confirmed by actor Norman Reedus. In a brief statement from Konami, they stated that development on the game had ceased. 

"Konami is committed to new Silent Hill titles, however the embryonic 'Silent Hills' project developed with Guilermo del Toro and featuring the likeness of Norman Reedus will not be continued." 

- Konami

The game was announced last year through a playable teaser. It was set to be a collaboration between film director Guilermo del Toro and MGS designer Hideo Kojima. It would star the actor Norman Reedus and a wide range of horror fans were pretty excited over the prospect of a new Silent Hill game being on the horizon.

However, over the past month small leaks of information rumoring that relations between Konami and Hideo Kojima were deteriorating. One could only guess that such rumors would also mean trouble for the Silent Hill game that was in development. Last weekend, del Toro publicly announced that the game wasn't happening. Now it's official.

Future Silent Hill games are currently in discussion, as for future involvement from Kojima or del Toro, no word on that yet.

The playable teaser will be pulled from the Playstation Network this week, so you better go download it now if you want a taste of what was to be.

Paid Mods on Steam

As many Steam users have come to know since yesterday, you can now purchase Skyrim mods. Modders can choose to set a pay-wall on their mod and earn some cash. This has sparked huge amounts of controversy, the main argument being that mods have always been free and should always stay free. Mods were born as a labor of love, to fill in a void that fans of a franchise felt needed to be filled. 

No one thus far has said that modders don't, nor do, deserve payment for their modding work. Up until now, it has been illegal to earn money from making mods for a game, as it is using someone else's work. What people are mad about, is that they have to now pay for some of their favorite mods, suddenly there are restrictions in place. The modder can either set a certain amount to be paid, or can opt for the "Pay what you want" scheme, which requires a minimum payment of £0.4. 

As for splits, the modder earns a disgusting 25% of the asking price should someone buy the mod, Steam takes 75% which it then splits with Bethesda, the developer of Skyrim. On top of this, Steam will not pay out until a mod has sold more than $100 worth, that is owed to you. Say you have a mod, and you set a price of £1. To actually receive money for this, you would have to sell the mod 400 times. Steam will only pay out when Steam owes the modder at least $100, otherwise you get no payment. In other words, Steam has to have earned $400 from your mod, before it will actually give the modder the 25%, $100. It's vampiric, it's blatant money-grubbing. 

Aside from how the money is handled, the workshop is already rampant with paid mods awaiting approval, many of the mods having actually been stolen from the real mod developers so that they can make a quick profit. Disgusting. This system is already being abused, and will only encourage further negative behaviour. 

Copyright is also an issue, in the past modders have been able to create copyright content (such as Assassin's Creed armour for Skyrim) and get away with it because they were not charging for it. Now, if you tried to sell your Assassin's Creed armour mod, you'd most likely get some legal action. Modders will get penalized for making content they love, such as if they want to make a Lord of the Rings related mod, they would not be able to profit from it because of legal issues. This punishes creativity and diversity because of the legal issues surrounding this. Some of the paid mods have already been pointed out as potential copyright infringements, such as Firelink Implements. Users have noticed the staggering similarities between this paid mod and weaponry present in Dark Souls 2.

Benefits, there are some benefits. With the opportunity of earning a living, this is attracting professionals to the modding scene. Experts in texture work, 3D modelling work, and coding have appeared. The Shadow Scale armour set was one of the first paid mods to become available on the workshop, clearly made by experts in the field as well as other paid mods. Your getting some very high quality content as a result of the opportunity to make a profit. You can be on the fence about whether or not modders should have the ability to expect pay, but the undeniable evil is how much of a cut Steam and Bethesda are taking for doing nothing. Valve takes a 75% cut for modded content in DOTA and CS:GO, understandably as those are their games. However, there is no justification to take 75% from the content creator; Skyrim was not made by Valve. I could understand Bethesda taking a chunk, but not Valve. It's greedy.

Modding has always been a labour of love, but by no means should a modder expect to be paid for their work. They are not working at a professional company. More often than not, the content of the mod does not justify the price and on top of that if the modder were to set an acceptable price, they'd be earning pennies at best. For a mod such as Falskaar, I'd probably pay £5, however this is subjective and brings me to my next point. Encourage donations.

Instead of forcing a ridiculously priced pay-wall for the modder to earn something, heavily encourage donations instead. Steam could take a smaller cut of the asking price, and everyone would be happy because they have options.

Total War: Warhammer - Announcement

The next installment of the Total War franchise has been announced, Total War: Warhammer. The announcement came today via YouTube, boasting an impressive CGI cinematic detailing the Humans, Dwarfs, Orks and the Undead doing battle against one another. All the while a devout of Sigmar narrates the horrors of war, until finally becoming corrupted by the Chaos God of Change, Tzeentch; heralding the final faction, Chaos.

No release date has been set as of yet, the trailer says "Coming Soon" at the end. No indication of whether or not any further details will be revealed this year. You can subscribe to the Total War YouTube channel, like their Facebook page, or follow their twitter to get the latest updates on the game.

New Microsoft IP to be announced at E3

Microsoft has said that it will be unveiling a new IP at E3, predictable considering that they have delayed Quantum Break to 2016 due to potentially crowding the Christmas times of 2015 with Microsoft IPs. Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Studios and the Xbox Division, said:

"We should have a new exclusive IP at E3. I'm trying to make this E3 more about 1st party than past E3s."

- Phil Spencer, Microsoft

Phil followed that comment up with:

"Means this years E3 might feel different from past E3s but I like focusing on our games."

- Phil Spencer, Microsoft

And finally:

"This is going to be a fun year. I think it might be our best 1st party content year ever."

- Phil Spencer, Microsoft

This doesn't mean that there won't be any 3rd party announcements at E3, it just means that they will have a focus on 1st party announcements. Phil Spencer reassures us that there will be some 3rd party deals at E3.

Star Wars: Battlefront - Free DLC with Preorders

Alongside the release of the reveal trailer for Star Wars: Battlefront, people can also receive "free" DLC if you pre-order the game, or as long as you buy the game before the other DLC content begins releasing.

The DLC is called "Battle of Jakku" which takes place (chronologically) after the 6th movie which is intended to bridge the gap between the 6th and the upcoming 7th Star Wars movies. The Battle of Jakku is said to be the final battle that completely ended the war between the rebels and the Empire. Aside from the obvious killing of other soldiers on both sides, the fight also includes a Star Destroyer crashing into the surface of the planet Jakku, which should make for some awesome scenery or real-time level changes whilst the battle progresses.

After Darth Vader and Darth Sidious are killed, the head of the Empire had been cut off. Organized groups of troops loyal to the Empire still fought to the bitter end; the Battle of Jakku is said to be the final battle that ended it all.

Not too sure about this pre-order business however, we have not even seen any game-play yet. The game is available for pre-order on Origin now, either as a standard edition or as a Digital Deluxe edition. Personally, I will wait until game-play releases before ordering a copy of any sort at all. As I am against pre-order incentives, (even for my favourite games) I will order the game after it's release most likely, so as to see player response and to know whether the game is actually any good or not. 

Patience is a virtue, and Battlefront certainly won't be going anywhere whilst I put my wallet on a leash.

Star Wars: Battlefront - Reveal Trailer

Yesterday, EA's Star Wars YouTube account released the reveal trailer for DICE's upcoming triple A game; Star Wars: Battlefront. Visually, the trailer is very impressive and gives viewers a rough idea of what the game-play could be like. The trailer also boasts that it is using the game engine for the graphics. However, this does not mean that the graphics will be any where near as good; for all we know this could be a pre-rendered scene utilizing the game engine. I'd be very impressed if we could get those kind of graphics in real-time on the hardware that is currently available. The trailer shows the Battle of Endor; an AT-AT strolls through the forest as rebels and clone troopers battle in action filled scenes. X-Wings and TIE Fighters wage dog fights as well as bomb the AT-AT.

All of this gives an idea of what the game-play will be like. There is no word or evidence to suggest that there will be any space battles. However, there will be TIE Fighters VS X-Wings in a similar fashion to how Jets are in Battlefield 3/4. There is also the return of hero units, at the end of the trailer Darth Vader appears before fading to black. It is unknown how players can take control of these hero units; is it through kills or by capturing objectives?

Media outlets such as IGN and The Know were invited to a game-play event in which they got to play the actual game. They said that the standard blaster rifles do not have ammo, but rather a heat gauge. One would be assume that the weapons are capable of overheating which would then initiate a cool-down before you can shoot again. They also got to experience Darth Vader entering the battlefield to which many commented that he was very over-powered (as he should be, he's Darth Vader). The other team will also get a hero unit, such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Boba Fett.

A question that was on a lot of people's minds was: Is Battlefront going to be a Battlefield 4 re-skin? According to The Know, no, it's not. It's a very unique game that has been inspired by Battlefield 4 but is in no a way a re-skin. This is great news to hear, as it would be a shame if the next iteration of Battlefront was simply a re-skin of DICE's successful Battlefield franchise.

You can watch the Reveal trailer here:

GTA 5 - Mods?

Mods for GTA 5, where are they?

Historically, the GTA games have never been open to modding. Infact, the guy who makes the well known ENB mods for a number of games, has said that:

"I was wrong. Rockstar did everything to prevent modding of GTA5, so at this moment its impossible to do anything via editing game files."

- ENB Series Forums, ENBSeries

Basically, no one can mod the game to an extent that affects the game-play, or add additional content like a mod is intended too. If Rockstar have done all they can to prevent modders making mods for their game, then it means that they see modding as competition VS their official DLCs.

Other modders are hopeful that the game will be moddable. They also implore people to ignore the negative rants of the ENB Series creator. In relation, the modder said:

"Just posting this to explain that the other post is completely wrong. The person who said it isn't moddable was talking about his own ENB shader mods, which may indeed not be possible based on his own skill. The game is NOT locked down. We still have .rpf files that the game is enclosed in, and as soon as someone reverse engineers the game's executable we'll have the "key" to open these files and do what we want."

- Reddit, TheAdmiester

All the games files are contained within the .RPF files, which are encrypted. In the past, modders were able to gain access to the game's executable which then allowed them to find the encryption key, which then allowed the game to become modifiable. I am fairly confident that the game will be moddable, as the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions were modded to hell and back, and so it is only a matter of time before the most open and accessible platform will become modifiable as well.

Despite all this turmoil, a few baby mods have made it out. Reddit user DrDaxxy has made a FOV (Field of View) mod that allows you to freely set the FOV to whatever you like beyond the game's lackluster slider. A trainer has also been made available for the game that unlocks infinite health, ammo and other cheats.

Cassie Cage a Rip Off? - MKX

Mortal Kombat X came out on April 14th, after some initial issues with the PC port, the game is now fully working and a lot of people are enjoying the roster of characters it has to offer. Except for one person, Felice Herrig claims that one of the newest characters resembles herself; Cassie Cage.

It started after one of Felice's followers posted an image claiming that Cassie Cage looks remarkably similar to Felice Herrig. After doing some research into the character and seeing her finishing moves, Felice Herrig was convinced that the developers of MKX had stolen her likeliness. The main kick was that one of Cassie Cage's finishing moves involves taking a selfie of herself and her (dead) opponent. Herrig is widely known to take selfies; there is no place safe from her camera. As such, she became heavily convinced that they had taken not only stolen her likeliness, but also her habits so that they could incorporate them into a new character; Cassie Cage.

As more information about MKX and in particular Cassie Cage became available, someone made a side by side comparison of Cassie Cage and Herrig with what is undeniably very similar looking stances to what Herrig is using. No legal action has been taken as of yet by the MMA star, however, there have been a lot of lawsuits like these in the past and it would be unsurprising if another popped up.

Undeniably, the pictures do look similar to Herrig. However, Herrig is known to take an absurd amount of selfies and as such there is a good chance that Herrig and Cage would be sharing a similar look. The best evidence in favor of Cassie Cage being inspired by Felice Herrig is the picture of Cassie Cage chewing bumble bum, in the exact same way as Herrig is seen doing so in a selfie.

Mortal Kombat X - Broken

Mortal Kombat X released for the PC yesterday, April 14th. And it's already broken for PC users as a number of modes, including story mode and online, are unavailable due to the game's experimental installation methods.

The game uses an install method that is similar to Blizzard's game's methods; streaming installs. What this does is allow for gamers to play fully downloaded parts of the game whilst the rest downloads; meaning you could for example, play random 1v1 fights whilst the story mode finishes downloading. It's a great idea and a great system, however it is not quite working for Mortal Kombat X. Players are met with a screen stating the following:

"Mortal Kombat X uses a streaming install system to allow the game to be played while additional content downloads in the background. If Online, Story Mode, Characters or Backgrounds are locked, the game content has not finished downloading. Please check your Steam download queue to verify the download status of Mortal Kombat X Install packs 01 through 29."

- Mortal Kombat X

To fix the problem, Mortal Kombat X users must go to the DLC tab of their game and manually begin the download & installation process of each of the packs. However, packs 05 and 09 were in-explicitly missing for some time before becoming available, which has now been fixed. 

Aside from the broken install issues, there is also the issue of Easier Fatality packs, which simplify the button combo needed to execute a fatality. It's costs $1 for 5 finishing moves, or $5 for 30 finishing moves on Xbox and Playstation versions. The packs are not yet available on Steam as of yet.

These fatality packs, although not pay-to-win, are simply lame inclusions to the game. Just highlights that game companies are doing everything and anything they can to get as much money as possible; these packs are simply useless. You can earn tokens in the game to achieve the same thing as these packs intend to; so there isn't a need to feed the greed of developer NetherRealm Studios. What would be better DLC for that kind of price, is skins and such. This would add aesthetic value to the game and would not affect game-play in any form.

Destiny: House of Wolves - Release Date

The second DLC for Destiny; House of Wolves, has just been set a release date as well as a trailer to boot. According to Kotaku, Bungie accidentally gave the press a heads up earlier than scheduled and as such media outlets were stuck with the trailer on private viewings only, on YouTube.

As for the content in the DLC, it will have new story missions, three competitive multiplayer maps and a new strike. There is also a new competitive elimination mode in the Crucible and an arena activity called "The Prison of Elders". The DLC will also offer new gear and weapons.

With the description of the DLC, Bungie closes it with:

"The Reef is open. Join the Awoken and hunt down the Fallen rising against us."

- Bungie

The DLC is set to release on May 19th, which is the same date that was leaked by a Reddit user back in February, as well as leaking weapons and gear scheduled to appear in the DLC.

Wouldn't put it past some Destiny players to be wary of this DLC, as it could be 2 hours of content played for 20 hours because of grinding. Alas, we will have to see once the DLC has been made publicly available.

Did CD Projekt Red Lie about their DLC? - Witcher 3

CD Projekt Red has announced two paid DLC expansions for the Witcher 3, before it's even been released, what treachery is this? They said that they don't like paid DLC and that they would be releasing 16 free DLCs for the game. But have they really betrayed us? Not particularly. At the time, Marcin Iwinski said:

"As gamers, we nowadays have to hold on tight to our wallets, as surprisingly right after release, lots of tiny pieces of tempting content materialize with a steep price tag attached. Haven't we just paid a lot of cash for a brand new game?"

- Marcin Iwinski, CD Projekt Red

As a result of taking an open stand against paid DLC, the internet bowed before the developer as if a Knight had appeared from darkness to rid the world of evil once and for all; a shred of hope in a dark, greedy world.

In January, Iwinski also said:

"Yeah, we are making a statement. We, as gamers, would like to be treated this way, 'Hey, give me free DLC'. It doesn't have to be something huge."

- Marcin Iwinski, CD Projekt Red

Queue further praise to the mighty developer. However, straight after that quote came:

"We aren't giving out huge stuff, we aren't giving tens of hours of storyline here, we are giving small bits of pieces that don't cost a lot."

- Marcin Iwinski, CD Projekt Red

It's nice to see that the developer is sticking to past trends in the form of giving small pieces of content to the player base, whilst at the same time investing time to make much larger pieces of DLC that expand the game world and add more hours of game-play. In this case, the first of the two DLCs won't be coming out until a month after the game's initial release; Hearts of Stone.

Considering that this DLC will contain at-least 10 hours of additional gameplay, and it is being released a month after, it makes sense that this DLC will come at a cost; provided it was finished after the game's release.

The second DLC, called "Blood and Wine", will be released early 2016 and will add an additional 20 hours of game-play and feature a new region to explore. Heart of Stone will be available for $10 (or £6.82) and Blood and Wine will be available for $20 (or £13.64) which I think are very reasonable prices considering the amount of game-time they are adding. You can also get them both for $24.99 (or £17.05) in the form of a season pass.

You may have also read my Pound per Hour Scheme blog post, where I talk about how for each pound (£), I should get 1 hour of game-time, and it seems CD Projekt Red has gone above and beyond my expectations (unless you are using dollars ($).) 

Iwinski also said:

"We remember the time when add-on disks truly expanded games by delivering meaningful content. As gamers, we'd like to bring that back. We've said in the past that if we ever decide to release paid content, it will be vast in size and represent real value for the money."

- Marcin Iwinskia, CD Projekt Red

DLC can be great, as some DLCs even surpass the original game in quality such as The Elder Scrolls: Dawnguard; was a great addition to the game's content. I hope that more developers follow this path and reasonable pricing points, just look at CD Projekt Red, they are practically worshiped by gamers now, and they deserve to be really.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

Activision has officially announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, along side a teaser trailer for the reveal of the game that will most likely air during a sports game of some sort. It's been rumored for a while however, as the most recent update to Black Ops 2 added the Call of Duty Snap Chat Ghost into the game onto different posters on multiplayer levels. Users who scanned the images got a steady feed of mysterious images and videos featuring a soothing meditation guru voice. One of images/videos shows a chopper from the Vietnam War era which led many players to believe that the new game would World At War 2, of which it is not. 

In another teaser, the voice actor of Sgt Woods from Black Ops 1 and 2 James C Burns. inserted numbers into his recent YouTube video descriptions. The numbers together form a reveal date; 26/04/2015.

This is more than just a release date, this most likely means that Sgt Woods will be in the next Black Ops game. The levels will probably be set around the Cold War era or leading up to the events of Black Ops 2. Looking at the trailer, you can see at the end a third vertical dash in between the other two, meaning that a portion of the game will be spent in the past. The description for the game has also been leaked from the website's source code, it reads:

"Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 deploys players into a dark, twisted future where a new breed of Black Ops soldier emerges and the lines are blurred between our own humanity and the technology we created to stay ahead, in a world where cutting-edge military robotics define warfare."

- Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Official Website

Promotional art that was roughly shown in the teaser has been fully unveiled, as a soldier in a similar pose to the Black Ops 1 poster, is shown to be wearing an Exo Suit.

YouTube Subscription Service

So, YouTube has been sending popular YouTubers an email saying that they will soon introduce a subscription service in which YouTubers will earn a portion of the revenue. The subscription service will basically be there so that people can pay for an ad-free experience; it'll cost around $10 a month and as previously stated, YouTubers will receive a portion of such.

It was Bloomberg that reported that emails/letters were sent out to influential YouTubers announcing a new paid subscription service that would allow viewers to watch all of their favourite YouTube content without being bothered by ads and that part of that revenue would be shared with the YouTubers themselves. The letter reportedly says:

"By creating a new paid offering, we'll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising service."

- YouTube

According to additional reports, the service will also allow users to store videos on their mobile devices. YouTube commented with:

"While we can't comment on ongoing discussions, giving fans more choice to enjoy the content they love and creators more opportunity to earn revenue are always amongst our top priorities."

- YouTube

As for when the service will be made available, Bloomberg says that it will be made available towards the end of the year.

I think this is great for YouTubers, as they are making free content for your viewing pleasure. All they "ask" is that you watch the ads so that they can make a living through the ad revenue system. However, they cannot earn revenue from the ads if viewers are using Adblock. I used to use Adblock myself until I learnt that my favourite YouTubers were losing out on potentially making a living from YouTube. All you have to do is sit through a 3 second ad and click skip, bang, they get the ad revenue and a living. I hope that this legit service will give a more steady income to YouTubers and encourage people to put a bit of effort in from their side so as to support the YouTubers they enjoy watching.

Dues Ex: Mankind Divided - Announced

A new Deus Ex game has just been announced, it's going by the title of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Details were leaked until finally an announcement trailer was posted for the game, there was even a twitch stream setup using the tag "#CantKillProgress" that featured a man in the middle of a room doing random things; be it twitching or sleeping. Viewers could vote on what the reaction would be of the man and the final decision was to take place at 8:30AM the following morning which was probably when the actual announcement for the game was scheduled to happen. As a result of the leak, the big hype reveal has kind of been ruined. Sad really, as no other game has attempted to announce their game in such a unique way.

Game Informer describes the plot as:

"Set in 2029, two years after the events of Human Revolution, Adam Jensen returns and joins forces with an Interpol-funded task force aiming to hunt down and capture augmented terrorists in a world that now hates and fears transhumans. Jensen has a suite of augmentations that allow him to cleverly navigate stealth, combat, and social interactions, but how Jensen chooses to solve every problem is entirely up to you."

- Game Informer

The title will launch for Xbox One, PS4 and PC but no release date has been confirmed yet.

Quantum Break delayed to 2016

 



Microsoft has announced that Quantum Break will not release until next year, 2016. The reason stated was that if they released Quantum Break at the end of 2015, there would be too many Microsoft exclusives and would make it "crowded".

Shannon Loftis, who is the head of publishing at Microsoft, said:

"We've got the strongest games line-up in Xbox history right now, with 2015 blockbuster exclusives like 'Halo 5: Guardians', 'Rise of Tomb Raider', 'Fable Legends', and 'Forza Motorsport 6', and more we'll announce in the coming months. With so many games launching this year, moving 'Quantum Break' to 2016 extends our incredible portfolio into next year with a new monster IP."

Quantum Break is very much to do about time. The player will take control of Jack Joyce, whilst desperately fighting to stop the fracture, which threatens to cause the end of time. The game will be accompanied by a TV show, in the style of a modern TV series you follow the schemes and power play inside Monarch - the corporation that's Jack's main enemy."

Quantum Break was originally expected to release sometime in 2015. I don't mind so much the delay as I have not been following Quantum Break so much, however delays are always nice in a sense as it means the game should be bug-less or at least at it's beast once it has been released into the market.

Lucas & Mewtwo are coming back to Smash

 

 



Mother Three's Lucas is set to join the latest instalment of Smash Bros as DLC coming this June. The announcement came a long side a gameplay video of Lucas in action. Another character, and a major one, was also announced; Mewtwo.

Mewtwo is also returning to the Smash Bros roster as well, again with his own gameplay trailer. You can either purchase him as a standalone character or if you own both the 3DS and Wii U versions, you get him for free. Mewtwo will be arriving on April 28th.

You can also request for a Nintendo character to be implemented into the Smash Bros game, just name a character and state why you'd like to see that character and just maybe Nintendo will fulfil your wish.

It's called the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot, and it's even open to characters from other games. I am guessing so long as the reason is good enough, and the licensing isn't too expensive, your character of choice could make it into the 3DS and Wii U versions of the game.

Will Nintendo Mobile Games Make Millions a Month?

 



When Nintendo announced their partnership with mobile games developers DeNA, you probably had a good guess that it was so that DeNA could bring the Nintendo heavy weights to the mobile platform, such as Mario, Pokémon and Metroid. But how much a profit will this new partnership make, you may be wondering? If the CEO of DeNA is to be believed, then enough money to make it rain on a monthly basis. In a recent interview, Isao Moriyasu said

"We haven't talked to Nintendo about targets, but at DeNA, our best selling game brought in 3 million yen a month, and we want to surpass that."

- Isao Moriyasu, DeNA

To put that into perspective, 3 million yen is around 2.5 million US dollars a month, and DeNA intends to surpass that target? They'll drown in money if that comes to pass. He also said that the company won't just focus on one heavy weight, but rather spread their efforts all around. He continued to comment with:

"We want to create multiple hit games rather than aiming to succeed with just one powerful IP element."

- Isao Moriyasu, DeNA

Now, this may fall flat on it's face as these are all just estimates and expectations right now, but it wouldn't be unreasonable to bet your money on this outcome coming to pass as we are not just talking about any new video game characters, we are talking about Nintendo's top video game characters entering the insanely popular mobile gaming market. We'll just have to wait and see how it develops once the new games start to roll out on the shelves.