June 12th, 2013
Gamers around the world are tuning in to all the news coming from E3 this week. From the Nintendo side, two games are of interest for Metroid fans: Super Smash Bros. and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.
The first one is the latest entry of Nintendo’s all-star brawler series, coming out in 2014 for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. It’ll once again feature our favorite bounty hunter, with a brand-new look based on the controversial Metroid: Other M. Check out the game’s official website and Samus’ character page.
Samus in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Samus in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS
The second one is Retro Studio’s new effort on Wii U. The new 2D sidescroller is a sequel to Donkey Kong Country Returns that came out on Wii in 2010 and will release this November. Grab more images and information at its E3 page.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Stay tuned to Shinesparkers and Nintendo’s E3 website for all the latest news on those games.
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June 4th, 2013
North American Club Nintendo is once again offering a Metroid game as a reward. This time around, you can grab Metroid II: Return of Samus on Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console for 150 coins. The classic Game Boy game will only be available until the end of June, so be sure to pick it up if you don’t yet have it. Other rewards this month include Super Mario Bros. 3 and F-Zero X, both on Wii Virtual Console, which are also great games.
In the meantime, don’t forget to get Super Metroid on the Wii U Virtual Console for just 30 cents until next week and participate in our Miiverse Campaign!
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May 17th, 2013
Super Metroid has been available through Wii’s Virtual Console service for nearly six years now. Released on August 20, 2007, Super Metroid has made its way into at least 125,793 Wiis in America, according to numbers available through the Nintendo Channel. It has been played for a total of 1,329,906 hours, meaning an average of over 10 hours per player. And, following the game’s $8 price, it has made Nintendo over a million dollars.
These numbers show that Super Metroid was still a very profitable game for Nintendo even over a decade after its release. It makes sense – the game is widely accepted as a masterpiece and one of the best and most influential of all time. If you can look over its little quirks (like the control scheme I’m not fond of to this day), you’ll be impressed by how well its design, gameplay and presentation hold up to this day – and the average playing time shows that you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
Super Metroid is currently available for the amazingly low price of 30 cents (or pence, or yen) on the Wii U eShop and will remain so until June 11. If you own a Wii U, do not miss the chance to pick up this incredible piece of gaming history, whether it’s your first time or you’re already a Metroid veteran. And don’t forget to participate in our Miiverse campaign at the Super Metroid Miiverse community!
Source: Coffee With Games
– Naner.
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May 14th, 2013
Starting tomorrow, May 15, Metroid fans in America will be able to download Super Metroid on the Wii U Virtual Console, thanks to the Famicom 30th Anniversary campaign, releasing in Europe a day later, on May 16. It will be available until June 12 for the low price of 0.30 (of whatever currency you shop in) and will then remain on sale for the standard price of SNES games through the service.
Us at Shinesparkers are promoting a campaign to go along with the game’s Virtual Console release. Our goal is to ask Nintendo for a new Metroid game on Miiverse, following these steps:
1. Load up Miiverse, navigate to COMMUNITIES on the left hand side and select “AMERICAS” from the drop down menu.
2. Navigate to the Super Metroid Miiverse community on Wii U
3. Create a new comment and type the following message:
“Dear Nintendo, I am a Metroid fan and I would love a brand new Metroid title for Wii U and 3DS!”
4. Check that your comment fits within the 100 character limit and then submit your post to Miiverse. While we ask that you don’t spam Miiverse and risk yourself getting banned, continued support throughout the campaign would be greatly appreciated.
Please check out the Facebook event with all the details!
UPDATE: Super Metroid is now available in the Japanese and North American eShops. The Miiverse community should be up soon, so prepare your posting cannons!
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May 8th, 2013
Last month, Nintendo offered Super Metroid as a Club Nintendo reward in North America. However, the same game will be offered for $0.30 as part as the Famicom 30th Anniversary celebration to Wii U owners. So, to compensate for the confusion, Nintendo is returning the 150 coins to Wii U owners spent on Super Metroid as a reward. The codes will remain valid, so users will get to keep the game even if they don’t re-buy it on Wii U.
Don’t forget to pick up Super Metroid on the Wii U eShop starting May 15 for just 30 cents, pence or yen!
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May 2nd, 2013
In an interview to The Official Nintendo Magazine UK, Hiro Yamada, Nintendo producer currently supervising Monster Games’ development of Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, teased that Retro Studios’ next game might be revealed soon:
If Retro aren’t making Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, what are they making? Does it involve a certain bounty hunter?
HY: I wonder what kind of game it is? I hope to introduce it to you in the not so distant future.
Although Nintendo announced that they would not be hosting a press conference at E3, they’ll still be a major player at the event which is little more than a month away. With luck, this means we’ll know about said game by then.
Source: The Official Nintendo Magazine
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April 24th, 2013
After Nintendo released its investors report yesterday, it announced that Tatsumi Kimishima, currently director at Nintendo Co., Ltd. and CEO at Nintendo of America, will be promoted to general manager of Corporate Analysis and Administration and General Affairs Division at NCL in Kyoto. Satoru Iwata, global president of Nintendo and CEO of the Japanese headquarters, will now also assume the position of CEO at Nintendo of America, while retaining his current positions. Reggie Fils-Aime, president and COO of Nintendo of America will also retain his roles but will now answer directly to Iwata. This comes as a step towards a more global strategy for the company. By sharing the same CEO, Nintendo hopes to achieve a more unified relationship between its operations in Redmond and Kyoto.
In Nintendo’s earnings release, it announced its second consecutive year of losses, due mostly because of Wii U’s sales being weaker than expected. However, the company plans to change that for the year ending in March 2014 and Iwata made a bold promise by forecasting 100 billion yen of profit for next year.
Nintendo wishes to sell 9 million Wii U systems and 18 million Nintendo 3DS systems worldwide during the next fiscal year, and those numbers rely heavily on software being released during this period. With Animal Crossing, Pokémon and Zelda coming to 3DS and the possibility of Mario games for Wii U (in a press release, Nintendo announced that those titles will be released “during the next several months”), it doesn’t seem impossible to achieve those sales, even though the company is facing serious competition from all sides – from Sony, Microsoft and Apple in particular. No forecasts were announced for Nintendo DS, which indicates that the company plans on ceasing production of the most popular line of portable gaming systems of all time, but they still plan on selling 2 million Wii units.
It will certainly be an interesting year for Nintendo.
Sources: Nintendo Investor Relations and Nintendo PR
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April 22nd, 2013
In an interview to GameInformer, ex-Retro Studios member Mark Pancini, currently working at Armature on Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, expressed his distaste for the Metroid Prime games. Here’s what he had to say:
Even though you don’t want to be seen as the ex-Metroid Prime guys, fans are going to be excited when they know ex-Metroid Prime guys are going to be making a Super Metroid-style game.
I hope so. I hope we don’t disappoint them. That’s always my fear, because I think everything we do sucks. But that’s just me because I thought all the Prime games suck. At the end of the day all I see are all the bad things. Prime 2 was a blur to me. It was so quick, it was so fast. That thing just went out the door and it was a very divisive game. People either liked it or thought it sucked, and I can completely agree because I couldn’t tell you what that game was because it happened so quickly. Prime 1 was the best designed game. Prime 3 I feel is the most fun one to play. Prime 2 is divisive. You either like it or you don’t. That’s kind of the way I look at it.
Source: GameInformer
As a developer, it’s not easy to look back on your own work. The faults will always stand out to you and remembering your involvement in all of it might turn out to be difficult. I can respect how he feels, but think it’s unfortunate that he does so. He participated in three fantastic games that so many people enjoy and love, not many game developers can say that! With a portfolio rocking Prime, Echoes and Corruption, it’s a real shame that he isn’t as proud of it as the games’ fans are.
Shinesparkers founder and webmaster Darren Kerwin asked me to emphasize that he disagrees with Pancini. Metroid Prime is his favorite game of all time.
I’m a Zero Mission guy, but I love the Prime trilogy and believe it to be the greatest in all of gaming.
Naner.
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April 21st, 2013
In March, Blake Robinson released Super Metroid Symphony, an album containing orchestrated arrangements of all of Super Metroid’s soundtrack. If you haven’t yet bought it and don’t know if you should, check out Naner’s review of it right here!
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April 12th, 2013
Nintendo announced this morning that select online services for Wii will be discontinued on June 28. These services include the Nintendo, Check Mii Out, News, Forecast and Everybody Votes channels, but will also affect certain WiiConnect24 services, which includes Friend Voucher trading in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid Prime Trilogy.
Friend Vouchers can be acquired in Corruption and Trilogy by completing certain tasks in-game and, when traded with friends via Wii’s online services, become tokens used to unlock bonus content such as the Fusion Suit in Prime and the Mii Bobblehead in Corruption. If you still haven’t unlocked those bonuses, now is the time to trade some vouchers!
Source: Nintendo PR
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