Category: Nintendo DS

Pokemon Black and White Starters Revealed + A Poll

The excellent people at Serebii have translated a recent issue of CoroCoro magazine that revealed information on the starter Pokemon in the upcoming Pokemon Black/White. As expected, you can choose from a fire, water, and grass Pokemon. (In my best Bob Sheppard voice) And now…your starting lineup…for Pokemon Black/White:

  • Tsutaja — A snake-like grass Pokemon
  • Pokabu — A pig-like fire Pokemon
  • Mijumaru — An otter-like water Pokemon

I’m really digging the new starter Pokemon designs. I have a soft spot in my heart for grass starters (bulbasaur and chikorita rule!) and Tsutaja seems like an interesting choice. However, the concept of a fire pig is just awesome. Otters are also amusing to me, simply because of a term I learned a few years ago from a San Francisco bear (bonus points if you know what an otter is in the context of the gay community).

Now for the poll!

[poll id=”45″]

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Coffee Talk #141: Who is Nintendo’s Rival?

Batman vs. The Joker, Goku vs. Vegeta, Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates, Ash Ketchum vs. Gary Oak — these are all examples of classic rivalries that will be waged until the end of time. Should Apple vs. Nintendo be added to that list? According to The Times Nintendo no longer views Microsoft and Sony as its primary competition. Instead, it sees Apple as the biggest threat:

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Paul Daley’s awesome sucker punch at UFC 113, Paul Williams and Kermit Cintron reenacting the WWE Royal Rumble, or the brilliance of Intelligentsia’s Los Inmortales El Salvador Finca Matalapa Guayabo, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Batman vs. The Joker, Goku vs. Vegeta, Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates, Ash Ketchum vs. Gary Oak — these are all examples of classic rivalries that will be waged until the end of time. Should Apple vs. Nintendo be added to that list? According to The Times Nintendo no longer views Microsoft and Sony as its primary competition. Instead, it sees Apple as the biggest threat:

Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo president, is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the “enemy of the future”.

Those comments are a stark contrast from Iwata’s previous statements. In the past he dismissed Apple as competition and brushed off the iPad as just a big iPod. (I wonder why nobody asked, “Then what the hell is the DSi XL?”)

While I think Apple and Nintendo do compete, the overlap isn’t 100 percent. Obviously the Nintendo DS reaches a younger audience than the iPhone, while Apple’s products reach an older audience. (If you’re a parent that has armed your child with a 32GB iPhone then kindly smash your head on a brick wall seven times.) Still, I can’t see Nintendo dismissing Sony like that. Sony has ruled the console world before and all it takes is one great product backed by great marketing to take it back.

What do you think of these provocative comments? Has Nintendo passed Microsoft and Sony by? If so, is Apple really its primary rival? If not, is it foolish to dismiss competitors that could swiftly strike back? I miss having a rival! I’m going to go find bleahy and hit him.

This Week’s Videogame Releases

Iron Man is set to take on the movie world with his repulsor rays and unibeam, but he’s also saving a few blasts for the realm of videogames. Iron Man 2 comes out this week…for pretty much every platform known to man. PSP owners should keep an eye on Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake; if it’s anything like its PS3 counterpart, it will be a delightfully fun action game that oozes charm. Aside from those two titles, there’s not a lot going on this week.

Any of you buying new games this week? If so, kindly share what’s on your wish list.

Square Enix Undecided on Final Fantasy V and VI DS Remakes

Square Enix is considering remakes of the wonderful Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI games for Nintendo DS, but cites technical challenges it must overcome. Andriasang translated some tweets from producer Shinji Hashimoto, who said:

For FF5 and 6, there are technical issues as well, so at present these are also undecided.

Man, I would love remakes of FFV and FFVI. They’re two of may favorite games of all time. Versions with spruced up graphics, slightly streamlined gameplay (you don’t mess with excellence), and tighter translations would be phenomenal. While remaking these games for the Nintendo DS makes the most sense (the installed base is ridiculous), for some reason I’m wishing for iPhone versions of these games.

How about you? Are you down with improved versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI?

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PadCast: EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich Talks iPad, DLC, E3, and More

EEDAR vice president of analyst services Jesse Divnich is the latest RPad.tv PadCast guest. My favorite analyst in the business discusses all sorts of videogame topics, answers reader questions, and reveals the super power he covets in this clip. Here’s the laundry list of talking points:

  • The Nintendo 3DS
  • Whether the PSPgo is a dead system
  • How awesome Sony’s E3 press conference would be if it were hosted by Kevin Butler
  • How the Apple iPad impacts the gaming market
  • Whether investors and venture capatilist have cooled on the console market in light of the hotness of mobile and social gaming
  • Whether Sega, as we once knew and loved it, is gone forever
  • DLC trends
  • E3 2010 predictions
  • What’s coming on 10/10/10
  • What super power he would chose and why

Give it a look, give it a listen, and leave any comments you have below.

Iron Man 2 Dev Diary: Behind the Music with Lamb of God

The latest Iron Man 2 developer diary tells the story of how Sega and Lamb of God teamed up on the game. Members of the band and the dev team talk about the collaboration between developer/publisher and band. Lamb of God’s single “Hit the Wall” is the game’s official theme song. It’s a cool clip and I hope you check it out!

Nintendo 3DS Coming in October?

According to CVG, the Nintendo 3DS is coming earlier than expected — October 2010. The site revealed:

UK industry sources have today informed us that the platform holder is readying an October launch for the system — which it will announce at E3.

While Nintendo’s handheld gaming systems have sold well every month of the year, releasing the 3DS in October would allow it to take advantage of the extremely lucrative holiday sales period. As I mentioned during GDC, the developers I spoke with were aiming to finish their games by the end of the year, so October could be a feasible release.

What do you think of CVG’s rumor? Is October too early? Or is it just right?

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Pokemon Sunday Shows First Pokemon Black/White Gameplay

Here’s a brief gameplay clip of the upcoming Pokemon Black/White from the Pokemon Sunday show in Japan. Zorua and Zoroark are shown after the clip. It gives you an idea of the how the new environments work…but more importantly, it gives me a new dream. I would love to work on a goofy-ass Pokemon show in America. Sadly, I don’t think it would play here. Ha!

Things I Missed While in Asia: MacBooks and Pokemon

There were so many excellent things I didn’t get to write about while I was in Asia. The two biggest — at least, that I can recall — were Apple refreshing its MacBook Pro line and Nintendo announcing Pokemon Black/White.

As for the new MacBook Pros, the 15- and 17-inch models get some excellent Intel i5 and i7 processors, while all models get new Nvidia graphics chips. Sadly, the 13-inch model doesn’t get any i5 love. I suppose that just makes my decision easier though. Ha!

The new Pokemon games promise to be the biggest leap the series has taken in a long, long time. From what I’ve seen and read, the differences should be plentiful, but the core gameplay will remain. Considering that this is one of my favorite series of all time, I’m super excited for this.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see what you thought the biggest news was while I was hopping around Asia.

Is This the Nintendo 3DS?!?

Here are some pictures of a device purported to be the Nintendo 3DS. Kotaku did some excellent snooping around and translating of a site called Munch Blog. Here is what Kotaku editor Mike Fahey came up with:

The pictures come from a Japanese website called, as Google’s translator indicates, Munch Blog, a site about anime, manga, games, and movies. The author says the pictures were posted without the manufacturer’s permission, and that anyone not wishing to spoil the big reveal at E3 this year should look away. The device is fist shown as a small unit with one large screen, which threw us off at first. One screen? How could this possible be the 3DS, which should be dual-screened by name and nature?

The one screen allows games to be played either on one large screen, or two simulated screens, ensuring backwards compatibility with the normal DS. In fact, the person taking the pictures inserts a DS cart, the Japanese version of Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier (a personal favorite of mine), and shows off the various orientations the dual screens can be displayed in, along with a smoothing filter built into the unit.

It looks pretty sweet, but does it clash with the rumor that the 3DS will use a 3.4-inch Sharp parallax screen? What do you think? Real? Or fake?!?

Source via Kotaku