One of the biggest and best announcements to go under appreciated at this year’s E3 was the localization of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, a solid, beautiful fighting game pitting Capcom’s best against characters from Tatsunoko animation! After huge fan outcry to see this title on US shores and a complicated battle to collect all of the US character rights the game is finally heading to North America.  I caught up with Capcom Community Manager Seth Killian and shot him a few questions about Tatsunoko VS. Capcom, it’s localization, and rumors about what changes have been for the US version.

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Eric Nofsigner, Chief Creative Officer of High Voltage Software, has long been an advocate of better gaming on the Wii. “Most of the games on the Wii look like crap.” Nofsinger told IGN last April, “We want to change that. …Our goal is to be the most technically innovative Wii developer on the planet.” High Voltage has spent the last year developing The Conduit, the much hyped independent first person shooter that seems to be pushing Wii graphics to the limit.

At Nintendo’s Fall Press Summit, Eric Nofsinger and I talked about how important fan feedback was to the development of The Conduit.  “One of the things we’ve really done at every one of these shows is gotten feedback from folks, from press, from fans, and that’s been awesome.” Nofsinger says, “We write up a list of all the stuff, and we go back to the studio and put it on a punch list – not all of it gets on there, but a lot of it does.” This kind of fan involvement is almost unheard of in the industry, as we approached the demo unit I asked for details. “Can you show me an example?”

“Absolutely.”

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At Infendo we try to bring you the most positive and informative news we possibly can. When my review of Video Games Live was being plagued by some imposters who were pretending to be Tommy Tallarico, I took the initiative to get in contact with him and try to find out what exactly was going on. When we finally started talking we managed to have nice conversation about Video Games live and gaming in general and we talked about his view on my review. Hit the jump for the transcript of the interview.
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Two weeks ago (January 11th) CameronBanga.com’s staff got together with one goal in mind…to play four 3D Zelda games including Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess within 48 hours. Quite the challenge when you weigh the odds. The Four48 team set up a live streaming webcam in preparation for maybe a handful of people. Little did they know that over 80,000 people from over 100 countries would tune in to give their full support with fan art, emails, stories and more. Things really went wild when the team opened up a PayPal donation for Pizza. At first it was a few dollars…then 50, 100, 500, and pizza money just kept poring in to total over $1200 in donations. The Four48 team then made the decision to donate all proceeds to Penny-Arcade’s Child’s Play.

Though the team was unsuccessful at completing their challenge, (completed OoT, WW, part of TP, and almost all of MM) they did however discover what can happen when gamers come together to support a cause. I recently talked with lead coordinator, Cameron Banga about why he chose the Zelda franchise for a marathon and more…

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Dojo’s double update today included the launch of a behind the scenes interview with Super Smash Brothers director, Masahiro Sakurai. This multi-volume interview explores the development cycle starting with day one (May 2005) to the completion of the game. It’s a great read that lets us have a peek at how Nintendo commands it’s sub companies like Sora (Brawl dev). Here’s a portion of the interview…

Hello, Everyone. My name is Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo Co., Ltd. Beginning today, I would like to deliver an interview that explains the vision and the development process behind the creation of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. But before we begin, I would like to offer an apology.

With the completion of the game falling behind schedule, we were unable to keep our promised release date, despite our greatest efforts in attempting to release this game on time. I would like to extend my most sincere apology to all of our customers that are anticipating the title’s release, and also to our retailers.

I have asked Mr. Nagata from “Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun” (a webpage hosted by famed copywriter Shigesato Itoi), who is a fan of Smash Bros. himself, to take on the role as the editor for this Iwata Asks interview. The last time he helped us was with the Iwata Asks series before the Wii launch, but I feel like I have asked the perfect candidate to convey the appeal of Smash Bros.

I hope you enjoy this interview…..

Be sure to check out all of vol. 1 here.

I don’t know if any of you guys and gals have been following this, but about six months ago Satoru Iwata and Shigesato Itoi, Iwata’s “old friend” from Hobonichi, sat down over take-out for an eleven-part discussion on Nintendo, video games, and everything in between.

Today’s segment, “Don’t do the easy,” is something I should have read before posting my rant on shallow games becoming the norm. They almost go hand-in-hand. (more…)

Infendo did a little genuine journalism today and interviewed Jennifer Fellnhofer, the head of PR at Bplus. If you’ll remember, Bplus was the first developer to formally announce a WiiWare downloadable title.

What we discovered from this brief interview was A) BPlus was very prompt in getting back to us, B) the contact with Nintendo was initially made in 2006, and C) Jennifer promised me that “[Bplus] are going to change the paradigm of how game development works.” All in all this was a neat look inside the process. And it’s an Infendo exclusive, so enjoy: (more…)

Reggie talks Nintendo dominance in speaking with the New York Times during the company’s media summit this past week…

“Only twice has one company simultaneously had the No. 1 new hardware console, the No. 1 portable console, the No. 1-selling game and been the No. 1 overall software publisher. The first time was Nintendo in the ’80s. The second time is Nintendo now.”

Ever bullish. Click over for the pro-Nintendo article.

GamePro has a nice ‘lil interview with Shiggy regarding his thoughts on the Wii so far. Here are some choice snippets:

“I prepared myself for the possibility that Wii might face an uphill battle in America, so to see that it has become this big of a hit is something I wasn’t particularly expecting… There are other enhancements to the Wii interface and developments being planned that are going to really make games for hardcore players a lot more fun and interesting… A lot of people have the misunderstanding that Nintendo is not interested in network gaming.”

Even Shiggy had his doubts, new stuff for hardcores is on its way, and maybe, just maybe, Nintendo is really serious about network play despite all this friend code madness. Woot!