Infendo: What are you doing later?

Hardcore-er: I’m gonna jump on Xbox Live and listen to Pantera all night while popping off peeps in Call of Duty.

Infendo: Cool beans.

Jack Loftus was one of the first contributors to Infendo. He began writing for the blog in 2006, a year after I founded it. Known for his wit, provocative writing, and unabashed subjectivity, Jack lovingly referred to himself as the “fanman.”

When gamers prematurely wrote off the DS, and later Wii, Jack was quick to champion each platform and its maker. Over the last half decade, if there ever was a leader of the unofficial Nintendo Defense Force, Jack may have been it.

Not anymore.

Since the announcement of the pricey 3DS last year, and the unveiling of the technology bloated Wii U three weeks ago, Jack has lost almost all faith in the company. “Nintendo just doesn’t interest me anymore,” he said via email this week. Here’s why.

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The newest iteration of Nintendo’s dual-screen juggernaut launched in Japan over the weekend, and Infendo was at Akihabara’s Yodobashi Camera early to chat up the crowd that had lined up to be among the first to get the DSi LL.

The vibe of the crowd was generally energetic and the line of buyers kept growing well after we had entered the store. As you can see in the video, there were all kinds of people lined up to get the LL, but when questioned about Nintendo’s older target market for the LL, one of our interviewees mentioned (off camera) that they truly would consider the LL a good gift for the parents.

A big thank you to everyone who was interviewed and to Stephen for shooting such great footage.

More photos from the release as well as a few size comparison photos with my own DS Lite after the jump.

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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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