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eShop Offering Sales on Mario Titles Throughout August
New Super Mario Bros. 2 is launching next month and Nintendo is celebrating by offering limited time sales on four Mario titles available on the 3DS eShop.
Starting July 26, Super Mario Bros. will be $3.99 until August 2 when Super Mario Land goes on sale for $2.99. The next title to go on sale will be another Game Boy classic, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, which will also be $2.99 between August 9 and 15. Mario’s Picross is the last title to be discounted and will also go for $2.99 up until August 22.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 will be available on August 19, alongside 3DS XL.
Source: Nintendo
Nintendo Posts Another Quarterly Loss with Silver Lining
Nintendo posted its first lost in decades last year, and it has now done it once again. Over the first quarter, Nintendo posted an operating loss of $220.4 million. However, this news isn’t quite as negative as it might appear at first glance.
The company lost so much money because 3DS has been selling incredibly well, moving 1.86 million units, an 162% boost over the same period last year. Ever since last year’s price drop, Nintendo has been selling the handheld at a loss, but going forward that is going to change because it has announced that the decreasing costs of materials and production have put 3DS into the realm of profitability. That means that the system’s momentum and increased software sales, which was up 63%, means that profits will almost certainly be improving.
Source: IGN
Family Games a “Neglected Genre” for Sony
And in an interesting admission from the competition, Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida has stated that PS3 hasn’t given enough love to family friendly games.
“This is a neglected genre for the PlayStation 3,” said Yoshida, “but as it matures, I think it’s really important to have these games on the platform.”
With core franchises like God of War missing out on the upcoming holiday season, Yoshida is hoping that games with more of a casual or crossover appeal will pick up the slack. Among these titles include two games that draw significant inspiration from classic Nintendo franchises. LittleBigPlanet Karting continues on the fine tradition of arcadey kart racing that started with Super Mario Kart and then there is PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, which admittedly draws inspiration from the Smash Bros. series. Also on the release schedule is the J.K. Rowling vehicle, Wonderbook, which definitely skews to the more family-oriented audience.
While Yoshida never explicitly mentions Nintendo, family friendly games has always been its bread and butter, creating celebrated franchises with broad appeal. And in terms of the casual market, Nintendo’s success over the course of this generation is undeniable and most certainly has the importance of appealing to those gamers.
Source: Gamespot
There aren’t enough family-friendly games on the PS3? Funny, I thought there just weren’t enough games on that system, period.
And now their response is to do rip-off Mario-Kart and Smash Bros. clones? Outside of the original Smash Bros. and Super Mario Kart being the absolute pinnacles of video-game perfection, seeing that these two rip-offs are coming from Sony give me the distinct feeling they’re going to be met with 7 out of 10’s and the majority of their consumer-base asking, “Why did they make these games? If I wanted to play this, I would’ve picked up a Nintendo/would’ve played my Nintendo.”
Oddly enough – with the losses that Sony has been experiencing for years now, I’m actually starting to grow curious on how much longer they can go taking the beatings they have. Their last big success was the PS2, and that was, what, six-seven years ago? Because of the ease of PSP hacking, the only thing that sold for that system was the system itself. When I ask my friends how many times they went out, you know, after the economy skidded into the toilet four years ago, and put down $40 on a Blu-Ray movie, they look at me with a raised eye-brow, and repeat the mantra, “ProjectFreeTV dude – they’ve got movies too.” Or, you know, Bittorrent.
It seems that Sony is dealing with antiquated models of the market at large, and for as long as they keep doing that, they’ll probably keep losing money. Never hurts when making games for your system is super-tricky either . . .
That being said, does the light-blue colour coding in the New Super Mario Bros. 2 seem to be a -direct- call-back to the Super Mario Bros. 2 (American) version on the NES?
I’m interested in seeing where Nintendo’s sales go from here. With the 3DSXL on the horizon, and, of course, the Wii U, I suspect the Big N will be raking in the big bucks by the end of the fiscal year. I mean, they’re showing sales improvement already this quarter – though still not where they want to be – and that’s considering they were losing money on the 3DS as well as on the Wii, which has essentially come to the end of its life cycle.
Thus, with a handheld that just recently started turning a profit, and with the current lack of a console presence in preparation for the U, I believe the future is pretty bright for Nintendo.