Welcome again ladies and gentlemen to New Gamer Nation’s Weekly News. This week rumors were swirling, announcements were made, and news was broken. Fortunately, if the news is broken, nobody has to buy it. So gather around, news time starts now.
Nintedo Reports A $630 Million Net Loss
Despite Nintendo 3DS sales rising again, Nintendo has reported a net loss of US$630 million for the first nine months of its fiscal year (April to December 2011). With a with a profit of US$635 million in the same time frame last fiscal year, declining Wii console sales and the 3DS price drop have factors in the loss this year. However, speaking of Nintendo…
The Wii-U Has A Release…Time Frame
Nintendo will indeed release the Wii-U in 2012. Nintendo President, Satoru Iwata, confirmed to reporters that the successor to the Wii will be released to the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan for the year-end season. Nothing as far as a specific date, price, or launch lineup has been revealed, so we should expect some more news and demonstrations of the console in the coming months. There is a possibility a lot more will be revealed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year.
THQ Focusing On “Core” Gamers, And Making Budget Cuts
Recently, rumors of THQ’s financial trouble have caused speculation of THQ canceling it’s 2014 lineup. THQ shot those rumors down and even stated that they were looking to focus more on “core” gamers over the releases aimed at children. Brian Farrell, President and CEO of THQ, stated in a recent press release:
“THQ will be a more streamlined organization focused only on our strongest franchises…The success of Saints Row: The Third is an example of what our revised strategy and focus can achieve. We have now shipped 3.8 million units globally and are currently expecting to ship between five and six million units lifetime on this title. Additionally, our robust digital content offerings for this game have resulted in the highest digital revenue of any console title in our history.”
Seemingly a sigh of relief would come if you do fit in that “core” gamer category. However, it does seem THQ is indeed feeling some financial troubles. THQ has stated the company will lay off a number of employees. How many is still unknown at this time. In a statement THQ said:
“THQ confirms a reduction in force to the company’s administration and publishing organization,” the publisher said in a statement. “As recently announced, the company is exiting the kids’ licensed games category, and is focusing on its core game franchises and developing its digital initiatives.”
Netflix Cancels Plans For Video Games
Netflix has had a very strange 2011. Plans were in place to split the company in two with the movie streaming service under Netflix, while the DVD mail service would fall under the Qwikster banner. Plans were quickly scrapped after a lot of uproar from the Netflix community. Netflix also announced last year they would also rent video games to users. Company CEO, Reed Hastings stated to investors, the company will still rent out Blu-Rays and DVDs, however plans to rent out video games have stopped.
The Next X-Box Rumors
Speculation is running rampant over the next generation gaming console that Microsoft plans to release. Sources of Kotaku have stated the next X-Box will upgrade to Blu-Ray discs, as well as play DVDs, will be up to eight times as powerful as the current Xbox 360, will feature smaller controllers, and will launch with a new version of the Kinect.
Now the bad news, (brace yourself here) the next generation of X-Box consoles will allegedly not support used games. While there’s no way of knowing how exactly this kind of technology would be implemented into the system, everything is to this point is still only a rumor.
New Street Fighter x Tekken Characters Revealed
In the final news item of the week, Mega Man is finally returning to a fighting franchise. No he won’t be Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 DLC, however, he will be a character in another cross franchise fighting game in Street Fighter x Tekken. The biggest thing you’ll notice is this incarnation of Mega Man will look like the original Mega Man. Also, along side Mega Man, Namco’s mascot, and video game icon, Pac-Man was also announced to be in the game.
Mega Man and Pac-Man, along side Cole MacGrath, Toro, and Kuro, will be exclusive to the Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita. Cole MacGrath was announced at E3 last year, Sony mascots, Toro and Kuro, were expected to be Playstation exclusives. However the announcement of Mega Man and Pac-Man came as a surprise, considering they too are Playstation exclusives.
If you were wondering about the X-Box exclusive characters, well…Maybe not this game. Street Fighter x Tekken producer, Yoshinori Ono stated Capcom was in talks to have Microsoft exclusive characters, but ultimately those talks fell through. “We do have the exclusive characters for the Sony platform. We have Cole, the two Sony cats, Kuro and Toro. But basically for the Xbox 360, we were in discussions with them [Microsoft] for which character to put in as an exclusive, but we weren’t able to decide on a character because of differences in timing and things like that,” Ono told Xbox360Achievments.com.
“In terms of characters we wish we could have put in the game, Master Chief or Marcus Fenix from Gears of War would have been really cool, but it was just really difficult,” Ono said. “We have Cole from inFamous on PS3, which is really cool, but that’s just the way it turned out.”
To check out the trailer click here.
That’s all the news we have this week, tell us what you think. What is really behind Nintedo’s losses? Are you fired up about the Wii-U and do you think that will bring Nintendo back to the top spot? Is THQ in trouble? Does it make you feel better they’re going after the “core” gamers? How will Netflix be affected by not renting out video games? What do you think should go into the next X-Box? Will you go after the PS3 version of Street Fighter x Tekken?
Thanks for reading everyone.