Like gyūdon beef bowls? Love Nintendo’s pink vacuum-mouthed mascot Kirby? Then you’d better head down to your nearest Sukiya restaurant quick and pick up one of these adorable little windup walking models!
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Our Reporter Discovers Penis Disguised as Goomba, Nintendo’s Online Police on the Case Moments Later
When Nintendo stated that Miiverse, its new online community and text-based messaging service, would be strictly policed and kept kid-friendly, they weren’t kidding!
Lifelong gamer and RocketNews24 reporter Kuzo has been tooling around with the office’s new Wii U games console for weeks now, and, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Sato who attended the Japanese launch last weekend, managed to get his hands on a Japanese version of the machine, which he’s been thoroughly enjoying.
Imagine Kuzo’s shock, though, when he stumbled across a drawing of a goomba – the little mushroom bad guys from the Super Mario games – spliced onto the end of a crudely-drawn love-wand while using his new console’s integrated social network! Even more shocking, though, was the speed with which Nintendo’s net police honed in and took care of the offending material.
Mr. Sato, you are the man! Not only were you able to obtain a Wii U before the rest of us even had a chance to hold one, but you had the audacity to show up to the release of the Wii U with a Wii U! And to top it all off, you were decked out in your signature look, “Blue Slime.”
Respect where respect is due!
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Animal Crossing: New Leaf, or Tobidase Dōbutsu no Mori as it’s known here in Japan, has officially become Japan’s most wanted videogame, but not simply because of high sales figures.
The game, which allows you to customize and decorate your home or otherwise while away hours at a time exploring a town populated with cute anthropomorphic animals, has been literally impossible to get hold of since the end of November, with staff in electronics stores across Japan simply shrugging their shoulders when asked when they’re expecting to receive new stock.
Despite incredible demand for the title, with the problem “unlikely to be fixed any time soon,” president of Nintendo Japan Satoru Iwata took to the stage this week to apologise to consumers in an official statement punctuated with plenty of long, deep bows and, for the briefest of moments, an expression of absolute terror.
We’ve had a Wii U in the RocketNews24 office, not to mention out on the shinkansen bullet train, for about a week now. Despite being made by a Japanese company, the console isn’t available in Japan for another 10 days, and many Japanese and foreigners alike are clamouring to know how the new machine works and, most importantly, whether games on the platform are really the magical experience Nintendo would like us to believe.
We picked up New Super Mario Bros U, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, ZombiU and Nintendo Land along with our import machine, and are happy to say from the outset that these are all genuinely good titles. This isn’t a review as such, but since we have a number of lifelong gamers on the RocketNews24 team, especially our main man Kuzo, we were keen to share our impressions with you regarding how the four biggest titles launching alongside the Wii U show off the new console, not to mention which of the games are most likely to satisfy once they arrive in your sweaty little hands come December 8.
The Wii U — Nintendo’s first new home console in six years — may not be available until next Saturday here in Japan, but that didn’t stop our team getting hold of a North American unit and getting stuck into some quality gaming early.
Gamers among you will already know a little about Nintendo’s newest baby, but for the uninitiated, here it is in a nutshell: the Wii U combines the remote-wielding mayhem of everyone’s favourite Nintendo system with a unique new controller featuring a touch screen that can be used with or without a TV set, all topped off with a layer of gorgeous high-definition visuals. The idea is that the player uses the screen to interaxct with their games in a new way or, as we did here, use the gamepad screen in place of a TV set.
Sounds good, right?
But until we got our hands on a Wii U, we never fully appreciated just how much of a game-changer it was. We’ve played Sony PSP and Nintendo DS consoles on the go for years now, but imagine being able to take your actual home games console out on the road. Or how about on a high speed train…
Back in September, Nintendo released a limited edition Pikachu 3DS XL that was only available in Japan. The rest of the world was left staring longingly at the pictures of lucky residents of Japan lining up for four hours to purchase the adorable 3DS.
This week, Nintendo announced a new limited edition Charizard 3DS XL. Unfortunately, just like the limited edition Pikachu 3DS XL, the Charizard version can only be purchased in one of Japan’s seven Pokemon Center retail stores.
However, this time, even those who live in Japan will have a hard time getting their hands on this ultra-exclusive limited-edition 3DS XL because it will only be available to the winners of a lottery drawing.
You know when you have one of those dreams in which everything seems perfectly normal at first, but then you notice that something isn’t quite right? A tiny little hole in your otherwise immaculately woven subconscious tapestry opens up, and within seconds you realise that none of it is real. The image unravels like a fake Burberry cardigan thrown to a litter of kittens, and before you know it you’re wondering how you ever fell for it in the first place.
Techno-management festival Concetto’s Super Mario Bros. themed website had exactly the same effect on me the first time I saw it. As a man who, since the age of 7, has probably finished the original game about a hundred times, the effect of seeing much-loved videogame imagery used as a third party website is at once captivating and unsettling. Read More
A few weeks ago the Pokemon Company revealed the 3DS LL Pikachu Yellow, a limited edition version of the handheld console purchasable by preorder at Pokemon Center stores from August 25 to September 14.
To the surprise of no one, Japanese customers lined up outside and waited for over 4 hours to purchase the device, clearing out stocks at Pokemon Centers in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka on the first day.
While North America and Australia are still have a week to wait before they can get their hands on the Nintendo 3DS XL, Japan is already getting its first limited edition version of the little giant: Nintendo 3DS LL Pikachu Yellow.
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Japanese Woman’s Rage at Slow Wii U Sends out Ripples of Doubt about Nintendo’s Newest Console
Dec 11, 2012
As the Wii U (finally) made its Japanese debut on 8 December amid great fanfare, cosplay, and pizza, reviews sprang up across the internet like so many fireworks going off when Mario enters the little castle at the right time.
As we at RocketNews24 got our hands on a US machine ahead of the Japanese launch we were impressed with its smooth and fast handling, even while riding a bullet train.
So it’s a little surprising to us and many other Nintendo fans when one woman’s review turned to rant at the device’s excruciatingly slow time to switch between some simple screens.
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