Packaging Problems

Mario's gone bald with stress, Peace has had both of here legs removed after a lava-incident in Bowser's castle, Star Fox had his arm blown off in an explosion on the Wolfen II, Luigi got his hand stuck in the poltergeist 3000, and Samus got a suit upgrade after deciding that one arm cannon wasn't enough. Or, that's at least what Nintendo's Amiibo figures would lead us to believe.

 

  

The images above are all factory defects. If really starting to think that Skylander-like figures just
aren't Nintendo's thing. I have seen almost no defects in Skylanders figures, but Nintendo seems to be messing them up like mad. Not that this isn't advantages for consumers. Lots of the owners of these defective Amiibo made some massive money! The owner of the Samus figure with three arm cannons got $2,500 for the thirteen buck toy, and the legless Peach sold for a whopping 1,000% percent more at $25,000!!! Quite frankly, I don't know why anyone would want to blow 25 grand on a broken toy. Sure, it's rare and collectible, but I just think these defects just look ugly. Oh well. At least they're helping the economy, I guess. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

Gamecube adapter discontinued?!

Rumor has it- eww! Rumor has it- eww! Rumor has it- eww! Hello gamers! Today we have a particularly pesky rumor going around regarding the GameCube controller adapter for Wii U. According to a tweet from a Canadian video game retailer, the Marth, Villager, and Wii Fit Trainer amibos as well as the GameCube controller adapter have all been discontined.

While I find this hard to believe, they are Canadians. And, not only this, but GameStop also lists the adapters as 'not available'. When Nintendo News called GameStop, they said "demand for the product currently outweighs its production, but we will receive more when Nintendo makes more." Does this mean Nintendo really has discontinued these products? It sure does seem like it.

Screenshot of GameStop website at
http://www.gamestop.com/wii-u/accessories/wii-u-gamecube-adapter/115426

If this really is the case, I'm going to be peed. Nintendo got all of us diehard fans of the GC controller all siked for this and then they swipe it away before it's even the holiday season. I haven't gotten a copy of SSB for Wii U, but I was hoping I might receive it as a Christmas gift or get it afterwards. While I could handle using the 3DS, Wii U gamepad, or Wii U Classic Controller (although they are way overpriced and I don't plan on buying one soon) it just isn't the same as that classic GC feel that I used with my first SSB and Mario Kart game. I hope this is just a temporary shortage, similar to the Skylanders famine a few years back.

Whether or not this rumor turns out to be true, I hope you stay tuned as we hope for the best. Thanks for reading!

Sources:
http://nintendonews.com/2014/12/gamecube-controller-adapter-discontinued/

Battle Pokemon in real life (well, sorta)

Hello trainers! Now, tell me. When you're running around in the Pokemon universe, do you ever wish you could battle Pokemon for real? Of course you have (unless the Pokemon felt pain from their battling, in which case it wouldn't be worth it). Well, now you can[ish]! Well, ok you can't exactly do it in real life. But a new fan project called Pokemon VR is getting us one step closer!

They are programming their own application for the Oculus Rift. While it may not be perfect, it's very impressive. The way it is made, the graphics are seamlessly 3D and looks as if you're right there in the Pokemon world. It isn't perfect, and is a little shaky, but the idea seems pretty cool. I really want Oculus to make some sort of glove or sleeve that would let you control the game with your arm and hand instead of a controller, but I'll give that some time.

Overall I think this is really cool and is the beginning to being able to play your favorite video games in (what appears as) real life. Thanks for reading, and check out the video below for more info (although I have not watched it the whole way through so there is a small possibility that it may not be 100% perfectly clean, although I doubt it would have anything bad).

                                   

Sources:

http://nintendonews.com/2014/12/pokemon-vr-oculus-rift/

Majora’s Mask 3D announced

Hello Gamers! Fencer6 here with some new Legend of Zelda news! LoZ has been possibly one on Nintendo's biggest hit series, after Mario and Pokemon of course. Two of the greatest hits for the series originally debuted on the N64, Nintendo's second home console it made (excluding other NES versions and the Virtual Boy, which was really cruddy). But, since many people don't own these devices, although they do have the 3DS, Nintendo ported an updated version of The Ocarina of Time, the best selling LoZ game of all time, to the new system. Well, in the latest Nintendo Direct, Majora's Mask was announced to be ported over in the same way to the 3DS as well.

It appears that the new game will have a few touch ups on the standard graphics, as well as be given a 3D effect, but otherwise will stay true to the original game. I'm not quite sure if I will get this though, since I already own an N64 and would rather get the feel for the original. For more info you can see the trailer below. Thanks for watching, and keep checking back until the world meets a terrible fate!

           

Sources:

http://nintendonews.com/2014/11/majoras-mask-3d-spring-2015/

http://www.zelda.com/majoras-mask/

Noteworthy Nintendo Numbers!

Hello gamers! Sorry it's taken me so long to get out another post! I've been doing Nanowrimo which you can learn about here. But today we have some astonishing numbers from Nintendo.

Super Smash

352,945 years ago, humans didn't exist. But in just two months, we gamers have spent that much time on the new Super Smash bros game alone. The amount of total hours of people playing SSB for 3DS and Wii U is over three billion! And this statistic was released when the Wii U version was only released in North America (that's right, we actually received it before Japan)! We have spent 356 millenia just playing a new video game in the past two months alone!

I have no regrets.

Those aren't the only surprising numbers either, as of November 25. Players playing the new smashes have already spent 47,825,359 pieces of gold on bets, received 16,090,871,592 damage (assumably over internet only), played 13,252,084 online battles, and have gotten 160,929,807 KOs.

Mario

If there is one thing I found cool about New Super Mario Bros 2 for 3DS, it was the tons of coins you could find and add to your own personal giant coin counter. This number isn't completely personal, though, because that as soon as you connect to the internet your coin count is added to the international counter on the New Super Mario Bros. 2 website. The current coin value has reached 1,811,555,509,008, nearly 2 trillion coins! Assuming each coin is worth one U.S. dollar, you could buy Google, Twitter, Nintendo, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, and Facebook, with still a trillion to spare. But that isn't all. It has been calculated that each mario gold coin is worth...

$508,000!!!

That means that, in real life, players have earned 9.2 *  10¹⁷ a number so large my calculator couldn't display it. This equals 920,000,000,000,000,000, or 920 quadrillion. Let that sink in for a minute. The estimated value of Earth is around 4,720,440,000,000. So yes. If you wanted to, you could buy the Earth 230,000 times over. This is so much money that if you had it in one dollar bills you would have a pile the size of 460,000 empire state buildings.

                                 

And to think, all of that money was just shooting out of drain pipes.

Sources:

http://nintendonews.com/2014/11/total-smash-bros-play-time-3-billion-hours/

http://newsupermariobros2.nintendo.com/

http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/mario-coin-calculato/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1361145/Earth-worth-3-000-trillion-according-scientists-new-planet-valuing-formula.html

New 3DS update

Hey guys! Fencer6 here! Today I'm going to be talking about thew 3DS update. Usually, when the 3DS gets an update very few things change and we really don't notice. But with the 9.0.0-20 U (yeah, they couldn't just call it 9.0.1-it has to have a fancy 20-U) it changes things a considerable bit. Before we get into the cool stuff here are a few tidbits about the update-

1. You can now take screenshots of your home menu (yay?)
2. The Eshop has been 'improved' to make it easier for you to see demos, videos, and user reviews of new games (so basically more free advertising for them)
3. Just random minor stability improvements. 

OK, now here's the cool part- they now have changeable homescreen themes. These themes can change the home screen look, sounds, and button sprites!

 

Pre-installed in the update are asic: Red, Basic: Blue, Basic: Yellow, Basic: Pink, and Basic: Black, but lots of other super cool ones are available for purchase in the new 'Theme Shop'. Below is a list of all available themes. 

1. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Main Theme background music)
2. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Seven Swords background music)
3. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Beyond Blue Morph background music)
4. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Fog Clock background music)
5. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Door Morph background music)
6. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Pain background music)
7. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Burning background music)
8. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Red Mayfly background music)
9. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Moon Route background music)
10. Azure Striker: Gunvolt (Reincarnation background music)
11. Youkai Watch
12. Famicom Series Jump Mario
13. Mario
14. Luigi
15. Peach
16. Yoshi
17. Mushrooms
18. Blue & Yellow Big Dot
19. Pink & Green Big Dot
20. Animal Crossing Isabelle’s Office
21. Animal Crossing Mabel Able
22. Animal Crossing Sable Able
23. Animal Crossing Timmy & Tommy
24. Animal Crossing Bulletin Board
25. Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
26. Hanafuda Art
27. Circular Mario
28. Circular Bowser
29. Circular Peach
30. Circular Rosalina
31. Mario Characters (Wood Grain)
32. Mario Characters (Felt)
33. Black & White Checkered Flag
34. Black & White Border
35. Black & White Dots
36. Gold & White Dots
37. Gold & Black Star Pattern
38. Yellow & Purple Star Pattern
39. Aqua Blue Checkered Pattern
40. Pink & White Stripes
41. Simple Clear Color Set (Volume No. 1)
42. Simple Color Set (Volume No. 1)
43. Okiraku Family Set
44. Escape Adventure
45. Bureiburu
46. Monster Hunter 4G (characters)
47. Monster Hunter 4G (icons)

That's an entire 47 themes, and they're still adding more*!

They all look pretty cool, and I can't wait to try them out!

CODE RED! CODE RED! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! MINECRAFT HAS BEEN BOUGHT!

The apocalypse is upon us. This is it. This is the end of Minecraft as we know it. Microsoft has- I can't even bring myself to say it. They've, they've-bought Minecraft.

                              

I have no words. Actually, I have a lot. Most of them just can't be written on this website to keep it kid friendly.

But seriously- I CANT BELIEVE THIS! How could this happen?! Notch, you've betrayed us! The entire company of Mojang was sold to Microsoft for a total of 2.5 billion dollars. According to them, the reason that they sold the company was because, quite frankly, Notch couldn't handle it. He was overwhelmed by the major responsibility of owning Minecraft, and he has been looking to sell it for quite some time now. They claim they have partnered with Microsoft since 2012 and that they have a great dedication to the game, and they hope they can give it the improvement it deserves. Honestly though, I don't know a ton of ways they could improve on it. I certainly don't want them changing the entire game, but with a company as big as Microsoft I don't think we can avoid it.

                                   
Whether we like it or not, Minecraft is officially in ownership of Microsoft. If Mojang seems so confident in them, maybe they won't completely mess up the game. But still, I have always like that Mojang was a small company owned by just a few people, and was more concerned with the gaming community than money. Maybe 1.8 was the last update we will ever use again. Maybe Microsoft will redeem itself (because after Windows 8 they really need a win). No one knows, but I hope Microsoft will respect the integrity of Minecraft. Even still, something tells me that the PlayStation and Mac versions of Minecraft might not be seeing an update any time soon. Until next time, the is Fencer6, sadly signing off.

Originally posted October 6th

Super Smash for 3DS demo released!

Hey guys, Fencer6 here, and I have exciting SSB news! The Super Smash Bros. 3DS demo has finally hit the North American EShop, and it is awesome! The graphics are amazing, unlike any smash game ever before and the fighting style simple and addictive fun.

The only issue with the demo is, well, its only a demonstration. You get access to only five characters- Mega Man, Link (my favorite), Pikachu, Villager, and Mario, which was a little disappointing. Additionally, you only have access to one stage (the blandest one in the entire game). There are many other, more interesting characters you can choose from, but at least they included Link. Now I am dying to purchase the full game (which is probably the whole point of the demo). Thankfully, though, it comes out on the 3rd of October, which is now less then a week away. If you are interested in the game at all I would recommend you check it out for yourself. Overall, it is a really amazing demo, and I hope to have a video and more in-depth look into it soon, so stay tuned!

Originally posted September 17