smash-bros-brawl posts(Subscribe to this feed)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl surpasses 100 million hours played
by David Hinkle 
{ Nov 17th 2009 at 5:45PM } 
To put some perspective on the figure, some of Nintendo's most notable titles haven't even come close to approaching 100 million hours played. Mario Kart Wii has only been played for 46 million hours, while Super Mario Galaxy has managed a mere 34 million hours in total. Wii Sports, however, remains the obvious top game played, netting a total play time of 105 million hours.
[Via Coffee with Games & Go Nintendo]
Project Sora shows off its smashing new office
by JC Fletcher { Jul 14th 2009 at 8:00PM } 
The room with the most furnishing is the office game room, seen above, which features an impressive array of consoles (including the dreamy Twin Famicom on the floor) and plants. "The cactus was a gift," Sakurai boasted.
As for what Sora is working on in this new space: "Our project is a secret!"
[Via Siliconera]
Hackers add Roy to Super Smash Bros. Brawl
by David Hinkle { Jul 1st 2009 at 6:45PM }
As evidenced in the videos past the break, this isn't merely a texture swap, as goodoldganon also incorporated Roy's moves into the game. By delegating the hack to a certain color set of Marth's (here it's the red suit), he can pick Roy at will and seamlessly integrate him into the game. Sure, the bottom of the screen still says Marth, but, for all intents and purposes, this is the Roy you remember.
It's impressive stuff, to say the least, so head past the break and check out the footage of a fighter's return to the arena.
Gallery: Smash Bros. Brawl Snapshots
_thumbnail.jpg)
_thumbnail.jpg)
_thumbnail.jpg)
[Thanks, Slashy!]
Fans rewrite Brawl to balance characters
by JC Fletcher { Jun 30th 2009 at 5:00PM }
WRONG. It's actually an unbalanced mess. At least, that's what a group of Smash Boards members seems to believe, seemingly with more conviction than we've ever had for pretty much anything. It's important enough that they decided to patch the game's code to change specific gameplay elements. "Balanced Brawl" has three goals, as stated by the coders: first, to remove "infinites" and "inescapable lockdowns" (simple, unblockable combos that add more than 50% damage), increase overall character balance, and increase stage viability.
You can see examples of the kind of minute tweaking done to the characters in the chart above, and you can read way, way more about each change in the Smash Boards thread. It's a pretty impressive testament to just how much time has been spent thinking about Brawl.
Project Sora hiring for non-Smash Bros. game
by JC Fletcher { Mar 18th 2009 at 2:55PM }
The ad reiterates that Sora is working on "something that Nintendo can't create by themselves." Nintendo president Satoru Iwata also has quotes in the ad, which provide one small detail: "I am asking for something special here, something that isn't Smash Bros.," Iwata says. While it's entirely possible Sora or another studio is also working on another Smash Bros. title, the mysterious game that the developer is focusing on right now is something else. We don't even know which system it will involve!
Wii Warm Up: Smashed Gameplay
by JC Fletcher { Jan 26th 2009 at 8:00AM }
But on to Smash Bros. and the Turtles. Do you think the Smash Bros. gameplay is strong enough to work without Nintendo characters? Are there any particular ideas involved in the bizarre fighting series that more fighting games could stand to inherit? And is it going to become its own branch of the fighting game genre?
December NPD: Slowdown
by Chris Greenhough { Jan 15th 2009 at 9:00PM }
It's not surprising to see that hardware sales rose significantly in December, but what is surprising is the comparatively small progress made by the Wii -- only a 5% increase from November, compared to some big gains for the competition. People who are paid a lot more than us predicted the Wii would smash the 3 million sales barrier, but nope. We're putting this down to a lack of holiday season supply, or November's figures simply being amazing.On the other hand, selling 2.15 million of anything in a single month isn't too shabby!
- DS: 3.04m
1.47m (94%)- Wii: 2.15m
110K (5%)- Xbox 360: 1.44m
604K (72%)- PSP: 1.02m
599K (142%)- PS3: 726K
348K (92%)- PS2: 410K
204K (99%)December's best-selling games are past the fold, along with 2008's top sellers. Spoiler: Nintendo software kicked ass.
Wii's winners and losers in Japan
by JC Fletcher { Jan 5th 2009 at 12:00PM }
We can't exactly trust the validity of the numbers used to create this list of best-selling games across the three home platforms, since it's just some guy on Geocities doing it (and he claims that he might alter numbers to deter copying) but they're close enough to our expectations for most games. These numbers are purportedly derived from Enterbrain and Famitsu sales data. Kotaku reproduced the top and bottom-selling games on each platform, and we think that's a nice way to organize it.The top ten Wii games are not too surprising, including stuff like Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, Brawl, and other big Nintendo franchises. The only third-party game on the list is Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, which, of course, is a Mario game!
But the bottom ten is a lot more entertaining, revealing, for example, that poor Opoona sold only 5,000 copies, as did Dewy's Adventure. D3's motivation for putting their Simple games on WiiWare is made clear by the fact that their disc-based releases totally bombed. Though not as badly as Hudson's Puzzle Series Vol. 1 Sudoku, which apparently sold 482 copies total.
It's hard to pick interesting tidbits out of the middle of the list (which we won't reproduce after the break in the interest of brevity) but apparently No More Heroes sold just 27,873 copies -- much less than the 84,224 copies of Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 3 that went out!
Nintendo makes Brawl world less colorful
by JC Fletcher { Dec 23rd 2008 at 10:55AM }
We don't know exactly what happened, but according to a post at Stack Smash, a related Smash Bros. character model hacking site, Nintendo threatened Syntax-Error with lawsuits. As a result, the site is down and the patch is shelved. The image above, found in another Stack Smash post, features almost every texture alteration that was to be released with the software. Check out Pac-Kirby! Oh, we've just made ourselves sad.
Gallery: Smash Bros. Brawl Snapshots
[Thanks, Ants!]
2008's best-sellers revealed, familiar outcome ensues
by Chris Greenhough { Nov 17th 2008 at 7:10PM }
Gamasutra has compiled a bunch of charts showing the best-selling games of 2008 (so far) across all formats. At first glance, the results are thoroughly predictable -- it's yet more Wii dominance in the U.S. -- but there are interesting factoids to be drawn from this.Wii Play, for example, looks like finishing in the top five games of the year for the second year running. Even more impressively, Gamasutra thinks it could sell more copies in 2008 than in 2007, which is all kinds of crazy. Surely that would be some kind of first?
The top two spots are held by Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii, a pair of titles that we always expected to sell well, but to beat the likes of Wii Fit or other games aimed at Nintendo's broadened audience? Speaking of Wii Fit, it tops the chart for estimated revenue so far this year, thanks to its higher retail price. We'll reproduce the 2008 YTD sales table below, but Gamasutra has other data worth looking at here.
1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) -- 3.5 million
2. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) -- 3.4 million
3. Grand Theft Auto IV (360) -- 3.2 million
4. Wii Play (Wii) -- 3.0 million
5. Wii Fit (Wii) -- 2.8 million
Gallery: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Top 5: Multiplayer Experiences
by Kaes Delgrego { Nov 3rd 2008 at 1:37PM }
As someone who writes on the Internets, I do a lot of reading as well. As just about any successful author will advise, if I want to be a better writer then I should be reading as much as possible. Thus, I tend to spend a good amount of time scouring the gaming websites and reading commentary from just about anyone. I wouldn't insult anyone by pointing out flaws in their work (as I'm host to many of my own), but it is sufficient to say that there is great diversity in the quality and other general attributes of gaming commentary. One source that I do consistently enjoy comes from GoNintendo's head honcho, known as RawmeatCowboy. Equal parts Nintendo fan and beard enthusiast, RMC has a passion for gaming unmatched by nearly anyone else in the entire industry. Whereas some journalists and commentators may give off an impression of jaded cynicism, this particular blogger is a bundle of video game-loving joy. Though he's not quite the wordsmith of a Jerry Holkins, his joy and optimism transcend any potential criticism. And after all, that should be the reason we play video games: for happiness.
Stepping away from worshipping his shrine, I'll get back on target. In a recent post, RMC discusses offline multiplayer via a get-together involving several friends of his trying out Guitar Hero: World Tour. He states that multiplayer is more enjoyable in person than online, and I find it difficult to disagree. That is not to say that online multiplayer is garbage; quite the opposite is true. Aside from the obvious pragmatics of not always being able to round up a few friends to play a game you enjoy, there's the global aspect behind online gaming. Though I've been battling people online via chess years before any major console had such capabilities, the enormous power of the technology didn't register with me until very recently. As I was connecting to an online race in Mario Kart Wii, the identification of racers on the globe really hit home. Realizing that I was simultaneously connecting with individuals from Japan, China, Germany, and England was strangely beautiful.
Despite the fascinating global implications of such connections, I remain a bit of a luddite in that I don't think there's anything better than having your friends in the same room with you while fighting with or against each other. Here's the Top 5 ways we recommend that you enjoy such opportunities.
The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up. Ten for under twenty at Gamefly's sale
by Chris Greenhough { Oct 22nd 2008 at 5:11PM }
In these belt-tightening, penny-pinching times, it literally pays to have a nose for the bargains. That's where we, or rather Gamefly, comes in. The game rental outfit has a broad selection of used Wii software for low, world banking crisis-friendly prices, and we chose ten of the best sub-$20 games to tempt you. Thar be bargains ahead!
- Baroque for $12.99
- Battalion Wars 2 for $17.99
- Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy for $9.99
- Dewy's Adventure for $13.99
- Geometry Wars: Galaxies for $16.99
- Mercury: Meltdown Revolution for $15.99
- NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams for $12.99
- No More Heroes for $17.99
- Sega Superstars Tennis for $9.99
- Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure for $17.99
[Thanks, William!]
Nintendo UK wheels out the celebs ...
by Chris Greenhough { Oct 20th 2008 at 5:21PM }
... with mixed results. But let's start with the good one
- Girls Aloud. British girl pop group, and actually a pretty big name in Blighty. Most famous member is one Cheryl Cole, who seems lovely and sincere on X Factor, though isn't quite as pleasant if you meet her in a nightclub toilet.
- Fern Britton, once-cuddly, now gastric-band-wearing TV presenter, will be advertising Cooking Guide.
- Ronan Keating, one-fifth of Irish boyband Boyzone. Incidentally, in the process of writing this post, we discovered Boyzone were reforming. Ugh. Anyway, Ronan will be promoting Big Brain Academy.
- Jamie and Louise Redknapp, slightly thick but good-looking soccer pundit and his former pop star wife. Will join forces with their extended family to push Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports, and Super Smash Bros.: Brawl. That's a lot of responsibility on the Redknapps' shoulders! We hope they're up to it.
Dirty disc drive lens? Nintendo has your back
by Chris Greenhough { Oct 14th 2008 at 7:14PM }
Reasons not to smoke:- Increased risk of lung cancer, high blood pressure, bronchitis, emphysema.
- It smells.
- Wii lens damage!!1!
Nintendo's first practical solution was ... not so swift. As in, it just came out now. The Wii Lens Cleaner Set is available to order on Nintendo's Japanese site for ¥800 (around $8) or Play-Asia for a tenner. It should leave your console lens sparkling and your Brawl career resurgent. Whadd'ya mean everyone plays Mario Kart now? Hush!
Gallery: Smash Bros. Brawl Snapshots
[Via Kotaku]
NPD dishes out the 5 top-selling Wii games of this year
by David Hinkle { Sep 23rd 2008 at 3:28PM }
The top 5 games of 2008 so far according to the NPD are:
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Mario Kart Wii (with wheel)
- Wii Play
- Wii Fit (with Balance Board)
- Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (with guitar)
