When Zelda fans get their hands on each new entry in the series, there are a lot of things they tend to expect to return from the series’ past. Whether they be minor aspects like the chime that plays when you solve a puzzle or open a treasure chest, the dungeon-item-boss formula, a large arsenal of both combat and puzzle oriented weapons, and so forth, it’s something that fans don’t really like Nintendo messing with too much. Nintendo, complying with this, is extremely mindful of that, putting a strong emphasis on returning staples of the series, arguably more so than they should be. But there’s one very important aspect of the series that seems to have been downplayed over the last 10 years or so – The overworld.

We all knew it was happening today. Nintendo has held a pre-recorded press conference starring Nintendo of America’s very own Reggie Fils-Aime. Among the many announcements, updates for the 3DS were revealed including Hulu Plus coming to 3DS, the ability to record 3D video using the Nintendo 3DS camera, street pass updates and more.

Nintendo seems to upping their attempts to bring different types of media to the 3DS which is great news for them, as they continue to catch up with Sony and Microsoft as far as non game uses of their systems go. What do you think about the announcements?

Check out the video for your self after the jump.

With the DS getting killed off by its 3D-capable big brother, it’s becoming harder and harder to find new titles for the original system that are more than mere shovelware. With this game being the spiritual successor to a cult classic and hidden gem of the PSX, as well as being a decade in the making, is Solatorobo: Red the Hunter a well nurtured developer’s dream or is it a little too aged to stand on its own against the competition?

With Xenoblade Chronicles being met with a smile and warm welcome into European gamers Wii’s, news that will delight the American supporters of the game, Nintendo of Europe have decided to use that as a push for the other two games that have been the focus of Operation: Rainfall.

Embracing the Let’s Play community with a competition entitled “Let’s Play Xenoblade Chronicles” , Nintendo have asked players to create a video showing something the player really enjoyed, like a sidequest or area, or something along those lines – one person wins a voucher for both Last Story and Pandora’s Tower, while the four runners up gets a choice of which one they get. The contests is for those sixteen and over, finishes on October 18th and can be found here.

The contest does show that NoE really want all three games to do well, especially with Reggie stating that they were watching Europe carefully. If the momentum keeps up, then the organisers of Operation: Rainfall may yet be claiming a success.

(Source: siliconera)

Following his company’s press conference at the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata stated clearer than ever that Nintendo would not be releasing any titles on Apple and Google’s platforms.

Iwata gave this statement, almost seemingly determined to stop these questions from appearing in future interviews. He said that:

“This is absolutely not under consideration. If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.”

After a mixed showing at TGS with the positives of confirmed release dates for the new Mario Kart and Mario’s solo adventure, as well as the negatives of that extension, is this a wise move to rule out an avenue of profits?

(Source: Nintendolife )

Celebrating The Legend of Zelda’s 25th anniversary, Nintendo has decided to give all DSi/DSiXL/3DS owners a free download of Four Swords Adventures: Anniversary Edition starting on September 28th, with the game being free until February 20th, 2012.

It’ll also have a single player mode to compliment the times you might not have anyone available to play with via wireless multiplayer. Included is a Japanese trailer after the break.

(Source: Joystiq)

The new Expansion Slide Pad(The english name will likely change, as this is a rough translation) add-on for the 3DS has been confirmed by the Big N at their big 3DS Conference earlier, as well as being priced and dated… In Japan, that is…

Well, if you live in the Land of the Rising Sun, it’ll set you back ¥1,500(or about $19) and it will be debuting on December 10th. This expansion requires 1 AA battery and adds a second circle pad and an R2 button to the 3DS, as well as acting as a grip.

As for software support, Monster Hunter Tri 3G will support it, as well as the newly announced Monster Hunter 4, Resident Evil: Revelations, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, Ace Combat 3D Cross Rumble, Dynasty Warriors Vs, and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. Games featuring compatibility with the accessory will display so in an icon on the box, a la Wii titles, and it looks like it’ll at least be more successful than the Wii Speak, although one of the big titles pushing that was a Monster Hunter game as well….

Moving on, Nintendo also announced a new color to the 3DS assortment: Misty Pink. It’s planned to launch in Japan on October 20th, and Nintendo of America and Nintendo UK both were in the dark about the existence of this shade of handheld, with no plans to release it anywhere else in the world anytime soon.

There’s a gallery of both the system and accessory after the jump.

An anonymous source inside Nintendo told 01net, a website who’s most notorious claim to credibility was predicting the name of the PSVita as well as leaking the news of the now infamous second control nub peripheral for the 3DS, that the final architecture for the WiiU was rushed out of the door for E3 and that the chip set used for the model didn’t match up for the intended specs of the Wii U. This relates to problems with getting the Wii U tablets to work in the first place as after three prototype model, Nintendo’s engineers are still having problems getting the tablets to work correctly (a fourth prototype is currently in the works). These issues might eventually take a toll on the release date of the console as Nintendo, according to 01net’s source, originally planned to release it next June. 01net’s source claims September as the new launch window.

Source: (vg247)

Is your Wii broken? Did a mutant chicken destroy all your copies of the Super Smash Bros. series? Have you, or have you ever wanted to get into an insane brawl without actually doing anything? Well now is your chance.

Today Nintendo have released a long list of games due out over the next few months, some with more vague release windows than others, however among them was the European release date for Link’s latest adventure in Skyward Sword.

Also in the list was The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower, two of the three games that Operation: Rainfall focused on last month, will be coming out to Europe on the Wii some point in 2012. Other notable titles include Kirby: Mass Attack (DS – 28 October), Super Mario 3D Land (3DS – November), Mario Kart 7 (3DS – December) and Professor Layton and the Spectre’s Touch (DS – November)

Unfortuantely still no solid release date for Cave Story 3D, though the DSiWare version is due out at some point in Q4 of this year.

(Source: NintendoLife )