StarFox-Online Articles

The online service from Nintendo has always been, well, lacking. Even on the recently-launched 3DS. Friend Codes are a problem. Both parties need to add eachother's friend codes to establish a friendship. The problem is, if one person does it, the other is not notified.

In their investor report, Nintendo's CEO Satoru Iwata talked about something that could change all of that. He acknowledged that Nintendo is lacking in "network services," which is investospeak for online. He mentions that the company is accepting outside help here.

Consultants could be just the thing Nintendo needs here. Some outside input that says "Friend Codes Suck, do this instead" would be welcome.

In the field of networks in particular, however, I admit that we cannot do business in pace with the changes in the world and the requests from consumers only within our company and with development companies we have long been in touch with. I am not sure which term suits us as collaborations for this purpose, M&A or partnership. Anyway, I feel that we would spoil the party in a negative way if "we sticked to create everything by ourselves" based on the policy [of self-sufficiency], and eventually it would make our business slow.

In slight connection with the question about Wii's concept before, honestly speaking, Wii's future could have been different if Nintendo had made better partnerships with outside companies in the field of network services at the early stages of the penetration of Wii. In other words, Nintendo might have been a little obsessed with the policy [of self-sufficiency] at that time. Although we have already put ourselves back on track, we would like to clearly differentiate what is our true strength from what we can basically do by ourselves but can be done better by more skillful outside specialists in order not to fall into that trap again. You may be aware of some features which I am implying now in relation to the future developments of Nintendo 3DS and Wii's successor system that we announced yesterday. I am sorry I cannot say anything more specific today.

Src: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/110426qa/02.html

New screens from SF64 3D are available in the gallery:

http://starfox-online.net/index.php?/gallery/album/20-sf643d-screenshots/

Also, is this the Box Art?

http://starfox-online.net/index.php?/gallery/image/572-possible-box-art/

Japanese retailer Tsutaya has been disclosing information about Star Fox 64 3D that they received from Nintendo via Twitter.

VS Mode will be local-only, with Download & Play support. Sadly, this means no Wifi.

Of more interest is the ability to use the camera to take a picture of yourself to use as an avatar.

Could this mean Miis will find their way into the game too? Who knows. E3 will be very exciting.

On the rumor front, word is going around that the original N64 version of the game will be included.

Shigeru Miyamoto gave a talk at a press conference in France.

He talked mainly about Mario Kart, but did mention Star Fox.

He has confirmed that Star Fox 64 3D is finished, though the date revealed earlier has already confirmed that.

What is more newsworhty is that he stated SF643D will use the 3DS's Gyroscope (motion sensor) to give "a new dimension to the game."

Don't know if want. Motion control and 3D won't mesh well, since the parallax barrier in the 3DS has a quite narrow Field of View. That said, with 3D turned-off it could make for some interesting play.

I hope the motion control is optional so that I don't have to turn-off 3D if I don't want to.

It is now official. Nintendo Co. Ltd (Nintendo Japan) has confirmed that a new system will be unveiled, and playable, at E3 in June, and that it will launch in 2012.

Iwata told Bloomberg News that since 3D TVs are not yet commonplace, it will not emphasize 3D like the 3DS.

Still no confirmation on controller or specific hardware rumors.

SRC = http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-25/nintendo-forecasts-net-to-climb-42-will-introduce-wii-successor-in-2012.html

The Gallery has now been completely migrated to IP.Gallery.

You can access it via http://gallery.starfox-online.net as well as by clicking the "Gallery" button on the main navigation menu above.

School has dumped a ton of work on me in the past couple of weeks, so I was not able to work on the media file engine, and won't be able to until after Final Exams. That's about two and-a-half weeks away.

My sincerest apologies. I will look into the feasibility of temporary static pages in the next couple of days so that the media is not down for another three-plus weeks.

Game Informer, along with several other gaming news sites, are reporting that Nintendo is preparing to unveil a successor to Wii at E3.

Not much on specifics, but the thing will be capable of 1920x1080 Progressive over HDMI (About Damn Time, Nintendo). Also, it is rumored to pack more horsepower than the PS3. Whehter or not that is the Wii vs Xbox 1 level or if it is Gamecube VS PS1 level, is unknown.

Nintendo is also rumored to want to regain the hardcore gaming crown it lost after the SNES days. A reminder to Iwata-San and Reggie: Animal Crossing won't cut it, let Retro Studios shine here.

It will also be backwards-compatible with Wii software (and likely GCN software by extension). This means Motion Control will return, and implies a late-model IBM Power-PC architecture.

Some sources indicate Nintendo may tease us a bit before E3.

NCL has put up a site for Star Fox 64 3D. It is sparse on info, but it does act just like the Star Fox 64 intro: The music is there, and "STAR FOX IN *LENSFLARE* NINTENDO 3DS" flashes by.

We then get to see the re-made intro cutscene, sans voice acting, and a modernized SF64 logo, which you see attached to this post.

More importantly, we now have a firm date: Japanese release date for SF643D is July 7, 2011.

On the top right of the page, there appears to be a silhouette in one of the star patterns. Is it James, or am I seeing things? Sound off in the comments!

You can visit the site here:

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/3ds/anrj/index.html

Things are starting to come together. The more recent articles have been restored, as have the major game pages.

Minor game pages and the gallery will be the next things to come back.

Media, such as the voice acting and music, will come back soon. I am converting it to be database-based instead of static pages. This will allow searching and other good stuff. It will also make adding more media later easier.

There is some php code to be written for this a lot of data entry here, so it will take a week or two to get that all back up. You can still listen to our music collection at the SFO Jukebox.

Once the music is back online, the jukebox will be taken down, as IPB's media tag makes it possible to include this functionality on the media pages themselves.

The 3DS is out! If you want one, they are now available. I'm getting mine in a few hours.