Hideo Kojima's son responsible for Snake being in Smash Bros.

Who else was taken by surprise back in E3 2007 when Solid Snake was announced for Smash Bros Brawl? Well, be prepared to be surprised even more; the person responsible for the inclusion isn't Hideo Kojima, the creator of Metal Gear, but his son. Apparently he thought this was a good idea...and probably didn't want to see his son go disappointed.

“My child likes Super Smash Bros., so we play it a lot together. And he told me that there’s no character that you made in that game.”
“As you know, we did make Twin Snakes, but generally speaking, there hasn’t been a lot of Metal Gear on Nintendo platforms. So from that perspective, I thought it was a good way to expose younger people to this character, Snake,”

Source

Hideo Kojima's son responsible for Snake being in Smash Bros.

Resident Evil REVELAITONS

Yay, another of Capcom's box art mistakes, and another game that will become a collector's item because of it. Who's got this pre-ordered?

Capcom has issues public apologies for the mistake and is fixing the next batch of copies.

Resident Evil REVELAITONS

What is the future of Nintendo Home Console Support?

Are Wii U ready?

In an attempt to broaden an audience of a new fan base of paying gamers, it would seem logical to release a game on every system not only to benefit the gamers that don’t have the other systems, but also for the game developers themselves to gain more feedback to make even better games. So why on earth do the developers opt to the pick-and-choose option to releasing a game(s) on a select few systems rather than all of them, and shun a perfectly good fan base just because of fear that the potential buyers would be few and would rather buy the same game on HD supported systems? Yes, I’m talking about the third parties, and that system I was referring to is the Wii . 2011 was both a hit-and-miss for third party games on the system: on one hand we did get Rayman Origins out of nowhere, but on the other hand we could’ve gotten more for a system that’s on it’s last life. It’s times like these when the Wii’s hardware comes back to haunt it and the system not supporting HD graphics is a big turnoff for third party developers that want their games to look perfect. Wii’s first-party support this year is nothing to sneeze at though, and I have to hand it to Nintendo for handling yet another stellar year, and Skyward Swords delivered what it promised, but I just wish third parties did the same.

Here's a couple of examples of third-party ignorance: Capcom could have very well released Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the Wii, but shunned it downed, and as if to point the middle finger at Nintendo gamers later released Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and made Pheonix Wright of the prior DS exclusive Ace Attorney series one of the playable characters. And most recently SEGA announced that they would not be releasing Sonic 4: Episode 2 on WiiWare because of updated graphics from the first episode (and at this point you know that whenever a developer comes up and says, “This game will have improved graphics…” you know it won’t be coming to the Wii). SEGA also didn’t release Sonic Generations on the Wii last year, but oddly released it on the 3DS instead. It was later made clear by the “In 3-D!” logo on the Xbox360/PS3 versions of the game that SEGA didn’t release the game on the Wii because it didn’t support 3-D. You can easily say: “But they gave us exclusives Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and Sonic Colors a few years back so stop whining!” but again I question why they would shun a new fan base and release the game on all systems except the Wii when they could’ve made more profit off of it. And they choose not to do it when 2011 looked like it was the last year of the Wii? Come on now!

This is what I originally feared for the Wii U: third party developers would look at the system, think they would have to use a gimmicky controllers whether they want to or not, and just doom the system with cash-in shovel ware and give other systems actual games just like how they treated the Wii (I‘m staring at you SoulCalibur Adventure). We’ve already lost Capcom, and other companies like Ubi-Soft have just used the Wii as a dart board to randomly shoot shovel ware at the system until the whole Wii game aisle at Best Buy is infested with garbage games shadowing good games like weeds choking on flowers, because Wii remote wagglin’ is so compulsory and necessary it must be in every game they make NO MATTER WHAT! (meanwhile, the Virtual Console controller stares on blankly)     

But I got news for you: the Wii Isn’t done just yet, shovel ware is on all systems and we must accept it, and Crapcom was always Crapcom (just sayin‘). In it’s life time, the Wii has accomplished creating a whole new fan base of people that never have played games, gave us exclusives that you can’t play anywhere else, and made us feel young again with Virtual Console, but I still feel only 60% of the system has been really tapped and explored. Nonetheless, the Wii will not die in infamy and just be considered a “fad toy”. No, it’s legacy will live on forever - in a new form called the Wii U. Here’s to hoping that third parties will give the Wii U a chance; make us proud to be Nintendo gamers.

What is the future of Nintendo Home Console Support?

Xenoblade, are thou standing before me?

It’s official. Xenoblade is finally coming to North America via Gamestop exclusive! Surprised? I can’t blame you. With Nintendo’s response to Project Rainfall with a frequent "We never say 'never,' but we can confirm that there are no plans to bring these three games to the Americas at this time. Thanks so much for your passion, and for being such great fans!" chances of this game getting an American release just became dimmer and dimmer as the months went by. And considering Nintendo’s history of not bringing new IP titles overseas (Fatal Frame 4, Mother 3, Freshly Picked Tingle’s Rosy RupeeLand), it seemed uneventful  that we would ever see Xenoblade. So it was a big slap in the face when this title was announced for Europe and soon Australia along with Pandora’s Tower and The Last Story; two other Japan exclusives. Not bashing Nintendo or anything, but that was a pretty dumb move.

But it’s finally coming. You can now pre-order the game on Gamestop. This is really happening!  

This is not a time to hesitate; we need to show Nintendo that there ARE gamers like us that will buy these kinds of games. If you are the kind of gamer that is sick of seeing games like Mother 3 not being localized then you must act. Nintendo is not going to localize games that don’t sell: YOU have the power. Buying this game will say: “Yes Nintendo, we still support you! We are still your core gamers!” Make this a reality! AND If you don’t want new IP’s to become dust in the wind like the sadly underappreciated titles Drill Dozer, Chibi Robo, and Elite Beat Agents, which never became full series, then like I said before: you must be ready! We may never get a chance like this again, so we mustn’t fail. Spread the word. Tell every gamer. The final year of the Wii will not be in vain!  
 
It’s coming. Can you believe it? And it’s all thanks to an unlikely source. Here’s to you Gamestop; I never thought I’d see the day that you’d do something that made me want to come to your store.

Xenoblade, are thou standing before me?