The one exception to this has been Nintendo- Nintendo has managed to not only survive, but thrive in HD development. Its HD games have been among the very best that the company has put out in nearly a decade, with titles like Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Pikmin 3 being the standouts. As it turns out, Nintendo’s mastery over HD development has a reason, and it’s a reason rooted in its very corporate culture.

“As you say, HD development tends to need a lot more people due to the higher standards required,” said Nintendo’s Katsuya Eguchi, who directed the upcoming shooter Splatoon, in an interview to EDGE. “The question of how to secure the necessary programmers and designers is one common to all companies in the industry, and everyone has to find ways of dealing with it. For example, if you increase the number of staff, there will be a greater difference in skill levels between them, which makes managing quality control extremely important.

“However, what’s really critical is making sure that this increased number of staff aren’t doing any unnecessary work. It hurts to imagine just how many people’s work would be wasted if we had to redo something. Being able to judge what needs to be done is the key to making sure that people and time are not wasted. This applies not only to decisions about specific features after development has started, but also to the starting point itself – what kind of new game to make, for example. That is critical, and getting it wrong runs the risk of the whole project amounting to nothing.

“It’s normal that, when a company decides what to start developing, the opinions of the people at the top of the organisation are given the most weight. It makes sense because the people in those roles have had a lot of experience and success stories. However, Nintendo is an entertainment company, and good ideas for entertainment can come from anywhere… Young people are also more sensitive to new trends, developments and technologies that are appearing. We are trying to use the opinions of this younger generation even at the start of a project,” he concluded.

So, the long and short of this is, Nintendo does not let the corporate suits run the company and decide what gets developed, but rather, actual developers and gamers. That would certainly make a lot of sense, really.

We got Heists inbound. We’ve only been waiting, what? A life time? Well you can rest assured that they are coming, probably rather soon if the information that we’ve been given is reliable!

A short piece posted on Rockstar Games website today, alongside an enormous (and very well made) infographic, gave us a teasing insight into what’s coming soon.

An excerpt reads, “We know you’re all excited for more Updates to come and we’ve got some really exciting stuff in the works to continue adding to, expanding and evolving the world of Grand Theft Auto Online – including the highly anticipated launch of Online Heists which will be available for all four consoles as the first GTA Online Update to happen after the game launches on PS4 and Xbox One.”

While the confirmation is exciting enough, what we want is all the details and information, but sadly that hasn’t been commented on…yet.

[Source]

“When it comes to the scale of software development, Wii U with HD graphics requires about twice the human resources than before. Please allow me to explain that we may have underestimated the scale of this change and as a result, the overall software development took more time than originally anticipated just as we tried to polish the software at the completion phase of development.

But there is good news. “However, we are almost out of this phase, and we are also trying to create something unique utilizing an easier development approach called ‘Nintendo Web Framework.'”

Will it reduce the weight for titles like Pikmin 3 and Super Smash Bros. in the near future? One can always hope.

“What is true today is that there are fewer AAA games being built than at the same point in the previous generation. I’ve done some calculations that say there were about 125 teams in the industry worldwide working on what I’d call a AAA game on a console, and that was 7 or 8 years ago.

“That number today is well south of 30; probably in the 25 range. What’s interesting is that, if you look at the composition of those teams, the numbers are exactly the same: those 125 teams became 25; the size of the teams increased by a factor of four. It seems things will stabilize heading into the next generation though.

Of course, this is due to the increase in visual quality and ever demanding nature of consumers for the biggest, best and most explosive title out there. “This has everything to do with the standard definition to HD change. If you look at the math, that change is about content – richly about content – and as we evolved, our costs went substantially up.

“And the number of people on teams with that kind of vision went up by necessity. I don’t see that kind of content-oriented change coming in this next generation of platforms. As a result, I think we were on a path that made me nervous, but it seems to have stabilised.”

With its surreal setting and resemblance to the cult classic Twin Peaks, Deadly Premonition offers a look into the mind of Hidetaka “Swery” Suehiro, putting players into an open world horror adventure wherein they must solve the mystery behind brutal murder of a local Greenvale beauty. And it doesn’t help that supernatural creatures are involved, for whatever inexplicable reason.

The Director’s Cut will feature new content for PS3 fans, including a new scenario for the game, completely overhauled graphics remade in HD, an improved control system that now allows you to remap buttons and downloadable content that takes somehow let’s York and Zach live it up in Greenvale.

No possible good can come from that, but we look forward to the consequences come April end.

Brazilian rating board showed vgleaks that Castle of Illusion, a platform game developed by SEGA with Mickey Mouse as the main character is being remade for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U and PlayStation Vita.

Digital cover of the game was leaked earlier today.

New cover art just might prove that a remaster is incoming of the original game. Castle of Illusion HD would be fantastic, especially after Capcom revealed Ducktales HD Remaster.

Is this a possibly a new trend now in the industry, to re-release HD Remasters of old favorite games? Only one could dream.

Castle of Illusion originally came out back in 1990, imagine replaying this game in an awesome HD glory today.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more news and updates.

Source – VGleaks

Capcom employee replied back to fan questions on Capcom Unity. Senior vice president Christian Svensson wrote:  “New development in the form of updated versions of SF2, SF3, MvC2, MvC1, Marvel Super Heroes, Darkstalkers, Puzzle Fighter etc. Sadly, I think we’ve probably run the course of feasible titles here given the droppoff we’ve seen in sales with each new introduction.

“It seems the novelty of such projects is wearing off even within just the fighting game community based upon the sales data of our last two launches. That said, we have been quite prolific in these areas (despite the assertion above that we haven’t) and it’s probably time for us to slow down anyway.”

Darkstalkers Ressurction was the most recent HD release back in March. The game included Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge and Darkstalkers 3. The game featured GGPO-enabled online game play and HD Graphical filtering.

For more news regarding Capcom and its future, stay tuned on GamingBolt. Post your comments below if you are interested in expressing your opinion regarding this matter.

Source

Japan’s got its very own remastered HD version of the vintage Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and we’ve got some footage from the build for you below.

Western folks will have to wait since there’s no word if this will be seeing a western release at all.

For now, watch it and get even more frustrated.

We’ve the first Splinter Cell: HD Collection screens which is releasing later this year for the PS3.

Check them out below.

The compilation will contain some of the most popular Splinter Cell games released so far in glorious HD and all of them will come with trophy support.

Holy shit.

A video which appears to be of the MGS tech demo shown today for the PSP2 aka the NGP has laneded on youtube.

The footage looks surreal to say the least and if this is how PSP2 games are going to look, we doubt if it’ll be subject to competition from any other handheld.

Take a look, get excited.