Nintendo

Nice Butt Pun, Nintendo

Right now, I’m playing Miitopia. It’s cute, fun, and silly. The game also has one pun I can totally get behind. The above enemy character is called “Shiritori” (シリトリ) and appears in the middle of the game. That’s right, it’s a bird (a turkey?) with a butt face. In Mittopia, an evil baddies keeps taking…

The Wii U Was Great, Just Not For Me

Just because the Wii U was an afterthought for me, though, doesn’t mean it went ignored by the rest of my household.

Majora’s Mask Kicks Off First 4 Figures’ Life-Size Replica Line

Collectible statue makers First 4 Figures are branching off into the gaming replica business, starting with a stunning 25-inch replica of The Legend of Zelda’s Majora’s Mask, complete with conveniently removable horns. First 4 Figures has been doing Zelda statues for ages, so it makes sense Nintendo’s RPG series be the focus of the company’s…

Hidden Message Found In The Famicom Mini

Most game hardware is inevitably modded . That means if there are secret messages in the code, people will probably find them. While user Bakueikozo was modding the Famicom Mini, the following was apparently found in the console’s coding: This is the hanafuda captain speaking. Launching emulation in 3…2…1. Many efforts, tears and countless hours have…

Japan’s new Super Mario Happy Meal toys look awesome. They went on sale last Friday. Please come to the West. UPDATE: Oh hey, looks like they go on sale in the UK this week!

The Nintendo Switch’s Logo Is Not Symmetrical, And Arrrrgghhh

Games artist David Hellman pointed this out on Twitter over the weekend. I will never unsee it, and I’m not sure how I’m going to reconcile this over the years to come. As someone who craves order in my product and logo design I was already uneasy about the two dots not being symmetrical, but…

People Have Started Hacking Nintendo’s NES Classic And Adding More Games To It

It was only a matter of time before people found a way to hack Nintendo’s NES Classic, and that time has come. Earlier this week, modders trading tips on a Russian forum discovered a way to add ROMs to add extra games to the system that was previously limited to only thirty A modder going…

Super Mario Adventure: The Kotaku Review

This is a Mario game, but it’s not a Mario video game. It’s a ball puzzle/game/thing I got for my kid for Christmas, and we haven’t been able to stop playing it since. We spotted it on Amazon trawling for Mario merch (kid is nuts for Nintendo stuff), and figured that because the box was…

Pokémon Based On Inanimate Objects, Ranked

Some people will tell you that the worst Pokémon designs are the ones based on real-world items, rather than animals. Those people are wrong. Actually, some of the best creatures in the pocket monster roster are ones based on inanimate objects. The thing about inanimate object Pokémon is, you can tell Game Freak actually has…

Damn, Look At These Super Nintendo Sneakers

Just as there must be balance in life, so too must there be balance in sneaker concept posts on Kotaku.com, a website that is occasionally about video games. We have had Adidas designs recently, so now we must share these very nice Jordans. They’re the work of custom sneaker specialists Freaker Sneaks (via Nicekicks), and…

The Man Who Worked On The Original Game Boy Explains Why Nintendo Created The DS

Satoru Okada, who was General Manager of Nintendo Research & Engineering before he retired in 2012, said in a recent interview with Retro Gamer Magazine that no one on the handheld team liked the idea of the DS when it was first proposed. If some folks had gotten their way, Nintendo would have produced a…

One Father’s Issue With Peach Getting Kidnapped In Super Mario Run

Super Mario Run, Nintendo’s first mobile game, follows the standard Mario formula: Princess Peach gets kidnapped right away, and it’s up to Mario to save her. It’s for this reason that Chris Suellentrop doesn’t want his daughter to play it, as he wrote in an Op-Ed for The New York Times, saying, “the game is…

Pirates Leak Pokémon Prism After Nintendo Shuts It Down

Pokémon Prism is a fan-made ROM hack for Pokémon Crystal. Over the course of eight years, creator Koolboyman and his team crafted a new Pokémon experience, which they hoped to release this Christmas. Nintendo hit them with a cease and desistfour days before release. Thanks to a group of pirates, the project still made it…

The Rise and Fall of Competitive Pokémon’s Most Hated Bird, Talonflame

Talonflame, a fire/flying Pokémon, took over the competitive scene after it was added to the monster compendium with Pokémon X & Y. For the last three years, wise competitive players made sure to prepare for Talonflame’s appearance on the enemy team. Everything changed after the release of Sun and Moon. At first, many believed Talonflame…

3DS Software Famed For Piracy Hit With Nintendo Takedown, Creator Says

Freeshop is homebrew software touted as a tool used to download 3DS games that you already own. Most people, however, know Freeshop as a thing you can use to download entire 3DS games, free of charge (hence the name). Today, Freeshop’s main distribution source was hit with a DMCA notice. If you visit the old…

The 31 Most Important Japanese Games Ever Made

Over the decades, Japanese developers have churned out a mind-boggling number of video games. Some are good, and some are bad. These are the thirty-one most important ones. This piece originally appeared 7/1/16. Deciding which ones are the most important is tricky and subjective. I’ve tried to include games that have influenced Japanese gaming, worldwide…

Nintendo filed for a trademark for “Eternal Darkness” on December 20 according to a document submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The filing could be related the Nintendo Switch’s reported ability to play GameCube games. Kickstarters for a spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem never got off the ground.

A Close Look At A Prototype Nintendo DS

You may not know Evan Amos by name, but you’ve certainly seen his work: he’s responsible for many of the clean product shots of video game consoles that you see on Wikipedia (and by extension everywhere else). Today, he’s shared something very cool for fans of old Nintendo hardware These are nice, clear shots of…

The Legend Of Zelda Was Planned On These Sheets Of Paper

There’s something about analog development materials. Take, for example, these Legend of Zelda original design documents. Hand drawn on paper, they are still a sight to see. Nintendo UKrecently uploaded a host of these originals on its official site. Here is Takashi Tezuka’s skull room drawing, with a comparison to how it appeared in game.…

1992 Miyamoto Interview About Zelda Is Great

In 1992, Shigeru Miyamoto sat down for an interview with Famicom Tsuushin magazine, mostly to talk about Zelda, but also to shed some light on what it was like working at Nintendo at the time. It’s a very good read. We’ve actually written about this interview previously, though that was apparently an incomplete translation; this…