Latest news with #Nintendo64
Engadget
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Donkey Kong Bananza's creators reflect on the game's path to delightful destruction
On Tuesday, Nintendo published an interview with the creators of Donkey Kong Bananza . The second big Switch 2 tentpole title comes from the team that made Super Mario Odyssey . The developers explained how they laid the foundation for DK's first 3D adventure since the Nintendo 64 era. Destruction is at the heart of Donkey Kong Bananza . Everything in his environment can be smashed to bits. Not only is that a fun mechanic, but it also adds an element of verticality and freedom of exploration. That's an ideal fit for showcasing the Switch 2's processing power. As with so many other Nintendo creations, the first step in getting there was a no-brainer. Consult with Shigeru Miyamoto. "We'd built up a lot of expertise in gameplay development for 3D action games through our work on 3D Mario games, including Super Mario Odyssey ," producer Kenta Motokura said. "But we needed to dive deeper into the fundamental question of 'What is Donkey Kong?' So, our first step was to seek out Miyamoto-san and Nintendo Executive Officer Yoshiaki Koizumi." In their talk, Miyamoto emphasized DK's moves like hand slaps and blowing. Along similar lines, Koizumi pointed to the ape's massive arms, which he uses to punch and hoist heavy objects. That got the team thinking. After all, who doesn't want to control a giant ape who runs around, breaking shit? DK slapping a platform in the 2010 game Donkey Kong Country Returns. Shigeru Miyamoto emphasized the move as a starting point for the new version. (Nintendo / Retro) The Super Mario Odyssey team was uniquely suited to handle that challenge. First, the 2017 title included some light environmental destruction. (Think the cheese rocks in the Luncheon Kingdom and Bowser's smashing in the final level.) The team experimented with fully destructible environments soon after Odyssey 's release. (That was long before they knew they'd make a Donkey Kong game.) That included the adorably strange idea of putting smashing fists on a Goomba and setting it loose. Part two of the interview includes a short video of one of these tests. On a technical level, the key to that mechanic is using voxels (3D pixels). "In Super Mario Odyssey , we started using voxels midway through development, so the areas where we could apply them were limited," Motukura said. "But the trial and error we went through back then directly led to what we were able to do in Donkey Kong Bananza ." Another interesting tidbit from the interview is that they started working on the game as a Switch 1 title. "We originally began developing Donkey Kong Bananza on Nintendo Switch, but we ran into some challenges," Motokura said. "I think it was around 2021 when we started to think about moving development to Switch 2." In the comparison image below, you can see a much richer environment in the Switch 2 version. Art director Daisuke Watanabe explained that the new console's hardware opened new doors. "We first looked into how we could upgrade what we'd originally built for Switch to take advantage of Switch 2," Watanabe said. "One of the most obvious improvements was that we could place far more objects in the environment than before. Being able to place more objects in the terrain didn't just enhance the game's visual richness. More importantly, it increased the amount of things players could destroy, which amplified the exhilaration of being able to demolish anything and everything." There are many more nuggets in Nintendo's interview. This includes animal transformations and Pauline's role in the game. (She must be the forgiving type, given how they started.) The chat also explores how DK's modern art style evolved. You can visit Nintendo's website for the full lowdown. Donkey Kong Bananza will be available tomorrow, July 17.
Engadget
15-07-2025
- Business
- Engadget
Analogue says its delayed N64 remake console will start shipping next month
US tariffs continue to cause problems and supply issues in the gaming space. The latest to feel the effects is Analogue. The company announced today that its Analogue 3D, a modern remake of the Nintendo 64 console, will not start shipping until late August. Analogue noted that "last week's sudden tariffs" were the reason for this change. "We're absorbing the costs—your preorder price stays the same. No additional charges," the company said in a post on X. This isn't the first time the highly anticipated Analogue 3D has been delayed. It opened for pre-orders in October 2024 and was initially due to ship in the first quarter of 2025. In March, the company pushed the ship date back to July, although its blog post didn't provide a reason for that move. Many gaming brands have been forced to adapt to the fluctuating tariff rules. Nintendo , Sony , Razer and Anbernic are just some of the companies that have changed their product pricing, availability or launches in the US as a result of the ever-changing situation.
The Verge
15-07-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Analogue's 4K N64 has been delayed again, but only by a month
The Analogue 3D has been hit with another delay, but should still be launching this summer. In an update on its preorder website, Analogue explained that it's modern take on the Nintendo 64 'is now shipping in late August 2025,' after previously aiming for July. The company said in a separate statement that the decision was made due to the ever-changing situation around US tariffs. 'Following last week's sudden tariff changes, Analogue 3D will now begin shipping next month,' the company explained in a post on X. 'We're absorbing the costs — your preorder price stays the same. No additional charges. Late August, the wait ends: reviews go live with everything we've been saving for this moment.' Like its previous hardware, the $249.99 Analogue 3D is a modern console designed to play old games, in this case N64 cartridges. The new console can upscale classic games to 4K and includes multiple display modes to mimic the look and feel of a CRT display, and the company says that it supports 100 percent of N64 cartridges. It was originally planned for a launch in 2024, but has been hit with multiple delays since it was initially announced.
Local Sweden
14-07-2025
- Business
- Local Sweden
'Awesome people get pushed away': What's happening in the Swedish gaming industry?
In the past few months, a number of Swedish gaming companies have gone bankrupt or laid off staff amid struggles to find funding. Why is this happening, and how is it affecting foreigners in the industry? Advertisement For years, gaming has been one of Sweden's largest exports, with the gaming industry employing thousands in recent years. Many of those are international workers on work permits. We spoke to some of them to get an insider's perspective on what's happening in the industry. 'It's pretty horrific' One of the people The Local spoke to has worked in the Swedish gaming industry for over a decade, including stints at major game publishers. He's been affected personally by recent layoffs and has multiple friends and former colleagues who have been laid off and had to leave Sweden, unable to find a new job. 'One of my friends had three months to find a job, was scrambling around, and it didn't work out. He had a place here, had to sell it, his kid spoke Swedish, and now they've moved back to his home country. It's pretty horrific,' he said. As an EU citizen, he doesn't need a work permit to stay in Sweden, unlike non-EU citizens who lose their work permit unless they find a new job within three months after their notice period ends. Because of this, he has been able to go freelance. He wished to remain anonymous so as not to jeopardise his career. The layoffs in the industry aren't just hitting younger, more entry-level members of the gaming industry, he said, but also people with a lot of experience. 'I have a friend who shipped classic games on the Nintendo 64, he has such a wealth of knowledge. He just got laid off last week and has three months to figure it out.' 'More of a correction than a crisis' Karl Magnus Troedsson, former CEO of Swedish games company DICE, recently described the situation in the games industry to Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) as "a negative perfect storm", due to bankruptcies, redundancies and difficulties finding staff. "The discussion has gone from 'it'll be better in 2024', to '2025 looks like it will be difficult', to 'oh god, what is 2026 going to be like'," he told the newspaper. Troedsson is also the founder and partner of games-focused risk capital company Behold Ventures. "It's natural that you reassess the size of your staff," he said, "but what we're seeing now is much larger. It's a negative perfect storm." But despite the layoffs, the reader we spoke to is not sure he would describe the current situation as a crisis. 'It's more of a correction,' he said, adding that the industry saw a huge boom during the pandemic, as more people were stuck at home. At that time, there was a lot of investment going around, he said, as the gaming industry was one of the only industries that was performing well. 'The investors and venture capitalists and all the other people who had money to throw around were like 'oh, we're just gonna put money there because these nerds are at home and can ship games from home – they're just working in their basements, producing games, and people are consuming them,' he said. Advertisement Not only did this lead a lot of companies to start 'hiring like crazy', he added, but it also led to a lot of so-called 'veterans' leaving their stable jobs at big studios and securing investment to go out on their own. 'There are a bunch of these in Stockholm, companies that were started two or three years ago by veterans, who got a lot of money from venture capitalists. They would just transfer 100 million kronor to a company like that, to a team, and say 'ok, if they make a game that sells 1 billion kronor, we've made ten times our profit'. If they do that with 20 companies and five of them do that, they're good.' 'A lot of it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint' Many of those companies are now struggling to get more funding, the reader said, as they're moving on to the next stage of production, but costs are mounting and the business argument for more investment has become weaker. 'It's not easy to create a game from nothing. It's more difficult than creating a film. You can storyboard a film, but you can't storyboard a game. You need to design it. So a lot of these people built these teams, relocated people from across the globe, and then when the time comes to get funding, it's not easy to get. AI is a black hole for all the money out there, then there's the stuff that Trump is doing and the global outlook in general. People are battening down the hatches.' Advertisement Not only is it difficult to create a game from scratch – he estimated the average time to make a good game at 'five to six years' – but it's difficult to form a company from scratch and costs a lot of money to keep it going for that long before there is a final product to sell. 'From a business standpoint, a lot of it doesn't make sense,' he said. 'Let's say you have a staff of 60 to 70 people, you have a burn rate of a million euros a month. You have to pay rent, licenses, fly people around the world to go to conferences, they're usually in senior positions and have high wages, and often they're making a game that can't recoup those numbers.' This means that, even in cases where a studio has created a concept for a fun game which is likely to sell, it can end up not getting funding to move onto the next stage of the production process because it still might not sell enough to cover the years of costs racked up during production. 'Talent is getting pushed away' A number of other people working in the gaming industry speaking to The Local confirmed that they had not only lost their job once due to employer bankruptcies, but that they had lost their jobs multiple times as different employers filed for bankruptcy one after another. 'I'm in a lot of stress,' one non-EU reader said, adding that he had been looking for a job for six months with little success. 'I got a few interviews amidst a multitude of applications, with the majority of them ending in ghosting. The situation is indeed very bad." Advertisement He said that he would expect to have found something by now, due to his experience and passion for his work. "Instead, I'm on the verge of being forced to uplift my whole life back to the other side of the world, and to leave my current future plans behind." "It sucks. Although the industry is tough (or in literal flames), it would be much less stressful if Swedish migration rules were more considerate. The time to find another job is too small and doesn't even allow you to use your a-kassa [unemployment insurance] properly." The non-EU reader said that he has several colleagues in the same situation, and that some of them have already left the country. "In the end, awesome people and talent gets pushed away." Another person The Local spoke to, originally from South Korea, said the gaming industry is 'doomed'. 'People who have jobs are terrified they are going to lose them' The EU reader quoted previously, who has recently gone freelance after a layoff, added that people in the gaming industry in general are 'terrified'. 'You have to understand that this is a dream job for people. And the companies use that. They fly people around, underpay and overwork people, all of that is part of this industry. So the people who have jobs now are all terrified that they're going to lose them, and they should be,' he said. During the pandemic, roles in the gaming industry attracted specialists from other tech companies like Spotify and Klarna, and now there are not enough jobs to go around, he added. 'Now it's like musical chairs. The music has stopped and some people don't have seats.' Advertisement More investment is also going to AI, which has made it even more difficult to get a share of the shrinking pot of money available. It's not just the smaller studios which are struggling due to increased costs – larger studios like Microsoft, which owns Mojang, the company responsible for Minecraft, the best-selling game in history, are also laying off workers. 'From a growth perspective, the money is there. Microsoft booked record profits in their gaming division. But costs have doubled since the pandemic, and now that's being corrected down, because you don't need 2,000 people to make Candy Crush,' he said. Candy Crush is made by Swedish studio King, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2023. The Unionen union recently confirmed to Svenska Dagbladet that King would be laying off 200 workers, with 96 of those based in Stockholm. 'A personal crisis' The EU reader who had worked at major publishing studios added that this could be the start of a shift from salaried roles to freelance gigs – but only for specialists and people who already have a lot of experience. 'A composer, for instance, could be independent, because they can work on many projects. You're not tied to one brand or company with one specific IP. You could work on Star Wars one month and Call of Duty the next month.' Advertisement Despite his belief that the current situation is a 'correction' more than a 'crisis', the reader added that it is definitely a 'personal crisis' for many people in the industry currently going through a layoff. 'There are people that consider themselves to be game developers who are not going to be game developers next year. And for them, that's a personal crisis, because they've reached their goal, which is to work on games. And there are not enough chairs to seat everyone.'
Forbes
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Hello New ModRetro Chromatic Color, Goodbye Limited Stock
Chromatic Credit: ModRetro ModRetro's M64, an FPGA ode to the Nintendo 64, is supposedly on the way, though who knows when that will ship, or even go on sale, for that matter. In the meantime, however, we've got ourselves what seems to be a permanent restock of the retro revival company's premium Game Boy and Game Boy Color-compatible handheld. After selling out months ago, you can now buy the coveted Chromatic yet again, and in a new colorway, too, one that's simply dubbed Cloud (which is different than the GameStop variant). The fresh hue brings to mind the North American Super Nintendo motif, although if you'd rather have something a little bolder, the original rainbow options are still available, but they won't sport the notable '1st Edition' stamp found on units from the initial Chromatic production run. Since its inception, one of the big selling points of the Chromatic has been its extremely durable sapphire display, and interestingly enough, this restock arrives with an additional, cheaper screen option: Gorilla Glass. Chromatics with sapphire displays are priced at $299.99 ($100 more than they were at launch, by the way), while Chromatics with a less desirable Gorilla Glass offering will set you back $199.99. Both handhelds still come bundled with a physical cartridge of Tetris . Cloud Chromatic Credit: ModRetro Full disclosure: ModRetro kindly sent me a Chromatic months back for testing and I've only just gotten around to actually using it. I can honestly say it's a very solid Game Boy homage, if a little on the small side for my massive hands. The display quality is fantastic, and so are the springy buttons—I really like how they feel. The unit build-quality gives off tiny tank energy (did anyone ever play that weird PS1 title?) and I think it's worth the asking price, maybe even the increased $300. In many ways, I'd say I prefer it to the Analogue Pocket, although I do wish it played Game Boy Advance titles as well, even though that would go against the Chromatic's 'purest' design philosophy, as it were. I wouldn't doubt if ModRetro is working on a specific GBA follow-up for the future, though. Something with a horizontal hand-feel, no doubt. There's also a new rechargeable battery available on ModRetro's website, alongside a branded link cable and a mod kit that will allow you to change out d-pads and other inputs. I might have to check out that Power Core, because while AA batteries are nostalgic, they're sort of a pain to keep replacing. The link cable seems intriguing, too. I always loved playing head-to-head Pokémon with friends and siblings on my old Atomic Purple Game Boy Color. That said, let's just hope ModRetro isn't bringing back the Worm Light. Let's collectively shudder at such a thought. I wouldn't doubt if translucent Chromatic colors are on the way at some point, especially since Analogue has dabbled in this type of variant with its own Pocket handheld. But the Cloud option is good for the time being, and I'm excited about putting my Inferno review unit to the test over the next few weeks. If only I could grab a second Chromatic and try out the link cable. I guess I'd need a friend, too. Perhaps ModRetro could supply this as well? Stay tuned.
