Mailbag

| Bri Bri

Japanese Nintendo Mailbag #3!

Welcome to our third Mailbag post where I answer questions asking the 3DS death date, thoughts on Miyamoto, Metroid Prime in 2018 or 2019, Nintendo Switch Online and whether Pokémon is done on 3DS! Ask me questions on Tumblr or over on my Twitter! Image above copyright of マスカ.

How long do you think 3ds will last now? I mean, after miiverse, flipnote, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and more online features are ending, has your opinion on its death date changed?

Great question. I do think the 3DS will be around in some form at the start of 2019 and that there will be some super cheap 2DS/New 2DS XL bundles during Black Friday 2018 but it will not have any meaningful impact during this time and will fade away in 2019. I also expect a second Switch hardware iteration (maybe portable only and likely cheaper) for late 2018 with Nintendo thus prioritising the two Switch consoles. I don’t expect any major first party games in late 2018 (maybe a Kirby or similar compilation but nothing of significance). So death date 2019 but a spell of life support shortly before then.

What are your thoughts on Miyamoto’s design choices recently? Many hate Sticker Star and SF Zero.

Firstly my thoughts on Shigeru Miyamoto are that he is a legend and truly worthy of respect. He’s a great figurehead for Nintendo and still a great game designer. That being said, I do think he is very single-minded in his favouritism and direction of the Mario, Pikmin and Star Fox characters. For example down to the anecdotal evidence of Miyamoto choosing the Mario t-shirt above the Inkling Squid to win the Uniqlo contest. I’m just pleased that Splatoon and ARMS achieved what they achieved without Miyamoto’s overwhelming influence.

Hello, I am the CM of amiibo France, I shall like knowing if amiibo Champions will be sold singly and in pack in Japan, the image is not clear for me. Thank you

Yes, the Champions (and Super Mario Odyssey) amiibo will all be available as singles and as a set in Japan!

Do you think metroid prime 4 will release in 2018?

Interesting question. I do expect 2018 to see Smash Bros., Animal Crossing and maybe Super Mario Maker as well as Kirby and Yoshi (and who knows with Pokémon). If this was Wii U then even if Metroid Prime 4 was ready I could see it being delayed as Nintendo spaced out games more then. Nintendo seem to be releasing games more when they’re ready this generation. So the question is do I think MP4 will be ready in 2018? That also depends on when development started but I suspect it will be more likely 2019!

What are your opinions on Pokemon Crystal currently not on the 3DS Virtual Console? Do you think it will happen?

Well The Pokémon Company are rarely ones to miss out on full monetisation of anything really so I do expect it to come to either 3DS or Switch eventually!

What sort of features would you like to see with Nintendo’s online service.

I’m hardly an expert on online but the first thing they need to do is upgrade their servers and prevent the issues such as Splatoon 2 or eShop Sales crashing the servers. Also we need to see a decent selection of titles always available and not just the one Famicom game per month. As for other features – I’m sure you could answer that better than me;-)

How do you feel about Pokemon USUM probably being the last Pokemon games for the 3DS?

I guess it’ll be the last mainline game but even then nothing would surprise me if the announced Switch title also comes to 3DS! And I’m fine with the Pokémon series moving on. Like with the DS after Black & White 2; it was inevitable. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see more Virtual Console titles since GBA is technically doable on 3DS.

How well will DOOM and Wolfenstien do on Switch?

I will guess far better than most third party games did on Wii U but just how well that is, I can’t answer precisely!

when will you open your toad blog?

This in itself is news to some people but I do intend to start a Toad fan blog at some point in the future and bring back the fun to blogging where it isn’t all about waking up at 3am to post the translations of a Nintendo tweet! However there’s no timeline for this and I’m going to prioritise my upcoming podcast first and to getting a new job once fully recovered from surgery and assess what time is left available!

Please support Japanese Nintendo
Source: japanesenintendo.com
| Bri Bri

Japanese Nintendo Mailbag #2! 

Welcome to our second Mailbag post where I answer questions all from the same user and relating to: the birth of my blog, my first Japanese system, Miitomo’s life expectancy, Animal Crossing on mobile, my fave online multiplayer game and how many 3DS systems I own! Ask me questions on Tumblr or over on my Twitter!

1. How long have you been running this blog?

I started in in January 2013 as just another tumblog. It became Japanese 3DS in April of that year and Japanese Nintendo almost two years ago!

2. When did you get your (first?) Japanese-region system?

I got my first Japanese games long before my first Japanese system as Game Boy was region-free and I had a Universal Adaptor for my SNES. However I think it was my Game Boy Light!

3. How long do you think Miitomo will last?

Such a great question. After Nintendo’s brutality recently with Miiverse, Wii U Chat, TVii, SplatNet and Flipnote Studio I honestly can’t see Miitomo seeing 2019:-(

4. Any expectations for the mobile Animal Crossing game?

I haven’t thought too much about the mobile game, more-so of the Animal Crossing game it is supposed to help promote. Logic implies that a Nintendo Switch Animal Crossing has to happen soon!

5. Which game released on a Nintendo system has your favorite online multiplayer?

I’m probably going to alienate many readers by saying I much prefer playing alone – offline multiplayer at best! The games I’ve played most online however have been Splatoon (1) and Mario Kart 8.

6. How many 3DS systems do you have?

I’ve sold several and currently have just three: one European and two Japanese. 

Please support Japanese Nintendo
Source: japanesenintendo.com
| Bri Bri

Japanese Nintendo Mailbag! 

Welcome to the first ever Mailbag post where I answer questions about Erica, badges, posting, themes and Picopuri! Please feel free to ask me any gaming-related questions (or add to any of these answers!) on Tumblr or on Twitter!

I was just wondering if you know Erica’s name in the Japanese version of Miitomo? 🙂 Erica is the mascot you see in the app icon.

Hi there. Erica isn’t used much in the promotion of the app as Japan use Miide Tomoshiru (the Twitter guy). Erica isn’t used much if at all in the Japanese Miiverse either. Please feel free to correct me if I’ve missed anything!

Now that the badge arcade is done, do you have pictures of every machine released?

Sadly I don’t. There is a Japanese YouTuber who has all the badges but I can’t remember his handle!

What was that post of yours that just vanished after posting? It said “Nintendo to publish” or something like that in my push notifications…

Oh no! I have no idea now! Sorry!

I think your stuff would be a lot more popular and shared on tumblr if you didn’t put the meat of the content under a readmore. I know you want to direct people to your site but I think it would help a lot if you didn’t push it so hard.

I’m not actually all that concerned with clicks as I don’t have any advertisements. The reason some content is under the ‘read more’ is the size of some posts. I’m trying to keep this to a minimum however. Video posts (and the Mailbag!) are an exception!

Do you know if America will receive the themes and games only available to Japan? Or is there a way to suggest this to Nintendo? I find it unfair that they receive more than the US and believe customers would be happier with more products.

Japan does have a lot of licensed anime and vocaloid themes. I’m unsure if there’s much of a market for these in the States and many don’t appear to sell well in Japan. I would advise contacting publishers of themes in the west to ask if they could potentially obtain the licenses. As for games, the 3DS and now Switch have the best record of localising of Japanese games.

I was wondering if you have heard anything about the Pico Puri magazine.  I keep checking the CD Japan website but I haven’t seen a new issue.  I wondered if they stopped publishing the magazine all together. Have you heard anything?

Nothing is official and every issue seems to take several months (and several weeks longer than the latest issue took). The latest issue actually had an apology for the delay on its webpage (http://www.enterbrain.com/product/magazine/picopuri) time nothing:-( Hopefully we’ll see a new issue soon and I’ll make plenty of noise the moment we do! 

Please support Japanese Nintendo
Source: japanesenintendo.com