It looks like Zelda is at it again! In this years Nintendo Power Top 200, Eight Zelda games took a stand for Nintendo, this is a great achievement, and it truly reflects the quality of the overall series
Category: News
About News
Zelda and the Revolutionary Controller?
NGC, a popular magazine in the UK, recently had an article touching on Twilight Princess. Interestingly enough the article said that while Twilight Princess was still a Gamecube game, playing the game on the Revolution would allow the new controller to be used. Exactly how this would work was not touched upon. However, bonuses like
Zelda in Third Place
Today I was looking at Nintendo.com and I came across some interesting sales figures. Zelda is the third best selling franchise in Nintendo’s history! Just ahead of DK, and miles behind Pokémon and Mario. This makes the game an ever more formidable power in Nintendo’s control.
Source: Nintendo [as of Sept 2005]:
Total Mario series: more than 184 million units sold worldwide
Total Zelda series: more than 47 million units worldwide
Total Metroid series: more than 11 million units worldwide
Total Pokémon series: more than 143 million units worldwide
Total Donkey Kong series: more than 44 million units worldwide
Celebrations or commiserations. It’s your call. But I know I’m celebrating.
Zelda Revolution 1st March
Today I was informed that the gaming website, GameStop had released their official date for the Zelda Revolution. So we can now pre-order the game. However, I find that this is chilling. A game that we’ve got no information about, a game that we don’t even know will exist, and sites like GameStop are giving estimated release dates to!
The release date is set for the 1st March 2006. That’s before we can expect to even hear about the Revolution for crying out loud! We’ve had loads of Nintendo officials tell us that they do not want to release any new Zelda, and any Revolution details until the end of the fiscal year, which means April to us normal people. So this release date is just simply out of the question.
However, what this release date is doing, even if it was not the original intention of the company GameStop, is making people doubt Nintendo further. Already I’ve been to a forum where people are thinking that Twilight Princess may end up being a Revolution game, regardless of the many statements made previously by Nintendo. This sort of date just puts fears into the Zelda fan, simply because which of us can really afford to buy a Revolution as well as the Zelda game that comes with it, as well as Twilight Princess in the same year? I for one know that at this moment in time, I’ll have to save a lot to do so.
Yet, we can all rest easy when it comes to this. I believe that this date is completely false. It couldn’t get any falser if it tried. The 1st March? I doubt it somewhat.
Zelda Movie… Not Currently Being Planned
The following image appeared on the website of Club Nintendo, the source that reported in the previous weeks that Nintendo was planning an upcoming Zelda movie in addition to a Metroid one:
“In our November issue, in the Dr. Mario section, due to a misinterpretation we said that Reggie had mentioned that Nintendo would be working on a Zelda movie, which is totally FALSE. It should have said the following:
While Nintendo is working on a Metroid movie, there are currently no plans for a Zelda or Mario film as of now.
Club Nintendo assumes this mistake in its entirely.”
Sorry guys, apparently it was a misunderstanding on Club Nintendo’s part. The error may have gotten our hopes up, but we can still hope for the success of the Metroid movie, and a probable Zelda movie being announced after that.
Zelda Released on Silver?
No, I’m not talking about cartridge colors. (GameCube uses DVDs, people! They’re already silver!) I’m talking about the silver screen.
According to an issue of the Spanish Club Nintendo, Reggie Fils-Aime has supposedly confirmed an effort to create a Zelda movie while talking about the efforts under way to creating a movie based upon Metroid.
The article says “Reggie Fils-Aime (Vice President of Marketing for NOA) told us that they will focus on [a movie about] the adventure of Samus and then later start with something about Zelda and maybe Mario. When? Still no word, but don’t doubt that it won’t be something sensational” (translation mine).
Technically, this appears in an official magazine, but pundits so far remain somewhat skeptical since the Metroid efforts haven’t reached filming stage yet. However, this is the first official word that confirms that there are plans in the works for making Zelda on the silver screen. Seeing that we’re in the wake of Doom and several other video game titles, this really doesn’t come as a surprise, but as everyone mentioned before, this does come with some controversy.
One Hundred
According to a Japanese article, “between the single-player adventure and all of its hidden side-quests, there are over 100 hours of gameplay to be experienced. Also on the subject of size, it’s said that the game in general is much bigger than any Zelda before it. Finally, the article goes on to relay that the fresh and new gameplay mechanics introduced in Twilight Princess will set the benchmark for the next generation of Zelda” (emphasis mine).
If you remember, the last time we heard an indication of length, Aonuma guesstimated 70 hours. Whether his estimate was strictly storyline or included side-quest tallies as well, I can’t say for certain, but I think something interesting to point out is that, out of all the RPGs I have ever heard of (the only games that are typically measured in “hours”), I have never heard of any non-MMORPG lasting 100+ hours. (You all can correct me if I’m wrong, but even Final Fantasy X didn’t advertise that, and it was a huge game. Perhaps I’m trying to count my cuccos before their hatched, but I believe that this not only sets a benchmark for Zelda, it will set a benchmark for all RPGs to come.
The Underground Gamers Surface
Nintendo DS owners should beware. There is a virus going around targeting DS units.
Now let’s step back a moment. There aren’t many people out there who truly really be affected by this disturbing news… at least, yet. Unless you own a DS and unless you take part in the homebrew/hacking realm, Trojan DS Brick
Animated Series on DVD
Today the Legend of Zelda: Complete Animated Series is being released. This is the first time all 13 episodes have been released together. For those who don’t remember, the show aired back in the 80s and was centered around the original Legend of Zelda game. Included on the DVD is an Interactive match game, Trivia,
Video Games Live Cancelled
I’m going to disable comments on this article because there really isn’t a great deal of profitable discussion that can come from it; I think the news stands for itself.
In a previous article, I mentioned about the Video Games Live concert that was going to occur all across the country. Unfortunately, in a recent press release, the concert has been cancelled in all cities except Seattle and Vancouver. The cause for the cancellation is a result from low ticket sales for most of their engagements.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a little disappointed to see this happen. To hear in person the Zelda theme (amongst many others!) on stage would have been a dream come true. I was really looking forward to the Columbus showing of VGL, but seeing as how I can’t cast Din’s Something-or-Other to change that, well, I’ve accepted it for what it is. They have, however, promised next year to make a run for it again, and there are ways that you can help to make it happen in 2006.
Tommy Tallarico, co-creator of VGL, says this on their website:
I would like to use everyone’s passion here today to help support the future of video game concerts everywhere. YES… Please tell us how disappointed you are because you were looking forward to this… YES… Please explain how important a concert like this is to everyone. We will use that information to show the promoters, local markets, cities, venues, etc… that people DO want to see this and they DO care. Right now a lot of the people who are putting on these events are thinking that people aren’t as interested in hearing this stuff as we all know they are.
Exactly. Video games haven’t become “mainstream” yet; it’s growing, but it’s not there yet. Just as with the animé crowd, we’re still a subculture, a clique within our national identities. A lot of this has been helped along by the aging of video gamers. It’s because of the size of our clique that movies such as Tomb Raider, et al, have been created, but so far each attempt to leap into the mainstream has so far fallen short of the inevitable goal. (It’s precisely because of this why Miyamoto is trying to do the very same thing with the Revolution controller, bringing video games to the forefront of our cultures.) The notion of the mainstream world accepting a video game concert is no less a task than that of creating a successful movie based upon a video game.
What we can do, however, to slowly cross this bridge is to show our support for this. For those of you who really wanted to attend one of their concerts, I encourage you to write VGL at info@videogameslive.com and give them your support for trying to make this goal happen. Let them know that you’re interested in their idea, that you would attend a concert in the future if you had the chance. However, make sure you’re sincere about this. Don’t do this just because I’m asking you; only do this if you really want to see this happen. I don’t mean to champion a cause by any means; I merely think that, given the chance to build hype about it, given another chance at this, this could really be a force to be reckoned with one of these days, especially considering the number of gamers that there are out there today.
Maybe, just maybe, next year I’ll get my concert in Columbus, and I hope that you get the chance to attend one near you as well. Until then, we gamers have a lot of work to do to allow this to push ahead once more and make it a reality.