Yup. You can wail "SAY IT AIN'T SO", but Nintendo can easily wail back - if they ever decided to begin wailing directly to consumers - "THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'".
Speaking with IGN at E3 last week, Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that the company's first foray into the business model, popular with casual gamers but often despised by more serious fans, will be Steel Diver.
And not a straight re-release of the 3DS launch title, either, but a fresh game that changes the game's design and adds stuff like a four-player battle mode.
The exact model Nintendo will be using to charge players for chunks of the game hasn't yet been decided, as they are focusing "on balancing how a pricing model would affect the entertainment value of the final product".
Slippery slope, this! It starts innocently enough, charging for submarine skins, but one day you'll pay $2 for a Zelda game then have to pay for the gear to unlock the deeper areas of dungeons and oh god this is a dark and terrible future.
Nintendo's Free-to-Play Game is Steel Diver [IGN]
After being delayed due to the Tohoku Earthquake, Steel Diver is finally getting a release date in Japan. The game will be out May 12 in Japan. [via Nintendo] More »
European 3DS owners: Do you all harbor an unspoken, shared desire to live the life aquatic? We can't blame you -- as promised, things truly are better under the sea. Fortunately for you, Nintendo has announced that the naval combat simulator and North American 3DS launch title Steel Diver will make its way to Europe on May 6.
This information comes to us from the game's official European site, which doesn't include any information on why the game's taking over a month to travel overseas. Are submarines just that slow?
1. No decal, default selection.
2. Anchor: Halves damage taken from collisions with the environment. (3 required)
3. Octopus: Halves damage taken from enemy torpedoes. ( 3 required)
4. Skull and Crossbones: Halves damage taken from enemy depth charges. (3 required)
5. Arrow through Heart: Halves damage taken from collisions with enemy vessels.
(5 required)
6. Swords and Shield: Halves damage [...]
A few minutes before Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime handed over the first 3DS sold in the US (as seen above), he spoke with me on how the new portable stands out from the competition, what Nintendo considers a "garage" developer versus an "indie," and what he's playing at launch (spoilers: it's notNintendogs + Cats)
"At its heart, what Nintendo's trying to do is to bring more and more consumers into gaming. And to do it in a way that's fundamentally different than anyone else," Fils-Aime told me, explaining his company's continued adherence to the "Blue Ocean" business strategy. "With the Nintendo 3DS -- yes, it's a handheld, but 3D in the palm of your hand without glasses. A full range not only of games but of other elements -- photography, video. It's not what people expected. Which is, at its heart, what the Blue Ocean strategy and Innovator's Dilemma (which was the other book we used to demonstrate our strategy) are all about."
Because of this strategy, among other things, Fils-Aime remains unconcerned with the competition -- whether that competition be from Sony's upcoming NGP platform or from the smartphone crowd. "First off, it's a product that isn't out yet," he said of the NGP. "It's a product that hasn't had an announced price point, it hasn't had an announced availability. So, how that product impacts us is to be told in the future."
We bet you're tuning into the Steel Diver launch trailer posted below because you're trying to decide whether or not to add it to your 3DS launch purchases. Little do you know that you're actually tuning in because you want to hear the word "Fire!" squawked through a radio about 40 times.
A portion of a TinyCartridge review…
Managing the submarines’ slow movements takes a while to get used to, and the controls just aren’t for everyone, but once you’ve mastered the finesse required to captain these vessels, navigating narrow passages and outmaneuvering torpedoes/enemies while advancing at full speed is very satisfying.
At first glance, Steel Diver might look like a fairly standard side-scrolling shmup. Truth be told, its an extremely challenging side-scrolling ... well, it's part shoot-'em-up, part submarine simulator and part strategy game. The sum of these parts is actually a lot more compelling than the game taken at face value.
Putting the 3DS' capabilities to thorough use, Steel Diver presents a side-view slice of the ocean that's as deep into the screen as it is from the surface to the ocean floor. It's in this miniature sea within your handheld -- complete with schools of fish, air bubbles and volcanic vents -- that you pilot three submarines, each with their own strengths and drawbacks, on increasingly difficult missions.
Steel Diver, one of Nintendo's three first party launch titles, is one of those games that, for better or worse, completely takes you off guard. It's certainly not the big gun any of us thought the Big N would be bringing to the table come 3DS launch time (which is noticeably lacking in mustachioed plumbers or Hylian heroes), but could this wild card still be worth its $40 price tag? The answer is complicated...
As one of only three first party Nintendo launch titles, Steel Diver is something of a wild card. As a submarine sim game with action and puzzle elements (and bundled with a first person periscope mini-game and a turn-based strategy multi-player mode), this new IP is definitely not standard Nintendo fare. Luckily, we have everything you need to know about this intriguing title right here...
#preview
The 3DS launch game Steel Diver was first shown last June, back when it seemed like a simple, solid submarine side-scroller that might satisfy someone who wants a more traditional video game from their next Nintendo handheld. More »
"I always wanted to make a flight-simulation game," designer Shigeru Miyamoto confessed in a new edition of Nintendo's Iwata Asks column. The Nintendo president seemed confused by that admission, reminding Miyamoto that he had worked on Pilotwings.
Apparently, Pilotwings wasn't the kind of flying game Miyamoto had in mind. "That game was about you enjoying the flying experiences," he said. "It's a bit different from the kind of flight-simulation game I wanted to make." Instead, the designer has wanted to create what gamers would consider a realistic or hardcore sim, not unlike Microsoft Flight Simulator. "The difficulty level is high with these simulators when we see them as video games, but that difficulty is one of the greatest charms for them," Miyamoto added.
Although Nintendo's games typically appeal to the mass market, Miyamoto expressed his long-standing desire to make a complicated game. "I wanted to make some kind of simulator where you would control something huge, but they beat me to it," he said, referring to Capcom's Steel Battalion game on the original Xbox, which included a controller with about 40 buttons (pictured above). "I felt so mortified when that was released."
Steel Diver may not be Miyamoto's long-desired flight simulation game, but it's a close approximation of his original vision. "Controlling a submarine is like a slower version of a flight-simulation game," he joked. The game may not include its own Steel Battalion-esque controller, but Nintendo can at least "put lots of dials" on the 3DS touch screen.
Naval Battle Mode
- turn-based gridded strategy gam
- unable to see your opponent’s ships at the start
- download play supported
- two-player game
- each player has a set of submarines, freighter ships and escort ships
- submarines are the only ships that can enter enemy territory
- escort ships can attack enemy subs who’ve crossed over
- freighters can’t engage [...]
#video
Totilo dives in to Nintendo's submariner Steel Diver on the 3DS today in New York. This new hands-on with the game also includes a look at the game's periscope mode. More »
