[NDS] Electroplankton sbarca in USA + acquisizione licenza OCR

[Turrican3]

Dato lo scarso successo in Giappone, Nintendo tasta il terreno negli USA provando inizialmente a vendere il gioco esclusivamente online.
In un altra, successiva notizia, è stata annunciata l'acquisizione di una licenza per la tecnologia di riconoscimento scrittura (OCR) Decuma di Zi Corporation. Scontato l'utilizzo con il DS.

Nintendo Tries Limited U.S. Release For Electroplankton

The abstract Toshio Iwai-designed Nintendo DS music manipulation gamee Electroplankton has been one of the games most demonstrated by Nintendo representatives as an example of the company's creative thinking, most notably at Game Developers Conference 2005, when it was shown alongside Nintendogs.

However, the title has, in sharp contrast to Nintendogs' and DS Brain Training's performance, not performed well at retail in Japan, despite a relatively positive critical reception, with recent figures indicating less than 10,000 total Japanese sales for the first-party DS title.

Thus, Nintendo has announced that the title "will make a public debut befitting its creative, quirky nature" in North America, revealing that Electroplankton will debut on January 9, 2006, and is being sold exclusively online (at major online retailers and Nintendo.com) and at the Nintendo World Store in New York. It is unclear whether Nintendo intends to release further titles in such a limited form, as is common in Japan with services such as Sega's D-Direct store, or wheter Electroplankton is a special case.

"Electroplankton represents just one of the many ways that Nintendo is developing new kinds of software to reach new audiences," said George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Even if you have never played a video game, you can pick it up and start making amazing musical combinations with no instruction."

-----------------------------------------------

Nintendo Licenses Handwriting Recognition Software

Officials from Nintendo have announced a licensing deal with technology company Zi Corporation to use the company's Decuma handwriting recognition software in unspecified titles for the Nintendo DS.

The Decuma product portfolio is comprised of three handwriting recognition software products: Decuma Alphabetic, for English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and other Western languages; Decuma Chinese for Simplified and Traditional Chinese; and Decuma Japanese, which supports Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana.

There has been no indication from Nintendo on how they will use the various Decuma products, although the technology has obvious applications for communication programs such as Pictochat, and also for the publisher's "Touch! Generations" products such as the Brain Training games and the recently announced Eigo Zuke English language training software.

"As the leading provider of handheld video game systems in the world, Nintendo has a reputation for adopting innovative technologies that improve the user's experience with its products," said Milos Djokovic, chief technical officer and chief operating officer, Zi Corporation. "With Decuma, Nintendo DS users will experience natural handwriting recognition previously only available to PDA and smartphone users. Zi continues to bring its multi-modal input products to leading mobile phones, gaming platforms and smartphones across the globe."

[Turrican3]

UPDATE: confermato l'arrivo anche in Europa del gioco

fonte: www.eurogamer.net

Europe to get Electroplankton

Nintendo has confirmed to Eurogamer that DS music maker Electroplankton will be getting a European release - but whether we'll actually see the game on shop shelves is another matter.

The game will go on sale in the US on January 9 via the Nintendo website and online retailers. Only one actual bricks and mortar shop in the country will stock it - the Nintendo World Store in New York.

So can we expect the same deal here? Who knows - according to a Nintendo spokesperson, "We haven't confirmed our plans in the UK yet for Electroplankton."

No release date has been announced so far and the spokesperson declined to comment, but we're informed by a secret source that Electroplankton will arrive here in April.

Electroplankton, for those who don't know, is the brainchild of composer and artist Toshio Iwai - a sort of Japanese Jeff Minter, he's been mucking about with music and computer-generated imagery for years now. He also developed SimTunes, widely available for download at an Internet near you.