N3: Nightly News Narration – Zelda Dated, Star Wars Pinball 2, & More

In other news, from Nintendo Direct, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze will be delayed from December 6 back to February 2014.

Zen Studios is readying the release of the next of their Star Wars-themed pinball tables with Star Wars Pinball: Balance of the force.  Players must choose to support the Rebel Alliance’s Fleet or the Galactic Empire’s Armada as they complete missions while dodging turret fire and destructible ramps! As missions are completed, players will earn Fleet Upgrades that can be spent to upgrade the fleet, fighters and turrets. In addition, players will be able to advance the rank of their pilot as they progress through the table! The table includes legendary Starfighters like the X-wing and TIE fighter, along with iconic vessels like the Millennium Falcon and the Death Star II. The new set of tables release later this month.

After over a hundred million Wii consoles have sold to the public in the worldwide gaming market, Nintendo appears ready to end production of the Wii console. This means that in the coming months, no more Wiis will be produced and only those remaining in Nintendo’s inventory will remain. I somehow don’t see the hardcore gamer shedding any tears over this announcement…

Speaking of people not caring, Shadow of the Eternals has been put on indefinite hold. The spiritual successor to the GameCube released Eternal Darkness has failed to secure crowd funding after multiple Kickstarter attempts.

Denis Dyack says that the project isn’t dead “but needs a rest.” 

On to better news. Nintendo updated the firmware of the Wii U and since you won’t find a Wii on shelves any longer–the Wii U can now play Wii games on the GamePad screen!  Sadly, you still need to control most Wii games with a Wiimote so I doubt this will be of much use for many titles. 

Legendary Pictures and Universal announced that they are working towards a December 18, 2015, release for the World of WarCraft movie. This will feature “an epic adventure of world-colliding conflict.”

The film is scheduled to begin shooting next year and is expected to feature Live Action and Computer Graphics mixed together.

Ending on sad news, Sega of America has laid off an unspecified number of people in a restructuring move that probably has more to do with the lack of good, quality games that they have released in recent history. Worse, they aren’t really setting the world on fire with their fall releases leading into Christmas. 

Sega had this to say about the layoffs:
“As the gaming industry continues to evolve, companies must adapt and adjust in order to compete and succeed in an ever-changing environment. As a result of this, Sega of America has recently undergone a restructure that will enable the company to focus efficiently on developing new and existing content across digital platforms as well as continuing to focus on key brands for packaged goods.”