By Sophie Knight and Reiji Murai TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd plans to introduce a new kind of games console and software for emerging markets as early as next year, to capitalize on higher entertainment budgets amidst a growing middle class, its chief executive told Reuters on Thursday. Satoru Iwata said Nintendo would develop hardware and games oriented towards consumers with lower incomes and less gaming experience than those in developed countries. Nintendo is searching for new business opportunities as it buckles down and seeks to stem losses on its latest home game console, the Wii U, whose flop has contrasted with blockbuster sales for rival Sony Corp's Playstation 4. Satoru said there were no plans to launch existing hardware such as the Wii U or 3DS in emerging markets, including China. "It would be difficult to enter those markets if we didn't create something new... For the mass market you need to provide something that most of the middle class can afford," he said in an interview following an analyst briefing on Thursday.
Iwata declined to elaborate on the design and specification of such a new device and did not specify the countries where it would be sold, saying only that "emerging markets" referred to those whose gaming potential had not yet been cracked. In China, Iwata said Nintendo would try a different tack to Microsoft Corp. The U.S. rival last month said it would begin selling its Xbox One console through a Chinese partner from September in Shanghai's free trade zone, after the government lifted a ban on the sale of foreign consoles there. "We think the Chinese market has a lot of potential, but I don't think the lifting of the ban has solved all of the difficulties in entering it. We need to study it more," he said, adding that Nintendo would adjust its pricing to fit consumers in emerging nations. "For us, Microsoft's approach wouldn't work." Iwata also said Nintendo will release high-tech figurines of some of its most popular characters in time for Christmas this year.
The company hopes the models, which will be able to send and receive data from games, will also stimulate software sales. But the chief executive said he could not give any more details on a new "non-wearable" platform announced in January that will be oriented towards improving customers' quality of life and encouraging them to stick to healthy pursuits. Nintendo released its full-year earnings On Wednesday, booking its third year in the red after disappointing sales of its Wii U home games console. It has pinned a return to profit this year on new game titles spurring higher sales of the hardware. Shares of Nintendo closed 0.7 percent lower on Thursday, compared with a 0.9 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei index. (Editing by Christopher Cushing)With Avengers: Age of Ultron still fresh in everyone’s minds, attentions have turned to other super teams in the world of cinema—who could have failed to anticipate that plot twist in Pitch Perfect 2 when the Bellas all got powers and saved the world with their harmonies?—including the mass pile-up of in-production X-Men: Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, and Captain America
: All The Heroes Except For Thor For Some Reason (Poor Thor). There are some other irons in future fires, as you’ll be able to see below, but if you’re not ready for the thought of Jesse Eisenberg pumping iron (man), then perhaps you need to take a deep breath first. Here are the highlights of the last week in superhero movie news. SUPER IDEA: The Black Panther Going After the Winter Soldier Turns out, it’s not just the Marvel fandom hordes that are on the lookout for Bucky Barnes (although, judging by the amount of set pics that have shown up from Captain America: Civil War’s Atlanta shoot, there are more than enough of them out there): According to the newly-launched Heroic Hollywood, the Black Panther will make his movie debut hunting down the Winter Soldier for reasons unknown in the Avengers: Age of Ultron follow-up. Why this is super: Marvel’s official plot synopsis for the third Cap movie says that “an international incident” sets off the titular conflict between the superheroes.
What if that conflict is an African superhero hunting down an American super soldier? What if, instead of just being a brief cameo in an overstuffed movie, the Black Panther is one of movers and shakers behind the movie’s plot? Oh, and while we’re talking about next year’s Civil War… MEH IDEA: The First Confirmed Death in Civil War Is… A photo of a prop from the Captain America threequel showed up online last week, identifying an unsurprising, but no less depressing death from the movie. (Spoilers in the very next sentence, so jump ahead to the next item right now if you’re planning to avoid it.) Presuming the prop is genuine, the movie will feature the funeral of Peggy Carter, with a program for the event, held at St. Luke’s Cathedral, showing that she died aged 95. When you think of it in those terms, it seems less sad than an inevitability, but nonetheless: Peggy! Why this is villainy: Sure, the character’s almost a hundred years old, and she’ll continue on in her 1940s-set TV show on ABC.
But of all the characters we’d happily see come to an end in the Marvel Universe, that name was not on the list. Now, half the cast of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., most definitely. SUPER IDEA: Lex Luthor as Movie Fans Have Never Seen Him Before, Maybe Never Wanted to See Him at All Considering the amount of discussion about whether or not Jesse Eisenberg would shave his head to play Superman’s arch nemesis Lex Luthor in next year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it’s almost surprising that no one thought to wonder “Will he be wearing that Iron Man-esque war suit he’s worn on and off in the comics since the 1980s?” Because according to JoBlo, he will be. Are audiences ready for the sight of Evil Faux Mark Zuckerberg in high tech armor? We’ll soon find out. Why this is super: This has the potential to go either very right, or very, very wrong. Sure, audiences are more likely to accept the idea because of the groundwork laid by Marvel’s Iron Man, but nonetheless, the idea of Lex-in-armor feels like it might be too much in a movie that’ll already feature Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, not to mention rumored appearances by the rest of the Justice League.
SUPER IDEA: His Name Is Barry Allen. On Television or Movies He’s the Fastest Man Alive Even as we reel from the season finale of the CW’s The Flash—we can all agree that was a great first year, right?—people are already thinking about the character’s first big screen adventure, scheduled for 2018. “We’re trying to break a story,” Phil Lord (who’s co-writing and co-producing the movie with his Lego Movie and Last Man on Earth partner Chris Miller) told the HippoJuice podcast. “It really is its own thing [separate from the TV show], and kind of a standalone movie… It’s kind of a different take on superhero stuff.” The Flash, he confirmed, would once again be Barry Allen, instead of the many alternatives on offer in comic book lore. Sorry, Wally West, Jay Garrick, John Fox, or Bart Allen fans. Why this is super: As if the prospect of a superhero movie from the people who gave the world The Lego Movie wasn’t exciting enough on its own, the fact that Lord and Miller are tackling the superhero who has already proven that lighthearted superheroes can work on the small screen (and teasing “a different take” on a movie genre that has especially gotten a little too dark when it comes to the DC properties) can only be a good