It seems you may have to pay to remember a game that Nintendo would seemingly prefer we all forgot.Skip to: Part I - Exploit | Part II - Wiiflow Introduction Even Japanese and European copies are generally asking for $60 to $90 on the auction site these days, despite selling for the $30 to $40 range as recently as November. Some resellers are already trying to take advantage of the game's low-impact launch and expected rarity to Nintendo collectors: one eBay seller is asking well over $100 for the North American version. GameStop is the only major chain carrying the disc-based version in brick-and-mortar stores, and Destructoid reports that the retailer's online store only stocked 420 copies of the game for the entire country, suggesting a distinct lack of interest on all sides. Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop seem to be the only North American retailers selling the game, and all three are already sold out. At retail, the game has been even harder to find. Online, Nintendo hasn't even bothered to list the game under "New Releases" on the front page of it digital eShop (though it does show up if you dig a little deeper in the online listing). "Itagaki has brought a knife to a gunfight, and the result is a bloody mess," Edge Magazine memorably quipped. The long-delayed title got overwhelmingly horrid reviews, which noted severe technical and game design issues. Meanwhile, Devil's Third managed to trickle out to stores in Europe, Japan, and Australia in August. That release date would come well after the bulk of competitive holiday titles release in October and November and would miss the bulk of the post-Black Friday holiday shopping season. Then, in August, NOA buried mention of a December 11 release date for The Devil's Third in a round-up of upcoming software. In July, NOA said in a brief tweet that it would have more information on the game soon. Nintendo of America noticed fans noticing the silence and made some token efforts to tamp down the rumors. Some fans recalling Operation Rainfall, the grassroots pressure campaign that got Nintendo to localize three niche Wii titles for North America back in 2012, started mulling a similar effort to ensure Devil's Third was released here. When Itagaki was asked about the game's fate in a June 2015 Facebook Q&A, he could only reply cryptically that "I will release my Devil's Third in North/South America! My will." AdvertisementĪmid the silence, reports started to trickle out that Nintendo of America had lost faith in Devil's Third, that it had decided not to publish the title, or that it was scaling it back to a "digital only" release in North America. That's pretty surprising considering that the company was doing everything it could to convince the world that the Wii U still had some life in it. The west-of-the-Atlantic subsidiary of the Japanese company didn't so much as mention Devil's Third for a year after that announcement-not in press releases, Nintendo Direct video presentations, E3 press conferences, or press junkets. That's where Nintendo of America (NOA) went quiet. Nintendo-perhaps seeing an opportunity to pick up an M-rated exclusive with a big name behind it-obtained the publishing rights and announced the game as a Wii U exclusive in a June 2014 "Digital Event." But development dragged on for so long that its original publisher, THQ, actually went out of business in 2013 before releasing the unfinished game. The game represented a departure from Itagaki's usual style, focusing on third-person shooting and online play rather than local brawling.įurther Reading THQ split up and sold in five parts through bankruptcy auctionThe game went through a number of changes in gameplay style and underlying technology over the years, according to reports at the time. Devil's Third was Valhalla's first announced game, revealed way back in 2010 as an Xbox 360, PS3, and Windows PC title. After leaving Tecmo in 2008, Itagaki formed the independent Valhalla Game Studios with some other departing members of his Team Ninja development studio. The game is the brainchild of Tomonobu Itagaki, the famed Tecmo developer known for series such as Dead or Alive and the 3D revival of the Ninja Gaiden series. But last Friday's release of Devil's Third in North America was so quiet that probably only the most obsessive of Nintendo fans even realized the game exists.ĭevil's Third has a storied and tumultuous development history. Nintendo doesn't publish all that many Wii U games these days, but you can usually expect to hear a lot about the few games it does release you may have seen the marketing blitzes for titles like Super Mario Maker or Xenoblade Chronicles X this holiday season.
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