While the newest 3DS firmware update is available worldwide, Europe and Japan get a set of new StreetPass games with theirs.

Four new games can be purchased from the updated Mii Plaza:

• StreetPass Squad – A shmup where StreetPasses function as power-ups. Developed by Good-Feel Inc.
• StreetPass Garden – A gardening sim where StreetPass players bring over flowers and water yours. Developed by Grezzo.
• StreetPass Battle – A feudal era strategy game. StreetPasses make up your army and you fight others in a Rock/Paper/Scissors-style game. Developed by Spike Chunsoft.
• StreetPass Mansion – A exploration game where StreetPasses give you maps to explore a haunted mansion. You can find items and use them in battles with ghosts. Developed by Prope.

The games cost £4.49/€4.99 each, but you can buy all four for £13.39/€14.99, provided you haven’t already bought one of the games.

You can unlock new hats and earn tickets which can be redeemed for new accessories for your Mii.

In addition to the games, there are new StreetPass puzzles for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Xenoblade Chronicles, New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo princesses.

There are reports of crashing with the new Mii Plaza. According to a Nintendo U.K. representative, they are looking into it.

Source: NeoGAF [via Nintendo World Report]

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata understands the concerns regarding free-to-play games, especially the nickel-and-diming of players out large amounts of money, and he is hoping to find a reasonable pricing model for when they release their first free-to-play title this fiscal year.

“Free-to-play games, if unbalanced, could result in some consumers paying extremely large amounts of money, and we can certainly not expect to build a good relationship with our consumers in this fashion,” Iwata said at an E3 Q&A. “In order to have a favorable long-term relationship, we would like to offer free-to-play games that are balanced and reasonable.”

It appears that Nintendo’s goal isn’t necessarily making the most money out of a free-to-play venture, rather, they would like to use it to build up trust with the consumer.

Iwata didn’t say what kind of game they plan to release with the free-to-play model, but it won’t be a Mario or Pokémon title.

“With games like Mario and Pokémon, we already have a sufficient degree of trust with our consumers who are willing to pay a certain sum of money to purchase our products as packaged software.”

Source: Nintendo IR page

The latest firmware update for the 3DS lets you back up save data from games and applications you’ve downloaded from the eShop without having to move the SD card to a PC. Now you can free up space on the SD card without having to worry about losing progress in your games.

There are two ways to back up your data. On the home menu, supported games will have an arrow in the lower left of the screen that will let you perform the backup.

The other method involves going into the System Settings menu and selecting the Save-Data Backup option. From there, you can back up, restore or delete your save.

The following games do not support backups:

• Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive!
• Dillon’s Rolling Western
• Pokémon Rumble Blast
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf
• Pokémon Dream Radar
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity

Nintendo only lists first-party titles and suggest contacting specific publishers for information on third-party games.

Source: Nintendo.com

Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai wanted the cutscenes in Super Smash Bros. Brawl‘s The Subspace Emissary campaign to be treats for people who played the game, but since they’ve been posted online, he feels that it sort of takes away that specialness.

So, with Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS, Sakurai wants to do something different for the single-player modes.

“There will be a single player [campaign], but it won’t be like the [Subspace Emissary] mode in Brawl,” Sakurai told Polygon. “One thing we can do with the Smash Bros. series that’s unique to us — because we have all these different disparate characters brought together — is we can create that sort of fan-movie experience as a special gift. But now those things are posted on the internet, it doesn’t really become a gift for people who played the game.”

“What we decided this time around, we’re just going to have [those movies unlocked] from the beginning. We’re going to have a movie for Wii Fit Trainer, The Villager and Mega Man and they’ll be viewable right at the beginning, you can watch those right away.”

Source: Polygon

Nothing’s coming out this week, but that’s okay. I’ve been taken captive by enjoying my time with Animal Crossing. It’s totally fun and not evil at all.

…somebody help me.

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The 3DS remake of the first Etrian Odyssey, Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl, is coming to North America this fall care of Atlus.

The Millennium Girl revisits the setting of the first Etrian Odyssey for the DS, but injects a new story with characters that each have their own personality, as opposed to the generic guild members you create in previous games. However, there is a Classic Mode that lets you partake in all the improved visuals and gameplay tweaks while still allowing you to create your own party.

Atlus has a teaser site open for the game, but the only there right now are a small handful of screenshots.

Don’t expect to be able to play against Wii U users with the 3DS and vice-versa. Series creator Masahiro Sakurai confirmed that there will be no cross-platform play between the two games.

The reason behind this, Sakurai says, is because the 3DS and Wii U versions are actually two separate games with completely different stages.

Judging from the trailer and screenshots, it looks like the Wii U stages will be based on console titles like Skyward Sword while the 3DS will get stages modeled after portable games like nintendogs.

There will be some connectivity between the two games, though, in the form of character customizations that can be transferred from the 3DS to the Wii U. However, Sakurai didn’t go into detail as what these customizations are.

Source: Joystiq

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Game Gear game released in the eShop, let alone four of them, but we have Sonic the Hedgehog, Columns, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine and Shining Force: Sword of Hajya all coming out today.

We also have Mighty Switch Force! 2 hitting the 3DS and Mutant Mudds Deluxe making its way to the Wii U this week.

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Outside of conventions and scheduled meetups, StreetPassing with another 3DS owner is a fairly uncommon occurrence outside of Japan.

To address this, Nintendo is planning to release a firmware update in fall that will allow 3DSes to treat Wi-Fi hotspots like StreetPass relay stations.

Now, two people won’t have to be in the same area at the same time in order to exchange StreetPass data. When a 3DS passes by one of these hotspots, it will send its data to a server where it will also receive the data from another 3DS user who passed by that location earlier.

According to Nintendo, public places like Starbucks and McDonalds provide about 28,000 3DS-enabled Wi-Fi access points across North America and 24,000 in Europe.

Needless to say, it looks like it’ll be a lot easier for people to finally complete those StreetPass puzzles and Find Me quests.

Source: Nintendo IR page

It’s weird to think a game about shaking trees and hitting rocks with shovels is a system seller, but the numbers don’t like. According to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, the week Animal Crossing: New Leaf launched, 3DS hardware sales increased by almost four times from the previous week.

The laid-back sim is also a beast in the eShop, where it broke the record for launch day sales.

If this keeps up, Sakurai should make the Animal Crossing Villager’s final smash a hail storm of money.

Source: Nintendo IR page