Reggie Fils-Aime

While hundreds of fans lined up outside of the Nintendo World Store on Saturday night to be amongst the first people in the world to purchase a Wii U, Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime was inside the store, answering our questions. There was less than an hour to go before Fils-Aime would take to the stage outside in Rockefeller Center and count down the seconds to midnight. As always, Reggie seemed cool, confident, and collected as we questioned him about the future of the console, the launch line up, and when we might get to see a Reggie Asks. Yesterday, we told you what NOA's top man had to say about the delay of Nintendo TVii, and the VOD services, and here's the rest of our conversation with Reggie, including his thoughts on Nintendo Land, TriForce, and the possibility of Grand Theft Auto on the Wii U.

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Nintendo TVii

Last night's launch of the Wii U signified a new direction for Nintendo's console business. The Wii was wildly successful, and it introduced video on demand services like Netflix and Hulu Plus to its users. With the release of the Wii U, Nintendo's latest system is primed to build on that installed base, and take the way people watch video on their console one step further by trying to take over their TVs. However, things haven't gone exactly as planned so far.

Originally announced as features that would be included in the day one firmware update, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and Nintendo's own integrated television application Nintendo TVii have been pushed back into December to get them ready for primetime. Last night, at the Wii U's launch event in New York City, Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, explained that even though the features are still coming, their delay speaks to how the Wii U will be constantly evolving throughout its lifecycle.
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Let's talk a little about horror--particularly first-person horror.

Outlast is the first project from Red Barrels, the Montreal-based studio made up of Ubisoft vets. The trailer for the game made its debut last week via a teaser trailer, and today, they'll be releasing a full trailer for the survival horror project set inside of a very haunted asylum. I spoke with designer Philippe Morin, who's credits include Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune about the genesis of Outlast and getting survival horror right in an era where most games in the genre have traded in frantic gun battles for sustained scares.

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According to Executive Producer Josh Feldman, the live-action short series Forward Unto Dawn was an attempt by 343 Industries to do something big for their first outing with the franchise. After taking the reins with Halo Anniversary last year, Halo 4 represents the studio's first new entry in the series, and Forward Unto Dawn was a way of both celebrating that and expanding on the fiction.

Feldman reminds me that this is "the largest investment in live-action Halo" to date, following live-action promos for Reach and ODST before that. The five-part series, currently in its fourth installment via its YouTube channel on Machinima and Halow Waypoint tells the story of a group of UNSC recruits in an early encounter with the Covenant and how the Master Chief saves and possibly changes their lives. For Feldman, it's also a gift to the fans: "[It's] a project that will really satisfy their craving for more mythology in an exciting way."

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Composer Jack Wall has a slew of credits to his name in game music, going all the way back to the PC classic Myst. Since then, he's worked with BioWare on the Mass Effect franchise, Ubisoft with Splinter Cell and picked up both BAFTA and Spike TV nominations for his work on Mass Effect 2. His next big gig: Treyarch's Black Ops II, which hits on November 13th from Activision.

Wall and I spoke (well, by e-mail) about his work on the near future shooter, about getting the sound just right, and composing in the legendary Abbey Road studios. You can also check out some of his previous work on his site.

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Giant Sparrow's Ian Dallas

The Unfinished Swan is one of this year's most experimental, and creative games that has been commercially released. The PSN title was the first title from the team at Giant Sparrow, who had some support from Sony, but developed the game on their own. One of the key members of that team is Ian Dallas, he started Giant Sparrow, and serves as its Creative Director. Playing such an intimate role in a game like The Unfinished Swan, Mr. Dallas was able to give us some insights behind the scenes of this amazing game. Find out how certain aspects of the game, like the visual and audio cues came about, as well as how long it took to fine tune the splats of each of the paint balls. Oh, and we asked him about Adam Sandler and the swan, because someone had to.
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During New York Comic-Con, Ubisoft Producer Pierre Leroux and Director Dan Vargas sat down with MTV Geek host Steven Smith to talk about their upcoming Wii U and Kinect action game, Marvel

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I ask Forward Unto Dawn director Stewart Hendler how he prepared to tackle the franchise and what kind of research went into his work. "I knew a lot about it already, but now I know more than any human being should." Hendler, admittedly not a huge video game guy himself, but he's no stranger to long-form web series, having helmed the Bryan Singer-produced H+. Now, he's bringing his experience to bear on the five-part story of the beginnings of the human-Covenant War which occupied much of the Halo series.

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It takes a big man to step into the shoes of the Master Chief--literally: the Halo super soldier stands at around 6'7" by some estimates. And to play the character, it takes an actor able to show some emotion from behind a polarized glass visor. Enter Daniel Cudmore, who's filled genre roles as hulking characters in features like X-Men: The Last Stand Volturi guard Felix in the Twilight films, with an upcoming role in the Billy Bob Thornton/Eva Longoria redneck action-comedy The Baytown Outlaws .

When we spoke recently about his role in the 5-part web series, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, he talked about how odd it was going from a gamer to playing the Master Chief. "It's funny, because back in the day, my girlfriend--now my wife--bought me Halo 3," he explains, saying that although he didn't know too much about the Halo universe, "I remember playing that game from front to back and thinking that was a really cool concept."

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Big Win Sports

Like it or not, video game companies are in business to make money, and in order to do so, they need to stay on top of, and react to an ever-changing market. Over the last few years mobile games have come into their own since the introduction of the iPhone and Android devices, turning phones into viable gaming devices, and expanding the possibilities for game developers. One company that is looking to explore mobile games as their sole avenue of revenue is Vancouver, British Columbia-based Hothead Games.

Formerly a console-only developer, best known for their XBLA like The Maw, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 1 and Episode 2, and Ron Gilbert's Deathspank games, Hothead have shifted all of their attention to the growing mobile market, leaving their console experience behind them. We dug into some of the changes, and the reasons behind them with Hothead's Director of Marketing, Oliver Birch, in the hopes that we could get a better understanding of the reasons behind the move, and whether or not we can expect to see any of our other favorite console studios make the move towards focusing only on mobile games.
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