Hey Nintendo! What ever happened to these…

Nintendo promises a lot of things as a company, most of which they deliver, some of which is on time and nearly all of it is very good (when it finally arrives).

But there’s more than a few things that Nintendo keep promising and keep talking about but that just never happen for one reason or another. You can’t ask them on Twitter or Facebook what’s happening, if the press ask you’ll get non-committal answers and Tony Abbott de-de-deflection.

We’re reaching the end of August, it’s more than half way through the year and we’re fast approaching the holiday season. Things are getting locked in, release dates are getting set. Now is the time where the rest of the year is planned and now there’s more than a handful of things Nintendo hasn’t given us an update on in quite a while.

What ever happened to…

Flipnote 3D

The glorious successor to Flipnote was a huge hit in Japan when it was released way back on the 24th of July 2013. Yes, more than a year ago.

When the service became more popular than Nintendo could handle, the release of the service was delayed in Europe, Australia and North America until “we can deliver the best possible service to users” said a statement. “We apologise for any inconvenience this delay may cause, and will announce a new launch date as soon as possible.”

Now a year later just where is Flipnote 3D? Well in November 2013, it hit a stumbling block. The ‘Flipnote Gallery: Friends’ portion of the software and ‘Nintendo Letterbox’ were shut down due to possibility that underage users were receiving in their private inbox’s “inappropriate content”.  A week later it was revealed that indeed predators had been using the software to pull in minors and in one case had succeeded.

Now the better part of a year later, Nintendo is still silent on the issue with the official website still listing a TBD release date. It’s quite possible that we may never see this one again.

Quality of Life (QOL) reveal

E3 2014 has come and gone, Gamescom too and Nintendo have never really been one for a Tokyo Game Show announcement, least not in recent times.

So what has happened to this new groundbreaking hybrid of products, Nintendo said QOL would bring  “quality of life through entertainment” and that the areas of health, learning and more would be shaken up.

Well since the initial reveal of the idea of these products back in March we’ve seen nothing or heard nothing from Nintendo about it. There were some trademarks registered back in July but it’s all quiet on the quality front.

Nintendo TVii

Remember when Nintendo demoed this one back at E3 2012? They promised it would change the way we watched and interact with our TV.

Well it didn’t do that really, it’s an alright piece of software but hasn’t taken the world by storm by any stretch. North American’s have been enjoying the service for a couple of years, as have the Japanese. So what about us here in Australia and Europe? Well here’s what Nintendo says about it on their site in the UK (it’s not even on the AU site);

[quote]We would like to apologise that we were unable to bring the Nintendo TVii service to Europe in 2013 as originally planned.[/quote]

Just remove it from the Wii U firmware please Nintendo.

Software drought in 2014

Since January we’ve had two first party games released on the Wii U at retail. The brilliant and challenging Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Mario Kart 8 which we all know is amazing.

So what about the rest of the games; two games in 8 months? That’s a drought baby and Nintendo specifically said in November last year this wouldn’t happen. The rest of the year will make us forget, but it hasn’t been easy.

Don’t even get us started on the Nintendo 3DS either.

Web based eShop

Right now if you want to see what’s available to buy on the Nintendo eShop, you either need a Nintendo 3DS or a Wii U. That’s great if you’re at home (for the Wii U) or can connect your 3DS to a public Wi-Fi hotspot.

But what if you had some sort of Internet connected device in your pocket with you at all times. What if this device had a web browser and was able to browse the eShop wherever you were. It’s great that you visit Vooks each week as well to see what’s on sale on the store too – but imagine if you could view the entire store on your phone? Maybe you could start a download on your console at home too – after all it is always ready to do so.

Well Nintendo think it’s a great idea too and they’ve been talking about it for literally years.

It just might be another one before we see it.

Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training: Can You Stay Focused? 

So it’s not the best game ever, if you can ever call it that but Nintendo has been promising this one for some time in Europe and Australia. Most recently the game appeared in Nintendo’s end of financial year reports as a TBD release. Released in February of this year the game went under the radar of most people, but still – we’re waiting.

Oh remember the time EB Games had it listed under Nintendo DS for the better part of a year? That was fun at least.

Holes in the Virtual Console lineup

Since the Wii U was announced we thought it wouldn’t be too long until we got to play our Nintendo 64 Virtual Console on the GamePad. After all of the other consoles are playable on it. But no, here we are in 2014 and with no Nintendo 64 Virtual Console titles. Not even one.

So what about the Nintendo DS then?

It was the end of January of this year when Nintendo revealed the Nintendo DS would hit the Virtual Console (and on the Wii U too oddly). We all got that free Brain Training sample a couple of months back, that was nice of Nintendo. However like the 3DS Ambassador games the emulation on the title was incomplete, there is no save states or advanced emulation tools like the rest of the Virtual Console lineup. It seems like Nintendo got the DS emulator working on the Wii U and just HAD to show us something.

Did we miss anything? Is there something Nintendo mentioned in the past that it has gone cold on anything you’ve been waiting for? Let us know in the comments!