Mario Kart 8 (Wii-U)

[Blue Blood]

Little update for Nintendo Store preorders:

Dear Blue Blood,

Thank you for placing order, number *** with Nintendo UK Store.

You will have recently received your dispatch confirmation detailing delivery of your Mario Kart 8 product on or before the 03/06/2014.

We’re sorry for any confusion that this may have caused. However, we are delighted to inform you that your order for Mario Kart 8 has been dispatched on a next day delivery service.

We expect delivery of your order to be made tomorrow on the release date 30/05/2014.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact a member of our customer support team via your Nintendo UK Store online account.

Many thanks,

Nintendo UK Customer Support

My order is still awaiting collection apparently, but I'm no longer worried. What's going on on your end, MK?

[Doctor MK]

Little update for Nintendo Store preorders:

My order is still awaiting collection apparently, but I'm no longer worried. What's going on on your end, MK?

Still awaiting collection, yeah. As long as it turns up at a reasonable time tomorrow I'll be happy!

[Lady Soniko]

This has still been a bullshit experience, never pre-ordering from Nintendo again, what a faff on. Thank god another package came today to lighten my mood!

[Blue Blood]

This has still been a bullshit experience, never pre-ordering from Nintendo again, what a faff on. Thank god another package came today to lighten my mood!

I... Uh... Overreaction, much? I hardly think it's been anywhere near that bad, especially not if it arrives tomorrow as promised.

[Lady Soniko]

maybe for you but I was never informed that they took payment almost a week ago, until I queried them, then they changed the status of my order which is very worrying, if I had left it without chasing them about it, I might not even have gotten it sent out at all.

[Jolt_TH]

I highly doubt they are that dubious, it's likely they would have sent it anyway and just sent you a dispatch notice when it was sent.

It's likely that they are struggling, having like three or so versions of the game to send to people each requiring something different. I also believe this is the first major preorder they have been open for?

This is Nintendo a very large company with a reputation to uphold, no company, amazon, Microsft, Sony, or any major well known company would take your money and not send the product.

Id understand if it was some random online shop , but not te official endorsed Nintendo shop

[Lady Soniko]

Yeah, perhaps. 

 

Sorry guys just been so mad today, didn't mean to go overboard on the hate, just need to cool down.

[Blue Blood]

maybe for you but I was never informed that they took payment almost a week ago, until I queried them, then they changed the status of my order which is very worrying, if I had left it without chasing them about it, I might not even have gotten it sent out at all.

I'll give you that they should have sent a payment notice- that much is standard practice and very basic. I didn't get one either. The order status changing is more than likely something that you needn't have worried about at all and just happened in the processing phase. You chasing them up about it probably just prompted them to manually update it again, or move you up the queue. Either way I'm sure it was a non-issue that you wouldn't have been any the wiser to had you not logged in until later.

Don't get me wrong, I'll stick with the ever-reliable and cheap Shop-To in the future, but if there's something I want that I can only get on Nintendo's store directly I won't hesitate to order.

[Doctor MK]

Yeah, I have to echo what Blue Blood says. This experience of buying from Nintendo UK has definitely been something of a strained one, although if they keep to their word and it arrives in good time tomorrow, there's nothing really I can complain about. I'll definitely stick to ShopTo in future but if Nintendo is offering a truly must-have deal then I'm sure I'll at least consider not getting the game a day early for the sake of value.

 

But yeah I can totally understand getting frustrated when everyone else seems to already have their hands on the game, especially when it's such a highly anticipated one like MK8. It's like having salt rubbed in the wound.

 

Also, "awaiting collection" is now the new "awaiting despatch" in terms of status messages I'm going to be sat impatiently staring at for hours on end so near, yet so far...!

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Also, don't register that code till tomorrow, or else it will be invalid and you wont get that free game

 

And on the good news side

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=229340

 

Mario Kart 8 takes 1st place on Amazon's best-selling video games list

May 29, 2014 by RawmeatCowboy

 

There's an excitement in the air! You can definitely sense it! Good to see Mario Kart 8 running in first place just prior to launch. Thanks to Jonathan for the heads up!

Link

[Autosaver]

To anyone that registered Mario Kart 8 before the official release.

 

YOU WILL NOT get the free game. DONT DO IT.

[Blue Blood]

Erm... Really? That's a kick in the nuts for people I'm sure. Would've expected the deal to go live tomorrow and retroactively-automatically allow people to pick a free game.

[JezMM]

The main thing that'd keep me from pre-ordering with Nintendo (other than Mollfie's discount by doing it at GAME) is that I would have assumed that Nintendo would aim to get it to you on release day - I mean it's the day THEY chose after all.

 

Meanwhile a retailer like Amazon etc is far more likely to send it out early because they might as well etc.

[Blue Blood]

The main thing that'd keep me from pre-ordering with Nintendo (other than Mollfie's discount by doing it at GAME) is that I would have assumed that Nintendo would aim to get it to you on release day - I mean it's the day THEY chose after all.

 

Meanwhile a retailer like Amazon etc is far more likely to send it out early because they might as well etc.

That's the main reason I like going with ShopTo; with them it's unusual if you get the game as late as the actual release day. But as I've said, I wanted all the bonuses that Nintendo offered. Sacrificing marginally early access for that is a little thing.

[JezMM]

Oh right, forgot about the bonuses.  Yeah I was happy with just the Spiny Shell, so.

[jords]

I'm getting the poster of the blue shell!!!! Yay?

That's my bonus.

Oh well.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

The gamestop poster is pretty cool

 

Also, well this is awesome. I preordered at gamestop cause of a few reasons, it was closest place that does preorders was prime, but another was that my local one just has several Nintendo fans on staff. So I just got a call, and it looks like they are going to try and pull off a midnight launch if they can get yes's from enough people with preorders. So of course I said yes!

This will actualy be my first midnight launch actualy XD

 

Also extended/alternate versions of previous trailers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwKGRX26k7Q&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5MWeiE8z3I&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sWua0G9PwQ&feature=player_embedded

[jords]

I should probably call too, just in case my store is doing one

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

I should probably call too, just in case my store is doing one

Ummm, most likely they would call you, that's the only way I know mine, just because its only happening at mine because a couple of the staff members at mine really wanted to do it, unless you have some major Nintendo fans at your store wanting to do it, its unlikely, and they would have to get enough people too thus the call 

[jords]

Ummm, most likely they would call you, that's the only way I know mine, just because its only happening at mine because a couple of the staff members at mine really wanted to do it, unless you have some major Nintendo fans at your store wanting to do it, its unlikely, and they would have to get enough people too thus the call

Just called and they are not doing it but they open an hour early for the game, so there's that

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

So, without F-zero there would have never been Mario Kart!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/29/how-anti-gravity-made-mario-kart-better

 

How Anti-Gravity Made Mario Kart Better

 

Share.
Multiplayer, F-Zero, and how Nintendo built a better Mario Kart.
By Jose OteroNintendo Producer Hideki Konno remembers the origins of Mario Kart. After F-Zero blazed a trail as a fast single-player racing game on the Super Nintendo, Konno and the design team knew they wanted to create a fun, multiplayer alternative. “Mario Kart was conceived as a game to be enjoyed in a multiplayer setting with family and friends,” Konno told IGN in a translated phone interview. “The series got its start on the [sNES], but there were a lot of limitations to the 16-bit format from that time.”

 

01:31

Super Mario Kart - Being The Best   
F-Zero had large scale tracks with long straightaways. Courses of that scale were not possible with the particular multiplayer design the team had in mind. Konno said the then-new game had to factor split-screen into the level design. “It was necessary to make the maps and courses more compact for a game like that,” he recalled.

But what kind of craft would the player use? Eventually, someone on the team suggested karts since it meshed better with the idea of a more compact racer, and the rest became history. The Mario Kart series has continued on though many generations of Nintendo hardware. It has sold 100 million units over the last 22 years.

 
 

 

02:20

Mario Kart 8 Is Beautiful in Slow Motion   
The series traveled along on a set path for most of its sequels. Gravity was consistent and kart physics only changed slightly, even when racing teams were introduced in Mario Kart: Double Dash. Underwater propellers or hang gliders added some small improvements in Mario Kart 7.

After seven successful sequels, we asked where development for Mario Kart 8 began. “We always want to introduce an element of surprise,” Director Kosuke Yabuki told IGN. “We thought that just improving the graphics to make the game prettier wouldn't be enough.” Yabuki and the team came up with lots of ideas for what the new hook for Mario Kart 8 would be, but they settled on changing the direction of gravity. The team felt that incorporating that into a high-definition Mario Kart full of little graphical details would work well.

Once they established defying gravity as the new feature, they refocused on multiplayer. This led the team to set another goal for themselves: Offer two-player multiplayer as an alternative mode with a stable framerate of 60 frames-per-second.

 
 

 

02:44

Mario Kart 8 vs. N64's Rainbow Road   
But the new anti-gravity feature that gave Mario Kart 8 its unique new hook also presented Nintendo with its first major problem. Nintendo’s designers knew they had an opportunity to tap into new hardware that could handle the kart speed, items, and other physics involved, but developing the idea didn’t come easy. “With the technology being what it was, we decided to go for including anti-gravity in Mario Kart 8,” Konno said. “I have to tell you, it was something that we really struggled with at the beginning of development.”

Yabuki explained that Mario Kart had a number of considerations under the hood, in terms of physics and processes. Working in anti-gravity along with the speed of the karts, the camera location, and items that were in play was difficult.

 

05:53

Mario Kart 8 - Review   
This wasn’t the first time a team at Nintendo toyed with the concept of gravity. In the past, games like F-Zero GX blazed trails in a dizzying set of upside-down spirals. And then there’s the more recent Super Mario Galaxy, a seminal platformer that IGN voted as the best game of the last hardware generation.

Mario Circuit, a topsy-turvy course that Yabuki told us was based on the concept of a Möbius strip was the first course Nintendo designed for the game. But they immediately ran into a problem: “If you want to throw a shell or banana peel, how are we going to do that while also accounting for gravity and the controls that gravity would put on those items?” Yabuki said.

The team tried to come up with a system that would automatically determine gravity as a player raced along as a potential solution, but the results weren’t satisfactory. “We ended up coming up with a manual method of controlling gravity, which is what you see in the game now,” Yabuki said. A programmer set specific areas that would activate different gravity in each course. This decision eventually led to being able to play these courses in a natural and comfortable way.

 

01:14

Mario Kart 8 - 60 FPS Montage   
The results introduce a remarkable new idea that’s subtle, but looks visually impressive. With each Mario Kart game, the team gathers a ton of ideas for courses. But tracks that don’t make it into the game aren’t immediately gone forever. Yabuki told us that Sunshine Airport came from the development of a previous Mario Kart.

“The technology of the Wii U finally allowed us to explore some of these ideas, like making a huge jet liner fly through the airport, or even creating a really long course that doesn't have laps like Mount Wario,” Yabuki said. “It's really thanks to the technology that we're able to make these things.” If anti-gravity, new track designs, or great shared multiplayer experiences are what people talk about it in the end, the team feels like their end goal was accomplished.

 

Jose Otero is an Associate Editor at IGN and host of Nintendo Voice Chat. You can follow him on Twitter.

[canderson]

Managed to get the game earlier today. Can't wait to play it once I get home in a little bit.

Hope to race you all soon.

[jords]

How is everyone, well mostly everyone getting this so early

[Mystwalker]

How is everyone, well mostly everyone getting this so early

 

Well the early period is over now. Playing MK8 now thanks to eShop, took about an hour with download and installation combined.

 

Hopefully everyone gets their copy soon!

[PSI Wind]

European stores generally send out games early for some reason I don't know why.