Evan Campbell popped over to visit us while he was based in Sydney. The following is his first post about his visit. You can read the full article at Nintendojo here.

Journey To Nnooo Studios

The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Nintendojo as a whole or any of its affiliates.

Location: Downtown Sydney.

I jump off one ferry and briskly walk toward another boat on the wharf. Skyscrapers line the horizon to my left while the soothing water of the Tasman Sea sits to my right.

I hop on the Balmain East ferry a minute or so before the boat’s planned departure. I ask a woman fitted in a Sydney Ferries polo if this is the right boat to jump on, and she grunts in an approving manner.

Once on the ship, I choose to plop down on a red cushioned seat with no one else in the aisle. A woman behind me continues to make crackling noises with a brown sack lunch that irritates the headache I’ve been fighting off. But no matter, I’m more focused on the journey ahead and can’t wait to sit down with Nic Watt, creative director and CEO of Nnooo Studios. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday Gamespot ran an exclusive detailing the our latest game. Read on for the full transcript or click here to visit the actual page.

We scan our surroundings and discover hidden ghosts in Nnooo’s augmented-reality DSiWare game.

Few games have managed to make good use of the two cameras Nintendo packed into its DSi. Aussie game developer Nnooo! plans to change all that later this year with the release of Spirit Hunters Inc., an augmented-reality game that uses the handheld’s two cameras to superimpose enemies over real-life backgrounds. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week Nic was interviewed by the great team at BisaCast, a German language podcast about all things Pokémon. The following is an excerpt from their website you can also click here to visit their site.

Information for our international listeners: Since the BisaCast is created for a German audience, the introduction will be in German. The main part will be in English. So if you don’t want to listen to German waffle fast-foward to 1:50 for the interview.

Im Mai 2008 erregte das australische Entwicklerstudio nnooomit der Patentierung eines Pokémon Online-Rollenspieles großes Aufsehen. Zwar ist bis heute das Pokémon MMO nur eine Ideensammlung auf Papier, jedoch haben wir uns dazu entschlossen bei nnooo nachzufragen, wie die Ideen aussehen.

Unser technischer Support Gerjet hat sich mit dem Chef von nnooo, Nic Wattzusammengesetzt und über die Möglichkeiten eines Pokémon MMO philosophiert. Was im Interview alles für Details verraten wurden, könnt ihr in diesem BisaCast-Special hören. Wie ihr sicherlich verstehen könnt, ist das gesamte Interview nur auf Englisch erhältlich. Trotzdem wünschen wir euch viel Spaß damit.

PRESS RELEASE: Nnooo announce the development of Spirit Hunters Inc: Shadow™ and Spirit Hunters Inc: Light™ for Nintendo DSiWare™ and future Nintendo portable devices.

Spirit Hunters Inc: Shadow and Spirit Hunters Inc: Light are augmented reality games in which the player works for Spirit Hunters Inc, a mysterious company which specialises in the detection, capture and trade of ghostly spirits.

“Spirit Hunters Inc. is essentially a Role Playing Game set in the real world.”, said Nic Watt, Creative Director, Nnooo. “Players use the camera built into their devices to hunt out and battle spirits anywhere in the world. Whether it at the supermarket, shopping mall, home or even on holiday. Spirits are hiding all around us!” Read the rest of this entry »

The Australian ratings board is currently looking for feedback and comments regarding their proposed changes to the pricing of ratings for books, games and films. As a small, independent, Australian games company we feel that there needs to be a new cheaper option for those of us making small budget, cheaper downloadable games.

If you feel the same way we encourage you to email the Australians rating board at: proposedfees@classification.gov.au with your opinion. Read the rest of this entry »

Surely the great thing about the iPad is it is a computer and that ANYONE can use it. So why does my Gran, who doesn’t have a computer need to buy a computer to use an iPad? Surely the great thing about the iPad is that hypothetically she could use that for all her computer needs (internet, email, the very occasional letter writing, listening to music). If she could just walk into an Apple store, buy one and start using it (like you can with any other computer device) maybe more non-computer users would be attracted to it? Read the rest of this entry »

PRESS RELEASE: Nnooo are pleased to announce the release date of myPostcards™ the second title in their hugely successful myLifeCollected™ range of applications for Nintendo DSiWare™. myPostcards will be released in the Americas on April 19th and in Europe, Australia and New Zealand on April 23rd priced at 200 Nintendo DSi Points™. Read the rest of this entry »

Evan Campbell of Nintendojo has put up a great article previewing myPostcards on Nintendojo (you can see the original here)

DSiWare: myPostcards Preview

Finding the right ingredients for a successful game on DSiWare seems rather difficult, especially for a third-party developer. Yet Nnooo Studios believes that stirring together the unlikely pair of post cards and video games with myPostcards may become the next best combo after peanut butter and jelly.

The DSiWare title allows people to take pictures with their DSi and then create a postcard with various backgrounds, hand writing and even digital stamps. When finished, the player downloads the finished product to the DSi Camera, which allows them to upload the image to Facebook, e-mail the card or even print the picture out to send via snail mail. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Luke and Stephen,

I received the following email today and thought you might find it interesting. As you are aware a large part of making money on the App Store is down to how well reviewed your app is as this contributes, in a very real way, to Apple featuring it on the front page of the store as well as increasing consumer confidence when purchasing your app. Several developers apps have already been removed from the App Store for gaming the system (one of which I think you reported on last year).

What you can see from the email, copied below, is that there is at least one company offering to ‘game’ the review system on your behalf by adding reviews to your apps. This will boost perception, sales and possibly get your app featured by Apple. I am writing to you as Nnooo are not in the business of trying to con or pull a fast one on its users and tempting as it is to start doing what everyone else is doing we believe that in the long term it is only bad for consumer confidence and downloadable sales in general. In many ways Nnooo are reluctant to continue supporting the iPhone and iPod touch because of exactly these sorts of practices. The fact that there has been a gold rush and the fact that so many developers use as many cheats, hacks or ways of gaming the system to maximise sales just goes to show how flawed an enterprise it is in our opinion. Don’t get me wrong great software will always flourish but realistically should developers really be expected to spend so much of their time trying to: Read the rest of this entry »

Katherine Brice recently interviewed me for a piece she was doing about WiiWare and DSiWare and whether Nintendo are doing enough to promote the service. Her article can be found here. Below is a full transcript of the interview. Enjoy!

Hi Kath,

Thanks so much for emailing me in regards to this. Firstly let me introduce myself. My name is Nic Watt and I am the CEO and Creative Director of Nnooo. The following are my thoughts on the issue(s):

Is Nintendo doing enough to promote its Digital Services?

This is a hard question to answer as while I think that it is Nintendo’s responsibility to ensure that its customers are familiar with and using the DSiWare and WiiWare stores, I do not think it is Nintendo’s responsibility to promote and market every game on the service (that I think is the job of the developer or publisher). Overall I feel that Nintendo are doing a very good job making customers aware of these services for example:

Every Nintendo Wii now comes with a channel pre-installed which plays a video showing how to connect your Wii to the internet and what benefits you can get from this including WiiWare, the internet channel and Virtual Console.

• The internet channel on Wii and DSi is free
• This channel is a great way of getting all new customers to visit Nintendo’s online stores

The fact that the internet channel is one of the permanent top downloads on DSiWare suggests that many new DSi owners are connecting and downloading the channel. Which means they are familiar with and using the DSiWare store

There are several other free channels provided by Nintendo for both DSiWare and WiiWare for example Flipnote Studio and Everybody Votes. These are clearly downloaded by a lot of people and are therefore an indicator that a lot of consumers are at least familiar with the process of using the online stores

Every Nintendo DSi currently comes with 1000 free points to spend in the store. This means that every single user knows, on purchase, that their DSi can download new games and how to do so. To make use of these points the user must connect to the store. Read the rest of this entry »