Category Archives: Wii U

EA Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore says he's very excited about the Wii U's online mode. Check inside for more details.

According to an inside Nintendo source, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata is on the "ejection seat". This comes at a time when Iwata took personal responsibility for the mediocre 3DS sales by voluntarily slashing his own salary. The following quotes are from an interview with an unknown Nintendo employee, conducted by 01Net. This is all translated from French to English via Google Translate, so it doesn't read particularly well but you can still discern the overall message.

"If we are to believe our source, the chairman of the board, Satoru Iwata, is now in very delicate position, if not on an ejection seat. Iwata is generally appreciated by the staff of the company, many employees worried about his fate. Also according to our source, the fact that he publicly assumed responsibility for a difficult start to the 3DS and voluntarily cut his salary in half may not be enough to save his place in the medium term.

After our interview, we could not stop us from asking what our source had indeed been as feverish motivate and unusual revelations. He replied almost verbatim: `It's sort of a political act. As an employee of Nintendo, I have dedicated my life to this company. Given the turn of things, many of us fear what the future holds. If I address you, because I think the players and the shareholders deserve to know what happens behind the scenes. I think they represent our best chance to drive the necessary changes to Nintendo finally takes radical decisions necessary to adapt to new market constraints. I do not think that the situation can continue long in that state. We must completely rethink our policy of cooperation with developers and publishers. We must offer them the means to give the best of themselves. They are more likely than ever to want to work with us, but the conditions we provide are for the time being the least favorable in the industry. I do not think they will stay very long if we do not make a decisive move in their direction."

It seems that a lot is going on behind the scenes at Nintendo, and not even shareholders are sure what's going on. That Nintendo are still not keen on third-party developers is quite surprising to me, given the announcement of the Wii U, a console that will have much greater direct competition from Sony and Microsoft than the Wii. But even this troubled employee has plenty of faith left in Nintendo:

"The difficulties are real, sometimes critical, and should not be underestimated. But if the necessary reforms are implemented, I believe that Nintendo will remain the leader in its field for much longer. No competitor has such a range of characters and franchises universally adored - to the envy of Disney - or such a capacity to create new ones, as strong in the future. Out a portable machine dedicated to the game but equipped with one analog stick in 2011 was a mistake. The fact that we have recognized, and we do what is necessary to remedy this, let me suggest that 3DS has before it many years of success.

Smartphones continue on their way, but I think it will exist long been a separate market for machines that care primarily of players.

As for the Wii U, despite its serious problems of development - you can be sure - will be resolved, it is probably the best idea we have had for ages.

The press, like players, do not seem to fully realize the potential of this revolutionary machine. It's a whole new way to create and play before us. And given the graphics quality achieved by the hardware of the present generation, I think the technical superiority of our future competitors in the market for machinery room will not weigh heavily in the balance, faced with what we will bring in terms of gameplay. The Wii U is the future of gaming. You will soon realize it!"

Will the Wii U be the future of gaming? For me, I don't see how it is, albeit I like the average person know little about the console. The controller screen is kind of cool, and it's great to see a dedicated online mode (and without stupid friend codes) but what does the Wii U truly offer except for access to new software developed by Nintendo? Hopefully, like the employee suggests, we will find out soon. I think the sales of the 3DS over the next few months, plus the sales of Skyward Sword, will be a good indicator of what consumers think about Nintendo's future.

Source: NeoGAF via Nintendo Buzz

Lead Zelda developer Eiji Aonuma sat down with Nintendo Power to discuss the Wii U. He mentioned a few brief comments about the upcoming Wii U Zelda. Nothing too exciting here, just a generic hint about how the Wii U controller might be used in the game. Here's what he said:

"I really think [having two screens is] one of the most exciting features of the system. Unlike the Nintendo DS, there's distance between the television and you and your other screen. That really allows for some different interactions, some of which you saw [at E3]. For example, imagine having the contents of Link's satchel available to you on the screen of your controller, and using elements of the pouch to interact with gameplay on the television.

With The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, we had the Nunchuck and Wii Remote sort of stand in for the sword and shield that Link carries. But in a game for the Wii U, I can definitely see something like the controller itself becoming the different items that Link is using, allowing you to interact with the game world and with the game items in a very different way."

Nintendo listed the following games as in active development for the Wii U. They should all be out within a fairly short space of time after the Wii U is released. There's no Zelda or Mario games on the list, though it seems unlikely for a Zelda game to come out so quickly after Skyward Sword.

Pikmin 3
Smash Bros.
Lego City Stories
Darksiders II
Ninja Gaiden III: Razor’s Edge
Batman: Arkham City
New Ubisoft FPS IP (Untitled)
New Ubisoft multi-sports family IP (Untitled)
Ghost Recon Online
Assassin's Creed
Rayman Raving Rabbids

Looks like Nintendo are raring to sell as many Wii consoles as possible in time for Skyward Sword, and eventually the Wii U. European gamers will be able to buy the "Family Edition" Wii. Instead of the slanted horizontal model, this version kinda of looks like a DVD player. I'm not sure what new features it has, but it must have some since it is not compatible with GameCube games or controllers, unlike the old Wii. At least this new model is notably smaller than the original, and it must be cheaper to produce now that the compatibility with the dead GameCube is gone.

Nintendo has definitely secured a trademark for the Wii U, but it missed out on buying a couple of domain names for it. Unluckily for Nintendo, the domain name wiiu.com was registered back in 2004. But Nintendo also failed to register the domain name nintendowiiu.com before E3 2011, and the moment the Wii U was announced somebody bought the domain. Incidentally, the domain skywardsword.com appears to have been registered by someone who isn't part of Nintendo, and they registered it on June 15th 2010, one day after E3 2010 started.

I'm not sure if Nintendo will be able to take a domain like wiiu.com by legal force, or if they will buy it (or even if Nintendo will buy it at all). This issue reminds me of when Nintendo threatened the owner of LegendofZelda.com with a lawsuit for copyright infringement, but the case was deemed frivolous and thrown out.

Via: Zelda Informer

The other day, Gamespot revealed that Nintendo had bought a patent for an MMO-style concept (you can read about it here). Already I have read a few people discussing what it would be like if there was a Legend of Zelda MMO for the Wii U. For any kind of MMO format, Zelda would need some significant changes, but I think it could realistically work if they released a new single-player Zelda for the Wii U and gave it an online multiplayer world. You would just pick a race and look for your character, and off you go. You would be able to explore Hyrule with the items you got from your single-player experience. You would not be able to kill people in the world, but you can duel them. Single-player dungeons would be unavailable online, instead there would be a number of multiplayer dungeons that you can only complete by teaming up with a couple of other players.

To make Hyrule more suitable for an MMO environment, there would be lots of enemies in hyrule that would be very tough to beat on your own and generally require teamwork to overcome. There would be numerous areas on the map where chests would spawn periodically in free-for-all PVP areas, and the winner of the fight gets the chest filled with rupees, heart potions, and so on. There would also be at least one arena somewhere where you can team up with friends and battle other teams in a Legend of Zelda brawl (no health potions allowed).

In short, my idea is to have an online multiplayer mode for the Wii U Zelda game but without RPG elements or numbers. You would take the stuff you got in single-player mode into the online world, and be able to play multiplayer dungeons, fight against tough enemies and other players. If Nintendo won't do this (which they almost certainly won't, since this is just a fantasy of mine) then they should nonetheless add some kind of multiplayer online feature to the Wii U Zelda - even if it's just the multiplayer dungeons, or a battle arena for PVP. What better way to see who's better at Zelda than to battle against them? Any kind of online multiplayer mode would be sweet. It's time Nintendo advanced its vision of Four Swords and made some kind of online multiplayer experience for Zelda.

Some features of the Wii U controller have been revealed in a patent Nintendo recently applied for. It covers a built-in Microphone and Speaker, a magnetometer, and built-in rechargeable battery. I presume the battery will be easy to replace when it starts to wear down and you need a new one.

Also, according to Gamespot Nintendo have applied for a patent for a "Massively Single-Playing Online Game." The patent says the concept is for "Those who want to play games that are more dynamic, not-based on Al and not-pre-scripted like multiplayer games, however, don't want to 'deal' with other people, appreciate the privacy it provides." An example was a single-player game affected by a multi-player economy. Another example was that a player could talk to an NPC, for the NPC to pass information on to other players. Finally, if players friended each other they could see each other in the game world. Sounds interesting.

A new video has been released showing some of the capabilities of the Wii U. You can view the video in full by clicking the "Continue Reading" link at the bottom of this post.

Nintendo demonstrated some pretty cool capabilities of the Wii U controller, which is what the console seems to be focused on like the original Wii was with the Wii Mote. In one scene someone was playing a golf game with the Wii U controller on the floor showing a golf ball and tee, using (presumably) a golf stick peripheral to hit over the controller and send the ball flying accross the game world on the TV. Another scenario showed the controller propped on top of a gun peripheral, with the controller screen acting like a sniper scope to shoot things on the TV with.

The controller screen can also be used to browse the internet, play games without need of a TV, and make video calls (hopefully the video call service will be free). The controller screen looks pretty awesome so far.

Remember the short action sequence with Link fighting a giant spider thing that Nintendo showed at E3 in order to show off the Wii U? Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto has now officially confirmed he and the Zelda team are working on a new Zelda title for the Wii U! No other information has been revealed... yet.
Source: VG Writers