Archive for the ‘Wii U’ Category


New Nintendo Wii U and 3DS Info From Financial Briefing

Friday, April 27th, 2012

Nintendo had their yearly financial briefing for their shareholders yesterday and since they’re publicly published, we can glean some precious Wii U info from it.  Here’s a summary of what Nintendo said:

  • “As I informed you before, in the first half of this fiscal term we will get out of the situation that we sell the hardware below cost. We anticipate the improvement of the product profitability of the hardware alone.”
  • New Super Mario Bros. 2 for 3DS will be launched worldwide in August
  • NSMB2 will be Nintendo’s first title available both in 3DS card and digital format.
  • Nintendo still has “some unannounced titles” that are coming out within a year
  • Nintendo plans to put a large emphasis on the digital downloads of retail games on both the 3DS and Wii U.
  • Download codes for digital games will be purchasable at physical retail outlets as well.  In addition to this, it will operate like software sales and allow individual stores to set their prices for the digital content potentially allowing for sales, promos, and price competition.
  • At the Wii U’s launch the first-party games (at least) will be available for download as well as physical purchase.
  • While Nintendo plans to sell DLC for titles, it will not be required to fully enjoy the game.  Nintendo plans to continue to make fully-realized games for release and then potentially expand upon them at a later date with DLC instead of blatantly money-grabbing with it.
  • The Wii U’s price and release dates (it will at least be before the year’s end in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia) will not be announced at E3, but it’s launch titles and other details will be.

So, at least we know a little more about Nintendo’s plans for digital distribution.  If you want to see the full transcript from the meeting, you can check it out here: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/120427/index.html

Future of Gaming: Durango and Orbis?

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

There’s a new rumour today that the PS3’s successor is codenamed Orbis.  When we consider this with the confirmed codename of Durango for the next Xbox 360 and the as-far-as-we-know final name for the Wii U, it’s going to be one funny E3 this year for video game system names.

The rumours currently peg the Durango and Orbis for a late 2013 launch, so it would make sense if they were at least announced in some form at this year’s E3.  How Microsoft plans to get around the Mexican state/Dodge SUV/Ford Truck association with their codename is anybody’s guess, but Sony isn’t far behind in the awkward codename choosing game.  Orbis already has 16 entries on Wikipedia for everything from a German municipality to a few different book publishers.  Perhaps the Wii U name isn’t sounding so bad now after all, considering the even less origianal alternatives.

Any way you look at it though, there’s going to be a lot of people looking very silly talking about the Durango Vs. the Orbis’ graphics pretty soon if all the rumours are to be believed, so start getting used to the names now or you’ll be left behind in the early 2000s with your silly names like Xbox and Playstation.

Usagicast Episode 9 – E3 2012 Predictions

Saturday, March 17th, 2012


Logan and Chris talk about their E3 aspirations, pet peeves in the video game industry, upcoming 3DS and PS Vita games, and the Marilyn Mon-robe.

Contact us at contact@usagicast.com

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Nintendo Conference Incoming

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Nintendo’s at it again with another out-of-the-blue press conference to be streamed via their Nintendo Direct website at 8 AM CST on Feb. 22nd.

The last North American Nintendo Direct conference was held on Oct. 21, 2011 and did little more than discuss Hulu Plus, the 3DS fall firmware update, and Super Mario 3D Land.  Rumours regarding the upcoming conference are naturally flying around, though.  Some favourite things that people are hoping for include the announcement of a 3DS with two circle pads built-in, a name change and/or more launch info for the Wii U (any news regarding the Wii U, really), and release date details for upcoming games that are currently floating about without them like Paper Mario 3DS, Luigi?s Mansion 2 and Dragon Quest X.  Here’s hoping that we’ll at least get some of that, but I think it will be something more along the lines of a new trailer for Mario Tennis 3DS and then an interview with some member of the team that made the upcoming Kid Icarus: Uprising game.  Time will tell, and then we’ll tell you, so stay tuned for more info when the press conference goes live tomorrow.

 

Usagicast Episode 7 — E3 2011

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Join us as an expanded Game Usagi Krew discusses the offerings from the big three at E3 2011, the siren-like Wii U name, PSVITA Vs. the 3DS at the same price, and magical mutton chops made out of Skittles.

Contact us at contact@usagicast.com, we’ll read your letters on the podcast! : O

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Top 3 Wii U Controller Mockups

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

With 167 mockups in our Project Cafe Controller Mock-up Archive, we were able to see a lot of different ideas on how Nintendo could implement a 6-odd-inch screen in a modern-style controller.  We went back and sifted through the mock-ups to come up with the Top 3 that ended up being the closest to what Nintendo revealed as the Wii U controller today and you can see them after the jump:

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HUGE Wii U Console/Controller Shots

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Nintendo announced today that the successor to the Wii will be called the “Wii U” and will feature at least PS3-level graphics and unprecedented 3rd-party support for a Nintendo console.  Some of the games shown off or listed for the Wii U during the conference were:

  • New Zelda (tech demo)
  • New Super Mario Bros. Mii (tech demo)
  • New Super Smash Bros. (will have a companion game on 3DS)
  • LEGO City Stories (exclusive to Wii U/3DS)
  • Darksiders II
  • Batman Arkham City
  • Ghost Recon Online
  • Tekken
  • DiRT 3
  • Aliens Colonel Marines
  • Metro Last Night (Metro 2033 sequel)
  • Ninja Gaiden 3
  • EA Sports games (Madden, Fifa, etc.)
  • Battlefield 3
  • Harry Potter (of some sort)
  • Sims (of some sort)
  • Army of Two (of some sort)
  • Need for Speed (of some sort)

See after the jump for more enourmous shots of the system and its controller, plus the factsheet info Nintendo has provided about the system!

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