With just under 10 days left to Nintendo’s E3 2012 press conference, here’s a nifty little countdown timer suitable for embedding into any website or forum signature! Feel free to use it anywhere you like.
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We still haven’t heard word from Nintendo on exactly how many tablet controllers the Wii U supports simultaneously, but a NeoGAF poster claiming to be in the know has stated that “documents [Nintendo of Europe]’s representatives and distributors got … last August” confirmed that the Wii U does indeed support two of them at once.
I’m hesitant to call it a fact until Nintendo themselves confirm it; but considering how much public backlash there was to the mere thought of only one tablet controller being supported, I imagine they would’ve given dual-controller support some serious consideration by now.
Best Buy have added placeholder pages for Super Smash Bros. 4 and LEGO City Stories to their website, each with a tentative price of $49.99.
While you can’t actually pre-order the games yet, you may want to consider bookmarking these pages and checking back on them every now and then if you intend to pre-order them eventually.
Bink is a popular codec that is most commonly used to encode pre-rendered sequences in video games. It’s well known among developers for its efficient compression and high quality videos at all kinds of resolutions, and has been used in the industry for years. Chances are, you’ve played more than a few games that rely on it to deliver their cutscenes.
Thus, it shouldn’t come as too great a surprise that RAD Game Tools has brought Bink to the Wii U. The changelog on their site notes that Wii U support was first implemented on December 14, 2011, but was switched to “Wii-U SDK 2.04” on May 5, 2012 just a couple of weeks ago (which is further indication of the existence of multiple different Wii U dev kits).
I know this isn’t necessarily the most exciting piece of news, but Bink is a well known tool in the industry and the ready availability of technology that developers are already familiar with will only help the Wii U spread and succeed.
A leaked image of a newly designed Wii U controller has been released. It is unknown at the present time if the source is legitimate, but it seems to be real. Notable changes are the new analog sticks, previously analog nubs, which have been moved diagonally from the D-pad and directional buttons. Also, a slew of ports can be found the new controller design which were previously unseen or non-existent. It appears the controller can be charged, however, which can put to rest the worry of having to purchase batteries in bulk.
Tucked away with my love letters to Nintendo have been my ruminations on the possibility of sequels to the JRPG games dubbed the ‘Operation Rainfall‘ three on the Wii U, and the prospect that the Wii U could be known as more of a JRPG heaven than the Wii was. As an fan of the roleplaying genre, the plethora of options that the Wii U controller offers to enrich this type of game even more is an exciting prospect.
Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora’s Tower and The Last Story for the Wii are already out in Japan and Europe, and the USA has Xenoblade with The Last Story expected to come out soon. However, Nintendo have yet to announce a USA release date for the action RPG Pandora’s Tower.
These three JRPG titles have become gems in the Wii’s library and have received mostly favourable reviews. But can we expect more like them on Wii U?
The newest answer set on Metro: Last Light has been posted on the Last Light Forums. This time the questions were on topics such as weapons, exploding barrels and the length of the single player campaign.
On the topic of how long the single player campaign would be, 4A Games had this to say:
We expect the campaign to be at least as long as Metro 2033, and we’re also working hard to ensure there are more reasons to replay the campaign … although we know a lot of you have played and re-played the 2033 campaign multiple times already!
Another fan asked whether the game will have gun customisation:
We’re adding some weapon customization options and we’ll be talking about this feature in more detail later in the year.
A patent has surfaced (tracked down by our friends at Nintendo Life) showing how the Wii U controller might interact with the Wii Remote. The example shown in the patent is that the two characters on the TV screen is being threatened by an enemy. Using the Wii Remote you can grab the character off the screen and drop it into the Wii U controller and to safety.
This is a very interesting concept and hopefully it will be one of the features that the Wii U will have.
Fable creator Peter Molyneux has been sharing his views about the Wii U and E3 2012 to Kotaku.
The former head of Lionhead Studios explained that Nintendo’s “slightly lacklustre” console will have to “blow us away” at E3 2012 with “better specs” and a good first party lineup.
It seems that Nintendo have a job ahead of them to impress those who aren’t quite sure about the Wii U yet and to demonstrate that the console is not “lacklustre”. First party support will indeed be important if the Wii U is to escape the same criticisms of the 3DS. I don’t think E3 2012 can come quick enough.
It was recently revealed that Blizzard are considering the possibility of releasing Diablo 3 on console platforms. The highly anticipated title released on the PC and Mac today but Blizzard’s Leonard Boyarsky hinted that they might bring the action RPG to consoles:
It’s not just going to be a simple port if we do a console version – if we are shipping a console version, I should say, as we are exploring it actually right now – we want to make it feel native to the console, so there’s a lot of decisions to be made and just a lot of thought and effort that goes into that.
I can’t help feeling that the Wii U would be the perfect console to release such a game on. The easy access to items, spells and abilities that the touchscreen controller would allow seems like too good an opportunity to miss. Do you think Diablo 3 and the Wii U are a good fit?
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