Iwata revealed that they’re going to focus on establishing Nintendo Network not only as a service for playing online, but also for communicating with other users and holding competitions.

Unlike Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, which has been focused upon specific functionalities and concepts, we are aiming to establish a platform where various services available through the network for our consumers shall be connected via Nintendo Network service so that the company can make comprehensive proposals to consumers.

For example, competitions and communication among users, as well as the sales of digital content, will be covered within the Nintendo Network.

The more I hear about Nintendo Network, the more I like everything about it.

One of the great many criticisms that have been levied against the Wii, DS, and 3DS is the complete lack of online user accounts. This meant that all of a game’s records and multiplayer data (not to mention digital purchases) were tied to the console – family members sharing one system would be forced to share a singular online presence, which isn’t ideal if your little brother sucks at Call of Duty and screws up your kill-to-death ratio.

Nintendo will address this and include personal user accounts in the Wii U’s implementation of Nintendo Network:

Also for the Wii U, we are planning to introduce a personal account system compatible with Nintendo Network. With this, for example, the ease of using a video game system when the hardware is shared by multiple family members, which has been a challenge we needed to tackle, shall be improved, and we will also be able to construct and offer the system by combining a variety of different services and content.

We’ve yet to find out whether user accounts will be transferable between systems and whether digital purchases will be tied to them or the console. But it still sounds like a heck of an improvement nonetheless.

Downloadable retail games have been gaining popularity in recent years, with services like Steam, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Network offering the ability to get your hands on a new title without ever leaving your home. According to Iwata, such a distribution channel has already been implemented in the 3DS and will also be part of the Wii U’s online services.

However, Nintendo aren’t sure when or even if they’ll begin offering full games up for download.

For the digital sales of the content, we are also considering the future possibility of digital distribution of packaged software, which is often referred to as “software download sales.” This concept was built into the design of the Nintendo 3DS, and we already have the necessary infrastructure. We will prepare the same infrastructure for the Wii U.

However, we have not decided the concrete timing of when we will start it. The decision must be made by taking into consideration such factors as the relationship with the wholesalers and retailers, and the best way to be embraced by consumers, as well as the environment surrounding the market and consumers, such as the required memory capacity on consumers’ SD memory cards. However, as an option for the future, the significance of this business field will increase.

Considering that a Wii U game disc can carry up to 25 GB of data, downloading a Wii U game will be a major investment of time, bandwidth, and storage space for the end consumer, so it’s good to hear that Iwata is looking out for the best way to go about this. The company also confirmed last February that retail games aren’t going anywhere, either, so it’s safe to assume that you won’t lose the ability to build a physical game collection.

Lots of news came out of Nintendo’s investor relations meeting today, one of which was the inclusion of “Near Field Communication” technology (NFC for short) in the Wii U’s controller.

NFC is a technology that facilitates communication between electronic devices when they are physically near one another. Travel cards, credit cards, and even some cell phones (especially in Japan) use it to make instant payments when they are swiped over a special pad.

So what is it doing in the Wii U controller? Well, read what Iwata has to say about it:

By installing this functionality, it will become possible to create cards and figurines that can electronically read and write data via noncontact NFC and to expand the new play format in the video game world. Adoption of this functionality will enable various other possibilities such as using it as a means of making micropayments.

While NFC has been used predominantly as a payment technology, it’s very interesting to hear that it will be made available to Wii U developers for use in games, too. Imagine swiping a Pokemon card over the controller and watching the Pokémon come to life on the touchscreen, then spring from the controller to your TV.

The new Tomb Raider game that is coming to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this year won’t make it to the Wii U. When Crystal Dynamics (the studio developing the game) was asked about it, they had this to say:

When we started developing the game we made a conscious decision that it was all about building the game for a platform and making sure the game was specific to that platform. Given that we’ve been working on the game quite a while before Wii U was announced I think it would not be right to try and port it across. If we started building a game for the Wii U we would build it very differently and we would build it with unique functionality.

While it’s a little saddening that the Wii U will miss out on a AAA multiplatform title, it’s refreshing to hear that Crystal Dynamics don’t want to settle for a heartless direct port.

On the other hand, the Wii U can support “traditional” games just as well as those that use the new controller’s touchscreen, so a direct port wouldn’t be all that difficult to produce and would simply open up the game to a larger audience. One might as well make the argument that the game was “ported” directly from the Xbox 360 to the PlayStation 3 with nothing that takes advantage of the PlayStation 3’s larger discs.

What do you think?

The Official Nintendo Magazine published a feature about the history of Retro Studios in its last issue. Tucked away at the end of the feature is what sounds like a sly hint at a particular new title…

While some suggest this new project is likely to be a return to the Metroid franchise, we’d love to see another Nintendo hero get the retro stamp of excellence. After all, having rolled out the barrels for Donkey Kong, perhaps it’s time Retro pulled off a barrel roll of a different kind.

A barrel roll, eh? Could ONM have insider details on a new Star Fox game?

There’s a rumour floating around claiming that “a prominent UK racing studio has committed to support Wii U with one project each year.”

Who this developer may be is anyone’s guess, but current speculation indicates Sumo Digital (F1 2011, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing) and Codemasters (DiRT, Race Driver) as possibilities. A DiRT game was announced for the Wii U last year, and there have been rumblings of a Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing 2.

On the heels of IGN’s leaked Wii U and Xbox 720 relative power levels, the publication Develop revealed an alleged leak of their own. Their source claims that the Wii U is twice as powerful as the Xbox 360, when both general processing and graphics rendering capabilities are taken into account.

This figure seems noticeably lower than the other rumour’s, but it should be noted that the source made this claim sometime last year – presumably, they might have been working with an underclocked prototype dev kit.

A twofold advantage over the Xbox 360 is “broadly above market expectations,” according to Develop, but apparently, it’s not quite enough. Their source claims that a project designer “[complained] it’s underpowered compared to what Nintendo announced, resulting in people having to de-scale their plans”.

CVG have caught wind of a rather interesting rumour – and one that I personally hope is true. “Serious discussions” are apparently being held between Nintendo’s higher-ups over the Wii U’s name, debating whether it will be strong enough to differentiate the console from its predecessor.

I don’t think anyone can blame Nintendo for wanting to keep the Wii brand alive – after all, it did sell well over 80 million hardware units. But according to IGN’s sources, “[the] bulk of Nintendo’s second guessing apparently comes from how the 3DS was received, with many potential buyers wondering if the system was simply an upgraded DS.”

And that’s a scenario I don’t want to see the Wii U suffer through – many of my classmates at school all think the 3DS is just a 3D DS, including one of my closest friends. No doubt they’re not the only ones thrown off by the “DS” in “3DS”, and I expect its hurting the sales of an otherwise fantastic next-gen handheld.

If Nintendo let you rename the Wii U, what would you call it?

Nintendo held their quarterly investor relations meeting this morning, during which Iwata revealed that the Wii U would launch worldwide just in time for the so-called holiday rush – the weeks leading up to Christmas during which potential consumers are most likely to lay down the cash for big-ticket electronics.

This isn’t a major change from the currently known release window of June through the end of 2012, but it does sound like we’ll be getting the console later rather than sooner.

Be sure to follow our Wii U release date page and be the first to know when a firm date is announced.