Hasta La Gadget!

The forthcoming Wii U console from Nintendo will be region-locked, just like the original Wii and the 3DS, Nintendo UK told Eurogamer. That means you won’t be able to play obscure (or early) Japanese imports on it, and customs officials won’t get anything to break up the monotony of seized cigars and bushmeat.

Filed under: Gaming

Shocker: Nintendo Wii U said to be region-locked originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 06:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These days, we have a better idea of what the Wii U is packing under the hood. While there are some aspects of the Wii U that are clearly better than the Xbox 360 or PS3, the CPU isn’t one of them. We don’t know everything about the Wii U’s CPU just yet (clock speed, for instance, is still a mystery), but we do know that it comes from IBM and features three Power PC cores.

That underwhelming CPU is giving one Wii U launch developer some trouble. During the Tokyo Game Show, Eurogamer sat down with Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper producer Akihiro Suzuki, who says that the Wii U’s CPU tends to have some issues when there are multiple characters on screen, which is pretty much always the case when playing a Dynasty Warriors game. “One of the weaknesses of the Wii U compared to PS3 and Xbox 360 is the CPU power is a little bit less,” Suzuki said. “So for games in the Warriors series, including Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi, when you have a lot of enemies coming at you at once, the performance tends to be affected because of the CPU.”

Suzuki followed up by saying that dealing with those performance issues can be “a challenge,” but did also point out that as far as sheer graphics power is concerned, the Wii U has the 360 and PS3 beat. Not only does the Wii U feature what is believed to be a custom AMD 7 series GPU, but it’s been confirmed to house 1GB of RAM that is dedicated to games, which is twice the amount the 360 and PS3 can boast. This means games which are more GPU-intensive will shine on Wii U, while those that require some significant CPU power risk falling flat.

It’s important to keep in mind that as time goes on, developers will figure out how to squeeze the most power out of the Wii U’s CPU. All you need to do is look at this generation to see that much is true – compare titles like The Last of Us or Uncharted 3 to games that launched at the beginning of the generation, and you’ll surely notice a sizable boost in overall quality. It seems safe to assume that we can expect a similar progression with games on Wii U, so this is just probably one of those launch hurdles that most developers have to deal with. Check our story timeline below for more on the Wii U!

Wii U’s slow CPU “a challenge” for one launch developer is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Unity Engine is best known for supporting mobile and digital games, but Unity Technologies CEO David Helgason sees his company’s game development engine as more flexible than that. Nintendo apparently does as well, partnering with Unity on a worldwide licensing agreement that offers first- and third-party developers Pro level engine access to Unity’s tools for Wii U development. The partnership also grandfathers in the existing 1.2 million Unity licensees to the Wii U platform, which Helgason tells us is, “extremely easy” to port to — Unity’s calling the partnership an “excellent opportunity” to port existing Unity games from “thousands of studios currently developing mobile and social games.” The partnership’s effects aren’t immediate, however, as Unity Engine’s Wii U support won’t go live until 2013, which tells us that we won’t see any fruit from the collaboration until some point in 2013 at the earliest.

When pushed, Helgason wouldn’t out any potential games headed to the Wii U via Unity, nor would he offer up names of studios interested in working with Nintendo’s next console. It’s not hard to imagine big Unity games like Slender and Rochard ending up ported to the Wii U, of course, but it sounds like we’ll have to wait a bit longer before we hear which games will benefit from the partnership first.

Continue reading Unity and Nintendo partner to bring Unity Engine, and its 1.2 million devs, to Wii U

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Unity and Nintendo partner to bring Unity Engine, and its 1.2 million devs, to Wii U originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We already know that Nintendo isn’t planning to offer standalone Wii U GamePads at launch here in the US, because the company isn’t expecting to have games that support multiple GamePads available until sometime next year. That’s fair enough, but that raises a pretty significant question for some gamers: what happens if the GamePad that comes packed with your Wii U gets damaged? Will you just be out of luck until Nintendo decides to start offering standalone GamePads? Thankfully, the answer to that question is “no,” as Nintendo will be offering replacement GamePads for the more clumsy gamers out there.

However, while Nintendo will replace your damaged GamePad, it’s going to cost you some cold hard cash. A Nintendo spokesperson told Polygon that replacements will be offered “for a fee,” but didn’t elaborate on what the fee will be. Don’t expect it to be cheap though, because standalone GamePads will be available in Japan with a price tag of ¥13,400. That translates to roughly $172, so be prepared to open your wallet.

Of course, it seems unlikely that Nintendo will charge full price to replace your GamePad, but it could. Even if it doesn’t, the cost to replace a broken tablet controller has a good chance of crossing the $100 mark, so it’s safe to say that you should treat your GamePad gently unless you want to pay a significant fee to get a new one. We should be getting some more solid details about the replacement process and this elusive fee once we get closer to the Wii U’s November 18th launch date, so keep an eye out for those.

Even though the Wii U won’t have any games that support dual GamePads when it launches here in the US, it still has a pretty excellent launch library lined up. Within the Wii U’s launch window, Nintendo expects titles like Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Darksiders 2 to ship for the console. Nintendo will also be adding some games of its own to the mix, with titles like New Super Mario Bros. U launching alongside the console and the long-awaited Pikmin 3 coming sometime early next year. The are certainly a lot of cool Wii U games on the way, but to be honest, we’re just excited that Pikmin 3 will finally get the see the light of day.

Wii U replacement GamePads will be offered at launch is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Brad Pelo is suddenly in charge of a major Nintendo initiative for the Japanese company’s next big console, the Wii U, despite not being an employee at Nintendo. Instead, Pelo is CEO of i.TV — a “social television and second screen technology company” that’s worked with everyone from Entertainment Weekly to Engadget parent company AOL — and he’s the man responsible for Nintendo TVii.

At least he’s the man responsible for the company providing the software behind Nintendo TVii (the guy behind the guy, if you will). And his company brings more to the bargaining table than just software — existing relationships with cable providers and TiVO in the US bolster what i.TV offers Nintendo in a major way. “For Nintendo TVii, there is a mutual benefit in existing relationships we have. Like TiVO for example — we were the first to bring TiVO to the mobile platform. There’s also the benefit of tests that we have done over the years with the cable companies, based on components of our platform,” Pelo told Engadget.

But how did this all come about? He said it wasn’t long after Nintendo’s original Wii U E3 reveal. “The genesis of the experience you’re seeing here was really when the Wii U was announced, and it was clear that this is the ideal second screen,” Pelo explained. “Ideal,” in Pelo’s eyes, means a closed system with a “dedicated second screen.” In so many words, while he acknowledges that tablets offered by other manufacturers are technically superior, they don’t offer the same whole-system approach that Nintendo’s Wii U is offering. “You might not think of it as the ideal hardware compared to an iPad if I really had a dedicated second screen. But it is in the living room, and it’s persistent. It doesn’t even really work outside of the living room — it’s attached to the main viewing service in the home,” he explained, referencing the Wii U’s tablet-style controller.

Continue reading Here’s the company behind Nintendo TVii (spoilers: it’s not Nintendo)

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD

Here’s the company behind Nintendo TVii (spoilers: it’s not Nintendo) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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