Hasta La Gadget!

When the Wii U launches on November 18, Nintendo will sell the new console starting at $299, which isn’t a bad price at all for a new console, especially something as promising as the Wii U. However, Nintendo confirmed that it will be selling it under cost, meaning that the company will take a loss for each console they sell.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata confirmed the news to investors yesterday after the company’s latest financial briefing. Iwata said that “the Wii U hardware will have a negative impact on Nintendo’s profits early after the launch.” He said that instead of “determining a price based on its manufacturing cost, [they] selected one that consumers would consider to be reasonable.”

This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, though. For Sony, it actually wasn’t until a few years after the PlayStation 3 launch when the company finally started seeing a profit on its hardware sales, and the same goes for Microsoft with its Xbox 360. However, Nintendo has always been about making a profit on its gaming hardware.

With the Wii U being sold under cost, Iwata says that the company may not achieve “Nintendo-like” profits within their fiscal year, but he expects financial performance to at least be “revitalized.” The Wii U goes on sale November 23 starting at $299, and early adopters will have 23 games to choose from right on launch day.

[via Eurogamer]

Nintendo will sell Wii U under cost is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nintendo continues to see gaming hardware sales fall, but the company has trimmed losses and is pegging its hopes on Wii U as it slashes financial predictions. Numbers for the first half of 2012 confirm another drop in net sales, down to 200,994 million yen ($2.52bn) in the period of April to September 2012, with net losses of 27,996 million yen ($351m). Nintendo 3DS sales rose, up to 5.06m units, primarily thanks to the new 3DS XL, but Wii sales dived to 1.32m units.

Nonetheless, while it was a six month period of losses, those losses weren’t quite as dramatic as in previous years. Net loss was roughly half of what Nintendo suffered a year ago, while operating income – although still a loss of 29,159 million yen ($365m) – was still better than the 57,346 million yen loss in 2011.

Still to come is the Wii U, though Nintendo does point out that production costs for the console – which entered mass production in September – will have an impact on profits too. The company now expects to make just 6,000 million yen ($75m) in net income for the full fiscal year ending March 31 2013, rather than 20,000 million yen, based on a fall in predicted operating income and ordinary income.

The Wii U will go on sale in the US on November 18, priced from $299.99. The console features a new, tablet-style GamePad controller and smart TV functionality.

Nintendo trims losses as sales continue dive: slashes forecast by 70% is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’ve seen media of Sony’s upcoming fighting game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, then you know that it’s quite similar to Nintendo’s Smash. Bros. series. The biggest difference is most likely with their rosters, which are each filled with company exclusives. But a group of Wii modders managed to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Members of the Smash Bros. mod site Brawl Vault recreated the characters that will be available in Sony’s game so they can play with them on Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Now they can have Nathan Drake, Sackboy and Sly Cooper go up against Mario, Link, Pikachu. But that’s not all. They also made characters that are not in the current revealed roster of Sony’s brawler, including Commander Shepard, Isaac Clarke and Tomba. Below is a gameplay video uploaded by YouTuber sulleh1:

Here’s the second part of the video:

Unfortunately I don’t know enough about Smash Bros. so I don’t know if these are just character skins or if they have unique moves as well. In any case, you can download these characters for free. You’ll have to mod an ISO of Super Smash Bros. Brawl to get these characters into the game though. I suggest you head to Brawl Vault not just for the character files but for instructions as well.

[via Destructoid]

Because of the high-definition graphics of the Wii U and the 854×480 resolution of the Wii U GamePad’s screen, a lot of people have been guessing that the lag time would be incredibly high. However, Ubisoft’s Rayman Legends developer Michel Ancel has confirmed that the GamePad’s screen only has a delay of 1/60 of a second.

This means that the Wii U GamePad receives the image on its screen one frame later than the TV receives its image. This may seem like a huge deal and would put some players at a disadvantage, but one frame is obviously only a split second and most gamers won’t be able to tell the difference. The human eye usually can’t detect anything over 60 frames per second anyway.

Ancel also called the Wii U GamePad “quite a bit more advanced than people think.” He mentioned that the technology used is quite impressive, and other console makers like Microsoft and Sony would have to work fairly hard to get to this level of responsiveness out of a controller. Whether that’s true or not, we’ll have to wait and see what these companies come up with.

Nintendo‘s Wii U is officially launching on November 18, and early adopters will have 23 games to choose from right on launch day, including Call of Duty: Black Ops II, New Super Mario Bros., and Transformers Prime. Pricing for the console will start at $299 for the Basic bundle and $349 for the Deluxe set.

[via Ars Technica]

Nintendo Wii U GamePad delay only 1/60 of a second is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nintendo has dropped the price of the Wii console to $129.99. Of course, this is to keep pace with holiday demand and maintain an edge in a market that’s turned more difficult for the gaming company.

The value package includes a black console with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort on a single disc, along with a black Wii remote and Nunchuk controller. This replaces the current $149 version that includes New Super Mario Bros.

The lower-cost Wii will be available widely starting October 28, at all the same places you’d normally buy a Wii, like Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, Gamestop, etc.

As opposed to more hard core consoles, the Wii reaches out to consumers as more of a family toy. With that in mind, it makes sense for Nintendo to go after the holiday shopping crowd.

In related news, the Wii U will hit shelves on November 18 for a much pricier $299.99.

Nintendo has struggled of late to be the powerhouse it once was. The company’s finances are on a steady trip downhill, with operating losses of $462 million as of April.