Official Wii U Discussion Thread

Wii U achievements
Nintendo will introduce an achievement system where players can earn achievements in games much like Xbox Live and PlayStation Trophies. However, Nintendo is said to be expanding the service where players who accumulate a certain amount of points get access to additional features. “We have a lot of freedom with the Wii U points system, we can add “brackets” for players, e.g. if you amass X points you get promoted into a new bracket with awards such as new MP [multiplayer] skins”. While the source called the feature “Wii U points”, he made it clear that Nintendo hasn’t settled on a name. “It’s basically what we’ve been asking Microsoft to do for years. Players who earn points by completing the game should be awarded. We can do that now”.
Wii U cloud storage
We previously reported about Wii U cloud storage, we have some more details on that. The cloud storage option will be “a few hundred MB”, will be free to all players, and will only be used to store save games and player profiles. It’ll launch in 2013.
Social networking
Nintendo will also add “deep integration” of social networking features to the Wii U, including both Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Players will be able to upload screenshots to their Facebook accounts, auto-Tweet game progress, and record and upload game videos to YouTube. “They’re working on a UI overlay for the OS to add Twitter and FB notifications, but so far we haven’t seen it. They’ve reserved a lot of system memory for stuff like that”, the developer told us. “There isn’t much documentation about it in the new SKD, but they’ve told us it’ll be available in the future”.
Wii U avatars
Nintendo Network on Wii U will introduce new avatars with a lot more features than the original Mii avatars on the Wii console. Players will be able to use the Wii U controller’s built-in camera to take pictures of themselves and create digital avatars that resemble high-definition Miis. The Miis can then be imported into games. “There’s an API for the camera to scan faces and turn them into low-res 3D versions for games. But it’s still buggy as hell and it depends a lot on the kind of engine you’re running”, the source said.
Wii U development and game ports
Additionally, the source mentioned that porting current gen games to the Wii U isn’t as easy as originally thought, and that games that have been developed for the Xbox 360 are “much easier to port to Wii U than PS3 versions. A lot less headache involved because their architecture is similar. Technically, you can just recompile X360 to the Wii U and it’ll pretty much run, but PS3 to Wii U is much much trickier.” He said that the latest SDK hardware is final, only the software keeps updating.
“We’ve spent a lot of time creating our own tools for the X360 this generation, and we’ve already tweaked a lot of the tools to work on the Wii U. But if you code on the Wii U from ground up and have to use middleware, it’s probably gonna be tougher than doing an X360 game from ground up.”

http://wiiudaily.com/2012/06/wii-u-getting-achievements-cloud-storage-social-networking/

Hope this is legit.

This is what I'm hoping they'll do, finally a proper integration of player profiles accessible from anywhere thanks to cloud storage.

But despite that I can still see people saying "Nintendo is for kiddie" and continue to buy their online games on PS3 or 360 just because they don't want to change their habits. They need to properly push this aspect of things if this turns out to be true.

Pre-E3 Nintendo Direct Commencing 11.00pm (:

http://www.nintendo.com/nintendo_direct


( Edited 03.06.2012 09:39 by Linkyshinks )

Sounds like Iwata is dead serious and they're going to do something very special.

Gearbox on Aliens WiiU

“I love this platform. I’m very excited about it because it gives us a path to realise some things that are more future-looking than we could if we were only on the current generation. It’s up to Nintendo to talk about their specs and I must follow them. I’ve committed myself to honouring their confidentiality.” - Randy Pitchford

“It’s (Aliens: Colonial Marines) going to look awesome! And it’s unbelievable how many things that exist in the Aliens’ franchise actually work for that controller. It’s been a real treat, quite frankly, because the controller and the features of the system enable us to do things we can’t do with the other consoles. We can always use more memory and rendering capability. I think that’s one of the most exciting things about the Wii U. Not only do you have the technology of what you can do gameplay wise but it will be one of the best looking versions of the game.”

- Brian Cozzens

Pre-Alpha Footage

Cervat Yerli of Crytek on WiiU

IGM: Sony’s Playstation Vita has launched in February, Nintendo’s Wii U is supposed to follow towards the end of the year. What does Crytek plan for those consoles?

Yerli: We have no plans for either console yet. There will be games using the Cry Engine for Wii U, but these will be made by license holders.

Nintendo Network App coming to IOS and Android Rumour

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=476625

Medium

http://soundcloud.com/rawmeatcowboy/have-you-heard

http://medium-game.com/

( Edited 03.06.2012 17:38 by Linkyshinks )

NINTENDO. Pre-E3 Conference. Tonight

MY BODY IS READY

I can't wait. ^^ just two more days. XD

Gearbox Software art director Brian Cozzens:

“We were early in seeing what was happening with the Wii U and we’ve been able to give some feedback. They’ve listened, and I think we’ll see some cool stuff that we’ve had some influence over. I think the final controller specs are going to be awesome.”

First up is Randy Pitchford, who said that he “loves” the console.

He told the magazine:

“I love this platform. I’m very excited about it because it gives us a path to realise some things that are more future-looking than we could if we were only on the current generation.”

When Nintendo Gamer pushed further, Pitchford said:

“It’s up to Nintendo to talk about their specs and I must follow them. I’ve committed myself to honouring their confidentiality.”

Nintendo Gamer later chatted with art director Brian Cozzens, who had similar enthusiasm for Wii U:

“It’s going to look awesome! And it’s unbelievable how many things that exist in the Aliens’ franchise actually work for that controller. It’s been a real treat, quite frankly, because the controller and the features of the system enable us to do things we can’t do with the other consoles.”

Cozzens continued:

“We can always use more memory and rendering capability. I think that’s one of the most exciting things about the Wii U. Not only do you have the technology of what you can do gameplay wise but it will be one of the best looking versions of the game.”

Gearbox Software and other developers will finally be able to open up on Wii U fully once E3 2012 rolls around this coming week.


( Edited 03.06.2012 18:01 by Linkyshinks )

Terrible showcase so far.

Well, so far it's practically confirmed in black, we have an Xbox 360 controller with the right face buttons and analogue stick swapped (GamePad Pro), and MiiVerse actually looks pretty nifty.

I say it's looking good. That trailer for MiiVerse was really over the top (purposely so).

Yeah, at least we have a proper controller now, which means that games will have to be set up for at least three controller options.

Still don't like the analogue above the buttons though. And power is too close to 'Y'

( Edited 03.06.2012 23:35 by Echoes221 )

Oh yeah, the Gamepad can be used as a TV remote as well.

That was all pretty neat stuff! I mean finally they're up to date with what PS3 and 360 have had, but the easy video chat and Miiverse stuff sounds really fuckin' neato.

Mr Iwata is so cute aw.

And the advert/trailer thing was brilliantly parodic imo there's no way they meant for the cheesy dorks in that to be taken seriously.

PS. the visuals for super mario bros actually look quite pretty besides the character models.

That entire thing was cringe worthy though. Miiverse was kinda cool, but at the other time, completely lame. Really not sure what to make of it :/

Show Spoiler

Really liked what I saw. Video chatting and posting messages is good, so is making strictly 1-player games 'online.'

He mentioned taking screenshots but did he mention anything about video recording gameplay? I might have missed it.

The ABXY buttons on GamePad Pro look too far out to the middle of the controller. Don't wanna be stretching that far to press them.

they said it's been specially designed for comfort and I'm gonna take their word for it til I try it myself or hear playtests,

Japanese people are small (and have small hands).
If they think it's comfy then it'll easily be comfy enough for us.

Some pretty good stuff, the social features sound really good too, hopfully it will be as easy as the video made it out to be to connect to other players like that.

Interesting to see that the new classic controller seems to be its own unit rather than tethered to a Wii remote.


( Edited 03.06.2012 23:46 by Mr James2t3 )

I don't see how it'd be much different from a 360 controller in terms of comfortability. It's literally just the buttons and the analogue swapped around.

Oh yeah, there's analogue triggers and a USB charger by the looks of it.

It's better than the 360 pad 'cause it has a better-than-shit-tier D-Pad.

That's true SuperLink .

Got to do some massive editing to the OP.

( Edited 03.06.2012 23:52 by Stulaw )

Azuardo said:
He mentioned taking screenshots but did he mention anything about video recording gameplay? I might have missed it.

Btw, why weren't you guys here on the IRC?

Hmmm I didn't here anything about video recording, I doubt that would be built into the OS but it's probably possible on a game by game basis seeing as some PS3 games do it.

Next Nintendo Character: Non-Specific Action Figure.